As I collapsed onto the floor, a left wrist engraved with the number "2" was thrust right before my eyes. While I was bewildered, completely unable to grasp what it meant, a large young man appeared and caught the girl from behind in a full nelson.
"Now, now, Young Lady Elena. Taking out your frustration on him just because you lost is no good, you kno~w."
"Wha—don't touch me!"
"Look, Bauer is troubled~ Don't be so tactless as to get in the way of someone's date~"
Soothing the girl in a somewhat frivolous tone, the young man slowly pulled her away from me. He was wearing a gown, too. Which meant... was he one of her peers from the preparatory school?
"D-Date..."
"Wait, looking closer, isn't that Amalia from Groot's? What are you doing here?"
"Um, you could say I'm guiding a customer..."
"AHAHAHA! Is that old man pulling that trick again?!"
The young man threw his head back and roared with laughter. A girl held in a full nelson, Amalia blushing awkwardly, and a young man being the only one amused by it all. I had absolutely no idea what was going on; this was far harder to comprehend than yesterday's exam...
"Hey, just let go of me already...!"
"Yeah, yeah, my bad, Young Lady. Sorry about that, Bauer. She's just an excessively sore loser."
"Shouldn't you be frustrated too?! Losing to some nobody from who-knows-where...!"
"Passing the written exam is all the same anyway. First place or a hundredth place makes no difference."
After letting the girl go without much care, the young man extended his left hand to me. The number "31" was engraved upon it....What had all these numbers been about?
"Thank you very much. Um, you are..."
"Ah, pardon my late introduction. I'm Hermann Meißner. An examinee taking the mage examination, just like you."
"Meißner, as in... the Meißner family?"
I recalled that there were several renowned mages in House Meißner. I felt like I had seen that name quite often among the authors of grimoires, which was why it stuck in my memory.
"Oh, you're well-informed~ To know a minor noble house like ours—impressive."
"I'm sorry, acting like this before an esteemed noble..."
"It's fine, it's fine. A noble who puts on airs isn't a real noble anyway."
I didn't have much experience dealing directly with nobility, but this man named Hermann felt remarkably approachable. In a good way, he didn't seem like a noble at all.
"Young Lady, has your head cooled down?"
"...Yes. As cool as the waters of Ulm."
"Well, that's pretty lukewarm."
"Just move aside."
Pushing Hermann out of the way, the girl stepped in front of me once again. I braced myself for whatever she might do, but while averting her gaze sullenly, she offered a greeting.
"...I'm sorry about earlier. I am Elena Arendt. An examinee taking the mage examination, just like this guy."
"Arendt, as in... do you have some connection to Arendt Preparatory School?"
"She's the headmaster's daughter."
That made sense. So this girl named Elena was the "headmaster's daughter" Amalia had mentioned earlier. I seemed to recall hearing something about them staking their prestige on having her pass at the top of the class... or something along those lines.
"Um... so, what business do the two of you have with me?"
"This young lady was frantically scouring the city for you, demanding, 'Who on earth is the guy that knocked me down to second place?!'"
"Hey, Hermann...!"
"Even though it doesn't matter who placed first, she dragged the rest of us along too. You've had it rough, Bauer."
"Y-Yeah..."
Even being told I had it rough, I didn't even know what was supposed to be rough about it. I could infer that they were probably talking about the mage examination, but I couldn't quite grasp the core of the issue.
"Bauer, may I see your left wrist?"
"Sure, go ahead. There's nothing on it, though."
"Ah, no need to speak so stiffly....It's true, there really is nothing."
When I showed him my left wrist, Hermann nodded thoughtfully. Elena looked at it as well, tilting her head with a frown.
"Bauer, could it be that you haven't seen the posted results yet?"
"I haven'... I haven't seen them. In fact, I was just about to head back to the countryside."
"Head back?"
"Yeah. The only reason I'm here is to buy souvenirs."
Elena and Hermann exchanged glances, blinking in sheer disbelief. Then, Elena's face quickly flushed crimson—and Hermann threw his head back and started laughing all over again.
"W-What do you mean you're heading back, you idiot?!"
"Ahahaha! What a masterpiece! Bauer, you're amazing!!"
Faced with their wildly contrasting reactions, I was left completely in the dark. As I stood there dumbfounded, Hermann spoke to me.
"Don't tell me... you actually think you failed?!"
"Eh... Well, yeah."
"Wh-What is with this guy?! That is seriously infuriating!"
"Young Lady, if you lost to someone like this, you just have to accept it! Ahahaha...!"
Elena seemed utterly furious, but Hermann was clutching his stomach, laughing until he could barely breathe. I really wished someone would just explain what was going on. Between being laughed at and yelled at over and over, my head was starting to spin.
"Alright, I got it. Let's go see it together."
"See what...?"
"The posted results. If we walk from here, the cathedral is right nearby."
"Hey, Hermann...!"
"Come along too, Young Lady. That's what you came for, isn't it?"
Hermann threw an arm around my shoulders and led me out of the shop. Elena began marching after us, and behind her, a long line of other students in matching gowns trailed along.
"Um, the people back there are..."
"Hm? Ah, they're all preparatory school students who passed the written exam. This year, ninety-six out of the hundred were our students."
"Wait, only a hundred people pass? Even though ten thousand took it?"
"You didn't know? The pass rate for the first stage exam is roughly one in a hundred."
One in a hundred meant one-tenth of the top ten percent. I had wondered how they intended to narrow down ten thousand test-takers to a mere five, but... I had no idea that ninety-nine percent were weeded out in the first exam alone.
"Can you see it? It's posted right over there."
"That's..."
In the direction Hermann pointed, about ten large, vertical sheets of paper were posted. Since there were a hundred passing candidates, each sheet likely displayed ten names.
"Look, the sheet on the far end. That's the very top tier."
"Huh..."
"Young Lady, from here on out, it's the runner-up's job to explain."
"Stop saying that every single time!"
As Hermann gently released his hold on my shoulder, Elena stepped up beside me. She began to speak in a clipped, matter-of-fact tone.
"...Those who pass the first stage exam are reassigned examinee numbers. Mine became '2.'"
"What does that number mean?"
"You really are slow. It's the ranking for the first stage exam."
"The ranking?"
"You submitted your application at the very last minute, didn't you?"
"How did you know that?"
"It caused a commotion, so everyone knows. Besides, people noticed you right away simply because you weren't wearing a gown."
Rumors really do travel fast...
"So your examinee number was the very last one. Am I wrong?"
"Well, that's true, but..."
"...Look at that."
Doing as I was told, I looked up at the paper on the far end. Written there alongside the rankings were the names of the passing candidates, their examinee numbers, and their scores on the first stage exam.
2 Elena Arendt 1 418/500
Unlike me, she must have applied first, because Elena's examinee number was "1." As for the score... assuming the short-answer exam was worth 200 points, that meant 300 points were allocated to the essay exam, bringing the total to 500 points.
"418 points..."
"To put it into perspective, Bauer, the young lady's score is the highest in the preparatory school's history. Honestly, it stands out as exceptional in the entire history of the mage examination."
"Hermann, stop....In the end, I'm just the runner-up."
"Oops, my apologies."
Hermann, who had stepped forward, took a step back again. Despite an unprecedented score of 418 points, she was in second place. Then who on earth was in first—
1 Keegan Bauer 10211 468/500
"A perfect score on the short-answer exam, and an overall score exceeding ninety percent. Both are unprecedented in history."
"...Huh?"
"So, you, who were sitting in dead last—"
Elena stared intently into my eyes. And then, as if forcing the words out through sheer willpower, she said:
"Leaped straight to the front of us all in a single day."