After that, Frondier spent more time in the Workshop.
Not only for Elodie’s classes—outside of the hours he worked at Atlas, he holed up almost entirely in the Workshop.
When Elodie heard that from Mei, she worried for a moment.
'Could it be that the influence of Sloth is still......?'
It wasn’t only the Roach family that felt guilt toward Frondier.
Elodie, his childhood friend, who also had a past of being deeply disappointed in him, did as well.
Because of that, she was more sensitive than anyone to Frondier’s condition.
'No. He didn’t look like he had any problem in the staff room. The students didn’t say anything like that, either.'
She shook her head, telling herself it made no sense, but she also knew one more thing.
When it came to Frondier, judging his condition by his face was almost impossible.
“Just in case.”
Murmuring that, Elodie stepped out of her house and rose into the air.
The Workshop was unchanged in the place where she had been teaching class. These past few days she had been teaching magic to Frondier inside the Workshop, so she knew it well.
'Come to think of it, it really is a tremendous magic.'
As Elodie herself had said it was a kind of great magic, a building floating in the sky was bizarre in and of itself. At the same time, it was even too efficient.
Elodie and Frondier did it as if it were nothing, but most people cannot fly in the sky.
Even the mages of Constel learn “Levitation” step by step and must reach a certain stage before they can rise into the air.
And even that is only an extension of levitation; those who first learn flight can only barely adjust altitude in the air like a hot-air balloon.
In that sense, having a building so high up in empty air that it’s out of human sight not only allows this huge building to be concealed, but even if it is discovered, it transforms into a high-performance fortress.
“And without the owner’s will, there isn’t even an entrance.”
Elodie stopped in front of the Workshop’s wall. No matter how she looked around, this building had no door. Unless Frondier opened it.
Knock, knock.
Elodie rapped anywhere on the wall.
“Frondier, can you hear me?”
Honestly, she didn’t know if someone inside would notice if she did it like this. According to the theory Elodie pictured in her head, outsiders wouldn’t notice, but there was a possibility that Frondier, the owner of this Workshop, would.
Sssk—
A few seconds later, a part of the wall right beside Elodie came away as if a veil were being lifted, and a door revealed itself.
“......Sometimes I wonder if my childhood friend is really human.”
Muttering that, Elodie opened the door.
Creak.
“Frondier, sometimes you should get some fresh air—pff?!”
Elodie’s worried tone flew away as a sudden bundle of papers smacked onto her face.
“Mmff, mmff—what is this? Ugh!”
Elodie peeled the paper off her face and looked ahead. Then she reflexively dodged a few more sheets fluttering past.
Flapflapflap—
Only then could Elodie look around.
Countless sheets of paper were flying through the Workshop. At the center of them was Frondier.
“Sorry, Elodie. I’m cleaning up right now.”
As he spoke, Frondier raised both hands before his eyes. Then the papers that had been flying around gathered between his two hands.
When the papers that had been neatly filling the gaps all gathered, Frondier brought his hands together and grabbed the stack.
“What are you doing?”
When Elodie asked, Frondier said,
“I’m making exam questions.”
“Exam questions......?”
“Yeah. I ended up being in charge of the final problem.”
Come to think of it, she thought she had heard something like that. She had seen the other teachers in the staff room talking about Frondier taking charge of the final problem.
At Atlas, somewhat unexpectedly, Frondier’s reputation among the teachers was not bad.
Active in both magic and combat classes, hosting the event called Makia, doing all of it without a word of complaint and calmly—a consummate professional. That was the perception of Frondier.
“But what does making the final problem have to do with this?”
Was it a question asking how to make sheets of paper fly? As Elodie tilted her head, Frondier pulled out one sheet and lightly sent it toward her. The paper flew as if dancing and landed on Elodie’s hand.
“......Uh, ‘Summary No. 1 on the Practical System of Basic Magic Theory’.......”
Reading the title, Elodie looked over the contents and asked again.
“Those papers that were flying around—are they all like this?”
“Yeah. The papers that were flying were summaries of the content within the exam scope and copied originals of the source texts. Besides those, there were all kinds of other materials.”
Frondier sent one sheet flying. Then it circled round and round the surroundings.
“The papers that float like this in the air are set so that I can bring them whenever I want. I keep things that are roughly organized or completely understood in my head far away, and I bring close the ones that need revision and supplement.”
This method was inspired by what Elodie called “the concept popping out into reality.”
Frondier puts most of the knowledge he gains from classes and books into the Workshop. Naturally, as time passes, the amount becomes enormous.
Because of that, Frondier grows accustomed to organizing and summarizing; the same goes for the Workshop itself.
Frondier’s process of taking exams is similar to open-book. That alone gives him a far greater advantage than other students, but there is one more reason he always gets a perfect score.
Frondier’s Workshop helps him pull out the knowledge he needs quickly.
That’s because Frondier repeatedly summarizes and organizes, sets and remembers what content is in which location. Even if he doesn’t know the entire content, he knows where that content is.
“So this time I’m condensing everything from the first term. From the explanations of each theme—what parts are similar to each other, whether there are parts that conflict, and if so, where that springs from, and so on. So for now, I’ve got whatever comes to mind floating.”
In short, this is a mind map that plays with the entire lecture content of the first term, and a cloud from which you fetch the necessary parts at each moment and supplement them.
“.......”
At that, Elodie blinked for a moment, then,
“So you’re doing all this to make one problem?”
“Yeah. The final problem. The final problem has to be difficult yet rational, and it has to be such that you can’t get it right unless you’ve properly understood what you learned, right?”
“.......”
There, Elodie started to say something, then stopped; thinking it over, she felt she should say something, opened her mouth again, then closed it.
Then she shook her head and finally managed just one short line.
“Do your best.”
That was all she said.
“Yeah. Thanks.”
“Make sure you eat on time.”
“I won’t forget.”
Elodie turned her back and went out the door.
She truly had a lot to say, but she swallowed it all. It wasn’t something she needed to worry about. In fact, it wasn’t something Frondier needed to worry about either.
The side that made Frondier do ~Nоvеl𝕚ght~ something like that was the one at fault.
'Well, my curiosity’s settled, anyway.'
She knew for certain that her worry about whether the influence of Sloth remained on Frondier was completely groundless.
***
And then back to the conference room.
It was the day to review together the problems the teachers had made.
If nothing special came up here, they would receive final approval from Principal Carla and become the final exam.
In truth, the review was nothing more than a formality. Of course they would do it properly, but given Atlas’s characteristic of setting extremely orthodox and classic problems, nothing tended to become an issue.
And the last problem of the final exam that Frondier had made.
“.......”
“.......”
“.......”
All the teachers fell silent at that very problem, the last review.
Tilting their heads, they looked at the problem Frondier had written.
And a few seconds later, one teacher said,
“Seems fine to me?”
“Right. Let’s go with this.”
They passed it without any particular comment to make.
Frondier bowed his head.
“Thank you.”
The teachers didn’t understand why Frondier was expressing “thanks,” but the meeting ended like that.
One of the teachers, coming out of the conference room, spoke to Frondier.
“Mr. Frondier.”
“Ah, yes?”
“About that final problem.”
The teacher whispered in a slightly smaller voice.
“Didn’t you make it too easy? Even if it’s written-response.”
“Hahaha.”
Frondier nodded with a laugh, as if to say indeed.
“I hope all the students feel the same way.”
***
Thus the problem Frondier made passed the teachers’ approval and reached Carla, the principal.
Humming, Carla skimmed through the exam problems.
“Starting with this exam, Mr. Frondier is writing problems too. And on top of that, the final problem.”
Carla waited with half expectation, half worry.
As principal, she naturally had a keen interest in the students’ growth. And regarding the exams that could confirm that, she was more enthusiastic than anyone.
Now that the curse had vanished and she was no different from a complete human, and for the time being Antero wouldn’t be bothering her either, she could devote herself fully to Atlas.
At least until the break.
'You never know when you’ll get swept up in a storm again, so do things properly while you can.'
Carla slowly went through the exam problems.
As expected, there was nothing particularly problematic about most of them. No—strictly speaking, there was nothing that could cause a problem. They were problems that were orthodoxy itself.
And the long-awaited final problem.
Knowing that Frondier had made it, Carla expected something, but at first she felt a slight disappointment.
“......It’s ordinary?”
The content of the problem was simple.
[The following is a formula composed within the content of Chapters 1, 3, and 4 of Basic Magic Theory. Predict the result that will be manifested from this formula, and describe the reason for the result.]
Below that, the composition of the formula made of lines and symbols was written, and as the problem explicitly stated, the composition was of the formulas that appeared in the first term.
A combination of formulas already known. Predicting the effect is far too simple.
“On top of that, the problem is too kind. It even tells them which chapters the formulas appear in.”
It was far too easy a difficulty to be called a final problem.
Propping her chin, Carla looked over the problem again.
'Come to think of it, this is Mr. Frondier’s first time as a teacher. It’ll also be his first time making problems, so he probably isn’t used to setting the difficulty yet.'
Even so, it was certainly true that you couldn’t solve it unless you had learned the entire term. You had to have learned the formulas from each chapter. In that sense, a pass threshold, so to speak.
“If you arrange it according to this formula, then surely......”
By instinct, Carla was solving the problem that Frondier had submitted. The moment she saw the drawn formula composition, she had a sense of what effect would appear.
This was closer to word solving than problem solving. If you know what the formula is, of course you can’t help but know the effect too—extremely plain and.......
“......Huh?”
Only then did Carla realize.
After sketching the formula composition in her head and making a prediction of when it would be run with mana in reality.
“......This doesn’t manifest.”
The hand that had been supporting her face fell away. She slowly straightened her posture and looked over the problem again.
'The formula composition is strictly according to theory. Of course it isn’t a usual shape, but it’s a configuration set within a rigorous framework. And yet.'
The fact that it doesn’t manifest in itself isn’t a problem.
If it were simply that sort of problem, it would mean Frondier had just made a mistake in making the problem.
The problem is that the formula composition now visible is exactly what’s implemented according to theory.
In other words, according to theory, the magic ought to run.
However, it doesn’t run.
'......Come to think of it, in the problem,'
The problem said to “predict the result and describe the reason.”
It did not say to describe the effect of this formula.
From the beginning, Frondier knew. That with this formula, the magic would not be completed.
If so, then why is that.
What is the reason that a formula composed “according to theory” does not activate “according to theory”?
“......Mr. Frondier......!”
Only then did Carla’s face go cold as she lifted her head.
This was a problem that stepped outside the realm of difficulty.
No, outside the realm of “students,” which is what Atlas is.
“Submit something like this as a paper first......!”
