We borrowed a training center on the school grounds to have a mock battle.

The rules were simple.

Either the opponent would give up, or Chris-sensei would decide the end of the match.

I faced Dominic and waited for the signal to start the match.

“Hmph. I don’t know why sensei picked you, you incompetent bastard, but I’m the one who’s going to win! I’ll show you!”

“You shouldn’t use such strong words.

Because sometimes you can be tormented by your own words.”

I, Owen, know that very well.

“Shut up! I’ll kill you!”

“Both of you. Stop arguing. If you have a problem with each other, you can talk with your fists.”

Chris-sensei spouted cool lines like a character from a shounen manga.

Chris-sensei’s lines were very cool as she was a manly person.

“Get in position.”

She made sure that Dominic and I were facing each other at a distance.

“Begin!”

She announced the start of the match.

Immediately, Dominic attacked.

“Fireball!

Dominic unleashed a “fireball” spell.

I pointed my right hand at the incoming fireball and took a stance to intercept it.

“Great Fireball ……!”

The fireball was about a meter in diameter, and it swallowed the flaming bullet with ease as it was attacking Dominic.

“Wall of fire! Protect me!”

Dominic’s wall of fire prevented the large fireball from reaching him.

Dominic was good at fire magic.

And so was I.

I could also use gravity magic, but it was not very useful.

Especially when I used gravity magic to fly, I could not use any other magic.

It would be as if I was asking my opponent to aim at me.

The most useful means of attack that I had was fire magic.

This was a battle between fire magic users.

I couldn’t afford to lose.

‘I’ll show you my real fire magic. —Ifrit, annihilate the enemy with your scorching heat.’

Magic was about imagination.

I imagined an incarnation of the Ifrit from a certain RPG from my previous life.

It was a beast with flames all over its body and a demonic appearance.

I imagined the magic that the Ifrit would unleash when destroying its enemies.

The scorching flames attacked Dominic.

“What, what, what is that power?

Dominic became impatient  and started to panic, not even trying to use defensive magic.

“Freeze!”

Chris-sensei activated her ice magic.

The ice moved as if it had a will of its own and headed for the flames.

Boom-boom!

The ice and the flames collided, and the sound spread throughout the area like an explosion.

The flames I had released disappeared, and the ice that had been heated to a high temperature turned into steam, creating a fog around me.

As expected of Chris-sensei, who is known as the [Freezing Demon].

She easily canceled out my magic.

When the fog cleared, I saw Dominic sitting on the ground, slumped over.

When Chris-sensei saw him, she raised her right hand and said,

“The winner, Owen Pepper!

“And the mock battle is over.

“It looks like he won much easier than I thought he would.

“Is there anyone else who has a problem with Owen participating in the tournament? If so, I’ll let you compete with him right here and now.”

Chris-sensei looked around at the students, but none of them reacted.

Everyone’s mouths were hanging open in surprise.

“Then, I declare Owen a participant in the tournament!”

And that’s how I ended up participating in the martial arts tournament.

■　■　■

“…… Owen Pepper, huh?”

Chris thought back to the mock battle they had just had, and chuckled to herself.

It has been said that the Pepper family was on the decline, but that information was crealy wrong.

Though, there were a certain number of people who were aware of Owen Pepper’s talent.

Ralph Alderath, for example.

When Owen had used his flying magic at Natalie’s birthday party, Ralph seemed to have realized his usefulness.

Then he started to use his daughter to get closer to Owen.

“Natalie doesn’t seem to be approaching him for the sake of recruitment, though.”

In aristocratic society, the amount of talented wizards in your pocket was an important factor of your status.

And above all, a good wizard could be as powerful as dozens of ordinary soldiers.

Chris had also been scouted by many nobles, but she ignored them all.

Occasionally, some of them would come on to her strongly, but she was able to silence them with his power.

In a country where magic was supreme, a three-star wizard had a lot of say.

That’s how valuable a talented wizard was. There were many other people who were aware of Owen’s talent.

However, Chris was the first one to notice Owen’s talent before they did.

Chris was an old acquaintance of Katherina.

They could be said to be rivals who had competed with each other in magic at the school.

Chris was not as good as Katherina in controlling magic power.

Chris, who was a three-star wizard of the highest level, was said to be no match for her in magic control.

You can see how powerful Katherina’s abilities are. Despite her control over her power, Katherina’s performance in magic was not good.

This is because she had an overwhelmingly low amount of magic power. In fact, it was so low that even her entrance into the school was in jeopardy.

At that time, the criterion for magic grades was, simply put, how powerful the magic was.

Of course, there were other factors, but a lack of magic power was a clear negative factor.

If Katherina had any magic power, she would have become an incredible magician.

And because of her low magic power, she could not find a good job in the capital.

‘If you had asked me, I would have introduced you to any number of jobs.’

However, Katherina seemed to think that an introduction from her rival Chris would go against her beliefs, so she simply refused.

She was stubborn in that way.

Then, some time after graduating from the school, she heard that Katherina had become Owen’s tutor.

That was the first time Chris learned about Owen.

Just from what he had heard, so far she had felt that Owen was an incredibly talented person.

But in fact, he was even better than she had expected.

‘I wondered how he could use magic of such high power in his first year…..’

He thought back to the mock battle they just had.

Owen’s last magic.

Even children who graduated from school, there were very few children who could handle the magic of that power.

‘—Honestly,… a child with a tremendous amount of power showed up.’

In addition, the third prince, Natalie, and the saint are all members of this year’s class.

This is too much for a normal teacher to handle.

“I’m sure you can’t leave the teaching of these people to incompetent people. I can understand the principal’s point of view. I guess that’s why he asked me to help.”

This year’s Class A members were so outstandingly talented that only a three-star wizard could be entrusted with their education.

“That’s a lot of responsibility.”

Chris muttered to herself.