Into the City
Purity Academy.
The educational institution where Eva Amethyst, the original protagonist, enrolls — and the stage upon which the novel Academy Yuri Princess unfolds.
It is a place dedicated to training the Guardians who hunt the monsters spilling out of dungeons and keep the citizenry safe, an academy recognized the world over as the finest of the fine. Even in a land steeped in caste and riddled with discrimination at every turn, admission is granted on talent alone, with birthright counting for nothing.
And today, December 27th — the entrance examination held once every three years takes place in the Zerta Kingdom.
"This is basically like stepping out for a stroll around the neighborhood."
I murmured quietly to myself in front of the guard post. Having read the novel cover to cover, I'd known a slum clung to the outskirts of the capital — but reaching my destination in under thirty minutes on foot really drove home just how close the two worlds were.
<"Once you're past this checkpoint, you can enter the kingdom's capital, Rosipool. From there it's a quick trip to the dome stadium where the entrance exam is being held.">
"Then let's get going."
There was no reason to hesitate, so I walked straight up to the checkpoint.
"Halt right there!"
The moment I approached, a uniformed soldier came toward me.
"What business brings you here?"
"I have errands to run in Rosipool. May I pass?"
"Please present your identification."
At the soldier's request, I pulled the rectangular plastic card I'd prepared in advance from my pocket and handed it over.
Beep!
"Identity confirmed. You may proceed."
The soldier pressed my ID against a card reader, finished his verification, and stepped aside. I tucked the returned card back into my pocket and passed through the checkpoint.
"Smooth sailing into the city."
<"If it were any other slum dweller, maybe — but if it's you, that's a different story.">
The cities of the Zerta Kingdom do not admit anyone of unknown origin. And people from outside the city walls — commonly called the lowborn — can't even obtain identification in the first place. Treated as less than human, they commit a crime simply by lingering near the city limits, which is why none of them ever come anywhere close. Solis, however, was a special case.
<"Reader, how many times do I have to say it? Never — and I mean NEVER! Even if you have to give your name, do not mention your family name. Understood?">
"That's the tenth time you've said that. My ears are going to grow calluses."
Solis — this man had an ID card despite coming from a bandit village. It was a memento his mother had left behind before she died, but at the time, Solis couldn't believe that a lowborn mother could have possibly obtained an ID for her son. Convinced it might be a forgery, he simply kept the thing tucked away safe and never dreamed of entering the city with it.
Having read the author's worldbuilding compendium dozens of times, I knew his secret — which is exactly why I'd gone through the identity verification at the checkpoint with such confidence.
In any case, having arrived safely at the capital, I drank in the cityscape I had only ever known through words. High-rise towers soaring as if to pierce the sky, their glass facades blazing with the reflected light of the morning sun — the blare of car horns and the cheerful clamor of crowds mingled together, radiating the dynamic energy unique to a great metropolis.
A shocking, unfamiliar sight that existed nowhere in Solis's memory. A city so dazzlingly advanced that compared to the slum he lived in, it might as well have leapt forward centuries. And yet, inexplicably, it was also a scene profoundly familiar to me.
"This is a dead ringer for South Korea."
It was copied straight from the architecture and streetscapes of my homeland — dear old planet Earth. If I had to point out differences, maybe the trees lining the streets were lusher, the roads weren't packed shoulder to shoulder, and everything was a good deal cleaner?
"No offense, Author, but ripping off our entire world wholesale is a little shameless, don't you think?"
<"Our world's star and your reader's star aren't that far apart in age. Chasing designs that were both functional and beautiful, we simply arrived at similar results. Just like how the triangle is the most stable shape — it's the natural outcome of prioritizing efficiency.">
"..."
<"I'm serious! I'm a god, but I've told you over and over that I can't directly intervene in this world!">
"I'm kidding, I know. You don't have to keep explaining."
Even if I had been a god — or an author — and intervention had been possible, I wouldn't have wasted power on trifles like this. I'd have poured everything into fixing that trainwreck of an ending. She told me that was exactly why she'd summoned me into this world, so I had no choice but to believe her.
<"More importantly, we need to get to the registration desk. Miss the deadline by even one second and you'll be a dog chasing a chicken, staring up at the roof it escaped onto.">
"No need to fuss. I know."
Anyone could challenge the Academy entrance exam regardless of age, gender, or region — yet the number who actually took it could be counted on one hand. If the Academy accepted every Tom, Dick, and Harry, sorting through applicants alone would take years, so it ran a screening process to prove the minimum talent required for admission.
That process was already in full swing here in the city.
A curtain of blue hung draped around the dome stadium receiving entrance applications. It was thin and transparent enough to see clean through, yet its sturdiness rivaled sharpened steel, and its hardness could stand comparison to diamond.
Murmuring the passage from the novel, I set my steps toward the dome stadium. Though the original never specified its exact location, only one place in this city was draped in a curtain vast enough to swallow whole buildings whole — a presence impossible to ignore even if you tried — so finding my destination wasn't difficult.
The problem was what came next.
"This is what I have to get past to meet the protagonist, right?"
<"Yes. If you can't get over this, there's no changing the ending — you can't even get started.">
I laid a hand against the blue wall blocking my path. The curtain was cold as ice, and for all its thin, fragile appearance, it didn't budge an inch no matter how hard I pushed.
"So it can't be broken by force, huh?"
<"If it could, people wouldn't be busting their asses out there like that.">
Clang!
"Damn it, it didn't even flinch!"
"Don't give up! Fight back!"
"One more time, all together! One, two!"
People swinging baseball bats, people hammering away at the blue wall with hammers and pickaxes — the ones the author called ass-busters were swarming all around it.
"Everyone's really working hard."
<"Get into Purity Academy and you can live free of the caste system. In this world, rising in status is worth a king's ransom to these people.">
This was a world apart from the one I'd lived in. Caste ran rampant here, and everyone accepted it as a matter of course. The technology was on par with Earth's — maybe even beyond it — but only a sliver of the population enjoyed its benefits. Aside from a select few city dwellers, most people couldn't even read or write. Those outside the walls, unable to obtain so much as an ID card, were denied treatment as human beings.
And even that sliver was split between nobles and commoners, with the upper class trampling the lower. A madman's world, where you could cripple someone's legs on a whim and suffer no punishment for it. The novel only looked peaceful because it unfolded through the eyes of the protagonist — a flawless beauty blessed with the holy trinity of talent, power, and looks. The darkness this world harbored was savage beyond description.
To live like a human being — the most ordinary wish anyone in a civilized world could hold. Tear down this one wall and that dream became reality. Who wouldn't take the chance?
"Even reading it as a webnovel I thought the discrimination was fucking insane, but seeing it up close, it's even worse."
This curtain, forged from hardened pure mana, wouldn't so much as scratch under ordinary impacts. The orthodox strategy was to reinforce your body or weapon with mana before striking — but even then, the average person's mana would barely manage a superficial nick. Considering the truth of this world — the aristocratic bloodlines and the very origins of mana itself — the odds of an ordinary person being born with enough talent to breach the curtain were such that buying a lottery ticket and hitting the jackpot was frankly the more realistic prospect.
The people gathered here, too, surely sensed deep down that this was a wall no amount of effort could surmount.
"We can all do it! Just a little more, come on!"
"So what if we've got no mana? We've got fighting spirit, don't we?"
"WOOOO, here it comes! Ultimate technique — Sixteen-Hit Pickaxe Barrage!"
The people refused to give up, even as blood seeped from their palms and sweat drenched them until they looked like drowned rats. Their burning will to succeed kept crashing against the wall of reality, but they never once yielded ground.
<"Why are you staring at those people like that?">
"Oh — nothing. It's just, everyone's really living their hardest, huh?"
Not sarcasm — a single remark born of pure, unbidden respect. I'd grown up comfortable, never wanting for anything, and I had never in my life craved something so desperately it made me bleed for it. Watching them, I could almost feel awe.
<"Do they look pitiful to you?">
"Not a chance. I thought their effort was dazzling — honestly magnificent. It's just that, separate from that, it's a dream that can't come true. That part's a shame."
<"Don't you worry. You already know, don't you, Reader? The moment Eva finally gathers every Divine Relic and brings the story to its close, this deeply rooted discrimination ends too.">
"Of course I know. I've rewatched that ending who knows how many times — how could I not?"
Eva, who gathered the scattered relics of the God King and at last achieved her ascension. Raised to the station of a transcendent being, she carved her will, her wish, into the tablet of the world itself:
It was a warm hymn offered to the person she had once loved most — a being who had bloomed amid the vicious sorrow called discrimination. A miraculous gift for her dearest friend, who had willingly chosen death for her sake.
This world's ending was destined to be a happy one. I had not the slightest intention of twisting the conclusion Eva had arrived at through long, careful deliberation. My task was one thing and one thing only: to wipe away the filthy mud that had stained the faith of a pure, unblemished girl. To erase that single, solitary stain.
Anyway, that was a long digression.
If I dawdled any longer, I'd be late for certain.
So now — over this wall.
"Then let's get this show on the road."
<"LET'S GOOOO!">
I let out a sharp cry and awakened the mana sleeping in my heart, sending it flooding through my entire body. Golden dawnlight burst forth as if the world itself were igniting, and warm light wrapped around my cold-hardened flesh. In moments it transformed into a blazing heat that drove back the world's darkness, and I stood tall draped in sacred flame — a single, brilliantly burning sun.
The Auram bloodline's secret art — dense solar mana cloaking the entire anatomy, erasing the boundary between man and transcendence.
Solis's ultimate hidden technique. A magic that circulates mana through the flesh, tearing down the limits of humanity and granting a foothold on the road to transcendence. It was still incomplete, but punching a hole through a curtain was more than enough for this.
I gathered the furiously blooming flames into a single point, condensed them into my fist, and drove out a resolute straight punch.
<"Wait, STOOOOOP!">
"Hm?"
I noticed the Author's shout belatedly ringing in my ears — but it was already too late. My fist had already struck the towering wall of mana.
CRASH!
From the point of impact, a massive fissure spread wide enough for a dozen people to walk through side by side. Up to there, everything had gone exactly as expected.
It would have been perfect if it had ended right there — maybe I'd put in too much force?
KUUUUM!
"Wh-what is that?!"
"The curtain's collapsing!"
"Everybody run!"
A fatal crack had been carved into the curtain holding up the city's boundary. The jagged fracture spread in an instant, then shattered into countless shards that scattered across the sky above the city. An avalanche of blue fragments rained down from the heavens, crashing down upon the people's home.
"What in the world is happening?!"
"Is this rotten world finally meeting its end?"
"Quit babbling and get the hell out of here!"
"Someone's pinned under the debris! Rescue team, hurry, please!"
"Hmm."
Shit. I hit it way too hard.
Watching the city spiral toward ruin, I chewed over my bitter regret, again and again.