How to Survive as the Second Son of a Mage Family - Chapter 21

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————

How to Survive as the Second Son of a Magic Family (21)

I finished training with Leo and cleaned up my spot.

Since it was the weekend, I had plenty of time all day, so I trained for a while.

‘It’s… 6 o’clock now.’

I’ll skip dinner and just go study until midnight. I grabbed the necklace chain and pulled out the pendant.

“Lucas.”

Leo called out to me as I was about to leave the Training Ground.

“You know tomorrow’s the midterm exam, right? Do well on the test and let’s meet here next week.”

“What if I beat you? Why are you cheering me on?”

“Go ahead and try…”

Leo chuckled with amusement.

There’s a reason for that relaxed reaction.

The Antagonist had never fallen below 2nd place in our class.

And… even if I got perfect scores on every subject except one, reaching the top ranks would be impossible. Leo knows this too.

In the magic practical subject, I can only get 30 points combining basic attendance points and alternative assignment scores. I’m lucky I got medical absence approval, otherwise I wouldn’t have even gotten those attendance points.

I don’t have any desire to reach the top ranks anyway.

I just need the minimum improvement to flip my image.

‘Any investment beyond that would be unnecessary.’

A complete waste of time.

I returned to the Dormitory, pushed aside Fai who had somehow piled grass on my desk, and opened my textbooks.

I’d already finished the core material. Since the detailed content could make the difference, it was time for a final thorough reading to check for any parts I hadn’t memorized well from start to finish.

‘I never thought I’d be doing this tedious School studying at this age…’

Fortunately, I only had three subjects to cover today. I suppressed the urge to bury my face in the book and skimmed through the textbooks. Fai, who had been pushed aside, chewed on grass and asked.

“Lucas, if you don’t want to study, want to go climb rocks?”

“No.”

What kind of context is that suggestion even…?

I ignored Fai’s words and focused on studying.

After studying for a while, I took Fai up to the Rooftop to get some fresh air.

‘Everyone’s only talking about midterm exams.’

All the Students I encountered while moving around were talking about tests. With college admissions at stake, everyone had to be sensitive about it.

Of course, the Students here also had their pointless class pride on the line. Since this was our Department’s Dormitory, I occasionally heard talk about our grade’s class rankings.

“Lucas.”

Narke’s eyes widened with delight as she tapped my back.

She must have come up to the Rooftop first. The friends visible behind her awkwardly backed away with troubled expressions.

“You come up here too! This is the first time we’ve met here. How’s it going? Are your studies going well?”

“So-so. How about you?”

“Going well. Haha, my friends have too many expectations of me. They’ll all be disappointed if I don’t make it into the special class.”

“There’s no way you won’t make it.”

If you were at that level, you couldn’t have come here as an exchange Student. They only selected Students who were called prodigies at their respective schools.

Narke smiled at my answer and asked me.

“What about you? It would be nice if you, Leo, and I all went to the special class together.”

“Well, don’t you know my grades? I was 48th place on the last exam.”

“You can’t think about that time. How is it? Do you think you’ll make it?”

What a perceptive guy.

I didn’t bother answering and just smiled while shrugging my shoulders.

“Who knows.”

And so, the day of the midterm exam arrived.

The Professor who came in as the proctor distributed the test papers.

“The exam time is 60 minutes. Write your names on the distributed test papers and answer sheets, then wait for 1 minute. The moment magic activation is detected, the entire first exam will be invalidated.”

It was the same tedious announcement. Well, actually the last part was somewhat new.

I lifted my hands from my knees and picked up my pen at the bell signaling the start of the exam.

* * *

“Ah, I’m going crazy. What if I failed again this time?”

“Hey, there’s 2 minutes left until the ranking announcement!”

“Hurry up and go in! Come out to the lounge later and let us know.”

Friday evening, the day the last exam ended.

The Dormitory was noisy with grade announcements. I came down from the Rooftop and entered my Room.

‘It’s almost midnight now.’

Grade announcements come out today, the day the exams ended.

Of course, these are rankings before grade corrections, but changes rarely happen here.

I took out the grade record sheet I received at enrollment.

At midnight, the magic the School had linked would be written here.

I slowly looked through from the first page, then stopped at the ranking record section on the last page. The rankings so far were listed there.

[1st Year Fall Semester Midterm] [50/50] [100/100]

[1st Year Fall Semester Final] [50/50] [99/99]

[1st Year Spring Semester Midterm] [49/49] [100/100]

[1st Year Spring Semester Final] [48/49] [98/99]

‘Disastrous.’

The numbers in the front column are Luca’s ranking in Department of Magic Class 2, and the numbers in the back column are the rankings for the entire Department of Magic.

Except for the most recent exam, he had recorded last place in everything.

The bell rang from the distant Clock Tower.

2nd Year Fall Semester Midterm.

Bright blue letters began to be written below the last ranking.

I swallowed and clenched my fists.

The blue ink soaked into the paper at rapid speed.

[2nd Year Fall Semester Midterm]

When it reached the end of one column, the ink paused briefly, then instantly spread sideways again.

I squinted and glared at the paper.

Thud―

The movement stopped, and the paper completely dried.

[2nd Year Fall Semester Midterm] [6/50] [10/100]

‘…Phew.’

It was over.

6th place in class, 10th place in the entire Department of Magic.

I’m satisfied with this level. Not more, not less, this was exactly the level I wanted.

I flipped the paper forward to check the scores by subject.

‘As expected.’

Basic Magic Practice subject alone had 30 points.

Out of ten total subjects, seven subjects had 100 points.

The remaining two subjects had 97 points and 95 points respectively.

‘Average 92.2 points.’

6th place in Class 2, 10th place overall… that means there are only four people ahead of me in Class 1.

‘Class 1 fell behind a bit this time.’

I don’t know about the class averages though.

Even so, I feel no excitement.

It’s something only Students care about, and I have no feelings whatsoever toward Class 1.

‘Anyway…’

The first exam at This Location was over.

I lay down on the bed with a comfortable yet somehow complicated feeling.

Many things will change from now on.

From trivial matters to my own safety.

This news will surely reach Hyung’s ears, and Hyung will take action.

Unlike the comfortable times so far, aside from the annoying reactions from those around me, I can’t predict what will happen from now on.

Just then, a flash of light appeared above the grass scraps gathered on my desk. Fai appeared out of thin air and leaped over to my bed.

“Lucas!”

“It’s been a week. Narke wants to know your ranking?”

“Yeah!”

“Tell her I won’t say.”

I smiled and sent Fai back to Narke.

Fai returned to the room and appeared before me again in less than a minute.

“She’s asking why?!”

“Because I messed up.”

“She said if you say that, it’s probably a lie~!”

“Good insight.”

I answered briefly and sent Fai back to Narke’s room again.

* * *

“What’s our class average?!”

“We’ve gotten 32 scores so far and it came out to 57.1.”

“Guys, hurry up and write yours down! Can’t we even do this? It’s not difficult. You just need to write your score on paper, not even your name!”

There are always guys like this.

On Monday of the week after exams ended, I let out a hollow laugh at the booming urging I heard as soon as I entered the classroom.

They probably won’t even ask me anyway. They’ve likely predicted my score arbitrarily and included it in their calculations.

Curious about something that suddenly occurred to me, I spoke to the Antagonist.

“Give me that paper.”

“….”

I hadn’t spoken harshly, just in a casual tone, yet the classroom fell silent in an instant.

The Student who had been shouting loudly just moments before awkwardly turned his head toward his friends, then bit his upper lip slightly as he handed me the paper.

I didn’t need to look at it for long. Right at the top, there were two clear zeros that obviously belonged to someone.

One belonged to a long-term absentee. There’s someone who hasn’t been coming to School properly since the end of first year. And the other one…

‘Must be mine.’

I can only laugh.

They didn’t even include my alternative assignment score.

Well, these guys wouldn’t know about other people’s alternative assignment scores anyway.

I smiled gently with sympathy for the suddenly awkward situation and returned the paper to the Antagonist.

“You calculated it as 0 points?”

“…Your score?”

“What else would I be asking about if not my score.”

“Uh, I did write that… but until last year you were… no, never mind. If you tell me what it is, I’ll write it down exactly.”

“It’s fine. Just leave it as is.”

At those words, the Antagonist carefully took the edge of the paper and moved away while glancing at me sideways.

Just then, someone burst through the classroom door.

“Hey, I asked the Professor and he said our average is 59.1.”

“What?! What about Class 1?”

“Should I go spy on them?”

“Yeah, I want to go too.”

The frozen atmosphere came back to life. The students began chatting noisily among themselves.

“So how many from our class are going to Special Class?”

“Why are you so interested when you can’t even go?”

“No, you’re not seeing the big picture. Each of these things affects our reputation.”

“Julia and Leo are definitely going, and Narke will go too, right? Narke! What rank are you?”

“I won’t tell.”

Narke glanced at me with a mischievous expression and copied what I had said.

Just then, one Student’s eyes sparkled as he shouted.

“Guys, me too…! I think I can get in this time too!”

‘Hmm?’

It was the Student I had grabbed before to ask for directions.

His name was… Melvin.

“What rank are you?”

“Overall 9th place…!”

“Wow, you barely made it in.”

“Congratulations! That’s already four from our Special Class? How many came to School? We just need five more, right?”

I rested my chin on my hand and listened to their conversation.

In the first exam, we had 6 and they had 4.

After that, the situation completely reversed and I heard pointless talk about how it went back and forth between 3:7 and 4:6.

‘…I think right now we shouldn’t be competing with Class 1, but competing with the friends who go to Special Class.’

I quickly gave up thinking about it.

At this point… it’s really because they only divided us into two classes.

Then the guys who had gone to the next class came running back shouting.

“Hey, guys! 58.4!”

“What, that’s the other class’s average?”

“Yeah.”

The students cheered over something incredibly pointless.

When I turned my head, I could spot about four or five more students who were thinking similarly to me.

Even so, we couldn’t beat forty people. The classroom continued with grade-related talk.

“I heard Class 1 already has 4 people going to Special Class? But thirteen of them haven’t come yet.”

“What? There are 7 minutes left until morning assembly? Look how irresponsible they are.”

“What if someone who ranks in the top 10 of the department shows up among them?”

“….”

One Student giggled and laughed, but then realized there were actually more possibilities remaining than ours and his face hardened.

Fortunately, during that time, one Student from our class who had received a ranking in the top 10 of the department appeared, so the atmosphere didn’t become gloomy but stayed lively.

“That makes five of us? Please let Class 1 get crushed like this…”

“No, snap out of it. We shouldn’t be competing with the class next door, we should be competing with the kids from our class going to Special Class.”

“All our classmates are here now and there’s no one left. Give up. Just getting half is pretty good.”

Each Student threw in their own comment.

A reasonable comment was heard in the middle, but it was quickly buried because it didn’t suit the students’ tastes.

Just then, the Professor opened the door and entered.

As the students hurriedly found their seats and sat down, the classroom finally became quiet.

“Everyone seems curious about the results. I thought the Research Lab was going to explode this morning. You’re second-years but you’re still acting like first-years. You understand without me having to say much, right?”

“Yes.”

“If you continue to act like this, I will deduct points from your attitude scores.”

The Professor made a threat and opened the file he had brought.

“Your individual grade reports were already distributed when you enrolled. The rankings were announced at midnight, so I assume you’ve each checked and come prepared.”

The Professor flipped through the grade report and pulled out a thin letter envelope from inside the file.

“I’ll start with the Special Class admission consent forms. Students whose names are called, please come forward and receive them. Julia, Leonard.”

The Professor called out names without even looking at the letters written on the envelopes.

Since these were students who always competed for 1st and 2nd place in the class, there was no need to double-check anymore. The sound of applause pierced my ears sharply.

Only when it came to the third turn did the Professor lift his glasses to read the name.

“Narke.”

Narke high-fived her friends and went forward. As before, her classmates clapped and congratulated her.

“Thank you.”

“It’s been a month since you came to the Empire, and I’m pleased you’ve been keeping up well. Next, Hildegard.”

After various greetings, she received her envelope and returned to her seat.

“Melvin.”

At those words, Melvin hurriedly got up from his seat and rushed forward.

“This is your first time making it into the special class, isn’t it? Your hard work is clearly visible. Congratulations.”

“Th-thank you…! I’ll work hard!”

“I look forward to it.”

The Professor raised the corners of his mouth gently.

So enthusiastic… I let out a hollow laugh at the Student’s overwhelming tone.

His emotions were so openly displayed that the applause, which had been gradually dying down, grew loud again.

“Lastly…”

As Melvin returned to his seat, the Professor started to speak but then rummaged through his desk. The Professor overturned files and pulled out the last remaining envelope. Several students who saw this widened their eyes.

“What, there’s one more person?”

“There’s no one left here who could make it, right…?”

The Professor silently raised one eyebrow, checked the grade records, then called out a name.

“Lucas.”

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————