Middle School Entrance Ceremony
“With this much… I suppose the preparations are more or less finished?”
Today was the day of middle school entrance.
It wasn’t as though we were heading off to some grand academy, yet I couldn’t quite hide the tension coiling in my chest all the same.
“Ehehe! Seo-hyun, look at this! It’s so funny!”
Julia, on the other hand, seemed to have nothing of the sort on her mind.
“You do realize today is the day we start school, right?”
“Hm? Ah~ I know.”
“You’re not nervous at all?”
“Well… it’s not like we’re going to an academy. Sure, it’s a fairly prestigious place, but at the end of the day it’s just middle school. Is there really any need to get worked up?”
She had a point. Given the sheer volume of studying we had already done, fretting over mere middle school did feel a little absurd.
“Anyway, you should at least hear once what we’ll be learning.”
“Ugh… what a pain. Can’t I just rest?”
“Pardon? You’re saying you’d rather do more training?”
“Ah, no… I’ll listen to what we’re going to learn…”
“Ahem. Then I’ll explain, so pay close attention.”
Unlike ordinary middle schools attended by regular civilians, the Korean middle school we would be entering differed slightly in its direction.
We would still study the five core subjects—Korean, English, math, social studies, and science—along with the arts and physical education, but a separate specialized track had been established, one that poured considerable effort into the professional cultivation of heroes. Julia, too, had already been designated for admission into that specialized class.
“From first period through fourth you’ll take the same subjects as the other students, and from the afternoon onward you’ll attend specialized-class lessons together with them.”
The subjects taught only in the specialized track included unique ability development, weapons training, mana manipulation, combat drills, and the like—essentially the gateway toward becoming a hero, with the ultimate goal of entering an academy.
And among those academies, the absolute pinnacle was Sirius Academy, where the finest talents from every nation gathered.
“Doesn’t sound all that fun…”
“For reference, during combat training they apparently hold friendly sparring matches on a regular basis. I hear there are even rewards if you win.”
The moment the words left my mouth, Julia’s eyes lit up like twin stars.
“Rewards?! What kind of rewards?”
“Who knows? Wouldn’t it spoil the fun if I told you in advance?”
Julia bounced with anticipation, already lost in happy daydreams about whatever prizes might await.
In truth, they weren’t anything particularly special.
“Ah, then where are you going? Are you in the specialized class too?”
“Me…? I’m in the general track, of course.”
“Why? Aren’t you aiming to become an Assist?”
“Assists… well, demand for them is lower compared to heroes. If you want to become one, you pretty much have to study on your own.”
For someone aiming to be an Assist, it might have been a somewhat bitter piece of news, but the truth was that the Assist profession was one that quietly suffered a fair amount of discrimination.
Most of those who set their sights on becoming Assists had originally wanted to be heroes, only to slam into the walls of reality and settle for Assist work instead. As a result, competition among Assists was far fiercer than among heroes—who could make it with nothing more than a usable unique ability.
With the supply of Assists skyrocketing far beyond demand, their treatment had naturally been sliding downhill.
“Well, setting that aside—are you still planning to stay in bed?”
“Uh… there’s still time left. Can’t I just take it easy a little longer…”
“…”
“Fine! I’m getting up already! What’s with you today…?!”
Years had passed, yet Julia still seemed scarcely different from the child she had once been.
“Ahem… with that… I shall conclude… the principal’s words of encouragement… Students… please rise from your seats… and proceed to your classrooms… in an orderly fashion…”
The moment the principal’s interminably dull speech finally ended, the students broke into chatter with the friends they had already made and streamed back toward their classrooms.
“Shall we head back as well?”
“Yeah! By the way, I’ve never seen anyone talk that much! How can a person keep going for a whole hour without stopping even once?”
I had to agree.
He had clearly prepared a script, yet after reading for maybe ten minutes he abandoned it entirely and filled the remaining fifty with unsolicited advice disguised as guidance. It was enough to make one wonder whether such a feat was even humanly possible.
“Hm…?”
Walking down the corridor with Julia, I felt a cluster of stares and came to a halt.
“Hey… look over there. Is that a foreigner?”
“Whoa… she’s insanely pretty. Anyone know who she is?”
The whispers of uniformed students reached us clearly.
They were talking about none other than Julia and me, and having never received this kind of attention before, I found myself thoroughly flustered.
When you think about it, maybe it’s only natural?
Back at the mansion, most of the hired staff were either foreigners themselves or had worked abroad, so they never treated us as anything particularly strange. But this was school.
The children here came from reasonably well-off families, so contact with foreigners wasn’t completely alien to them—yet even among that crowd, the two of us stood out as rather unusual.
I had been born in Korea, yet albinism had left me with white hair and red eyes. Julia, having inherited the famous good looks of the Wittelsbach family—renowned for producing beauties—already possessed the face of a celebrity despite having only just turned fourteen.
Had we simply stepped out onto the street, casting offers would have poured in nonstop; we simply hadn’t felt the full weight of it because we spent most of our time inside the mansion.
“Look at her eyes. I’ve never seen red eyes before—are those contacts?”
“Looks like she dyed her hair…”
The students speculated among themselves but didn’t dare approach us.
I, for my part, felt equally reluctant to take the first step.
At that moment, however, Julia—who had been walking beside me—strode straight up to the nearest group of students.
“Hi! What’s your name?”
“Uh, um? I… I’m Hyun-a…”
“Hyun-a! That’s a nice name! Which class are you in?”
“Class 7, but…”
“Oh! That’s right next door!”
“Next door… so Class 6?”
“Mmm! Close, but wrong! I’m in the specialized track! Because of that, our classroom’s stuck right next to Class 7! Let’s be friends from now on!”
“Uh, uh? S-sure…”
Like a whirlwind sweeping through the hallway, Julia latched onto every student within reach and struck up conversation. In no time her surroundings had grown lively and noisy.
Her sheer social magnetism was on a level I could never hope to match; all the worries I had been carrying suddenly felt pointless.
“Seo-hyun! Come over here too!”
“Y-yes?”
“Ta-da! This is Seo-hyun—she lives with me at our house!”
A gust of wind from behind seemed to yank me forward in a single step until I stood right beside Julia.
“Whoa, I’ve never seen an albino before…”
“That’s so cool. Can I touch your hair just once?”
“Hey, no way! Only I get to touch our Seo-hyun!”
“Y-young lady, please step back a little…”
At any rate, I no longer had to worry about struggling to make friends. That was a relief.
And so we managed to get through the entrance ceremony without incident.
“Mmm~! This is seriously delicious!”
“I wasn’t expecting much since it’s school cafeteria food… but the quality is surprisingly good.”
“Right? The company that supplies this school’s meals is my absolute favorite! And the best dish here is…”
We were chatting and eating with our newly made friends when someone casually asked about our backgrounds.
“By the way, Julia. Where are you from?”
“Me? I was born in Germany, but I’ve lived in Korea ever since I was four, so this is basically my home country, isn’t it? My mother was born in Korea too, actually.”
That was one of the reasons the Wittelsbach family—whose activities were centered in Germany—had chosen to settle in Korea.
Homeschooling was illegal in Germany, and there were matters that needed handling in Korea as well; what had begun as a stay of only a few months had somehow stretched on until now.
“Maybe that’s why your hair is black but your eyes are weirdly blue? Like the blood mixed half and half or something.”
“Then what about Seo-hyun? Is Seo-hyun mixed too?”
“Seo-hyun? I don’t really know either.”
“Huh? What do you mean you don’t know?”
“Well… around the time she was five, I think? Father brought her home after stopping by an auction house, and apparently there was no birth registration. But she was definitely born in Korea, so she’s probably pure Korean, right?”
“Ah…”
It was a question that could easily have been sensitive, and the girl looked ready to apologize at once—but I stopped her.
“It’s fine. Julia’s family has treated me well.”
“Alright, alright, let’s drop this topic here. Oh, by the way—what have you been staring at this whole time?”
At Julia’s question, the student who had been checking his phone flinched and answered.
“Uh, uh? Just watching the news?”
“News? Doesn’t look like a domestic channel.”
“I-it’s an American station. Looks like some kind of terrorist attack happened a little while ago.”
Terrorism, was it? Nothing particularly unusual.
The number of villains scattered across the world already exceeded the combined total of heroes in any single nation, so terrorist incidents were correspondingly frequent.
Even turning on the news in Korea would regularly bring reports of local attacks or monster raids.
“Hm? I’ve never seen this city before, though.”
“Oh, anyone in the know has heard of it. It’s a pretty famous district.”
“Mind if we take a look together?”
“S-sure.”
The news playing on the phone showed a landscape of ruins engulfed in roaring flames.
The facilities had been so thoroughly destroyed that no detailed information could be gleaned, yet the sheer scale made it clear this ranked among the most significant incidents of the past year.
“Where is this?”
“Have you heard of Zone US-TK-07? It’s a well-known high-crime area in America. Looks like there was a clash between villains. If they wipe each other out, that’s good news for the rest of us, right?”
The moment I heard those words, a certain commission I had received a few days earlier flashed through my mind.
“Is there any footage from the actual incident?”
“Huh? Uh, hang on…”
In the video he played next, I witnessed a colossal pillar of light surging toward the heavens, followed by a devastating flash that detonated with overwhelming force.
“This…”
“First time seeing this villain, right? It’s a light-based unique ability, and the destructive power is on this level… If it gets ranked, it’d probably be S-class, wouldn’t it? Assuming the same technique can be used more than once, of course.”
He continued rattling on about the incident, but his voice no longer reached my ears.
A girl around thirteen who wields a spear. Every time she activates her unique ability, pure white energy pours out and wraps around her body—a physical-enhancement type…
The flash that had filled the entire screen during the incident, and the pure white energy that flowed out whenever the ability activated.
Could the two truly be unrelated?
“Julia. Would you be able to attend today’s specialized-class lessons on your own?”
“Uh, huh? But it’s the first day…”
“From next period onward I’ll definitely go with you. Something’s come up that I have to handle today.”
Julia looked at the expression that had hardened on my face and slowly nodded.
Zone US-TK-07, is it… I was going to take the commission anyway, but I need to dig a little deeper.
Perhaps this was the perfect chance to put the strength and connections I had built up over the years to the test.