17. I Have a Special Move?
17. I Have a Special Move?
17. I Have a Special Move?
First impressions.
First impressions play the most important role in how people see each other.
Take a male student who sits quietly in class.
Never skips, grades are solid.
The picture of a model student.
That is, based on first impressions.
But let's say a rumor starts going around about him at school.
Namely, that his relationships with women are an absolute disaster.
Starting with the older girl next door, right up to the woman in the next apartment building.
Outlandish rumors that he's been fooling around with them left and right.
How does he look after you hear those rumors?
By day he quietly reads books and pays attention in class.
By night he's the type who runs around seducing women everywhere.
That's the image that gets plastered onto him.
Even if he does nothing more than pick up a dropped eraser for the female student next to him, people see that action as a flirtation.
They view the act itself through a warped lens.
He ends up trapped inside a particular frame.
So why am I earnestly explaining all this?
Obviously.
Because that frame has been slapped onto me.
A space where ten students had gathered.
A Moses-like miracle was unfolding there.
A radius of roughly thirty centimeters.
All kinds of rumors and frames kept the other students from even approaching.
Why are they keeping so far away? I'm not infected with some kind of virus.
The female students looked at me like they were staring at a criminal.
The male students eyed me warily.
Is the Fate really exerting this much force?
I wanted an explanation, but the only ones who could explain the situation seemed to be everyone except me.
"Ahem. I'll start the meeting now."
The student who stepped forward as representative was named Ahn Ji-ho.
A warm appearance, solidly built.
He had a talent for tanking during sparring matches—a face that stuck in my memory.
In the game his ability scores were all B-rank, weren't they? Either way, he was far stronger than me.
Ahn Ji-ho kept his voice characteristically low as he continued.
"So the ten of us are Team 4. With that settled, I was thinking we should decide roles. Can everyone tell me what they specialize in?"
Ahn Ji-ho introduced himself as the front line. A tank, in other words.
Once he finished, the other students opened their mouths and introduced themselves as well.
"I-I can heal people!"
"I use a sword. Disruption is my specialty."
The students were pointing out their own strengths, introducing themselves.
Haha, must be nice. Really.
I don't have a single thing to brag about.
The moment that thought crossed my mind, one of my classmates spoke to me.
"Hey, you're the rear guard, right...?"
A slightly trembling voice.
A sword at his waist.
And a familiar face.
I remembered his name exactly.
'O Go-gok.'
Yeah, that was definitely his name.
I answered.
"Yeah. Shooting a gun is the only thing I can do. Sorry, but I'm counting on you up front, O Go-gok."
"...It's Kim Gi-ok."
Ah, right.
That was his name.
I was mistaken for a second.
He was the guy who fought Yu Ha-yeon, couldn't do a thing, lost, and posted the worst score, yet still hadn't been expelled.
I never found out why, but after all the matches ended, Instructor Kang Su-ho supposedly shouted:
'For the record, there are no expulsions. That was all a lie to see your true selves.'
In the game, the teacher was praised as serious, passionate, and charming, even nicknamed the 'Heroic Muscle Man.'
No matter how you looked at it, the guy was unmistakably a psychopath.
Give me my lifespan back.
I worked so hard for nothing.
"Hey, Han Si-jun."
Ahn Ji-ho was calling me.
While I was lost in thought, it seemed everyone but me had finished introducing themselves.
My turn, I guess.
I steadied my voice internally, ready to speak up.
"You're the rear guard, right? Nobody doesn't know that, so I'll just skip it."
"Huh...?"
Come on, I wanted to introduce myself, too.
While introducing myself, I was hoping to clear up the parts the others were misunderstanding.
They were still directing wary stares at me.
Honestly, things were not going my way.
Ahn Ji-ho started saying something absurd.
"For the record, we trust you. Your everyday conduct is a little questionable, but that firepower—the magic bullet you showed us back then. We're counting on it."
"No, that's a bit much. I can't pull that off like I did that day."
"Ahaha. You're joking around—actually the modest type, huh?"
"..."
The other students are now thinking the bullet I fired in the match against Na Yu-na is some kind of finishing move?
They were watching me with a strange mixture of disbelief and trust in their eyes.
The students looked like they genuinely expected me to have a finishing move.
'Are they telling me to go burn six months of my lifespan right now...?'
A mouthful of swear words whirled in my mouth, but I held back, thinking of my image.
Because at this moment I'm standing on the edge of a cliff.
I had to endure.
"Hoo..."
Take a deep breath.
Right. The students didn't mean any harm; they simply had a high opinion of me.
Endure it. Endure.
While I was collecting myself, Ahn Ji-ho stretched a hand forward and shouted with all his might.
"Alright, alright! Let's give a cheer and go!"
"Yeah!"
The students started piling their hands on that one spot one after another.
Tap. Thump.
A tower of palms layering on top of each other.
Should I put my hand on top, too?
Right, I should go with the flow.
With a cheerful heart, I placed my hand on top of our newly unified team.
"Eeeek...!! Han Si-jun's hand...!!"
A woman's scream rang out at the exact same moment.
It was the bespectacled model student who had brought me over just moments ago.
The female student trapped beneath my hand.
She murmured quietly.
"A-Am I going to get pregnant...?"
"...No. That isn't how it works."
Fantasy world or not, you don't make someone pregnant just by holding hands.
She seemed to be looking at me like I was some kind of criminal.
Is this how the student body sees me?
A criminal who gets people pregnant with a touch?
Me?
'If I had actually done any of it, that'd sting less. I haven't done anything...'
Simultaneously with this sense of injustice, I shouted "Fighting!" along with my teammates' cheer.
"""Fighting...!!"""
Just who was that fighting cheer meant for?
All the students except me didn't know where it was directed.
***
The Mock Gate Exam, known as the first episode in V. AGE.
The exam is designed to assess cooperative spirit and how each individual behaves in a group.
In the end, it's a test to see how the students subjugate Magic Beasts.
Each team is moved to the same location, but their starting points differ.
The goal is to subjugate the gate's boss, the final objective.
The artificially created, mechanized Magic Beasts calculate each person's attacks.
The team with the highest total damage wins.
And within that framework, more detailed evaluations are made.
The Hero Academy's method is to station examiners inside the gate to observe, adding a layer of safety.
You can practically assume the students won't get hurt.
That aside.
How do I land the last hit?
Even if I asked Yu Ha-yeon to let me have it, she's never going to give it.
The thing I hated, she loved the most.
What should I do about the Hidden Piece?
I was worrying about that even more than my score.
"Alright then. Our Team 4, all ready, right?"
Ahn Ji-ho, our team leader, asked for our opinion.
Looks like he has some kind of Leadership skill, given his knack for directing the students.
Its rank didn't seem very high.
Most people with high Leadership were unhinged lunatics with a screw loose.
Ahn Ji-ho didn't look that crazy.
The students signaled that they were ready.
Ahn Ji-ho relayed that to the exam supervisor, and the explanation began.
— Each team will enter the generated gate and defeat various Magic Beasts. Then you will defeat the Magic Beast holding the core at the very center. That is the final objective. Understood?
"""Yes!"""
— Good. Then we will begin the Mock Gate Exam.
When he finished speaking and pressed a button, gates started to generate in front of each team.
This was the latest technology, artificially created and containing no actual Magic Beasts.
The Mock Gate Device.
On the frame surrounding the gate, the word NAVI was inscribed—meaning it was manufactured by Na Yu-na's family company.
The supervisor shouted a countdown.
Hearing it, the moment the word "start" left his mouth, the students began pouring into the gate all at once.
Among those orderly students, Yu Ha-yeon called out a greeting to me.
"Ha... Ha-yeon...! Move it...!"
"Si-jun! See you later!!"
"...Yeah."
Na Yu-na had apparently already gone through the gate for the sake of points.
With a big smile, I waved to Yu Ha-yeon, who was being dragged away by her teammates, and entrusted my body to the gate.
It was like a signal flare marking that I had entered V. AGE and was about to begin the first episode.
***
After passing through the gate, the sight before my eyes was wretched.
"Urrp... blegh..."
"Cough, hack..."
My teammates were throwing up.
What's this.
Am I the only one who's fine?
I maintained a lofty, upright posture among them.
What's different between them and me?
"Ah..."
I have no mana, right?
The reason they're nauseated is because their mana cores were jolted from being transferred through the gate.
I never had a mana core in the first place, so I couldn't feel any nausea at all.
'Should I consider this a good thing...'
As time passed, my teammates started coming to their senses.
"So this is what a gate feels like...? Seriously. This is the worst..."
"This isn't the time. Everyone, we need to move quickly."
Fair point.
The other teams might already be moving.
Ahn Ji-ho with his Leadership appeared to have made the right call.
He shot me a look of amazement, then led the other students.
Well, is this your first time seeing someone without mana?
It probably is.
Since I'm a rare case, making up less than 0.1 percent of the entire world.
If you look at it as strange, it's strange.
If you look at it as special, it's special.
Our team began moving through a cave without a ceiling that stretched out in a straight line.
Torches were placed here and there.
They lit our field of vision, so there was no trouble moving.
Step. Step.
The sound of many footsteps echoed through the long cave.
Footsteps spreading as if reverberating.
The students were even lowering their voices, trying not to loosen their tension.
We passed several torches.
Five. Six. Then seven.
Team 4, which hadn't made a single sound.
In the middle of that, I spoke in a low voice.
"They're coming."
Right as the torches we'd passed hit eight.
Countless footsteps sounded from the far side of the cave.
"Wh-What...!?"
How many are there?
The sound vibrated, ringing through the entire cave.
It was a frantic sound, like the moment before a ghost appears in a horror movie.
—Grrrrr...
Along with a low growl.
They revealed themselves.
"W-Wolves...?"
On all fours, growling threateningly, their bodies lowered as if ready to pounce at any moment.
A sharply erect horn rose from their heads.
Wolves with horns like unicorns.
These beings appeared in gates of at least C-rank and above.
Their defining trait is moving in packs.
Horned Wolves.
A wolf with a horn like an awl in the center of its head.
This wasn't an opponent you could take lightly.
They possessed agile speed befitting the title of wolf, and with that added horn, their attack power was considerable.
""Grrrrr...""
And so, in that standoff moment, exchanging icy glares.
Ahn Ji-ho exerted his characteristic leadership and shouted to the team members.
His sharp senses had picked up on them charging into an attack.
"E-Everyone, prepare for battle...!!"
Along with Ahn Ji-ho's booming voice, the Horned Wolves began to leap at us.
The quiet cave was instantly filled with screams.