第２４９掘：冒険が始まる！！ (Part1)
**Chapter 249: The Adventure Begins!!**
**Side: Yuki**
“I am truly, deeply sorry!! Come on, Eoid, you apologize too!”
“I-I’m so sorry.”
A young man and woman were bowing their heads before me.
The boy was Eoid. He was the one who had triggered the "lucky lecher" incident—a dangerous individual whom Taiki and I had already pegged as a potential "protagonist" of this academy. You never knew what kind of flags a guy like that might trip.
If he ever dragged my wives into one of his tropes, I’d have to erase him from society. Though, honestly, before I could even pass judgment, he’d likely be a corpse or a mental wreck at their hands anyway.
The other person was the girl who had hurled a toilet mop—the "Excalimop"—at the back of Eoid’s head, inadvertently causing him to tackle Lady Samantha into a compromising position. I’d spotted these two on the day we were turned away at the gate, but I hadn't expected to run into them on our very first day of enrollment.
What are we, some kind of scripted event? The side characters who bump into the hero and heroine?
Well, all I could do was watch how things played out. I’d already decided to avoid trouble, so even if they got caught up in some mess, I was staying strictly hands-off.
“Look, we weren't the ones inconvenienced, so it’s fine with us. But shouldn't you be giving a sincere apology to Lady Samantha? No matter how you look at it, she was just an innocent bystander caught in your chaos,” I said, stating the obvious.
Behind me, Taiki muttered under his breath.
“...Giving a serious lecture to a classic trope.”
“Shut it.”
If you applied real-world logic to these "accidental groper" tropes back in Japan, the guy would be hauled off by the police for public indecency immediately. Besides, he’d just done that to a Duke’s daughter from another country. In a medieval setting, shouldn't his head be physically separated from his shoulders by now?
Meanwhile, the victim, Lady Samantha, was hidden behind some bushes, frantically rearranging her disheveled clothes.
“...How does a simple fall manage to mess up a woman’s outfit that badly?” I wondered aloud.
“Humanity has many mysteries yet to solve...” Taiki replied.
Both of us recalled the state of Samantha’s attire moments ago. While the other male students passing by had been delighted, Taiki and I were more impressed by the sheer, miraculous physics of the stripping technique.
I mean, really. He just fell on her, yet somehow her skirt ended up flipped, her academy blazer was tossed aside, and the buttons of her blouse had popped perfectly, leaving her chest in a state that was barely—and I mean *barely*—covered. If that wasn't a miracle, I didn't know what was.
As Taiki and I pondered the metaphysics of fanservice, the two students looked dejected and spoke up.
“Ah, right. I’ll make sure to apologize properly to Samantha later.”
“It really was our fault. Yes, we’ll apologize to her.”
They seemed surprisingly earnest.
“Doesn't seem like the cynical, twisted type of protagonist,” I noted.
“Yeah. With that personality, he’s definitely not a dark hero. Dark heroes are a pain for us to deal with anyway,” Taiki agreed.
Judging the wicked with evil, refusing to be happy to atone for sins—dark protagonists were always high-maintenance. From the look of him, he didn't have a dark past as a former assassin or a secret champion of some underground martial arts tournament. He wasn't a "hidden power" type either.
I’d checked his stats, and there was nothing special. Both of them were average.
Well, Eoid did have some "protagonist-like" skills: *Mana Manipulation* and *Magic Knowledge*. That was it. Essentially, he couldn't actually use magic himself.
However, *Mana Manipulation* was the kicker. I had that skill too. It allowed one to compress mana into physical force or interfere with an opponent’s spells. It was a skill I excelled at. It was hard for enemies to detect—unless they could "see" mana directly—because it didn't manifest as obvious phenomena like fire or water.
The girl who had been chasing Eoid—Amanda—had *Fire Magic* and the *Tamer* skill. Same as Aslin.
Of course, there was such a massive gap in experience and performance that comparing them was pointless. Since there were almost no monsters on this continent, honing a Tamer skill here would be incredibly difficult. In contrast, Aslin could summon and tame whatever she wanted through the dungeon’s functions.
That said, Aslin only had about ten monsters directly under her care. She always said, "You shouldn't keep them if you can't take care of them," which was perfectly sensible.
The problem was that those ten monsters weren't exactly things a normal person could "take care of." When Taiki first saw her lineup, he’d asked her if she was planning to topple a nation.
(To be clear, Steve, Surakichi-san, and Mino-chan are my subordinates, so they don't count toward her total.)
“Anyway, let’s start with introductions. I’m Yuki. I’m a transfer student from Zilba, more or less.”
“Nice to meet you. I’m Eoid. I’m a third-tier student in the Magic Academy, in the same class as Samantha.”
“I’m Amanda, also a third-tier student in their class. Nice to meet you!”
After that, Taiki and my wives, who were standing behind me, introduced themselves one by one.
So, "third-tier," huh? In this academy, they didn't use "years"; they used "tiers" or "floors." This was because the school was a strict meritocracy.
The highest tier was ten. Apparently, anyone could reach the third tier just by passing written exams. However, from the fourth tier onward, practical exams and duels were factored into the evaluation. You couldn't move up without genuine strength.
By the way, it was possible to skip grades—jumping from three to five, or even eight—if you were good enough. It was a thorny path, though.
The graduation requirement was reaching the fifth tier, so there was no absolute need to aim for six or higher unless you wanted a better job. Those in the ninth or tenth tiers were considered geniuses. While not quite at the level of the Headmaster, they could use large-scale magic—a rare feat on this continent where magic had declined. Their value as military assets was astronomical.
Then again, geniuses often had their heads in the clouds, so the academy also served as a way to keep those eccentric powerhouses contained in one place.