A year passed by like a bullet.
Over the past year, the three thousand-odd intern employees selected from Old Earth had lodged together at the Shinseong Group's Complex Center, erected in Sangam-dong, Mapo District, and devoted themselves to harsh training all day long.
It was said that long ago, a World Cup stadium had stood on the site of this Complex Center.
But since the World Cup itself had vanished after the Great Cataclysm, adolescents of Han-eol's age did not even know its origin.
In any case, Han-eol, along with his fellow recruits whose heads had all been shaved bald by obligation, had rolled and rolled again at the Complex Center every single day.
And on April 28, one year later, they were at last to undergo their final assessment.
The assessment events were quite varied.
The Shinseong Group had decided to measure ten stats of the intern employees through nine test events.
Of course, the group's Human Resources Team had distributed the following chart to every intern employee in advance, announcing which stats the subjects would be evaluated on.
1. Stamina/Endurance (Stamina Point)
- Sprinting at full speed down a rough road while dragging a tire
2. Speed/Agility (Move Point)
- Calculated by combining the results of tests 1, 3, 5, 7, and 8
3. Vitality (Health Point)
- Receiving treatment from a healing-type ability-holder while in a state of blood loss
4. Attack Power (Striking Power)
- One-on-one combat against a demon beast inside a hologram
5. Defense Power (Defensive Power)
- Enduring tennis balls striking the bare body
6. Fire Resistance (Fire Resistance)
- Passing through blazing flames
7. Cold Resistance (Cold Resistance)
- Enduring for a long period while buried in a pit of ice
8. Poison Resistance (Poison Resistance)
- Crossing a single-log bridge and back after being injected with a neurotoxin
- Passing through a maze filled with chemical warfare gas
9. Lightning Resistance (Lightning Resistance)
- Enduring for a long period in a state of electrocution
10. Mental Strength (Mental Strength)
- Calculated by combining the results of test events 1 through 9
'Please!'
The instant Han-eol looked at the chart, his heart plunged.
Stamina/Endurance.
This stat was a problem right from the start.
Through the past year of live-in training, Han-eol had caught on that his own stamina ranked in the lower tier among his fellow recruits.
The same went for the Speed/Agility stat. No matter how hard Han-eol gritted his teeth and tried, his speed and agility could not escape the lower tier.
Attack Power was worse than these, with Han-eol's position nearly the very bottom among his fellow recruits.
Defense Power at least seemed to hover somewhere around the middle tier.
His various resistances were positioned somewhere between the middle and lower tiers.
Only Han-eol's Mental Strength, however, went beyond the upper tier and was preeminent even among the three thousand-odd interns.
'Only one decent thing out of ten stats? This is too much.'
Han-eol grew afraid. From the standpoint of Han-eol, who regarded safety and self-preservation as his highest priorities, this state of affairs was in no way reassuring.
'Mid-Land is by no means heaven.'
Now Han-eol, too, had grasped reality.
If Han-eol was to survive safely in Mid-Land Seoul, he would first have to enter the Highland and awaken a usable ability.
Then he would need to survive at least three years and peel off the Rookie label.
'I heard that once you get out of Rookie status, you can apply for a desk position. For example, if I get assigned somewhere like the Human Resources Team, my life won't be in danger anymore, will it?'
This was Han-eol's hope.
For that to happen, he would first have to break through odds as thin as one in a hundred and survive three years.
And yet somehow he had an ominous feeling right from the outset.
'Would those ten stats on the chart have been created for no reason?'
Han-eol judged that there was no way that was the case.
For instance, the fact that the Shinseong Group measured the interns' Fire Resistance, Cold Resistance, Poison Resistance, and Lightning Resistance was, put another way, clearly a reflection of the fact that the Highland's natural environment held many seas of fire, frigid zones, thunder-lightning regions, and poison zones.
'No good. This won't do as it is.'
Han-eol bit down hard on his lower lip.
Even so, it was not as though there was no hope at all.
Lee Jae-in, the Head of Human Resources with the horn-rimmed glasses, came up onto a high platform, swept his gaze across the intern employees lined up neatly in ranks, and breathed hope into them.
"There is no need to be disappointed if today's stat measurements come out poorly. The stats measured before awakening a supernatural ability carry little meaning."
"Aaah!"
The moment they heard Lee Jae-in's words, exclamations mixed with relief burst out among the shaven-headed interns.
'Whew, what a relief.'
Han-eol, too, felt considerably more at ease.
Lee Jae-in continued his address.
"Then why are we conducting such measurements today? It is merely so that we may compare how much your stats have grown after you return from the Highland. So all of you, approach the tests with an easy mind."
"Yes, understood."
Han-eol and the other interns tilted their waists slightly back and answered so loudly that their throats stood out.
***
Afterward, the tests proceeded simultaneously at nine testing grounds.
Han-eol went first to testing ground 9 and had his Lightning Resistance measured.
Clack.
When Han-eol sat down in the chair, something like handcuffs fastened themselves around both his wrists and his ankles. Several measurement patches were plastered thickly over Han-eol's close-shaved skull and chest.
Next, high-voltage electricity abruptly flowed in through the cuffs.
A searing shock from the top of his head to the tips of his toes.
'Gkk!'
Han-eol's head snapped back at a ninety-degree angle.
Han-eol thought his heart was going to stop right then and there. The smell of burning bristle wafted thickly from Han-eol's hair. The blood vessels in his eyes burst, staining the whites of his eyeballs a livid red. Immediately Han-eol's heartbeat began to trace an abnormal waveform.
At that, the electricity was cut off in time.
"Grrkh―."
Han-eol slumped limply, drool trickling from his mouth.
The examiner entered the number displayed on the monitor into his terminal.
3.
This was the Lightning Resistance stat Han-eol had received.
The Shinseong Group's Human Resources Team had set the Lightning Resistance stat of the person who endured electrocution best, using ordinary people without abilities as the baseline, at 10.
Next, they had placed the stat of a newborn infant at 1.
The average resistance of a man in his twenties was set at 5.
Therefore the figure of 3 that Han-eol had received meant that his Lightning Resistance stat was considerably lower than the average of his competitors.
'Haa. I'm done for.'
Sunk in despair, Han-eol squeezed his eyes shut.
"Next."
The examiner jerked his chin expressionlessly.
"Yes, sir."
Han-eol scrambled to pick up his examination slip and moved to testing ground 1.
A short while later, Han-eol attached measurement patches to his head and heart and sprinted at full speed down an unpaved road with a heavy tire dragging behind him.
His muscles convulse and quiver. The color drains from his face. His bones feel as if they will be crushed to pieces.
Han-eol truly gave it his very best.
And yet the number came up as 3 again.
This meant that Han-eol's Stamina/Endurance did not even reach the average of a man in his twenties.
'Damn it.'
Han-eol's face turned sallow.
Next was testing ground 2's turn.
Somehow this place gave off the feeling of a blood-draw room.
When his turn came, Han-eol stepped inside the curtain.
Inside sat a middle-aged woman dressed in white like a nurse, who crooked her finger toward Han-eol.
Han-eol sat down facing her and held out his left arm.
"This will hurt a little."
The middle-aged woman gripped Han-eol's hand tightly and delivered her warning.
Han-eol, being on the fearful side, felt he would not be able to bring himself to watch blood spurting out and wanted to turn his head aside.
But if he showed something as cowardly as that here, his evaluation score might be docked.
At this thought, Han-eol set his gaze forward again.
Then the middle-aged woman's soul came into Han-eol's sight.
However, inside that soul there was no Image at all.
'What? This lady is clearly an ability-holder, but there's no Image? Could it be that the Image and supernatural abilities have nothing to do with each other?'
This was the sound of a thunderbolt dropping from a clear sky. It was the sound of Han-eol's one and only thread of hope snapping wretchedly apart.
His sense of despair was so great that Han-eol did not even register the middle-aged woman swiftly raising a scalpel and cutting his wrist.
The artery gapes open and blood surges up like a fountain.
'Uwah?'
It was as Han-eol jolted in shock and tried to stand.
"Do not move!"
The middle-aged woman abruptly raised her voice.
Han-eol forcibly settled his trembling nerves and drew deep breaths, hoo, hoo.
In the meantime, the middle-aged woman pressed down hard on Han-eol's wound with both hands and began treatment. Warm light burst explosively from her hands.
Han-eol, too, finally found some peace of mind.
Not long after the light was injected, the bleeding at Han-eol's wound stopped as if by a miracle. The gash from the blade closed over rapidly.
Before long, the measurement patches attached to Han-eol's head and chest transmitted a stable waveform.
"Hoh?"
The middle-aged woman looked Han-eol over with a curious light in her eyes.
A moment later, she conveyed a positive result to Han-eol.
"The regeneration at the wound site is exceptionally fast. And the rate at which your vitality refills is out of the ordinary too. The test result is 8."
"8? An 8?"
Han-eol could not believe it.
An 8 was practically a top-tier figure.
The middle-aged woman nodded along with a gentle smile.
"Vitality stat 8, that is correct. Now move along to the next testing ground."
"Yes, ma'am. Understood. Thank you."
Han-eol bobbed his head at her repeatedly, then left the testing ground.
'Could it be that I'm going to awaken as a healer type? Then that would be a jackpot. If I become a healer, not only am I treated well, I get to stay safely in the rear.'
Han-eol's face, which had been gloomy only moments before, shone brightly again.
But it did not take very long for that face to turn the color of dirt once more.
***
At the next testing ground, the instant Han-eol pulled the VR headset over his face, a demon beast appeared along with an ear-splitting roar.
The demon beast, which had a grotesquely long neck and hook-shaped claws exceeding a full forty centimeters, came charging bodily at Han-eol at tremendous speed.
"Uh, uh?"
Han-eol landed on his backside with a dazed sound.
"What is that kid?"
Immediately the hairy examiner's face crumpled into a scowl.
As Han-eol tumbled this way and that with the VR headset on, the examiner's expression grew steadily more grim.
In the end, Han-eol was eliminated from the Attack Power test in the shortest time of all his fellow recruits. He had not managed a single proper attack.
2.
This was precisely the Attack Power stat Han-eol received.
The Attack Power of a newborn infant was 1.
From this alone it was laid bare just how wretched Han-eol's Attack Power was.
"Haaah."
Han-eol was too ashamed to lift his head.
It was at the next testing ground that Han-eol, whose spirits had sunk, lifted his head high again.
Upon entering testing ground 4, he saw machine guns installed to the front, back, left, and right.
When Han-eol raised both arms in a guard and hunched his body, the test soon began. Four machine guns fired tennis balls at Han-eol as if spewing flame.
'Krgh. Kgh. Gkk.'
Han-eol took every attack without dodging.
This was not a test to check evasion ability. He was not permitted to move his body.
While Han-eol endured with grit, the measurement patches attached to his head and chest transmitted the results of measuring his bodily waveforms.
After it ended, the number 6 appeared on the monitor.
The result meant that Han-eol's Defense Power stat exceeded the average of a man in his twenties.
'Oooh. Not bad. A 6 is usable.'
Han-eol let out a sigh of relief. It seemed that pretending to have a tough hide while running with the thug older boys at the orphanage had paid off at a time like this.
Next, Han-eol passed through flames at testing ground 5.
Han-eol's Fire Resistance was, just like his Lightning Resistance, a mere 3.
Han-eol hung his head low.
Instead, the Cold Resistance tested at testing ground 6 came close to average, earning him a 4.
Han-eol's complexion improved a little.
The results at testing grounds 7 and 8 were even more encouraging.
Even in a state where his head was spinning from the neurotoxin injection, Han-eol succeeded in crossing the narrow single-log bridge and back all the way to the end.
Next, at testing ground 8, he made it through a maze filled with poison gas.
Both tests had taken him a little time, but he had completed them without giving up.
Thanks to that, Han-eol's Poison Resistance stat came in at 6, above average.
Furthermore, from the evaluation results of testing grounds 1, 3, 5, 7, and 8, Han-eol's Speed/Agility stat was calculated and displayed on the monitor.
The result was 4.
Below average, but still higher than his Attack Power, Stamina/Endurance, Fire Resistance, and Lightning Resistance.
Lastly, all the test results were combined to calculate Han-eol's Mental Strength.
This stat, called Mental Strength in English, quantified the emotions the test subject's brain felt over the course of the nine evaluations, such as fear and hardship, and then determined the height or lowness of the score according to how quickly the subject overcame them and maintained composure.
The score Han-eol received here was a perfect 10.
Among his fellow recruits, there was no one whose Mental Strength stat was higher than Han-eol's.
Even across the entirety of the historical data the Shinseong Group had collected, people whose capacity to hold their mental state together was as outstanding as Han-eol's were rare.
'Ooooh, excellent.'
Han-eol finally broke into a wide grin.