This year, I ended up grading the high-difficulty problems for the Magic Tower entrance exam. It’s not out of some sense of duty as the exam committee chair who made the problems hard... not at all. It was simply because no one else volunteered to grade them.
Initially, I planned to discuss it with the school heads, but the difficulty level was higher than expected, so I ended up doing it alone. If people started arguing over the grades, I figured it’d be better to take point rather than get dragged into shared blame.
Going through things like this, it makes you think that being in a high position isn't always a good thing.... Or am I just being complacent? Soon after, an administrative staff member from the Magic Tower stumbled into my office.
"Chairman. Here are the answer sheets from the high-difficulty exam hall."
"Thank you... Huh...?"
"Is something wrong?"
"Well..."
The staff member had dark circles under their eyes. The atmosphere in the annex exam hall must have been quite fierce. I spoke to the administrative staff.
"You've really worked hard. Thank you."
"Haha. This is nothing."
"..."
This person's mouth is smiling, but their eyes are not. Should I have spread a detection spell towards the exam hall to see what was going on? No. The highest-ranking mages might sense my detection spell.