漫画大王

Chapter 24

Of course, I knew exactly what it was. Through the system of achievement points, I had the potential to obtain abilities that I originally didn’t possess. So although I didn’t have enough points to get them yet, it would show as though I had the potential to get any of them later on.

Therefore, my current state was one in which I could technically possess any talent that existed in the world. In order to prevent any improbable situations from occurring when I acquired a talent, I tailored all my aptitudes accordingly.

The advisor seemed dumbfounded.

“I’m not sure if this kind of situation is even possible. It’s not just a simple matter of having a simultaneous aptitude for swordsmanship and archery. If this data is accurate, Reinhart can use both dark magic and divine power at the same time.”

Being able to use dark magic and divine power at the same time was naturally impossible, yet it was something that I had the potential to do.

“Although this is truly a fascinating case... It’s unheard of for someone to gain special admission based on their aptitude alone...”

The advisor did not seem confident that someone of his level could deal with this issue.

“So, does that mean Reinhart could be admitted to the Temple?” Dybun seemed eager to know the outcome.

“W-Well, while there are no precedents for this, given how much of a special case this is, then...”

The advisor nodded absentmindedly.

“I think he might have a chance.”

“That’s it! Atta boy!”

—Slap!

“Ow!”

Dybun slapped me on the back, causing me to scream in pain. I thought I was going to die from that slap!

In the end, the belief that I knew myself the best was proven incorrect.

Thanks to Dybun’s persistence, I was able to clearly understand my true state.

It made me realize that, in this world, I should always expect the unexpected.

***

“He showed an aptitude in every category?” Loyar asked Dybun.

“Yes, that’s right, boss.”

Loyar’s eyes widened as she listened to the results of my examination.

It had not been just an ordinary counseling session. A specialist mage had appeared to examine my talents and aptitudes thoroughly, and it had taken a long time to confirm that the judgment about my aptitude was indeed true.

“Wow, this kid is even more of a gem than I thought,” Loyar commented.

I could sense the awe hidden in her words.

This exceeded even the previous Demon King.

I didn’t have any talents, but I had an aptitude for all possible fields that existed.

It could be said that this world’s game system could be used to interfere with my attributes, but even this setting alone was an incredible ability.

From the start, aptitude could either be positive or negative.

Someone without any aptitude or talent who was trained in swordsmanship could become a sword master. It would be extremely difficult, but it was possible through extreme amounts of hard work and effort.

However, if someone with an incompatible aptitude trained in swordsmanship, it would be easier just to give up.

No individual should only have advantages. Even prodigies and geniuses who had many talents and aptitudes had areas in which they were weak and incompatible as well.

For example, if someone had an aptitude for divine power, it was natural for them to have incompatibility with dark magic. On the other hand, someone with an aptitude for dark magic would be incompatible with divine power. Some abilities rejected their opposite abilities.

Only I would have compatible aptitudes without a single incompatible one.

Of course, I didn’t know if it was possible to allocate incompatibilities through the game system, but even if it was, it would be crazy for me to intentionally choose to have an incompatibility.

I’d originally intended to pay for a semester’s tuition, but this decision had caused a completely unexpected path to open up in front of me.

I heard murmurs that special admission might be granted after a discussion with the enrollment department.

If I was truly a character that had ultimate luck, it would be strange if I wasn’t considered for special admission.

This would be an unexpected—yet incredible—benefit. Just by receiving special admission, I wouldn’t have to worry about the Rotary Club’s funds anymore.

That also meant that there wouldn’t be any trace that my tuition fee had been provided by the club. Everyone, including me, ultimately wanted to create an environment where I could focus only on the Temple and my academics, so it was a satisfying outcome for all of us.

Also, even if something went wrong with the Rotary Club later on, it wouldn’t affect me.

“But you don’t seem particularly happy about it, kid.”

I smiled at Dybun’s words.

“Oh, no. I am. If it goes well, I won’t be in debt to the club either. How great is that?”

But Dybun was right. I was indeed not in a particularly good mood.

My original plan had been to develop my talents over the course of one semester. After that, I planned to be exempted from tuition by virtue of those talents, and join the main story of the novel.

However, just by looking at the current situation, there was a high possibility that I would be placed in the Royal Class, the top tier of the Temple, rather than be an average scholarship student.

When it came to tiers at the Temple, there were two top-tier special classes.

The Royal Class was for those who had entered solely through their talents, and the Orbis Class was for those admitted based on their skills and effort.

Students with exceptional innate talents joined the Royal Class, while those who worked hard to attain outstanding skills despite lacking inborn talents entered the Orbis Class.

There was an eternal conflict between these two classes, but that was a story for another time, as the story about the Orbis Class appears much later in the novel.

Anyway, joining the main story meant that I was soon going to be placed into one of the Temple’s special classes, the Royal Class.

I had been recognized for my talent rather than skill, so the likelihood of me being placed into the Royal Class was high.

Originally, I had planned to take one semester to figure out how to enter the story in a way that suited me.

However, I was set to join the Royal Class right from the start.

Joining the main story meant that, from the moment the main story began, I had to be with all the other kids from the Royal Class and face every situation without any planning or preparation.

Although my actions that altered the future would earn me achievement points, there was the drawback of not being able to predict events if the story deviated too much from its original.

Seeing the altered future beforehand with achievement points I could obtain was neither a good nor a bad thing. I could use the achievement points to gain such a benefit, but I couldn’t waste them so carelessly, because it was my most important resource.

That was why I’d initially wanted to be able to plan at my own pace for one semester. Unfortunately, that period had completely disappeared.

A sigh escaped my lips.

There was no other way to meet this news of my special admission.

I knew for a fact that this world was intentionally placing me in this situation.

***

So, what kind of novel is The Demon King Is Dead?

It’s a novel I wrote myself, but it had the most dismal sales and received a lot of negative reviews, marking a dark phase in my writing career.

It is a wholesome story depicting everyday life after the Demon King’s death. It unfolds at the Temple, located in the imperial city of Gradium, a school that only the children of incredibly influential and wealthy individuals can attend and graduate from.

The story revolves around the events at the Temple, which specializes in teaching magic and combat skills, fostering talents, and serving as a cradle of education, covering elementary, middle, and high school.

This vast institution covers a massive area of land, and apart from the staff, the number of students alone exceeds one hundred thousand.

After the core foundational education levels, the education system is similar to that of universities, where students choose their courses and tailor their academic pursuits to suit their own interests. Consequently, students within the same class might not encounter each other for the whole school year if they did not take the same courses.

But the Temple’s Royal and Orbis classes are the real deal. Of these two classes, it is the Royal Class that holds the utmost importance out of all student groups. However, both classes are considered to be the elite of the school. All students in these classes are permanent scholarship students, individuals who are expected to carry on the empire’s future.

The Orbis Class wasn’t something to worry about now, as it only appears later on in the story, so I wouldn’t have any encounters with them soon.

As for the Royal Class, it’s one of two elite classes at the Temple, and students of the class have their own superior privileges.

Students in the Royal Class can still enroll in courses that are full, and can take classes that are not at their grade level as well. It’s a special consideration for geniuses, you could say. That is why the Royal Class inevitably becomes an object of envy and jealousy for ordinary students.

Moreover, the Royal Class has its own luxurious dormitory, and the Temple even provides the finances to maintain it at a certain level of dignity and class. And, if the students desired it, they could even attend one-on-one lessons outside regular hours—an incomparable privilege.

Many individuals attempt to enter the Royal Class using their wealth and power. However, while money might get you into the Temple, social status, rank, or even wealth did not matter at all when it came to admittance into the Royal Class. The one determining factor was talent.

And that’s not the end of it. High school education at the Temple, including the Royal Class, comprised six years of education, just like elementary school. This meant that being a senior was equivalent to being a sixth-grade high school student. It’s essentially like starting a six-year-long college program right after graduating middle school, similar to starting as a freshman in high school and graduating as a junior in college.

Of course, students have the option to graduate after three years like a normal high school, but most students tend to finish all six years. Beyond high school, the curriculum is officially referred to as a college education, but in reality, it’s more like a graduate school.

The Royal Class could be considered “winners” in this world, where talent meant everything, and the students are divided into ranks based on their talents.

The protagonist of the novel is part of the Royal Class, specifically in the first-year high school B-class.

You might wonder, what’s the difference between this and a regular first-year high school class?

Well, even within the Royal Class, talent determines your ranking. Classes are divided into A and B, and being in the B class means you’re part of the less talented, lower-ranked students within the Royal Class.

Classes are divided by talent, so from the beginning, the composition of the Royal Class remains the same as they advance through the years. Unless someone drops out or leaves midway, or new individuals are added, the Royal Class, starting from the first year of high school, remains unchanged until graduation.

Although the Royal Class is a gathering of elite talents, the protagonist is in the relatively inferior B class. The protagonist struggles with a sense of inferiority and faces disdain and mockery from students in the more talented A class. But eventually, as time passes, and with the power of friendship and love from his fellow classmates, he overcomes the odds and surpasses those in the A class.

This was the teenage motivational drama novel I’d envisioned from the start.

Not interested at all, you say? Sounds boring?

Well, you wouldn’t be wrong. In reality, it was boring.

The story of an underachiever working hard to outshine the overachievers is clichéd and unoriginal. The power of friendship and love? Pfft, nowadays, the trend is all about excelling on your own without anyone’s help. If you empathize with someone who was a complete failure in real life, all that would happen is that they get arrogant and think that they’re better than others.

Honestly, I should have dropped the novel as soon as I heard the feedback from the people in charge.

***

In any case, it was now February in this world.

The new semester of the year following the Great War had just begun.

[You have been accepted into Temple Royal Class 1-A.]

And the Temple Admissions Department had concluded that my “Infinite Aptitude” talent was a top-tier talent.

I wasn’t thrilled at all at this news, because A-class was where I would get demolished.

“Are you worried, Your Highness?”

I was at Eleris’ scroll shop.

“Saying I’m not would be lying,” I replied with a sigh. “It’s great that they think I have incredible talent, but, you know, living up to those expectations is going to be challenging...”

I didn’t have any reason to stay at Bronze Gate since the special admission had relieved the financial pressure from the Rotary Club, so I came to see Eleris.

So, until the enrollment ceremony at the Temple, I was moving back and forth between Bronze Gate and Eleris’ scroll shop.

“I believe you’ll do just fine, Your Highness.” Eleris smiled as if she had faith in me.

Yeah, to be honest, she was right. I knew I was going to make it out of any situation somehow, but I was still nervous.

Thanks to my aptitude being considered a top-tier talent, I could breeze through the numerous procedures required for admission. The Temple would do anything to ensure that someone with such a top-tier talent would enroll with them. Therefore, all the missing information in my status and background had been overlooked.

In fact, the Temple itself became my guardian.

Everything had fallen into place inexplicably well. Yet, despite this, I was fully aware that an unexpected future lay ahead. Nothing about the semester was set, so it gave me a headache just thinking about my friends with great personalities in the A class.

Above all, one of the reasons I was nervous about living in the dormitory was that I had to live without my “real” guardians—Eleris, Loyar, and Sarkegar.

It was believed that no major incidents or conflicts occurred inside the Temple. However, as the author, I wrote plenty of situations where such conflicts did occur. Thus, I knew how vulnerable the Temple was—or rather, how vulnerable I had created it to be.

I worried about not having someone to rely on if something went wrong. Just the thought of being left on my own was concerning.

As I was lost in thought, Eleris reached out and held my hand. Her vampire’s cold body temperature was unfamiliar, but after a while, I managed to feel warmth in that coldness.

“We’ll do our best to assist you wholeheartedly, Your Highness. And, even if you enroll in the Temple, you’re allowed to leave the campus once in a while, right?” Eleris asked.

“Yeah... I guess,” I replied.

There wasn’t an explicit rule forbidding the leaving of campus premises, so I could leave and visit Sarkegar, Loyar, and Eleris whenever I wanted to.

“By the way, do you have things you need to take with you?”

“I mean, what’s there for me to bring when I don’t possess anything? I’ll be wearing a school uniform there anyway, so I won’t need to pack much.”

I was moving into the dormitory the next day, which meant that I should have already prepared what I needed to bring. Honestly, though. I didn’t know what I had to bring.

The staff had handled my documents during the enrollment, so they already knew everything they needed to know from me.

“By the way, Eleris, why do you want me to enter the Temple?” I asked, addressing the question that had been bothering me.

Eleris had been hoping I would enter the Temple, even though she didn’t necessarily wish for me to become stronger.

She responded to my question with a smile.

“Spending time with humans might make you come to love them,” she said.

Her reasoning was different from Sarkegar’s. He believed I had to get closer to humans in order to use their knowledge against them. It seemed like Eleris wanted me to grow to love humans, although I had never been particularly charitable toward humans to begin with.

“Who knows what might happen? You might come to regret this later on,” I remarked.

“I’ll think about that when the time comes,” Eleris replied with a smile.

Of all the strange things around me, Eleris was probably the strangest of them all, even more so than Sarkegar.

She had brought a suitcase, and I couldn’t help but wonder where she had got it. It seemed to have appeared with a flick of her fingers, rather than being brought in from somewhere.

“What’s this?” I asked.

“These are clothes for you to wear, Your Highness. You can’t just go around wearing the school uniform all the time,” Eleris explained.

It seemed she felt she couldn’t just send me off empty-handed. She took off the necklace from around her neck and put it around mine.

“What’s this for...?”

“Do you recall that I once referred to myself as ‘Eleris of the Flames’?” Eleris asked.

“Oh, right. I remember.”

I hadn’t quite understood what it meant, but wasn’t it something about the seven nights or something like that?

“In case you’ve forgotten, I’ll explain. There are seven vampire clans called the Seven Nights, each known by a day of the week.”

“So, like Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and so on?”

“Yes, exactly.”

What a simple naming convention!

“Each clan specializes in magic that is related to their corresponding element,” Eleris explained.

“So, magic is based on the days of the week, like Monday and Tuesday?”

“Yes, that’s correct. The Sunday and Monday clans vanished long ago, so we don’t exactly know what kind of magic they used. However, the Tuesday clan specializes in fire magic, the Wednesday clan in water magic, the Thursday clan in wood magic, the Friday clan in metal magic, and the Saturday clan in earth magic.”

I could hardly imagine what kind of magic the vampires used for Sunday, Sun magic, perhaps, given that they had to endure sunlight. Was it a non-issue since Vampire Lords could withstand sunlight to begin with?

“This necklace is an heirloom, as well as a symbol for the clan leader, the ‘Flame of Fire,’” Eleris said, presenting me with the necklace, which had a small golden pendant adorned with a red teardrop-shaped ruby.

“So, Eleris, does that mean you are the clan leader of the Vampire Lords then?”

“Yes, that’s the case...”

It appeared that Eleris was indeed a member of the Vampire Lord clan, and a particularly powerful one as well. That explained why she was able to walk around the sunlight without suffering severe damage.

“So, what’s so special about this necklace?” I asked.

“Just as the power of the Dreadfind clan is embedded in that ring Sarkegar, this pendant possesses similar characteristics,” Eleris responded.

A pendant imbued with the power of a clan that specialized in flame magic.

“Does it allow me to use flame magic?” I wondered.

“Yes, but only within the limits of your mana. It works a bit differently from Sarkegar’s ring. In simple terms, it summons flames using mana alone, without the need for complex calculations.”

While I couldn’t fully understand the details, I was struck by the absurdity of this item. Magic was an ability only granted to prodigies, but this item allowed anyone, even an amateur, to summon flames as long as they possessed mana.

Unlike single-use scrolls, that were only good for one-time use, the pendant’s ability could be used infinitely.

This was undoubtedly an incredible treasure.

“Would you like to try it out?” Eleris asked.

“Hmm...”

Using the Flame of Fire would enable the use of flame magic.

As far as I could remember, my mana was 9.9, which was quite high for someone of my age.

I followed Eleris’ instructions and visualized flames in my mind while holding the pendant in my hand.

Whoosh!

Suddenly, a flame appeared before my eyes.

“That’s how it works,” Eleris explained.

“I see. But is this all it can do?” I wondered.

I wasn’t expecting an enormous fireball or anything, but this seemed more like a flame created by a small lighter. Perhaps there was nothing special about my mana.

“You haven’t fully harnessed your mana yet, Your Highness. If you awaken the power of mana attunement and manipulation, you’ll be able to create even more powerful flames with the same mana capacity.”

So basically, even though I possessed such a potent item, I was restricted by my limited abilities.

“Why did you give this to me?” I asked.

“It wouldn’t hurt to have one more thing that can help you in a dire situation, right?”

I wasn’t sure what I could achieve with a flame as weak as a lighter’s, but I appreciated the sentiment.

“Still, is it really okay to give me the symbol of the clan leader?”

“If I give you something on a similar level to what Sarkegar has given you now, wouldn’t that increase the likelihood of you standing by my side later?” Eleris said with a mischievous smile.

Both Sarkegar and Eleris had readily given me items that were important to their clans.

It was amusing and ironic. Sarkegar, the leader of his clan, had given me an item to help me live peacefully in the human world. Meanwhile, Eleris, a pacifist, had given me something related to destruction.

“Besides, holding onto an item from the Demon Realm when I’m planning to betray the Demon Realm seems rather inappropriate, doesn’t it?”

Eleris was the last surviving member of the Fire clan. Yet, she seemed reluctant to fulfill her duties as the clan head, and seemed to be juggling all the responsibilities and obligations she shouldered even while she contemplated betraying the Demon Realm. It appeared that she could not abandon her clan while simultaneously committing treason against the Demon Realm.

“Just out of curiosity,” I asked.

“Yes, Your Highness?” Eleris replied.

“When I use it, I produce flames that are small, like this, but what about you? How powerful are your flames when you use it?”

I’d conjured a flame that was as feeble as a lighter’s. However, the necklace would surely produce more significant results when placed in the hands of a mage instead of a novice like me.

How much power could it unleash in Eleris’s hands, its original owner?

“I haven’t used it, so I wouldn’t know, Your Highness,” she replied.

I could tell from her eyes that it was obviously a lie. Pain flashed across them. Clearly, there were memories that were torturous even just to recall associated with this item.

Eleris held my shoulders firmly, her gaze locked onto mine.

“You must understand, this is not an item that was meant to keep peace,” Eleris said

Eleris seemed to dislike her clan’s heirloom, this Flame of Fire.

“...”

“It’s an item that produces more intense flames when the user holds dark emotions, especially emotions like malice and contempt toward another being.”

It was an item that had to be used cautiously, one that detected the user’s emotions, particularly malice and hostility. It was an item that perfectly aligned with the preconceptions humans had about demons.

“I hope you understand why I’m giving you the Flame of Fire, Your Highness,” Eleris said.

Although she didn’t want me to harm anyone, she was worried enough about me to hand over such an item to me. If something dangerous happened at the Temple and it became a matter of life or death for me, only then should I use it.

That’s what Eleris told me.

She seemed to fear me as her master, but that also meant that she valued me highly and wanted the best for me.

“Thank you. I’ll make it my goal not to use it until I graduate from the Temple.”

Eleris brightened up and flashed a big smile, as though that was the answer she’d been waiting for.

‘She’s definitely the weirdest out of them all.’

***

The heirloom of the Dreadfiend family.

The heirloom of the Fire clan of the Seven Nights.

I was the sole successor of the Demon Realm and the Dark Land, which had become one nation, so it wasn’t all that surprising for me to possess these two items.

Still, it was rather suspicious to have two extraordinary artifacts as a Temple student from the slums. There was no denying that.

The ring was designed so that it could be disguised, allowing me to apply transparent and immaterial magic to it. And even if I didn’t do anything to it, it appeared like an ordinary metal ring.

Eleris included an old metal case for the pendant as well. It seemed she thought that it would be much better to put something so valuable into an ordinary case, rather than applying a potentially penetrable disguise spell on it.

So, in the end, the items I possessed looked just like an old and worn-out ring and pendant. Honestly, they were so shabby that it was easily believable even if I said that they were things I’d picked up somewhere while scavenging as a beggar.

I received exceptional items from Eleris and Sarkegar, so I naturally expected something from Loyar as well. But, on second thought, she was the kind who wore tattered clothes and lounged by a campfire all day so...

‘Never mind, you do you.’

But then, all of a sudden...

“...What’s this?”

“It’s your allowance.”

Loyar handed me a purse full of gold coins, telling me to use it at the Temple.

The Temple provided a small stipend to their students to maintain some level of dignity, and now, Loyar was giving me extra money since, technically, the Rotary Club no longer needed to pay for my tuition fee. Loyar even insisted that if I ever needed more money, I should just ask for it.

In the long run, Loyar might actually turn out to be the most important person to me, especially considering that the magic train business plan was steadily making progress.

The next day, I was finally moving into the Temple’s dormitory. Of course, living in the dormitory would be much better than living out here, but the thought of entering an unfamiliar environment filled with significant figures already made me feel exhausted.

I wished I could have just continued living with Eleris. Maybe it wouldn’t have been so bad.

I was so drained from the whole situation, and thinking about it made it hard to fall asleep.

However, I constantly reminded myself that I had to do the best I could in the given circumstances.

I realized from my experience with Charlotte that saving someone who was supposed to die wasn’t all that bad, after all. In the end, I had written this novel, so I was technically the one who had destined them to die in the first place. So, saving those characters was more or less like paying off a debt I had to someone.

This novel was part of the slice-of-life genre. But even such an easy-going genre was better off written by someone with skill and knowledge in that genre.

As such, the most crucial reason this novel failed, and the reason readers deserted it in the middle of the story was because I lacked the skill to write a slice-of-life story from start to end.

I ran out of new events and ideas to write about, and therefore, the story lost its direction, and I had no momentum to carry it forward.

So, in the end, I messed it all up.

This insane story was a result of the author’s inability to come up with original events and actions.

And so... as a result... midway through the story... a gate would suddenly open.