“Welcome, everyone, to my live show!” a retro-style guy on stage shouted with a grin plastered across his face.
“Now, all together: HEY!” He waved his arms, trying to infect the hall with his enthusiasm.
The gathered crowd of prospective U.A. students had no desire to catch his enthusiasm.
The well-known hero’s call went unanswered.
He wasn’t surprised at all.
Ryota involuntarily winced from a slight jab of secondhand embarrassment.
In the past, he would have facepalmed.
But his image as a low-emotion, serious genius had become so ingrained in the isekai’d guy’s very being that even his reflexive actions were now made with an eye on his current behavior model.
“Goosebumps are running down my spine, listeners!” the hero continued to rant.
Ryota was seriously considering cutting off the sound coming from the stage with his vector control.
It seemed like a pretty good idea.
“Excellent, examinees.” A dramatic pause.
“I’m going to tell you the ins and outs of what’s about to happen! Are you READY?”
There probably should have been some kind of response from the listeners.
But the crowd was clearly experiencing even more acute attacks of embarrassment than Ryota, who was more experienced in all areas.
“YEAHH!”
But even this time, Present Mic wasn’t at all bothered by the audience’s lack of reaction.
This guy was clearly getting off on his own voice.
He didn’t need anyone’s applause.
Present Mic.
A tall man with light hair styled into a “ninth wave” haircut and matching mustache.
Yes, those very same universal pass mustaches.
Yellow glasses on his eyes, ripped off from Kamina from Gurren Lagann.
Otherwise, his costume was pure retro with elements of heavy metal, expressed in the metal spikes on the shoulders of his black leather jacket.
Given his somewhat slender build and the overall impression of his appearance, calling him anything other than “old guy” or “old man” somehow felt wrong.
An interesting style.
“Now, pay attention, listeners!” the hero finally got down to specifics.
“We will test your courage with a ten-minute race through an exact copy of one of the city’s districts! You can bring ANYTHING you want!”
‘Why, I wonder, is he only mentioning this now?
Or did I not read the brochure carefully enough?’ Ryota thought lazily.
‘As for the rest…
Time is ten minutes.
The area is a city district, at minimum.
The number of participants…’ He ran his eyes over everyone sitting there.
‘Two hundred seventy-two people.’
“Everyone gather at the designated place after the presentation, got it?” Present Mic continued.
Even as Ryota’s thoughts, along with counting all the applicants, took less than a second, the guy didn’t miss a word of what the hero was saying from the podium.
“O.K.?”
Silence again.
No response.
But this time, such a manner of presentation no longer felt strange.
It was more of a feeling like, “when will this end?” If he’s trying to relieve tension and nervousness in the children, he’s good at it.
“We’ll scatter a bunch of ‘Villains’ all over the battlefield! THREE variations! THREE levels of power! The number of POINTS corresponds to the STRENGTH of the villain! Use your individual abilities and destroy as many villains as you can. YOUR TASK is to score the highest number of points!” The hero continued to splash enthusiasm.
But this time, his efforts didn’t go unnoticed.
Whispers and stirrings began among the students.
“And don’t even think about attacking other participants or using some anti-hero device, because that’s against the rules, got it?”
Again, silence was the answer.
It seemed like this time it would be the same as before.
Mic was already opening his mouth to continue when a voice rang out from the stands.
“Excuse me, may I ask a question?”
Judging by the look of utter amazement that appeared on the hero’s face at that shout from the audience, he had completely forgotten that he wasn’t alone.
He looked as if one of the chairs had just spoken to him.
Ryota shifted his gaze to the guy who had stood up.
Something clicked in his head.
It just so happened that over the eight years of living in the new world, with all its worries and problems, most of the details of the canon had faded from his memory.
He still remembered the main characters, a little about their personalities, and the general direction of the plot.
But little things like “who?”, “where?”, “how?”, “when?” were gone.
Iida Tenya.
In reality, his figure was even more imposing than in Ryota’s memories from the anime.
In height and build, the guy somewhat resembled the isekai’d guy’s past body, except a little shorter, still a schoolboy.
Pedantic to the point of idiocy and equally idiotic in his seriousness.
He had a freaking engine in his legs that worked on freaking unknown principles.
He admired his brother and cat girls… hmm, or was that not from the anime?
“The information sheet actually lists four types of villains! Such a blunder would be a great embarrassment for a national-level academy like U.A.! The reason we’re all sitting here is that we’re seeking guidance on the path to becoming exemplary heroes!” The guy shouted in one breath, never changing his intonation.
“Furthermore, what’s with you?” He suddenly turned sharply to the left.
Apparently, the fact that a normal person sometimes needs to inhale was unknown to this weirdo.
“Yes, you, the curly-haired one!” Making sure he had the attention of the person he was addressing, Iida frowned menacingly, crushing the poor guy, invisible to Ryota due to the crowd, with his gaze.
“Could you please sit still? You’re distracting! If you think U.A. is a place for entertainment, then just leave this hall already!”
Ryota didn’t hear the boy’s answer.
Despite the oppressive silence in the auditorium, the guy either didn’t bother to say anything or said it very quietly.
“All right! Thanks for the segue! Much appreciated, examinee number 7111!” Mic continued to preach, as if the recent scene hadn’t happened at all.
“The fourth type of villain you’ll face is WORTH ZERO POINTS! Let’s call them ‘ARENA TRAPS’! Has anyone ever played Super Mario Brothers? Remember those creatures that fall on you from above? You’ll have those in every zone! THE MORE PEOPLE AROUND THEM, THE MORE THEY RAMPAGE!”
The hall buzzed lazily, discussing the new information.
Comments about similarities to a video game and that it sounded easy enough could be heard.
“THANK YOU VERY MUCH! FORGIVE MY RUDENESS!” The shout made all the examinees flinch and turn toward the source of the noise.
They predictably saw the massive figure of Iida, now bent in an apologetic bow.
‘A perfect ninety degrees…
What a crazy world.’ Ryota twitched his eyelid slightly and hurriedly averted his gaze from the psychedelic sight.
“Well… I’VE HAD ENOUGH! LET’S MOVE ON TO THE MAIN EVENT, ‘PLUS ULTRA’! Enjoy the anticipation of the trials!” His enthusiasm overflowing, Present Mic applauded himself.
The hall met the end of the speech with its usual silence.
***
Ryota thoughtfully looked at the model buildings ahead.
From his position, it was hard to gauge the full scale of the work done, but it was clearly impressive.
‘Maybe these constructions are someone’s Quirk?
Otherwise, you’d never have the budget for this kind of thing every year…
Though, I don’t think the kids would have enough energy to completely demolish the district, so there’s not much to rebuild, really.’ He thought.
‘Just touch it up, repair it a bit, and that’s it.’
Looking more closely, Ryota saw no evidence that his assumption was correct.
The buildings looked brand new.
However, that wasn’t proof.
Of course, they’d try to polish up the part of the training ground where the examinees started.
But that didn’t mean it was like that everywhere.
Moreover, it was very unlikely that anyone, in a fit of battle fury, would notice the “roughness” in the repairs of the model houses.
Ryota became so interested in this question that some very energetic friction between students passed him by entirely.
He only vaguely noticed a clearly panicking guy with a bush on his head.
The protagonist, apparently.
Not that it mattered.
Even back when he was Samuel and watching the MHA anime, Ryota liked the universe itself and some individual characters more.
The protagonist, Midoriya… let’s be honest, as a shonen protagonist, he was pretty weak.
Maybe it was a matter of personal preference or the guy’s age at the time of watching.
Or both.
After all, his love for anime had been nurtured by shows like Bleach, Death Note, and Hunter x Hunter.
They had somewhat different motivations and character types.
Later, to broaden his horizons, he tried to watch Naruto and One Piece.
Let’s just say it didn’t go well.
Not because they weren’t interesting, but because they were too long.
That’s when he first became interested in manga.
Reading was much faster than watching, and without filler.
But that’s another story.
The point is, young Midoriya didn’t impress him.
All he had was a clearly author-mandated, unjustified willpower, a pain threshold like a veteran marine, and a whole bunch of complexes.
As he had said many times before, he was pretty weak.
“STAAAAART!” The now-familiar voice of Present Mic rang out.
A mental stopwatch began ticking in the guy’s head.
While the students tried to recover from the completely unexpected start, Ryota, paying no attention to his surroundings, sank into his Personal Reality.
‘Set starting point.
Set value to zero.
Form a three-dimensional coordinate grid.
Mark obstacles.
Set a variable, assign value “Student”.
Repeat two hundred seventy-one times, designate variables as an array.
Calculate trajectory.
Fix.
Interpolate considering obstacles.
Set correspondence Variable “Student [1…272]” = Obstacle.
Proceed with execution.’
Less than a moment.
The voice of Japan’s loudest hero hadn’t even fully faded when Ryota, blasting everyone around him with a shockwave caused by breaking the sound barrier, simply vanished.
The already stunned children simply froze in shock for a good ten seconds.
Then a shout came from the crowd: “ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND? DIE!” The suddenly awakened crowd of students rushed to dismantle the robots (which were imitating villains) for spare parts.
Surprisingly, despite the very fast start of one examinee, the children didn’t encounter a single busted hunk of metal along the way.
That wasn’t surprising.
At that moment, Ryota, having already risen a hundred meters above the training ground, had spotted the boundaries of the zone and rushed to the area furthest from where everyone else had started.
This was his compromise with himself.
The robots had “spawned” just as well there as at the start.
But competition was completely absent at first.
So he could score more than enough points and not ruin the canon.
Ryota didn’t really care about the canon, but ruining Midoriya’s life didn’t appeal to him.
In the anime, he had only the typical archetypal character of a whiny wimp with an internal furnace of endurance.
But here, in reality…
Knowing his story, depriving the guy of the chance to follow his dream would be a dick move.
At the same time, Ryota confirmed the correctness of his observations.
In the far corners of the district, the houses looked noticeably less polished than at the main entrance.
Inside, they were even worse.
They were slacking, comrades.
Tearing his gaze away from the plaster that crumbled from the slightest vibration, Ryota turned to the robot that had been actively trying to gouge him out from under his vector shield for a good five seconds.
A noble endeavor, but stupid.
It was still intact only because, knowing there would be a bunch of students around with poor control over their Quirks, Ryota didn’t want to set the vector shield to 180-degree reflection mode.
Instead, he did something much more elegant.
The vector wasn’t reflected anywhere.
It was simply nullified to zero.
All accumulated kinetic energy, all impulse, EVERYTHING was instantly canceled upon contact with the shield if the vector was dangerous to the user.
Such shield functionality was clearly not originally planned by Accelerator.
And this level of vector manipulation somewhat exceeded the simple “change direction plus amplify.” But the very same training to boost his AIM field helped.
There was much more benefit from that than might appear at first glance.
The robot itself was unimpressive.
Bulky and clumsy, but at the same time quite light and fragile.
An ordinary, well-trained person could dismantle such a thing into spare parts without any trouble, let alone someone with a useful Quirk.
Another swing of the tin can.
This time, its fist didn’t land on the invisible film.
It landed directly on the guy’s outstretched index finger.
A moment, and the robot abruptly rethought the concept of three-dimensionality, completely transforming into 2D.
A sharp, eighteen-fold increase in the vector of gravity didn’t go unnoticed by this marvel of engineering.
A thiiiiin metal pancake was now spread out over the cracked asphalt.
Luckily, the gravity amplification effect targeted the object, not the area.
So nothing irreparable happened.
The banal difference in density at the speeds used did the trick.
Ryota hadn’t wasted his last few years in vain.
He had managed to outline some boundaries for himself of what was allowed.
Dismissively brushing an invisible speck of dust off his shoulder (image! The main thing is to play the part!), he briskly moved toward the next clumsy tin can.
One famously butt-hurt Mr. Explosion would have to put in a bit more effort than in canon to score enough villain points to take first place.