Chapter 303


    "I would like to introduce the necromancer who will be supervising the fourth BDMAT."


    Aaron''s face slightly stiffened as he flipped through the script in his hand and read the next part. But without letting his hesitation be shown, he continued,


    "The hottest necromancer of this era. The genius administrator of the Langerstine Kingdom, Bet''s ''Most Influential Man of the Week'', ''The Necromancer Whose Arm I Want Around My Waist'', and…"


    Reading the absurd titles with apletely straight face, Aaron''s voice turned serious for the final one.


    "One of the continent''s top ten mysteries."


    <em>Fwoom! Fwoom! Fwoom! Fwoom!</em>


    People dressed in colorful clown costumes burst out from the stage, blowing trumpets and ying various instruments.


    Suddenly, the entire great hall was flooded with sudden cheeriness.


    The clown troupe began singing and dancing to the foot-tapping cheerful music. Two more clowns appeared dancing in midair, and the students pped with delight.<em>Kaboom! Kaboom!</em>


    Suddenly, the room lit up as a spectacr firework exploded on the ceiling.


    While everyone was mesmerized by the spectacle above them, someone was walking to the center of the stage.


    "Let me introduce you."


    Said Aaron.


    "Ends Vaudeville, also known as the ''Necromancer of Cards''."


    Countless cards fell from the sky, shuffling together as they scattered and formed shapes of animals. Finally, the cards formed a door on the stage, and Ends made his entrance through that door.


    Not a speck of skin was visible beneath his pasty white makeup, with big green circles drawn around his eyes. He had a very wide bowler hat, and his curly hair stuck out from the sides of the hat, giving him a ridiculous appearance.


    As the man raised his arms, the music stopped to give way to a fervent round of apuse.


    "Greetings, fellow Kizen students! My name is Ends Vaudeville!"


    He slightly lifted his hat as a greeting. His every move oozed with showmanship.


    "It''s the real Ends!"


    Squealed Rick.


    Of course, Simon had never heard of him before. However, unusually, It wasn''t just Rick but also Meilyn and Camibarez staring ahead in surprise.


    "Wh-Who is that?"


    Simon asked cautiously. Rick chuckled and tapped Simon on the arm.


    "You''re truly a friend worth exining things to."


    "…Oh, shut up."


    Replied Simon, blushing with embarrassment.


    Rick exined,


    "You''re aware of the top ten mysteries of the continent, right?"


    "I''ve heard of the concept, but I don''t know what all ten are."


    "Just knowing of them is enough. Well, two of those ten mysteries are humans, and one of them is him."


    Simon blinked.


    "Then who''s the other one?"


    Rick answered with a grin.


    "The Witch of Death!"


    Receiving a loudspeaker crystal ball from a servant, Ends Vaudeville began to speak.


    "Thank you for the warm wee! I, for one, am honored to meet the continent''s elite; the future leaders of the Dark Territory! And most importantly!"


    He pointed to his chest with his thumb.


    "I, Ends Vaudeville, am pleased to announce that I''ll be administering this ''fourth BDMAT''!"


    <em>Waaaaaaaaaaaaah!</em>


    All discipline had fallen to the wayside as the crowd of students erupted into cheer.


    Ends opened his palm, revealing cards impossibly hidden underneath. They rose into the air, sparking with magic.


    "My supernatural ability is to create a special ''room'' with these cards."


    The cards glowed, a myriad of patterns and colors appearing on the ceiling.


    First was a castle with legs that was running, then a maze of wriggling snakes, next air of dragons that breathed mes, and to finish it off a room piled high with gold.


    "I can recreate any adventure just how I think and imagine! And you people can enter the world of the cards and choose the adventure you want to have!"


    Choose the adventure you want?


    What did that mean…?


    "Let me borate a little."


    At Aaron''s signal, the servants activated the mana projectors, arge screen appearing in the center of the hall.


    "The fourth BDMAT will take ce on the first-year campus in Kizen and throughout all of Roke Ind. Ends himself has hidden 2,000 cards on the ind."


    The example location for one of the 2,000 cards was shown on a map of Roke Ind.


    "If you happen to find one, you can enter the ''room'' it created and take its test."


    The screen in the center disyed a servant inside the library of Roke Ind stepping on a card and entering it.


    The screen then changed. The servant was now somewhere in the woods. Monsters were running toward him.


    "When you enter a room, the conditions for clearing its test will appear. In this case, it is to hunt 30 kobolds in 20 minutes. If you pass the test sessfully, you can obtain the card."


    Aaron continued as he flipped the document he was holding to the next page,


    "The basic requirement is that you need to obtain at least 6 cards at the end of the test. Anything 5 or less is not satisfactory and will result in expulsion. At least 50 people will be expelled from this test, so be careful."


    Simon''s eyes lit up as he listened to the exnation and nodded. This 4th BDMAT was a fight for cards.


    "Now, now! I, Ends, the administrator of this game, will exin further!"


    Ends stepped forward and waved his hand. The screen changed to show a variety of visibly different cards.


    "Each card has a different color. You''ll have to refer to the rulebook I created for this part!"


    The lightshow on the ceiling stopped, and books rained down on each student.


    Simon grabbed one of them as it fell from the air.


    <em>[Ends'' Game Rulebook]</em>


    Simon opened the t, square rulebook. It wasn''t really a book at all but a single sheet of paper folded over many times.


    When he opened it wide, it revealed a map of Roke Ind and a detailed exnation of the game.


    Meilyn smiled as she read the instructions.


    "I expected it to beplicated, but it sounds pretty fun!"


    * * *


    * * *


    First, there were seven colors of cards.


    Red - Curses


    Orange - Mechanics of Jet-ck


    Yellow - Summoning


    Green - Necromancy


    Blue - Hemomancy


    Dark Blue - Poisonous Alchemy


    Purple - Combat Dark Magic


    Each color of card was matched with a specific subject.


    For example, if you went inside a red card, you were more likely to find games rted to curses.


    The cards were also color-coded for the different areas of Roke Ind.


    For example, green cards were more likely to appear in the forest, orange cards in the main campus, and so on.


    The exact details were something the students had to figure out for themselves as they yed the game.


    "Woah! This is guaranteed to be fun!"


    Eximed Rick as he read through the rulebook.


    "It''s got a siege theme, too! It says some cards will involve 30 yers split into attacking and defending teams!"


    "Here, here! This fairy-race theme seems fun, too!"


    ''Mm.''


    Simon was reading the ''skeleton-building contest against an undertaker'' theme. He really wanted to try it.


    "Ugh, you idiots! Look at the back, not just there!"


    Said Meilyn.


    "You get bonuses for getting certainbinations of cards, too!"


    "For real?"


    ording to the back of the ''rulebook'', each card was worth 1 point, but for example collecting 7 red cards would earn that yer an extra 3 points.


    "Hmm."


    Rick looked troubled.


    "I guess we''ll have to strategize instead of just blindly collecting cards, then."


    Simon was looking through the rulebook to see the description of cardbinations.


    ''Forget the otherbinations, let''s look at the top.''


    The higher in the list, the higher the points.


    Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, dark blue, purple.


    When all 7 colors are collected. The score for each of those cards was doubled.


    That''s 14 points.


    Then, if you add a ''golden card'' on top of that rainbow collection, for an 8-cardbo, your score would be multiplied by 3.


    That would be a whopping 24 points!


    It was a guaranteed way to make it to the top ten.


    However, there was no exnation for the golden cards. It was only mentioned that you can obtain them during the game.


    Of course, even if you couldn''t find a golden card, 14 points wasn''t bad.


    ''Alright.''


    Simon made up his mind.


    ''Thepetition should be tough, but I should definitely go for the bestbination.''


    "Now, attention!"


    Aaron''s voice pried the students'' eyes away from their rulebooks.


    "We''ll give you plenty of time to strategize, so I want you all to fold up your rulebooks and put them on yourps."


    "Noooooo~"


    A cacophony ofints soon followed, but Aaron did not budge.


    "Fold them up."


    Aaron''s sudden coldness had as much strength as one of Simon''s absolute orders, and every single student did as they were told and ced their folded rulebook on theirps.


    "Hmm, Kizen is too oppressive."


    Ends frowned.


    "They''re getting so invested in my game like that!"


    "I''m sorry. I must finish the announcements."


    Aaron bowed his head respectfully and apologized, then looked back at the students.


    "You''ll get the hang of Ends'' game once you y it. We have another important announcement."


    Aaron looked around the room and began,


    "As many of you would have heard, there has been a lot of controversy surrounding BDMAT. Because the entire integrated second-semester curriculum is centered around the BDMAT, textbooks have been skipped over and performance assessments are piling up in the background."


    Taking a deep breath, Aaron stated,


    "As a reminder, you cannot be promoted to the second year unless you score well in your performance assessments."


    At the mention of the second year, the room became tense.


    "So, we—Kizen—n to introduce a new method to counteract that. We are calling it… after-school BDMAT."


    After-school BDMAT.


    This was a new concept, so everyone leaned in closer and focused on Aaron''s words.


    "The fourth BDMAT was originally scheduled tost three days and two nights. It was still this cardpetition on Roke Ind administered by Ends."


    ''…For a whole three days and two nights?''


    The students looked woozy at even the thought of that. Some students, like Camibarez, breathed a sigh of relief.


    On the other hand, Ends crossed his arms and turned away with a look of disappointment on his face.


    "Kizen has be too easy-going! Hmm, <em>tsk tsk</em>. To think they''d cut the game short…!"


    Although Ends was grumbling, since it had already been approved by Nefthis, there was no room for change.


    Aaron continued,


    "As I said before, the entire second semester is showing a tendency to be too BDMAT-centric. Thus, we will have the BDMAT take ce twice a week for 4 hours after sses in order to ease the pressure on students and allow them to focus on their textbook work."


    Simon nodded. Not missing as many sses would certainly help them work through the actual content.


    "But still."


    On the other hand, Rick was slouched over in disappointment.


    "That means we''ll have to cut our free time to do BDMAT, that''s kind of—"


    "We are aware that there will be students who are dissatisfied with this."


    Rick looked a little guilty at thatment.


    "So, we n to take one major burden off of your shoulders."


    Aaron held up a new, small notice and read it.


    " ''The second-year-promotion exam will be reced by the fifth BDMAT.'' "


    "Wooaah!"


    There were exmations of delight all around.


    The promotion exam was infamous for its difficulty. Getting rid of it was a huge wee for the students.


    "Of course, the difficulty of the fifth BDMAT will be increased ordingly. As an aside, Kizen HQ ran a simtion based on your skill levels at the time of the third BDMAT, and…"


    Aaron ced his documents down and cautioned, looking at each and every one of the students,


    "It predicted that at least 500 of the current 797 students will fail the fifth BDMAT."


    <em>mor!</em>


    Everyone''s faces turned pale.


    "To avoid this, the instructions from Kizen HQ are as follows. In this 4th BDMAT and the performance assessments, you should improve your skills by no less than 1.5x. This has been embraced by the teaching staff as well, so consider the meal you just ate…"


    A grim smile formed on Aaron''s mouth.


    "…to be yourst supper. It''s only going to get tougher from here on out."


    "…"


    Just when the tension was silently filling up the great hall…


    "I won''t take this kind of insult anymore!"


    Ends, the Necromancer of Cards, shattered the silence.


    "Why are you bringing up the fifth BDMAT already when we have the fourth BDMAT ahead?! Let the students focus on my game, Professor Aaron!"


    It seemed like Ends had some emotional baggage piled up.


    "There must be some beef between Ends and the professors."


    Rick whispered to Simon.


    "Ends has great pride in his ''game'', and the professors want the students to pay attention in their sses. Or, that''s my guess."


    "Hmm."


    Simon nodded at Rick''s exnation.


    Aaron bowed in apology as well.


    "That is all from Kizen HQ. If you have anything else to say to the students, please feel free to do so."


    "Ehemehemehem!"


    Only then did Ends step forward with a satisfied smile.


    ——