Gray Gate, Fog Mountain Climbing Trail III.
After entering the gate, I lifted my head and looked around.
‘The sea? A paved road? For now, it doesn’t look like there are any monsters nearby….’
The examinees, including Yeon Haneul and me, were all standing on a two-lane road.
On both sides of the road, a wide-open sandy beach and the blue sea came into view.
If I listened closely, I could hear the sound of waves mixed in among the voices.
‘Where does this road lead?’
Then I shifted my gaze along the road I was standing on.
Behind us, the road was cut off midway, and only a pure white world existed.
It meant this gate wasn’t reflecting the world behind it.
And up ahead….
‘A mountain?’
Beyond the road crowded with examinees, I could see a mountain shrouded in fog.
[The clear conditions will be delivered in order.]
[This gate has already been cleared.]
“…”
A message appeared before my eyes.
Judging by the fact that the gate had already been cleared, it seemed that clearing the gate itself wasn’t the exam.
Just then, a voice sounded from the sky.
[We will now explain the second practical exam.]
“…”
Small, round spheres with little wings attached were flying around in the air.
They were artifacts that transmitted and received video.
Screen Eyes.
The voice was coming from them.
[The road you examinees are standing on leads to Fog Mountain.]
At those words, the people who had been looking restless all turned their heads toward the fog-covered mountain at once.
Yeon Haneul and I also looked at the mountain we had noticed a moment ago.
[At the summit of Fog Mountain, an exit from the gate has been generated. You may come to the exit at the summit of Fog Mountain by any means you choose.]
“…”
[At that time, your scores will be graded differentially according to the time it takes you to reach the exit. The grades by time will be calculated in thirty-minute intervals: Grade 1 at 4 hours, Grade 2 at 4 hours 30 minutes, Grade 3 at 5 hours, Grade 4 at 5 hours 30 minutes, and so on.]
The Screen Eyes spoke from various places.
Listening to the explanation, I grasped the key point.
In other words….
‘It’s a battle against time.’
Judging by the looks in the examinees’ eyes, I wasn’t the only one who had thought that.
They were getting ready to run.
Some examinees had already started.
“Hey, that’s cheating!”
“Isn’t that guy breaking the rules!?”
[Until the second practical exam begins, examinees must wait within the line marked on the ground. Any examinee who crosses the line will receive a penalty, regardless of the reason. So please return immediately, even now.]
The examinees who had run ahead hurriedly returned inside the line.
Only then did the Screen Eye flying overhead continue its explanation.
[The second exam will begin shortly. Please set the timer function on your Gate Watch at once.]
“…”
[Then we will begin the countdown. 10, 9, 8, 7….]
When the voice counting down from ten rang out, none of the examinees said another word.
Only the sound of waves could be heard all around, and tension flowed through the air.
[…5, 4, 3….]
Amid it, I prepared to run.
I manifested the mana inside my body and warmed myself up.
At last, the countdown ended.
[…1, 0.]
The Screen Eye let out a buzzer.
[The second practical exam begins now.]
The examinees started running.
* * *
“Don’t get in my way up front—move!”
“Hey! Did you just hit me!?”
It wasn’t as if the road was narrow, but there were simply too many examinees.
With all of them running in the same direction, it was hard to overtake the people ahead, and the road was inevitably congested.
Because of that, as I ran down the road, I could hear examinees getting into arguments around me.
‘This isn’t going to work.’
I sighed as I looked at the examinees running ahead and blocking the way.
They were packed tightly in front of us, so it didn’t seem easy to break through.
But if I simply kept running along like this, it was obvious I wouldn’t get a high score.
Just then, Yeon Haneul spoke to me.
“What do you think?”
“About what?”
“The second exam. What exactly do you think the evaluators want from us in this exam?”
Ten minutes had already passed since the exam began.
Yet she, running beside me, didn’t look out of breath at all.
Compared to the training she had done for five years, running on a road was on the easy side, and because we were matching pace with the examinees in front of us, we were practically running at a brisk walk.
I was the same.
‘Putting that aside, what do I think, huh.’
After pondering Yeon Haneul’s question for a moment, I opened my mouth.
“The first exam was to check magic power, so the second is probably intended to check stamina.”
If the exam was to climb to the top of a mountain, then it was surely meant to assess stamina.
That was why the examinees, including us, weren’t stupidly sprinting at full speed, but were maintaining our pace as we ran.
The road to Fog Mountain was already long, and to climb all the way to the summit from there, we had to conserve as much stamina as possible.
“I think so too. But is that really all they’re asking of us? They said it in the exam explanation earlier. To get Grade 1, you have to arrive within four hours.”
“They did.”
“If we keep running at this speed, can we even arrive within four hours? Even assuming we don’t rest once.”
“It’s not impossible, but it’d be difficult.”
I answered immediately without even thinking.
Even if Yeon Haneul hadn’t raised the question, it was something I had been thinking about since a little while ago.
At this rate, we couldn’t get Grade 1.
It was also why I had just thought this wouldn’t work.
In that sense….
“They might not be looking only at stamina. They might be looking at what method we use to reach the summit.”
I agreed with Yeon Haneul’s thought.
Come to think of it, the Screen Eye had explained the exam like that a while ago.
‘It said to come by any means, didn’t it?’
In other words, blindly running down this road like this wasn’t necessarily the answer.
We had to come up with another method.
“The problem is how to come up with one.”
“Ugh… Yeah.”
“Should we wipe all of them out? Then I think we could run at the front.”
“Wouldn’t we just waste time fighting instead?”
To get Grade 1, Yeon Haneul and I racked our brains.
It was right then.
“Huhhh? Wh-what is that!?”
“She’s flying?”
Someone shouted in surprise.
Immediately afterward, I saw something pass rapidly through the air above the road we were running on.
I focused on the sight.
“That’s….”
A girl flying on a staff, her red hair whipping fiercely in the wind.
It seemed she intended to fly all the way to the mountain summit in one go.
‘…That must be Min Arin.’
As far as I knew, among the examinees, there was only one female student with magic power high enough, enough mana, and red hair to pull off something like that.
It had to be Min Arin of House Min of Magecraft.
‘So she was at the same test site too.’
One of Kang Hanbyeol’s party members, she was a character in the game with a strong personality, immense pride, and an obsession with always being superior to others.
Because of that, she often clashed with Kang Hanbyeol over every little thing in the early part of the story.
‘Then once you clear Min Arin’s episode, you can recruit her as a party member, and her personality changes too. She becomes a coy, bashful character who says one thing and does another.’
Of course, if you failed to clear the episode, a bad ending awaited.
Soon, my thoughts went elsewhere.
‘Come to think of it, didn’t Min Arin take first place in the entrance exam in the game?’
According to my memories from my past life, she did.
Min Arin would probably fly through the sky like that, get Grade 1 in the second practical exam, and continue to succeed in the other exams too.
Taking my eyes off her as she grew distant, I looked ahead and opened my mouth.
“Haneul.”
“Why?”
“Can’t you fly like that too?”
“Mm, it’s not impossible. Though I’d fly in a different way from her.”
“What kind of way?”
“I couldn’t see everything from far away, but it looked like she used buoyancy magic to make herself and her staff lighter than air, maintained that state without letting it change, and used acceleration magic. On top of that, it seemed like she added fire elemental magic as propulsion. To put it simply, should I say it’s like attaching a booster to a hot-air balloon?”
“…You sure talk well while running. But you figured that out after just a brief glance?”
“If you look at the overall structure of the formula, you can more or less get a feel for it. And I’m using buoyancy magic right now too. That’s why running isn’t hard.”
“You were using it without telling me?”
“You told me before, didn’t you? That it’s better not to rely too much on magic.”
“You could’ve at least told me.”
“I told you now, didn’t I?”
“Fine, you’re amazing.”
“Are you sulking?”
“Just finish what you were saying.”
“Mm, where was I….”
“How you can fly.”
“Ah, that. I was thinking of just flying with wind elemental magic.”
“Then let’s do that too.”
“But there’s a problem.”
“What is it?”
“It’s possible for me to fly alone, but if I try to fly together with you, the control will be really difficult. If I make a mistake, we might end up flying while upside down. Are you okay with that?”
“…Never mind.”
If that happened, all the blood would rush to my head.
I decided to give up on the idea of flying with her magic.
“So you can do it by yourself, then?”
“I should be able to by myself.”
“Then leave me here and go to the mountain summit first. There’s no need to match your pace with mine for no reason.”
“I don’t want to. It only means something if we go together.”
“You might not get Grade 1.”
“I’m fine as long as I pass. And if I get Grade 1 all by myself, I’ll stand out to people. I don’t want to stand out if I can help it.”
“So you’re going to do the whole hiding-your-strength thing?”
“It’s not hiding my strength…. It’s strategically conserving my strength. Think about it. What if there are variables on that mountain we didn’t anticipate? That’s why I’m conserving the mana inside my body, just in case.”
“That’s not entirely unreasonable.”
To be honest, I didn’t want to run and climb a mountain by myself for hours either.
I hoped there would at least be someone beside me to talk to.
So if Yeon Haneul stayed by my side, I could only be grateful.
“Huh? Gyeonwoo, look over there!”
Just then, Yeon Haneul pointed to the right.
I followed her finger.
Saaak!
The sea spread out beyond the guardrail.
All of a sudden, that sea was freezing over.
And over the frozen sea….
“…”
Someone was running as if stepping lightly across the ground.
It was a short girl.
‘She was at this test site too.’
Gray hair and purple eyes.
After strengthening my eyesight with the mana inside my body and barely making out her facial features, I immediately figured out her identity.
She was also a character from the game.
“That’s Nam Yuri of House Nam of Alchemy.”
“Ah, so she was someone from the Ten Great Families. Is that why she can freeze the sea? The sea doesn’t freeze easily, you know. To freeze the sea with magic, the process is complicated, and to do it on that scale would consume a considerable amount of internal mana….”
“She probably didn’t freeze the sea using the method you’re talking about.”
“Then?”
“She must have changed the arrangement of the water molecules. The magic of House Nam of Alchemy developed in that direction. Ah, is it alchemy? It’s all the same to me.”
Nam Yuri of House Nam of Alchemy.
She was quite a troublesome existence.
Depending on the flow of the story, she could become an enemy or an ally.
‘For now, it’s better not to get involved with Nam Yuri if possible.’
Whether in terms of the story or her personality, getting entangled with Nam Yuri would be extremely exhausting.
Avoiding her was the best policy for now.
“Other people are following her and running over the sea!”
“They’re going to fail.”
“Huh?”
“She’s really merciless toward anyone who doesn’t pique her interest. Do you think guys who are sneakily trying to ride her coattails would be the kind of people to interest her?”
“…Do you know her?”
“I’ve only heard rumors. Look over there.”
“…”
The frozen sea Nam Yuri had passed over began to collapse rapidly.
The examinees following behind her suddenly fell straight into the sea as the ice beneath them crumbled.
Nam Yuri moved forward without showing even the slightest interest in those who had fallen into the water.
“You mustn’t try to use her. If you make one wrong move, you could face retaliation even worse than that. Keep that in mind.”
“Y-Yeah….”
We might end up facing her in the exam.
I warned Yeon Haneul so she’d be prepared in case that happened.
Meanwhile, this was no time for us to be leisurely watching others.
We had to find a way ourselves.
But then….
‘Shit.’
I frowned.
The road was already jammed as it was.
“Stop shoving me, damn it!”
“Hey! You, get over here!”
“I told you, stop cutting in!”
“You wanna go!?”
A scuffle broke out up ahead.
That scuffle rapidly spread to the examinees around them.
“What a complete mess….”
In the end, they even pulled out their devices and started swinging blades.
An all-out battle between examinees had broken out on the two-lane road.
I, too, gripped the Guncheong Sword in my hand.
* * *
Min Arin of the Magecraft Min family.
Having soared into the sky, she took in the sight of the ground growing distant beneath her.
She could see the examinees who had discovered her and stared in shock, as well as those running down the crowded road.
‘Do they really think running like that will work?’
Min Arin gave a light snort.
Even if they ran as fast as rabbits, when viewed from the sky, they seemed no more than turtles crawling along.
Slow.
Far too slow.
In the eyes of the little griffin of the Magecraft Min family, those who could not even fly and could only run across the ground looked endlessly weak.
They were no match for her.
Therefore, she was superior.
Special.
As expected, among those her age, there was no one who surpassed her.
She felt a certain sense of superiority.
‘…Black exam tickets?’
Then, for a moment, two examinees entered Min Arin’s sight.
They were wearing black exam tickets.
‘Who are they?’
Min Arin felt a faint interest in those who wore the same exam ticket as her.
She decided to lower her altitude and check their faces.
‘A boy and a girl….’
Because she was looking from far away, she couldn’t examine the two of them in detail, but the black-haired boy seemed to have quite a decent face.
He might even be pretty.
At least, that was what she thought.
And the girl beside him was….
‘Rabbit ears?’
The girl was a demi-human.
Her conspicuous hair, which was hard to tell whether it was white or blue, fluttered in the wind, and the rabbit ears on her head swayed along with it.
‘A female demi-human with rabbit ears, skilled enough to wear a black exam ticket… As far as I know, there’s only one.’
From her features, Min Arin was quickly able to deduce her identity.
Because among those who specialized in magic, she was quite famous.
To be precise, the famous one was not her, but the person she had as her master.
In any case, as someone from the Magecraft Min family, there was no way Min Arin wouldn’t know.
‘She’s the disciple of the Seven-Colored Witch.’
Hong Yena, the Seven-Colored Witch, who had mastered the magic of seven elements and was admired by many mages.
Min Arin had long since heard the news that her disciple was the same age as her and had applied to Geumgang Academy.
After confirming with her own eyes the disciple of the mage she respected so deeply, Min Arin’s competitive spirit flared.
‘Even so, I’m still better.’
Now that she had confirmed her existence.
She could not afford to be leisurely like this.
She did not know why the disciple of the Seven-Colored Witch was running along the road, but she would advance ahead of her and reach the summit of Angae Mountain before anyone else.
And by doing so….
‘The top admission spot is mine.’
She would prove her own excellence.
Min Arin raised her altitude again and decided to increase her output.
It was then.
Whoooosh!
Wind blew from behind her.
Mana could be felt within the wind.
Min Arin hurriedly looked back.
She saw someone flying through the sky like her, chasing after her at high speed.
‘That girl is….’
Black hair, green eyes.
The girl was spreading the mana within her body around her, yet not even a fragment of a formula could be seen. It seemed she was not a mage.
She was a spirit master.
If so, Min Arin thought she knew her identity.
‘She’s from the Cyclic Cha family.’
The Cyclic Cha family, a prestigious spirit arts family belonging to the Ten Great Families alongside the Magecraft Min family.
Realizing her identity, Min Arin quickly decided to shake her off.
And just as she was about to raise her output—
“What!?”
The direct descendant of the Cyclic Cha family accelerated.
It was an astonishing speed.
The girl, who had nearly caught up to her from behind, overtook her in an instant.
Unlike Min Arin, who had to adjust her formulas, she only needed to give an order to her spirit, so she did not require any casting time.
It was the difference between magic and spirit arts.
Even so.
‘She overtook me?’
Min Arin did not want to fall behind like this.
Even if the other party was from the Cyclic Cha family, she could not tolerate being left behind.
“Just you wait.”
Raising the output of her magic, Min Arin flew after her.
The thought of the Seven-Colored Witch’s disciple had vanished to the far reaches of her memory.
I Became the Childhood Friend of the Mid-Boss