The rules were simple: anyone who murdered others at this part of the exam would swiftly be executed. While there were expected to be some deaths in the Expert Exam, this year there had been too many. So harsh rules with even harsher penalties had to be put in place.

Most liked to assume that the rules and laws equally applied to everyone. But they were just something people made up and would only be enforced if the benefits outweighed the costs of it.

Suppose Emer killed me and had the illusion that my clan would do nothing about it. He would be in for a rude awakening.

Was the life of someone already dead worth more than the massacre my clan would cause if something happened to me?

Emer was not a dumbass, he knew the situation. That was why he was currently escorting me instead of immediately going for the execution.

He led me to a small room with one table and four wooden chairs. There were no windows, and two people and one demon were already there.

The Headmaster and Ellen were sitting down. In contrast, the samurai zombie stood like a statue in the room's corner.

"I have brought the culprit," Emer grabbed my shoulder and roughly forced me to sit.

"I didn't do it," I shrugged.

That was a shitty excuse. But I was in a room with people much smarter than me, so I knew better than to talk too much.

Ellen narrowed her eyes at me and then turned toward Emer. "Yep, he's telling the truth."

Everyone in the room turned to stare at her with their mouths slightly agape. But the surprise only lasted for a second.

"Why do you say that?" Emer clenched his fist.

"Because he was with me while the murder took place. Are you saying I helped him kill someone?"

She was taking my side? At least I now knew she wasn’t too offended by those jokes I made at her expense. Still, just making up an alibi like that could be dangerous.

Or maybe she couldn’t read the atmosphere and just wanted to help me? That was also a very strong possibility.

I glanced toward the undead samurai. He had an empty look in his eyes and seemed as interested in this as he would be staring at a shoe.

He was probably thinking about swords or something.

“... I think we should at least detain and eliminate him from the exam." Emer, the Sun Exorcist, relented.

"I think we're forgetting the elephant in the room here," the Headmaster intervened, breathing out a ring of smoke in the air. Then he pointed his smoke pipe at me. "The Dark Sword Clan won't be happy if something happened to him. As long as he doesn't admit anything, then we can't afford to agitate them."

What the Headmaster said made it sound like he was more worried about my clan than he was about me. But did he just hint to me that I would be safe if I didn’t admit any wrongdoing? I had never seen someone so good at bullshitting. One day I hoped to be as good as him.

Emer frowned reluctantly. "I will retract the statement about eliminating him from the exam. But we must keep him under custody, or our image as Special Exorcists will be ruined. What if rumors spread that we feared the Dark Sword Clan? It would bring shame and dishonor us all.”

He was trying to incite their sense of pride. But it seemed like Emer wasn't any better than Ellen at this.

Emer talked about a lot of passionate and nationalistic stuff like honor and other similar shit. Yet, he failed to realize that no one else in the room cared about stuff like that.

The Headmaster was a hermit, old enough not to get influenced by silly thoughts like honor and chivalry. As for Ellen, did she look like someone who cared about anything? She lived in a mountain and would continue to do so. Why would it matter to her what other people thought?

This was going to be a learning moment for Emer.

Seeing how the look on his fellow Special Exorcists' faces hadn't changed, realization dawned on Emer’s face. “There have been more unnatural deaths than usual in this exam, and he is the first murderer that was caught. So he might be responsible for other murders too!”

He was still trying to incarcerate me? Then it was likely that some higher-ups were involved and planned to use me as leverage against my clan.

If they had me in their hands, they could threaten the Dark Sword Clan to do their bidding.

But Emer was being a bit too direct and making his intentions too clear. Either he had another plan, and this was just gaslighting, or he was genuinely stupid.

Bam!... Ellen smashed her fist on the table. Her eyes were colder than ice. “I was playing along until now. But if you keep up with this drivel, I will kill you.”

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Emer met her gaze and didn't falter. Ord spewed out of him, and the room got hotter.

Ellen didn’t even bother to gather her Ord and only stared at him. “You might be able to beat the old man since he’s way past his prime. But I will rip you apart, little boy.”

Sometimes it was easy to forget due to how utterly socially inept she was. But Ellen was a genuine Special Exorcist who stood at the top even amongst her monstrous peers.

Ellen D Fork, The Lover Exorcist, ranked the 6th strongest in the world!

Still, Emer didn't seem to get the memo, and his Ord turned crimson red. The heat rose in the room so much that it felt like we were about to be cooked in an oven.

But Ellen didn't retaliate and just narrowed her eyes. The sound of a sword being drawn rang out, and the samurai zombie stepped forward.

"Hey, how about we just forbid him from watching the other fights, and let him go," the Headmaster intervened.

That would stop me from watching the fight and learning my peers' abilities, which would be quite detrimental to anyone if they were in my place. But that was an easy problem to get around.

They were giving me a slap on the wrist for killing someone. Was it unfair? Yes, the entire system was rigged. Calling it just unfair was an understatement.

I wasn’t going to change the system; I was just here to abuse it.

"No, he will be disadvantaged if he doesn't know his future opponent's abilities. Why are we punishing someone who did nothing?" She said, and for a second, it almost convinced me she truly believed that.

The headmaster turned toward me and pointed with his chin toward Ellen.

What? Did he want me to stop her?

Ellen could beat everyone in this room combined. So she wouldn't have trouble battling against The Sun Exorcist, but the problems would come after that. The Sun Exorcist was an obedient dog, and the higher-ups would be outraged if he died.

"Sure, I don't mind staying out of the arena. I needed the rest anyways," I said, nodding amicably toward the Special Exorcists.

Hopefully, they wouldn't start fighting out of nowhere. Because I was in danger just by being in the proximity of their battle.

These people were the monsters who had reached the peak of their respective affinities and special abilities.

Emer snorted and walked out. Clearly, he didn't agree with the ruling. But so what? Faced with someone overwhelmingly stronger than him, he would get himself killed if he spoke too much.

“Why did you do that? You think I can’t handle him?” Ellen complained.

“I didn’t do it to save you but to save him," the old man shook his head. Then his gaze wandered toward the zombie. “The only battle I’m not sure about in this room was if Emer would have been able to beat that samurai of yours.”

Huh? Was the undead samurai strong enough to contend with a Special Exorcist? I knew little about the zombie samurai’s power or background, except that he was pretty good with swords and taught me a couple of things.

“Whatever. Don’t intervene in my conflicts next time, or I will kill you too, old man," said Ellen.

“But the higher-ups like the Sun Exorcist since, unlike most of our rank, he actually listens to them. So if you killed him, they would send people to hunt you down," the Headmaster insisted, trying to share some common sense with her.

But he was barking up the wrong tree. She had spent decades alone in the mountains, and that was most of her life. The last time Ellen had been amongst normal people was in her teens.

“I already live in the mountains. So going into hiding isn’t that big of a deal,” she shrugged and smirked at me jokingly. “Though, I might even take someone else with me into hiding.”

Okay, that was very ambiguous; she meant she would have someone to tease… probably.

The Headmaster narrowed his eyes and added nothing more.

Ellen walked out, and the zombie samurai followed her. I took that as my cue to leave too.

Staying alone in a room with an old man would be weird, so I got up too.

Because of Dumbledore, I haven’t been able to look at friendly old men the same.

Ellen acted like a dumb bimbo but was probably the smartest woman in the room. Maybe she helped me just because she felt like it. But it wasn't a wild assumption to think she could have ulterior motives.

I wasn't smart enough to read people's minds just by their body language. I could only make assumptions. The rest was just me being cautious.

I walked back to the infirmary, where Gem and Bets were. I lay on an empty bed and closed my eyes.

Sei stared at me like a hawk but said nothing.

Why was I surrounded by weirdos? Was I the problem, attracting all these weird people? Nah, that couldn’t be.

…

Two days passed, and I spent my time borrowing books from Sei. He stored them in his mirror dimension and took them out when he had leisure time. At least he had an excellent taste in literature.

His ability was so damn convenient!

No! I wasn't envious… At least, not that envious!

But really, his ability is too versatile and strong to boot. He could fly by levitating the mirrors, store things and people, reflect attacks, and in the future, he will discover a lot more about it.

Sei's ability stood at the top of many other powers if I were to judge by versatility and utility combined. I couldn't even think of a power more versatile than his.

Well, there was Yamata No Orochi, but he was overpowered to the point I wouldn't consider his strength a special ability.

Sei had also been creeping up on me in terms of strength. His growth was nothing short of monstrous.

It was to be expected, with his high affinity and plentiful Ord, it was only a matter of time before he caught up.

At the beginning of this exam, I was 60-70% confident in winning against Sei if a battle broke out. Not only did I have an obvious raw power advantage, but I knew his ability in and out. But now, as we were approaching the finals, my chances of winning against him in a fair fight were less than 20%. A more realistic number would be around 10%, and it had barely been a little over a week since the exams had started.

If he continued growing like this, my chances of winning might be even less than 1% by the end of this arc.

That was shounen growth. So I wasn’t too surprised; my only choice was to grow stronger too.

Deciding to distract myself from uncomfortable thoughts, I picked up a newspaper on the desk beside me.

I had nothing better to do. So this was just meant to pass some time. But as soon as I looked at the first page, my heart clenched, and I almost had a heart attack.

"What the fuck?!"