0. The Entrance Exam
So there I was, strolling toward a nearby café, when I came across a rather strange sight.
A motorcycle was tearing down the walking path.
And it wasn't just cruising along, either. It was moving at a genuinely breakneck speed, as if fleeing from someone. Somewhere in the distance, I thought I could make out the wail of police sirens too.
So I gave a crooked little smile. It had been a while since I'd last watched a criminal careening around in broad daylight.
"Goodness. This is exactly why leaving the house is dangerous."
"Haha."
I laughed like that and quietly prepared myself. Aunt was behind me, after all, which meant I had no intention of holding back on this criminal. In other words, it would be fair to say I could go all out—within what I could afford to show.
My senses sharpened, bit by bit. Time seemed to slow to a crawl. It felt almost like the combat training I'd done long ago.
I took a slow, deep breath and inhaled. The person on the motorcycle seemed to be a man, at least—the distinctive scent of a male body hung thick in the air.
The bike itself was clearly modified. It gave off an oil smell I'd never encountered before; some specialized tinkering had no doubt been done to squeeze out extra efficiency.
And… the man's breathing was extremely ragged. Something odd laced his breath—drugs, perhaps. It was unmistakably an illegal substance, the kind I'd smelled often back in my days as a test subject.
Which would make him the worst of the worst, even among criminals.
"You crazy bitch, are you out of your mind!? Get out of the way!"
Shouting that, the rider tried to swerve around me. Naturally, I had no intention of letting him escape, so I fixed him with a predator's stare.
The moment our eyes met, the driver panicked and slammed for the brakes. I didn't let that chance slip by—I planted my left foot, stretched out both hands, and seized the motorcycle, stopping it dead.
Ordinarily that would have been impossible, but with my physical abilities heightened through Manifestation, I brought it to a halt without the slightest strain.
The moment I caught and stopped the bike, the driver, unable to withstand the recoil, was flung from it. But he twisted himself upright mid-air, executed a clean breakfall, and landed properly on his feet. Then he rose slowly, looked at me, and glanced back at the motorcycle.
So I readied myself for a fight as well. For starters, that man seemed to have his eye on the bike—or more precisely, on something the bike was carrying. I had no idea what it was, but it was likely in the cargo compartment.
Which meant I couldn't just stand by and let him take it.
The instant I made up my mind, I saw the man's gaze flick elsewhere.
"…What."
He was staring at Aunt. Rather than deal with me, I could see him scheming to get at Aunt instead—some way to turn the situation to his advantage.
It felt as though my world were shattering. A wall of broken glass rose up around me. There I was, grown, my feminine contours visible. Warning lights bathing everything in red, sirens screaming. People scrambling to flee somewhere, anywhere. The sound of fighting coming from somewhere close. The instant I had absorbed all of that, I exploded forward like an arrow loosed from a bow.
The man had no opening to react. He'd been glaring with killing intent, after all—his body would have frozen stiff from the tension.
I seized him by the collar and raised him up to slam him into the ground—then caught myself. If I'd truly meant it, killing a man would have been no trouble at all. So instead I wrenched his arm behind his back, forced him face-down into the pavement, and subdued him.
Watching all of this unfold, Aunt remarked, utterly composed:
"That's my girl. The best."
"…Mm."
"I'm going to go buy coffee, so you just stay like that for a bit."
"Okay."
I took a slow, deep breath and smiled. Really, there was no need to be this jumpy, even now. Things were different from back then. This wasn't a situation where I'd die if I didn't fight. Subduing him was enough. There was no need for anything like a confirmation kill.
"Should probably call 112."
I heaved a sigh and reached for my phone with my free hand—but it seemed there was no need. Before long, I spotted police and a Hero scrambling toward us, huffing and puffing.
I handed the driver over to them. Several officers pounced on the man, pinning him down with their knees, then cuffed him thoroughly—and apparently that still wasn't enough to reassure them, because multiple officers kept him under watch. The Hero scanned the surroundings for a moment, checking for any lingering trouble, then pulled out a radio and reported the capture of the final target.
I watched them for a little while, then slowly backed away. And then I bolted straight off in the direction Aunt had gone. I'd already made up my mind to do exactly that.
"Hey, wait! You there! W-where do you think you're going!"
"Sorry, but I'm a student!"
I fled without so much as a backward glance. The Hero kept calling after me—something about needing my testimony, about how he had to commend me for helping capture a criminal. Naturally, getting tangled up in any of that would only make things tiresome. And it wasn't as if I had much to say by way of testimony anyway.
Fortunately, the Hero and the police seemed far too preoccupied watching the criminal to spare the time to chase me. Relieved, I left the walking path and headed toward Aunt, who was waiting with an iced Americano in hand.
Aunt must have known I'd run, because she gave a little snort of laughter as she held out the iced Americano.
"Running off was the right call. You're famous already, you know?"
"Famous? Since when?"
"As the student who crushed a Villain during the entrance exam."
"…I just got lucky, that's all."
"I suppose you could have."
Instead of answering, I sucked on my straw. The Americano flooded my mouth, and I savored the taste for a good while. In my past life, I'd drunk coffee quite often. No—not just coffee. I'd downed oceans of every caffeine-laden drink there was. The reason was simple enough: surviving in South Korea generally demanded studying hard, so that was what I did, and I became addicted to caffeine along the way. These days, my body felt hollow if I went without it.
Aunt clearly knew this about me, because she gazed at me like I was the most adorable thing in the world. I shot her a sidelong glare, but her expression didn't budge an inch. Eventually, I couldn't take it anymore.
"What exactly is so cute about watching me drink coffee?"
"You've loved coffee ever since you were little."
"You never actually gave me any, though. It was always the uncles and aunties drinking it, remember?"
"Was it?"
"Yes. You wouldn't even give me one of those common coffee-flavored candies, or coffee bread."
Aunt didn't offer a reply—she just smiled at me like I was cute, again. I exhaled a long sigh and kept drinking my Americano instead.
Well. It wasn't as though I hadn't been cute back then, either.
So I grumbled at her all the same.
"Probably threw a tantrum about not wanting to sleep, right?"
"Mm. You kept fighting off the yawns, insisting you'd solve just one more problem before bed."
"…"
"The way you squirmed with those tiny little hands, refusing to sleep… it was just so adorable."
"…I don't know. No—I refuse to remember."
Saying that, I gulped the Americano down fast. Unlike Aunt, I couldn't rest easy until I'd finished every last drop of anything like this. I even crunched through a few of the remaining ice cubes and tossed the empty cup straight into the trash.
And then, all of a sudden, one worry nagged at me.
"Aunt."
"Yes?"
"Was running away the right thing to do?"
"What do you mean by that?"
"I mean… I'm worried it might have made things more of a hassle, actually."
That Hero had definitely said he needed my testimony. Even if I refused the commendation, I couldn't exactly refuse to give testimony—could I? So when I asked whether I shouldn't go back right now after all, Aunt laid it out for me with crisp simplicity.
"If they truly need you, they'll come find you, won't they?"
"…I suppose they would."
"And you've already run away once, making your position clear: you find this sort of bother distasteful."
"…So that's how it works?"
"If they do come knocking a second time, you now have a perfectly legitimate reason to be annoyed with them."
"Well, if you put it that strongly, Aunt, I suppose it's fine."
There was really only one thing I was worried about: that word of my helping to capture the criminal might make the news. I'd already made a name for myself once at the Academy—to think it might reach the news broadcasts too…
…It was truly horrifying. An unmanageable flood of attention would come pouring down on me all at once. That was why I'd run. Aunt seemed to have some other reason of her own, but… at the very least, we shared a mutual dislike of being famous any more than strictly necessary.
Aunt took a slow sip of her Americano, then smiled at me. Seeing that smile, some of my unease melted away too.
"You do know your Aunt is very good with words, don't you?"
"I know. Of course I know."
"Then don't worry so much. I'll take full responsibility and chase them all off."
"Ahh. Now I finally feel a little better."
"Though wouldn't it be fine if you got famous?"
Aunt said that with a mischievous grin. I immediately frowned. She knew exactly why I went around disguised like this, after all.
So I sighed and grumbled back.
"You know very well, Aunt. I like to be the one who observes first and approaches after."
"That's right—you take after us. Honestly, I'd been hoping for it."
"…Hoping for what, exactly?"
"That someday you'd follow in our footsteps, put on a white lab coat, and do research?"
"That's… still possible, even now, isn't it?"
Aunt gave no particular answer. She simply took another sip of her Americano and kept walking ahead. So I matched her stride and continued our stroll alongside her.
And with my arms crossed, we walked for quite a long time. It had been a while since Aunt had come outside and moved around, so I figured she needed some exercise. Naturally, she seemed to see right through my intentions. I let her grumbling go in one ear and out the other as we kept walking. She claims researchers don't need to exercise, but for someone who wants to keep Aunt around for a long, long time, those are words I have no wish to hear.