Ch.18Written Exam (3)

Eidel worked on the problems with both hands.

His speed was so fast it was hard to believe he was human. He moved so quickly that the rustling sound tickled Zernya’s ears.

‘Ah, shit.’

Zernya, who had turned her head reflexively, almost dropped her pen.

‘What the hell is this guy doing…?’

Her concentration was broken. Once out of her focused state, all she could see was the white exam paper and black letters.

Zernya tried to regain her focus.

It wasn’t working well.

Eidel’s aggro was top-tier. Once she had seen it, she couldn’t help but keep looking his way.

Eidel didn’t stop at simply using both hands. He crossed his arms in an X-shape. With his left hand, he solved the right exam paper, and with his right hand, the left exam paper.

It was a skilled performance like that of a veteran circus performer. He solved problems quickly, making a mockery of them. Zernya’s mental state was also being mocked.

Zernya let out a hollow laugh in disbelief. She widened her eyes, turned her head as far as possible, and buried her face in her exam paper.

She collected herself and focused on the problems. The formulas that had become blurry started to become visible again. Zernya had practiced maintaining concentration even in situations like this. She soon regained her composure.

Ding, ding, diiiing-

The bell signaling the end of the exam rang. Kendra, who had been staring blankly at Eidel, wiped her drool with her sleeve as she stood up.

“Stop! Put your pens down!”

Zernya finally looked directly at Eidel. He had been moving his arms vigorously right until the bell rang.

Could he not have finished everything despite that intensity?

Or was he meticulously checking his work until the end because of his thorough personality?

Neither Zernya nor anyone else could know. One thing was certain: Eidel was a formidable opponent beyond imagination.

‘Well, I’ll still be first anyway.’

As soon as the morning exam ended, students scattered in all directions. It was time to eat. They had one hour.

Eidel’s gaze passed by Zernya and moved to the row behind. Rustila and Seti were talking there.

The next moment, Rustila’s and Eidel’s eyes met. Rustila waved her hand slightly with tired eyes.

‘Dating before even passing the exam? Well, well.’

Zernya clicked her tongue.

Romance is something only lowly men engage in.

Especially for exam takers, romance is like a poisoned chalice. It may shine brightly on the surface, but in reality, it’s just one of many factors that hinder acceptance.

However, Zernya wasn’t quite convinced. The Eidel before her eyes somehow seemed like he would pass. She still lacked information. In any case, his writing skills were excellent.

“Unnie, what’s wrong?”

Seti asked when she realized Rustila was waving. Her head tilted curiously. Rustila waved her hand dismissively, saying it was nothing.

‘Thanks for last time.’

In fact, that’s what Rustila wanted to convey.

Rustila recalled what had happened a month ago. Going to the Rheinland family home, doing a home study, and coincidentally meeting Eidel.

There had been a storm of events, but ultimately, he was a good person. He was just gradually being consumed by madness because an outer god had attached itself to him.

Wasn’t it the same just now?

A person cannot solve problems using both hands simultaneously. That’s like parallel processing in a computer. Since humans can’t be like machines, it must be an outer god classified as “Maxwell’s Forces” that was eroding his brain.

‘I must save him someday.’

It was a moment when Rustila gained one more reason why she needed to be accepted into Stellarium.

“Sigh.”

However, contrary to that, her writing skills weren’t very good.

“Did you do well on the Korean and math exams?”

Seti asked.

“No.”

Rustila shook her head.

“I saw the proctor put tissues on your desk earlier.”

“I think I… messed up.”

Like other students, Rustila desperately wanted to be accepted into Stellarium. If she could just pass, she would be willing to do front rolls every morning to get to school.

But despite her efforts, she felt like she had ruined the morning exam from the start. While solving the Korean reading comprehension, her vision had started spinning. Maybe that’s why she had cried.

But with Seti’s next words, Rustila realized.

“Come to think of it, there was that story in literature today. About soldiers buying time to evacuate citizens from a planet that was being eroded.”

“…Ah.”

The real reason why she had cried.

“It was sad, honestly. If I were Merilda, I would have fled from there. How could she not lose the will to fight even after her limbs were torn off by monsters?”

“…Because that was the only way to save the citizens.”

“I found that admirable. Of course, it’s just fiction. I wonder how many soldiers would actually be like that in a real war.”

Rustila nodded.

That’s right.

Thinking about it again, she had cried while reading that work.

Because the protagonist in that text embodied exactly the kind of soldier she wanted to be. The future she wanted to become. Despite being broken by adversity, they never yielded to the outer gods until the end.

She felt both sadness and respect for that brilliantly burning figure. Rustila wanted to be such a soldier too. Standing on the front lines, slaughtering monsters, protecting this beautiful galaxy.

It’s still a distant story.

A difficult one to achieve.

That’s why, all the more, she had to get into Stellarium.

Because she had made a deal that if she could just pass this academy, her father and mother would no longer interfere with her.

‘I must pass.’

Rustila clenched her fist.

She chatted with Seti over lunch, enjoying a rare moment of freedom. Even the androids monitoring her didn’t tell her what to do during this time. A special day, a rare taste of freedom.

Wishing that such freedom would continue to the end, Rustila completed the afternoon exam as well.

***

The afternoon exam was more straightforward compared to the morning.

That didn’t mean the time-attack nature disappeared. Being equivalent to the elective subjects in the college entrance exam, the time pressure was intense.

Because of this, I had to achieve triple-core beyond dual-core. It was a hellish process of turning myself into a Bitcoin mining rig.

“Ugh.”

My neck was stiff from keeping my head down for over two hours. I put down the third pen that I had rolled up and fixed to my headband.

I could hear people whispering about me around. Kendra, the proctor, couldn’t take her eyes off me.

“Student….”

“Yes?”

“Ah, it’s nothing. Well, there’s no rule against solving problems with a pen stuck in your headband….”

She laughed awkwardly and left with the exam papers. Seeing her rush out, she probably needed to use the bathroom urgently.

“Phew.”

Anyway, the written exam was over.

There’s still the practical test and interview left, but that’s tomorrow’s problem. Today, I plan to just handle my sword a few times and rest calmly.

[─ The ‘God of Wisdom and Curiosity’ is looking forward to seeing how spectacularly you’ll fail the practical evaluation.]

“Tsk.”

As I clicked my tongue at the message displayed by the outer god, someone approached. Silver-white hair. It was Zernya.

“You’re a weirdo.”

She just spat those words and was the first to leave.

Following her, another person with white hair approached me. This time, it was a familiar face. Seti looked up at me and sighed deeply.

“Did you come here to do a comedy show?”

“What?”

I didn’t understand. I tilted my head. Seti glared at me and spoke accusingly.

“Didn’t you hear what the proctor said this morning? That the entrance exam here is no joke. She told us to do our best. But what were you doing? Solving with a pencil stuck in your head? Are you completely crazy?”

“That was the only way I could write all the solutions.”

“Do you think other people only have one hand to solve with? You’re really something else. You completely broke my concentration. I almost had a big problem because of you.”

“No, seriously. That’s unfair.”

If I had just marked the answers, one hand would have been enough. But to aim beyond a high score to a perfect score, or ‘beyond that,’ one hand isn’t enough. That’s the kind of exam it is. An exam where getting a perfect score is like catching a star from the sky.

In other words, there was another reason why I had used three-sword style.

Of course, telling this to Seti would only get me a response like ‘what are you talking about, idiot.’ Unable to explain myself, I just sighed and backed off.

“Let’s go, unnie.”

“I told you, you don’t need to call me unnie….”

“Even if you’re young for your grade, we were born in different years, right? So you’re unnie.”

“Then does Seti call this person oppa too?”

Seti made a dumbfounded expression.

“Oh shit.”

Seti pretended to gag and urged Rustila to leave quickly. However, Rustila didn’t move her feet. She looked at me intently and said:

“…Eidel, right?”

I nodded in response.

“Others might not know, but I do.”

“…?”

“So, hang in there.”

Only then did Rustila move her feet. She gave me a bright smile. It was a warm smile as if the goddess of philanthropy had manifested.

Having heard unexpected words, I was momentarily stunned. So I reflexively blurted out:

“You hang in there too.”

Seti’s expression turned stupid once again.

***

Kendra entered the exam headquarters with the collected answer sheets. She was panting. Her colleague, Karlen, asked indifferently:

“What’s going on?”

“Hey, hey. I just witnessed something incredible.”

“What incident?”

The nosy Kendra couldn’t contain herself. She hurriedly pulled out three answer sheets. The following names were written on the first page of each exam paper:

[Zernya von und zu Trisha Adelbein]

[Seti von Adelbein Rheinland]

[Eidel von Rheinland]

“What a crazy lineup.”

Karlen laughed in surprise.

“I bet more than two final acceptances will come from the exam room you supervised.”

“I think so too.”

“Huh? But that last one, isn’t he that guy?”

Kendra understood what Karlen was referring to.

Eidel von Rheinland. The universal weirdo and the troublemaker of Rheinland. When the rumor that he had applied to Stellarium was confirmed, the exam headquarters had briefly stirred.

“Looking at his school records, he was absent for most of his secondary education, attending only the minimum required hours. We should definitely deduct points from his basic document score. And that alone is enough to disqualify him. So don’t worry about him possibly being accepted.”

“No, that’s not the issue right now….”

Kendra trailed off.

She was dying of curiosity.

Just how high would Eidel’s exam score be?

‘I’ve never seen a crazy person who solves problems using both hands. And his solutions were quite clean too…. Ah, I don’t know.’

She went to the grading room and fed Eidel’s exam paper to the AI analyzer. The analyzer gobbled up the exam paper and provided the multiple-choice answer key.

Perfect score in Korean multiple-choice.

Perfect score in math multiple-choice.

Perfect scores in everything else.

“Insane.”

After the multiple-choice came the short-answer and essay questions. Short-answer questions could also be quickly graded by machine, but not the essays. Kendra bypassed the first grading room and headed to the second grading room, which was dedicated to essays.

This was a place of “meeting and harmony(?)” where 1,200 faculty members and 300 professors worked tirelessly from the day the written exam ended.

Kendra sat down with the essay grading criteria.

“Ah….”

“What’s wrong?”

“This, this….”

Kendra, who was about to start with the physics essay, turned around and requested backup.

“Could someone please bring Professor Feynman from the Physics Department?”