In 《Codename: Baby》, the 〈Phantasms〉 that fill the role of superpowers were not beings just anyone could see.
As is the case with the elementals, fairies, and apparitions that appear in most works, Phantasms too could only be perceived by those with an innate quality, that is, 〈Phantasm Aptitude〉.
So this country, the Republic of Korea, administered something called the 〈Phantasm Aptitude Examination〉 to every sixteen-year-old citizen in the nation.
The reason it had to be sixteen was a single one. Every human is fundamentally born with Phantasm Aptitude, but that talent plummets around the age of fifteen.
Forming a contract with a Phantasm in advance had no real effect either. If anything, it only broke the contract or ate away at the Phantasm's power.
Therefore, sixteen. The Phantasm Aptitude Examination was carried out at the age where it had been established that the talent identified would never disappear.
Granting those judged to have Phantasm Aptitude the qualification to enlist in the Hwadam Army was a bonus.
"Please, please let me pass......."
"Ah, my heart is trembling......."
But having Phantasm Aptitude did not mean you could enlist unconditionally.
More precisely, entering the regular Hwadam Military Academy was easy, but entering the higher institution called the Hwadam 'Special' Military Academy required additional conditions.
"Passing just the third exam makes it Special...... please, Special......!"
"Please let me get into the Mobile Special Task Force, please......!"
Sit all of the first, second, and third examinations, and pass the final third examination above the standard value.
Only then could you enter the Hwadam Special Military Academy. Only then could you be among the personnel provided a dormitory the moment they passed.
That was the reason I had to pass today's examination if at all possible. Same-day dormitory provision was a privilege granted only to those who passed for the Special Military Academy.
"Next, prepare to enter."
For the record, the first and second examinations had been sat by the 〈Ya-hwi〉 from before I was possessed into him. It was possible because Phantasm Aptitude Examination results were delivered only to the person themselves.
Of course, delivered only to the person in word; in reality rumors tended to spread quietly. And it did not seem likely things had been much different in Ya-hwi's case.
In that respect, my current inference was that even Ya-hwi being able to sit the first and second examinations might have been some picture painted by the orphanage. Leaving the hope that he might escape untouched, and then, when that yearning reached its very peak, breaking it utterly...... a picture something like that.
Honestly, it made no sense otherwise. Since the first and second examinations also had to be taken by skipping school, not being found out was extremely difficult.
"Depart."
In any case, it was now Seong-gwon's turn to go in. It was an examination in groups of four, and of all things we had been split into different groups by a single tick.
I stared at the one stepping forward to enter. The red hair turned back to look at me once, then left the indoor gymnasium that served as the temporary waiting area together with her groupmates.
'She'll probably go into the annex prepared outside. That's how it was in the comic too.'
Unlike the first examination, which was a written test, or the second, which was a physical fitness assessment, the third was an examination that checked Phantasm Aptitude. An examination similar to the Phantasm Aptitude Examination taken at sixteen, but of greater intensity.
'They said the same thing about recording every landscape you see and every object you encounter while passing through the testing site in the notepad you were issued...... so the 〈Rear World〉 must be artificially formed inside the annex after all.'
If the examination taken at sixteen simply grasps the presence or absence of Phantasm Aptitude, the purpose of this examination is to measure its scale.
Beyond whether witnessing Phantasms is possible, this examination checks how much you can witness and interact with.
And that could be measured simply by walking around inside the annex. Considering that my physical condition was practically at its worst, that was a truly fortunate factor.
'It's a relief the method is the same even fifteen years before the original's baseline. If it were different I'd have been a little worried.'
I had slept more or less enough during the hour of travel. My dry throat I had somehow filled with the water coolers visible at the waiting area and after arriving at the testing site.
But the aftereffects of having practically stayed up all night outdoors were not small. My body shivered and my hands and feet were still numb. Better than having no sensation, but not good news.
"Next!"
At least it was not an examination that used the body. After about thirty minutes passed, it was my group's turn to enter.
I moved to the annex following the guidance of the proctors assisting the examination. My barely warmed body cooled again as I moved.
I raised my hands and blew warm breath on them. The notepad and pen I had been issued got slightly in the way of my breath.
Creak.
Meanwhile the annex door opened. The interior was so strangely full of light that the scene inside was hard to make out.
"Enter."
"Yes, sir......!"
"Yes!"
All four examinees including myself went inside.
The instant I crossed the threshold of the door, the light that had been stabbing at my eyes so unnaturally withdrew. The interior scene drove itself into my eyes.
"......Oh."
I blinked. There was no helping it.
There was too much, far too much to see.
'This seems somehow worse than what was depicted in the comic.'
The comic 《Codename: Baby》 began from the protagonist 〈Baek San〉's third examination. Thanks to that I knew the scene of the testing site as it appeared from the protagonist's point of view.
It was not on this level.
'This is...... a level where it's hard even to walk.'
If I had not known about the Rear World and the contents of the examination, I would have doubted whether this was the testing site, that is, the interior of a building at all.
That was how unusual the scene before me was.
Rather than the interior of a building, this was closer to an extravagantly decorated cloister garden. And a garden where the pots and flowers laid across the floor were so numerous it was hard even to walk.
'There was mention that Ya-hwi's talent was greater than the protagonist's, but.......'
I had not known it would be to this degree.
For now I raised the notepad.
'At this level I can set aside worrying about passing.'
But maybe because there was too much to write. If anything, my problem was what to write first.
〔Directly ahead from the entrance, a mud wall covered in flowers and vines. On both sides, trees and vines grow so densely that passage looks difficult.
The flowers covering the mud wall are pink, white, yellow and so on, various in color and kind, but I do not know their names. Between the walls there is an arch-shaped doorway. The size is just right for one adult to pass through.
To the left of the arched doorway hangs a wall lamp of classical design. On the floor there is a stone path made of dressed stones of irregular size, laid so as to pass through that doorway.
Beside the stone path it is full of flowering plants, shrubbery, and pots. Likewise the kinds of flowers cannot be identified. In among the plants there is one sword, a small table on which a conch and letter paper are placed, and a garden birdcage containing a purple stone fragment (the transparent one presumed to be a crystal type). But why on earth is there a conch〕
My stream of consciousness had spilled out without my thinking about it. I stared at the letters written in the notepad.
Was it all right to scratch it out and rewrite, or was it better to leave it in question form and not leave any scratch-out marks?
I glared at the notepad with a somewhat serious face.
"Why is it taking so long?"
"Hm? Ah, sorry."
Then a groupmate who had come in with me pressed me. It seemed I had put too much effort into the description.
I quickly wrapped up my writing.
"Let's go."
The groupmate who had unhesitatingly taken the lead on entering went ahead this time too. Then his foot trod mercilessly on a pot and a flowering plant. Or did it?
'......It looked like it passed right through just now.'
The plant that groupmate had stepped on was perfectly fine. It was questionable whether it had been stepped on at all.
Because at the moment the groupmate's foot met the plant, the plant was neither pushed aside nor pressed down but simply 'overlapped' with the groupmate's foot.
For a moment I wondered whether I was looking at the screen of a 3D graphics game.
'So in the end, even with Phantasm Aptitude, what you can actually see and touch differs this much.......'
Just in case, I lightly nudged a plant in my path as I went.
Slide. It was pushed aside normally. The feel of contact with the grass came through clearly past my shoe as well.
"There's nothing here, so what on earth are we supposed to be looking at and writing down......"
The groupmate walking ahead muttered. The others merely refrained from saying it; their walking manner was growing steadily less wholesome.
The three of them advanced without hesitation, straight into the mud wall, and passed through it just like that. To them that mud wall 'did not exist.'
'Going while writing is going to take a long time.'
Would they complain about me following late, then? Well, not my business.
I moved my hand quickly. Their nagging was not really a part I needed to accommodate, but I did want to reduce the incidents of being picked on.
Tap. Had I walked forward while writing? I felt something touch my foot.
"......?"
Where I looked down, there was a transparent purple stone fragment. It seemed to be the same kind as the one in the birdcage...... had this been on the floor as well?
I tilted my head and finished by only adding a line to the notepad. By then my feet were already in front of the arched doorway in the mud wall.
Slide.
I put my hand against the frame that formed the arch, as if leaning on it. The texture of the mud wall was truly vivid. Dew fell now and then from the grass growing up the mud wall, wetting the bridge of my nose and the crown of my head.
'They've already gotten that far.'
Since nothing was visible or tangible to them, they seemed to have gone by the shortest route. Although for me to go that way I would have to climb over an enormous number of fountains, statues, and shrubbery hedges that came up to my chest.
'There was no clause saying all four have to leave together at the same time, so it shouldn't matter.'
If I omitted descriptions to catch up with them my score would be docked, and I could hardly do that.
Ignoring the ones going on ahead, I turned my head slowly to examine the garden's structure.
Then all at once, at a strange sensation, I fixed my gaze. Nothing but shrubbery and cloister pillars was visible in my field of view, yet somehow I could not take my eyes away.
It was as if something were there. I glared at that spot doggedly.
"Hey, you! Why aren't you coming? Aren't you going to leave? Holding out here isn't going to get you anywhere, you know?"
Then one of the groupmates ahead called me. Whether they were standing overlapped with objects or what, their figures did not even enter my field of view. It was a truly strange sensation.
"......Sorry, go on ahead. It looks like it's going to take me a little time."
"What?"
"From where I stand there's a fair bit to write."
"There's nothing at all here, so what is there to wri——"
"Mm. Even looking at the same thing, people's subjectivity is bound to differ."
I hated conflict breaking out. I waved my hand with a bright smile. Something like a few scoffs, "Hah," was audible.
"Acting like a writer isn't going to get you a pass."
"Thanks for the advice. I'll keep it in mind."
One groupmate left a curt remark behind and departed. Even with nothing visible I could tell, because I heard the footsteps growing distant.
The moment I heard them moving away, I focused on the notepad again. To write it all down I had to keep my pen moving diligently.
Tap.
But when I took one step forward, I again felt something touch my shoe.
I unthinkingly lowered my head that way. The purple stone fragment I had seen earlier and the conch that had been on the table were, for some reason, at my feet again.
'That's a bit strange.'
I know because I looked carefully. Until just now, no purple stone fragment or conch had been lying here.
My hand picked the two of them up. When I gripped the stone fragment I had the feeling of a faint light wavering inside it; when I picked up the conch, a faint sound of a conch horn came to me.
Considering that this place, artificially formed though it might be, was plainly the Rear World, the chance of it being an illusion was low.
'Then these are Phantasms, I suppose.'
Phantasms did not exist only in living forms. So calling them object-type Phantasms made rough sense.
My hands turned the stone fragment and the conch this way and that to catch the light.
Considering the contents I had seen in the comic and the fan book, the purple stone fragment seemed to be a Ghost-Warning Stone. The conch...... I was not certain, but it looked like a High Mountain Conch Bee.
"Once you have finished checking them, put them back down on the floor."
Just then a voice that was neither mine nor my groupmates' cut in.
My gaze reflexively turned toward the place where I had felt the incongruity earlier. I had not noticed it from the direction of the sound.
No, that had some influence too...... but before judging by sound, the intuition that it would be that spot came first.
"Taking them out with you means disqualification."
Correct.
A person popped out from the place where I had felt that strange sensation. The way the surrounding scenery warped slightly as they came walking out, it was as if they had been hiding there.
"......Examiner?"
"Yes."
Well, whoever was hiding, it only had to not be a Phantasm or something hostile.
The moment I had it confirmed that the person was examination-related, I set the conch and the stone fragment down.
Hmmm. Just before I let go, the two objects vibrated as if voicing complaints. I wondered briefly whether that too had to be written in the notepad.
"Um, Examiner."
"Is there a problem?"
"Not so much a problem as a part I am curious about......"
I first explained the vibration the two objects had just shown, and second, pointed at the whitish smoke drifting around the examiner.
"Should I write that down too?"
The examiner looked at me with slightly startled eyes. Since there had been nothing like this in the comic, I could not make an exact judgment about this reaction. I could only guess that it was probably not a bad thing.
"Write it."
"Yes, sir."
At this rate I could consider the Special Military Academy a settled matter. The protagonist was at a lesser level than me and was still assigned to the Special Military Academy.
With news that lightened my heavy body considerably, my body turned back in the direction it had been advancing. Tap. No sooner had I tried to lift my foot than a faint impact was felt once more. This time it was around my shin.
Only my head turned slightly back.
"Good heavens."
Letting the examiner's cry of shock flow past as background noise, I looked behind me.
There was a single sword there. Since it was buried shallowly in the ground its body had tilted, unable to bear its own weight, and in the process the guard seemed to have knocked against my shin.
I added that to the notepad as well. The proctor looked at me with an indescribable expression.
"Um, Proctor, it would be a problem if I stepped on these, wouldn't it?"
"......As long as it is not deliberate, it is fine."
By the time my walk reached its latter half, the number of object-type Phantasms following after me had swollen to several dozen.
With every single step they knocked against my body as if demanding to be looked at, so there was not a spot below my waistline that was not aching. I really did wonder whether this was right.
'Still, it's the end now.......'
I moved along the path the stone road indicated. The examiner made a sound of "Hm?" around the time I had almost reached the arched doorway leading out of the garden.
"Wait, why are you going there?"
"Yes?"
What are you talking about. Isn't this the path?
"Isn't this the path?"
I pointed at the arched doorway leading out of the garden. As had been the case when I entered the testing site, it was an arched doorway through which the far side could not be seen because the light flowing in from outside was unusually dense.
"Wait, step ba——"
But was that not it? The proctor hurriedly tried to grab me. I recognized the foreboding too and tried to pull my foot back quickly, but by then it was already too late.
Something wound around my forearm. It was such a sudden ambush that there was no reacting at all.
『Why are you over there?』
『Come here.』
"Oh, this is insa——"
Before the sense that I had heard some kind of voice even reached my head, I was dragged straight toward the far side of the arched doorway.
It felt as though my genre had been changed to Ha□ry Po□ter.