"Have you by any chance seen a boy a little taller than me, with bright yellow eyes and dark skin as his distinguishing features? He leaves an impression that is hard to forget once you have seen it."
After the operation ended, Meritorious Major General Hong Seong-hwa carried out exactly the thought that had occurred to her mid-operation. The instant every Otherworld Creature spread through the city center was dealt with, she ran to the relief center where the civilians had been gathered.
It was an act done for the sake of recruitment.
"Loyalty. Uh...... you mean among the rescue subjects? I have not seen him. Was he not transported from the site to a hospital?"
"He was only scratched up, so he should not have been ruled for on-site transport...... You really have not seen him? He should have been rescued by now. Or are the minor injuries already being carried off to hospitals?"
"The severely injured are still being transported. And I truly have no memory of seeing him."
But the soldier in charge of protecting the relief center seemed to have no knowledge of the person she was looking for.
"Hm. Then is there another place besides here where survivors have gathered?"
"There is not. Unless it is a severely injured case or a situation where immediate rescue is unavoidable, all secured civilians are gathered here, for their protection if nothing else. And I have checked every single civilian who has come in here. I truly have not seen a civilian of that appearance."
That soldier had been in charge of this sort of work for a long time, and had never once failed. Meaning he had never missed the escape of a civilian once inside the protected zone, nor failed to notice the presence of someone who had slipped in.
In the end Hong Seong-hwa's head tilted.
"......That is strange. Why is he not here?"
It was a question the soldier in charge of protecting the relief center could not answer either.
***
"Phew, that was close."
I dodged the soldiers going around killing Lizard Men and finally made my escape. Looking back, it was a truly reckless thing to do.
'But I couldn't get caught there.......'
At first I did wait for rescue. That was still the case at the point when a soldier came by once and then left again.
Up until then I had every intention of quietly complying.
But while waiting, a thought suddenly struck me. If I got taken in by the rescue team and the fact that I'm a minor came out, wouldn't they tell me to call my guardian? That thought.
For me as I stood at present, that was something I absolutely could not and must not do.
'Thank goodness I wasn't badly hurt anywhere.'
My padded coat had torn a little, but that was better than my skin splitting open.
Dropping the coat's cheap stuffing behind me like Hansel and Gretel's crumbs of sweets, I checked the signs along the road. The Sudden Dimensional Gate had sent me on a wide detour, but I seemed to have rejoined the route I had laid out somehow.
"Um, sorry, could I ask for directions? Myphonegotsmashedwhileiwasevacuatingfromthesuddendimensionalgatethatjustopened."
"Ah...... where are you headed?"
My grubby appearance, the Sudden Dimensional Gate that had actually gone off, and the rapid-fire delivery meant to prove I was not a cult recruiter all had their effect.
With the help of a kind passing citizen I confirmed the way. It was certain. I had succeeded in returning to my planned route.
"Thank you. Thank you so much."
"Not at all."
"Have a good day."
I gave that person a deep bow and walked on. Not long after, my sweat cooled and I began to feel cold. If I had not kept my clothes on and endured the heat, the feeling of shivering would probably have been added on top.
"Ugh, this won't do."
Then, around the time I decided my body had cooled too much, I stopped by a convenience store.
Taking up a chair set out for people eating cup ramyeon when all I had bought was a single bottle of water pricked at my conscience, but I laid an iron plate over my face by reviewing my circumstances.
Fortunately the convenience store clerk did not throw me out. In thanks for that, I picked up as much of the stuffing I had shed as I could before leaving. That was five in the afternoon.
I still had another hour to walk to the waiting point, and fourteen hours remained until the waiting point opened.
In case the orphanage sent someone, I decided to maintain an hour's distance from the waiting point.
Deliberately ignoring the hunger that was starting to set in, I curled up in an alley. It was a spot where the draft came in as little as possible.
Another hour passed there like that. To make tracking harder, and because staying completely still made me feel my body temperature dropping too far, I moved on further.
Then an unstaffed café came into view, so I put on a thick face and spent about thirty minutes there. Moving on again, there was an unstaffed claw machine shop, so I passed more time pretending to browse.
I did not stay too long. The orphanage people could infer where someone with no money would go, and unstaffed shops ranked high on that list.
So, with the sense of merely topping up my body heat, I dropped in at unstaffed places now and then and met the night. The cold and the wind grew fiercer and fiercer. Sensation had long since vanished from my feet.
'The orphanage must be in an uproar.'
However oblivious they might be, by this hour there was no way they did not know. Of course, I had not the slightest intention of letting myself be caught.
In any case, once ten o'clock passed most of the unstaffed cafés closed as well. If I searched properly there would be twenty-four-hour ones too, but regrettably I did not have the stamina to walk around looking.
If only to keep my own position clear, I simply took refuge in the nearest subway station. Homeless people had already settled in there, so I drew less attention.
I found a spot where the wind seemed to come in a little less and passed the time nodding off.
"Excuse me, would you like to trade clothes with me?"
"Hm?"
Then, around the time it turned six in the morning, I found the relatively tidiest person and asked for a clothing exchange.
Since a torn padded coat had relatively low trade value, I put two of the layers I had on underneath up as trade goods as well. What I asked for in return was a very thin outer jacket.
"I'm fine with it...... but why?"
I did not answer. That I was afraid an orphanage administrator loitering near the waiting point would recognize my clothes and come running...... was not something that needed explaining.
"Thanks for the smooth trade."
My clothes had gotten much lighter, but the possibility of being identified from a distance was blocked to a degree. Even if I had only changed my top, people naturally look at the upper body most intently.
With my hood and mask firmly arranged, I headed for the waiting point.
One hour and ten minutes on foot from this station. If I walked a little slowly, the timing would come out exactly right.
'Never mind being hungry, I'm incredibly thirsty.......'
The water bottle I had rationed as carefully as I could had long since been empty.
Deliberately ignoring the starvation I could no longer even feel, my dry throat, and a body tired from never properly resting, I pressed on.
The points I had checked off passed one by one, and the waiting point came into view. I could not tell what sort of building had been borrowed, but the design had a wall wrapping around an L-shaped building and an open lot like a sports field.
'......There.'
But at the entrance to that waiting point, a familiar face was pacing about. It was an administrator.
The moment I spotted that person I slipped naturally onto a side road and checked my wristwatch.
7:20. There was plenty of time, but I did not want to ruin things by taking it easy. And honestly, it was far too cold.
My gaze kept searching for a route into the waiting point that would avoid the administrator.
Should I climb the wall like when I escaped the orphanage? But there were too many people watching. In that case, go around through an alley and climb the wall?
I quietly avoided the front gate and entered another alley. Fortunately there was a spot with no one around.
I first confirmed that no one was approaching, and just in case I even checked the sounds from the far side. Then, when I judged there was no one, I gave a light jump.
It was a wall with no spikes on top, which made it easy. My hands hooked over the top of the wall.
Nngh. I put force into my hands for a moment so as not to make a sound. With that my body was hauled up a little. It would have been impossible in my previous life.
Thunk. One of my arms finally came over the top of the wall, and by putting more force into it I hauled the other arm up as well. My upper body rose above the wall.
"......."
"......."
And I met a person's eyes.
Cherry-red hair scattered softly in the winter wind. The eyes opened round in that white face were the very same color as the hair.
Seong-gwon. My heart cried out a single name as if wailing.
"Crimin——"
"No! It's not!"
I waved my arm frantically. Even in the middle of this I absolutely did not raise my voice.
Never mind that I had listened to the sounds on the far side and still missed Seong-gwon's presence. I could not be found out by anyone else. That could really blow things up.
"I have my reasons! Listen and then judge!"
Speaking at a level closer to mouthing the words, I went over the wall for now. With my upper body already up, lifting my legs was nothing at all.
Tap. My legs landed safely on the other side.
"Haah. I nearly missed the exam......."
"......Exam?"
"Yeah. The exam. Um, is this not the Hwadam Army exam waiting point?"
Don't tell me I memorized the map wrong? No, judging by the fact that Seong-gwon is here, it seems right?
While I was puzzling over it, she blinked slowly, her face still expressionless.
"......If you are an examinee, why come in somewhere other than the front gate?"
"Because there's someone at the front gate who came to catch me?"
"Came to catch......?"
"There are people who hate me sitting this exam badly enough to grind their teeth."
Sixteen-year-old Seong-gwon's eye level was a little below mine.
Of course, assuming she grew as much as in the original, this gap in eye level would widen further and further. Because compared to the original Seong-gwon's height of 172cm listed in her official profile, the original Ya-hwi reached a full 196cm.
"So about that, could you keep it a secret? I even have my admission tick...... ah, I turned my phone off."
"......."
So this was probably the only time our eye levels would be anywhere near each other.
I looked at the red eyes positioned on a slightly lower line. Seong-gwon looked straight back at me as well, as if trying to grasp the true intent of my words.
A silent probing went on for several seconds.
"......All right."
"Oh, you're letting it slide?"
"If the admission ticket is fake, it will be caught over there anyway."
"Thanks."
What Seong-gwon said was sound reasoning, but if she had insisted on telling someone else, I would have been in trouble too. Whatever my circumstances, climbing a wall is not a very praiseworthy act.
"I'll definitely pay this debt back. So...... your name?"
So I stretched out a hand and asked for a handshake. Seong-gwon lowered her eyes slowly, examining my hand and my face in turn.
Slide. A white hand tangled with mine and shook it lightly.
"Seong-gwon. And you?"
"Ya-hwi. We're comrades in single-character names."
Ah. How good it would have been if a scene like this, a moment like this, had appeared in the original.
"All right, let's go. To wait for the exam."
But that was a meaningless attachment.
Because the original now existed only in my memory, and Ya-hwi had become no one other than myself.
"......All right."
I headed for the waiting area together with Seong-gwon. The time left until departure for the testing site was roughly thirty minutes.
Once thirty more minutes passed, a future I did not know would begin.
"......By the way, are you all right?"
"Hm?"
"If you were to fail...... would that not put you in a difficult position?"
It saved me that the waiting point was indoors.
Thawing my frozen hands and feet, I parsed Seong-gwon's words. What she was pointing at seemed to be the people who hated my enlistment enough to come and catch me.
"Ah, it's fine."
"......?"
"Because I'm absolutely not going to fail."
At my words Seong-gwon tilted her head. Even though her hair color and eye color were in the red family that symbolizes passion, perhaps because her impression was so cool, the sight of her tilting her head produced an enormous sense of incongruity.
"How can you be certain?"
"Mm. Who knows."
In any case, I pushed back the hood I had been wearing. With my long-restricted field of view opened up, some of the stuffiness lifted.
"Because I believe in myself."
To be precise, I believed that the talent Ya-hwi showed in the original remained in me too.
The quality by which, his talent being so outstanding, he produced Grade 9 with Grade 1...... to put it in easy terms, produced the output of an S-Grade Phantasm with an R-Grade Phantasm.
"......You are overflowing with confidence."
"Am I? But there's no helping it. I have nowhere to put my trust except myself."
Producing S-Grade Phantasm output with an R-Grade Phantasm was something even the original Seong-gwon could not do. At most she managed S-Grade output with an A-Grade, and that was all.
And even that had those around her praising her as remarkable.
"Nobody believes in me, so if even I didn't believe in me, that'd be a little sad."
Of course, the reason the original Ya-hwi contracted only with low-grade Phantasms despite this much of a talent gap was that he was a death row convict.
The more I chewed on it, the more it could not help being a truly lamentable point. If not for the constraint of being a death row convict, the original Ya-hwi would never have had to choose sacrifice for reasons of insufficient firepower.
"And well......."
In any case, for these reasons there is no chance I fail today's exam. There will not be.
"And even in the one-in-ten-thousand case that I do fail, I'm fine."
But even supposing that quality was not in me now, and I failed because of it, it would not matter much to me. It would be a little disappointing, but put another way, should I say it would stop at exactly that much?
"Because I think I'll push my way through even that moment somehow."
After all, even if I failed this exam there was still a way forward. Because there was a setting that the Hwadam Army, being so short on talent, would try to put you to use in either a specialist technical post or administrative work as long as you sat through the final exam.
In other words, even if I failed this exam, I could still enlist in the Hwadam Army itself.
This was precisely the advantage of one who holds information. Because I knew things, my worries were lightened bit by bit.
'Of course, if I fail this exam I won't get the dormitory.......'
Well. In that case, if I grab hold of whoever's in charge and lay out my whole situation, wouldn't the Hwadam Army, mad as it is for securing manpower, do something about it? On top of that I killed a Lizard Man with nothing but a Swiss Army knife? Are they really going to let talent like that slip away?
Rather than worrying about a future that had not even arrived, I first thawed my frozen hands and feet with my breath. As the blood began to circulate, my limbs prickled all over.
"......That is impressive."
"What is."
"Just because."
This time it was my turn to tilt my head. It was because I could not tell what point she was admiring.
Still, well, thinking of it as acknowledgment from 'Seong-gwon,' it did not feel bad. Head still tilted, I simply grinned.
"Gather up! From here we move by vehicle!"
And then, at last, the departure time came.
Seong-gwon and I followed the guide's instructions and moved to the vehicles. In the process I thought I met the eyes of the administrator standing at the front gate, but that person could no longer stop me.
The vehicle departed, and over the course of an hour we reached the testing site designated by the Hwadam Military Academy.
"The examination begins immediately. Everyone, take the notepad and pen you were issued and follow the guidance in order."
At last, it was the examination.