6 - Welcome to Hell

I entered the building and made my way to the front desk, where a man with dark hair and a mustache was sitting. He was in a red suit with a large emblem on it resembling the school's logo. I approached the man, and he greeted me.

"Greetings, your name please?"

"Hachiro Karasagi."

"Oh, I see, it's you..." said the man, putting his pen in his front pocket and standing up from his chair. I was nervous as he approached me. He stopped in front of me and spoke once more.

"...welcome to hell, kid..." he said. I felt a chill go down my spine. His words carried immeasurable power, shaking me to my core.

He continued to gaze into my eyes for a couple of seconds as I started to tremble, but then he broke into a big smile~

"Nah, I'm just kidding! Haha, you should have seen the look on your face!" said the man in comical relief. He then shook my hand politely.

"My name is Mr. Otsuka, I'm the headmaster at this institution. Your father Kaizo registered you for our exam, and when I saw your name come up, I was thrilled. Your father was an excellent student."

Mr. Otsuka was an older gentleman, but I could feel his presence looming over me, and it was powerful. He clearly knew what he was doing.

"You scared me! For a second I thought I was going to be thrown into a pit full of demons and have to fight for my life!" I said.

"Oh, that doesn't come until later, but don't worry, someone like you should do just fine, I can sense your strength just by looking at you, you're just like your father," said Mr. Otsuka.

"I hope to be like him and take up his legacy, defeating unusuals!" I said with excitement. Mr. Otsuka's eyes lit up, and he broke into laughter.

"Haha! That's what I like to hear! Don't worry about what the guys upstairs are gonna tell ya, they tell everybody the same thing, and they sure know how to make it sound scary. Here, I have some paperwork for you to sign before we begin, this way, please," he said.

I followed him to the desk, where he handed me his pen. Looking over the paperwork, it looked similar to the work I had to fill out at my house. Liability things, blah blah blah.

Though, one question on the form intrigued me greatly. It was only two words long, but it opened up a whole universe of potential answers... "Why Eritoakademi?" was the question on the paper.

I thought long and hard about my answer before writing it down. Mr. Otsuka observed as I crafted my response. I had so many reasons for choosing this place, that I realized I'd soon run out of room on the paper. Mr. Otsuka stopped me-

"That's more than enough info, you can just hand me that, don't feel like you need to write me a novel or anything, I have hundreds of these to look through."

"Ah, okay, here you go then," I said, handing him my document. He stored it away in a filing cabinet before handing me a card.

"Here is a temporary student ID that you can use to access different rooms within the building. If you're admitted, which I'm sure you will be, then you'll be given the opportunity to pose for a fantastic photo to be put on a permanent ID!"

"Oh, fun!" I said sarcastically. In this day and age, cameras were quite...primitive...as compared to the technology in a country such as Corikas or something. They were a country to the south of Minerva, and their technology was incredible.

"Okay, I see you have your sword with you, you won't be needing that immediately. The first thing you're going to do is follow this kind gentleman down this hall to your right, and enter room A-100, that's where your written exam will be," said Mr. Otsuka.

"Oh, I'm starting with the written portion first, okay, that gives me time to collect my thoughts," I replied.

"Yep! The questions aren't too bad, just answer honestly and if you don't know something, try to make your best guess. It's better to guess than to leave the space blank. Good luck Hachiro!" said Mr. Otsuka, before the gentleman to his right took over.

"Right this way, please." said the man.

I followed him into room A-100. Inside were a plethora of other kids my age also taking the exam. There were a few that I recognized as living nearby me, but the majority were people that I didn't know. That was until one boy called my name from across the room.

"Hachiro?? You're taking the exam too?" said the boy.

"Akisada! I didn't know you were an extraordinary individual!" I replied.

"I could say the same to you, come sit by me!"

Akisada Hiroto was one of my closest friends. We lived in the same neighborhood on the outskirts of City X, and we often hung out. Neither of us confided in each other of our abilities though, and probably for the same reason.

"I can't believe you and I are both extraordinaries, wow, small world huh?" said Akisada.

Before I could answer him, a girl walked into the room and closed the door behind her. She set a stack of papers on the desk. She looked at us and spoke~

"Good morning everybody, my name is Yui Kinochi, and I'm a 4th-year student here. I will be assisting with exam day, so if anyone here has a question, please ask me! The only thing I can't do for you is give you the answers, so don't even try."

"Woah, she looks threatening, don't you think?" asked Akisada.

"A little bit, I can't see where she's looking behind her glasses, they're tinted!"

"I think it's so that she can look around without anyone knowing in case someone cheats or something, they won't know they're caught."

"That's smart."

Yui passed out the papers to everybody in the room. She stopped at my desk, handed me a few papers, and then went back to the front of the room.

"I apologize for suddenly interrupting your conversations, but it's nearing the start of the exam, so I had to interrupt. Allow me a few moments now to explain the exam to you all."

"This exam will be broken into three parts, two of which you will be required to participate in, and the third you will have to earn your right to participate in."

"The first part of the exam is the written test which you are all about to take. It is a multi-question test that will ask you questions about your current knowledge of combat, and unusuals, as well as give you scenarios in which you must answer how you'd handle them."

"The next portion is the simulation portion. You will be placed into a room and given a task. Most likely, you will be asked to retrieve an object from a hard-to-reach place. You must use your skills to avoid traps and enemies in this room as you make your way towards the goal."

"If you pass both portions of the exam with a high enough score, you will be allowed to participate in part three...the real-life situation..."

"In part three, you and all other allowed applicants will be placed into a large room with a large number of unusual creatures. You will be tasked with killing at least one unusual, but don't expect everybody will walk away with a kill..."

"If you walk away with one kill, then you have completed your task. If you walk away stainless, without any kills, you will lose points."

"...and bonus points to anyone that can manage more than one kill," she said, smirking.

Yui was dumping a ton of info on us all at once, and I could tell it was stressing out quite a few people. Some people looked apprehensive, yet there were others who seemed incredibly confident in their abilities. Akisada whispered something to me~

"You think you and I will make it to the final test?" he asked.

"Certainly. I have no clue what your powers are, but if you and I are both strong, I think we can make it through this for sure."

Yui concluded her speech with a couple of final reminders before setting a timer for us to take the first part of the exam. We had 2 hours to answer everything on the papers.

"Remember, no cheating, you have two hours, answer honestly, leave nothing unanswered, and finally, good luck to you all. If you need anything, I will be sitting at this desk."

With that, Yui turned a mechanical timer, setting it to 120 minutes, equaling exactly two hours from now. Akisada lifted his pencil and immediately began writing, I decided to do the same.

My entrance exam had just officially begun. I hoped I'd score well enough to participate in the final test...