This Is So Unfair

The young woman and her companions were utterly overcome with emotion. Here was the very child they had tracked down and insulted, fully intending to eliminate her from the exam—and yet, when the earthquake struck and the mountain collapsed, she had saved their lives without hesitation.

"You... your hands... You held onto that rope until your skin turned to that?!"

Isabelle, the young female captain leading the fresh blood of the Esonia Adventurer Party, looked down at the tiny girl who didn't even reach her chest. In that moment, she was flooded with equal parts profound gratitude and burning shame.

"All we did was say awful things to you! You should've hated the sight of us! You should've wanted nothing more than to kick us out of the exam! So why... why would you go that far?!"

"Just because," Orknodi replied cheerfully. "I did it because I could."

It was pure goodwill, untainted by a single shred of calculation. Does a human being truly need a grand justification to reach out and save another human being? Spotless purity, expecting nothing in return!

It was a quiet strength of heart that children forced to grow up too quickly could never possess. In a brutal world where seven-year-olds were tossed into hard labor—a world devoid of real children, populated only by 'little adults'—such untarnished clarity couldn't even be called a child's privilege.

Is this what the spirits from the old legends were like?

A pure, radiant spirit raised in a bountiful, ancient forest, contrasted against selfish mortals bred in a barren, dog-eat-dog society. Every adventurer heard stories of spirits and mortals at least once in their youth, and every single one of them had dreamed of living like a spirit rather than a mortal. Rather than living a cramped, selfish existence confined to some isolated village, they yearned to roam the boundless, uncharted wilderness and claim that unfettered purity for themselves.

Our captain was just like this child.

Isabelle saw the overlapping image of their late leader in the little girl. Their captain had possessed that ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠exact same smile—unblemished and innocent, far too radiant for an adult. He had embraced complete strangers and naive greenhorns into the party with open arms, teaching them how to pursue that very purity together.

"We lost."

"A total defeat. As examinees, as adults, and as adventurers."

"Is this the standard just to set foot in the world's greatest academy?"

As the venom drained from Isabelle's eyes, the companions standing behind her let out long, weary sighs.

"We're sorry, Isabelle. We're stepping down."

"Is that so? You all..."

As they voiced their intent to forfeit, the lights on the examinees' ticket watches flushed a vivid crimson. Above their wrists, glowing red lettering materialized, confirming their elimination.

If she were the only one left, what right did she have to stand tall? But as Isabelle moved to raise her own wrist and forfeit alongside them, the hands of her comrades shot out to stop her.

"Wait. Not you."

"Why?!" Isabelle cried, her voice cracking. "If all of you are dropping out, what am I supposed to do here by myself?! Have you already forgotten the adventurer's spirit?!"

"Isabelle. We only tagged along because we were worried about you. None of us ever planned on actually entering the academy from the start. We knew our skills were nowhere near enough."

"Are you telling me I was the only one who was serious about our party?!"

"That's not what we mean! In the first place, we only survived that tragedy back then because we were rear-guard logistics and inexperienced rookies. We aren't like you, who fought alongside the captain through thick and thin."

"Just minutes ago, we lost our grip on that rope and nearly plunged to our deaths, remember?"

Only then did Isabelle truly look at her companions. Their battered, trembling bodies could barely stay upright. In a state so utterly depleted of stamina and mana, clearing whatever trial lay ahead was a flat-out impossibility.

"Thank you for securing enough tickets for our share as well, but this is our limit."

"We're sorry, Isabelle."

"You cowards! Telling me to stay behind while all of you walk away... that's so selfish! Weren't adventurers supposed to stick together no matter what?!"

Tears spilled over Isabelle's lashes as she wailed in raw frustration. Instead of answering her desperate pleas, her comrades turned around and bowed deeply toward Orknodi, Giselle, and Son Ocheon.

"We are deeply sorry for the trouble we caused. Please accept our sincere apologies."

"We won't make excuses or beg for forgiveness for ourselves. But please... could you find it in your hearts ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to spare our leader? Unlike us, she has genuine talent."

"It's true. If not for Isabelle, there's no way we ever could have claimed Gold Tickets. If you take her under your wing, we swear she'll be an invaluable asset to you."

Giselle glanced back at Orknodi with a subtle look, leaving the decision entirely in her hands. It was Orknodi who had caught wind of the earthquake first. It was Orknodi who had pulled them from the jaws of death. Right now, the only person with the authority to grant or deny them forgiveness was Orknodi.

The little girl tilted her head and asked, "Can you cook?"

The question struck everyone like a bucket of cold water. Why in the world was she asking about culinary skills in the middle of the most cutthroat academy entrance exam on the continent?

"An adventurer party relies entirely on field foraging to survive," Isabelle replied, blinking through her tears in confusion. "If you don't know how to identify edible ingredients or cook them safely on the spot, you'll die of poisoning or disease before a monster even touches you."

"Then you pass!"

Orknodi answered in a playful, cheery tone, extending her small hand toward Isabelle. Isabelle hesitated, wondering if her rough, calloused palms had any right to touch those blistered, rope-burned little fingers—but before she could pull back, Orknodi's tiny hand firmly latched onto hers.

The surrounding adventurers watched, their hearts aching with awe.

She was going to forgive her from the very start.

The child just needed an excuse—any excuse at all.

"It's... it's truly breathtaking."

"Our journey wasn't meaningless after all."

"If that purity isn't a spirit, what else could it possibly be?"

"You're right. That child is a spirit incarnate."

"Now that I've seen a real spirit, I can die with no regrets."

A flood of praises reserved for the saintly and pure washed over Orknodi. Clutching that small yet shockingly sturdy hand, Isabelle felt a genuine, untainted smile spread across her face—a smile she hadn't worn once since the day their captain died.

"Spirits really do recognize their own," the departing adventurers chuckled among themselves.

Isabelle might not have known it, but to them, she had always been their party's very own little spirit. More than a few of them had enlisted simply to see that bright, innocent smile she ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠used to wear whenever she followed behind their captain. Seeing her lose that light had weighed on them like lead. But now, her smile was back. It was news that would bring immense joy to the retired veteran adventurers back home who were too old to take the entrance exam.

"Coming here was the right choice."

"Yeah. It really was."

Carrying their own quiet enlightenment, the youths of the Esonia Adventurer Party turned back and began their descent. Watching the scene unfold from a distance, Monk Myeongho, proctor of the first trial, wore a profoundly benevolent smile.

"When the virtuous realize the Way even in defeat, the future of the Esonia Adventurer Party shall indeed be luminous."

Thirty minutes later, the clear chime of a ceremonial bell echoed across the shattered stone peaks. The evaluation period for the entrance exam's first trial had officially arrived.

Intuition alerts were ridiculously important. The subconscious picks up on lethal dangers on pure instinct long before the conscious mind can process the data. As long as you pay close attention to your subconscious red flags, you can easily breeze past cheap, unfair developer bullshit like sudden scripted landslides.

Talk about great RNG. I even managed to recruit a dedicated chef out of it.

Sure, culinary master wasn't her primary combat class, but who cared? As long as she could cook edible food, that was all that mattered! She knows how to forage, she knows how to prepare high-stat meals—at this point, she's a certified tier-1 support companion.

"Out of the five hundred examinees who entered this first trial, three hundred and fifteen have either suffered incapacitating casualties or formally forfeited," Monk Myeongho announced, his voice carrying effortlessly across the plateau. "Therefore, the number of examinees advancing to the second trial is the remaining one hundred and eighty-five."

The arrogant fools who had charged ahead relying solely on numbers, as well as the half-baked amateurs who neglected their perimeter guard, had been purged en masse. Of course, judging by their dirt-streaked faces and shredded tunics, the named NPCs had also run into serious trouble when the mountain gave way, but every single one of them had managed to cling to life and scrape through.

"To those of you who remain, I wish to impart these words." Monk Myeongho struck a ringing blow against the examinees' complacent mindsets with an expression of gentle serenity. "Merely praying for salvation—that is the path of helpless commoners, wholly unfit for those who dream of standing atop the world."

"You must not become a closed loop that surrenders its life and prayers to the petty master of some humble hamlet or mountain, or to the myriad lesser spirits and minor divinities. That very realization is why this humble monk departed the Eastern Empire and set foot in the educational heart of the West."

Monk Myeongho's test had never been about stacking stone pagodas of wishful thinking. What he demanded was not dependence, but absolute self-reliance. His trial was, in truth, a test of agency.

The talent worthy of the world's foremost educational institution that Gift Academy sought—the brilliant, radiant talent known as a 'Gift'—was born solely from personal agency.

"The very first step in polishing the rough gemstone of brilliant talent begins with harboring independence," the monk continued. "Though the vast majority of you failed to prove that today, you did not crumble beneath the ordeal."

"Surviving leads to opportunity. An opportunity to transform today's bitter failure into tomorrow's triumph. Therefore, you must prove yourselves in the next trial—prove that you possess the qualifications to enter Gift Academy, the greatest academy under heaven."

Going strictly by his opening critique, it wouldn't have been unusual if he had failed the entire cohort on the spot, but the generous Monk Myeongho granted them a second chance. He had extended mercy to examinees who had been pushed to their absolute limits just trying to survive an earthquake and a landslide.

"Naturally... there is an exception."

Up to that sentence, everything had matched the exam evaluation sequence in my memory. But just as I began gathering my gear to move out for the next gate, a blinding ray of light suddenly crashed down over my head.

The proctor's assistants had wheeled out a massive light projector enchanted with high-tier illumination magic, and they were aiming it dead-center at my face.

"This child here, despite being the youngest examinee in this cohort, foresaw the signs of the landslide and wisely avoided the crumbling slopes, securing high ground on the flat plateau beyond the mountain crest."

"Huh? Me?!"

"Her name is Orknodi! She is the examinee who has passed this first trial as the top student!"

Disbelieving, razor-sharp stares converged on me from every corner of the plateau.

All I did was take basic precautions to lower the sky-high 60% elimination rate and 30% severe injury rate that triggered if you failed ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to spot the landslide in advance! In the original game, this sequence would have wrapped up with a tiny system log like [Avoided severe injury. (9.9%)] or [Entire party avoided severe injury. (0.1%)]. But now, an absurd, completely unasked-for bonus had been tacked on!

"A prodigy who earned the proctor's absolute highest praise... My, how tempting."

"Oh heavens, what an adorable little girl!"

The good-aligned characters chimed in with starry-eyed admiration.

"A tiny runt like that took top honors over me?!"

"So she wasn't merely the runt of some obscure, lowborn noble family after all. Tsk. How utterly irritating."

The neutral-aligned characters sneered, their pride visibly wounded.

"Looks like she'd snap in half with a single kick."

"Fufu. Well, it is about time I replaced my pet dog anyway."

And then came the evil-aligned characters, licking their lips with dark intent.

Every single major protagonist, deuteragonist, and villain was glaring straight at me. Was this how an extreme introvert felt when they went to watch a theatrical play, accidentally made eye contact with an actor, and got forcibly dragged onto the stage under the burning spotlights?!

If this were still the game, I would have puffed out my massive, muscle-bound avatar's chest, glared back, and barked, "What're you looking at, you bastards?!" But in this tiny female body that barely scraped 130 centimeters, doing that was absolute suicide!

Above all else, this wasn't a screen anymore—it was reality! An introvert doesn't possess the sheer shameless audacity to pull off a stunt like that in real life!

"D-Don't look at me...!"

Terrified by the crushing sea of stares, I scrambled backward and buried my face behind Giselle's legs.

A chorus of quiet gasps and breathless sighs rippled through the crowd.

Did they think I was acting shy and bashful? Because the burning gazes scorching into my skin suddenly grew several degrees hotter.