The First Perfect Score
A fierce blaze erupted around me, surging with such violence it felt as though it might tear my body apart.
Heat beyond anything I could describe with the word pain swept over me in an instant. And that wasn’t the only problem. Dozens of Dark Hounds were gnawing at my body, chewing it to pieces.
- This is really dangerous, you know? Right now, your score isn’t the issue—you might never be able to hold a sword again. You could end up with severe trauma!
Now I understood why Instructor Han Miyu had been so worried, so desperate to stop me. If some inexperienced brat who knew nothing of the world went through this, unconsciousness wouldn’t even begin to cover it. The agony could leave them traumatized, and they might end up shaking in fear at the mere sight of fire or monsters.
In a world where magic was widespread and monsters lurked just beyond the city limits, being afraid of monsters and fire was practically a death sentence. That made it all the more serious.
At this point, it’d be second-degree burns. No. It’s probably close to fourth-degree.
My skin was drying out little by little. At first it had swollen red, but before long it had blackened.
- Kwaddeudeuk!
One of the Dark Hounds bit into my already overcooked skin. But I no longer felt any pain. That was a bad sign. It meant the tendons, nerves, and even the muscles hidden beneath the skin had been badly damaged. My body screamed at me to get away from the pain. My vision blurred. I felt like I might pass out any second. And yet I kept going.
- Chiiiiiik!
I shoved my legs and arms deeper into the flames on purpose, letting them sear there. The people watching me were horrified.
“Ugh... what is he doing...?”
“He’s insane... is he seriously crazy...?”
“This isn’t a joke... does he actually mean to die? Even if his body gets restored, he’s still feeling all that pain, isn’t he? What if he goes into shock...?”
The expressions of those who had been looking at me with ridicule and contempt had begun to change. Since I was enduring something no different from torture right in front of them—and even surviving it—many of them felt fear more than concern.
“I-Is it even possible to endure that much pain...?”
“I’m getting chills... look at him, he’s actually putting himself deeper into the fire with his own hands. His arm’s already burned to a crisp.”
This wasn’t physical ability. It was sheer mental strength, carrying every ounce of pain and forcing it down. And I kept standing there.
“Fifty-one seconds... fifty-two seconds...”
As I muttered the seconds under my breath, Instructor Han Miyu, who had been watching from the sidelines, shouted in alarm.
“We need to start the magic right now—!”
“Wait!”
But Jong Junhyeok stopped her.
“Please wait a little longer. He’s still counting the seconds. That means he’s still conscious.”
“What do you mean, conscious? Didn’t you see him thrusting his own body into the flames? He’s not in his right mind! He could already be broken inside! If we wait any longer...!”
“No. He isn’t losing his mind. He’s trying to reduce the pain. The first time skin touches fire, it’s brutally painful, but after that the tissue and nerves are damaged so badly that you can’t feel pain properly anymore. Once that happens, even if the Dark Hounds bite him and blood starts flowing, even if chunks of flesh are torn away, it hurts less.”
Jong Junhyeok shook his head, as though even he found the sight unbelievable, and added, “This is a method you could never use in real combat. One mistake and the skin would completely necrotize; if he stayed exposed to fire for too long, the nerves would be damaged beyond repair and he’d be crippled for life. But this is a test. He only needs to hold out for three minutes. And once the test ends, his body will be restored. That means Lee Taehoon is using every means available to reduce the pain. To anyone who doesn’t understand, it might look foolish—or insane—but in this situation, it’s the best thing he can do.”
“Th-That can’t be... Knowing it and being able to do it are different things...”
“Even if you understand the theory, not just anyone can do it. No matter how strong their body is, no matter how brave they are, once they actually feel that pain, everything comes crashing down.”
- Kwajik!
I was bitten again by a Dark Hound. This time, a chunk of flesh was torn clean off my arm.
- Chiiiiiik!
But I immediately jammed the wound into the flames. Watching that, Jong Junhyeok murmured in admiration.
“Fire exists to make the difficulty harder, but this kid is using it to ease pain and stop the bleeding instead. Incredible... no, astonishing. It feels like I’m looking at a swordsman who’s spent decades fighting death. It’s almost as if he’s a seasoned sword saint who can turn pebbles, sand, and even his own blood into weapons...”
Hearing those words, Han Miyu slowly began to observe my actions more carefully. Before a monster bit me, I shoved my body into the flames; when the bite came, I offered up the part where pain had already gone numb as a shield. Then, once the flesh was torn away and blood began to flow, I seared the wound immediately to stop the bleeding. When the flames burned the skin away completely and cauterized it at the same time, I exposed that same area again, minimizing the pain I could still feel in my mind. Even in that state, I never forgot the numbers.
“One minute fifteen seconds... one minute sixteen seconds...”
Han Miyu no longer panicked. She brought her hands together and prayed.
I don’t know why he wants to get into the academy so badly... but if he’s willing to go this far... then I’d rather he make it through somehow.
Please. Let the poor student standing before her not suffer any lasting damage. Let him achieve the goal he was chasing. Let his mind stay intact. She prayed with all her heart.
***
“It’s already been over a minute... He really means to last the full three minutes...?”
Min Sua looked at Lee Taehoon and felt a kind of human awe she had never experienced before. It wouldn’t have been an exaggeration to say this was the first time she had ever felt anything like it.
Top of the class. Perfect. Best.
Those were the words always attached to Min Sua. She possessed swordsmanship talent greater than anyone else’s, and because of that, she had assumed this academy exam would be easy, that she would naturally take first place without effort. But on the day of the entrance test, a man she had encountered by chance changed that thought entirely.
Something felt off from the very first time I saw him.
Getting into Flote Academy had been a foregone conclusion. So that morning, Min Sua had calmly set out for the test. She had planned to use the extra time to train her swordsmanship in the open lot, just as she always did. But someone had already been there.
A skin-and-bones body. Arms and legs that looked as if they might collapse any moment. Clean palms that didn’t look like they had ever held a sword, dry skin, and a pale complexion, as though he hadn’t been properly fed. At a glance, he looked pitifully lacking in every way.
What?
Her first thought upon seeing the man wasn’t pity. It was contempt. From the way he seemed to be training in the open lot at dawn, he looked like he was also taking the Flote Academy entrance exam. The bags piled around him only strengthened that suspicion.
He had let his body get in that state without even doing the bare minimum of exercise, and yet he still thought he could get into Flote Academy. Ridiculous.
Pathetic.
Min Sua despised people who made excuses about their circumstances or their environment and never tried. Maybe that man had some unspeakable reason. Maybe an appallingly poor family had tied him down. But even so, he should at least make a minimal effort. To want something without even trying to move your body or put in any effort at all—to try to earn anything that way—wasn’t that just taking the world for granted? Even Min Sua herself, gifted with genius, had spent over ten hours swinging her sword the previous day and then slept only about two hours before getting up and returning to the lot.
Min Sua had approached the man, intending to tell him not to waste her precious time and to recommend that he train somewhere else. But then his atmosphere changed.
The man slowly steadied his breathing, then swung a branch with perfect form and carved a massive gouge into a rock. If he had used a real sword instead of a branch, it would have been split perfectly clean in two.
“What... is that...?”
Before she realized it, Min Sua had murmured the words aloud. What shocked her even more was that, after displaying such remarkable swordsmanship, the man merely clicked his tongue as if he still found it unsatisfactory.
Min Sua hurried over and asked him a question.
- That rock. You just did that, didn’t you...? How is that even possible?
- Why were you secretly watching me?
The man reacted as though that level of swordsmanship was nothing impressive at all, and instead showed irritation at the fact that she had been spying on him. Not many people could stand so confidently before Min Sua, who wore expensive armor and a sword, with the crest of the Blian Family etched on the scabbard at her hip.
Blian.
A family with enormous influence across Korea. The Blian Family, famed as a house of swordsmanship geniuses. Min Sua herself had been recognized as a prodigy at a young age, to the point that most of her peers knew her name. And yet something impossible had happened. A man her own age—one who looked as though he had never trained a day in his life—had shown greater ability than she had.
- At that level, I can do it too.
Unable to accept it, she imitated the man’s actions. But—
- Crack!
Unlike her intention to slice the rock with the branch, the branch had become unstable from absorbing too much mana and snapped in two. Controlling mana was difficult. But that man had done it as if it were nothing.
- How did you do that? Have you been trained in swordsmanship all along?
- I’ve never learned swordsmanship, and that rock already had a crack in it.
The man lied. He said he had never learned the sword, and his tone made the tremendous performance he had just shown sound like nothing more than coincidence. It annoyed her.
Extraordinary talent... maybe even greater than mine.
That was what she had thought. That someone who hadn’t even tried had been handed unbelievable talent, and that it was unfair. At least, that was how she felt until Lee Taehoon began the second stage of the qualification test just moments ago.
- Drip... drip....
Lee Taehoon stood there with blood dripping from him, and Min Sua shouted without even realizing it.
“You can stop now! Why are you going that far? Just give up! You’ve already done enough!”
She couldn’t understand. Why was she interfering in someone else’s test? Whether that other man lived or died, passed or failed, it had nothing to do with her. Whether he crumbled before the hurdle or overcame it wasn’t her concern either.
“Two minutes eleven seconds... two minutes twelve seconds...”
Ah...
Lee Taehoon stood with both feet planted on the ground, so focused he seemed deaf to anyone else’s words, stubbornly refusing to fall. Watching him, Min Sua finally understood her own emotions.
Jealousy. Envy. Despair.
A man blessed with overwhelming talent possessed a will and mental strength no one could touch. His swordsmanship was so extraordinary he could leave sword marks in rock with a branch. At first, she had dismissed him as nothing more than a dullard who didn’t even try, someone who had merely been lucky enough to be born talented. But watching him stand there, blood pouring from him and still refusing to collapse, she had no choice but to admit it.
Top of the class. Perfect. Best.
Those words belonged to this man. And before long, he would become the best this place had to offer.
“Three minutes... twenty-five seconds...”
Instructor Han Miyu shouted in a panic.
“T-Test over! Hurry and start the magic!”
The allotted time ended, and the Dark Hounds and flames vanished. By then, one of Lee Taehoon’s arms had taken on a hideous shape, the bones protruding through the flesh. But there was one more astonishing fact: he was still counting the seconds.
“Three minutes... twenty-six seconds.”
Jong Junhyeok muttered, “Hah... unbelievable. He actually did it. The first ever S-grade qualification exam in Flote Academy history...”
And then came the second astonishing fact.
His ragged hand was still gripping the sword.
“Three minutes... twenty-seven seconds...”
- Thud!
The sword dropped to the floor, and in that instant, the instructor and examiner rushed forward.
“Are you all right? Can you move?”
Instructor Han Miyu hurriedly used a restoration spell. The moment Lee Taehoon’s body began to return to normal—
He was still muttering.
“Three minutes... thirty seconds....”
Jong Junhyeok placed a hand on his shoulder and said, “You can stop now. It’s all over.”
“How... did it turn out?”
Lee Taehoon didn’t even seem to know what he was doing anymore. With him beside him, Jong Junhyeok raised his voice and announced, “Trainee Lee Taehoon, I will now announce the results of Flote Academy’s second-stage qualification test.”
Everyone held their breath.
“Naturally, it’s S-grade. Congratulations.”
He smiled and applauded.
“The first perfect score in history.”
- Thud.
Only then did Lee Taehoon collapse to the ground.
Shit... not good... monsters... the monsters are going to reach Choi Daeun soon...
His vision blurred. The people around him grew noisy.
“Quickly... get the healing magic ready!”
“There’s nothing we can do. His body’s already been restored, but his mind took such severe damage that it’s caused overload.”
Panicked voices, shock, and someone’s jealousy.
“Damn it... why the hell you...?”
Song Minwoo ground his teeth and muttered, but there was nothing he could do.
Just a little longer... let me sleep a little longer. There’s still time.
With that thought, Lee Taehoon closed his eyes.
***
- Drip...
- Drip....
“Uuuugh....”
My body felt stiff and heavy. A sharp pain jabbed at my brain as if someone were raking it raw. Even so, I forced myself upright.
“How long was I asleep?”
There might not be much time left before the monsters broke out. Or maybe they’d already broken through. The monsters had appeared around sunset, so I needed to look outside quickly... no... I needed to find Choi Daeun.
Just as I was looking for a window, a familiar face came into view.
“Choi Daeun...?”
“H-Hiiiiiik...!”
Choi Daeun was resting in the bed beside mine. Seeming frightened, she hiccuped and stammered in reply.
“H-Hello...?”
Then Min Sua, who was standing nearby, cut in.
“Looks like you know each other. Hold on. Can I talk to Lee Taehoon for a moment? I’ve been waiting for a while.”
“Y-Yes...! Go ahead and talk!”
Choi Daeun hurriedly pulled the blanket over herself, clearly terrified, and I shook my head with a sigh.
“This is just making the misunderstandings worse.”
Min Sua looked at me and said, “You awake now?”
Her voice was flat, utterly at odds with her beautiful face. I tilted my head at her.
“Min Sua? Why are you here?”
Min Sua stood there and silently looked at me.
“Do you want to join the club I’m making?”
I answered without the slightest hesitation.
“No.”
For a moment, silence fell over the room.
“...Huh?”