Meeting
“Hmm…?”
“Is something the matter?”
“Ah, Professor Pungbaek. You’ve arrived.”
With the worldwide written examinations concluded and grading well underway, Pungbaek—who served as a professor at the academy—turned his gaze toward the paper his colleague was holding.
“That is…”
“Ah, well, among this round of written exams, a rather interesting answer turned up.”
“An interesting answer, you say?”
“Yes. Concerning the final question.”
“The final question… That would be the one about the Cracker that appeared in Seoul, wouldn’t it?”
Though many years had passed since he left Korea, it was still his homeland, and the memory of fretting through the Seoul invasion remained vivid. He himself had contributed a great deal to setting that last question on the Cracker.
“I believe it was meant to test the applicants’ powers of deduction…”
“Indeed. The Cracker has been around for less than a year, so even academic circles have only recently learned its detailed traits. Naturally, ordinary students wouldn’t know any of that.”
After the Cracker’s appearance during the Seoul invasion, fragments of the creature had begun surfacing in nations across the globe. Their computational power and destructive force fell short of even a tenth of the original that had struck Seoul, yet they steadily improved and were becoming a growing headache for governments.
The one silver lining is that capturing one of them alive allowed us to study its abilities in detail.
Thanks to that, the Hero Association and governments worldwide were formulating countermeasures based on the known data. Those findings, of course, remained classified—nothing ordinary students could possibly know.
Even so, question forty-five had been crafted around the Cracker’s attack patterns and countermeasures precisely to gauge how students would reason through an unfamiliar magical beast and how they might respond. There was also the faint hope that, among the millions of examinees, one or two genuinely useful ideas might surface. Sirius Academy’s structure left it particularly vulnerable to creatures like the Cracker, so independent analysis of its weaknesses and the establishment of countermeasures had become urgent. Folding that need into the exam itself was something of a clever workaround—harnessing collective intelligence.
From the outset, question forty-five had been designed so that any reasonably sound answer would be marked correct, however difficult or obscure it might appear on the surface. Of course, “reasonably sound” was judged by academy professors’ standards, meaning perhaps only 0.1 percent of students would manage it.
“Yet for you to look so astonished, Professor, it must have been more than merely ‘sound,’ yes?”
“Yes. It feels almost… like the firsthand account of someone who has actually faced a Cracker.”
Curious how the answer had been written, Pungbaek took the answer sheet from his colleague and began to read.
The Cracker’s most fundamental trait, setting it apart from conventional magical beasts, is its ability to manipulate electronic devices. This is the point we must focus on. Magical beasts inherently carry a form of mana that produces an EMP-like effect, and every movement of their bodies… (omitted)
From these observations, it becomes clear that the Cracker’s methods of attack differ significantly from those of ordinary Crackers or human hackers. The optimal means of neutralizing a Cracker is to destroy its main body; however, under the assumption presented in the question—that the Cracker is operating from a location where reconnaissance and direct assault are restricted—the following countermeasures may be employed.
… (omitted)
By the methods outlined above, one can seize control of local base stations and isolate equipment infected by the Cracker. In cases of wide-area contamination such as the Seoul air raid, interception via missiles or self-propelled artillery is viable; for narrower ranges, compact EMP devices may also be used. Direct destruction remains possible, yet given the creature’s rapid proliferation and abnormal regenerative capacity, the use of thermal weaponry is strongly recommended.
“Hmm… Whoever this is… the detail is certainly impressive.”
The writing carefully framed everything as mere conjecture, yet it was far too precise to be simple guesswork—almost as if the author had faced the thing personally.
“And this part… isn’t this information even we don’t know?”
“Exactly. I’ve never heard of it either…”
The descriptions of the hacking process were especially thorough—detailed enough to suggest professional training, covering how the intrusion had been attempted, what had resulted, and, based on that, the most rational countermeasures.
“What’s this child’s name?”
“Ah, just a moment… I recall it was a Korean-style name…”
The colleague rummaged through the materials and soon found it.
“Ah, here it is. Seo… hyun? That’s how it’s written.”
“Seo-hyun, is it…”
“The overall scores are unbelievable as well. I couldn’t trust the machine, so I graded it myself—top five is certain, and first place is entirely possible. Ah, if only a few odd mistakes hadn’t been made, a new record would have been set…”
Pungbaek examined the exam sheet labeled Seo-hyun.
Mathematics: perfect score. English: 96. Science (physics, chemistry): perfect. Magical Studies: perfect.
And then…
World History: 68?
Total: 464. Average: 92.8.
Wait just a moment.
Perfect scores on the hardest subjects, yet only 68 in World History?
“Surprising, isn’t it? The other subjects are one thing, but a perfect score in Magical Studies—that hasn’t happened in decades, has it? Heh, I still remember scoring 80 myself and my parents bragging about it all over the neighborhood…”
“No, hold on. Hold on… Wh-why? Did the answers get shifted somehow? How does someone score 68 on this…”
“I was curious too, so I checked. Doesn’t look like a shift error. What’s strange is that everything else was correct, yet every single question after the Great Upheaval was wrong. Honestly, most students miss everything before the Upheaval—did this one never watch a single hero show as a kid?”
Pungbaek let his colleague’s words fade into the background as he sank into deep thought.
Seo-hyun… I’ll need to keep a close eye on this one.
Before he quite realized it, Pungbaek was already looking forward to meeting her at the interview.
Seo-hyun had been wandering about the ship, taking in the sights, when a sharp prickling sensation made her flinch.
Ah… my skin…
She had completely forgotten that this wretched body of hers suffered from sunlight allergy, and had been strolling the sun-drenched deck without a second thought. Even with a parasol in hand and sunscreen layered over every inch of exposed skin, the sunlight pouring onto the deck was fierce enough to pierce right through. She had assumed winter’s weaker rays would make it bearable—apparently not.
Darwin, can’t you do anything about this?
She cast a reproachful glance toward the innocent Darwin, only to receive a quiet wave of refusal in reply. Covering her entire body with Darwin’s mass to block the light was technically possible, but the result would have been far too grotesque. Looking like that, the crew would surely mistake her for a magical beast and hurl her overboard.
In the end, she abandoned the deck and retreated indoors.
“I’m sure my cabin is… ah, here it is.”
The room she would occupy for the next several days was quite decent. Paying a little extra for a business-class berth instead of the free economy seats offered to examinees had been well worth it.
After unpacking, she stepped back out into the corridors, where crowds of people sat scattered about, deep in conversation.
“Hey, think you’ll do okay on the practicals? Honestly, I’m not confident…”
“Same here. I spent so much time prepping for the written that I barely touched the practicals.”
“Maybe I should’ve just applied to a regular department.”
Some groups were steeped in rather gloomy thoughts.
“Haha! If only I had my beloved sword, Stormbreaker…!”
“This is the artifact my parents spent a hundred million on. Pretty cool, right?”
“Nothing but greenhorns this year, huh? I should make it through no problem.”
Others brimmed with confidence—or were simply showing off a little too hard.
No one I know, huh.
Well, that made sense. She had spent more than ten years since falling into this world shut away at home; even if she had wanted to meet people, there had been no chance. Strictly speaking, her work in the shadows had given her a fairly wide network—but that network was concentrated entirely on the underworld side.
No sign of Julia, either.
Had she returned to Germany? Or simply not boarded this ship? There was no way to know for certain.
“You’d think I’d run into at least one or two kids from the same middle school…”
She decided to look for them first. It had been a school popular with aspiring heroes, so some of the students she had known there were bound to have applied to Sirius Academy as well.
As she walked, she eventually reached the buffet set up in one corner of the passenger ship.
That smell… delicious…
The sweet, savory aroma teasing her nose drew her steps toward the buffet almost of their own accord.
Just a little taste, then I’ll go. Not like I have anything better to do anyway.
After paying the entrance fee to the staff at the counter and receiving a brief explanation, she picked up a tray from one side of the buffet and began piling it high with food. Once she had taken as much as she wanted and settled into a seat, she was just about to lift a bite to her mouth when a shadow fell across her from above.
“Excuse me…”
“Hm?”
Looking up with a puzzled expression, she found the black-haired young woman she had seen at the written exam hall standing there, tray in hand.
“Would it be all right if I joined you? I don’t have anyone to eat with.”