Chapter 5 : The Fall of the Witch's Daughter
The ominous silence inside the classroom began to break slowly, like water leaking through the cracks of a dam.
At first, there were only shocked breaths, but as seconds passed, these breaths turned into a hum of uncontrollable whispers.
The students leaned toward each other, pointing their fingers at the boy sitting expressionlessly on the cold stone in the center of the circle.
"What on earth is this?" whispered someone from the back rows, their voice wavering between fear and disgust. "Is it a human? Or some kind of demon that looks like a human?"
"Maybe it is a Silver Goblin hybrid," said another, narrowing their eyes to examine the boy. "I heard about them. There are pale skinned creatures living in the mines. But this... this is much stranger."
"Don't be ridiculous," a girl from the front rows interrupted, her voice trembling. "Look at his skin, like a corpse. Maybe he is some kind of vampire servant? Or a shapeshifted ghoul?"
Alicia had frozen where she stood. The whispers around her were like a beehive spinning inside her mind.
Her legs had become too heavy to carry her body.
She did not have the slightest idea what the thing she summoned was. She was expecting a monster, a beast, maybe even a lizard... But a human boy looking at her with those empty, bottomless dark eyes?
This was an inexplicable anomaly placed right in the middle of the entire Summoning discipline, all magic, and universal rules of logic.
Alicia's entire internal system had collapsed; her mind had stopped trying to make sense of this error she was facing.
Professor Valerius did not even know what he was looking at when he gazed at the entity appearing in the center of the circle.
Throughout his life, he had witnessed hundreds, perhaps thousands of contracted monster summoning rituals; but the thing before him was alien enough to render all his accumulated knowledge worthless in an instant.
This resembled no species, no race, no known category.
The Professor swallowed involuntarily, unable to stop the dryness that suddenly appeared in his throat. The Professor shook off his initial shock and put his professional mask back on.
However, even he was struggling to hide his unease in the face of this abnormality. Gathering the skirts of his robes, he took a step toward the circle.
He had gripped the measurement orb in his hand tightly. He extended the orb toward the boy sitting on the ground.
The boy did not turn his head, only looking at the glowing object approaching him out of the corner of his eye.
In those pitch black eyes, there was neither a sign of fear nor curiosity. Only an indifference coming from beyond existence prevailed.
The Professor brought the orb close to the boy's forehead and waited.
Normally, the orb would explode with a riot of colors according to the mana density inside the monster.
It had been a blinding purple for Aster, a saturated magenta for Seraphina. Even in the weakest slime, a pale white light would burn.
But this time... Nothing happened.
The orb remained lifeless like a dim, gray piece of glass. Not even the slightest spark of mana flickered inside it. It was as if it were held against nothingness.
Professor Valerius tapped the orb a few times, checking if it was broken.
Then he turned his gaze to Alicia, then back to the boy. An involuntary, cruel curl formed at the corners of his lips.
This was not a teacher's disappointment, but an executioner's satisfaction.
He lifted his head and delivered that verdict:
"F Rank."
These two words were like a sledgehammer falling into the middle of the room. First, a short lived, almost suffocating doomsday silence occurred.
It was as if no one could believe what they heard. F Rank... This was the embodiment of the word "failure" found only in theoretical books.
In the last century, there had not been a single student who summoned an F Rank entity within the sacred walls of Aethelgard Academy. This was zero. It was nothingness.
And then, that silence shattered.
"Puhahaha!"
The first laugh exploded from somewhere in the middle of the class. Then the second, the third... And within seconds, the entire class was swept up in a flood of uncontrolled laughter.
Students were laughing while holding their stomachs, some banging on the desks until tears came to their eyes.
"F Rank? You must be joking!" shouted a male student, breathless from laughing. "Even if you summoned a beggar from the street, he would at least be E Rank!"
"A fitting end for the Witch's daughter!" another screamed. "Noble blood, they said... Turns out the only thing flowing in her veins is muddy water!"
Seraphina had shielded her lips with the silk fan she held between her delicate fingers; however, this elegant movement did not hide the toxic smile settling at the corners of her lips, but rather highlighted the wild glint in her eyes.
Seeing Alicia's shoulders shaking across from her gave her as great a pleasure as sipping aged wine.
Just seconds ago, when the entity Alicia summoned appeared in the room, Seraphina's heart had skipped a beat with fear.
That brief moment was enough for disaster scenarios to spin in her mind: "What if she leaves everyone behind again? What if that damned luck of hers goes right again?"
Jealousy had grabbed her throat with icy fingers, cutting off her breath. Her lungs were overflowing with pure envy instead of air.
But when those magical, saving words echoed in the hall, time stopped: "F Rank."
These words were like a sun dispersing the dark clouds wrapping Seraphina's soul.
An indescribable, warm wave of relief covered her inside.
That suffocating fear evaporated suddenly, leaving its place to deep mockery toward this pathetic situation Alicia had fallen into.
While the mocking laughter and whispers surrounding the area came to her ear like a symphony, she watched Alicia bow that head which always stood upright.
This scene fueled a wild sense of satisfaction Seraphina could not suppress inside her.
That unshakable, annoyingly perfect mask always stuck to Alicia's face had finally cracked, shattered into smithereens. That haughty attitude, that smile looking down on everything was no longer there.
Seraphina's eyes were on Alicia like a predator that had cornered its prey.
Her gaze pierced through her rival's soul sharper than thousands of invisible knives. She lowered her fan slightly and delivered that final verdict with the movement of her lips, without making a sound: "Pitiful... A complete waste."
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