"And what are you doing? Just standing there laughing, or do you actually have something to contribute?"
Reiji didn't wait for an answer. He didn't have time to wait for answers.
Alex shrugged with that smile that seemed specifically designed to infuriate people who took things seriously. He said nothing. He didn't need to say anything.
Reiji clenched his teeth and turned toward the Shinju.
"Awaken, Raikoumaru!"
The magic circle exploded on the ground with an electrical detonation. The steel wolf emerged roaring — gleaming metallic armor, eyes that burned like embers, fangs wrapped in lightning that made the surrounding air vibrate. It was an imposing summoning. The best that had appeared in the exam so far.
The other students saw it and something ignited in their chests. That contagious, irrational courage that appears when someone else takes the first step.
"If he can do it, so can we!"
"We can't fall behind!"
Pyramids activated one after another — flashes of blue, green, white, golden light. Lesser summons that filled the field with forms and energy.
The enthusiasm lasted exactly four seconds.
The Category 2 Shinju exhaled.
Just exhaled.
A wave of black energy expanded from its body like a silent, brutal pulse, and three students went flying backward as if the air itself had struck them. Their summons disintegrated instantly. Their pyramids went inert.
"My arm…!"
"The shield just shattered…!"
"The summoning won't respond!"
For a Category 2 Shinju, level 1 pyramids weren't threats. They were noise.
The only ones still standing were Reiji, Haruto Kanzaki, and Daichi Muramasa — all three with level 2 pyramids. But their movements said it all. They were good for students. For first-day students, particularly. Against something of Category 2, that wasn't enough.
Alex watched them from where he stood, leaning against a tree with his arms crossed.
"Pathetic."
It was barely a whisper. Almost to himself.
Mina, beside him, heard it. She had been holding back her trembling since the Shinju appeared, gripping her pyramid with both hands as if she could forcibly extract courage from it.
"Pathetic…?" she repeated, looking at him.
"They charge in without knowing what kind of Shinju it is. Without understanding its abilities, its movement patterns, its weak points." Alex didn't take his eyes off the field. "They just act on impulse, pride, and fear. It's impossible for people like that to win."
Mina didn't respond immediately. The coldness of his words stung. But there was something in them she couldn't simply reject, because somewhere between the anger and fear, she knew he was right.
"Even so… they're fighting." She looked at him directly. "And you? Aren't you going to do anything?"
"I am. I'm learning who survives the first day."
"That's despicable!"
The words came out before she could stop them, charged with anger and something too close to tears. Her pyramid floated in the air on its own, responding to her emotional state as it always did — instinctive, without conscious control.
"Even if you're right… I can't just stand here watching!"
A magic circle glowed before her. From it emerged a butterfly of light — translucent, silent, with wings that scattered golden dust in its wake. The healing spirit of her pyramid.
"Stop!" Alex said.
But Mina was already running.
Alex watched her throw herself into the battlefield without a plan, driven by something he couldn't quite categorize. He closed his eyes for a moment.
Sighed.
"The kinder they are, the more reckless."
He slowly pushed off from the tree and looked at the field — the wounded students on the ground, Instructor Renkai holding on with his armor fractured, Reiji pushing Raikoumaru to its limit, Mina running toward disaster with a butterfly of light and no plan at all.
"Well," he murmured. "I guess I'll clean up this mess."
---
Raikoumaru charged at the Category 3 Shinju with all the force Reiji could extract.
"Destructor Attack!"
The steel wolf crashed into the creature with an impact that shook the ground. In any other situation, against anything else, it would have been devastating.
The Shinju didn't move.
A flash. A black claw descended and shattered the wolf's energy shield, pulverizing the summoning into a rain of sparks and smoke. Raikoumaru disappeared as if it had never existed.
"W-what…?"
Reiji didn't finish the sentence. A tail struck him from the side and slammed him into the ground with a force that knocked the air out of him in an instant. He lay on his back, spitting blood, the world spinning around him. The pyramid had fallen from his hand.
The Shinju approached slowly. Without hurry. The same slowness as before — the slowness of something that doesn't need to rush.
"Reiji!"
Someone screamed, but no one could move. Those who weren't injured were paralyzed. Those who weren't paralyzed were busy surviving their own problems.
The Shinju's claw descended.
Instructor Renkai appeared from nowhere.
With his armor already fractured across the chest and his sword at half power, he threw himself between the creature and the fallen student, raising a barrier spell with what little he had left. Shields of rock and stone rose from the ground — layer after layer of defense built in seconds with the efficiency of someone who had done this hundreds of times.
The claw pierced through the first three layers.
The fourth slowed the blow enough.
But not completely.
Renkai was pushed backward, his left arm giving way under the pressure. A dry crack that no one wanted to identify. The instructor landed on his knees, his arm hanging at an angle that shouldn't be possible, but he pushed Reiji aside before falling.
The field fell silent.
Reiji lay on the ground, face bloodied, staring at the Shinju repositioning itself above him. His lips moved.
"I-I… don't want to die yet…"
The Shinju roared and raised its claw again.
Reiji closed his eyes.
A light enveloped him.
"Celestial Protection!"
Mina stood before him, trembling from head to toe, arms outstretched. The shield of light she had summoned vibrated — unstable, fueled by pure fear and pure determination in equal measure. The butterflies from her pyramid fluttered around her, scattering healing dust over Reiji's wounds.
"You won't die." Her voice trembled. "Never!"
The second Category 3 Shinju turned toward her.
Mina watched it approach, and her body stopped responding. The shield flickered. The butterflies instinctively retreated toward her. Her legs wouldn't obey any command.
"I can't… I'm scared…"
The two Shinju converged from opposite sides. The shield of light between her and Reiji grew dimmer and dimmer.
"Please…"
The Shinju stopped.
A single step away — at the distance where you can already feel the heat of something that could destroy you — they stopped.
And turned their heads.
Alex stood a few meters from the field. Hands in his pockets. Tricolored hair moving in a breeze that existed for no one else. The creatures' eyes found him, and something in them changed — not rage, not hunger, not the predatory instinct with which they had looked at everyone else.
Recognition.
Fear.
The same ancestral fear that the forest Shinju had felt before collapsing without Alex lifting a finger.
A slight smile appeared on his lips.
The entire field was silent. The wounded students didn't move. Those who could move didn't either. Renkai, on his knees, looked up at him with an expression he couldn't define.
Alex tilted his head slightly, as if considering something trivial. As if deciding whether to order dessert or not.
"I'm bored now."
He took a step forward.
The Shinju retreated.