Entrance Exam: The Gates of Esdinas
The entrance exam for Esdinas Academy was always held here—at Esdinas Academy itself. People often called it the "heart of the continent" or just "Esdinas," but in truth, this was a massive city and region named after the academy. "An academy can't just exist in a vacuum, after all." It was a place where people lived, worked, and needed all sorts of services—both the students receiving education and the instructors providing it.
Esdinas Academy's direct sphere of influence extended about 5 kilometers from the main building at its center, forming a fairly expansive area with a diameter of 5 km that was all academy grounds. A very special barrier enveloped everything up to 5 km from the main hall. Beyond that barrier's edge, stretching another 10 km, there was nothing at all.
Inside the wall-like barrier up to 5 km from the main building were educational facilities, training grounds, dormitories, and the like. But from the 5 km mark to 10 km out? It was a barren wasteland—a sort of greenbelt, left completely undeveloped. This was the stretch Unia had slept through on the bus ride here. I'd seen it countless times in the game, too, flashing by in CGs during "field trips" outside.
It was literally a greenbelt. "A space deliberately kept from development." If you drew a circle with Esdinas Academy at the center, this greenbelt wrapped around it like a donut or a tube. It was a place steeped in political intrigue, the site of numerous events. Over the 500 years since Esdinas Academy's founding, kingdoms had risen and fallen, noble houses had emerged and vanished, and eras had shifted countless times—but that greenbelt had never once been lifted.
Of course, many powers had schemed to extend their influence into it. Controlling even a sliver more of the continent's heart felt like grasping continental hegemony itself. Plenty had tried.
The nations bordering the greenbelt beyond Esdinas Academy had built outpost cities right at the 10 km line. When the academy was founded 500 years ago, a rule emerged: "No facilities may be built inside the greenbelt." And humans, ever opportunistic, found loopholes that didn't outright break it.
"So why not just build starting right beyond the 10 km boundary?" The nations began digging at the greenbelt's edge—first for convenience facilities for academy students, then residences to house staff permanently. Before long, people gathered, villages formed from outposts, and cities sprang up.
And so, beyond 10 km from Esdinas Academy, cities from various nations took shape. Along the rim of this 10 km-diameter circle, each nation's territory sprouted a city, forming a single living sphere around Esdinas as the central hub—like satellite cities orbiting a core. The ones who established the system allowing Esdinas and these national cities to share a common living area and currency? Silverstar Merchant Group.
"Yurha's family." The Silverstars had little sway in the academy's early days but began raking in massive profits by extending influence over the surrounding environment. They paved a road encircling the 10 km greenbelt, creating a transportation network. Now, mana trains linked the rim to the outposts in a looping circle—like Seoul's Line 2 subway.
They even negotiated with Esdinas Academy to build a straight road piercing straight into the greenbelt. The very road our mana bus had thundered down was one such convenience, won through Silverstar's haggling under the pretext of "efficient student and logistics movement."
Screeech.
Our mana bus halted at the greenbelt's edge, on the outskirts of central Esdinas Academy—this bus stop was part of those facilities too.
"Students. Do your best out there."
"Thank you."
I bowed to the bus driver cheering us on. Though affiliated with Silverstar, he'd hustled from the distant city of Pregnent at top speed for about three and a half hours to reach the greenbelt's end. Thanks to him, we'd arrived before the towering walls of Esdinas Academy—the mana train's terminus as well.
Two transport modes existed here: bus and train. Yet for some reason, no mana train in sight.
"Um, Phoenix...?"
Unia pointed around in confusion.
"Did the train really not make it?"
"It probably never ran at all."
"......."
Unia swallowed hard. The brown-haired girl and her group who'd tried using us as porters before the bus? They wouldn't be visible no matter how hard they searched before the academy's sealed gates by now.
"Maybe I'm just not seeing them...?"
Unia scanned the crowd frantically. The plaza before the walls, like a vast terminal waiting area, held a few hundred people. Mostly 17-year-old boys and girls with hair in every color imaginable, plus their families or guardians. Excluding Silverstar terminal staff, at least 300 prospective freshmen were here at this "western terminal" for the entrance exam.
"Unia. Here's a quiz: How many terminals allow transport directly into the academy?"
"East, west, south, north—four."
"Right. And since each sits right at an academy gate, exactly four."
Simple math: 1,200 new students waiting for the gates to open.
"With about five minutes till the gates open, what does it mean that they haven't arrived here?"
"......."
"If a train miraculously arrived in five minutes, passengers poured out like mad, and they sprinted through the opening gates... maybe they'd make it. But..."
"No train."
Unia glanced at the terminal's display board. She'd never seen one at an academy terminal before, but she'd learned from her first mana train ride how it showed train statuses.
No train. Not delayed— the mana stone board flashed in red:
Todays mana train service has been CANCELED...
Mana train: service canceled.
"Is this the exam?"
"Nah. Just chaos at this terminal." I pointed to the somewhat relaxed waiting area. "Assuming 300 freshmen here, how many at the others?"
"......At least 1,000."
Unia's face paled as she answered.
"Exactly. 1,000. Esdinas takes 300 freshmen a year, but the competition ratio is roughly..."
"16:1."
"Yeah. About 5,000 applicants yearly. This waiting area should've had 1,000, no, more."
But no—far fewer freshmen than expected.
"These folks didn't take the dawn train. They camped just outside the greenbelt overnight and walked here."
People who'd woken early, realized the trains were halted, and hoofed or rode the 5 km from outside. Or those closer than Pregnent who'd dashed 30 km or 100 km by carriage or wyvern the moment service stopped—"those who made it on time by any means."
Unia shouldn't have been here originally. She'd have struggled to arrive only to face sealed gates like this.
"It's opening soon."
Screeech.
The academy's firmly shut gates swung wide left and right. "Not really gates—more like a massive portal." Towering over 10 meters high, wide enough for twenty people arm-in-arm, the white iron bars parted slowly.
"Wonder if it's the same view from the west terminal." The game's opening cinematic for "Azure Skies of Esdinas" unfolded before my eyes. Since the game-start sequence mirrored the entrance exam, the students now stood at the starting line of academy life—the game itself.
"Phew. Made it in time."
Unia pressed a hand to her chest, sighing in relief.
"Instructor Esta was worried, but it doesn't seem like a big issue."
"Shh."
"......?"
"You don't know yet."
Esta had slipped us a hint: even if late, just get to the academy somehow. As if there was a safety net for failures.
"The protagonist made it on time too." In the original story, unlike Unia, he arrived precisely. From the southern continent, via the south terminal.
But he failed the entrance exam. Or rather, some reason kept him from even taking it.
"Unia. From now on, I'm giving you a really scary test."
"A scary... test?"
"No hints. But I'll stick to you without fail and follow whatever choice you make."
"Wh-what's that supposed to mean all of a sudden?"
Her choices would decide my fate too.
"Scaring you like this might be a hint already, but I'll respect your decisions."
Screeech.
As the gates fully opened:
"Guidance: Students here for the freshman entrance exam, please proceed to the First Training Grounds within 15 minutes, where the exam will begin."
A magically transmitted voice rang out, followed by:
Rumble rumble!
Students surged through the gates en masse.
"Wha—?!"
"Students failing to reach the First Training Grounds within 15 minutes will be disqualified."
Click.
"Wh-what is this...!"
"This year's exam is a 'scavenger hunt,' looks like."
Unia caught on quick. Some prospective freshmen were already sprinting across the bridge stretching beyond the gates into the academy.
"We can't just—!"
"Gah!!"
Unia grabbed my arm to pull me, but her eyes snapped to someone collapsing beside us, vomiting blood.
"Wha...?"
"Cough, cough...!"
A boy around 17, in ragged clothes hinting at poverty. He spewed crimson onto the ground and crumpled.
"Is no one—!"
Unia scanned around, but...
"Ah."
All she saw: prospects racing toward the academy center, and their families staring only ahead, ignoring everything else.
"Cough, urk...!"
Gazing at the blood-vomiting boy, Unia turned to me.
"We...!"
"I'll follow your choice, remember?"
"......Won't regret it?"
"Of course."
I smiled back at her.
"...Then, help him!"
"Of course."
I approached instead of her, slinging the boy's arm over my shoulder.
"I'll check for a medical office!"
Unia bolted toward the terminal office. I supported the bleeding boy and whispered low, just for him:
"How much they paying you?"
"......!"
"Remember this."
I gripped the "boy"—actually a man disguised as one—by the shoulder hard.
"If she ends up distrusting humans because of you, you'll die by my hand. She looks sweet, sure, but she's under the watchful eye of someone way higher up than whoever put you up to this."
"......."
The man's face drained of color.
"Her failing's no big deal. But if she loses faith in people over this? The higher-ups won't sit idle."
He'd already vomited blood.
"Gotta keep hurting, right?"
"......."
"Good acting."
"......."
The protagonist fell for this trick too.
"...Even if I fail, not my problem."
The man replied in a trembling voice.
"Once-a-year shot... gotta go take the exam, people die or not."
Scared of me, yet his voice held conviction.
"World where being nice just loses you everything."
"Yeah?"
I spotted Unia rushing back with someone in tow.
"Not this time."
"!!"
I channeled mana into him—briefly.
"Good people get rewarded, and evildoers..."
Whoosh.
"...must be punished...?"
"...Gah!!"
The man vomited blood. As if
his guts were aflame.