The examination ended shortly after.
Kaien and his group were escorted out of the dungeon along with the other applicants.
Most of them looked exhausted.
Kaien did too.
Mostly because he had spent the last hour pretending not to be suspicious.
He looked at the system.
[Entrance Examination Combat Assessment Complete]
[Current Level: 15]
[Weapon Points: 17]
Kaien smiled.
Not bad.
He dismissed the window.
Then someone bumped into him.
"Sorry!"
Kaien looked down.
A girl had nearly fallen.
She caught herself against the wall and quickly straightened.
"Are you okay?"
"Yeah."
She looked embarrassed.
"I'm fine."
Kaien paused.
Silver hair.
Light blue eyes.
A familiar face.
His heart skipped.
Mira.
He had finally found her.
She looked slightly different from the comic.
Her silver hair was tied loosely behind her head, with several strands falling around her face. She wasn't wearing much makeup, if any. Her uniform was slightly messy from the examination, and there was a small cut on her cheek.
She looked tired.
But she was smiling.
Kaien stared.
Mira tilted her head.
"Is something on my face?"
Kaien immediately looked away.
"No."
"You were staring."
"I wasn't."
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"You definitely were."
Kaien paused.
"...Your cheek is bleeding."
Mira touched it.
"Oh."
She laughed awkwardly.
"I didn't even notice."
Kaien pulled a small medical patch from his bag.
"Here."
She accepted it.
"Thanks."
Kaien nodded.
Then he walked away.
Mira watched him.
Something about him was strange.
Not scary.
Just...
familiar.
She looked at the two small braids hanging from his enormous afro.
Then at his back.
"He's kind of cute."
She immediately shook her head.
"What am I thinking?"
Kaien walked away as quickly as possible.
His heart was beating faster than it should.
Not because he was nervous around girls.
Because Mira was standing right there.
The same Mira he'd watched for hundreds of chapters.
The same girl he'd watched get injured.
The same girl he'd watched lose people.
The same girl who eventually broke down after one of the worst incidents in the story.
And now she had just thanked him for a medical patch.
Kaien stopped.
He covered his face.
"This is weird."
He had spent two years preparing himself.
He had imagined this moment countless times.
None of those fantasies involved Mira thinking he was cute.
He shook his head.
Focus.
He needed to make sure she followed the original path.
She needed her development.
Her awakening.
Her friendships.
He couldn't simply solve every problem for her.
If he protected her from everything, he'd destroy the very experiences that made her stronger.
Kaien understood that.
He just had one problem.
He wasn't sure he could watch her suffer anymore.
"Hey."
Kaien turned.
Mira was standing behind him.
She held the medical patch against her cheek.
"You dropped something."
She held out a small notebook.
Kaien's eyes widened.
His notes.
"Oh."
He quickly took it.
"Thanks."
Mira smiled.
"You write a lot."
Kaien froze.
She had seen the pages.
Hopefully not the names.
"You shouldn't read people's notebooks."
"I didn't."
She smiled.
"I was tempted."
Kaien stared at her.
She laughed.
"I'm joking."
He wasn't sure whether she was.
Mira looked at him again.
"You're in the weapons group, right?"
"Yeah."
"You were really good."
Kaien shrugged.
"Not really."
"You shot that monster three times in the same place."
Kaien paused.
"...Lucky."
Mira stared at him.
Then smiled.
"You're a terrible liar."
Kaien sighed.
"I've heard that today."
She laughed.
For some reason, Kaien found himself smiling too.
It was a small interaction.
Nothing important.
Nothing that would change the world.
But to Kaien...
it meant everything.
Because this was the first time he wasn't watching Mira through a screen.
He was actually talking to her.
And she was real.
A few meters away, someone was watching them.
The same woman from the observation room.
She had followed Kaien after the examination.
Her assistant stood beside her.
"The boy's talking to Mira."
"I noticed."
"Should we investigate him further?"
The woman nodded.
"Yes."
Her eyes remained on Kaien.
"He's hiding something."
"His weapon?"
"More than that."
She smiled.
"But don't approach him yet."
"Why?"
"Because people who hide their strength usually have a reason."
She turned away.
"Let's find out what his is."
Later that evening, Kaien returned home.
Or rather—
to the small apartment he had been living in alone for the past year.
He placed his bag beside the door.
The apartment was quiet.
Too quiet.
Kaien looked toward the kitchen.
For half a second, he almost expected his mother to tell him to wash his hands.
He stopped.
The silence returned.
Kaien slowly touched one of his braids.
"...I passed."
He smiled faintly.
"I think you'd have been proud."
He walked toward his room.
Then the system appeared.
[Special Quest Completed]
[Breakthrough Quest: Reach the Entrance Examination]
[Reward: 20 Weapon Points]
[Additional Requirement Met]
[Main Story Divergence Detected]
Kaien stopped.
The smile disappeared.
"Main story..."
A second window appeared.
[Warning]
[Future events may no longer follow recorded information.]
Kaien stared at it.
He had known this already.
But seeing it written by the system made it feel different.
The comic wasn't a script anymore.
It was a possibility.
Kaien looked at his weapon storage.
Then at the notebook on his desk.
Then toward the window overlooking Seoul.
He had spent years thinking he was entering a story.
Maybe that had been wrong.
He wasn't entering a story.
He was living in a world that had once been a story.
And now it was changing.
Kaien slowly smiled.
"Alright."
He touched one of his braids.
"Let's see what happens."