Admission Application
“Hello~ Welcome! How may I help you today?”
“Um… I’m here to submit my application for Sirius Academy.”
“Ah, of course~ Just a moment, please~”
The woman who had been greeting everyone with a flawlessly professional smile took my application form, and the instant she turned away I let out a long breath.
So I finally made it here.
Nearly a full year had passed since the monster raid on Seoul. In that time I had focused on gathering rare biological genes for Darwin and building new equipment to expand Laplace’s capabilities. The most representative piece was the black earring currently fastened to my ear. Crafted from a new special alloy, it boasted exceptional durability and housed a miniature computer that let me stay in constant contact with Laplace. It even possessed a decent degree of mana resistance, so unless I stood face-to-face with a demon it would never shut down.
And the size is just right.
At a casual glance it looked no different from an ordinary earring.
After months of preparing everything that might prove useful for academy life, I had finally come to the reception desk to hand in my application. I had ready a new communications device and plenty more besides, yet I still couldn’t shake the feeling that it might not be enough.
It wasn’t that my preparations were lacking. Even by my own standards I had stocked more than enough for ordinary academy life. What gnawed at me was something else entirely.
In every novel I’ve read, the protagonists walk into an academy and some disaster explodes on day one. This might still fall short.
Take the classic example: demons invade the academy and everyone dies. The entire faculty was said to be B-class heroes or higher, and the headmaster was a retired S-class, so they could buy time—but the academy would still fall. The idea that a mere educational institution could stand against demons capable of tanking nuclear strikes already stretched the definition of “school,” yet the raid a year ago had left Seo-hyun hypersensitive. Ordinary security no longer satisfied her.
One of her long-term goals was to blanket the entire Korean peninsula with unmanned turrets, drones, and bioweapons so that nothing below B-class could ever threaten it again.
…For now, that future remained impossibly distant.
“Um… excuse me? Could I ask you to reconfirm that this ID really belongs to you?”
“Yes. Is there a problem?”
“Well… it says here you’re an Unawakened—someone without a unique ability…”
“Ah. That’s correct. It’s me.”
“Pardon?”
“I really am an Unawakened.”
I did possess the Bloodstone, but that was less a unique ability of my own and more a borrowed power. Yekaterina’s ability specialized in reshaping organic matter, which was why I could use it at all; the condensed cores created by most other powerhouses simply killed anyone nearby. Gustav, the S-class hero active in Germany and Russia, produced the so-called Blast Stones—tiny crystals that detonated at the slightest impact and were already being refined into next-generation explosives.
Lying about having a unique ability would only get me caught the moment they run the ID check or the aptitude test.
Even Laplace couldn’t help. Both the identification and the aptitude exam relied on mana-based arcane engineering rather than electronics.
“An… Unawakened…? P-please wait just a moment!”
The receptionist, clearly flustered, flipped frantically through the manual on her desk.
“Th-there’s no regulation saying we have to turn them away… Senior! Could you come over here for a second?!”
As the process dragged on, the people waiting nearby began to notice something was off. One by one their gazes drifted toward me.
—“What’s with that girl? They’re saying she’s Unawakened?”
—“An Unawakened actually applied for the Sirius Academy entrance exam?”
The murmurs grew louder. Sirius Academy existed to produce people who could fight monsters and villains. The primary weapon against those threats was a unique ability. So for an Unawakened to walk in as a prospective student felt, to most of them, like a denial of the academy’s very reason for existing.
What a pain…
I had expected pushback, but I hadn’t imagined the application itself would be this much trouble.
While I waited for the receptionist to return, the woman who had gone to fetch her senior reappeared with a man in tow. The moment he reached me he bowed deeply.
“I’m terribly sorry! Our new hire still needs more training! We’ll process this right away!”
He pulled a form from a drawer and held it out.
“Please fill in the department you wish to enter and your personal information!”
The department was, of course, Assist. For personal details I simply wrote the truth. The address I listed was the house I had recently purchased under my own name; living off Yekaterina forever had started to feel awkward.
You’re leaving…? Where to? From here? …Really? …Then I’ll just erase that house…
Yekaterina’s muttered words still lingered uncomfortably, but I figured it would be fine. Besides, I could hardly put the old Wittelsbach manor as my address—it had collapsed ages ago.
Come to think of it, I still haven’t told the Wittelsbach family I’m alive.
The slave contract had ended the same day as the monster raid, so even after I filed my survival report the government wouldn’t have bothered notifying them. In short, the Wittelsbachs still believed I was dead.
Well… I can always tell them when we meet at the academy.
Once I finished the form, the man rattled off the remaining instructions.
“The first entrance exam is two weeks from now, on Thursday! We’ll email the exam-site location to the address you provided—please arrive by nine o’clock! Would you like me to explain the exam order as well?”
“No, that’s fine.”
“Understood! Have a good day!”
I turned and walked away. About thirty paces later my sharpened hearing picked up the conversation between the man and the woman.
“Hey! Just accept everyone who shows up at the exam site! Who do you think you are, the proctor?!”
“S-sorry…”
“Whether it’s some impotent guy who can’t use mana, a blind man who can’t see past his own nose, or a lunatic screaming that a sword is the ultimate weapon—just take the damn application! If they file a complaint we’re finished in a heartbeat! The ones who are going to fail will fail halfway through anyway!”
Anyone else might have exploded into a stream of curses at those words. I simply didn’t care.
In the end, the one laughing last would be me.
Julia had come to the Sirius Academy reception desk with Isabella when a strange sensation made her tilt her head.
Huh…? What is this?
“Isabella, doesn’t something feel familiar?”
“Familiar, my lady?”
“Yeah… it’s really familiar somehow…”
Julia blended her presence into the surrounding air and scanned the people nearby, yet no one stood out.
“What is it…? It felt exactly like meeting an old friend…”
“Perhaps it’s only your imagination?”
“No… there’s a scent I know too well…”
She sniffed the empty air, then her eyes flew wide.
“Th-that’s it! It’s Seo-hyun’s scent! This is definitely Seo-hyun’s scent…!”
“My lady…”
Isabella’s expression softened with pity; she still believed Julia had never recovered from the trauma.
“My lady, Seo-hyun went missing a year ago. Please come back to yourself.”
“No! They never even found a body! She might have survived somewhere and come looking for me…!”
“Her DNA was never found in the blood on the ground. No one could have survived a fall from that height…”
“…”
Julia’s face fell into sudden gloom. Isabella realized she had misspoken and opened her mouth to comfort her, but Julia spoke first.
“You’re right… she might be dead…”
“…My lady…”
“But I still want to bet on that one slim chance that Seo-hyun is alive. Without it I don’t think I could keep living under this guilt.”
“It was never your fault—”
“Seo-hyun saved every one of us and fell from that cliff. So… at the very least, I want to be the one who saves her.”
Even if she was no longer alive, Julia would wander the world following her traces. If she found the father and mother who had abandoned Seo-hyun and took revenge… perhaps then her heart would finally ease a little.
“Isabella.”
“Yes.”
“The only reason I exist today is because of Seo-hyun. Everything I am, she made for me.”
So…
Right now I feel like I could give you everything I have.
So please come back.
Seo-hyun.
I’m begging you.