The Entrance Exam
So this is where they hold the entrance examination?
Having entered the examination grounds through the main gate, I looked around. On a raised platform, crystal orbs had been laid out in rows, and the mana assessment was underway. It seemed I had come to the right place.
Uuurrrgh...
Flop.
Sure enough. The examinees near me were toppling over like dominoes. I was wearing a hood and had even wrapped myself in a cloak, yet apparently even that was not enough for them to withstand the pressure I gave off.
From what I had observed since arriving in the Imperial Capital — from the few humans I had crossed paths with along the way — humans were decidedly weaker than Dragonians. Dragonians noticed me from farther away, and faster; they grew wary on instinct and then felt a tremendous, crushing fear. Humans, by contrast, only sensed me up close and slowly, and then fainted on the spot as though they had laid eyes on a monster. The difference, I supposed, came down to Dragonians being more sensitive and stronger of mind than humans.
In fact, every human I had passed at close range on the way from the carriage into the examination grounds had fainted outright. Those standing farther off merely clustered together, gawking and wondering what was going on. Having confirmed this curious little phenomenon, I went looking for the exam supervisor.
"Are you the examiner presiding over this place?"
As it happened, there was a man standing alone atop the platform, surveying the hall. When I looked his way, he flinched and stumbled backward.
"Y-yes, I am Alex, the examiner in charge here."
Though more than ten meters separated us, Alex avoided my gaze, answering with his eyes fixed on the collar of my hood rather than my face.
"I am Demesis, Second Prince of the Kingdom of Draikna. You will have heard word of me already. If I linger long in this hall, others will come to harm. I shall take my test first."
"Y-yes, of course. Please, go right ahead."
Whatever he had been told in advance, Alex sank to his knees of his own accord and bowed his head. In any case, Dragonian and human alike, everyone in my presence seemed far happier collapsed or kneeling than standing upright before me.
I regarded Alex in silence for a moment, then strode up onto the platform. The examinees who had been waiting in a long line before the crystal orbs parted around me like the sea before a prow.
Mmph. Hnnk.
They were trying not to let so much as a whimper escape. If they made a sound and I turned around, it would be far too terrifying for them. As though a man-eating monster were prowling before their very eyes, they dropped their gazes, pressed their arms flat against their sides, and trembled. A hush fell over the hall, broken only by the sound of my footsteps and their careful, shallow breathing. The nobles' children waiting in their splendid dress uniforms, the commoners seated in their plain, practical clothes, the examiners observing in solemn attire — before me, every last one of them shut their mouths and looked away.
"I need only pour my mana into this, yes?"
"Yes, Your Highness!"
At some point Alex had taken to answering like a devoted servant, bent double at the waist. I looked down at him as he strained with everything he had not to cross me, then channeled mana into the crystal orb.
Crack.
I had poured in only a sliver of mana, yet the orb shattered like a wineglass. I couldn't tell whether the test had gone well.
"It broke. Is this how the mana assessment is meant to proceed?"
"Th-that is... that orb is not supposed to break so easily... it..."
Alex murmured, his face frozen in disbelief.
"Is this how the mana assessment is meant to proceed?"
"Yes, that's right! P-perhaps the orb itself was faulty! I have heard that the orb shatters when it cannot bear the examinee's mana!"
"I see."
I glanced at the shattered orb. It did nag at me somewhat, having broken the very instrument meant to measure my mana, but rather than fumble about insisting on a retest, it seemed kinder to everyone in the hall for me to take my leave quickly.
"Then what is to become of my assessment?"
"A p-perfect score, I should think!"
"Understood."
I gave my short reply and looked around the hall once more. Then I stepped down from the platform and made for the exit. It was time for the next test — the aptitude assessment. I had shattered the crystal orb, and yet a perfect score awaited; the mana assessment, then, had gone off without a hitch.
Whoosh.
The examination hall, after Demesis finished his mana assessment and departed. Somehow, the air that had been crushed flat finally seemed to circulate again. Those who had been pressed to the floor managed, barely, to lift their heads.
Alex, who had likewise answered the prince on his knees and trembling with fear, checked again and again that Demesis was truly gone before coaxing his frozen body upright.
"What... what in the world just walked past us?"
"I was scared. I was so, so scared."
The voices of the babbling examinees reflected his own heart exactly. What in the world had that been? Demesis Kal Reg Drakan, Second Prince of the Kingdom of Draikna. He was beyond anything Alex had imagined. The roster had instructed them to avoid meeting the prince's eyes wherever possible and to press themselves flat to the ground — and Alex hadn't believed a word of it. Yet the moment he laid eyes on the man, he had found himself doing precisely as written, as naturally as breathing.
"This is insane... is this for real?"
The curse slipped out before he knew it. Could someone like that truly be allowed into the Academy? All they had done was complete a mana assessment and exchange a few words, and Alex had thought his heart would give out from sheer terror. If Alex, who took no small pride in his own abilities, had been reduced to this, what chance did ordinary students have?
"Hey, snap out of it!"
"Breathe. Just breathe. Aaah! He's not breathing — this man isn't breathing!"
"Medical team! Medical team! We need first aid over here, now!"
The examination hall descended into an uproar, as though a storm had torn straight through it. Alex threw himself into emergency response and quelled the commotion. A full thirty minutes passed before the exams could resume.
"Come to think of it, where did all the examinees who were in line go?"
"I'm told they wet themselves and went off to change their clothes."
It seemed the young nobles so proud of their mana had suffered a rather mortifying mishap. Alex wondered what manner of chaos this even was. In the end, he left the mana assessment in the hands of his subordinates and walked out of the hall. He would have to ask the director of the entrance examinations. Just what kind of person was Demesis — and could a man that terrifying truly be permitted to sit the entrance exam like any ordinary candidate?
I entered the aptitude examination hall. This test proceeded differently for each examinee according to their specialty — swordsmanship, magic, divine power, defense, and so on. Each candidate simply applied in the field they were most confident in and had their skill recognized. I had chosen swordsmanship.
I was no swordsman who had trained formally with the blade, but I did possess the ability to pour mana into a sword. Learning magic, on the other hand, was forbidden in my kingdom. The reasoning being that I was already more than strong enough, and I must not be allowed to grow any stronger. It was my father's counsel. With the Dragon Heart already dwelling within my body and the telekinesis I had honed through all those years lying abed, I had become a being whom everyone feared. Add offensive magic to that, and I would become something even more terrifying still — and lonelier than I already was. That was why I did not learn magic.
And so here I was, taking my aptitude test in swordsmanship. In the hall, the examinees waited before training dummies shaped like scarecrows. That is, they had been — until I walked in.
"Huk...!"
"A m-monster...!"
There I was, coming to take my aptitude test with only a cloak and hood wrapped around me and a single sword in hand — and the examinees recoiled in horror as though beholding the god of death itself. Here too, I looked for the examiner in charge.
"I need only cut the dummy down with my sword, yes?"
Apparently, when one cut down the scarecrow-like dummy, the examiners would assess the strength engraved into it, the traces of one's swordsmanship, the intensity of one's mana, and so forth, and assign a score accordingly.
"Th-that is correct, Lord Demesis..."
The examiner here, just as Alex had in the mana assessment hall, sank to his knees and bowed his head before answering. Honestly — why did everyone have to be so frightened? I cast a cursory glance over the hall, frozen solid with people prostrate as though worshipping a god, then walked toward my target: the scarecrow dummy.
Swish.
I swung the sword, mana flooding the blade, and the dummy split clean in two. The crystal orb had shattered in the mana hall, and now the aptitude hall's scarecrow broke apart just as easily.
"Is this how it is done?"
I asked whether the test was truly this easy, this simple, this... hollow.
"W-well, that is, um, testing equipment forged of special alloy and inscribed with a mana-warding circle — it is not supposed to break that easily... B-but regardless, yes, that is correct."
The examiner muttered, his eyes wide with incredulity.
"Will this earn me my score?"
They had meant to test my swordsmanship, and I had simply smashed the target to pieces.
"Yes. A p-perfect score."
Since the examiner called it a perfect score, I looked down at the scarecrow dummy, halved and rolling across the floor, and simply left the hall. The next test was the practical exam, if I recalled correctly. The entrance exam was over so quickly that it was certainly convenient, but something about it felt a touch disappointing. It wasn't as though I had ridden a carriage all the way to the Imperial Capital just to do this much. I hoped the next test would give me more to do.
The examiner of the aptitude hall stared, dumbstruck, at the scarecrow dummy lying there as though dead. The roster had warned them to be wary of Demesis, but having seen the man in person, it was nowhere near that simple. Merely crossing his path made one feel their life was in danger; one became incapable of harboring any emotion toward him but fear. The moment you stepped into his domain — into his awareness — your life or death rested in his hands.
The examiner understood at last why the man was so feared, and broke out in a cold sweat. How could a figure hidden beneath a cloak radiate such a murderous presence? If the prince had not been keeping his face concealed beneath that hood, the examiner wondered whether he could have managed even a single word in reply.
Something was wrong. None of this was right. A man like that could not be allowed into the Academy. He exceeded anything the Academy was built to contain. He left the aptitude hall to report the matter to the director of the entrance examinations.
"Uuuh..."
"AAAAAH!"
In the aptitude hall Demesis had passed through, the examinees had dropped their swords and were crawling on the floor. These were people confident enough in their swordsmanship to apply under that specialty — yet they did not even care that they had dropped the very lifeblood of a swordsman. That was how shattering the man they had encountered had been.