If January 1st on Earth was boom season for gyms, the Empire had its own strange season when the national treasury grew especially fat.
"Now, everyone, this time the heir apparent of House Pendragon has entered!"
"Pendragon? I've heard of them!"
"Ten million on Pendragon!"
"The head of House Aristo, surely you've heard of him? This time the legitimate heir of that house is entering. Are you really not going to bet on this? It's basically copy-pasting money!"
"I'll bet! I'll bet!"
"Now, now, the Imperial Palace Recruitment Exam begins now! The Archmage himself is attending, so please give it plenty of attention!"
The nobles who had been elegantly sipping wine at a banquet just yesterday were nowhere to be found at the gambling table.
Letting go of the reason they'd kept suppressed all this time, the nobles, each turned into a beast, growled at one another and raised the stakes.
A boring era.
An era of serotonin, when even with money there was nothing entertaining to watch besides eating better food than others and partying dissolutely in the red-light district.
The government, declaring it couldn't leave surplus gold lying idle, pecked at the Ministry of Finance to come up with some plausible way to extort the nobles' wealth.
The Ministry of Finance was baffled.
Sure, we manage the money, but are we the ones who make it too?
The finance team silently handled the unreasonable demand of an ignorant, warrior-born Emperor, and a quick-witted young official came up with an ingenious idea that would have impressed the gods of heaven and earth.
The Imperial Palace Recruitment Exam Colosseum.
In a word, it was the insane notion of having the state host human horse racing.
The moment he heard the idea, the Emperor swore up a storm, demanding to know where that bastard was, but the young giant of the finance team, who boasted a remarkable gift of gab, succeeded in persuading even the Emperor in the end.
And the result was the present.
"You favorite-backers, are you awake now?"
"Filthy match-fixing! It must be investigated!"
"House Nostria is a god, and from today I am House Nostria's dog!"
"It's rigged! I saw it!"
"I saw it too! How does a test that favors warriors come up 2 years in a row!"
The nobles were excited by the extraordinary thrown into their tedious days.
A blood-soaked battle held once a year among the darlings of noble houses, with knights and mages using each other as targets, no less.
It was truly an event to overload the dopamine receptors.
Nobles who stacked money in their stables opened their wallets.
And the state recovered that dirty money and used it for the nation.
This was precisely the economic cycle.
Some wicked nobles who rejected the economic cycle opposed the gambling as barbaric, but such pseudo-types quickly tucked their tails before the tide of the times.
Since there were also those who used the Recruitment Exam to mark the Empire's next mages and knights and build connections ahead of time, in the end even the nobles who'd stroked their beards going 'Ahem!' began watching the Recruitment Exam.
Naturally, dirty money began flowing to headquarters too.
'If a test favoring warriors comes up, double this amount.'
'If a test favoring mages comes up, triple this amount.'
'I'll give you this much, so please let an Arcanist pass too.'
Where money gathers, corruption gathers.
To prevent corruption, the government created the Recruitment Exam Committee.
And the committee's final decision-maker was selected anew every year, the one selected being the most neutral possible: a descendant of the Emperor.
This year, the Third Princess had volunteered for the position.
And that Third Princess was the reason the chairman was furious.
"The Third Princess is missing!?"
When the chairman slammed a huge fist on the desk, it cracked with a splintering sound.
"Ch-Chairman, please calm down for now."
"Haah, haah."
Barely pulling himself together, the chairman asked the vice-chairman.
"Fine. Her Highness the Third Princess has always been like that, so let's let it go."
"An excellent judgment, sir."
"Are there any guests we need to pay attention to this time?"
"Commander Grid of the Imperial Arcanists. And Archmage Aicolman has come in person."
"Is Aicolman really coming, though? As a guest, not to announce a terror attack?"
"Yes, sir. According to the rumors in society, it seems it's because his disciple is taking part this time."
"Then the disciple's name?"
"There was a strict order that it's confidential, so no one but the Third Princess knows."
"Hmm, I see."
The exam chairman chewed his nails and looked down at the nobles gathered in the stands.
"No one can know the Third Princess has disappeared. Saying anything will only cause confusion."
The vice-chairman bobbed his head.
It's fine.
Even without the princess, the work would proceed like clockwork.
The final decision-maker was, after all, just the position that took responsibility.
Thanks to the toil of the civil servants working beneath, things proceeded smoothly.
"Your Highness, I thought you'd changed a lot, and yet here you go again......."
The chairman sighed, looking up at the vacant seat of the highest decision-maker.
'Where on earth has the Third Princess gone?'
***
The day of the Imperial Palace Recruitment Exam, Adam's lodgings.
He got up shouting for a bright and energetic morning and looked for Aicolman, but he was nowhere to be seen.
Just in case, he'd put on winter clothes to keep warm and hung a pouch stuffed with mana stones at his waist.
On the streets, young applicants were all heading together toward the Palace's underground.
Adam joined the crowd too.
When they reached the Palace's underground, biometric magic tool torches all lit up at once, illuminating the way underground.
Thud, thud, thud.
When he'd gone all the way down the stairs along with hundreds of applicants, a massive exam hall spread out before his eyes.
There were rumors of a gambling den, but the audience was in a different space, so it wasn't a setup where guests openly looked down on them.
If it had been, wouldn't it be a knockoff Squid Game?
The applicants who'd gathered clustered with acquaintances, murmuring.
"Hey, did you hear? I heard the Archmage's disciple came this time?"
"Holy shit. Then hasn't he already reached a stage?"
"Eh, no way. Even so, would he really have gotten that far?"
The so-called Archmage's disciple didn't understand what they were talking about.
What's a stage?
While he was eavesdropping on the others like that.
Tap, tap.
A finger timidly poking his back.
"Adam. Adam."
When he turned his head, Ether, dressed like a witch in a black hood, pushed her hat back slightly.
When she lifted the hood a bit, her blond hair and blue eyes sparkled.
"Why are you wearing a robe? It makes you hard to recognize."
"Hehe, do you want to see me that badly?"
Ether had a bit of a princess complex.
"The exam is held after teleporting us somewhere. If you get teleported somewhere cold, a robe is a must."
"Now that you mention it, that's true."
Ether rummaged through her bag and took out another robe to give Adam.
"You don't want your magic circle found out either, do you?"
"You brought one for me too?"
"Of course."
"No way. Miss Ether, are you by any chance an angel?"
For the first time in a long while, Adam felt love for humanity.
A gift, in a world where it was common sense to switch sides freely depending on profit and loss.
Shedding tears of emotion only on the inside, Adam put on the robe.
And a little later, the announcements began.
"Everyone, please discard all doping potions in your possession. We will be moving to the exam site shortly, and doping potions will not be teleported even if you carry them during the teleport."
Adam readjusted his grip on the mana stone pouch.
His heartbeat rang in his eardrums.
How are they going to teleport nearly 600 people all at once?
Just as he was blankly watching the proctor, the floor under his feet began to glow, rippling with electric lines like plasma.
"A magic circle?"
The entire floor of the exam hall was a giant magic circle.
Adam and Ether instinctively gripped each other's hands tightly.
A twisting pull wrapped around his whole body, and the world went black in an instant.
***
They were teleported into a desolate forest bathed in bright afternoon sunlight.
When he shook his head and came to his senses, an explanation of the rules entered his head.
Stripped of all its flowery language, it summed up like this.
-Take each other's number tags and collect a total of 5.
"Ah, is this it?"
The basic rule of the exam was to take the red number tag attached to each person's chest.
'It's less an exam and more like a survival game.'
-Recovery items and doping potions will be teleported in periodically. Their locations will be transmitted to your head.
I've seen this in games.
A system that deliberately forces fights with rewards that benefit the team.
Then at first, it's probably better to grab the doping rewards than to take on other applicants.
-A powerful hidden boss will appear at the teleport site 3 times. Any applicant who takes a hidden boss's number tag passes unconditionally.
Adam stared hard at the last line.
Passes unconditionally.
A textbook trap event.
Usually, that kind of condition was attached to magic beasts that absolutely could not be beaten.
If you met one, there was a high chance you'd die or get a game over, which meant they were beings you had to avoid no matter what.
'This is the Imperial Palace exam?'
It's more like a survival variety show, though?
Except with your life on the line.
Of course, even while it catered to entertainment value like this, it preserved its essence as an exam.
The abilities needed for an official in a military state.
The ability to handle a crisis.
Situational judgment.
Basic survival skills and combat power.
It was a dopamine-fully-charged survival game that plainly showed signs of Palace officials racking their brains.
Adam immediately got to his feet.
"Lady Ether, let's look for recovery and doping potions first."
"......."
"See that cabin over there? There's red light coming from it, so there seem to be doping potions there. We'd better hurry before people show up."
"A-Adam......."
"Ah, no? Are we already too late? Then maybe we should wait—"
"A-Adam!"
Ether's face turned pale.
"What, what's wrong?"
"I'm sorry. My motion sickness is really bad. Could we rest just a little?"
Wait, is she out of her mind?
"Hold it in somehow! There are doping potion supplies right in front of us, and you want me to give them up?"
"I'm sorry. I'm holding you back... But if I move now, I'll ruin my condition for the whole exam."
She put her hands on the ground, drool dripping from her mouth.
There was no noble dignity whatsoever.
It was the moment the illusion of Ether as a true young lady, built up all this time, shattered.
"Fine. Then let's go with observing."
In front of them spread a green field, and on a high hill in the field stood a cabin giving off red light.
As he watched the cabin with an uneasy face, rustling sounds came from nearby.
The first competitors.
"Found it!"
"Nice! Looks like we're the first?"
Two young men who looked like warriors.
He considered throwing an explosive sphere, but he didn't know the average skill of the participants here, so attacking for no reason would be rash.
Adam decided to give up on this supply drop and watch how things went.
KRAK—!
With a sharp, air-splitting sound, the head of the knight who'd been running exploded.
It was instant death, without even the chance to scream.
"Wh-what?"
"......."
The instant his comrade standing beside him turned his head in shock, a second projectile pierced his skull.
It was the power of 【Stone Cannon】, magic that fires rocks like bullets.
"Ugh... Adam, what's that sound?"
"Shh! Shut up."
Adam roughly clamped his hand over Ether's mouth and got low.
The mages who revealed themselves between the bushes calmly collected the number tags from the bodies.
A chill ran down his spine at their cunning ambush.
"Hey, you got them, right?"
"Definitely!"
Done looting, the mages started for the cabin.
If they were left alone, the two number tags and the supplies would all fall into their hands.
Then should I just kill those two?
Huh? No, wait.
SCHLUK—!
Just then, as one of the mages put his hand on the cabin, a longsword plunged into his chest and pierced his heart.
"Gyaaaah!"
A warrior who'd been hiding in the cabin killed the mage in an instant.
Like a food chain, several people had laid traps in front of the prey.
The knight, now holding a whole four number tags, grinned from ear to ear as he finished the confirmation kills.
"...Well, well, this is a real gold mine."
Adam watched the scene closely.
If Ether had been fine, it would have been Adam's party whose heads got blown off there.
Maybe the motion sickness had been a stroke of luck.
Ether, finally coming to her senses, slapped her pale cheeks with a smack, smack.
"Ugh, I'm sorry. Because of me......."
"Sometimes in life, misfortune leads to good fortune."
Adam said so as he watched the knight go back into the cabin.
"Oh my... Adam, you're on a different level. Even though I held you back like this!"
That's what happens when you watch 4 people die in 1 minute.
"Are you okay now?"
"Yes!"
The box was still inside the cabin.
"Then shall we get started too?"
The 4 who'd been killed a moment ago, each preying on the other.
Including the warrior, the number tags came to 5 in total.
Which meant that catching just the one warrior in the cabin would mean passing immediately.