Chapter 4: Academy Admission
Chapter 4: Academy Admission
A month slipped by. Another thousand points hit my account, and by then I'd worked my way through most of the frozen meals that kept materializing in the fridge on their own.
Grateful for this absurdly convenient body—one that could eat without ever needing to shit, as if someone had yanked a dead man's soul and shoved it in here—I dragged the mattress over and flopped down in front of the screen.
"All cadets, formation!"
I'd looked away for a moment to eat breakfast, and the screen was already showing the Academy's entrance ceremony. Fair enough. While I'd been taste-testing frozen food, gawking at Han Ye-ji, and browsing the shop doing imaginary shopping, she'd been living her life day after day without pause.
She had the look of a cool, slender beauty, but her personality was relentlessly upbeat and she never slacked. For a full month, she'd done bodyweight training on a strict schedule to prepare for the Academy. I liked what I saw. Since I couldn't read anyone's potential, picking a hardworking person meant I was already halfway there, right?
The vast auditorium was packed with people in neat rows, their uniforms closer to military dress than school attire. I couldn't count every head crammed onto the screen, but a rough estimate put it at three hundred.
"Shut your mouths, you little shits! You think this is a playground?"
"Which bitch is already making goo-goo eyes?!"
"You think I'll go easy on you 'cause you're a guy? Are you seriously fixing your makeup right now?!"
Women who looked less like teachers and more like drill instructors stalked the aisles, hefting solid clubs to set the tone. Men in crisp dress shoes clicked across the floor, studying name tags and jotting down the names of cadets flagged for poor discipline.
Women screaming profanity, men calmly recording names. Everyone here had come from the Eastern, Western, Southern, and Northern Continents with some prior knowledge of what an Incarnation was—nobody was clueless enough to miss the mood. A few men, still too conscious of the camera, tried to fix their makeup and caught a blow to the back of the head. That was about it.
The discipline was iron, but the ceremony itself was standard. An old woman with her hair pulled into a severe bun gave a long-winded speech about the duties and sacred calling an Incarnation must uphold for the continent. And that was it.
Her endless lecture did at least clue me in on a few things: the monsters trying to breach the continent from the outer edges, and the Fallen Incarnations who turned on humanity and attacked their own. Made sense. Survivors, people whose talents died undeveloped—no guarantee they'd all be saints. I'd seen more than enough of how ugly humans could get from my time in the underground bunker.
"I'm not asking for parade-ground perfection, you little bastards! Chatter all you want, but keep up!"
A wall enclosed an entire island. A gate, an auditorium just past the entrance. The buildings were spotless—clean white and black with not a blemish in sight—but the training grounds were cratered and cracked all over. Judging by the size, calling it a training ground was generous; it was more like an open field.
With the U-shaped building wrapping around it, the place looked like an ordinary school at a glance. But the field was big enough to land a plane on, which meant the building itself stretched absurdly long.
As I panned across the Academy, a small detail caught my eye.
'No black fog?'
When I looked beyond the Academy to the continent at large, large patches were shrouded in black fog. Probably spots where Incarnations spent points to shield their families, or where equipment blocked Constellation observation. But the Academy—crawling with Incarnations—was perfectly clear.
The Incarnation cadets trailed after their instructors like ducklings after a mother. I scanned the crowd for Han Ye-ji.
There she was. In her Academy uniform, following close behind the instructor, spine ramrod-straight and neck stiff with tension—as if the reality of having become an Incarnation was finally sinking in. The sight of her marching like a raw recruit, military discipline cranked to the max, was entertaining. But curiosity was curiosity. I put my hands on the keyboard without hesitation.
[The Constellation, Lethargic Nightmare, is curious as to why the Academy has no Veil.]
At times like this, the system's auto-filtering was a blessing. I could type something like "why isn't this place covered" and it would polish it up on its own. I'd been calling it black fog—was the official term Veil? I thought I'd glimpsed the name in the shop list, but there was too much to memorize. I couldn't recall the details.
Han Ye-ji twitched—she must've received my message—but she wasn't stupid enough to call the instructor to a halt. She was at the very front of the line, though, and a few people behind her flinched at her reaction and nearly stumbled.
'She's not that dumb.'
Stopping the instructor mid-march in that atmosphere wouldn't make you look bright and energetic—it'd just make you look clueless. Maybe it was loneliness, or maybe being my first Incarnation had me wearing rose-colored glasses, but I appeared to be interpreting most of her actions positively.
They crossed the enormous field from the auditorium and reached the building. The Academy didn't take in new students once a year—it admitted them every month. In the classrooms we passed, nobody batted an eye at the newcomers; they just kept taking their lessons.
"Take your seats! This isn't elementary school—no picking where you sit. Front to back, in the order you came in!"
A female instructor slammed a stack of documents against the lectern with a heavy thud, as if showing off her thick forearms. Maybe it was this world's rule that women had stronger bodies than men—height aside, the muscle mass difference was clear. On average, men were taller, but the proportion of heavily muscled physiques was higher among women.
"I assume none of you are idiots who walked into this Academy after contracting with Constellations without even gathering basic information. Am I wrong? You should at least know how the curriculum works and what it takes to graduate!"
I'd been expecting to hear about future lesson plans, but the instructor's bark threw me off. The Incarnation Academy was harsher than I'd thought. The name "Academy" had made me picture something like a specialized high school, but the system here was closer to a university.
"However, since it's your first day, I'll take a few questions. In exactly ten minutes, supplies will be distributed. Ask your questions before then!"
Han Ye-ji's hand shot up from the seat directly in front of the lectern. So she remembered my message from earlier.
"Good, quick on the draw. What do you want to ask?"
"Why is there no Veil at the Academy?"
The instructor's expression turned cryptic. She glanced down at the papers in her hand—some kind of attendance ledger, maybe? She appeared to be checking a document with Han Ye-ji's photo, so that was probably it.
"Hmph. Since this sounds like your Constellation's question, I'll let it slide just this once. The Academy provides foundational knowledge, including information specifically for Constellations, all clearly organized. And yet... Cadet Han Ye-ji, if you're walking the path alongside your Constellation, you should have prepared more thoroughly."
"Yes, understood."
Having delivered that mild rebuke, the instructor launched into an explanation disguised as a question.
"The Academy does not intend to produce dropouts. Even if you fall behind in your lessons, the Academy itself will never expel you. This is a place where competition exists, but failure does not. Any guesses why?"
I rotated the screen to match the instructor's point of view. A few students looked like they knew the answer but didn't step forward—either the sudden question had caught them off guard, or they just didn't want to stand out. The instructor didn't seem to care either way and kept talking.
"Far beyond the continent, the monsters threatening humanity's survival keep spawning endlessly. And even after becoming Incarnations, plenty of bastards are seduced by wicked Constellations and betray mankind. That is why we do not care how lacking you are. Even if you are slower than the rest—so long as you complete your training and eventually march to war, that is enough."
At that, a few faces lit up. A male student with some extra weight on his frame, a timid-looking female student hiding her eyes behind her bangs—the ones who seemed scared of fighting. Seeing this, the instructor abruptly slammed the lectern with a deafening bang.
"However!"
Her voice echoed, and the students—and I—jolted, waiting for her next words. The thick fist that had struck the lectern uncurled, fingers shooting straight up toward the ceiling.
"Will the Constellations watching over you wait forever? We are prepared to wait one year, five years, however long it takes for you to become soldiers and deploy to the front lines. But will the Constellations who have placed great expectations on you wait that long? Do you understand now, Cadet Han Ye-ji? Why there is no Veil to obstruct your Constellations' sight in this Academy?"
"You mean... our evaluation isn't just the Academy's doing. The Constellations are evaluating us as well?"
"Correct. Our job is to teach you and send you to the battlefield—not to decide whether you are fit to be an Incarnation."
As the exchange between the instructor and Han Ye-ji went on, the faces of the students farther back kept shifting color, red to pale and back again. Did the ones who looked extra worried have contracts with impatient Constellations?
The Academy worked like a university: you passed training, accumulated credits. I'd heard the average graduation period was about one year, assuming you started with basic physical conditioning and progressed to combat techniques. But I also remembered reading that some Constellations—the ones who'd rather sponsor skills than wait—would break an Incarnation contract if the cadet couldn't manage early graduation. Then again, all I knew came from watching over Han Ye-ji's shoulder while she browsed Constellations online, so I couldn't be sure.
Would the point shop eventually sell something like an internet access function? There was a game console sitting in the corner of my room, which suggested it might. The TV screen let me observe my Incarnation, and the computer monitor opened the point shop, but the console hooked up to the TV didn't respond at all.
Wait—did I have to buy a separate game account from the luxury goods list, and then pay points to connect to the internet, too? Given how viciously the system squeezed points out of Constellations, that sounded about right.
Since I already had the mouse in hand to check the shop for anything I'd missed, I sent Han Ye-ji a quick message at the same time. Timely responses were key to managing an Incarnation.
[The Constellation, Lethargic Nightmare, expresses gratitude for the detailed explanation.]
Apparently, messages like that weren't just visible to the Incarnation—the instructor, the one I was thanking, could see it too. She dipped her head in a crisp, measured nod toward the empty air in greeting. From my current viewpoint—looking out from the lectern at the students—I could only see the back of her head.