Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei - Volume 03 - Nine Schools Competition (I) by Sato Tsutomu Page A

internal notification that they were possible candidates for participant or engineer slots officially began.
    Tatsuya sat with the various candidates in the visitors section to the side,
    Any organization that exceeded a certain size would naturally contain bigots that swiftly identified Tatsuya as an outsider.
    As expected, not long after the meeting began, someone asked what a 1st Year Course 2 student was doing here.
    That certainly did not imply that no one looked upon Tatsuya kindly.
    There were actually a surprising number of favorable opinions.
    The upperclassmen differed from the 1st Year students in that they knew Tatsuya was a special Course 2 student in addition to being a formidable asset to the Public Morals Committee.
    Despite this, there were still more opposing than supporting, often in the form of negative emotions rather than objective logic, which caused the meeting to deadlock and waste more valuable time.
    "In summation. . . . . ."
    Suddenly, a solemn voice dominated the conference room.
    The voice was not particularly loud, yet all the squabbles quickly died away as everyone focused on the speaker.
    Juumonji Katsuto, who had hitherto remained silent, cast his gaze across the room before starting to speak:
    "In my opinion, the problem lies in that everyone is unfamiliar with what level of skill Shiba possesses. If so, the most efficient solution is to submit that to a live test."
    The spacious room was dead silent.
    This would bring about a simple and effective result that no one would bemoan, but because of the risk involved, no one had dared to propose this course of action.
    ". . . . . . That's not a bad suggestion, but how do we go about it in a practical manner?"
    "Simply having him perform a maintenance right now would suffice."
    Mari broke the silence with her question, to which Katsuto provided a simple answer.
    "Allow me to be the guinea pig."
    The CADs currently on the market must be intricately synchronized with their respective user after maintenance.
    Even if ten Magicians used the same model, there were ten different methods to adjust their CADs.
    The Activation Sequences provided by the CAD would be directly absorbed into the Magician's subconscious domain.
    In other words, a Magician's mental state was completely defenseless against their own CAD.
    Recent CAD models were equipped with a function that improved Activation Sequence processing, but at the same time made it easier for them to affect the user's mental status.
    If there was a problem during maintenance, not only would magic efficiency decrease, other side effects would include discomfort, headaches, dizziness, vomiting, or even major harm such as hallucinations or mental scarring. Thus, the higher the CAD's capability, the more skilled the maintenance needed to be.
    For Magicians, voluntarily yielding their CAD to be maintained by an Artificer whose strength was unknown posed a substantial risk.
    Even if it was Katsuto's own suggestion, his willingness to offer himself as a test subject showed considerable courage.
    "No, I was the one who recommended him, so I should take that role."
    Mayumi immediately requested to take responsibility likely out of a sense of duty, but from another perspective, this likely implied that she didn't wholly trust Tatsuya, which was something that Tatsuya easily read between the lines to his discomfort.
    "Wait, please let me do it."
    That being said, the fact that Kirihara was willing to pinch hit caused Tatsuya considerable shock — the mettle displayed by this man was certainly comforting.
    The school's CAD maintenance facility open to faculty and students was located in the Technical Skills Building.
    However, this time they weren't using the preset maintenance devices in the Practical Skills Building, but bringing the mobile maintenance devices used in the Nine Schools Competition to the conference room to conduct their test.
    The CAD in question was also one that qualified under the regulations