Know Your Place
“Krrk—Aaaaaah!”
With the girl’s inhuman screech, the surface of the training ground exploded upward, sending shards of stone and clouds of dirt scattering in every direction.
When the dust settled, the field was gone. In its place remained only the scars of what looked like a landslide, and at the center of it all, one girl dragging in rough, ragged breaths.
The dragon horns rising from her head—horns like a ram’s, only sleeker—glimmered gold in the light. Very heroine-like. At least she wouldn’t get in the protagonist’s way.
I made that assessment silently.
“Area suppression evaluation. Lapis, 75 points. The destructive power is beyond reproach, but… you lose marks for failing to distinguish friend from foe, and for the risk of collateral damage. Good work. Please return to your seat. Next student.”
The student called Lapis muttered something nervously, but since no one got cut on the very first test, I watched her with mild interest.
Honestly, anything was more entertaining than Jinhyun.
That guy had breezed through with nothing more than a simple boost to his mana.
He’d shown a little more in the later suppression test, but even that little was enough for him to get an easy high score.
What a talented bastard. The reminder put me in a foul mood all over again.
When you see some obnoxious genius pass a test that forces everyone else to twist every drop of mana and ability they have just to scrape by—while he doesn’t even seem that bothered about it—you’d be pissed too.
“That girl Lapis is really strong, huh?”
“Yeah. She’s swinging earth and rock around like they’re part of her own body… If she becomes a hero, she’s definitely going to go far.”
The game’s protagonists were offering one-line assessments of the students’ abilities, just like this. Every single one of them was praise.
If that’s the case, what was the point of evaluating them at all?
Keeping my irritation buried, I watched the training ground repair itself on its own.
I’d heard that if this place got damaged, some complicated system would kick in and restore it automatically.
No idea how you were supposed to destroy something when they’d already poured this much money into the damn field.
Well, that was exactly why we were here—to find out.
And that kind of thing was only possible if you managed to keep your place in Class A first, so I quietly watched Minho begin his test.
“Twenty seconds…? A student?”
To be exact, I tried to watch. It wasn’t easy.
Even with my dynamic vision, I was barely keeping up with his movements.
The protagonist really was absurdly fast. In the original story, he’d been holding back to a reasonable degree, but perhaps because the timeline had gone off track, he was going all out now.
The reason he could move that fast was his ability, Acceleration.
You could say it was just a speed-up power, but depending on how it was used, it was far better than ordinary acceleration or even other speed-based abilities.
Unlike acceleration, which only paid off once you actually moved your legs, he could, quite literally, hit top speed while standing perfectly still.
You could almost call it telekinesis limited strictly to the user’s own body.
If telekinetics grabbed objects and hurled them, then he could grab his own body and throw himself.
That was why restraining him didn’t render his ability useless.
Of course, it wasn’t without flaws. Beyond a certain point, his reactions couldn’t keep up, which meant he couldn’t break the sound barrier.
He eventually overcame that, of course, and crossed the threshold of supersonic speed as casually as if he were coming and going from his own living room.
“Area suppression evaluation. Yong Minho… 96 points. In a very short time, you subdued a large number of villains, but… even in that brief instant, there was still a chance of civilian casualties. Still, excellent work. It would be hard for even a pro to imitate that. Please return to your seat. Last student.”
“It’s already over in less than five minutes…? What even is that guy…? Is he really a student?”
Yeonhwa kept repeating variations of does that even make sense? instead of analyzing anything.
Was it my turn now? I’d originally planned to do only as much as necessary, but after seeing that, I couldn’t just let it slide.
Part of it was that watching the protagonist throw himself into the test like that had riled me up too, and part of it was that I didn’t want to score lower than some punk like Jinhyun.
“…You were amazing, you know that? I could barely keep up with your afterimages.”
I called out to Minho as he climbed back up, breathing hard. He thanked me, but he still looked at me like I was a little strange.
…Hmm. Maybe I shouldn’t have spoken to him.
Leaving Minho behind, I stood before Yustitia.
Then I synthesized a few things inside my body—things that would be useful for the exam right away.
My body, kneaded through with hormones and chemicals, overflowed with power.
Even the usual sluggishness vanished, and for a moment I felt like I could do anything.
…Of course, that was just how it felt. I didn’t know exactly what substance it was, but it was clearly a side effect—an excessive, artificial rush of euphoria.
There would probably be other side effects too, but I could always cover those later by synthesizing something with the opposite effect.
“…First event. One-kilometer run. Start!”
The instant she finished speaking, I shot forward. Reinforcing my body with mana, I sprinted as fast as I possibly could.
“One minute. This batch of freshmen is impressive. Take a short break—”
“I’ll move on to the next one right away.”
I intended to use everything my body could give me before the high wore off. Yustitia seemed to think I might be pushing myself too hard, but—
This was a test that required me to push myself.
“In that case, very well. Moving on to the strength test.”
I couldn’t clear the courses behind that as quickly as Minho had.
But I could do everything faster—and better—than Jinhyun.
Before I knew it, all the physical tests were over, and only the ability-only evaluations remained.
Then there was no reason to keep the chemicals going. The instant I synthesized counteracting compounds, the body enhancements I’d forced up with drugs dropped away like a stone.
Along with them came all the pain and fatigue I’d been postponing or ignoring through sheer chemical willpower. Ugh. I’m dying.
Still, it was better than ending up sprawled on the ground in a frothing heap.
Normally, if you abused drugs this much, even ability users should’ve been coughing up blood and collapsing.
The fact that I was only ending up like this was already because it was me.
I dragged my body forward, feeling like I’d aged several years in an instant, and stopped in front of the training dummy. What was this one again—personnel suppression?
The others had been smashing, tearing, shattering, burying, and shredding things with shadows, but I couldn’t attack on that kind of scale.
Still, there was no need to worry.
All I had to do was cover the mannequin’s face with my palm and release a high concentration of carbon monoxide.
I didn’t need to physically rip anything apart. As long as the attack was enough to kill or knock down a human, that was fine.
It was called suppression, but in practice it was really a test of how effectively you could neutralize a single target. The target’s survival didn’t seem to matter much.
In that sense, my ability was a hundred-point answer.
“Personnel suppression evaluation, Blanca. 100 points. With no collateral damage, you neutralized a single target precisely and swiftly. Perfect.”
Yustitia smiled with obvious satisfaction. Then, saying we were almost done, she called up the final course.
From the ground of the wide training field, the steel mannequins we’d just seen rose up in an instant.
And among them were some marked with blue circles on their heads.
The test was to neutralize the mannequins while avoiding any damage to the ones marked with blue circles. That was the area suppression evaluation.
“This is the last one. Please do your best until the very end.”
As usual, I synthesized an anesthetic inside my body—something that, depending on the person, might leave minor side effects, but at a concentration no human could withstand.
Then I sprayed it out over my whole body in the form of a smoke screen.
The cloud burst outward in an instant, swallowing all the mannequins and rising so fiercely that even Yustitia, watching from above, flinched for a moment—before it stopped just shy of invading the spectator stands.
The smoke devoured everything indiscriminately, blue circles and plain mannequins alike.
Then, moving through the smoke, I picked out only the ones with blue circles and sprayed them with a compound that woke them from the anesthetic.
After the smoke cleared, Yustitia finished grading and announced my score.
“…Area suppression evaluation. Blanca, 100 points. You subdued everyone within range before they even had time to react. It’s true that you couldn’t distinguish friend from foe, but to single out only the civilians on the spot and heal them afterward. Incredible. Perfect.”
With this, I should at least be able to keep Jinhyun in check. Maybe even Minho would start looking at me a little differently?
Thinking about that and other things, I headed back to my seat.
And for some reason, I noticed that the way the other students were looking at me had changed.
“That’s… her?”
“It must be. I didn’t see it myself, but… rumor is she knocked out every other applicant all by herself…”
And that wasn’t because of the performance I’d just put on. It was because of what I’d done during the entrance exam.
Oops. Haha.
— — — —
The teacher said we were free to go eat lunch and head home, or just head home if we wanted, and left the classroom. That was the end of the first day’s lesson.
I hoped no one would get moved down to a lower class. With that thought in mind, I was walking out after lunch with Yeonhwa when I spotted someone I recognized from afar, surrounded by a bunch of people. Blanca and the Class A students. Why was she over there?
The question barely had time to form before I realized they were in the middle of arguing, and Yeonhwa and I headed over.
“So what exactly is my fault here? It’s your fault for being weak, isn’t it? You collapsed because you were weak, so why are you making so much noise?”
“Is that really what you have to say as a student in the hero department?! Do you know how many people were worried sick because of you?”
“Exactly. I thought for sure I was going to fail, and until the notice came out, I figured my life was over…!”
“At first I thought the smoke screen meant some kind of event had started, but it was you? Do you have any idea how filthy my pants got because of you that day?!”
“I don’t know, and I don’t want to know.”
The students were raising their voices at Blanca, looking furious, and Blanca was answering them with visible indifference.
I could see why they were fighting. During the test, some of the students who’d witnessed her ability had gotten so angry they’d started yelling that it was that bitch.
“Jinhyun? You’re going to step in…? Uh, I think maybe you shouldn’t…”
“No. That isn’t right. And she’s my friend.”
Yeonhwa tried to stop me, but I had to go. If this was my idol, then naturally this was what I should do.
Before the argument could get uglier, I cut in and took Blanca’s side.
“The examiner said it herself. As long as you’re not hurting others, using your ability to gain the advantage isn’t against the rules. She just did exactly that.”
“That doesn’t mean you can just knock out every other applicant! And why are you even interfering when you didn’t experience it yourself?!”
“Because it’s unfair.”
The moment I answered that way, Blanca and the Class A students arguing with her both fell silent.
“Why interfere? Because she’s my friend. And if there had really been a problem, Blanca wouldn’t even have been able to set foot in the academy!”
Before I knew it, Yeonhwa had stepped up too, shielding Blanca.
The students who’d been pressing Blanca hard had nothing else to say. They only scowled, but they couldn’t complain any further.
“…See you next time.”
“Whatever.”
With Blanca no longer standing alone, the students left.
“It’s okay now, Blanca.”
I said that, trying to reassure her, but her expression looked even colder than before.
“…Thanks for helping, but don’t butt in. This isn’t your problem.”
It sounded like she had a lot more she wanted to say. But Blanca only said that much and walked away.
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