Chapter 88

The Entrance Exam (2)

“The Hunter Exam begins now.”

“Stop fooling around and move.”

After chasing Stay-at-home Wifey off the platform for putting on airs and spouting nonsense…

No, seriously. What was wrong with that bastard?

Anyway, I stepped onto the platform and looked down at the applicants.

There were 309 applicants taking this year’s entrance exam.

Thirty percent were sponsored by high-ranking officers, seventy percent were former child soldiers, and there was one applicant from another district.

‘Three of them are players.’

Stay-at-home Wifey, a former child soldier.

Shin Eunjo, the applicant from another district.

For reference, Taejeong belonged to the group sponsored by high-ranking officers.

On paper, his guardian was listed as Meursault.

Naturally, his real guardian was me.

‘Come to think of it, Taejeong didn’t seem to know anything about the dating sim.’

I had gained a vague idea of what Shin Eunjo and Stay-at-home Wifey had done before being transmigrated, but I had never gotten the chance to ask Taejeong what kind of person he had been before coming here.

I had deliberately kept my distance from him so he could grow closer to the other servants, and since I rarely summoned him for private conversations, I knew even less about him than I did about Stay-at-home Wifey, whom I didn’t see all that often.

‘I should talk to Taejeong after the entrance exam.’

Anyway.

Stay-at-home Wifey, Taejeong, and Shin Eunjo all came from different backgrounds.

The cadets serving as proctors seemed to believe I had proposed this kind of exam because I wanted to exclude sponsored children and favor former child soldiers.

In truth, however, I held no prejudice whatsoever based on whether someone was sponsored, a former child soldier, or from another district.

‘They’re all just NPCs to me anyway.’

I didn’t give the players any special treatment either.

It wasn’t as though they could possibly fail an entrance exam taken by eleven-year-olds.

In other words, this was a fair exam for everyone.

After all, the entrance exam was something every child had probably played at least once.

Tag.

“Tag?”

“Wasn’t this supposed to be a monster hunt?”

When I announced that the entrance exam would be a game of tag, the proctor cadets stared at me with deflated expressions.

Behind them was an enormous pile of luggage.

Judging by the cadets and the sponsored applicants alike, the officers must have packed them every conceivable item when they heard they were going monster hunting.

Once they enlisted, they would all use standardized military supplies anyway, so I couldn’t understand why they had bothered bringing so much.

‘This probably shows how few officers have actually participated in a subjugation mission.’

The applicants sponsored by officers with real subjugation experience carried only light packs.

But the former child soldiers were dressed even more appropriately.

Everything they owned was military-issued equipment to begin with.

I had no idea how Shin Eunjo had gotten hold of a child soldier’s uniform from our district, though.

Even the former child soldiers looked disappointed when they heard it would be tag rather than a hunt.

They weren’t fools. They must have understood which group would have benefited most from a monster-hunting exam.

At that moment, Stay-at-home Wifey, who stood in the front row looking up at me, thrust his hand into the air and asked,

“If it’s tag, what are we supposed to catch?”

“Ahem.”

Because Stay-at-home Wifey had spoken too casually, one of the proctors standing beside me cleared his throat and glared at him.

Stay-at-home Wifey added with a thoroughly displeased expression,

“What are we supposed to catch… sir?”

The others must have been curious about what I meant by tag as well, because everyone turned toward me at once.

I gave a brief answer.

“Me.”

“Pardon?”

“Your subjugation target is me.”

According to Meursault, the Commander was beside himself with worry over this game of tag.

‘It’s not like he expected me to quietly hand out written exams when he dumped the entrance exam on me in the first place.’

More importantly, I had thought the applicants would prefer catching me to hunting a monster.

Yet their expressions were far from pleased.

“So it really is a Hunter Exam.”

Stay-at-home Wifey was still talking nonsense.

Shin Eunjo, standing around the middle of the group, raised her hand and asked,

“What do you mean when you say Lord Haydam is the subjugation target?”

Unlike Stay-at-home Wifey, she gave a rather convincing performance as a well-behaved child.

With a serious expression, Shin Eunjo continued,

“Do you mean we are supposed to attack you, Lord Haydam?”

“Of course I’m not telling you to actually subjugate me.”

“Then?”

“Exactly what I said. It’s tag. Catch me by any means necessary.”

Even though I had told them that any means were permitted, the applicants still looked visibly bewildered.

Stories resembling a legend of my birth had already spread throughout the district, so even the proctor cadets were staring at me as if wondering whether I truly believed such a thing was possible for eleven-year-olds.

Shin Eunjo glanced at the proctors and then looked back at me.

“Is there a particular reason… you are doing this?”

“It sounds fun.”

My utterly flippant answer left both the applicants and proctors dumbfounded.

Only Shin Eunjo calmly continued questioning me.

“What happens if… no one catches you?”

“I’m fickle and selfish. If I like the way someone goes about it, I might allow myself to be caught.”

“You might allow yourself to be caught?”

“And I like people who are willing to use any means necessary.”

“What does that mean…? Are you saying we are permitted to harm you, Lord Haydam?”

“Judge for yourself.”

Shin Eunjo frowned.

The proctor cadets seemed about to ask questions of their own, so I raised a hand to silence them and continued.

“The search area is limited to the region marked with red lines. Anyone who leaves the search area will be disqualified immediately, so remember that. Leaving the search area does not fall under ‘using any means necessary.’ Understood?”

The applicants and proctors looked somewhat relieved upon hearing that there was a designated search area.

If I had been allowed to flee across the entire vast snowfield, they probably wouldn’t have known where to begin.

“The game of tag will begin… at sunset. Until then, form teams, devise operations, and make whatever plans you wish. Submit those plans to the proctors before sunset.”

“You mean it begins after sunset? Then what is the time limit…?”

“Until sunrise tomorrow morning.”

I smiled brightly.

“Pray that no one is eliminated before you manage to catch me.”

Naturally, I wasn’t holding a game of tag as the entrance exam purely for entertainment.

For one thing, I planned to return to a painfully boring written examination starting next year.

There was a simple reason I was giving this year’s applicants such an unusual test.

Now that I knew there were no boundaries between districts, conflict with players from other districts would begin now, rather than ten years later when the Second Apocalypse occurred.

I didn’t know how many players existed in the other districts, but all of us had the appearance of children of roughly the same age.

‘Except for the Unicorn District player.’

But what if the children in our district who were the same age as us—

The eleven-year-olds matching the players’ apparent age—

All began behaving similarly to players?

Players with unlocked systems wouldn’t be fooled.

But players unable to use Character Inspection might make the wrong assumption.

They might believe that numerous players existed in the Cola District.

‘In other words, it’s a bluff to make us look larger than we are.’

Shin Eunjo had already seemed unwilling to believe that the only players in our district were me, Stay-at-home Wifey, and Taejeong.

She appeared genuinely unsettled by her inability to understand how Daphne could have been a player.

That was probably one of the reasons she had asked to take this military academy entrance exam.

Perhaps she was currently opening every applicant’s status window one by one to determine whether any of them were players.

Not realizing it was all a waste of time.

‘The military academy normally accepts around thirty students.’

However, as I had promised during the graduation speech, I intended to choose one hundred Haydams.

Some might argue that it would be better for the future to accept and educate every applicant.

But that wasn’t true.

Not everyone could become an officer.

Failing the military academy entrance exam didn’t mean they couldn’t become soldiers.

An army could not exist without rank-and-file troops.

Therefore, during this exam, I intended to distinguish between the children who would become officers, those who would become soldiers, and those who would become “players.”

I planned to select the children who distinguished themselves during this entrance exam and educate them separately as future “players.”

‘Of course, they can’t become actual players.’

But I could at least shape their way of thinking to resemble one.

Shin Eunjo had looked dumbfounded when I claimed I was doing all this because it sounded fun, but she probably didn’t truly believe I would go this far solely for amusement.

‘By now, she must be frantically searching among the applicants for another player or some unusually special NPC.’

There was another reason I had insisted on holding the entrance exam on the snowfield.

There was a place there I wanted to investigate.

The cave where I had lost consciousness after absorbing the Snow Giant’s jewel.

More specifically, I wanted to know what had happened inside that cave afterward.

Stay-at-home Wifey had said he was able to help locate me because he knew about the cave.

But how had he known I would be inside it and insisted that they go there to rescue me?

If someone fell from a cliff, the normal reaction would be to search the ground below, not a cave halfway down the cliff face.

‘And no matter how I think about it, it’s strange that he knew something I didn’t.’

That was why I had decided to investigate the cave.

I was also curious about why a cave existed in such a place at all.

In other words, I had used the game of tag as an excuse to secure time to move freely.

I told the proctors I would hide from the applicants and that my location would remain secret to prevent cheating.

Then I immediately left the designated search area and headed toward the crevasse.

Finding the cave without being chased by a Snow Giant wasn’t difficult.

Traces of the equipment installed during the previous rescue attempt were still clearly visible.

I descended by rope and found the cave entrance intact despite everything that had happened.

‘I was worried it might have collapsed from the impact or been sealed after the rescue. This is fortunate.’

Back then, I had been running in desperation, so the passage leading inward had felt extremely long.

But when I walked through it without any threat chasing me, the cave proved shallower than expected.

The first thing I saw upon entering the inner chamber was a large pile of icicle fragments.

‘This is where the Snow Giant died.’

It wasn’t difficult to recognize because the marks where the icicles had broken away remained visible on the ceiling.

Apparently, they had removed the Snow Giant’s corpse but left the icicles behind.

‘…What is that?’

A strange pattern had been carved into the inner wall.

It was a pattern I had not seen during my previous visit.

At first glance, it resembled a magic circle, but there were signs that someone had deliberately damaged it in several places.

“Ah.”

As I approached the pattern, my foot struck a piece of star-shaped candy, and I suddenly realized something.

‘Is this… where I lost consciousness?’

Apparently, this was where I had landed after the Snow Giant struck me and sent me flying.

I retraced my vague memories, found the place where I had collapsed, and lay down.

Strangely enough, doing so placed me directly in the center of the pattern.

‘Then did this pattern… appear after I passed out?’

I had no memory of seeing such a pattern before losing consciousness.

That meant it must have appeared immediately afterward—

After I accepted the Snow Giant’s power.

It might have been created as an aftereffect of absorbing the jewel.

Yet there was something even more incomprehensible than the unfamiliar pattern itself.

‘Why has no one mentioned such a bizarre trace until now?’

Had the Commander or Meursault been informed about this pattern?

And if they had, why hadn’t they told me?

‘I should ask when I return.’

I couldn’t go back to question them until the entrance exam ended anyway.

Deciding to leave the headache for later, I interlaced my fingers over my stomach and briefly closed my eyes.

I intended to wait there until sunset before returning to the applicants.

‘Will this pattern still be here the next time I come?’

Should I memorize it before leaving?

As I lay there with my eyes closed, thinking about that, I heard a sound resembling the beating wings of an insect.

Bzzzz…

It was faint, but because I was keeping watch over my surroundings, I immediately sensed that something was wrong.

‘What is that?’

The sound gradually grew closer.

It was far too loud to be the wings of a small insect, and something was clearly entering the cave.

Bzzzzzz—

When the sound became distinct, I finally recognized it.

‘This is…’

The sound of a hoverboard engine.

‘No way.’

I opened my eyes, sat up, and looked toward the entrance.

A white-haired man whose appearance was all too familiar casually emerged before me.

Still standing on his hoverboard, he looked down at me with indifferent eyes.

Then “Dopamine Addict” spoke.

“I went through the trouble of sending you back, and here you are again.”