Enterance Exam (0)
Episode 5: Entrance Exam (0)
* * *
The first thing I noticed was the heat.
It wasn’t normal heat.
It felt like my skin was being peeled off layer by layer.
Smoke filled the hallway, so thick I couldn’t see more than a few steps ahead. Every breath burned my throat.
“Ellia…!”
My voice came out broken.
“Ellia, where are you?!”
No answer.
Just the sound of fire cracking and wood collapsing.
I ran.
Well… tried to.
My legs kept slipping on ash and melted plastic. I slammed into walls more than once, barely keeping myself upright.
“Please…” I muttered. “Please answer me…”
I reached our room.
Or what used to be our room.
Half of the wall was gone. The ceiling had collapsed. Flames covered everything.
And there, she was lying on the floor.
Not moving.
My brain refused to understand at first.
I rushed to her side and grabbed her arm.
It was hot.
Too hot.
“Hey…” I whispered. “Stop sleeping… this isn’t funny…”
I shook her.
Nothing.
“…Ellia?”
I turned her face toward me.
Her eyes were half-open.
But there was nothing in them.
No light or warmth.
No life.
My hands started trembling.
“No… no… no…”
I laughed weakly.
“This is stupid… you’re just tired, right…?”
I pressed my forehead against hers.
“Wake up…”
She didn’t.
The fire kept spreading.
The building kept collapsing.
But I stayed there.
Holding her.
Until someone dragged me out.
…
The next day, the city was loud.
Huge screens were set up downtown where the fire had erupted.
There were news vans, cameras, reporters…
And heroes.
Standing in front of everything like it was a festival.
“…Thanks to our quick response, the damage was minimized.”
“We managed to prevent the fire from spreading further.”
“Sadly, some civilians couldn’t be saved.”
Some.
That was it.
Some.
One hero adjusted his cape and joked.
“Honestly, it wasn’t that bad. We’ve dealt with worse.”
Another one laughed.
“Yeah. Pretty routine, if you ask me.”
“Don’t worry folks!! We, the heroes will save you all!!”
People clapped.
Someone shouted, “You’re amazing!”
Someone else cried in gratitude.
I stood in the back.
On the screen, they showed yesterday’s footage. Heroes rescuing people from the burning buildings, occasionally smiling and posing for the camera.
But I saw something else.
Our apartment.
The window.
The door.
The hallway where I had screamed her name.
No one mentioned her.
No one showed her.
No one cared.
She wasn’t a person to them.
Just a statistic.
Just a line in a report.
“Civilian casualties are unavoidable.”
My hands clenched.
My chest felt empty.
“…Unavoidable,” I muttered.
I looked at their smiling faces.
Their clean uniforms.
Their shiny badges.
And for the first time in my life, I hated them.
Deeply.
* * *
“…!”
I shot up in bed, breath heavy.
My shirt was soaked.
“…Geez. This again?”
I ran a hand through my hair and stared at the ceiling.
“Maybe it’s because I’m back in the past…”
No matter how many years I went back, some things refused to leave me alone.
Maybe if I had gone a bit more into the past…
Would I have been able to save her??
Before I could sink into it…
The door slammed open.
“Damian!! We’re out of milk!!”
A familiar voice echoed through the apartment.
I turned my head.
Standing there in oversized pajamas, messy white hair sticking out everywhere, was Celine.
“…You couldn’t knock?” I muttered.
“You take too long.”
Six months.
It had been six months since I dragged her out of that cage.
Six months since she started living with me.
And somehow, she’d turned into this.
“I checked the fridge three times,” she continued seriously. “There’s nothing. Not even a drop.”
I sighed and sat up.
“Looks like we’ll have to go buy some more.”
As I stood up, I focused.
Not on me, but on her.
More specifically, on the faint traces of metal flowing through her blood.
Iron.
After six months of nonstop training, I’d learned how to feel blood as a liquid that contains metal but as a network.
A system.
Like countless threads running through her body.
I closed my eyes halfway and reached out.
Slowly.
Carefully.
If I pulled too hard, her blood pressure would spike.
If I twisted it even slightly wrong, veins could rupture.
If I compressed it…
She’d die.
So I didn’t “pull.”
I balanced.
I spread my control across her entire circulatory system, applying equal force everywhere.
No pressure points.
Just support.
Like placing her body on an invisible platform.
“Oh?!”
Celine’s feet lifted off the floor.
“D-Damian?! You’re back to doing this again?”
She floated up, arms flapping.
“…Still works,” I muttered.
Levitation through blood control.
Something I’d spent half a year mastering.
I walked past her, grabbed my jacket, and headed for the living room while she hovered beside me.
Metal was everywhere.
In walls.
In dust.
In water.
In concrete.
If I got strong enough…
I could collapse entire buildings.
Not yet.
But someday.
I lowered her back down.
She landed lightly.
“Warn me first,” she complained.
“No.”
“Rude.”
I zipped up my jacket.
“Let’s go. Milk won’t buy itself.”
She hesitated.
Then suddenly stepped forward and hugged me around the waist.
Tight.
“…Don’t leave without me,” she mumbled.
“I wasn’t.”
“I know,” she said. “But still.”
‘…She’d been awfully clingy lately.’
Her fingers clutched my jacket.
Like she was afraid I’d vanish.
Considering that she’s been stuck in a prison for years, it wasn’t really a surprise.
“…You’re clingy.”
“So??”
She looked up at me.
Her pink eyes were calm.
“If you ever disappear…”
She smiled faintly.
“I’ll find you. No matter where you go.”
She hugged tighter.
“Only you get this version of me.”
“Lucky me.”
I nudged her forehead.
“Come on.”
“Yes, sir.”
She stayed close as we left.
* * *
Permafrost sat at her desk in the Hero Council building, staring blankly at the report in front of her.
She hadn’t turned the page in ten minutes.
Her leg kept shaking under the table.
“…Six months,” she muttered.
Six months without a single major incident.
After that pier massacre.
After that scene so brutal even veteran heroes had looked away.
And then, nothing.
“After doing something like that, you don’t just disappear,” she said quietly. “What are you even doing…?”
Most villains couldn’t stay quiet for long. Power went to their heads. They got reckless. They wanted attention.
But this one didn’t.
Which made it worse.
She leaned back in her chair and exhaled.
“Are you preparing something…?”
Before she could think further, the door opened quickly.
“Perma!”
She looked up.
It was her sidekick, Frostline.
His real name was Evan, but no one ever used it.
He walked in holding a tablet.
“The president wants the list of heroes attending the entrance exam,” he said. “You’re going too, right? For Aetherion Hero Academy.”
“Yeah,” she replied. “I have someone I want to see.”
“Amy?”
Permafrost nodded.
“She’s been training nonstop. Her control, her output, everything… it’s been improving at a ridiculous speed.”
She allowed herself a small smile.
“At this rate, she’ll probably rank first.”
Frostline raised an eyebrow.
“…Maybe.”
She glanced at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
He scrolled through his tablet.
“This year’s applicants are different,” he said. “A lot of prodigies. Legacy heroes’ kids. Some early awakeners.”
He looked up.
“Strongest batch we’ve had in years.”
Permafrost fell silent for a moment.
Then she smirked.
“…Good.”
Her leg finally stopped shaking.
“I want to see how far she can go.”
* * *
I sat at my desk, staring at the poster in front of me.
[Aetherion Hero Academy Application Form]
I’d been looking at it for a while.
“…Hmmm.”
Hero academy.
Out of everything in this world, I was seriously considering that.
Behind me, I heard soft footsteps.
Celine walked up and leaned over my shoulder.
“What’re you looking at?” she asked.
Her eyes followed mine.
Then she froze.
“…Hero academy?”
She squinted at the poster.
“Why are you looking at this?”
“It’s for the Aetherion Hero Academy,” I replied. “More commonly called AHA.”
It was the best hero academy in the world.
People with dreams of becoming heroes came from every country just for a chance to enter.
Prodigies. Geniuses. Monsters in training.
The place where future legends were born.
Celine suddenly gasped.
“Aha!”
I glanced at her.
“You’re gonna blow it up during the entrance exam, aren’t you?”
“…What?”
She crossed her arms, looking proud of herself.
“I knew it. That’s totally something you’d do. It’ll be very efficient to kill everyone when they’re all gathered in one pla…”
I stood up, grabbed her by the shoulders, and gently pushed her out of the room.
“No.”
“Hey…!”
I closed the door.
And leaned back against it.
“…Idiot.”
Then my expression hardened.
Celestiv.
The hero who killed me in my past life.
Objectively, she is too strong.
That was the simple truth.
Her ability was the power of the sun.
Not light.
Not heat.
The sun itself.
If my ability was considered broken, hers was on another level entirely.
Overwhelming output, endless energy, destructive range….
There was no fair fight against her.
The only reason she’d brought hundreds of heroes back then wasn’t because she needed help to defeat me.
It was because I was good at escaping.
Teleportation, invisibility, clones… I had hundreds of abilities that allowed me to escape easily.
She just needed the heroes to stop me from running away.
Not to mention, she defeated me during the night when the sun wasn’t even up.
Over the past year, I’d thought about only two ways to deal with her.
First.
Kill her before she became too powerful.
It sounded simple.
But it really wasn’t.
She is already being closely supervised by Permafrost, an S-Rank hero.
Even if I am stronger right now, I still wouldn’t be able to beat someone like that.
S-Rank heroes were different from villains.
Their power scale is absurd.
A few B-Rank villains working together could probably defeat a S-Ranked villain.
An A-Rank hero could easily wipe one out alone.
That was the gap.
And right now, my body wasn’t fully developed.
My ability wasn’t fully matured.
Attacking her now would be suicide.
Which meant the first option was impossible.
So that left the second.
‘The second way…’
Get into the academy and get close to her.
Become someone she trusts and relies on.
And when she least expects it…
Stab her in the back.
It’s the most simple and effective way to kill her.
The door creaked open.
Celine peeked in.
“…You done thinking?”
I glanced at her.
“Celine.”
“Yeah?”
“You wanna go to school?”
She blinked.
“Huh?”
“I’m thinking about applying.”
Her eyes widened.
“You? At a hero academy?”
“…Yeah.”
She stared at me for a moment.
Then slowly smiled.
“If you’re going,” she said, “then I’m going too.”
I looked back at the poster.
Aetherion Hero Academy.
