A Common Survival Midterm... Huh?
Abel Legion took a sip of the Maxim coffee in front of him while staring at the person across from him.
“How is it? Does it suit your taste? I’m afraid high-end beans don’t agree with me, so all I have is this instant stuff—”
“……It’s fine.”
Black suit, red dress shirt, white gloves—an unbalanced combination. Yet his natural looks and aura somehow made the entire outfit work. A classmate with sharp eyes and a soft smile that never left his lips.
The Fortune Teller, Namgung Min.
‘……What is this?’
They had never taken classes together, but Abel had heard plenty about his fortune-telling skills. He had shown outstanding performance in every class. Especially when Abel heard that the mountain hike—which had taken him four days—had been cleared by Namgung Min in less than a day, even someone as emotionally reserved as Abel had been shocked. Though he had passed with other students, it was obvious the Fortune Teller had been at the center of it.
That was why Abel had come to eliminate him first.
‘Or so I thought……….’
More precisely, he had come to eliminate him.
After class, he had prepared until midnight based on what he’d heard about Namgung Min’s fortunes, then moved the moment the exam began. There had been one tiny problem—he didn’t know where Namgung Min’s base was—but when he saw a male student running while shouting the Fortune Teller’s name, he subdued him easily and got the location. He had assumed other students would head to Namgung Min just like that helpful student had, and planned to end things as quickly as possible.
“…………”
Slurp.
Now here he was, leisurely drinking coffee.
Namgung Min, who had also been drinking Maxim coffee, rested his chin on one hand.
“Wow, your acting is truly excellent. That was a really dangerous situation, yet your performance was perfect.”
“………Yeah.”
“When you suddenly charged in with a knife at the beginning, I thought my heart was going to drop out of my chest.”
Was he serious? The moment Abel entered the building and sensed a presence in the basement, he had swung his blade. Even as the place turned into a mess, Namgung Min had dodged by a hair’s breadth and sat down with perfect composure. Faced with that completely illogical reaction, even Abel had frozen for a moment—long enough for Namgung Min to speak.
In the end, he had joined hands with Namgung Min.
“……You must keep the promise. Absolutely.”
“Of course. This Fortune Teller never goes back on his word.”
Even in response to such a grim warning, Namgung Min answered naturally with a smile. Perhaps it was precisely because of that attitude that Abel found it difficult to fully trust him.
“In exchange for the Hero sparing my life, I will do everything in my power to help the Hero win. Simple and nice, isn’t it?”
“When you say ‘everything in your power’………there won’t be……any lies, right?”
“Naturally. Shall we begin right away?”
“………Begin?”
Before Abel could even finish speaking, Namgung Min pulled out a thick stack of papers from beneath the half-destroyed bed and spread them across the only intact table.
What was drawn on the paper was a map of a massive, vertically elongated oval-shaped city.
A massive floating city several times the size of Yeouido. The world's premier educational institution for class holders.
“……Romance Academy.”
“Correct. According to the exam rules, the battlefield is the entire Romance Academy. And we……are right here.”
Namgung Min pulled out a pen from somewhere and drew a circle at the easternmost edge. Since the map showed the entire academy, this specific building wasn’t marked, but they were indeed located at the outer eastern edge.
After marking the dot, Namgung Min began drawing a line with the pen.
“And we need to head here.”
“………The center?”
The line ended at the center of the floating city. It was Romance Academy itself—the core of this aerial metropolis. Given the city’s enormous size, even the center was incredibly vast.
“Why……go there?”
Abel and Namgung Min had already secured this base, and three hours had passed. During those three hours, countless people had come here—including Liu, the blonde Fighter girl who kept calling him an unbeliever, the princess of the Korean Empire, the hooded Saintess, the Japanese swordsman, and many others.
“No one……will come here anymore.”
—And Abel had eliminated them all.
The Fighter girl, the princess, the Saintess, and the Japanese swordsman had been somewhat difficult even for him, so he had only driven them off. Although he had lost during the entrance exam, in a real fight Abel Legion was confident he wouldn’t lose to any of the other students.
……Though that still wouldn’t be enough to defeat Charles Teddybear.
“This place……is safe.”
“I understand what you want to say.”
In Abel’s opinion, they should simply stay here and wait, then head out shortly before the exam ended to eliminate the remaining students. So why did they need to leave?
Even when Abel glared at him while gripping his greatsword, Namgung Min’s smile remained unchanged.
“You’re aiming for first place, aren’t you, Hero?”
“………Yes.”
“Then how do you plan to find and eliminate every other student in such a vast city?”
“…………….”
……He had a point?
For a moment, Abel’s eyes widened slightly. It was a problem he hadn’t considered.
“Even if it were a full week, the time limit is only twenty-four hours. How will we know how many students remain, and how will we locate them if they’re hiding like us?”
“………You’re right.”
“So obviously the academy must have prepared a solution.”
“…………Solution?”
“Hero, do you remember the final rule of the exam?”
“………….”
The final rule. Abel recalled it without much difficulty.
“You cannot hide forever………”
“Exactly. It will be impossible to keep hiding in one place according to that rule.”
“………How?”
Was the academy going to actively search for them? As Abel considered various possibilities, Namgung Min whispered quietly.
“It’s simple. We just need to shrink the battlefield.”
“…………Ah.”
“If the battlefield is too wide to find each other, we simply make it smaller.”
Scrape.
Namgung Min stood up from his chair and straightened his clothes. After rolling up the map and tucking it into his coat, he gave a confident smile.
“And if the battlefield shrinks, naturally it will start from the outskirts, right?”
“………So we have to move……now.”
“There will probably be some kind of announcement, but there’s no harm in moving ahead of time.”
Abel also rose from his seat, following Namgung Min. However, as he watched the Fortune Teller walk ahead, he fell into complicated thoughts.
‘The choice was correct…….’
After talking with Namgung Min for a short while, he understood clearly. His decision to try eliminating him first had been right, and joining hands with him had also been right. But why couldn’t he shake this uneasy feeling?
“………Why?”
“Pardon?”
“…………Why didn’t you join hands with the Great Wealthy or……the princess……?”
“Haha, this is a survival exam, isn’t it? Since I promised to help you win, cooperating with other students would only get in the way.”
“………In the way.”
“Besides, your combat prowess is more than sufficient. No matter where we go, I doubt I’ll end up getting beaten!”
“………….”
There was nothing wrong with what Namgung Min said. Yet Abel couldn’t fully relax as he followed him out of the building.
Namgung Min with his confident expression, and Abel Legion with his blank face but lingering suspicion.
After Abel checked for sounds and presences around them, they left the building and walked down an alley. While staying alert and sticking only to deserted paths, Abel suddenly voiced a question that had occurred to him.
“Going to the academy……is fine.”
“Oh, do you have another opinion?”
“But………if they all attack at once………even I won’t last.”
He was confident he wouldn’t lose in one-on-one fights against the princess, the Japanese swordsman, the psychokinetic user, or the mage. But if it became two, three, or more against one, the story changed. Moreover, inside Romance Academy there were dormitories and bases occupied by countless students—it was bound to become a battlefield. Wouldn’t it be better to change their destination?
That was why Abel had brought it up, but—
“I already have a plan for that. Don’t worry.”
“…………I see.”
Namgung Min……seemed to know the answer to every problem. Things that would have stopped Abel cold if he were alone were solved effortlessly, with countermeasures prepared in advance. It felt like riding in a taxi and leaving everything to the driver. As long as he followed where the taxi driver—Namgung Min—led, everything would be resolved. That sense of relief came with it.
Yet at the same time, his far-too-relaxed attitude stirred up suspicion and discomfort.
Still, Abel ultimately decided to trust the taxi driver named Namgung Min. He nodded at the answer and quietly followed behind.
Three hours and thirty minutes since the exam began. Time remaining: twenty hours and thirty minutes.
The strange combination of Fortune Teller and Hero seemed to be moving forward with a somewhat creaky but fitting rhythm.
“Haa………”
Liu Yen let out a sigh. She couldn’t stand it otherwise.
Boom!
Crack!
“Mages! Hurry and provide fire support! The front line can’t hold!”
“Lord Lucas! My mana is already depleted!”
“No choice, squeeze out every last drop!”
“……Yes!”
“Goddamn it.”
Twelve hours since the exam began. The sun was now high in the sky, illuminating everything brightly. Half the time limit had passed, and Liu still hadn’t been eliminated, but the situation around her was utter chaos.
“It’s breaking through! Stop them!”
“If they get in from that side, we’re all finished!”
“Anyone, grab a wardrobe or a desk or anything! Build a barricade!”
Boom!!!
With Romance Academy’s main gate between them, students trying to break through and students trying to stop them exchanged fierce attacks and defenses. Liu was mixed in among the group trying to break through—led by Lucas—swinging her ceremonial dagger until her arms felt like they would fall off.
Whoosh!
“What the—ugh!”
“Dodge! Don’t look at that dagger, just run!”
Even though she was simply swinging a ceremonial dagger through the air, any students caught in its straight line collapsed helplessly and were sent flying. The artifact Path-Clearing Crowd. This artifact, shaped like a ceremonial dagger, could shove aside anyone standing in the user’s way. Its power was similar to a kind of psychokinesis. If used well, it was nearly invincible in one-on-one combat.
However, it could only affect one person at a time, and only worked on people. It had no effect on objects. That was why, even though she kept sending students flying, she couldn’t clear the barricade made of large furniture, and the situation had reached a stalemate.
“Liu! How much longer can you keep going!?”
“My arms are about to fall off! I can’t last much longer!”
“………Even though we’re in the same class, you really show no mercy.”
More than half the group consisted of high-firepower mage classes, yet they still couldn’t clear the barricade quickly. The reason they couldn’t get close to it was smiling.
“Lucas, you’re not seriously thinking of burning the belongings of fellow students, are you?”
Princess Kim Eun-ha. She was blocking the academy’s main gate and commanding the students. Third place in the entrance exam. Her physical abilities as a member of the Imperial Family had been well-known at the academy for a long time. Whether it was magic fired by mages or combat-class students trying to approach her, she sent them all flying equally with a single punch. No matter how skilled a Mage was, there was nothing they could do.
Even if Liu targeted her, the princess would dodge faster than the dagger could swing, and Liu couldn’t ignore the other students in the meantime, making focused suppression difficult. But because the princess also couldn’t easily step forward, she focused solely on defense. It was only natural that both sides had fallen into a stalemate.
“Lucas! What about the detached force!?”
“……It seems Lane was stopped by that blonde girl.”
“That fucking bitch!!”
In an attempt to break the deadlock, Lane had taken a small group of students and gone around, but there had been no word from them. The moment Lane left, the blonde Fighter girl—Aileen Teddybear—had also disappeared with her own group of students. They must have been blocked by them.
‘She was just sitting there, so I was going to smack that annoying face once!’
What, was she meditating? She had her eyes closed and wasn’t even participating in the defense, then suddenly stepped forward? Liu glared irritably at the blue curtain in the sky while sending flying a student who was attacking them and keeping an eye on the princess who was looking for an opening.
“Because of that damn thing……!”
“Liu! She’s coming!”
“Goddamn it!”
She hurriedly swung her dagger to check the princess, who had tried to sneak attack the mage-class students in the rear during the brief moment Liu had looked up at the sky. Fortunately the princess retreated, but how many more times did they have to repeat this nonsense?
How had she ended up in this situation?
Liu grabbed her numb wrist with her other hand and forced it to move while grinding her teeth.
‘That shitty curtain!’
Yes, it had all started when that blue curtain began to shrink.