I Became an Extra Without Growth at the Academy – Chapter 37

Time flew by, and midterms were just around the corner.

Since the invitation from the Royal Palace was after midterms, I felt relieved and went about my days, but time passed ridiculously fast.

During that time, nothing particularly big happened.

Seria was still clinging to my side, refusing to let go. It got so bad that she dragged me to the Student Council Building to study together for midterms. Neither of us really needed to study, though.

Seria didn’t seem to have any intention of studying either, as she just played around and ended up getting kicked out by Alkiné.

Speaking of Alkiné, the Student Council was still uneventful.

Midterms? The Student Council isn’t at a level to worry about that kind of thing. These are the kind of people who can bulldoze through anything, even if they’re bad at studying.

But when Seria dragged me there, I could still feel the atmosphere wasn’t great.

Normally, there should’ve been three or four people sitting around inside the Student Council Building, but Alkiné was sitting there alone. She seemed quite lonely and was genuinely happy to see Seria and me visit.

Even though she could’ve just left the place empty, she always stayed there, looking a bit desolate. After that, I started dropping by to hang out whenever I had time.

Lilith, on the other hand, had been heading straight to the library or the dormitory after classes, so I didn’t run into her much.

I heard she was grinding hard to improve her theory scores… but it didn’t seem to be working out. I peeked at her quiz score today, and it was 45.

Well, it’s definitely better than the 20 she got before… but after all that studying, 45? That’s a bit rough, isn’t it?

“Hey! You saw it, didn’t you?”

“Saw what?”

“You just peeked at my score!”

“No, I didn’t. I didn’t see that it was 45.”

“You… come here!!”

Thanks to that, I ended up playing an impromptu game of tag with Lilith, and somehow, she’d gotten way faster than before.

Were you secretly training while pretending to study? Otherwise, it doesn’t make sense that your scores barely went up, but your physical abilities improved so much.

But I was too scared of the potential backlash to tease her about it.

As for the protagonist, Artes, he’s been steadily growing stronger through consistent training. His muscle stats have gone up so much that you can visibly see how much tougher he’s gotten.

He didn’t expect to get this strong so quickly, but he seems to have taken a liking to his growth and started doing all sorts of training on his own. Because of that, his already rapid growth has gained even more momentum.

At this rate, he’ll easily move up to the intermediate class after midterms, and it looks like I won’t need to help him much anymore.

[Artes: If I finish my training today, will you buy me dinner?]

…Well, he still seems to need help in the financial department.

Still, it feels like things are back on track with the original flow, so I’m a bit relieved.

So, midterms…

So, how much time is left exactly? 3… 2… 1….

“Alright, everyone’s in their seats, right? Should I hand out the test papers?”

Now’s the moment.

The exam has started, but the atmosphere isn’t particularly heavy. After all, Akadeumi’s midterms are a system where there’s no demotion, only promotion.

Even if you mess up big time in the finals, as long as your midterm grades aren’t too bad, you won’t get demoted. So, no one’s too serious about the midterms—it’s all about maintaining the status quo.

Plus, the first-year midterms are small-scale. From the second year, when the curriculum is more standardized, all students take the exams together. But in the first year, where each professor handles everything, the lower, middle, and upper classes take separate exams.

That’s why the exam atmosphere now isn’t much different from the recent pop quizzes.

“Alright, manage your time well and do your best.”

As Reina finishes speaking, the sound of test papers rustling fills the room.

As I mentioned earlier, this exam is just for our upper class. So, this upper-class exam is entirely Professor Reina’s masterpiece… and wow, she really went all out with these questions.

-Describe the characteristics and countermeasures of a Grim Blood Sprite.

Did she even teach this in class? If a name this ridiculous had come up, I definitely wouldn’t have missed it.

She probably didn’t directly teach it but set it up so we could infer it. Like, she taught us about Grim Reapers, Blood Kobolds, and Natural Sprites separately, and this is probably a problem where we’re supposed to apply that knowledge.

I didn’t pay much attention in class, so I’m not entirely sure, but that’s probably it.

I mean, a murderous fairy that deals with death and blood is a monster even the Demon Race avoids, inhabiting the inner parts of the demon realm. There’s no way she taught that in a first-year class. So, it’s gotta be an application problem.

Of course, there were also plenty of memorization questions.

-Goblins rank their tribes based on the number of higher-ranking Goblins within the tribe. Describe the minimum conditions required to reach the third-highest rank.

Stuff like that.

Let’s see… the third-highest rank would require 110 Hobs, 41 Shamans, and 3 Lords, right? And at least 30% of the Shamans need to be skilled.

If you just vaguely memorized it, you’d either get it wrong or only get partial credit.

Besides this, there were plenty of tricky memorization questions and even some brilliantly placed trap questions. Anyone who just skimmed through the material is probably going to end up with disappointing results.

I’m pretty sure she wasn’t this intense when she was teaching the lower class… I guess the fact that Seria and I always aced the pop quizzes had a big influence.

Of course, no matter how hard it got, it was still too easy for me.

I also thought it was an easy difficulty. I finished everything and had time to spare, so I even lay down and took a nap.

The reactions after the theory exam were quite something to see.

No matter how much they studied, the application problems probably sucked the life out of them, and even if they did well on those, all the twisted memorization and trick questions must have drained their mental energy throughout the exam.

Plus, since the basic difficulty was high, expecting good grades would be tough.

While watching my classmates suffer, Seria came over and started talking.

“Rudion, did you do well?”

“Just so-so. How about you? It seemed pretty different from what we learned in class.”

“I was a bit confused, but I managed. Oh, but that one question was tricky… do you remember question 17?”

“What was it again?”

“The one where they listed various monsters and asked to pick the one that was different and explain why.”

“Oh, that was the Ice Golem, right? I remember its ice composition was different.”

“Right? Phew… glad I got that.”

While Seria and I were checking answers, Lilith butted in.

“…Oh crap. I picked something else.”

“What did you pick?”

“Frozen Hound.”

“You picked that because it was the only beast, didn’t you?”

“…You’re so spot on, it’s annoying.”

That question had like three or four traps, and she fell for the one only real idiots would fall for.

I guess we shouldn’t expect much from Lilith’s grades.

The theory exams went on like that for a while, starting with “Understanding Monsters,” then moving on to “Basic Mana Theory,” “Magic History,” “Survival Geography,” and other basic subjects.

Even though it was just the first semester of the first year and the subjects weren’t supposed to be too deep, thanks to Professor Reina going all out, the questions ended up being pretty tough.

Because of that, students were dropping like flies in real-time, and judging by their increasingly gloomy expressions, it seemed like everyone had given up on getting good grades.

“Sigh…”

I could hear Lilith sighing from the back. She’s probably already excited about teasing others about their grades.

After the unexpectedly brutal exams, Professor Reina muttered to herself while checking the test papers.

“Huh… I guess they’re not as good at studying as I thought…”

No, Professor, that’s just the average.

But now that she knows the reality, maybe the difficulty will normalize for the finals.

In the end, except for me and Seria, everyone bombed the theory exams, and now the tests moved on to practicals.

Since they had to make up for the points they lost in theory, everyone was full of motivation.

“I’ve never been good at using my brain. My strength is using my body.”

Lilith was the most motivated of all. She could finally show off the results of her training, so it made sense.

Anyway, everyone gathered for the practical exams to spar.

We moved to the field.

As soon as we arrived, Professor Reina stepped forward and gave us a brief explanation of the test again.

The practical exam was divided into two parts… one was a test prepared by the professor, and the other was a sparring match… Hearing the same instructions over and over again until my ears hurt was starting to get boring.

Maybe Professor Reina knew that because she suddenly stopped talking and just started the test right away.

“Ah, whatever. You all know it already, right? Let’s just start.”

*Whoosh!*

Something popped out of the magic stone Reina pulled from her pocket and stood there motionless.

It was the Lich Knight we had captured before.

Unlike the time when it was rampaging wildly, now it didn’t move at all, but no one found that strange.

Everyone knew that monsters turned into simple puppets after being captured.

After countless casualties from experiments trying to prevent them from becoming puppets, the development of capture techniques had come to a halt.

But even if they became puppets, as long as the magic stone’s power didn’t run out, captured monsters could be freely summoned and dismissed, so they were often used for various tests and training.

“Alright, come out one by one and attack it.”

This was one of those instances.

“Whoa, what is that?”

“A Death Knight?”

The students’ reactions were split as soon as the Lich Knight appeared.

The Lich Knight’s appearance was no different from a Death Knight.

Death Knights were strong against physical attacks and weak against magic. The mages, remembering this, started to get excited, thinking the test would be in their favor.

But don’t worry! This guy is a Lich Knight, who beats up both mages and warriors equally!

“Can I go first?”

“Sure, figure out the order yourselves.”

Not knowing this, a mage confidently stepped forward and cast a spell.

*Fireball!*

It didn’t seem very effective…

“Huh…?”

“Hmm, you couldn’t tell the difference between a Death Knight and a Lich Knight and got cocky. Points deducted.”

Reina’s grade-slashing!

It was super effective!

“Wait, what…?”

“…It wasn’t a Death Knight.”

“Whoa, if I had gone first, I’d have been in big trouble.”

With the sound of one guy’s grades plummeting, the practical test officially began.

Ah, Seria, Lilith, and I were pushed to the last order. The reason was that if the dummy got too damaged, it would be a problem.

And then I realized.

I had no means to deal any damage to that thing.

…Looks like I’m doomed for this practical exam.

All I could do was fidget with the hilt of the short sword hanging at my waist until my turn came.