The Coming of the Entrance Exam
Time flowed like water, and before we knew it, autumn had arrived in our eighteenth year.
The day of Jayeon’s entrance exam had finally come at last.
For all that time, training had been our entire world.
At first, everyone had been so worn down they looked like walking corpses, always muttering that they were just one step away from dying of exhaustion. But these days, we’d grown used to it, and we could finish our daily routine almost automatically.
“At first I thought our muscles would just keep growing until we got ugly. But that doesn’t happen at all, huh?”
“How you circulate mana changes the route of physical growth.”
I, for one, didn’t want to see Yehwa or Hayang with bodies packed full of muscle, either.
As a man, it was only natural to prefer something pretty.
“We’ll do well, right?”
“Of course.”
The entrance exam for Jayeon was held all over the world.
The concept of nations was gone, but place names remained.
The test was held in the place that had once been called Jeju Island.
Candidates were divided into four groups for the exam.
Group A, B, C, and D.
I was in A, Yehwa in C, and Hayang in D.
“I didn’t expect us to end up in completely different groups.”
“Isn’t that better? There’s no need for us to fight each other.”
“That’s exactly why it’s disappointing. I was planning to show you the real difference between us, and then this happens…”
“Oh? Really? My time stop can respond to you now, too. Want to try it again?”
“If you think I only have that much left, you’re making a mistake.”
Over the past seven years, those two had drawn close, fought, drifted apart, and come back together again.
Was that what love and hate mixed together looked like?
“You two make a pretty good pair.”
“Sometimes, I genuinely have no idea what Jayeon-nim is saying.”
“Agreed.”
“Now then, kids, shall we go?”
My father’s voice came from behind us.
“Oh?”
He’d actually dressed in full uniform today?
A neatly pressed dark green service uniform, sharp and immaculate.
And on his chest was a conspicuous insignia.
“That’s the one you got back then, right?”
“Ah, this?”
There was one insignia that stood out from the rest because it occupied quite a lot of space.
“Well, it’s not surprising. You earned quite a bit from that incident.”
It had been serious enough for both my father and mother to receive a one-rank special promotion.
Wiping out one of the Demon God Cult’s bases and extracting additional intelligence had been a remarkably uplifting achievement.
“Don’t I get anything?”
“You already got me, didn’t you?”
A strange voice came from beside us, but I ignored it.
“Couldn’t you at least give me a hint?”
I wanted to use a little of that general-officer privilege, too.
“Nope.”
My father refused without the slightest hesitation.
But then—
“I know.”
Yehwa, arms crossed, lifted one hand.
“Ah, right.”
Come to think of it, Yehwa’s parents were both stars, too.
They’d told her a military secret because they were worried about their daughter.
“Agh! Those two old men are really something else!”
Her parents were both two-star generals.
And since they were my father’s direct seniors, he probably couldn’t really say anything back.
That was why she reacted like that.
Once he goes back to his own unit, that old man’s going to be the kind of star who can move mountains with a single gesture.
I couldn’t even imagine it.
For reference, my mother, wearing three stars, had been dispatched to the African continent.
She’d taken command of the army stationed in the region bordering the demon realm.
It’s been about three years since I last saw Mom, hasn’t it?
At this rate, the next time I saw her might be in Africa.
God, I really don’t want that.
For some reason, I had a strong feeling I’d end up going there someday.
A very strong feeling.
Didn’t Hayang’s older brother work there, too?
Hayang’s older brother, Kim Hajin, had been promoted rapidly after being sent on mission after mission, and now he was a staff sergeant.
Before long, he’d have to choose whether to become a master sergeant or try his hand at becoming an officer.
I wasn’t particularly worried about my mother.
She hadn’t earned the power of a spirit king’s contractor by playing rock-paper-scissors.
“Hah.”
A cold breeze brushed past my ear.
“Ack! What was that?”
“What have you been thinking about for so long? We need to go now.”
“Right, let’s go.”
Snap.
My father flicked his fingers.
Whoooosh—
A blue portal shimmered into existence before our eyes.
So this is finally the thing I get to use.
“We only got special permission this one time, so don’t go around telling people about it, all right?”
“Of course.”
The place we were heading to was probably the Jeju Island exam control center.
We might be the only ones going straight there by portal.
“How do the other people get there?”
“By plane, by ship—however they can, I suppose.”
“No one else uses portals like we do?”
They could, if they wanted to.
It’s just that the stars around us made that easy to forget.
After all, stars were not exactly common.
Across all existence, there were only two hundred One Star users.
And with every additional star, the number of people holding one dropped by half.
When you considered how old most of them were, we were part of a very special minority.
“Does the number of stars stay constant?”
“Now, now, we can talk about that on the way. It’ll close soon.”
At that, we hurried into the portal.
“Ohhh.”
It was surprisingly uneventful.
More like the strange sensation of dipping into a pond and then coming back out?
“Ugh!”
Apparently, our Hayang did not feel the same.
“Oh, Hayang, you’ve got talent.”
“W-wha? I was the only one who got motion sickness…”
“The higher your affinity with mana, the more uncomfortable a portal can feel. You’ll get used to it later, but it’s like that at first. Jayeon’s mother was the same way.”
Oh, so there was a story like that? Our Hayang really did have a gift for magic.
She was probably a prime candidate to become some absurd cheat-level mage who stopped time and chanted spells.
“Woeugh.”
Yehwa, who’d been perfectly fine, suddenly made a retching sound after hearing my father’s explanation.
“Let’s not start pretending to gag now…”
“Yes, sir.”
If you wanted to be precise, mana affinity was determined by magical talent.
That was why Yehwa, whose talent was all in swordsmanship, hadn’t felt any discomfort at all.
Me?
I was completely fine.
I probably could’ve gone through while eating kimbap and not felt a thing.
“Seeing you like this really makes me realize Jayeon has no talent.”
“Even I’d be hurt if you said that to my face.”
My father had the talent to wound people without even trying.
From now on, whenever something like that happened, I was going to blame everything on him.
-Why do you talk like that?
-I learned it from my father.
-F-from Major General Kim Seokhyun?
I could already picture a scene like that.
“That feels strangely ominous. Son, you’re not going around selling me off at Jayeon, are you?”
“Haha, of course not.”
“Still feels ominous.”
I was absolutely going to sell him off. A lot.
If you’ve got something good, you should share it around.
Then, spotting something in the distance, my father waved a hand.
“Ah, there he is. He’s the one in charge of this exam.”
Huff, huff!
A middle-aged man with three patches of mildew on his shoulder came running up, panting for breath.
Behind him, several men with diamond insignias were also sprinting along with gritted teeth.
At the sight of them, my father simply lifted a hand and gave a lazy wave.
He didn’t go over to meet them himself.
“Wow, Dad really is such a total boomer.”
“That’s one of the charms of the military. And it’s something you’ll get to enjoy yourself, too.”
Was he deliberately showing me this? Saying this was the kind of thing I’d have to deal with one day?
Haha, wrong guy.
My mother was a three-star general. My father was a two-star.
Yehwa’s parents were both two-star generals.
And Hayang was a certified saintess.
Hayang’s status is supposed to be classified, but people who know, know.
There was no one brave enough to pick a fight with us.
And if there was?
That’d be fun. Heh heh.
They’d just become my toy.
“Jayeon, your face. Your face.”
Yehwa touched my cheek.
“Was it that obvious?”
Yehwa and Hayang both nodded.
I should probably be a little more careful.
“Huff, huff! Major General Kim Seokhyun, saluting!”
That wasn’t even a proper salute.
“Ah, yes. Salute. Thank you for your hard work.”
“Yes, sir!!”
I met eyes with the mildew-covered old man.
“You must be the Jayeon youth who’s taking the exam this time?”
“Ah, yes. Just because he’s my son doesn’t mean he gets special treatment. If anything, I’d prefer it if you worked him even harder than everyone else.”
“If that’s what my senior says, of course I’ll do it. Then these two are…”
“Recognize them? They’re my seniors’ daughters. This one’s Hong Yehwa, and the other is Kim Hayang.”
Hayang didn’t really need any further explanation.
“Wow… they really do look just like their parents.”
“Right?”
Wait. My dad was his senior?
With that face?
Amused by my expression, my father burst out laughing.
“Hahaha! My son still can’t hide his face. You’re wondering how this guy could possibly be my junior, aren’t you?”
“Hahaha! I hear that all the time.”
The colonel laughed heartily, grinning broadly.
My father pointed back and forth between himself and the colonel.
“I’m Class 51. This guy’s Class 53.”
Wait, he was two years younger?
“Hey, you brat. Why are you so shocked? You’re rude as a habit, aren’t you? Sorry about that, kid.”
“Everyone’s usually surprised when they hear it for the first time. It’s fine, haha, ha…”
That last one sounded less like laughter and more like a sigh.
Was I imagining it…?
No.
“Oh, you’re in big trouble now.”
My father patted my back as he looked at me.
“Haha…”
In the distance, I could see a plane slowly landing by the window.
“The others are starting to arrive now. This year is looking really promising. Across all the years so far, this one will probably be the best class yet.”
“Well, the timing makes it inevitable. The year after next will be the hundredth anniversary of the day the Sword God awakened.”
“Who’ll awaken as SSS rank, I wonder.”
“No one knows that. Or maybe one of the kids here will.”
Yehwa and Hayang’s eyes sparkled.
Yehwa’s father was a half-blood born of a dragonian and a human.
So Yehwa, too, had a chance at awakening.
Unlike a true half-blood, though, hers was a fifty-fifty gamble.
Still, the chance existed.
And Hayang, in many ways, had a very high possibility.
There was the story that the first SSS rank had been chosen by Chronos.
That was an accepted truth among those who knew.
Even so—
There is one person who’s already decided.
That would be me, obviously.
The only thing that worried me was probably…
The possibility that there might be more than one SSS rank.
Honestly, though, that was more exciting than worrying.
If there was even one more person who could fight alongside me, that’d be a good thing.
“From the documents, it looks like the children’s talents are no joke. A lot of them inherited the very best of their respective organizations. Especially the one taking the exam in the D region—he’s quite special.”
“Ah, that kid? The suspiciously good-looking one who loves pork belly so much he had agents sent out just to drag him into Jayeon?”
My father’s branch was Military Intelligence, so almost any useful information would end up in his ears eventually.
He’d told me not to get complacent even though he knew how strong I was, so…
Haha, I’m looking forward to this.
I wondered what kind of guy he was.
Woooo—
The sound of a ship’s horn rang out.
The final examinees were coming in.
“It’s starting soon.”
“What, are you nervous?”
My father asked me.
“Nervous?”
Me? No way.
“I’m looking forward to it.”
“Kwahaha! My son really is the spitting image of Lieutenant General Lee Sihyeon.”
“Right?”
The colonel gently guided us forward from behind.
“All right, all right. You examinees should go down ahead of us. It wouldn’t be good if the other candidates found out you were here with us.”
Well, that made sense.
“Then I’ll see you again later.”
“Yes, I’ll be looking forward to it.”
“Let’s go, you two.”
“Yes.”
“Okay.”
I said to Yehwa and Hayang, who were following behind me, “Our goal is definitely first place, got it?”
“Of course.”
“Naturally.”
Just by looking at their faces, you’d think they’d already taken first place.
“I heard you should probably be a little nervous yourself, Jayeon.”
“Haha, are you worried about me?”
“You never know, do you?”
“That’s exactly why you’re impossible, Yehwa. I’ve never once thought Jayeon-nim would lose.”
“Agh, I’m just saying it like that.”
I snorted softly.
“It’s starting.”
At last, it had begun.
“Armstrong.”
“Yes, senior.”
“Do you think there’ll be one this time, too?”
“Well… I can’t say for sure. Doesn’t one usually appear only about once every ten years?”
“For some reason, I just have a feeling.”
A feeling that this trial might finally be broken.
“But even Lieutenant General Lee Sihyeon failed at that, didn’t she?”
Everyone who had been moved separately from Jeju Island had, without exception, only barely survived.
That alone had been enough to earn the qualification to become a four-star general.
“True. But this time feels different somehow.”
“Hmm… I see.”
“Let’s watch and see. We’ll find out soon enough.”