0. The Entrance Exam
The first thought I had was that things had gone sideways. I've always been weak when it comes to sudden surprises, you see. Naturally, I hadn't prepared for anything like this. Still, it wasn't entirely a disadvantage for me. My uncles and aunts had taught me a thing or two, after all.
This entrance exam was a maze-type test. All you had to do was avoid the villain at the center of the maze and survive — that was it. Of course, merely surviving earned you a low score. You had to rack up more points to benefit your studies going forward, whether by rescuing other students, uncovering some secret hidden in the maze, or taking the villain down outright.
The Academy didn't rank students by their credits, exactly… but having the teachers' eyes on you was a help in itself. You could request favors, receive personal instruction, that sort of thing. So it seemed best to move with scoring points in mind.
"Wow, this maze is incredible."
I looked at the maze walls and smiled. It seemed the walls were made of chairs and ornaments that had grown into jagged, uneven shapes. They were surprisingly nice to look at — I almost wanted to snap a picture with my phone. Of course, I hardly had that kind of leisure to spare.
I took a deep breath, then slowly activated my Manifestation. The act of revealing the biological features of the creature within you to gain a variety of effects — it was the most fundamental skill a beastman had, the very basics of basics.
What I manifested here was a snake's tongue. I let it slide out past my lips, long and slow. The tongue, easily over ten centimeters even on a bad day, secreted a slow stream of chemicals and released them into the surrounding air. I waited, tongue flickering, for a little while.
Before long, all sorts of smells began to reach me. The sweat of students. The scent of chairs and ornaments. …The fishy tang of blood. And — something I knew instinctively — the scent of prey frozen in terror.
I flicked my tongue for a moment longer, then slowly deactivated the Manifestation. I had a rough idea of the direction now, so it seemed best to head that way. Normally you'd be fleeing from the villain, but I set off at an easy run toward where it was.
For one thing, I wanted to trade blows with the villain at least once. More than that, I wanted to properly test this blessed body of mine — the one my uncles and aunts had praised to the skies. I'd never been allowed to push it hard, on the grounds that an excellent specimen might get damaged. But I wasn't a test subject anymore, so I could use my strength as freely as I liked.
The moment I was running along with that thought, the wall right beside me collapsed with a thunderous roar.
"You absolute idiot!"
"What!? There's no rule saying we can't break the maze!"
"And that's why you smash the wall right off the bat? Who does that!?"
"This guy, that's who! Moron!"
Struggling to keep from laughing, I looked at Siwoo and Sia. Each held a different hwando — a Korean saber — in hand, and they were brawling with each other, glaring face to face. Then they seemed to notice me, and both hurriedly sheathed their swords and turned my way.
"Oh, hi there…!"
"S-sorry. You're not hurt, are you?"
"…Ah."
"You moron! I told you not to break the wall!"
I watched the two of them start bickering again, then clapped my hands once. They finally snapped out of it and stopped fighting. Doing my best to arrange my face into something as gentle as possible, I addressed the two students.
"My name is Lee Yeji. Would you like to join forces for the entrance exam?"
"…I'm Kang Sia. This idiot here is Kang Siwoo."
"I'm not an idiot. And teaming up? Always welcome."
"Great. Since our interests are aligned, shall we get going?"
"Huh? Going where, exactly?"
Siwoo asked, looking at me. I slowly manifested my tongue and flicked it through the air. Sia caught on to my features almost immediately and smacked Siwoo across the arm.
"She's a snake beastkin! She obviously tracked the path by scent. Right?"
"Yes, that's right. The path toward the villain is… that way."
"…The path toward the villain?"
"Oh. Scared, are we?"
I gave them my slyest smile. Naturally, both of them reacted explosively.
"Who's scared?! Lead the way, hurry! We'll be the ones to crush the villain!"
"Perfect. That idiot can play meat shield, and we'll take it down!"
"What? You wanna die?"
"You're the one who wants to die!?"
"Now, now. This way, please."
Holding back my laughter with effort, I kept flicking my tongue. The villain's scent — the strongest one in the air — kept cutting off and picking back up, so I needed to concentrate. But it wasn't so faint that I couldn't follow it entirely, so I kept running forward with the two of them in tow.
So how long did we run? Eventually the maze gave way to a wide, open plaza. And near the plaza, I could see fallen students.
I studied them. They seemed to be protected by some strange shield-like barrier — probably a safety measure of some kind. In other words, being eliminated wouldn't mean serious injury.
Sia glanced around for a moment, then asked me a question.
"Isn't this where the villain is?"
"…It seems it's moved somewhere else from here. Let's head over there."
"Alright, let's hurry up and teach it a lesson!"
"You seem awfully confident, Sia."
"Hm? Well, we're members of the martial world, you know. Direct descendants of the famous General Kang Kam-ch'an."
"That's right — we're so strong that even our family calls us problem children."
I snorted at Siwoo's words. Somehow I doubted that was what "problem children" meant in their household. Sia seemed to think the same, because I saw her whack Siwoo on the back of the head.
Really, being with these two was quite entertaining. What Auntie Ailee had said was true, after all. When you meet friends who get you, every moment is a delight.
So I kept flicking my tongue, trying to pin down the villain's location. Fortunately, finding it wasn't too difficult. For whatever reason, the scent kept wafting on and on — as if to say, catch me if you can.
So catch it I would. It was infuriating, you see. When a predator flicks its tail, it's a warning. You could call it an act of mercy. But when prey flicks its tail, it amounts to nothing more than courting death.
At last, I succeeded in tracking the villain's position. But there was one problem. The villain was running faster than we were. If we chased it through the maze, it would clearly move on to another spot before we arrived. And of course, then we'd have to find it again and run there all over — at this rate, we'd never catch it.
Unless, that is, we could go in a straight line.
Hold on. A straight line.
I hurriedly shouted to the two students.
"Siwoo! Sia!"
"What?!"
"What is it?!"
"If you smash straight through the wall at five o'clock in a line, we can intercept the villain in time!"
"Okay, you sure about that!?"
"Sure enough, bro! Ready!?"
"You match me!"
Siwoo shouted that and dashed off. Sia followed a beat behind him. He charged forward with tremendous momentum and swung his hwando in a great arc — the wall split halfway, and Sia brought her saber down right after, shattering it completely.
I marveled at the monstrous strength of the pair, who'd broken through in just two strikes. According to Auntie, that wall was about as hard as ordinary concrete. And on top of that, neither of them seemed even slightly winded. If anything, they seemed to have excess energy, pressing onward all the more eagerly.
So I mustered my strength and ran after them. Siwoo and Sia kept smashing through walls as they advanced. We did run into other students along the way, but the twins brushed past them without a second thought. They'd repeat "out of the way" once or twice and immediately smash through the wall ahead. I'd planned to break through walls to help anyone in trouble myself, but there was never any need — Siwoo and Sia smashed their way to the very last wall with gusto and plunged inside.
Following them in, I witnessed something strange. A mouse-beastkin girl and a dog-beastkin girl were fighting — but their opponent was nowhere to be seen. It was as if they were battling an invisible man.
Hold on. Invisible Man?
I recalled what my uncles and aunts had told me. Among the faculty of Busan International Academy was an American hero — the Invisible Man.
"The Invisible Man…!"
"Who's that? Sia, do you know him?"
"How do you not know that, you idiot!?"
"Hey, maybe I don't, you got a problem with that!?"
"Yeah, I do! A huge one, moron!"
"Oh, that's it. You wanna settle ranks today!?"
"Um, could you both maybe calm down?"
I did my utmost to hold back my laughter as I broke up the two students. Thankfully, they stopped fighting and looked forward. In the meantime — perhaps he'd been waiting for us — the Invisible Man stood with his arms crossed. Normally he wore a suit of mixed green and yellow with yellow goggles, the very picture of an American hero… but today, apparently playing villain, he was dressed in a suit of red and white.
"Alright, I suppose we can begin!?"
The Invisible Man cried out in a suitably theatrical voice.
"I am the villain Invisible! The invincible villain of the age! Now — here I come!"
I sighed and manifested more of my snake traits. The man had vanished completely, straight into invisibility. Announcing his attack like that was pure deception, obviously. Honestly — how are you supposed to see something that's invisible? But I couldn't afford to give up, and so I readied myself for the fight.