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nA few days has passed and Zoemi felt like he was walking through a minefield with each passing hour.

nA scripted event should happen soon - he was sure of it - no matter the route, the bullying of the heroine would always start after the results of the exam would be revealed.

nIn the game, no matter the route, the results would always be the same.

nThe first prince would be on the very top of the chart with his powerful spells and vast mana pool. Miriette would be placed third and the heroine would be above her – stealing the second place right under her nose because of the uniqueness and usefulness of her healing magic.

nIn-game Miriette – head over heels in love with her fiance – would not mind having him over her, but could not stand anyone else beating her score. Her pride was too high to swallow that disgrace, so getting both outdone and separated from her beloved fiance by one and the same person would spark the ill will of lady Espine towards that person...

n...who happened to also be a commoner girl...

nAnd since the Miriette that Zoemi grow up with was even more prideful than the one he remembered from a game, well...

nLet's just say that the black-haired attendant dreaded the day that the results would be revealed.

nHe was getting almost sick with worry and could barely focus on the lessons – not to mention the disciplinary class that he had to take under the watchful eye of the elderly light magician, Kros Rul Shuze – although those turned out to be way more productive than the scarred boy initially thought they would be, as, surprisingly, Kros didn't want him to write down some apologies or study the good-manners book but rather train magic and experiment with it to a degree that Zoemi did not think were possible with the darkness attribute.

nThe most shocking part was when Kros told him that he doesn't need to show up for their last scheduled disciplinary lesson, and instead, find him if he will ever manage to recreate the shadow fireball that he accidentally conjured during the duel with Grazio.

n...needless to say, Zoemi didn't have time to try it out at all as he was attempting to figure out which event of which route will trigger.

n...but with basically nothing new happening he had no choice but to try and prepare for all of the possible outcomes...

nThe scarred attendant was racking his brain over how to deal with the worst possible scenario which would be an immediate bad ending for Miriette.

nHis mana was still very limited after all.

nShadow emerge, and therefore, shadow storage, was convenient - but it wasn't like he could store everything he wanted there - and not even just because of the corrosive qualities of the darkness attribute!

nWhat he could store inside his shadow was greatly influenced by the mana that particular thing possessed.

nFor example, the spell that Xeonith wanted to use against Reo, the rock barrage, was actually Xeonith's second weakest spell and wasn't containing a lot of mana as it mainly used the acceleration of the rock to cause damage and didn't change the properties of the rocks themselves.

nAnd yet event that considerably weak spell took half of Zoemi's mana just to be stored.

nYes, it was that problematic - Zoemi couldn't, for example, grab Miriette and hide her in his shadow and neither let her use shadow gate.

nThe black-haired boy's master had a few hundred thousand times more mana than him after all...

nSimilarly, defending Miriette from the attacks could be troublesome because of the exact same reason.

nMana, mana, mana.

nEverything came down to how much mana he had.

nA short rest was enough to recover whatever miserable amount of it he had, but that didn't change the fact that he was in deep trouble the moment he would be a forced to use too many spells in rapid succession.

nThat problem could be resolved by the use of mana potions, just like the one Zoemi received from Miriette and managed to save up for – but considering how much a single vile cost to purchase – since it was a rarity after all - the black-haired boy wasn't nearly financially secure to purchase them in bulk...

n...not with the side experiment that he had going on in the background that would be important for securing Miriette's safety in the long run...

nJust as the scarred boy was losing his spirit - an unexpected help has arrived!

nSince the day after the examination, someone had been leaving a bottle of the mana potion under his door each morning!

nAt first, Zoemi thought that his master or the first prince were the ones responsible, but when he thanked them for it and said that though he is extremely grateful, it is unnecessary to spend so much money on him – again - but the confused faces and surprising words of the two deny that they had anything to do with it.

n...that left Zoemi in a bit of a slump – who might be giving him the ridiculously expensive gifts besides those two...?

nThere was a group of students with considerably weak magic who after witnessing Zoemi and Grazio dueling approached the scarred attendant asking if they could train together in the mornings – on which Zoemi agreed rather enthusiastically thinking that he could make allies like that – but let's be honest, all of those students were thinking of their own benefits first so it was highly improbable that they were the ones funding the mana potions for the black-haired boy.

nStill, there was another option that although slightly worrisome and confusing seemed plausible...

nIt just so happened that the heroine started to stop by Zoemi's seat in the classroom to have a conversation and she was getting more and more friendly with each day.

nWhich wouldn't be so bad in itself, if not for the fact that lady Espine sitting behind Zoemi would grind her teeth - loudly enough to be confused with a grindstone sharpening a blade - each time that the blond girl approached their seats.

nAt first, Zoemi was confused at why she would do that, but soon he would notice that while talking to him, the heroine would often sneak peeks at Horeo and Miriette.

nThat made him realize the heroine's reason!

n...in his opinion that is...

n|Since the game has been altered because of me, the script may be adapting to build around my character and using it to create a bridge for the heroine towards Horeo!|

nHe misunderstood the heroine's actions as he figured out – once again, mistakenly - that he became that one character in the game who is only important to get close to the real capture target....

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