“Yes, Headmaster. I understand.” A professor spoke up, his voice solemn, “But what of Raelingrim Simo? How shall we address his treachery?”

  “......”

  Holstin Ming Dawson fell silent, his gaze distant as he pondered for a moment, then let out a heavy sigh.

  “The matter of Raelingrim Simo is our failure...... a grave oversight on our part.

  We failed to see the darkness festering in his heart, failed to pull him back from the edge of ruin. As the Headmaster of Manacos, I bear the lion’s share of this blame.

  I will hunt him down myself, and purge this traitor from our ranks.”

  The teachers in the meeting chamber exchanged quiet glances, offering no objections to his resolve. Still, one professor could not help but let out a mournful sigh.

  “Raelingrim Simo was a peerless Potionology Grandmaster—his skill unrivaled in this world. It is a tragedy... why must a man of such talent walk down this path of ruin?”

  “His station means nothing in the face of his choices.”

  Holstin’s voice was firm, cutting through the quiet regret.

  “In the end, his own will crumbled beneath the allure of the dark. He chose this fate for himself.”

  With that, Holstin’s gaze swept across the entire chamber, his tone grave and unyielding as he spoke to them all:

  “I ask you all to take this as a solemn warning. Let this never happen again. Learn this one simple truth—and never forget it: demons do not barter in kindness. Their deals always demand a price far heavier than you can pay.”

  “......”

  His words hung heavy in the air, casting the chamber into a brief, somber silence.

  Holstin continued, his voice softening with resolve:

  “Starting tomorrow, the Academy will conduct a full internal review. We will not let a second Raelingrim Simo rise among us.”

  “Very well. Let us resume the meeting.”

  At his signal, the discussion pressed on.

  A professor rose to his feet, his brow furrowed with uncertainty as he posed the question weighing on all their minds:

  “Headmaster Holstin, given the catastrophe that has befallen us... do we proceed with the Group Tournament Examination?”

  His question ignited a murmur of debate throughout the makeshift chamber at once.

  “To continue is unthinkable. We have suffered heavy losses among our students and faculty alike.”

  “But the Group Tournament is an age-old tradition of the Academy......”

  “Traditions are not unchanging. They bend to meet the weight of reality.”

  “Silence, please, my colleagues.”

  Holstin’s calm voice cut through the chatter, stilling the room in an instant.

  “I have made my decision on this matter.

  To rearrange and restart the examination is impossible—not for lack of will, but for lack of time and peace. More importantly, it would be a grave injustice to the students who laid down their lives here today.”

  “You speak the truth, Headmaster.”

  “We cannot disagree.”

  Nods of solemn agreement rippled through the chamber, the teachers’ faces etched with grief and resolve.

  “Then what of the examination results?” the same professor asked, his voice gentle now. “How shall we record them for the students?”

  “The results......”

  Holstin’s voice faltered for a heartbeat, his gaze sweeping slowly across every face in the room, his expression unreadable.

  The teachers stared back, confused and curious—until his voice rang out, clear and unwavering, a proclamation heavy with pride and solemnity.

  “I hereby decree that for this Group Tournament Examination, we award perfect marks to all students.”

  “What?”

  “Surely this is inappropriate......”

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  Shock washed over the teachers, their voices rising in surprise and hesitation at his unprecedented decision.

  But Holstin only shook his head firmly, his eyes blazing with conviction.

  “No. It is not inappropriate. Not in the least.”

  “I ask you all to remember this: what is the true purpose of the Academy’s Group Tournament?”

  “......”

  His question hung in the air, and the teachers fell silent, their minds turning inward to ponder his words.

  “Mages are often solitary creatures, walking their paths alone. Yet we teach our students to fight side by side, to trust and stand with one another in their final trials here. There is only one place in this world where such unity is ever truly demanded of a mage...... the battlefield.”

  Holstin’s voice softened, his gaze distant with the weight of hard truth.

  “Yes. The ultimate purpose of this examination was never mere competition. It was to forge our students into warriors—warriors who would not falter, who would not flee, when war came for them.

  And they have done far more than pass this test. They have exceeded every expectation we set for them.”

  “If they have achieved greatness beyond the exam’s very design, then what do their scores matter?”

  “I say this with all my heart: their courage, their loyalty, their bravery—they have earned this honor a hundred times over. Every single one of them is a student Manacos can be proud of, without exception——!”

  “The meeting is adjourned. See to it that the students are gathered and prepared for our return to the Academy.”

  ...

  The battle against Gulos drew to a close.

  Manacos did not resume the examination.

  Instead, the surviving faculty gathered all their students, and the weary procession set out for Langard, their hearts heavy with loss.

  This Group Tournament would go down in Manacos’ history as one of the bloodiest trials the Academy had ever endured.

  The forces of Gulos were no ragtag band of thugs. Their strength was fearsome, their resolve unbroken.

  Even with Manacos’ victory on the A-rank battlefield, a victory that had stemmed the tide of casualties, it was only a reprieve.

  Many had fallen in the counterattack—bright young lives snuffed out, their futures unwritten, their blood spilled upon that small stretch of forest soil.

  A tragedy beyond measure.

  But this was war. Loss was inevitable.

  The Group Tournament had been meant to teach the students how to survive the battles that loomed on the horizon, before they left the safety of the Academy’s walls.

  No one could have foreseen it—not a controlled exercise in courage, but a brutal, bloody real war, fought with tooth and claw for their very lives.

  When they finally returned to Manacos Academy of Magic,

  a grand funeral was held for all the students and teachers who had perished in the fight. Their names were carved into a stone monument, forever etched into the Academy’s legacy, their sacrifices never to be forgotten.

  And the unprecedented verdict of perfect marks for every student in the Group Tournament was solemnly recorded in the Academy’s archives.

  So long as Manacos stood, that record would endure. It would be a testament to their courage—a story told for generations to come.

  ...

  Beyond the walls of Langard,

  in Raelingrim Simo’s private Potion Garden.

  The grievously wounded professor had fled here, his last refuge in the world.

  He stumbled into his potion vault, his body screaming with agony, and seized a handful of vials filled with glowing, potent concoctions. He downed them one after another, choking down the bitter brew without pause.

  For a long moment, he leaned against the stone wall, gasping for breath.

  Slowly, the potions took hold. The deathly pallor faded from his face, replaced by a faint flush of vitality. His ragged breathing steadied, his wounds throbbing less fiercely with each passing second.

  “......I live. I finally live to see another day.”

  Raelingrim Simo let out a shaky breath of relief, his eyes glinting with a fevered light.

  These were no ordinary potions—they were his greatest work, brewed to mend mortal wounds and cheat death itself. They had dragged him back from the brink, stitched his broken body together, and stayed the hand of fate for a little while longer.

  “But this is no time for complacency! I cannot rest!”

  Even with his wounds far from healed, Raelingrim Simo dared not linger. Fear coiled tight in his chest, sharp and cold—fear of Holstin’s pursuit, fear of Manacos’ wrath, fear of the reckoning that awaited him if he tarried.

  He stumbled to a stone wall set deep within the garden, pressing a hidden rune that clicked softly with a mechanical hum. A section of the wall slid open, revealing a narrow stone staircase leading down into the dark earth.

  He descended the stairs without hesitation.

  Moments later, he reached the bottom—and stepped into his true sanctuary: a Hidden Underground Laboratory.

  This was where he plied his darkest trade, where he conducted his forbidden experiments, far from the prying eyes of Manacos and the world beyond.

  The chamber was lined with glass and iron vessels of all sizes, each holding twisted, misshapen creatures—aberrations born of his failed potions and unholy research. Every single container was sealed tight with glowing Warding Magic Circles, their light pulsing to keep the horrors within locked away.

  Raelingrim Simo strode to a cluttered workbench, its surface covered in scrolls of research notes and ledgers filled with cryptic data. No eyes but his own had ever read those pages, and no soul alive knew the unspeakable cruelties that lay behind those cold, clinical numbers.

  “If I flee now, out into the open—they will intercept me before I cross the border. Holstin’s hounds will be on my trail in hours.”

  He muttered to himself, his fingers flying across the workbench, activating a series of arcane levers and runes as he spoke, his voice sharp with malice and desperation.

  “So I will give them something else to hunt. Something that will keep their hands full, their minds occupied—something that will make them forget all about chasing a wounded traitor!”

  Hum! Hum! Hum......

  As Raelingrim Simo finished his final adjustment, a cold silence fell over the laboratory.

  The glowing light of the Warding Magic Circles lining the vessels flickered—and died, one by one, until the chamber was bathed in nothing but dim, sickly torchlight. The seals were broken. The locks were undone.

  A sick, triumphant grin stretched across his face, his eyes blazing with mad delight.

  “Hehe~. These are nothing but the cast-offs of my work—failed experiments, trivial aberrations, worthless byproducts of my true research. But even broken toys can bite. Even failures can bring a city to its knees.”

  He stared at the thrashing creatures in their vessels, their snarls and whimpers growing louder as they sensed their freedom, and laughed softly to himself.

  “Let the great city of Langard drown in chaos. Let them waste their strength hunting my monsters, while I slip away into the dark. Let them suffer for what they have done to me!”

  With that, he stuffed his most precious research notes and vials of potent potions into a leather satchel, then turned and fled the laboratory in a hurry—leaving the broken seals and his twisted creations behind him, a final curse laid upon the world he had betrayed.