After finishing her "test," Larkspur took her score sheet back to her assessment group, where Tudingui and Foxtail Grass were waiting.
As expected, the first thing the three did upon meeting was compare their scores. Tudingui's Magic Armament had received an S rating, just as expected, fully living up to everyone's impression of her.
However, Larkspur remembered that during the previous assessment, the Magic Armament Tudingui had displayed was only a lance-banner, which should have counted as a "single-piece Magic Armament." Based solely on what she had shown then, she should not have received such a high evaluation. The only explanation was that she had still been holding back at the time, which was enough to show just how astonishing her strength was among her peers.
Then there was Foxtail Grass, who had received a surprising A-.
It was surprising not because Larkspur thought she was weak. Rather, Foxtail Grass truly had not had many chances to display her Magic Armament during the maze assessment. Though she had repeatedly stressed that she was actually "very strong," and had indeed demonstrated rather decent combat ability, her performance had seemed noticeably behind that of the other A-rated candidates...
Looking back now, the only explanation was that Tudingui had performed too brilliantly, leaving Foxtail Grass with little room to shine.
Lastly was Larkspur, or rather, candidate "Gentian," who had received a C.
It was an average, perhaps even below-average rating among all the candidates, but ordinary enough. Nearly forty percent of the candidates present had scored C or below.
Neither Tudingui nor Foxtail Grass showed any contempt or disdain toward that result. Instead, they comforted Larkspur, saying things like, "You're still young, so it's normal for your Magic Armament development to be slower than ours." Tudingui even took the opportunity to try ruffling