Chapter 91: Final Exams (1)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 91: Final Exams (1)
Before the final exams.
"...This tastes even worse than I expected."
I was chewing on a piece of bread that was dry as bone.
Taking a bite sucked all the moisture from my mouth, forcing me to wet my lips with water. I repeated this tedious cycle.
It was so tough and chewy that my jaw was starting to ache. Frowning, I kept grinding my teeth anyway.
"Gotta eat to live."
I muttered to myself, but choking this bread down was a true ordeal.
I had bought it to fill my stomach before the exams, but while the portion was huge, it tasted absolutely awful.
They say you get what you pay for, but I didn't expect that to apply so literally to bread. It was a taste that made me deeply regret my past self, who had blindly bought it yesterday just because it was cheap.
Honestly, my wallet wasn't even that light right now.
The Kimchi Stew Booth had been such a massive hit that I'd raked in a lump sum of cash, easily clearing away any immediate worries about food.
After subtracting the cost of ingredients and settling the shares with the club members, the amount left in my hands was a whopping...
Five million won.
Seeing a five followed by six zeros brought an indescribable sense of satisfaction. Of course, I still had the money I'd swindled from the Blacksmith, but a full storehouse and a thick head of hair are things you can never have too much of.
The only reason I was eating such a miserable breakfast was to prevent even a single drop of leak from my bank account. There was nothing wrong with being frugal.
With my parents in this world out of the picture, my chances of getting any allowance were smaller than a knothole. Save what can be saved, scrape up what can be scraped.
If I lived like that, wouldn't I be able to survive somehow until my second year? Once I hit sophomore year, I could work part-time jobs, which meant a steady income.
Damn it.
Doing this brought back old memories. I felt like I had lived exactly like this at this age in my past life... Feeling a bit gloomy, I bit down harder on the rubbery bread.
I kept my jaw working as I stared at my phone, chewing on the words displayed on the screen as if digesting them along with the bread.
* * *
[2034 1st Semester Final Exam Practical Announcement]
Please be advised that due to unforeseen circumstances, the contents of the upcoming final exam practical have been modified as follows.
◉ Changes: External Dungeon Raid ▶ Team Match.
Exam Period: 2034. 06. 02. (Tue) ~ 06. 06. (Wed)
Exam Location: Joaquin Academy Special Pavilion.
Team Composition: One 2nd-year cadet, two 1st-year cadets. (Randomly assigned.)
[※ Team assignments will be sent via text message the day before the exam.]
[※ The exact details of the exam will be announced verbally right before it begins.]
* * *
It was a layout as bare-bones as my breakfast.
It didn't even state how the exam would be conducted. Weapon had grumbled that they might as well have handed out blank sheets of paper if they were going to be this vague.
Seriously.
However, thanks to my experience as a gamer, I could deduce a few things even from this fragmentary information.
One word stood out prominently among those brief sentences: the exam location, the Joaquin Academy Special Pavilion.
I had almost forgotten about it because the three syllables of Rachel's name had left me so stunned, but the exam location was no less shocking.
Unless there had been a change in the settings, that place was originally reserved exclusively for third-year cadets.
A massive hall located at the northernmost edge of the academy's vast grounds, it was a building that symbolized Joaquin Academy's educational philosophy: absolute practical realism.
Calling it a building was a massive understatement; it was a dungeon—no, a place far more sinister than that.
...What do they mean, "Special Pavilion"?
A low groan escaped my lips. And for good reason: the Joaquin Academy Special Pavilion was a compressed, physical recreation of Gehenna, the homeland of the demons.
The founder, Balor Joaquin, had supposedly built it based on his twenty years of survival in the Demon Realm. He had put so much effort into it that he'd literally brought back stones, gravel, and even weeds from the Demon Realm to plant there, creating a completely independent ecosystem inside the Special Pavilion.
They had even perfectly replicated the disorientation—a unique trait of Gehenna. One could really appreciate the founder's sheer dedication.
A labyrinth modeled after Gehenna under the guise of an educational facility—that was probably the most accurate description.
Building a place that was more of a dungeon than actual dungeons right inside the academy grounds... Even though I supported their trial-by-fire style of education, this felt like going a bit too far.
To compare it to my former profession, it was like setting up a full-scale aquarium inside a raw fish restaurant under the pretext of "learning to handle various types of fish," complete with seawater and sand hauled directly from the ocean.
Balor Joaquin... that guy isn't normal either.
The only saving grace was that he hadn't brought back actual magical beasts to throw in there. Whether I should feel relieved or not about that was a bit of a tragicomedy.
Anyway.
A team match was being held in such a Special Pavilion. This point was highly significant to me.
As far as I know, the Subspace Barrier can't be deployed inside the Special Pavilion...
Although the Subspace Barrier was widely used, the Special Pavilion was the sole location outside its reach.
Subspace and the Demon Realm were like light and darkness, water and oil—completely incompatible opposites.
Piecing the clues together, there was a very high probability that bloody battles between cadets would be forbidden. In subspace, there was no physical interference, so no real injuries would occur, but the Special Pavilion was outside that safe zone.
In that case, what would be the criteria for determining victory or defeat in this tournament? That was the one lingering question, but I would find out soon enough.
...It feels weird not knowing the exam format and the rewards.
Until now, I had the foundation of my memories as a player. But now, I had nothing.
Perhaps that was why the unfamiliar future felt so raw and real.
But thinking about it, wasn't this what a normal life was supposed to be? I wasn't some shaman; how could I expect to foresee the future so clearly?
In web novels or webtoons, everything falls into place like magic when you drop into another world. But at least for me, that didn't seem to be the case.
Then again, considering I wasn't even a hardcore gamer when I fell into this game, my situation was a bit different from the start. Since I didn't know the latter half of the story anyway, I just had to treat this as a practice run.
...Anyway.
I spat the dry crumbs out of my mouth into a trash bag. Then, I immediately poured bottled water down my throat to rinse. My gums throbbed.
"I can't eat this shit."
I packed my things and grabbed my wallet. I'd rather fill up on cup ramen from a convenience store than eat this cardboard bread. Muttering to myself, I stepped out of my room.
* * *
After filling my stomach with King Ttukkeong ramen at a convenience store, I arrived in front of the Special Pavilion.
The first thing that caught my eye, naturally, was the Special Pavilion itself.
It had a rugged, unadorned exterior that stood in stark contrast to the other elegant, classical academy buildings. Human-shaped stone sculptures were plastered all over the outer walls, practically screaming that this was a bizarre place.
However, it was undeniable that it exuded an intimidating pressure that made onlookers shrink back instinctively.
"...It feels a lot different from when I saw it in the game."
Back then, I thought it had a certain charm. I liked it because it offered a touch of fantasy aesthetics amidst the modern buildings of the academy... but seeing it in person, just looking at it sent a shiver down my spine.
Well, it is modeled after the Demon Realm...
I looked around. The area was bustling with cadets, murmuring as they met up with their respective teammates.
What was a bit strange was that the number of instructors was proportional to the cadets. There had to be at least a hundred of them.
"Geom-ha!"
A shrill voice pierced my ears from the side. It was so loud that even a deaf person would have heard it crystal clear. Turning my head, I saw two women walking toward me.
It was Rachel and Senior Hana, my teammates for the final exam. Since photos of the team members had been sent along with the text, they seemed to have found me easily.
"Geomma! I missed you so much!"
The moment Rachel made eye contact with me, she kicked off the ground and lunged forward.
With her Sky-Piercing Halberd slung over her shoulder, she charged with the momentum of a rhino bearing down with its horn.
I reached into my pocket.
"...!"
At that, Rachel screeched to a halt right in front of me. The impact left the stone floor cracked in the shape of her feet. I marveled inwardly at her leg strength, which completely defied the physical laws of inertia.
"W-Wait! Pulling your sword right off the bat is cheating!"
"..."
Rachel was quicker on the uptake than I thought.
"But that bad-boy charm is exactly what makes Geomma so attractive."
I reached into my pocket again.
"I'm kidding, I'm kidding! Seriously, you're just as intense now as you were during the midterms, aren't you?!"
"...Sigh."
Even as I let out a sigh, Rachel only giggled. Ignoring her, I turned my gaze toward Senior Hana.
Despite the commotion just now, she still maintained a relaxed expression.
...More importantly.
A red crowbar strapped to her waist caught my eye. What did they call it on Earth? A crowbar? Anyway, why was she carrying a tool that looked like it belonged on a construction site?
"Is that your armament, Senior?"
"Yep! What do you think?"
Senior Hana nodded with a bright smile.
"...Cool."
"Right?! Believe it or not, this is a B-rank Armament."
B-rank, huh. Between this and Weapon's recorder, it seemed that in this world, a weapon's appearance and its performance had absolutely nothing to do with each other.
While I was keeping Rachel at bay with a glare as she tried to sneakily cling to me...
"Alright, now that everyone seems to be gathered, I will explain how the exam will be conducted."
A middle-aged instructor, who appeared to be the most senior, stepped forward and spoke.
"This year's first-year final exam will exceptionally take place in the Special Pavilion. As notified via text, the event is a team match. However, the nature of this match is quite different from what you might expect."
He gestured with his chin, and the line of instructors standing in front of him moved in unison. The middle-aged instructor turned his gaze back to the cadets and spoke in a low voice.
"For this first-year final exam, the use of armaments is strictly prohibited. Everyone must hand over their armaments to the instructors in front of you."
At that declaration, the cadets' faces turned from bewilderment to sheer shock. I felt the same, but on some level, it made sense.
Come to think of it, the announcement hadn't said to "bring" armaments. The reason they hadn't explicitly told us not to bring them was probably to cause confusion and prevent us from guessing the exam format.
This is much fairer than the class placement exam.
As the crowd grew restless, the instructor calmly continued his explanation, as if he had expected this reaction.
"The interior of the Special Pavilion is an environment that closely mimics the Demon Realm. That means it lies outside the reach of the Subspace Barrier. It might be different for third-years who have plenty of real combat experience, but if clueless first-years like you start swinging weapons at each other, there will be casualties left and right."
The commotion died down slightly at his words. What he said made perfect sense.
If these greenhorns started wielding blades against each other, the results would be disastrous. Seeing their reactions, the instructor continued.
"The exam format is simple. You will enter the Special Pavilion and reach the designated Check Points for each stage within the one-hour time limit. Teams that arrive within the time limit will proceed to the next stage; those that don't will be disqualified."
...Hmm, so it's basically like a group race.
Reach the Check Point within one hour and move to the next stage. It sounded easy enough on paper, but the problem was the location.
The Special Pavilion, modeled after the Demon Realm, was practically a labyrinth without walls. Unless you were a magical beast or a demon, humans were highly prone to getting lost in the scattered magic power.
The format itself isn't bad.
The concept of a team match made sense to some extent as well. It was an exam that demanded endurance and cooperation.
To put it simply, it was roughly similar to a team marathon held inside a labyrinth.
This way, there would be less bloodshed, and aside from the terrain we had to traverse, it wouldn't be particularly dangerous.
But one question came to mind. How were they going to grade us without subspace? Right on cue, the middle-aged instructor offered an additional explanation on that front.
"An instructor will accompany each team to grade you and prevent any unforeseen accidents. Any half-wits who want to give up halfway can simply tell their assigned instructor. That is all. I wish you bad luck."
With the instructor's neat little curse delivered, the hundred or so instructors swarmed forward as if they had been waiting for the cue.
They collected the armaments into subspace pouches that looked like shoulder bags. Unlike Medea's, which looked like a clasp purse, these appeared to be standard-issue models.
"Aw, what? This final is so boring... Teenagers are supposed to beat each other up~"
Rachel smacked her lips in disappointment. Senior Hana merely smiled in silence. Unlike Rachel, she didn't seem to have any complaints. Then again, she wasn't the type to voice her opinions much anyway.
Meanwhile, the instructors who had started collecting from the front quickly drew near us.
"Cadets, please hand over your armaments~!"
A familiar female voice rang out. It had a deliberately cute, nasal tone mixed in.
When I turned my head, my eyes met those of the female instructor assigned to our team.
"...U-Uh! M-Master... Geomma...?!"
The villain, Choi Seol-ah. Her face turned deathly pale.
...Is it you?