“You already ate it all?”
It had vanished so completely it seemed like actual magic — Kale found it remarkable. He reached out and wiped the dark reddish smear of fruit from the corner of his friend’s mouth with the pad of his thumb. The face was sculpted and pale as a statue, but the lips were soft. It was just how Kale always treated the younger kids at the orphanage — it never once crossed his mind that it might come across as rude to someone else.
“You must have been really hungry, huh? Haha. How were the mulberries? Did you like them?”
The silent golden friend looked at Kale with a soft smile. It didn’t occur to Kale to find it strange that a person couldn’t possibly have eaten an entire branch of fruit in that short a moment. He was simply pleased that his friend had enjoyed his little gift.
Watching his friend eat with such apparent satisfaction made Kale feel full by proxy. Having an appetite right before a test was a good sign — it meant he wasn’t too nervous. The golden friend, always so calm and unruffled, showed no sign of shrinking even in the face of fierce competition, and that composure rubbed off on Kale, giving him a boost of confidence for the next exam.
“The magic track exam site is over by that green flag you can see from here. I need to wait over by the red flag, so — can you make it on your own? I think there’s still some time, want me to walk you there?”
Kale, who always wanted to keep doing favors for someone once he’d warmed up to them, hoped his friend would say yes. But the golden friend, unusually, shook their head from side to side. They’d only ever nodded before — it turned out they could shake their head too.
He’d been a little worried that they just nodded at everything regardless — so getting confirmation that they were properly expressing their own will was a relief.
“Are you really sure?”
Even if the magic track exam was the plan, getting there was still a different matter, and Kale asked again with concern. Whether they truly were fine, the golden friend nodded this time. Kale, who had been on the verge of insisting he’d walk them anyway, swallowed the words back down.
He’d often been told that his meddling was burdensome, so he needed to respect his friend’s wishes. No matter how slow and vacant they seemed, this golden friend was a full-grown adult. They’d managed to find their way here on their own while Kale had been off picking mulberries, hadn’t they.
“Then do well on this exam and I’ll see you at the written test site later! Once this test is over, the supervisors will guide everyone to a building — that’s the last exam site! And once that test is done, there’ll be something even tastier than mulberries waiting!”
Kale explained the upcoming schedule in detail, then waved his hand vigorously, putting all his reluctance to part ways into the gesture. The golden friend, as if mimicking him, slowly waved back in turn. Still limp and clumsy. Kale took a deep breath and waved back even bigger than before.
“Ugh, what do you think you’re doing!”
“Waaah! I’m sorry, it was an accident!”
“If you don’t have eyes in the back of your head, watch where you’re going, you damned fool!”
Waving goodbye to his golden friend while stepping backward, Kale had accidentally walked into someone and scrambled to apologize. When he looked back again, his golden friend was slowly being carried along in the flow of people moving in a different direction. It nagged at him to just leave them like that — but Kale couldn’t afford to miss the flow himself, so he turned his focus forward and moved on.
They said they’d be fine, so they’ll be fine. I should worry about myself.
Far more of the applicants who had passed the magic measurement test were streaming toward the red flag where Kale was headed than toward the green flag.
Poor commoners, even those with magic power, rarely had the opportunity to learn magic. Magic required an exceptional teacher, whereas physical strength was something you could visibly improve through your own effort alone — so bluntly put, this track was the window of opportunity for people like Kale: the uneducated, the unschooled, the ones who had to make their own way.
Under the red flag, people who looked like they’d been scraping by as mercenaries or worse were subtly flexing their strength. Compared to these applicants, Kale’s frame was as thin as a sheet of paper — one knock and he’d snap in half.
Oh no. It’s just as daunting as last year. There really are this many capable people in the world who have both magic power and strong bodies.
Kale tensed every muscle in his body and forced his cold hands and feet to open and close. The applicants around him openly laughed at Kale as he passed, or deliberately shoved their shoulders into him as if testing him. Crushed under that pressure, Kale fled toward a less crowded spot.
For some reason, one particular area had a wide open space — everyone was keeping a noticeable distance from it. Kale darted into it gratefully and took a moment to breathe, when the person already there, who had been surveying the applicants, spotted Kale and pulled a sour face.
“Ugh, you again.”
At that thoroughly fed-up tone, Kale turned to check who was beside him. Deep navy hair and eyes with that strange, layered mix of green and forsythia yellow. It was Hirsе. Come to think of it, it had been suspiciously quiet — Lien, the squire who always hovered nearby goading people and stoking the fire, was nowhere to be seen.
“The person who was with you is gone. Did he go to the bathroom or something?”
“As if. Lien applied for the magic track. He’ll be over at the green flag.”
“Really? So you’re on your own for a while too. Aren’t you scared? Want me to keep you company?”
“What?! Who do you think you’re talking to?!”
Each and every remark treating him like a small child was pushing Hirsе to his limit. He suppressed his fury and pushed back — then abruptly realized he’d let himself get swept along in Kale’s pace. He composed himself, tossed his hair, and sneered.
“I’d have thought someone as feeble as you would obviously go for the magic track. Why did you choose this one? Oh — right. With that much magic power, attempting magic would be out of the question, wouldn’t it.”
“Yeah, exactly. How did you know?”
“The audacity. If someone can’t even reason that out, they’d be a true idiot. And I am not an idiot.”
Hirsе gestured pointedly at the people gathered in the area. Judging by their appearances, the majority of the applicants here seemed to have had little formal education — far too little to wield magic freely.
Kale didn’t know what criteria the Dragon Knight Order used to whittle down candidates, but unless someone’s physical ability was extraordinary, surely someone who excelled at magic would have a stronger shot at passing — that was his assumption too. Either way, he found it odd that Hirsе had gone and signed up for the very track where those conditions were a disadvantage.
“But why did you choose this one? I figured you’d obviously go for the magic track.”
“That’s none of your business.”
“Is it because you have plenty of magic power but aren’t confident using it in practice? Well, that happens! Different people are good at different things.”
“What would give you that idea?!”
That was clearly not the answer he’d wanted, and Hirsе lost his patience and snapped again. Kale was genuinely puzzled — he could only think of it that way. He’d asked what seemed like an obvious question, and he didn’t see why he deserved an earful over it. Kale stuck out his lower lip and grumbled.
“Well, if it’s not that, there’s no other reason. I was reasoning it out — why are you getting angry over that?”
“That’s exactly why I call you an idiot. Simple as the face you were born with. Hah. What can I do. Encompassing even ones like you is the duty of nobility.”
Kale found himself genuinely curious about just how many duties of nobility there were — the phrase kept coming up. He wondered if his childhood friend Al also lived by duties like these — something he wanted to ask whenever they finally met again. Hirsе, watching Kale’s absentminded expression, mistakenly assumed he was working his brain hard trying to comprehend Hirsе’s point. Since they were unlikely to interact further anyway, Hirsе decided to be magnanimous and lay out his strategy.
“To excel at magic requires innate talent and grueling effort. Whatever anyone says, I excel at magic. Whether or not that needs to be verified here, it remains an immutable and obvious fact. However, regrettably, in this place, ignorant rabble like you are indulging in possibilities they have no business chasing, hoping for luck that will never come. And so I, personally, have chosen to step forward and demonstrate the difference in class myself.”
Kale’s eyes glazed over listening to Hirsе’s grand speech. He hadn’t understood even half of what was just said. Running the complicated words through a rough mental translation into something simple, he could get the general gist. It was just a continuation of the lecture Hirsе had cornered him with after the magic measurement test.
“Ahh — right!”
So in summary: Hirsе, as the son of a prominent noble family, had plenty of magic power and was skilled in magic — but it seemed he was also confident in physical ability. Since his magic skill was already proven, he must have wanted to confirm his physical excellence as well. Roughly understanding it that way, Kale applauded Hirsе’s competitive spirit.
“Wow. That’s impressive. I wouldn’t have guessed — you actually really want to be a Dragon Knight, don’t you? Do you like dragons?”
“What kind of nonsense is that? Is there any fool who sits the entrance exam without wanting to become a Dragon Knight? Well, this place is certainly packed with people only after money and status. Don’t lump me in with those types.”
“I love dragons too, actually. When I was little I once saw a golden dragon flying across the night sky — it was so beautiful, I thought if I ever became a Dragon Knight I’d want to see one up close. And besides, if you’re a Dragon Knight you can save people too. Just imagining it — it’s genuinely wonderful.”
“You’re free to dream, but it would serve you better to face reality first.”
Hirsе, convinced that someone with such a laughably tiny amount of magic power could never become a Dragon Knight under any circumstances, cut off Kale’s wishful fantasy without mercy. Having never had any intention of getting close to Kale in the first place, Hirsе saw the supervisors beginning to move and turned away without a word.
What a strange person!
At any rate, what did come through to Kale was Hirsе’s genuine honesty — that he wasn’t in this for wealth or power. Noble, commoner, orphan, mercenary — everyone here had come driven by their own reasons and their own will. Each of them was just as desperate as Kale, and to become a Dragon Knight, Kale would have to surpass every one of them. To meet his own challenge head-on, Kale slapped both cheeks and steeled himself.
“I can do it. Kale Russel can do it!”
