Geumgang Academy, which Gang Hanbyeol attended.
Geumgang Academy was an educational institution renowned enough to rank first in the annual Academy City academy evaluation rankings.
‘And wasn’t it fifth in the world rankings, too?’
To that extent, Geumgang Academy’s standing was nothing short of tremendous.
But how was that possible?
Did it make sense with Korea’s capabilities?
If I were someone from the world I lived in my previous life, I might have found it puzzling.
But there was a reason anyone could accept upon hearing it.
That reason was precisely….
‘Because it’s a Korean game!’
That was it.
That alone was enough to be convinced.
Since the game was developed in Korea, it was hardly strange that Korea’s standing was set so high.
Perhaps because of that, in this world, Korea was counted among the five greatest hunter nations.
Of course, within the game, there did exist settings plausible enough for the worldbuilding to be accepted.
The setting was that Korea had a narrow territory, and because of that, it had been able to quickly reclaim its land from monsters during the Great Cataclysm.
‘As a result, they were able to save up enough strength to plan Academy City….’
Thus, it had been almost 150 years since Academy City was founded.
Geumgang Academy, which I was applying to, was also a traditional institution established alongside the city’s history.
Anyway.
“What do we take from here….”
Having disembarked at the terminal, I, Yeon Haneul, and the triplets decided to head to Geumgang Academy to receive our admission tickets.
At the nearby station, people heading to take the exam like us were already swarming.
I carefully examined the station signs where they had lined up.
“Haneul, look for a station sign that says District 23.”
“I’m looking now. That’s 19 over there, so District 23 should be… Ah, found it!”
Geumgang Academy was located in District 23, the equivalent of Gangnam District in Seoul.
I turned my head toward the station sign Yeon Haneul was pointing at.
The number 23 was written large on the sign.
“Let’s go line up over there.”
Pulling our carriers, we headed to the station.
Perhaps thanks to Academy City reducing its bus intervals to accommodate the exam period, the line fortunately moved quickly.
Before we knew it, we had reached the front of the line and could board the bus.
[Boarding.]
A familiar mechanical voice I had heard even in Seoul.
The seats were fairly spacious.
Looking around at the empty seats, I pointed out a two-seater to Yeon Haneul, who had boarded behind me.
“Haneul, let’s sit there.”
“Yeah, okay.”
Having seated Yeon Haneul by the window,
I sat in the seat next to her.
Shortly after, the bus departed.
[The next stop is….]
Scenery passed by beyond the window.
We quietly gazed out the window.
Not long after, we exited a tunnel.
“Wow….”
An urban landscape came into view.
Yeon Haneul and I exclaimed in admiration.
On the other side of the hill the bus was climbing stood buildings I had never seen even in Seoul.
And between the buildings, a World Tree asserted its presence, unhidden.
It was a landscape where the blue sky, gray buildings, and green foliage harmonized exquisitely.
Not only that, but the river spread out below was glittering as well.
“That’s the Geurim River, right?”
“…Yeah, the Geurim River.”
“It’s really beautiful like a painting…. The water looks so clear. Unlike the Han River I saw in Seoul.”
The river that cut through the center of Academy City.
The Geurim River was a natural feature symbolizing Academy City, along with the World Tree growing in the center.
Yeon Haneul seemed captivated by the view.
I was the same.
‘It sure is pretty seeing it in person. However….’
I stared at the black dots sparsely visible in the sky.
Hard to notice from afar, but if seen up close, things that would surely mar the aesthetics of Academy City.
There were already eight of them in sight.
‘Gates.’
There would be many more Gates positioned in the skies above Academy City than those.
If those could not be cleared and the Gate erosion rate rose,
‘The destruction ending would be certain.’
Then, the scenery I was looking at now would transform into a horrific sight.
Monsters would make their nests in the World Tree,
and the Geurim River would become a river dyed with people’s blood, with corpses floating about.
Knowing the game’s ending, I couldn’t simply admire the view.
“….”
For a long while,
I couldn’t take my eyes off the sky above.
* * *
Geumgang Academy’s entrance practical exam was scheduled for one week later.
But the reality was different.
The exam was effectively no different from starting the moment they distributed the admission tickets.
“Let me check the examinee’s name.”
“Do Gyeonu.”
“Let's see, Do Gyeonu…. Your number….”
“Number….”
Geumgang Academy, said to have over ten thousand students across all departments.
Having gotten off at the main gate to look around the campus, we had to regret our decision.
Because the academy grounds were simply too vast.
After getting lost, we barely managed to arrive at the admissions office.
“Student Do Gyeonu, I’ve confirmed your identity. Before issuing your admission ticket, please submit your pledge first. If you didn’t bring one, go write one in the back and bring it.”
“I have it here.”
Not just for Geumgang Academy, anyone applying to any academy had to submit a handwritten pledge.
Simply put regarding the pledge: it was a document by which examinees taking the practical exam swore to take personal responsibility for all mishaps except situations like disasters, calamities, or terrorism occurring during the exam.
‘Since it’s an exam where life and death are on the line, they’re nailing it down with a pledge beforehand. Even if you die during the exam, the academy takes no responsibility.’
As an aside, according to what I knew, surprisingly, among those who came to take the practical exam, there were cases where people felt the fear of death at the very moment they went to submit the pledge and withdrew their applications.
‘Well, it’s not that I don’t understand.’
They might have thought they were prepared, but when that moment actually arrived, people’s hearts were prone to change.
Just as a person who volunteered for military boot camp is shaken by the instructor’s words—“Anyone who feels they are not yet mentally prepared may withdraw even now”—and feels the urge to leave.
But I submitted the pledge to the staff member without a hint of anxiety.
“If you have a will, please submit it as well.”
“I didn’t write a will.”
“A will isn’t mandatory… but still, since you never know, if you want to submit one, you can write one in the back and come back.”
“No, there’s no need for that.”
“…Very well, then take your admission ticket.”
Why would I write a will?
I hadn’t even considered a will because I had no worries about dying in the exam.
Soon, I was issued an admission ticket.
‘An artifact.’
Slightly smaller than a fist.
I examined the badge-like admission ticket every which way.
This admission ticket, with nothing written on its surface except the word “Geumgang,” was precisely the reason I had arrived in Academy City a week early.
“We’ll be explaining the exam precautions at the top of the hour, so if you want to hear them, please go to Lecture Room 102.”
“Yes, thank you.”
Lecture Room 102 was right next door.
Having finished the business of receiving my admission ticket, I turned away from the reception desk.
Then I found Yeon Haneul.
She too seemed to have just finished her application.
“Did you get your ticket?”
“Yeah, here. They said to go to Lecture Room 102 if we want to hear the precautions.”
“I heard too. Let’s go grab seats.”
“Aren’t we going to wait for the twins?”
“They’ll come on their own. Let’s go.”
“Hmm… okay.”
The top of the hour must not be far off.
We headed to Lecture Room 102 to hear the exam precautions.
Shortly after, the briefing began.
[Some of you may already know, but the exam effectively starts not next week, but today.]
[Everyone, please attach your admission tickets. Ah, you must attach them on the side close to your heart. That way we can accurately measure your vital signs.]
The staff member held his up high so the people could see the admission ticket.
Yeon Haneul and I attached our admission tickets as he instructed.
[From now until the practical exam ends, you must keep your admission tickets on at all times. We need to check if there are any abnormalities in your condition and know where you are in case of distress.]
[To be precise, you should not remove the admission ticket from your body for over an hour. If that happens, you will be disqualified. Of course, before that….]
After a brief pause, the staff member continued.
[You must prove your qualifications. The qualification of being an examinee.]
[You have received your admission tickets, but you have not yet received your examinee numbers for the practical exam. Look at your admission tickets now. There will be no examinee number written on them, only the word “Geumgang.”]
[Until the day before the practical exam, you must make your examinee number appear on that admission ticket. Yes, like this.]
The staff member tilted his admission ticket.
Then, before long, a number appeared beneath the word “Geumgang.”
[You must keep the admission ticket attached from the moment the number appears like this. Then, as for how to make the number appear….]
[Inside the admission ticket are problems to check your basic abilities before the practical exam. Solve them to make it appear.]
[Thirty questions are randomly selected from the ones we possess, categorized by difficulty. Once a question is revealed, it remains fixed until you solve it or the date changes. If you feel a question has appeared that you can’t solve, waiting for the date to change and revealing a new question is also an option.]
[Just one question. You can obtain your examinee number by solving just one of the thirty questions.]
But if that were all, there would be no way to differentiate between examinees, right?
Not a single person responded to the staff member’s remark with a grin.
[The admission ticket changes color depending on the number of problems you solve. Five is gray, ten is yellow, fifteen is green, twenty is red, twenty-five is blue, and thirty is black.]
[You will be given bonus points based on that color. Whether to earn those bonus points or not is up to your choice.]
[For reference, your examinee number is not finalized until the day of the exam. It is finalized the moment the exam day arrives. And then, the exam location will appear on your admission ticket.]
[You need only arrive at the exam location on time.]
[That concludes the explanation. I wish you all the best of luck.]
Having finished speaking,
the staff member stepped down from the podium.
* * *
Prove your qualifications as an examinee.
The qualification exam held by Geumgang Academy every year was notoriously famous.
It was to the extent that anyone preparing for the entrance practical exam would be strange not to know of it.
Because of that, I thought about the exam’s contents without panicking.
‘So this year, it’s the problem-solving method….’
I heard last year’s exam involved growing a plant seed to find the examinee number.
But even if the exam type was different, the items Geumgang Academy evaluated seemed no different.
‘Whether you rack your brains alone or cooperate with a group, solve a problem within a week and protect your admission ticket….’
I looked around.
Some people dashed out immediately after hearing the explanation.
Confident they could solve the exam on their own.
“Did you come alone? I came alone too; shall we form a team together?”
On the other hand, there were people trying to form teams on the spot to cooperate.
Of course, there were few cases of hasty assembly; most people trying to form teams were already in groups.
“….”
Because if you knew about the qualification exam, there had been plenty of opportunities to gather a team beforehand.
Through connections with sponsoring families, or cooperating with acquaintances.
“Looking for Mr. ToothpickSwordMaster! Where are you!?”
Or through communities or SNS.
There were various ways to form a team.
“So what are we going to do now?”
It was then that Yeon Haneul spoke to me.
She was asking for our course of action.
“Hey! Do Gyeonu! What are we doing!?”
“I think we can work together.”
“We’re obviously doing this together, right?”
Before I knew it, the triplets had gathered around too.
Seeing the looks on their faces, as if they were expecting something from me, I thought it over and made my decision.
“No, let’s each handle it on our own.”
“Huh? No, why?”
“They said the questions pop up at random, right? If that’s the case, what’s the point of working together? It’s not like two people solve one question. Two people would have to solve two questions. That would just end up wasting more time.”
“But they look like they’re cooperating….”
“They’re doing that because they’re not confident they can solve the questions alone or protect their admission tickets. Or maybe they’re simply following everyone else and cooperating. But do we lack the ability to do it ourselves? Are we not confident? That’s not the case.”
The qualification exam was simply a test of one’s qualifications; for those who had been preparing to become Hunters, it wasn’t an exam that would be all that difficult.
There didn’t seem to be any need to go out of our way to cooperate.
If the goal were only to make our examinee numbers appear, that might be one thing, but for people trying to earn bonus points, it would only be a loss.
‘If I spend time solving other people’s questions, I won’t be able to solve my own, and then I won’t be able to earn many bonus points either.’
Time was not infinite.
One week until the practical exam.
Until then, we had to solve as many questions as possible and earn bonus points.
There was no time to waste on cooperation.
Besides….
“Your lodging and ours are different, aren’t they? It looked like they were pretty far apart too. If we cooperated, we’d have to spend time meeting up every day.”
“Ugh… That’s true.”
During the exam period, the lodging facilities in Academy City were packed with examinees who came from all over the country—and even from various other countries—to take the exam.
Because of that, competition to secure a room was extremely fierce.
As a result, the triplets had ended up booking a different lodging from the one Yeon Haneul and I were staying at.
“So let’s each take care of ourselves. I hope none of you end up failing without even being able to take the exam because you couldn’t solve a single question.”
“Tch, then I guess there’s nothing we can do. Fine! Then we’ll see you on exam day.”
They were disappointed, but they accepted it.
Meanwhile.
Since there was no longer any reason to stay here, and we also had to unpack, we decided to part ways.
“Let’s go, Haneul.”
“Okay. You know where the lodging is, right?”
“Of course.”
Yeon Haneul and I headed to our lodging.
And that was where a problem occurred.
“We’re here to check in.”
“Yes, may I have your names?”
“Do Gyeonu and Yeon Haneul.”
“Yes, let me check… Ah, um….”
“Is there some kind of problem?”
“Well, you see… It seems there’s been a system error on our end. It says the two of you reserved the same room.”
“….”
What was that supposed to mean?
So I had to share a room with Yeon Haneul?
Before I could even react—
“Whaaaat!?”
Ah, that startled me.
Yeon Haneul let out a shrill cry.
Her rabbit ears shot straight up.
I Became the Childhood Friend of the Mid-Boss