Entrance Exam (3)

Chapter 48: Entrance Exam (3)

—

In the observatory room, the teachers were enjoying the test happening in all the ‘Easy, Medium, Hard, and Hell’ difficulty stages. It’s no wonder that most of their gazes were focused on the Hell difficulty, as it would surely push the students to the edge and show them the elites amongst elites.

However, Principal Nezu wasn’t the same. Sitting in a chamber within the observation room, he was instead observing the stages other than the ‘Hell’ one. Since he was the one who planned the stages, to begin with, he knew the chances of 300 students coming out winning with enough points. 

“A mere 2.14%,” He said to himself while taking a sip of tea. He didn't want to miss out on the others for a minority. 

The Hell test says, ‘Save a group of civilians from a villain attack within a disaster-stricken city’, but the city where the test is held wasn’t going through a single-disaster crisis. The demo city was divided into multiple parts. 

There was a part where an earthquake had hit and villains were trying to take advantage of it and loot people’s houses. 

A part where a firestorm was raging and a group of zombie-like villains were trying to kill all the civilians.

There was a part where a school shooting was happening, commenced by the quiet kid who was secretly the son of a villain.

There was a demo sea where a ship had drowned and villains with fish-like quirks were trying to harm them.

There was a terrorist attack in a hospital that was destroyed because of the earthquake – other than all these, there were a few more too.

Each situation had 4~5 villains, so around 20 incidents were happening in the demo city. All of these incidents are a one-time thing, so it was a battle of who gets there first too.

Shota Aizawa, who was standing just by Nezu, glanced at him after hearing his words. After 3 seconds, he simply turned his head back to the monitor and started observing the students again.

“Aizawa-san, do you have anyone in mind?” Nezu suddenly asked while watching a Crow-head student finishing his third villain in one of the ‘Hard’ stages.

“No.” Aizawa looked at the ‘Hell’ as his sharp eyes narrowed at a pair of students flying in the sky. “Not yet.”

There were 300 students on the very large Ground B6. Amongst them, at the east-most side of the city, the blonde-haired kid who was exploding everything in his way seemed to be at the top. But from the looks of it… the top is going to change soon.

«—(★)—»

Blasting forward, above the tall skyscrapers, I could see Uraraka’s frightened face as she hugged me tightly to not fall off. 

Ah, uh, cuddling in public, I see… 

Erm…

I had my eyes off the Lord activated for clearer vision since I suffer a similar problem to 'Chidori' when moving too fast. Yes, I experience tunnel vision which restricts my movement, but with EL, that's not a problem anymore. 

Anyway, I was at the west-most side of the city and things were looking spicy.

"Uraraka!" I called while the wind brushed past my hair. "You see those guys in front?"

She nodded slowly with one of her eyes open. 

Far from us, there was a group of villains who had surrounded a group of civilians, from the looks of it they were patients, doctors, nurses and behind them was a destroyed hospital. Some of the victims were under debris and stuff while the villains were standing by casually. It's like a game, like how a situation would only start when the player approaches the place, it's that type of situation. 

Glancing down at Uraraka, smiling at her, I started, "I would drop you on a corner. While I start taking out the villains, you'd get there and start taking the civilians to…" I suddenly stopped.

Wait… where should the civilians be delivered to? There was no mention of a safe spot like a rescue camp here...

"Wait, we are taking a detour."

Uraraka seemed surprised at my words, but I nonetheless turned my feet around and started to look around the city… for something important. 

….

I found it. Since this is a demo city, there was also a demo university within this place. I just had to find a large enough place for the civilians to come and rest, and this was perfect for it.

A gymnasium. A place large enough to hold on probably all the civilians in this demo city. If not, I would find another place.

But… there is a problem.

"This place is clogged with junk…"

Uraraka's statement was right as I moved my eyes around. This place was filled with garbage. Garbage, as in, broken fridge, sofa, tv, and even pieces of broken buildings. 

Hah, so the teachers had already foreseen this? They probably anticipated that when a student would realise that there is no rescue camp, the first thing that'd come to their mind would be a large but enclosed place. So they most likely did this to every place similar to a gymnasium, filling it with junk. 

After a soft laugh, I tilted my head as a plan came to my mind. 

I looked at Urakara. "Can you float all of this garbage?"

Uraraka's eyes lit up at this. "Yess! I can do that!"

She probably didn't know what I was planning to do, but she nonetheless ran and started to float everything with a touch of her fingertips. 

After everything was floating she returned with sweat dripping down her forehead. 

"It's done…" 

She looked proud to say the least as I smiled at her. She then slipped her hands in one of her pockets and took out the handkerchief I gave her and she wiped her forehead.

"It really did come handy, hehe."

Hearing her giggle, I smiled. Then nodding at her, I brought her to the end of the large hall. 

Standing here, I was opposite the main gate of the hall. Using the small gate, it would still take a long time to take out the garbage one by one even though they are now weightless. 

So, I just have to make the gate a 'bit' bigger, and probably sweep all the garbage out at once. And so I raised my hands forwards as Uraraka stared at me with eyes filled with anticipation. 

Not to disappoint her, I decided to show off a little… 

Two rings of golden waves appeared around my wrist as I started to manipulate them. From perfectly round-shaped, I started to make the side of the circle a little stretched out as I spent 20% of my SP in a single blow.

«Output 20: AoE»

Boom!

A widespread wave of shock left my palms and slammed the wall in front of me along with all the garbage. With a loud explosion, the walls shattered, creating a way for the garbage as they were sent flying with a burst of wind. And in less than a second… The gymnasium was cleaned.

I looked at Uraraka with a grin who stared at the destruction with wide eyes. 

"Ah…"

She gasped and blinked at the scene. She probably realised teaming up with me wasn't a bad idea. 

After a whole minute, she looked at me and smiled an impressed smile. "That was awesome!"

"Heh, it was? Then let's finish our main duty."

I picked her up again but this time she was much more complying as I again blasted out in the sky.

—

On the way, I explained to Uraraka why we would need that place which she understood easily. You know what? I like her. 

We went to our previous spot and found that other students had already tried to fight the villains, but unsurprisingly they lost. There was a reason that the villains were <Tier 3>, after all. But at least they were able to take the civilians out of the debris crushing them.

From the few names that I recognised, these 'villains' are actually Pro Heroes. Mostly low rankers, but still Pros. Some kids won't be able to beat them, not unless they're Todoroki or Bakugo.

So I dropped Uraraka on a corner of the building and went to them by myself. Seeing me, they immediately turned to me as a villain frowned and rushed to me. 

He seemed to have a speed type quirk since he moved many times faster than normal. He kicked the ground and tried to take me from my back, but I simply activated my Eyes of the Lord and docked down to dodge the attack.

As his leg went above my head, I could see his slightly surprised face. Tier 3 isn't a challenge to me, not at all. I simply grabbed his leg with my left hand and did an uppercut to his jaws with my right.

"Keuh!"

He groaned while I simply placed my palm on his chest and blasted a few small waves of 'thin' shock, causing his heart to stop momentarily before he went unconscious.

As he dropped to the ground, I turned to the others who gave me a shocked look. Their faces didn't lie that they viewed me as dangerous but I simply shrugged at them. 

Kicking the ground I reached them and used my telekinetic earring to pull them in front of me into a group and blasted a strong wave of shock again. I didn't do a 'thin' wave that would go through their body and hit their heart like before and instead used a bit of a 'solid' wave that just crushed their bones from outside.

It's not like their injuries are even permanent since Recovery Girl is there to heal them…

All of them dropped down on the ground while groaning, they weren't unconscious but their ribs were broken so they won't be able to move. 

I then turned and looked at the civilians with a smile on my face. 

"Hello beautiful people, mind following this miss here?" I pointed at Uraraka who was running towards me. 

My [Silver Tongue] Perk worked like magic, truly, as they nodded slowly, albeit they had a kind of surprised look on their faces. Probably didn't expect a student to take down the Pros so easily. These civilians were actors too, so it would take more than one line for my Perk to work, but I guess being both strong and beautiful has its own benefits…?

Anyway, as Uraraka started to guide them to the gymnasium, I called her. 

"Hey, you!" She turned to me as I tossed her an earpiece.  "Put that in your ear, it'd help."

She was confused seeing where I got this but as I pointed at the injured villains to which she made an impressed expression again. The villains naturally had earpieces to communicate among themselves, so using these shouldn't be against the test.

Uraraka gave me a nod and walked away with the civilians, taking them to the gymnasium. As she left, I looked down at the watch in my hand that the school had given us before the test. This counts the points we get from defeating villains and saving civilians. 

[Points: 45!]

4 villains, 40 points, and 5 points for saving the civilians. They said more points would be added after calculating all our moves, later on, these points are just there to make things obvious.

Huh… this is easy… Well then, how about I be a dick and steal all the points to piss off the kids?

I soon realised I don't need to 'be' a dick as I already am one. Well then….

["Erm… hello? Neji-kun?"]

Uraraka's voice coming from the earpiece caused me not to laugh like a madman and focus. 

"Yes?"

["I dropped them at the gymnasium."]

Oh? That was quick. 

"Ok, good, I am heading towards the next group. Follow my direction..."

I started to explain the road while slowly flying by the sky. 

—

After Uraraka caught up to me, we met civilians on our way who were simply stuck under debris without any villains around who she helped to take to the rescue spot while I focused on hunting down the villains who we did meet.

Right now, a villain who used a hammer as his weapon rushed towards me and slammed his hammer downwards. I moved my waist and dodged the hammer and instead kicked at his face. Though my leg only reached his neck because of his tall figure.

He got the chance to grab my legs as he tried to slam me onto the ground, but that was his mistake. I blasted solid shockwaves from my feet as he was thrown back which I used to get up and started whacking his face with my fist. 

At last, just as I blew another blast on his face, he simply fell on his back.

[Points: 110!]

Uraraka ran to me and started to talk with the civilians, who did not compile at first and even complained as to why we were late. Very realistic.

After I used my CHA to get through them, things calmed down. Just before Uraraka was about to take them away, I asked her, "Uraraka, how many points did you get?"

She checked her watch and smiled. "I already have 50 points."

Oh, good enough. "In that case, I would start running around speedrun the villains, okay? You might find random civilians lying around, you should help them for more points."

"Umm…" she hesitated. "But don't we already have enough points?"

Ah… well, fuck, time to lie. 

"Look, even if the guy in the mic did say we would pass with 50 points, the classes in Hero Course are most likely divided into multiple batches. We'd want to be in the 1-A, so we should do our best to get as many points as possible."

On second thought, this is not a lie. If someone just gets 50 points, they'd not be put into 1-A because there would surely be people above that number. I guess that's just more of a reason to hunt for more points.

Uraraka blinked while processing this information before an understanding look appeared on her face. "Sorry for doubting you!" She bowed. "I-i will do as you say!!"

I just shrugged it off and blasted away, going to villains and clapping them. 

The exam is hard, very hard, in fact. I only saw a few other people winning other than me and Uraraka… There were also some familiar faces. This is how a test should be like. Pushing the future heroes to their limits, with no remorse.

But to me? This is just child's play. 

«—{★}—»

In the observatory, with Aizawa, Nezu was impressed.

"Oh it's him, indeed. Neji Hado. Nejire's younger brother, I recall. Didn't think he'd be this strong, smart, and charismatic." He sipped his tea with a smile on his face. "The first thing he realised was that there is no rescue vicinity. Students usually wouldn't think about that first. First, they'd try defeating the villain, and in case they win, they'd then be in front of a wall that would make them realise that there is no rescue facility. That would be enough to put pressure on these younglings' minds and make them agitated and mess up. But Neji first thought about the rescue, then about the villains."

Aizawa began after this. "This might prove two things. One, he cared more about the civilians' safety. Two, to him the villains had already lost the moment his eyes fell on them, so he was instead looking for his next task."

Nezu laughed. "Oh, indeed. At first, the number One might have seemed true because of how passionately he was trying to clean the gymnasium, but now that... he is hunting villains for points that he honestly doesn't need, he doesn't really seem like such a heroic spirit, haha."

Aizawa shook his head at this. "I wouldn't go as far as saying that. He might be snatching the chance of passing from the other candidates by doing this, but that is just to ensure his own admission in the top class, I honestly see no problem in that." Nezu and Aizawa could hear their conversation because of the earpieces. "More so, he was still saving people. It's like the Pros. Just because some of the Heroes became Pro because of money or fame doesn't mean they aren't heroes. As long as they're saving someone's life, they're a hero to me."

Nezu turned to Aizawa and smiled. "Hm… you truly have a different view, Aizawa-san." He then turned to the monitor again. "Haha, and on second thought, this child has a much better ideology than that blonde one who's hunting for more points just to make sure only he comes out of the Hell difficulty… quite a villainous mentality, I must say."

At these words, Aizawa also turned to the Monitor and observed the blonde-haired explosion-quirk user. 

'Hmm… Katsuki Bakugo and Neji Hado.' He should give these two a little more focus than the others…. 

Suddenly the mouse, who had gone back to watching Neji, said something confusing. "He has silver hair… how interesting."

Aizawa turned to him with a frown. "Silver hair?"

"Oh, it's nothing…" Nezu shook his head which caused Aizawa's frown to deepen. From his memory, the Principal's slip tongues are usually important information.

But what's important in having silver hair?

Aizawa narrowed his eyes at the mouse before turning forward again. He'd figure it out someday.

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