Since the sets were meant to survey their academic abilities, the talented Zeke and Veronica, who would be teaching them, didn’t fill them out.
Leticiel read blankly through the six pages of questions, completely confounded. It wasn’t as if there were too many questions. She was able to solve the Magic, Mathematics, and History questions without any problems. In fact, she’d been blown away by how easy the Magic questions were.
But she simply couldn’t come up with any answers for the other subjects. Figuring that it was best to just write something, she listed words that came to mind for each one.
They were given two hours to take the quiz, which had about twenty questions per subject, but she finished quickly. Zeke and Veronica collected their answers and worked together to grade them. Just as a note, the grades were out of one hundred.
“Huh?! I got zero points in Math?!”
“H-Hilmes, I think you need to focus on Mathematics and Geology the most.”
“Gaaaah! Nooo!”
“My Magic score is higher than I expected. I guess it’s the result of my practice with Miss Drossell.”
Hilmes was shocked by his scores, while Mirandalette was looking through her answer sheets with relief.
“As for your score, Miss Drossell…” Zeke had an odd smile on his lips as he handed Leticiel’s answer sheets back to her.
Thinking she must have done poorly, Leticiel checked her score for herself and went silent, unsure how to react. She had only made one mistake in the Mathematics section, and she had no complaints with her perfect scores in History and Magic. But her scores in the other three subjects were so low, she could barely look at them. She hadn’t gotten a flat-out zero in any of them, but none of them were above thirty points.
She’d sort of expected a result like this. After all, Liberal Arts were reliant on one’s intuition—she hadn’t been able to fully comprehend the readings in the Language section, and she hadn’t known any of the terms in the Geology section except for the proper nouns like place names and the names of mountain ranges.
“Erm, I think you’ll need to do some studying in those sections, Miss Drossell.”
“So it seems…”
Staring at her poor scores on the answer sheet, Leticiel cursed exams for being so troublesome.
After that, their group of five members met every day after classes in the Great Library for a study session.
“Miss Drossell, your answer for the third question is wrong. It’s incorrect because you used the wrong topographic measurement method.”
“Hngh… I can’t remember all this.” Leticiel groaned while glaring at her Geology textbook. When it came to studying for final exams, she had hit a major wall: her (lack of) interest.
Leticiel could happily absorb information about subjects that she was interested in, but on the other hand, it was impossible to force that knowledge into her brain when she couldn’t care less. She didn’t hate Geology; on the contrary, she actually enjoyed memorizing the names of mountain ranges and regions, but anything other than that was an utter loss. She seriously questioned why it was necessary to use different measurement methods for each terrain.
“What’s the point of learning Liberal Arts as a subject? Isn’t it enough to learn etiquette?”
“You’ll never pass if you think that way…”
Of the six subjects, Leticiel suffered the most with Liberal Arts. She was forced to learn meaningless vocabulary words that were irrelevant to her education, like the word for a series of table manners including the handling of tableware or what it’s called when a man invites a woman to dance.
She believed that it was enough if aristocrats had proper manners. What was the point in wrapping each small action in a specific word? When would she need that knowledge, which was only useful on paper?
Is it fashionable amongst the aristocracy nowadays to use these weird words? Or did they think it would be cool to name every little thing…?
Still, Liberal Arts was one of the final exam subjects, so she had to take the test. To study subjects she didn’t like, Leticiel searched through trial and error to find something—literally anything—from those subjects that she was interested in. Honestly, why did exams have to be so annoying?
Her struggles continued. One day, about a week after their first study session, all of the members of the Magic Lovers’ Club gathered in the Great Library. All except one. The weekend started tomorrow, but after that, there were only five days until the exams.
“Huh? Zeke is late today, huh?” Veronica said worriedly, looking at Zeke’s usual seat across from Leticiel which was now empty. Leticiel turned her gaze to the Great Library’s entrance. It was true; it wasn’t like Zeke to be late.
“Good point. I’ll go look for him.” Turning down the other members’ offers to go with her, Leticiel left the Great Library. Zeke had said at lunch that he wouldn’t be going back to his research lab, so he was probably somewhere in the main building or the annex. Leticiel decided to start the search for him by scouring the annex, where the Great Library was.
The annex held many rooms she wouldn’t usually visit unless she had business there, such as the teachers’ labs and storage rooms. She circled through all of the floors but didn’t see Zeke anywhere.
Next, Leticiel headed for the main building. She made sure to check the clock tower’s machine room that she came across on her way from the annex to the main building. The classrooms on the main building’s first floor were connected in the order of the reference material room, the art room, and the music room.
“Oh my, Zeke! I’m amazed that you can quadruple weave! That’s such an advanced technique!”
“I’m used to weaving by hand, but there are still a lot of rough areas.”
Leticiel came to a halt when she heard a conversation coming through one of the doors in the hallway she’d been passing through. Looking at the sign in front of the classroom, she saw that it was the art room.
She gently eased the door open a crack and Zeke and Bauliogh both turned to face her. Was it her imagination, or could she sense a strong plea for help in Zeke’s gaze?
“Ohhh, if it isn’t Miss Drossell! What’re you doing here?”
“I heard voices. What were you talking about?”
Zeke looked her way with a silent plea when she entered the classroom, but he still answered her question. “We were talking about how to weave fabric. Unlike with machine weaving, there are different ways to weave things by hand.”
“So the quadruple weave you were talking about earlier is…?
“Yes. It’s said to be the most difficult technique when it comes to hand-weaving.”
“Oh…,” Leticiel responded vaguely. She didn’t have any knowledge at all when it came to weaving, but at the very least, she understood that Zeke could use a high-level technique.
Bauliogh, who had been watching their exchange, had a mischievous sparkle in his eye. “Hmm? Miss Drossell, have you realized just how marvelous woven textiles can be?”
“Oh, no. That isn’t it.”
“Uuugh, you’re no fun! You could play along a bit, you know.” Bauliogh crossed his arms and pouted, but rather than seeming upset, he looked like he was enjoying himself.
“By the way, Mr. Bauliogh, may I borrow Zeke? We promised to study together.”
Bauliogh gave a tiny gasp and covered his mouth with one hand. Furrowing his brows, he asked Zeke, “Oh! Is that so?” Leticiel didn’t miss the way Zeke’s eyes shifted for just a moment. “Ugh, Zekey, you should’ve told me if that was the case!”
“I’m sorry. You seemed to be enjoying yourself, so I couldn’t find the right time to mention it…”
“Oh my gosh. Zekey, you’re such a good kid! I’m sorry for keeping you back, then. Study hard!”
Zeke and Leticiel bowed to Bauliogh, who gave them a fluttering wave, before they left the art room.
On their way back to the Great Library, Leticiel said, “You two seemed to be having a good talk.”
“Mr. Bauliogh and I get along well, but once he starts talking, the conversation never ends… He is a good teacher, though.”
“Shouldn’t you have told him you had plans?”
“I felt bad interrupting him. Though I also feel bad for relying on you, Miss Drossell.”
“Oh, there’s no need for you to worry about that.”
When she and Zeke arrived at the Great Library, the other three were already studying.
“Sorry to keep you waiting.”
“No, it’s fine.”
Once everyone had finally gathered, they started their study group as usual, but…
“I can’t take it anymore. My head’s gonna explode.” Not long after they started, Hilmes threw his head back and looked up at the ceiling, his eyes rolling so far the others could see the whites of them. The energy he’d had a few days ago had disappeared and he was steps away from burning out. His head wobbled erratically, its center of gravity unstable on his neck. Leticiel could practically see the steam rising from the top of it.
Mirandalette, who was sitting next to him, also looked haggard. Her head rested on the table, both arms flung out limply on top of it.
“Come on, get up, you two! There’s still a ton of questions you have to solve!” Veronica wasn’t wearing her glasses today. She sat diagonally on the right of them and mercilessly badgered the two. It could be argued that she was the cause of their depression.