Interview with the Martial God
The atmosphere itself remained strangely oppressive. An unfamiliar silence and tension raked against one another like claws. Into that heavy quiet, names were called one by one. And each time, the candidates returned with faces drained of all color, as though their very life force had been sucked dry. The cycle repeated without end. The interviews were so brief it seemed they were only stepping inside to show their faces, yet the results were brutal. Almost no one emerged with a passing necklace around their neck.
Hmm. Is that really the extent of it? It hadn’t looked particularly difficult. Having passed my own test with nothing more than a single click of a trigger, I could only tilt my head at the scene.
“Ha. Guess I’d better look up flights.”
“You said you were heading to Japan, right?”
“Even if it’s a step below Korea, Japan’s academy is still quite well-known. I have to at least try.”
“You’re really grinding, huh.”
“It’s not that. Climbing the Tower unregistered is basically a death sentence, so what choice do I have?”
Their conversation was steeped in bitterness and resignation. The way they packed their bags and prepared to leave was slow, each motion weighed down by defeat.
Even so, they never stopped stealing glances in my direction. A few stared openly, almost aggressively. Did they think I wouldn’t notice? Even with my eyes squeezed shut behind dark sunglasses, I could sense every gaze through my intent.
“They’re staring quite a bit.”
“You speak as if you aren’t human yourself.”
A clear, bright voice cut through the air before he could finish.
“Yo, kiddo. You’re pretty damn impressive, aren’t you?”
I read the wide-reaching intent. One of the fascinating things about intent was that it didn’t merely detect presence; it also burned color and shape clearly into my mind. A red-haired boy. Except it wasn’t a boy at all.
It’s that cross-dressing girl.
She was the same person who had helped me at the reception desk. The familiar aura brought the memory floating back.
“Ah, hello. Thank you again for helping me last time. I really appreciate it.”
When I bowed politely, she let out her signature cheerful laugh.
“Hahaha! Aw, it was nothing.”
She waved a hand lightly and continued speaking. Her demeanor seemed casual, yet there was an oddly refined quality beneath it.
“Now that I think about it, I never introduced myself. I’m Jeong Chaemin. From Busan.”
“I’m Kim…”
“Kim?”
For a split second my old name nearly slipped out. I caught myself just in time. Ernian Ludwig. My new three-syllable name sounded like it belonged to some noble young lady. The System and academy records were all registered under it now, so I had no choice but to grow used to it.
“No, it’s Ernian.”
“Aigoo, what a beautiful name. Four syllables is a bit long, though. How about we shorten it to El?”
“That’s fine with me.”
She casually renamed me El and smiled with natural warmth. That was a father’s smile. Or, in this case, a mother’s smile?
Her name is probably a pseudonym too. She’s cross-dressing, after all.
The single syllable “El” felt strangely comfortable rather than foreign. I was personally quite satisfied; it would likely prove useful in the future.
“Our El speaks Korean so fluently despite being so young. Aha, perfect score on the written test, so I guess that makes sense?”
Jeong Chaemin nodded to herself, convinced. Fair enough. A foreigner speaking fluent Korean wasn’t particularly surprising anymore. Ever since Korea rose to possess the world’s strongest hunter force, Korean had become a global language.
Well, my case is a little different.
If someone asked me to speak English, I wouldn’t even know where to start.
I can demolish a bowl of gukbap, scraping up every last drop of kkakdugi broth, yet somehow I look Western? Man, I want gukbap now.
My body might look Western, but inside I was Korean to the marrow. No matter how completely my life had been inverted, the DNA etched into my soul remained unchanged.
“You said you were from Busan too, yet your Seoul dialect is excellent.”
“Oh? I’ve been trying to watch it, but you noticed.”
Busan. I had never visited, but I’d heard it was a city of rugged men. A place that lived alongside a fierce sea. The ocean itself was notorious as a terrifying zone teeming with monsters that spilled out of Gates.
It’s still better than North Korea, which they call hell, but the sea is supposed to be incredibly dangerous too.
People who lived in such a city were said to carry inherently tough, powerful auras. Hearing that, the lively energy and free-spirited atmosphere I sensed from her finally made sense. She was the perfect extrovert, the complete opposite of me.
She definitely starts with E on the MBTI, doesn’t she?
The moment I blinked at the thought, a warm hand stroked my head.
“You’re so polite and well-mannered, it’s almost too adorable, don’t you think?”
I froze, momentarily stunned. Or perhaps flustered was more accurate.
Why is she touching my hair?
My long locks tangled this way and that beneath her fingers. Since I couldn’t see, I had never paid attention to my appearance, so a messy hairstyle didn’t particularly bother me, but still…
“Um… you really don’t have to touch my hair…”
“Ah! Sorry! You’re just so cute I did it without thinking.”
Cute? Me? That was the first time I’d ever heard that. Apparently someone who looked like me qualified as cute.
“Every applicant who made it this far has probably been called a genius at least once. I was called one back in my hometown too. So I honestly never expected you to pass. You look even younger than my little sibling, yet you scored perfectly on the written test and broke the Blink Sword.”
That meant other people had been watching me take the test. I had simply passed in first place and sat quietly in the successful applicants’ waiting room; how was I supposed to know?
So that’s why everyone was glaring at me.
While others failed to pass at all, I had cleared it with a single click. If I were in their shoes, I’d feel wronged and resentful too.
“By the way, when does the next test begin?”
“Huh? Did you seriously come to the academy without knowing anything?”
I gave a small nod. Even that simple gesture must have looked different through her eyes. She stared at me the way someone might gaze at a rare, precious creature—half at a loss, half utterly delighted.
It shows so obviously.
If she wanted to hide the fact that she was a girl, she really shouldn’t act like that. Now that I thought about it, she had kept her voice low and serious the whole time, but when she laughed it rose into a slightly higher, feminine tone.
“Hehe. Ah, the next part is the interview.”
“An interview?”
“Yeah. Hell Joseon entrance exams are all the same. Academy or not, it doesn’t change. You’ll be facing a pressure interview in front of the world’s greatest professors. It should start pretty soon, I think?”
“They’re starting immediately when there are so few who passed?”
It didn’t look like there were even twenty successful candidates. At that, Jeong Chaemin shook the passing necklace around her neck and answered.
“This year must’ve been a brutal exam cycle. The number of passers is noticeably lower than previous years. Plus, during the practical that Blink Sword was watching with its eyes glowing red… The academy isn’t stupid. They’ll probably run an additional acceptance round to fill the quota.”
It was common for institutions to use additional passes or waitlists to maintain selection standards. Most schools and organizations selected reserve candidates when they couldn’t fill their quota. Those reserves received acceptance notifications in order of their waiting rank, supplementing the shortfall.
It really is just like regular entrance exams.
I had never taken the CSAT myself, but the academy’s additional acceptance process was probably similar to what Jeong Chaemin described.
“In high-competition places like the Hunter Academy, when too many applicants fall short of the criteria, it’s common to select additional reserve candidates who show outstanding potential.”
The passing necklace around my neck caught the light and sparkled. That small object seemed to condense the entire atmosphere of the hall—the rarity of success and the heavy weight that rarity created.
And I passed a test like that?
My shoulders rose on their own.
By then the practical exams had finally concluded, and it became my turn for the interview.
“Ernian Ludwig, please proceed to the main building.”
First in the written test, first in the practical, so it seemed I would go first here as well. Jeong Chaemin gave me encouragement.
“Even S-class hunters are still human, so don’t get intimidated in front of the professors. Speak with confidence. Fighting!”
I nodded, stood up, and headed toward the main building with Hahyang-i.
The building was magnificent.
Even a world boss from another realm was moved to admiration. I stretched out my intent, but every attempt to measure its height simply dissolved into empty space.
What kind of building is this? Even when I fully extend my intent, I can’t cover its entire range. It’s not a temple where a god resides, for crying out loud.
I couldn’t even tell how many stories tall it was. All I could feel was its boundless height and overwhelming scale standing before me.
The guide standing at the entrance spoke calmly.
“Please proceed to the top floor.”
“Is there no elevator?”
The top floor. From my perspective, asking about an elevator was perfectly reasonable. There was no way an elementary-school-aged child had the stamina to climb all those stairs. Besides, I was a girl.
Yet the guide looked at me as if I were some bizarre creature.
Don’t tell me… there really isn’t an elevator? This is some next-level discrimination against the disabled.
Then again, when hunters could fly through the sky and leap across buildings, the absence of an elevator might not be that strange.
“It is over here.”
Fortunately, there was one.
The door opens.
Soon we reached the top floor. An antique, oppressive door stood before me. As I drew closer, Achilles spoke gravely.
“Is something wrong?”
I wondered why he was making such a fuss, but if a world boss was speaking this seriously, the situation was clearly far from ordinary. I gave a small nod and opened the door.
Surely there isn’t an actual martial god in here, right?
Yet the moment I took a single step into the space, a thunderous roar exploded inside my skull and a shiver raced from the roots of my hair down to the tip of my spine.
“What a very strange child has entered.”
My intent was suppressed. The opponent hadn’t done anything. It was simply that, before the vast and majestic narrative coiled around her, my own intent cowered and fell silent.
“Ordinary people merely carry intent with them, yet you scatter yours without the slightest hesitation.”
The moment the words ended, the intent surrounding me shattered like ice and scattered. My intent screamed and melted away before the colossal narrative she possessed. I became a perfect blind person once more; every scrap of information was cut off. I had been reduced to a single point.
“…This one greets the Martial God.”
I recognized her instantly. There could not be two such people in the world. The one called the strongest under heaven. The Martial God.
Wait, they said the interviewers were S-class hunters!
The woman before me was a national-power-level hunter—one who could stand against an entire nation as an individual. In the pitch-black darkness where I could not see even an inch ahead, her voice rang out.
“You are a bold child. I shall ask—what is your relationship with the Grim Reaper?”
I swallowed hard.