Midterm Exam (3)
The clock struck 01:02 on the 26th. The content of the previous chapter has been revised.
‘Does it feel like I came to peek at the college entrance exam?’
Whispers filled the classroom, nonstop.
Students stared at the test hall with anxious or uneasy expressions.
‘Everyone seems pretty tense.’
As the first midterm exam in the Union—the highest-ranked academy in South Korea—it was impossible not to feel the pressure on the students’ faces.
These kids had been the big shots back in their own neighborhoods until recently, but after months in the academy, they must have realized just how frogs in a well they really were.
In the Union Academy, where aspiring heroes hailed as geniuses from around the world were thrown around like pebbles, proving themselves was the first real test.
It was only natural for the students to be nervous.
Especially since finishing this midterm meant the official rankings would be decided—nothing like the sloppy freshman admission ranks.
Official ranks.
It was a chance to impress countless clans and the press. They had no choice but to take it seriously.
“Siwoo-ya, fighting! Fighting!”
“Hey, hey, you should worry about your own worries instead of worrying about Siwoo, you know?”
“Hmph, you’re talking like a son-in-law.”
“What?”
Around Lee Siwoo, a crowd of students always gathered like usual.
Siwoo kept his expression completely flat, not even glancing at the first midterm exam.
By the way, were those girls there to take the test or to cheer for Siwoo?
“Hey Daehan, once this exam is over, how about we go hang out together?”
“Get lost.”
“Whoa, so prickly~.”
Kang Daehan yawned with a dull expression and shoved the girl chattering beside him aside.
She looked annoyed, but the girl’s face was lit up with a huge smile, as if something was great.
That girl was Ju Jiyeon from the Ohsung Group.
When you were playing the Kang Daehan route, she showed up as a jealous little bratty young lady. Right now, though, it didn’t matter.
Soyeon and Daehan weren’t really close anyway.
Maybe.
“What are you staring at?”
“Ah.”
I turned my gaze and spotted Jin Soyeon staring at me with an odd expression.
Soyeon slowly turned her head and rolled her eyes toward the spot I’d been looking at.
Eventually, she realized I’d been staring at Daehan.
“Why Daehan?”
“Just… something.”
I scratched my chin for a second, then threw out a question.
“Oh, right. How’s it going with Siwoo lately?”
“Eh? Si… Siwoo?”
Was it because it was such a sudden question?
Soyeon’s eyes widened and she hesitated.
Whoa, judging by her reaction, there really must have been something.
“I’ve been getting this weird vibe between you two lately.”
“N-nothing happened. Don’t worry about it.”
“Really?”
“Um….”
She kept glancing at me, but today was an exam day, so I decided not to push it.
“Hey Jinhyuk.”
“What?”
“If I hang out too much with everyone else lately… I feel like it might bother you?”
“What?”
“I-I mean… recently….”
Soyeon fidgeted with her fingers.
“There was that incident with Won Chang. I thought we should be more careful….”
“Yeah, that makes sense. You know there are a lot of guys who like you without even distinguishing between men and women.”
I knew you wanted to get along with everyone equally, but I think you should think about your looks a little.
You’re really pretty, you know.
Honestly, I’ve never seen a girl as pretty as you in my previous life.
“R-really?”
“Back then I was playing the boyfriend role, so it was okay, but not anymore.”
“Ah… boyfriend role… yeah….”
I watched her mull over the words ‘boyfriend role’ and her expression darkened.
I had no choice but to blink.
After all, guilt was written all over her face.
“…It was really hard, right? Being my boyfriend role?”
“I guess. A little?”
“R-really… sorry.”
Soyeon covered her lower lip with her hand and offered a small apology with a gloomy face.
Her emotions were all over the place today.
I shrugged with a completely casual expression.
“Don’t worry about it. We decided it together.”
I’d gone through the boyfriend role with the prettiest childhood friend I could never even talk to in my previous life, so I wasn’t that bad at it.
I was just a little tired.
“It… it shouldn’t have been that hard….”
Soyeon muttered with a hazy expression.
“I must have been really hard on you… but I didn’t even know… Jinhyuk….”
“No, I wasn’t that tired at all.”
Just as I was thinking ‘Why is Soyeon acting like this?’
“Good morning, both of you.”
Yu Seolhyeon walked over with a bright smile.
“Seolhyeon.”
“Hi, Soyeon.”
“Oh, hi.”
The greetings were pretty stiff.
“By the way, Jinhyuk.”
“Huh? What?”
“How are you going to take this exam?”
“…Seriously?”
My goal for this midterm was simple.
Score the highest marks possible.
“Hmm, really?”
“I’ll do my best. I can’t stay at the bottom forever.”
In the academy, I needed to perform well enough to keep up with the protagonist team or other capable students.
I needed to show enough results and reliability that the other students could trust me.
If a villain appeared and I was dismissed or ignored just because my grades were low, it would cause problems in many ways.
‘And I also needed to prove to the students that I wasn’t to be taken lightly.’
Why did the character Jinhyuk suffer so much from the male leads and NPCs back when I played the game?
Because he was Jin Soyeon’s only boyfriend?
Of course there was that reason, but there was a bigger one.
It was because the character Jinhyuk was so pathetic that the male leads could bully him with no repercussions.
…A bit blunt, but not wrong.
Between the male leads, they respected each other’s abilities and fought like rivals, but in the game, Jinhyuk had no abilities, no power, no money, no connections—nothing.
From the male leads’ perspectives, he was just a tasty victim.
They figured there was no real downside to bullying a pathetic orphan with no skills or grades.
Even Kang Daehan treated him like a parasite glued to Soyeon’s side.
But now I was different.
I had built a positive relationship with Seolhyeon, who could be called my connections, and I’d shown great performance in evaluations and dungeon clears.
Now all that was left was real, visible results to prove I wasn’t easy to mess with.
So that even if the male leads and their followers annoyed me, I couldn’t be touched so easily.
“Doing my best, huh… that sounds easy for you.”
Seolhyeon chuckled.
“……Even if Jinhyuk tries his best, what’s the point.”
Whoa, dude.
Soyeon, are you secretly looking down on me?
You’re rank 257, right? Let’s see how it goes later.
“Hehe. You think so? Maybe you’ll score much higher than me.”
“What?”
“Oh, right, you didn’t know, did you? I totally forgot.”
Soyeon’s eyes narrowed slightly.
Ah, Seolhyeon’s poking at Soyeon again.
She promised not to bully, but she seemed to be enjoying the teasing.
“Well, I guess I’ll be going first. See you later.”
Seolhyeon left the place abruptly after saying everything she wanted to.
As Seolhyeon disappeared into the distance, Soyeon pouted her lips with a dissatisfied expression.
“What’s with that? What do you think I don’t know?”
I watched Soyeon muttering to herself and thought.
‘Should I tell Soyeon too? About the fact that I have future sight.’
There was a small part of me that was worried about saying it, but if I told her, I could help her grow even more effectively.
‘I guess I should think about it first.’
I looked at my watch along with that thought.
Was it already that late?
The first practical exam was about to start.
***
“Hmph, lucky you, Jinhyuk? Same team as me.”
“Yeah. Lucky.”
“You’ve been getting pretty close to Seolhyeon lately, haven’t you?”
“Jealous?”
“No way!”
Short-haired Seo Nari shook her twin-tails left and right with a vehement “No!”
Her cheeks were flushed red, so I must have hit the spot.
Well, since it was already obvious, I decided not to mention it.
“Alright, let’s decide on a team leader first.”
The first practical exam was a dungeon clear.
We had to clear the dark, cave-shaped dungeon in record time with the five-person team the academy had randomly assigned.
This dungeon was made for the exam, so it wasn’t especially dangerous, but it was full of artificial monsters and traps to prepare us for real life.
But none of it mattered to me.
Why?
Crap, this is the main story. The main story.
It was different from when we were in Yeongdeung Mountain.
I had already cleared this dungeon dozens of times, and I’d memorized everything related to this midterm—the novels, comics, setting books, the wikia, the monster encyclopedia, even writing a strategy guide and spreading it online.
Of course, I didn’t remember everything perfectly, but it didn’t matter.
I knew the dungeon layout, the positions of the traps, the types and weaknesses of the monsters, and the evaluation criteria like the back of my hand.
What I needed was all of that information.