“Sorcerers, wizards, and non-intellectuals! We’ve come to the final game of the event!” the MC of the Interstate Sorcery Academia Games announced. “I know it’s been an… interesting week, what with Cahalot winning almost every single event…”

“What? Almost?” I stood up from my seat as I grinded my teeth.

“By almost everything, I mean every event except for this last event…” the MC sighed, as if he heard my disgruntled complaint.

“Ah, that’s good,” I muttered and sat back on my chair. I could hear the students heave a collective sigh of relief, but they shouldn’t rest yet! If Kendra and her team can’t beat this last team, they will have to go through an entire year of training just to earn back a flawless record next year!

“For some reason, a number of the events were… missing some participants which caused Cahalot to win by default. Luckily for us, the participants competing against Cahalot today has arrived!” the MC shouted.

The stadium’s gates opened, and two groups of students met each other at the center of the field. There were three students on each side, Kendra, Boye, and Iova on one side, while three muscled men stood on the other.

I would rather have Flexia play on the field, but unfortunately, since she was busy being dead, the Games Committee couldn’t evaluate her which disqualified her from competing.

The three musclemen posed, flexing their muscles and straining their bodies to the limit. While they weren’t as big as other the other sorcerers who littered the entire region, they still had a well-defined body shape.

“We are from the City-State of Stra’em, the leading city in Poseism study!” the three men shouted in unison. “We shall lavish in your fear!”

“Aren’t those just yoga poses?” Lard said as he munched on some protein bars.

Kendra pulled her sleeve up, then looked at the hourglass on her wrist. “Yes, yes, can we get this over with?”

“O- Of course…” the MC coughed. “Mages, the last event of the Academia Games is everyone’s favorite, Capture the Flag!”

The crowd cheered, but stopped shortly afterwards when they remembered that Cahalot was on the playing field.

The two groups of students marched to the opposite ends of the playing field, and the ground quaked. Pillars of stone suddenly erected themselves from the ground, and a floating bridge landed in the middle of the field. Fences were created, dividing the field into many small, narrow paths.

“The job is simple. Capture the enemy team’s flag, and bring it back to your side’s flag stand, by hand. That means that no using magic against the flag directly! Also, do not absolutely block off your flag! If you are going to wall it, you must leave a baby skylord-sized gap in your wall. All spells are allowed, as long as they are non-lethal, and knocking out opponents are okay! Now, with three paths open, three contestants on each side, we shall see how their tactics will play out!”

I have no idea how big baby sky pancakes are, but I assume it’s about two musclemen wide.

There were two small mazes on the flanks of the playing field, while there was a floating bridge connected to some stairs at the center. To normal people, this would be a hard decision to play.

Which side should they go through? Would the enemy team leave a defender, or will all of them attack from all sides? Perhaps all three of them would punch through one path?

Well, I expect my students to be smart, so this should be a piece of cake for them.

“Begin!”

Kendra raised her hands and raised a wall of spikes, surrounding Cahalot’s flag. At the same time, she snapped her finger, causing the floating bridge to crash down onto the ground, effectively blocking off the entire center of the field.

While Kendra and Boye charged towards the two mazes on each side of the field, Iova stood guard at gap on the spike wall.

Boye, not wanting to waste any time, simply opted to enhance his body with magic and to crash through the stone maze. Half-way through the maze, Boye managed to collide against one of the opposing team’s members. It seemed that both of them had the same idea.

“Ho ho. Your magic is like muscle magic… but not muscle magic!” the muscleman exclaimed. Boye responded by launching a kick towards his enemy.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the field, Kendra stared at the maze and stood still for a few seconds. Without any warning, she started teleporting across the maze using a few short blinks. Since she basically skipped through the maze, the enemy sorcerer attacking through the same maze missed her entirely and reached Cahalot’s flag stand without any opposition until he reached Iova.

“What? Where is the other puny little girl?” the muscleman asked.

“I don’t know,” Iova answered with a shrug. “But I do know that my cute little sister is already at your flag stand!”

“Bah! It doesn’t matter if I get your flag first!” the muscleman shouted. “But before that, I will crush you, other puny girl!”

The musclemancer spun his dumbbells around, causing circles of fire to erupt around him. He flexed towards Iova, and a serpent made out of fire erupted out of his body. The flying fire serpent dashed across the air towards Iova, but she remained unflinched.

“How boring,” Iova yawned. With a quick chant, she used magic to pull the muscleman off the ground and towards her.

As he was dragged towards Iova, he saw his flame serpent swoop past. Before he could even reach Iova, he was lifted up into the air before being blasted by his own spell. Iova waved her hand, and the muscleman was thrown back into the maze he came out of.

With the muscleman taken care of, the crowd’s attention turned towards Stra’em’s flag stand. Kendra was giving the defending sorcerer a hard time as she teleported around while avoiding the muscleman’s spells.

The muscleman swung a barbell around, creating tornadoes made out of lightning around the Stra’emian flag. Kendra sped through the gaps between tornadoes with her agile body and some advanced spells, but every time she got close, the muscleman would try to knock her away with his barbell.

“Hoh hoh hoh! How do you like my lifting skills?! Combining the powers of Poseism and Sorcerery has led me to achieve great powers!” the muscleman laughed as he continued to keep Kendra at bay.

“But can it achieve this?!” Kendra teleported behind the muscleman once she found a good line of sight and kicked the back of his head.

As the muscleman was kicked forward, he was also punched from the front. Boye made it just in time to land the final blow.

“I’ll be taking this,” Kendra said as she pulled Stra’em’s flag out of the stand before flying back to Cahalot’s flag.

The entire crowd was silent, except for me, who was busy complaining out loud that there were a bit too slower than anticipated.

*

*

*

“And the winner of the Magi-Architect Event is Cahalot!” the MC announced as a group of Cahalotian students got up on the large stadium in the middle of the city to receive their awards. “Next up is the Swimming Event, which was also won by Cahalot!”

The entire award-giving ceremony was just the committee giving out the rewards to my students, while I nodded in satisfaction. Understandably, the musclemen were all pissed, but it was their fault that they were undertrained!

“I can’t believe! Cahalot… winning an event?! No, not just that, they won ALL of the events!” Yomi cried next to me, and tears of joy was streaming from her eyes. “Thank you for your hard work even though I didn’t ask for it, Senior!”

“You contracted me to do that, didn’t you?” I asked.

“E-Eh… I just contracted you to at least get them to the games…” Yomi muttered.

I pulled out the contract from my robes and read over it. Looking at the contract carefully, it was true that I was hired to ‘get at least one student into the Interstate Sorcery Academia Games’, but it was never stated that I had to get the students to ‘beat every single muscleman they encounter in their way’...

Huh…

I quietly pocketed the contract, then shrugged. “I know that. I just didn’t want to half-ass it!”

“As expected of an Archlich! If you could do something, you’d do it ten times over!”

“It’s Archlich, but yes! I am truly the greatest!” I exclaimed.

“What?! It’s over already?! Shouldn’t there be an evil demon invasion happening in the middle of the event or some kind of hidden conspiracy by the musclemen?!” Lard complained.

As the award ceremony reached its conclusion, my students gathered back at my floating manor house with their trophies. They handed the awards to me like I was some kind of evil god or something, but I wasn’t evil! I’m a good guy!

“Boss, you’re laughing a bit too maniacally,” Lard coughed.

“Ah, yes.” I stopped spreading my arms out wide and began inspecting the awards. “Now that Cahalot has won the entire Sorcery Games, my contract is completed, thus I will be handing the mentorship back to Yomi.”

The entire class cheered and they started celebrating.

Ah, I’m sure they’re celebrating because this was the first time Cahalot has won anything… I think. I don’t know what else would they celebrate about.

“What? You’re leaving already, Senior?” Yomi asked.

“I got some business to attend to somewhere else, but the heroes can continue their tutelage here. However, I will be bringing Lard, Priestess Inez, and Kendra with me.”

“Priestess Inez, too?!” a student shouted, and the entire manor erupted in cheers.

Yomi coughed then asked, “I see. Does Senior mind if I ask where you are heading to and why?”

“Remember when you mentioned the Undead Republic?”

“The Undead Republic? Ah, Gravia. What of it, Senior?”

“Well, I’m heading there to fight for the Presidency.”

*

*

*

The dark room which held the council was gloomy. I lit the place up with a snap of my finger, brightening the slightly somber room.

“Grandmaster, we can assume that the Angolian Chapter has been wiped out,” someone reported.

“The Sorcerer City-States Chapter has been acting weird. They’re sending reports that they’re both under attack and that there’s no activity there.”

“The Dungeon HQ gives reports that all is well, but there’s also a good chance that it could have been infiltrated.”

“That little girl… Kendra, was it? It seems she disappeared but reappeared again during the recent Sorcery City-State Games. We need to head over there and take her down. Possibly her tutor as well.”

“The heroes’ party’s teacher?”

“Indeed. Just to be sure, we need to check the other ‘heroes’, as well.”

“We’ll need someone to head over to the Sorcerer City-States, then,” someone concluded.

“That person will have to take a ship from Gravia and to the City-States. The undead is our enemy, so the infiltrator will have to do this a stealthily as they could.”

This is scary.

My closest lieutenant disappeared one day, and nobody was sure if he existed in the first place. Every time I asked someone if they knew who Master Altur was, they would scratch their head in confusion.

Scary! Very scary!

W-Whoever is causing problem for the Order is very serious in literally wiping us out of existence!

Okay, but what if I decided to just talk to this person? Maybe it was just a slight misunderstanding? Maybe I can just beg that person to spare my life?!

I stood up and thumped by fist against the table by accident, because I slipped. By chance, I had also accidentally twisted my hand as I tried to grab the table for balance. It would be embarrassing if the people in the room realized that I nearly broke my hand because I slipped, so I decided to play it cool.

“I… will go meet this threat,” I exclaimed with a deep voice, trying to hide my pain.

“G-Grandmaster… is going to deal with this himself? He sounds very, very angry…”

“By the Goddess… Grandmaster’s voice is filled with bloodlust…”

“Bloodlust? No…” I coughed as I tried to correct them.

“Forgive us, Grandmaster! We shall correct ourselves! We mean that your voice is filled with apocalyptic intentions!” the other people shouted and cried.

The pain in my hand had gotten so bad that I decided to just leave the room. I tried to grab the handle, but I forgot that my hand was in pain, so I accidentally broke the door with a pain-induced swipe.

“Ah…” I muttered, then ran out of the room before I could embarrass myself any longer.

“G-Grandmaster is angry!”

“Sorrows fill our enemies! He shall destroy them all!”

S-Seriously, guys. I just want to go cry...