0. Entrance Examination
"Let's see, now. Which way was it from here?"
I pulled out my phone right away and pulled up a map.
The Academy was wonderful in every respect, but it certainly did love sprawling across an enormous plot of land. Because of that, it took roughly an hour by bus to get there from where I lived. I'd set my alarm early with this in mind, but it was still a bit of a hassle.
"Oh, there it is."
Fortunately, there was an intercity bus near my home that ran all the way to the Academy. I was on my way to it when I noticed something odd—other students wearing Academy uniforms, headed in the same direction.
Well, no, I suppose that wasn't really strange at all. They were headed to the Academy too, after all.
I slowly took stock of my surroundings, then walked to the bus stop and leaned against the wall in a corner. If someone looking like me struck up a conversation first, they would surely be put on their guard. Honestly, I would be too. When a shady-looking person suddenly talks to you out of nowhere, it's a little startling.
So I resolved not to say a word until they spoke to me first, and fixed my eyes on my phone. As it happened, there was a paper Uncle Ceylon had sent me. I could only understand about half of it, but reading something—anything—was a pleasure in itself. And so I kept my gaze fixed on the paper, which dealt with the characteristic signs a Snake Beastkin displays upon Manifestation.
How long did I wait like that? The intercity bus had just pulled up, and I was walking over to board it, when—
"Ugh, oppa! What am I supposed to do if we're late because of you?!"
"I mean... I said if you ran, we'd make it in no time."
"Then run all the way to the Academy while you're at it!"
Two students were sprinting toward me from a distance away. Seeing how much they resembled each other, I guessed they were brother and sister. The younger sister had black hair tied in a ponytail, and—unusually—heterochromia. The older brother seemed to have it too, but with the colors reversed. In the sister's case, her left eye was blue and her right was yellow; the brother's left eye was yellow and his right was blue.
I watched the two of them for a moment, then hurried up into the bus. I couldn't exactly block the entrance forever. After tapping my card, I took a front seat and waited for the two students. Something told me they were going to be very entertaining. Just like the uncles and my aunt used to say back in the old days—they'd told me that observing things was tremendously fun.
And so I made up my mind to observe the two students, much as I had once been observed myself as a child.
Perhaps because they'd come running so noisily, the bus driver was kind enough to wait for them. Before long, the two students came clattering inside, calling out each other's names.
"I swear, Sia, your sense of drama is something else. We made it before we were late, didn't we?"
"Watch your mouth. Keep it up and I might just leave you behind, Siwoo."
"Huh? Since when do you call me oppa?"
"You have to actually act like an oppa before I'll bother calling you one."
"...Students. Are you getting on or not?"
"Sorry!"
"Ah—sorry about that!"
I discreetly hid my face behind my phone and smiled. Honestly, it wasn't as if anyone could scold me for smiling... but laughing right in front of them felt like poor manners all the same. And I found myself silently praying that the younger sister was a first-year. If both she and I passed the Academy's entrance examination, it seemed like we might get to know each other for a while.
Then I smoothed my expression back into place. The two students hadn't gone to the back; they'd sat down in an empty front seat. Right next to mine, in fact.
I slowly crossed my legs, turned my head away with studied indifference, and gave every appearance of having no interest in the seat beside me. In truth, every nerve I had was trained on it. I planned to use what I learned now as a foundation for striking up a conversation later. At times like this, I was grateful the Snake Beastkin's sensory traits were muted in me—if they weren't, my weak hearing would have made this a struggle.
The two students soon started talking. Their voices were somewhat low, but that posed no problem for eavesdropping. I pretended to fix my gaze on my phone once more and concentrated on their conversation.
"So you're going to make a scene again?"
"You're really dead?"
"Watch how you talk to your oppa."
"For being born a few minutes earlier?"
"Two minutes."
"Right. You forget everything else, but that you remember perfectly."
"...You are seriously dead?"
"Watch how you talk to your little sister."
"See you at the entrance exam, then."
"That's my line."
I held back a laugh and organized the information I'd gathered. So those two were probably twins. And both of them appeared to be taking today's entrance exam. Which meant there was a chance we might run into each other during the test itself. I had no idea what the exam would involve, since the Academy changed it every time... but if we did meet, I thought that would be really lovely.
There was even a superstition that bonds formed on the very first day of an entrance exam lasted to the very end.
Unfortunately, the two students said nothing more. They shot each other a glance and then both buried themselves in their phones, so I gave up on eavesdropping and returned my attention to the paper. Fortunately, I could understand about eighty percent of this one—and at that level, I figured I could puzzle out the remaining twenty percent from context.
And so I spent the entire bus ride straining to comprehend the paper. In the end, I never fully managed it by the time we reached the Academy. But it had kept me from being bored on the way, so the paper had served its purpose.
I tapped my card on the way out and took a moment to survey the Academy's grounds.
The campus was far larger than any ordinary university, and its buildings were imposing—so massive that the word overwhelming wouldn't have been an exaggeration. And so, after getting off, I stood for a while simply staring at it in a daze.
This was the place—one of the few academies in South Korea that trained Heroes and Hunters. The Busan International Academy, the one my uncles and aunts had told me about time and time again.
"If I push myself too hard... it might not end well."
I thought of the narcotic analgesics tucked against my chest and forced a smile. Admission to a place like this naturally meant the exams would be brutally difficult. I'd passed the written portion, but there was no guarantee I'd pass the practical. Which meant I would have to fight, even if it meant pushing myself past my limits—and honestly, I wasn't confident I could keep from going berserk. I could already picture it: Manifesting far too intensely, then doubling over from the pain and rolling around on the ground.
Really, Aunt Ailee was remarkably capable. From her researcher days to now—for better or for worse, she never ceased to astonish me. I'd have to thank her properly again when I got home.
"Hey, you there! New Academy students!"
Just as I was standing there blankly, a teacher in a tracksuit approached from a distance, pointing at an arrow painted on the wall.
"See that arrow? Follow it to the auditorium! If you don't, you can forget about taking the entrance exam at all!"
I gave a slow nod and set off after the arrow. As I walked, I kept an eye on the two students from the front seat. They were... fighting again. The older brother—Siwoo, that is—wanted to walk at a leisurely pace. The younger sister—Sia—wanted to get there fast and claim a good seat. Naturally, their opinions clashed, and they seemed to be at each other's throats over it.
Thankfully, this time there was someone to mediate. I watched all the way to the end as the P.E. teacher flew into a tirade and chewed them both out, and only then did I start moving again. After all, once you'd made it this far into the Academy, the auditorium wasn't that long a walk.
I remembered the teacher telling us during the written exam, before it began, that they always gave an orientation for the practical portion as well. That male teacher—he'd seemed remarkably kind. Hoping I might run into him again someday, I kept walking.
Along the way, I continued to take in my surroundings. There were so many students like me around. Some wore different colors of neckties or ribbons—probably second- or third-years of the Academy.
I turned over the information Aunt Camilla had given me. Once you graduated from this Academy, she'd said, you could go to whatever workplace you desired and train there. I could become one of those splendid Hunters or Heroes—the very kind I'd been certain would appear someday, back when I was an experimental subject. Just thinking it made my heart pound.
But I tried not to let it show too much. If I got carried away now, I might make a mistake. There'd be plenty of time to celebrate after I actually passed.
How much time had passed? I managed to find my way without getting lost and arrived at the auditorium. Following the directions of the senior students, I sat down in a convenient chair and looked around.
The auditorium was enormous. You could say it was several times larger than an ordinary high school assembly hall. It was said to seat close to several thousand students, so of course it had to be big... but I hadn't imagined it would be this big, and for a while I couldn't hide my racing heart.
Then, at what must have been the appointed time, the lights in the auditorium went out. And a light came on, illuminating the front of the hall. I could feel the murmuring students fall silent. I swallowed and looked forward. I was quite curious which teacher would come out to deliver the opening address.
"Hello, students! Those who passed the written examination for Busan International Academy... my proud, proud students! What a relief! What a relief it is!"
It was here that I felt a stab of unease. The expression on the female teacher's face, standing there on the stage, was the same one my aunts used to wear when they looked at me. And so, the instant I reflexively shot up from my seat, the world around me began to change.
"It's a relief precisely because not one of you knows anything about Illusion Magic!"
I frantically scanned my surroundings. This was... not the auditorium. It was, unmistakably, the outdoors—disguised as an auditorium. There was no other explanation for a building vanishing this abruptly. The chairs rattled. The decorations that had adorned the hall swirled into a vortex and crashed to the ground. And then, before my eyes, they assembled themselves into one colossal wall.
I gazed at the maze that had materialized before me and tried, with everything I had, to smile.
"Now then—the entrance examination begins this very moment!"
Just as that woman said. The entrance examination was only now beginning.