I woke up feeling a little tired, but today is important, I got to wake up early to get to the entrance exam! Get fired up!

Or something.

I met up with Si-woo after packing an extra set of clothes and we took the train together to the city the Academy was in, while he talked to me about all sorts of stupid things.

“Jackson really wants to work at McDindle’s but I heard a guy got his liver stolen while using the bathroom there, and I’m really worried about him. Do you have any idea on how to persuade him to choose literally anything else?” Si-woo asked.

“I don’t know, I think you should just let him go, if it’s dangerous, then it’s his fault for ignoring all the warning signs, besides, what are you gonna do if it turns out that it really is all just rumors?” I replied.

“Hah, I suppose you’re right, but I'm still really worried about him…”

I guess it was just in his nature to worry excessively. Not sure if it was his heroic protagonist nature or weird, overprotective mom side that made him like that.

The rest of the train ride passed in relative silence, except for when Si-woo saw something interesting outside the train window and went like, “Wow, that’s so cool!” It was a few hours before we arrived at our stop. How did I spend that time? Napping of course.

We got off the train and Si-woo seemed to be hit immediately with the wonder of being in a big city.

“Is this your first time in the Capital?” I asked, already knowing the answer.

“Yeah… It’s so cool! There’s so many bright lights!”

I was slightly nervous he was going to wander off while we were heading to the Academy, so I grabbed his wrist and led him while following my phone’s GPS. It didn’t help that he pointed something out and shouted about how cool it looked every couple minutes, earning us some weird looks from people. I had to remind myself not to be embarrassed just because some extras saw the protagonist being a little eccentric, like one should be.

“The entrance exam starts at 9:30 right? We should be there soon so stop embarrassing us.” I said.

“Stop being so mean! I just wanna look at some stuff, it seems like we still have half an hour to get there anyways, right? It wouldn’t hurt to sightsee a little bit, would it? We can at least stop by the hotel we booked!”

“Dumbass, you always wanna be early for these things. It’s important to make a good first impression, or we might not get in.”

“Ah okay, okay.” Si-woo said, finally giving in.

We finally arrived at the testing grounds.

First was the written test, where they led us into a building and we sat down for a couple hours answering questions about the importance of Soul Runes in combat, as well as various questions about strategy during battles and stuff? Pretty confusing, but it made sense, it was basically a military school after all.

This was definitely a little harder than the content I was dealing with in class this week, but it was still doable, so I wasn’t too worried about the results of this test. I finished a little early so I had some time to talk with Si-woo and some of the other applicants.

“That test was so hard, how do they expect us to know this stuff?” One of the applicants whined.

“It wasn’t that bad. Besides, you can learn a lot of this stuff just by looking it up online.” Si-woo responded.

“Yeah it was actually easier than I thought. I’m more worried about the practical part of the exam. I heard it’s gonna be a tournament this year.” Another applicant said.

Ah, yes, the classic tournament arc, everyone’s favorite. I was slightly worried as Uriel’s match-ups weren’t described in the original work, but he managed to rank 13th place out of about 1000, so it shouldn’t be too hard.

Not that I’m any good at fighting, but surely I’ll manage.

After the rest of the applicants finished their tests, it was time for the practical half of the exam, and it was a tournament just like the extra said! Who could have guessed? The rules were pretty simple, if you fall out of the arena, or if you faint you lose or if the referee thinks it’s dangerous the match is called off.

Anyways, in my first match, I was up against a guy with a spear, it seemed like his Rune was Speed. Now that I think about it, my Rune being Light means I have control over all aspects of light, including the speed of light maybe? That sounds like it’s far off in the future though, so let’s not think about it too much, or I’ll get impatient.

“3, 2, 1, start!!” The referee shouted.

I immediately fired a beam of light at my opponent’s leg, but he strafed to the side and ran towards me. It was going to be impossible to keep my distance, this might not be the greatest match-up for me.

I fired a few more beams of light at him, most of which missed, but one clipped his ankle, slowing him down. Not that it mattered, he was already in front of me.

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I executed a front kick, but it was blocked by the pole of the spear, and my leg was pushed to the side, leaving me open. I rolled to the side, but was still hit by his spear in the shoulder.

It hurt way more than I thought it would, wow!

I tried blinding him by shining a really bright light, but I also blinded myself. I should really get some sunglasses or something. I started blindly firing off beams of light, but the referee seemed a little worried that I was gonna accidentally hit someone somewhere lethal and called off the match.

I was brought to an infirmary with Mr. Spear and we chatted a little bit while healers treated the small wounds we had.

“Ha ha, I thought I had won already, but that light you shone really stunned me.”

“Yeah, it would be more useful if I didn’t also blind myself with it.” I responded, slightly disappointed in myself.

“Ha ha ha! So what’s your name?”

“Uriel. What about you?” I said, giving into the inevitable small talk I hated.

“Blyke.” I somehow managed to hold back my laugh at this stupid name, “Anyways, it was a really good match! Those beams of light you fired were super powerful.” It lasted less than 30 seconds, but sure.

After I was finished being treated, I walked back to where the tournament was being held, and Si-woo was in a match so I spectated that one. He obviously won. Knowing the result made it a little boring, but I got to see some cool swordsmanship, so it was fine.

It was quite a while before my next match, so I was sitting on the sidelines spectating for quite a while, just watching absentmindedly. At one point I stopped pretending to care about the matches and started staring at the sky instead. I think people under-appreciate the beauty of a clear, sunny sky, it’s just such a pretty shade of blue!

It had been an hour or two of just staring at the sky, when I was finally called up again for a match. This time I was able to hear the other person’s name, Rudy Taylor, an actual named character! Wow, would you look at that, sounds fun! If I remember correctly, she’s the younger sister of the main heroine. Her Rune seemed to be Time Acceleration. Wow, just my luck! It’s basically the same thing as that other person!

I was slightly disappointed at the similar match-up, but it wasn’t like I could change anything.

“So how are you doing?” To hide my mild frustration, I initiated some pointless small talk before the match started.

“Eh, not great. The last guy I fought burned a bunch of my hair and now I might have to cut it off. I honestly might cry.” Okay, I know I asked, but who cares?

The match started, and I went with the same strategy as last time, shooting multiple beams of light at her, but she dodged them all perfectly. Her Rune allowed her to accelerate time for her, slowing down her perception of it, but coming at the cost of aging her if she used it for too long or with too much intensity. Not that that was a problem, belonging to a fairly affluent family, she could just get treatments to extend her lifespan. We truly live in a capitalist society.

I tried shooting the beams of light quicker and more erratically, she might be able to dodge if she sees where I’m aiming, but if she can’t it’s impossible to dodge with her current skill level, and even if she could, speeding up enough to dodge something at the speed of light would use up her lifespan in less than a second.

In reality, her Rune had far more drawbacks than Blyke’s Speed did, making this a much easier match-up. All I had to do was confuse her a little. I tried to use the blinding move I employed during my previous match, this time being smart enough to close my eyes, but it didn’t work.

“I saw your previous match, did you really think I’d fall for that?” She said, her eyes also closed.

I took advantage of this moment and used the strongest attack I could muster right at her, this time burning the rest of her hair, and nearly severing her ear.

“OW! What the hell, did you specifically aim to burn the rest of my hair!?” She shouted in pain, as blood trickled down her face.

“Yes.” I responded.

The referee had yet to call the match, so she rushed at me again, dodging more light beams. In a slight hint of desperation, I tried bending light to make myself look blurry, but she closed in and went for a roundhouse kick. I ducked under it and wasn’t sure what move to make next, so I just punched her in the stomach as hard as possible.

There was a sound like something bursting.

“Ugh! How could you…” Rudy muttered before falling to the ground.

“Uh… Uriel wins…” The referee sounded disappointed in me somehow, but I won in the end so it’s fine.

I walked back to the spectator’s area since I was completely unharmed, but everyone was giving me a weird look, like I did something I shouldn’t have. I ignored them and sat down next to Si-woo, who seemed to not have any matches currently.

“Oh… Uh, good job Uri.”

“I thought I told you not to call me that. You sound kinda weird, did you have a tough match or something?”

“Uh… It’s just… You fought kind of dirty, didn’t you?” Si-woo stated like it was a question for some reason.

Sort of I guess? Well, he might be a protagonist who fights against evil and all, but I didn’t really care about all that. Any way I could win was going to be the way I fought, I didn’t care about honor, or whatever sort of thing typical righteous protagonists do.

“Maybe, I guess…”

Si-woo gave me a look like he was uncomfortable, but I ignored it and sat down.

The rest of the day passed by quickly, I had a few more matches, but nothing notable. I won all of them of course. Si-woo too. His matches were at least somewhat interesting. Once it was over, we walked to our hotel exhausted, but excited for tomorrow.

“Ah, it’s hard to believe the matches aren’t even halfway over. That was so fun!” Si-woo exclaimed.

I didn’t think I was going to have fun fighting, but beating up people ended up being surprisingly entertaining. Maybe I’m more protagonist-like than I thought.

Or maybe I’m just a sadist. Who knows?

I took a shower, washed off the grime and blood from my fights, and changed into my fresh set of clothes, feeling very satisfied with today.

By the time Si-woo had finished cleaning himself up, and started gushing about his favorite matches, I was already drifting off into a peaceful darkness. I just love sleeping! I must have really been exhausted because it felt like I slept for a really long time.

I woke up to someone shaking me.

“C’mon, you gotta wake up! We’re already late!”

“Just five more days please…”

“It’s already 10:30! Wake up or I’m gonna leave without you!”

“10:30? What?!” I finally woke up, very panicked.

Oh shit.