“143 points.”
Zeke stared intently at the hologram. Lowborn, Deep. 143 points.
Thirteen points for carrying out various appropriate actions, 30 points for precise movements and high-speed maneuvers, and 100 points for defeating an AI.
In the lower-class admissions track for commoners and lowborn, it was the highest score in history.
He was not the first lower-class applicant to defeat a lowest-grade AI.
However, he was the first to react to bullets on his very first time piloting a Titan, roll across the ground, and use high-speed hovering maneuvers to get behind the enemy.
An overwhelming talent, movements that made it seem as if he had been born to become a Titan pilot from the very beginning.
“Heh, he’s the real deal. Didn’t we just pick up exactly the kind of talent the Empire needs right now? You’re obviously going to select him, right?”
Watching the junior professor replay the simulation again and again, Zeke shook his head.
Of course he would select him. There was no option not to.
That was a protruding talent. Like a sharp stone embedded in the road. If it was not pulled out on the spot, it was the kind that would injure the feet of someone else passing by.
Whether the stone, once pulled out, would be polished among the countless crowds or chipped away—there was no way to know.
In Zeke’s experience, stones that were chipped away into something shabby far outnumbered those that were polished.
***
“Ah, h-hello.”
This bastard is hopeless.
I could feel that sort of gaze without even trying.
“Well, didn’t you do wonderfully. With a body suffering from malnutrition, dehydration, and influenza, you really did wonderfully.”
“Th-thank—”
“I was being sarcastic.”
So it had been sarcasm. I thought it was praise.
The person in the suit stared holes into me. No, were they even a man? Now that my vision had cleared, I studied them quietly, and it was hard to tell whether they were a man or a woman.
Not that I meant they looked gentle. Their face and eyes were still frightening.
Just being exposed to that gaze made my body tremble. I could naturally feel the sort of hostility that might be lurking somewhere within it.
No, maybe it wasn’t actual hostility. It was merely hostility I couldn’t be certain wasn’t there.
The suited person let out a deep sigh, then pulled a chair over and sat down in front of me. A creaking sound rang out.
“I don’t know why you’re afraid of me, but I’ll announce the results. You placed first among the 30 accepted applicants.”
I hadn’t known they picked as many as thirty.
“Then, top—”
Before I could even finish speaking, the other side let out a hollow laugh.
“You dream big. You only beat a lowest-grade AI, and you’re talking about top of the class?”
According to this person, most commoners and lowborn encountered Titans for the first time in the lower-class special admissions track. Nobles, on the other hand, had already been training in Titan piloting for a long time.
“No, some nobles have already been to the battlefield. Noblesse oblige. Nobles are driven into the jaws of death from childhood.”
To them, a lowest-grade AI was nothing but small fry. If they could not even defeat a lower-grade AI, they could not be counted among the average, and only nobles who could face advanced AIs went to the battlefield.
Advanced AIs possessed skill surpassing that of trained soldiers. Those who stood on the battlefield were, in practice, the students with the Academy’s very best grades.
This part seemed somewhat similar to the previous game. The higher the difficulty of the AI enemies I occasionally encountered, the higher the rank used to describe them had been.
Because of that, I had even looked up medieval ranking systems.
“First, lie there and rest. Do you have a home?”
“Uh, no.”
“You looked like you didn’t. Just from the clothes you were wearing.”
Clothes?
Only belatedly did I lower my head and look down, and I saw that I had been changed into something like a pure white patient gown. The rag-like clothes I had originally been wearing were nowhere to be seen.
“I’m not sure whether I should call those clothes, but they were basically sackcloth, so I threw them out. Were they important?”
My head naturally shook from side to side. No matter how I thought about it, they were not particularly important. If anything, I even felt relieved they had been thrown away.
“Tomorrow, you’ll be moved straight to the dormitory, and upon transfer, you’ll go through the admission procedures. Three days later, you’ll take the entrance exam.”
“En-entrance exam?”
“Your admission won’t be canceled just because you score badly. If you want to aim for the top spot, that exam will be your chance. Though it’ll be impossible. Anyway, do you have any belongings?”
“No—”
“I figured you wouldn’t.”
Why had this person been picking a fight with me since earlier?
I did want to argue, but their gaze was so sharp that I couldn’t bring myself to. I could tell just from looking at their face. Before being a professor affiliated with the Academy, that person was a soldier.
The suited person looked me up and down, then walked out just like that. Now there was only one thing left for me to do. Recover.
When I collapsed straight onto the bed and looked up, all I saw was an unfamiliar ceiling.
It was an unfamiliar world, and at the same time, an extremely familiar one. Through the window, I caught glimpses of enormous Titans moving.
Titan Core.
A giant mecha title praised highly for its overwhelming visuals and graphics, flashy action, and romance. But it had also drawn great disappointment because it did not merely lack a story—it lacked a story mode altogether.
No, it was a shit game where PvP-crazed lunatics gathered.
The game I had tried to play even after getting hit by a truck was the sequel to Titan Core. Its subtitle was Bethesda Academy.
Based on feedback about the absence of a story in the first game, the second game, unlike the first, had been developed with a focus on story mode.
An academy? Doesn’t that feel a little out of place for a mecha story? Even while thinking that, I couldn’t stop looking forward to it.
Since I had deliberately avoided every information post to dodge spoilers, the only thing I knew was the admission event. Aside from that, there were only a few things I had inevitably failed to avoid.
In any case, I was alive. Though I had nearly died from acute indigestion, being full and not thirsty felt good. I wanted to lie in bed and fall asleep right away, but there was still something I was curious about.
I sat in front of the mirror in the room. I grabbed my shaggy hair and lifted it upward.
“Fuck.”
I looked exactly the same.
I had wondered if perhaps my body had changed, but it had not. Starting with my thin arms, even my uselessly tall height was the same. So was the leg that limped and could no longer run fast, and the middle finger on one hand that never quite took strength properly.
“When I talk to myself, I don’t stutter.”
If I had known this would happen, I would not have chosen that restriction. There were plenty of restrictions that would have let me speak skillfully while still being reasonably decent.
To begin with, they were restrictions I had chosen under the assumption that it would not matter even if I saw a bad ending.
As someone who had only enjoyed the game through PvP, all I had been thinking about was quickly seeing a bad ending and raising my character to the point where PvP became possible.
The problem was that I did not know what the bad ending was.
Whether the Empire would fall, whether I would die, or whether it would be something even worse than that—I did not know.
Fear comes from the unknown.
I did not know whether I was the protagonist. But if I was the protagonist, then the mere fact that I had restrictions like these could cause absurd things to happen.
Even if I did not want it at all, I would inevitably end up at the center of incidents, or at least somewhere near them.
I did not want to get swept up in incidents, nor did I want to live passively, but I had already chosen nothing but restrictions like that. They were all restrictions that would clearly cause something serious someday if I did not resolve them.
Let’s decide on my goals first.
One. Survive. I did not have the slightest desire to die. If I woke up every morning wanting to die, I would slam my head into a wall and knock myself unconscious if that was what it took to wake up again.
Two. Get stronger. Whether that meant taking the top spot or shaking off this negative disposition, it was fine. Somehow, I would get stronger.
Three. Live an ordinary life.
This time, I would never live a life where I suffered losses while helping others.
As I quickly engraved those three goals into my mind, a sudden curiosity occurred to me. In any case, hadn’t I entered a game? Really, maybe, just maybe.
“Status window—”
“Ah, and.”
“Y-ye, y-yes.”
The door flew open. When I flinched in surprise and turned around, the suited person was looking at me with a strange expression.
“From the moment your admission is decided, a basic personal unit is provided. Be aware that customization will be possible later.”
“Customization?”
Customization.
The core system of Titan Core.
Changing one arm into a gun barrel itself, moving the core position where the pilot boarded from the chest to the head to alter the center of gravity, or using the back instead of the feet for hovering.
“That’s right. But for now, it only exists as a standard unit. Later—”
What should I use? It would definitely be fun to use the custom greatsword mainly used by the Marquis rank as is. In mecha stories, there was nothing as romantic as close combat.
“Hey.”
No. In order to win, there was nothing better than guns. Completely replacing one arm with a gun barrel and increasing ammunition storage as much as possible would also be good.
Should I try the all-gunports-open custom that Barons often used? Mixing the two would not be bad either. A greatsword for close combat and as a shield, plus a large number of gunports. What should I do about movement speed?
“Th-the piloting manual is on the bed. What you read this time was the summary version, and the one I’m giving you now is over 500 pages. It would be best to read all of it if possible.”
Would it be good to make good use of hovering? No, maybe installing additional propulsion devices or using wires to maneuver would be—
Click.
Belatedly, I raised my head. The suited person seemed to have left the room at some point.
Should I sleep for now?
When I tried to lie down on the bed, something hard and thick got in the way of my foot. Since I kept kicking it, I pushed it away with my foot and knocked it down, and it became much more comfortable.
The discovery of the piloting manual came around lunchtime the next day.
Shit, when am I supposed to read this?