Bringing a Graduation Project to the Entrance Exam (2)
Bringing a Graduation Project to the Entrance Exam (2)
The truth was, Pentagon Academy's entrance exam and graduation exam were identical.
Skills an awakener ought to possess. Knowledge. Practical combat experience.
New cadets, lacking all of these, confronted their own inadequacy during the entrance exam.
A realization that, for all they'd thought the world was theirs after awakening, they still had a long way to go.
That sort of deflation of their overblown egos.
Afterward, cadets who had devoted four years to grueling refinement challenged the same test once more.
They worked through the stages one by one, feeling just how much they had grown.
Eventually, they reached Stage 10 and seized their diplomas.
It was an exam designed to create a kind of narrative bookending for the academy.
———Which led Seo Yujin to one question.
'Wait. So what happens if you just steamroll it while you're a freshman?'
The difficulty was absurd, but what if you cleared Stage 10 as a freshman?
Wasn't that the equivalent of bringing a doctoral dissertation to an early-admissions interview?
I was curious how that'd turn out. I had to try it immediately.
That became his reason for obsessively dissecting the so-called entrance exam tutorial.
That was also why, before the regression, he'd managed to clear Stage 10 even shortly after transmigrating.
His skills, so overdeveloped they'd gone beyond stale and started to rot, were unleashed upon the world once more.
—FWOOOM!!!!
The boss monster of the entrance exam was the Executioner.
Its tentacles—belonging to a tough adversary that normally surfaced in A-rank Gates—ripped through the air and surged at him.
The attacks were so irregular that active-duty awakeners would've suffered PTSD watching them.
The observing instructor shook his head.
'No real tell, and the target stays random up to the last instant. Even for this cadet, evasion is impossible....'
—Tilt.
'HE DODGED IT!!!?'
But Yujin avoided the attack with nothing more than a small tilt of the head.
He moved leisurely, as if he'd known exactly where the attack would come from.
His golden eyes flashed uncannily.
[Activating 'Complete Hypnosis'. Failed. At the caster's current level....]
'Pissed off 'cause I dodged? This time, use your extended tentacle to wrap around his neck and break it.'
[......Confirmed match with the target's intent. Despite the disparity in rank, the target falls under an 'extremely mild' hypnosis!]
'If you know where it's coming, dodging's simple.'
Given the enormous stat gap, the hypnosis should never have worked.
Even so, Yujin successfully hypnotized it again and again.
He did it by nudging the monster toward attacks it was already considering.
It was an application worthy of the self-styled Hypnosis Breeding Guy.
The result was a display of extraordinary skill before everyone's eyes.
—Shwoop, shwooshoop.
'Absurd. It's like he knows exactly where each strike is aimed....'
Tentacles lashed out, their air-rending shrieks ringing viciously.
They never touched Yujin.
He had already begun evading before each attack even launched.
Tap, tap. Footwork an ordinary person could pull off.
Compared with the tentacles, his movements were so slow they looked almost frozen.
That was all, yet the tentacles veered past and swatted empty air.
Just-frame dodges with no more than a paper-thin margin.
The enraged monster lashed out with its tentacles again.
Speed-focused thrusts went for vital organs.
Range-focused sweeps cracked like whips across his midsection.
Erratic attacks that even the instructor couldn't react to filled the space.
But they missed, by a paper-thin margin.
Fifteen years of accumulated experience overcame even the overwhelming physical gap, if only by a paper-thin margin.
—Step. Step.
At some point, Yujin passed through the rain of tentacles and closed in on the main body.
His hand moved toward his waist.
The katana at his waist was sloppily tied on with a rubber band.
His fingers closed around its scabbard.
The tentacles surged, exploiting the opening.
The target: his heart.
A sneak thrust that looped behind his back in case he tried to dodge.
"Y-Yujin!! Behind you...!!!"
'That really was the end. Even Aika couldn't have dodged that.'
Alice's scream and the instructor's sigh crossed at the same instant.
The tentacle, which had missed again and again...
touched his back for the first time.
A sickening CRUNCH rang out.
"Yujin!!!!"
'Alice, honestly. Maybe she didn't realize because all she'd seen me do was dodge...?'
—Ding!
[Damage reduced by 90% through the Trait 'Unyielding'. The Status Effect 'Penetration' is ignored.]
'But I was pretty tough.'
The tentacle that had come with enough force to pierce anything ended up propelling him forward instead.
At the same moment, brilliant violet light spilled from the scabbard.
It was a technique that drew the sword by explosively releasing mana concentrated in the scabbard.
A quickdraw art... operating on a principle similar to a bullet firing.
This was the Jaha Sword Art, held in reserve until the very end because of its brutal mana consumption.
'———Purple Formlessness (紫色無傷).'
—Slash.
The katana swept at a speed invisible to the eye.
A violet line traced itself across the body of the boss monster, the Executioner.
Before the beautiful line could become a hideous wound, the Phantom Body's core split cleanly in two.
The illusion dissolved into smoke and vanished.
—Clack. ...Hsssss.
'One-shot. Now I had something else to brag about to Master.'
A freshman had just finished a graduation requirement.
* * *
Yujin had blown through Stage 10 with relentless momentum.
The onlookers fell into shock.
"Senior! This is..."
"A-rank immediately after enrolling...?"
Stage 10's boss monster. The Executioner.
...Truth be told, it was a monster that most graduates couldn't even take down.
Wasn't it a monster that normally appeared in A-rank Gates in the first place?
You'd need to be an A-rank Awakener to kill it, so how could a mere graduation test demand such a thing?
Therefore, the actual objective of Stage 10 was survival.
How long could you endure—and stay alive—against an overwhelming, insurmountable enemy?
Surviving for ten minutes was enough to prove that a cadet could hold their own as an awakener, so they passed. That was Stage 10.
And yet, he didn't simply endure it—he outright subjugated it?
Taking down a monster that only A-ranks can take down meant that the cadet himself was A-rank, didn't it?
Indeed, any cadet who achieved the final clear of Stage 10 in the graduation exam was immediately granted A-rank Awakener status.
Which meant, right now, he had effectively become a nationally certified A-rank Awakener.
———Not a graduate. A freshman.
"This, from what I recall...."
"Right. Aika Ninomiya, the S-rank No. 1. Until now, she was the only person who had done that on the entrance exam."
It wasn't an unprecedented record.
The current S-rank No. 1 had already achieved it.
But did that diminish the achievement?
Not in the slightest.
A fire lit in the reporters' eyes.
"Which means that boy... h-huh? Senior, where are you going!!?"
"To snag the next S-rank interview!!!"
Reporters surged forward like zombies, ignoring even the guards' attempts to stop them.
The result: the sparring hall plunged into chaos.
"......!!!? I understand, but please calm yourselves!! We will arrange a separate session...."
"Just—just one minute!!"
"I just need to hand over my card and I'll leave right...."
"If you continue to defy instructions, we will treat this as terrorism and respond accordingly!!"
Outsiders tried every possible way to force their way into the exam hall.
The instructors and academy staff desperately held them back.
And then—
'This was a talent only our Cheonhwa could claim!'
—Slither.
The woman who had been observing in concealment, Yoo Sia, also sprang into action.
She was certain: the clan her father ran, 'Cheonhwa', was the only vessel worthy of such a person, and it was only right for Korea's #1 clan to hold him.
—Pahht.
"Need a hand?"
"Oh, Sia!"
Yoo Sia finally emerged from concealment.
At the sight of her familiar brown twintails, the instructor's face lit up with relief.
The instructor had also once belonged to Cheonhwa.
She knew what the clan leader's third daughter could do.
"Restrain the civilians without hurting them! If I use my strength, I can't manage the aftermath, so I'm asking you!!"
"Got it."
—Clap.
She brought her hands together as if in prayer.
The effect was immediate.
Black ropes burst forth from her shadow.
—Slither.
"......Y-Yoo Sia!!?"
"Why is someone from the Cheonhwa Clan here...!!!"
Only after the ropes bound them did people recognize her identity and recoil in shock.
She merely smiled and sneered.
"I'm not here as a representative of Cheonhwa right now. I'm here as a new student."
'I'm his classmate. Unlike you people.'
The rest of you clans can just twiddle your thumbs and watch for the next four years.
Her smile brimmed with that sense of superiority.
Dismay flickered across the headhunters' faces.
"Yoo Sia, then perhaps...."
"Ah, Reporter Kim Haneul, was it? If you're curious about anything, go through Cheonhwa. I might even ask him for you, as a 'classmate.'"
"Wh-What about us!!"
"Please help me out too!!"
Not stopping there, she subtly offered to feed exclusive scoops only to journalists friendly to the Cheonhwa Clan.
Thanks to that, the commotion was rapidly brought under control.
The reporters turned into obedient dogs wagging their tails.
The headhunters hung their heads, burning with envy at Cheonhwa's overwhelming luck.
She smiled.
'I could use this as an excuse to talk to him. By then, he should have...'
Only then did Yoo Sia turn around.
She looked for the exceptional talent she'd been seeking.
Seo Yujin.
———Her smile shattered the instant she found him.
"That was incredible, Yujin! Korean webtoons don't even have scenes like...."
"...Huh?"
'Who the hell is this bitch?'
Yujin had slipped out of the exam hall in the confusion.
One woman was glued firmly to his side.
Alice.
"Uh— uh, yeah."
'Isn't she a little close?!'
Yujin himself was also panicking and could only stammer.
Wow. The skin of a woman in her early twenties really did feel different...
No, wait. It was weird for a thirty-five-year-old man to react like this.
Besides, why was Alice this close?
She didn't even like fighting that much.
Such thoughts, plus the honest physiological reactions of a twenty-year-old body, left him totally at a loss.
And Alice...
felt her heart race with an emotion she couldn't explain.
—Shiver, shiver.
'Everyone was jealous. Hehe.'
The other women stared at her.
Their gazes held envy, jealousy, and covetousness.
—Zing.
'Especially... that twintails woman who suddenly appeared over there is looking at me like she wants to murder me.'
It was Yoo Sia's murderous glare after doing all the work only to have someone else seize the initiative.
For some reason, it felt good.
'Jealous? Yujin had even bought me a drink. We were fellow Pine Bud fans.'
—Snug.
'We're close enough to sit shoulder-to-shoulder like this.'
The stares intensified when she scooted her hips a little closer.
Yoo Sia's reaction was the most volatile of all.
'Who was this vixen? Why was she touching what was mine?'
—Grind.
"......♡"
Alice's smile grew in proportion to Yoo Sia's reaction.
In the end, she couldn't help but smile.
She did it secretly, directing the smile at Yoo Sia so Yujin wouldn't notice.
—Grin.
'She could glare all she wanted. What could she actually do about it?'
".........!!!!!!!"
'Why, that Vixen!!?'
"So, uh. Um. Alice. I, um...."
'Alice was still in her early twenties. I couldn't react. I had to hold it in...'
A war had broken out, and Yujin alone was unaware of it.
* * *
That evening.
"My Innate Talent is hypnosis. Complete Hypnosis."
"......!!!!!?"
The talent widely expected to become the next S-rank dropped a bombshell.