Time Stop Swordsman With Romantic Concept

13. Your Way

13. One’s own way

“From now on, we will announce the final 150 successful applicants.”

Cruella, the gray-haired woman, declares into the sound amplifier.

Now that the war is over, Cruella is also the head of the academy, so she stays at the academy at most.

In principle, successful applicants are called in the order in which they took the entrance exam.

So that means.

“No. 1, Meteor.”

It was said that Yooseong was the first passer.

“No. 2, Shohei Yanagi.”

And the second was Shohei, who had a sparring with Yuseong.

“No. 3, Kadan von Leonus.”

Names are called one after another.

“No. 117, Anise Lohengrin.”

“Wow…… !”

Anise was delighted to hear her own name being called.

“No. 150, Selene von Frozenfield.”

Finally, the name of the playable character was called and the calling ended.

As expected, all of them passed the academy without incident.

I thought it was obvious, but after it was confirmed like this, I felt strangely relieved.

I meant that the story was going well.

“This is the end of the calling. I will spare no effort to become a person worthy of Helios Academy in the future. I hope that those who failed unfortunately will continue to work hard for next year.”

Cruella gave words of encouragement coolly and went down from the podium.

After that, a blond-haired man with a mild impression came up and delivered the following information.

“Ah, ah. This is Timothy, the life instructor. There will be a class assignment test from now on, so cadets, please follow the instructions of the instructors.”

Class Placement Test.

Literally, it was to divide the classes in order to provide education according to the level of the cadets.

The classes are S, A, B, C, D in descending order.

It is divided into a total of five levels, and depending on the class, the classes are different, and the essential treatment such as lodging and meals is also different.

D is the environment of a commoner living moderately.

C is an environment comparable to the home of a rural baron lord.

B is the standard of living for ordinary political aristocrats.

Beginning with A, it was decorated like a nobleman’s mansion.

S is given a luxurious dormitory that is almost as good as the imperial palace, and can enjoy all kinds of privileges, such as unlimited clothing and meal menus.

1St year cadets are thoroughly evaluated relative to each other.

If someone goes up, someone has no choice but to fall.

Students in lower classes grit their teeth to climb, while students in higher classes hone themselves so as not to be overtaken.

Shall we say that it is a miniature version of a society of infinite competition?

Maximizing the desire for improvement by making the environment simple and intuitive so that effort and competition are immediately reflected in status and rank.

This bloody competition continues endlessly, so there are 150 students enrolled, but by the time they graduate, there are only about 2/3 left.

Instead, this method brought a tremendous increase in capabilities to those who endured to the end.

Currently, about half of the Empire’s high-ranking officials are graduates of Helios Academy, so everyone will try to persevere.

Even if you graduate with D class, it will be a good spec for living your life from now on.

And starting from the second year, students who exceeded a certain standard were promoted to class C, and there were other mitigation policies of their own.

“Now, this way.”

Under the guidance of Life Instructor Timothy, the cadets, many of whom were noble, began to move to the test site.

–

“The evaluation instructor is Jike. I will be explaining most of the exams that follow, so you better remember them.”

Short green hair.

A man neatly dressed in a red instructor’s uniform and holding a wooden sword.

Zeke introduced himself and looked over the cadets.

The first person that catches your eye is, as expected.

It was an oriental warrior wearing a hat and sunglasses that didn’t match.

‘They said his name was Yuseong.’

Originally, it was forbidden to cover the face, such as wearing sunglasses or pressing the hood deeply, at the academy, but this was changed just a few days ago.

Princess Frey, a war hero who is said to be the new powerhouse of the empire, directly mentioned and suggested how to fix it.

I heard that the reason was the blindness of only one of the cadets.

‘Hmm…… Is that man really being protected by Cruella-sama?’

Maybe that’s why rumors are spreading within the academy.

Cruella thinks the blind warrior from the east is more special than the other cadets.

She has a twin brother who is blind, so the story is not entirely believable.

‘I heard that you showed good skills right from the entrance exam. I can check it right here.’

Zeke explained about the test.

“Do you see the crystals packed here?”

Beside him, dozens of crystals larger than most people were lined up.

“Well, there’s no way you won’t see it, but…… Ah.”

Zeke said it was natural since there were a lot of large crystals, but he soon realized that he had made a mistake.

“Cadet Yuseong, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it consciously. I’ve never taught a blind person, so I’m not thinking about it.”

“No, Instructor. You can’t see, but you can tell things apart, so don’t worry about it.”

“Kuhm. A lot of people don’t know, so I’ll explain. These are room connectors. It is a product of the great intelligence achieved by the Empire’s high-level magic engineering research.”

Room connector.

As the name suggests, it is a tool that connects people.

Where?

In virtual reality.

I wonder why medieval fantasy is virtual reality, but this game is a medieval ‘style’ and there is no such thing as historical evidence.

The technology that does not match this background is summarized in just two lines of settings.

‘A new substance miraculously discovered through an alchemy experiment’

And ‘a combination of groundbreaking illusion magic techniques developed by a genius wizard’

It is said that these things can be woven together to create a virtual realm in a specific space and move the human spirit into it.

In the virtual realm, it was impossible to develop physical abilities, but it had the overwhelming advantage of being able to create various tense situations as desired.

The higher the quality of the virtual realm, the greater the training effect, and over 95% of the quality is determined by the ability of the illusion mage.

Helios Academy has a large number of industry-leading welcome wizards, so it is set to boast tremendous virtual realm quality.

This, and nothing else, was the reason Helios was the best in the Empire.

Listening this far will give you a strange feeling.

Why do you say that you have such a technical skill, but in the entrance exam, you have to fight to the death in a dangerous way?

It is a kind of test factor.

Resolution, that is, to see evil and evil.

The logic is that in order not to panic in a real battle, you have to experience at least one experience such as having your arm cut off and your heart pierced.

Currently, in the virtual realm, only about 40% of normal pain can be felt.

Active research is underway to increase all senses in the virtual realm to 100%, but it seems that research on pain has been particularly slow.

So, it is said that those who trained only in the virtual realm often lost their lives in panic when they entered actual combat.

For that reason, Helios made it a virtue to practice sparring as much as possible without breaking his body.

“If you open the door, go in and lie down in the space inside, the light will come over you. If you feel your body floating in midair, don’t panic. It means you are smoothly entering the virtual realm.”

Then Zeke stretched out his arms behind him and introduced about twenty wizards.

“Helios has very strict standards for selecting phantom mages. They are veterans of the highest level in the industry. A vivid virtual realm that has never been experienced anywhere else will be implemented in front of you.”

A female wizard wearing large round glasses standing in the front waved her hand timidly as if it was awkward.

Although he looked old, he was quite cute to Yoosung.

“Then, I will start the class assignment test from now on. Your performance will be recorded as a video recorder and will be transmitted to other instructors as well as me, so show your best side!”

Now the test begins.

The sound of deep breathing or swallowing came from here and there.

From the point of view of the cadets, who belonged to the ordinary axis in many ways, there was no choice but to be very nervous.

With this test, the rank in the academy is determined.

If your rank is lower than your actual status because of your lack of skills, what shame would there be?

“Cadet called by name, come forward. Yulia!”

“Yes, yes.”

Yulia, who was keeping her distance from the other cadets, was called to the front.

Even in her game, she is the first to take the test.

I don’t know why, but there was one rule.

She was the only playable character in class S when she was first assigned.

Shohei and Yeon Hwa-ran are class A, Yoo-seong and Selene are class B, and Anise is sadly alone in class D.

Yuseong beat Shohei with a good match. As for the setting, her ability was higher than Shohei’s.

These are the same characters that users play, so I wonder if there is such a difference in power…….

As the story progresses, strength levels out.

Weak characters grow or gain enlightenment and become stronger, and strong characters must grow again with restrictions.

In order for the game to run, the specs of the playable characters have to be met, so it’s really unavoidable.

Although the setting explains it to some extent, it is true that the feeling of artificiality cannot be erased in many ways.

Cruella, as I said before, suffers the most from these adult circumstances.

Unfortunately, she is the strongest in terms of setting, but when she starts to enter the main story in earnest, she becomes the weakest.

‘I’m worried. Should I follow the original route properly and enter the B class, or should I aim for the S class?’

After thinking about it for a while, Yooseong made a decision.

‘Okay, let’s go to S.’

If I was going to follow the original, I didn’t even do the concept.

Instead of having something close to a cheat called time stop, the killing power was greatly reduced and the original meteor’s ability was not used at all.

Now is the time to carve out your own path.

f*ck the butterfly effect.