Special Evaluation, Not Just the Usual One - 4
“Fuck! Why the hell do we have to take the Silver rank evaluation again?!”
A male student hurled the sword he’d been holding and exploded in rage. The training ground echoed with his fury.
“Aren’t you all pissed off? Huh? Did we pull some kind of trick? Did we cheat? We escaped Bronze on pure skill! The examiners acknowledged it! Right?”
“That’s true.”
“Senior’s right. Absolutely right.”
“Then why are we stuck doing this shit?!”
The students who had been training nearby immediately chimed in. Most of them had once been Silver and were demoted back to Bronze, so their reaction was only natural.
“We can’t just take this lying down. No matter how great the Academy Chancellor is, even if it’s Ma Hakjun, this is crossing the line.”
“What are you going to do about it? Got any ideas?”
“We make it public. Leak it to the press and say the students are being treated extremely unfairly. Claim it’s completely unreasonable. If we do that, there’s a good chance the situation will swing in our favor.”
Several students nodded at the boy’s suggestion, murmuring that it might actually work.
“We should add a little more flavor to it.”
“Like what?”
“Some weird examiner suddenly shows up, harasses the students, pulls some strings behind the scenes, convinces the Chancellor, and forcibly demotes a bunch of Silver students back to Bronze.”
“That would violate school regulations. There was never supposed to be an evaluation that decides demotions in the first place.”
“I’m disappointed in the Chancellor too. A sudden special evaluation? How are we supposed to ignore that?”
The murmuring grew louder and louder. Almost every opinion boiled down to one thing: We can’t just sit here and take this.
But the next words from one student forced everyone into silence.
“Um… but guys. Examiner Baek Seojin isn’t just any examiner. Isn’t he somehow connected to Lady Irina?”
“Ah…”
“Oh.”
To these young ability users, she was both an object of admiration and terror. The crazy yellow bitch who would crumple anyone who annoyed her like they were a villain. The woman who proved her nickname wasn’t just for show by constantly doing insane things.
“Actually, I was thinking… maybe Lady Irina, dissatisfied with the students’ level, is using Examiner Baek Seojin as her front to push us around like this.”
“…Fuck. That actually sounds entirely possible.”
“So if we push back here…”
“It’d be the same as picking a fight with that crazy woman.”
Just moments ago, these students had been treating even Ma Hakjun like he was no big deal. But the moment Irina’s name came up, no one dared to speak recklessly. Ma Hakjun was still a good-natured old gentleman who knew his limits. That crazy yellow bitch, on the other hand, was the type to fold people in half with a smile on her face.
“Then what? Are we just supposed to stay stuck in Bronze forever?”
“That’s even worse. I hate that even more. We finally escaped Bronze…”
They had believed that simply escaping Bronze would make everything perfect. No more academic warnings, just coast through classes, graduate without much effort. Once they were out in the real world, the most they could hope for was reassignment as C-rank ability users. But C-rank ability users handled the majority of the work. Most incidents involved lower-grade monsters, and most villains operated at that level too. Unless the world underwent some massive upheaval, that reality wasn’t going to change.
So as far as making a living went, there wouldn’t be any major problems. Stronger monsters? More dangerous villains? Why worry about that? There were plenty of people better than them who would take care of it. Just like how everyone had their own place in life.
These students had thought that living as C-rank ability users until retirement would be enough. If they got lucky and reached B-rank, they might even gain a bit of popularity.
“My family chewed me out so bad. They asked if I’d been demoted.”
“Why did you even tell them? I just kept it hidden.”
“Same here. How am I supposed to explain this? If I say I might get an academic warning, they’ll lose their minds.”
They wanted to vent their dissatisfaction somehow, but the person behind their opponent was too terrifying. Yet swallowing their pride and trying again felt so unfair it drove them crazy. The students sighed one after another, completely unable to focus on training.
“Students.”
From the entrance of the training ground, the person every student had seen at least once was approaching. It was the Silver rank examiner, Baek Seojin.
“Ah, shit.”
“Why is he here again? Looking for a fight?”
The students’ reactions were understandably cold. After all, he was the one who had shoved them back into the hellish pit called Bronze. How could they possibly greet him with smiles?
“I came to deliver some good news.”
Good news my ass. The fact that you showed up is already terrible news.
“First of all, we have decided to suspend academic warnings for those in Bronze for the time being.”
“…Huh?”
“What?!”
“For real?!”
With that single sentence, the students’ attitudes flipped in an instant. The most urgent and horrifying issue for them had been the academic warning—the very thing that had caused all the cursing and resentment.
“Yes, everyone. I just spoke with the Chancellor a moment ago. He judged that it would be unfair to let Bronze students suffer damage while we reorganize the ranking system. So we’ve decided to suspend academic warnings until the situation is resolved. You don’t need to worry about it anymore.”
“Whoaaa…!”
“We’re saved. We’re actually saved.”
Baek Seojin quietly observed the students as they breathed sighs of relief.
As expected, that was the biggest source of hostility.
Even in regular universities, academic warnings were terrifying. In an ability user academy where one wrong move could lead to immediate expulsion, an academic warning? It was perfectly understandable that they would foam at the mouth in protest.
“I hope this eases some of the burden you’ve all been carrying.”
“It really has! Thank you so much, Examiner! Wow, we’re actually saved.”
“The Chancellor really promised this, right? He won’t suddenly slap us with warnings later, will he?”
“How long is the suspension period? It wasn’t clearly stated!”
Baek Seojin explained that the Chancellor and professors were still discussing the exact period, but it definitely wouldn’t be short. If they ever decided to reinstate the warnings, a public notice would be issued at least two weeks in advance, so there was no need to worry.
The students nodded at his words.
“Excuse me, Examiner.”
But their dissatisfaction couldn’t be completely erased with just this.
“We really appreciate you looking out for us. We do. But if we’re being honest, couldn’t this whole thing have been avoided? Why are we suddenly being pushed back down to Bronze?”
“Exactly. It’s not like we cheated or anything. We passed the evaluation with other examiners.”
The students who were still unhappy with the current situation voiced their thoughts. They seemed to want at least some explanation they could understand.
“I fully understand your anger and frustration. Honestly, I expected to get cursed out a lot. But even so, there is a reason I’m doing this.”
What mattered most to them was their immediate reality. So Baek Seojin decided to overlay another reality on top of that one.
“Not long ago, one of my friends was killed in action.”
This was true. One of Baek Seojin’s acquaintances had indeed died to a monster. They hadn’t been particularly close—just someone he saw occasionally—but it was still a fact.
“He was a C-rank ability user. An extremely ordinary one, just like most people. He was living diligently that day too, but unfortunately ran into a dangerous monster among the C-rank ones and lost his life.”
“…I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Thank you. Now, students, I have a question for you. In the current ability user ranking system, which rank suffers the most deaths?”
One student cautiously raised his hand.
“C-rank.”
“Correct. Then, where does C-rank fall in the Academy’s standards?”
“It’s Silver, but Examiner, there’s a flaw in that statement.”
Baek Seojin looked at the student as if inviting him to continue.
“The reason there are so many deaths among C-rank ability users is simply because there are so many C-rank users. You can’t say they died because C-rank is weak or because they lacked skill.”
It was a fairly important point. The more people there were, the more casualties there would naturally be. It would be wrong to twist that into proof of C-rank ability users’ incompetence.
“Yes, I agree with that part. However, does the fact that there are simply more of them fully explain why there are so many deaths? I don’t think so.”
“Are you doubting the competence of C-rank ability users?”
“You keep trying to steer it that way. That’s not what I’m saying.”
The student asked, Then what do you want? His tone was sharp. The students were now staring at Baek Seojin with hostile eyes.
Baek Seojin instinctively knew this was the moment to play his trump card.
“I simply don’t want any of you to meet the same fate as my friend.”
He forced a smile. His voice was slightly somber. Adding a deeply troubled expression was the perfect touch.
“I don’t want any of you to become one of those casualties. Doesn’t it feel unfair? He was finally going to try doing things properly, but he died so pointlessly. If he’d just been a little luckier, he might have survived. That’s why I’m willingly taking on the role of the villain—to prevent even a little bit of that tragedy.”
It was fortunate that the students already knew he was playing the villain.
“Everyone. Let’s be blunt—what benefit do I gain from doing something like this? I only get cursed at and earn your hostility. I gain absolutely nothing from this.”
Lie. He gained far too much for it to even be funny.
“That’s… true, now that you mention it.”
“Yeah. When you think about it, this doesn’t benefit the examiner at all.”
From the students’ perspective, who didn’t know the truth, they had no choice but to sympathize.
“I’ve heard that at the Academy, you can shed sweat instead of blood. I truly hope that’s the case. Even if you’re the same Silver, the same C-rank, wouldn’t the person who tried just a little harder have the advantage?”
I have nothing to gain, so why would I do this? I’m doing it for your sake. I mean it.
They probably wouldn’t shed tears of emotion at his words, but the number of people openly rebelling or showing hostility would decrease significantly. After all, people had always been weak to a good melodrama.
“I’m not saying I’ll turn the path to Silver into an impenetrable fortress. I just want you to show a little more effort than before. Just a tiny bit. If you can give me the confidence that none of you will suffer the same tragedy as my friend, that will be more than enough.”
In the beginning, he had been cursed at, beaten, and even received complaints. But as he gained experience, he had developed the kind of eloquence that could make even the most malicious complainers feel guilty and leave. Baek Seojin was now pouring that skill without reservation onto these still-green students.