Disrespect

"Mr. Julius?" The lady who was escorting me calls out my name, causing me to jump out of my thoughts.

"Uh yeah?" I say mindlessly, staring at the confused expression flushed on her face. It seems like we've arrived a while back already, and she's been talking to me, but I was so distracted that I didn't realize.

"Uh, I'm sorry. I was just nervous about this all."

"It's fine if you're nervous. It's your big break after all," she giggles.

"Anyways, just head to one of these rooms, as long as the light at the top of the door glows green. You can go and start your test. "She smiles before walking away in the direction we just came from. "I'll await the good news."

...

[Miscellaneous Testing Arena]

A sign made of what seems to be quartz hangs on the roof, showing that the area ahead was where I should go.

I didn't know there were separate testing grounds for the type of blessing you have, but I guess it made sense somehow. After all, you can't fit everyone with different blessings and skills in one area.

As I looked around, trying to check the surroundings, a sudden announcement echoed through the speakers in Front.

Dante Lux has cleared the Trial of Giants, killing ten ogres and achieving a time record of 58 seconds. ]

A familiar name echoed throughout the speakers, causing me to forget what I was just doing in the first place.

They're here, huh? The monsters of Front Academy and the future of humanity.

"It seems like the rumors were true. Dante is incredible. "Everyone was amazed by the announcement as they looked at each other in disbelief.

"Ten Ogres? In a minute? This guy is unbelievable. He might be even better than some of the fourth-year students," they said.

They were wondering how a student could achieve such a record.

Heck, even I, now that it's real life, wonder how great this guy is. For all I know, I haven't seen any fights that involves blessings, magic, or auras yet. It just makes me wonder what ogres look like in real life and how one person manages to kill them in the span of a minute. I wrote him, but seeing it in real life is a whole different matter.

Dante Lux.

The prince of the Kingdom of Light. Also, one of the main characters I painstakingly wrote about. One of the heroes of this world. and one of the two culprits, why Front had a sudden surge of applicants. Whether to form some political connections or challenge themselves against a strong opponent, Dante was the reason as to why.

I should hurry. There's a lot of the same staff who are bringing out applicants with them as time passes. If I wait any longer, I might have difficulties finding an available room for testing.

I'll think about those guys later.

As I walked through the venue, I couldn't help but laugh as I looked at the unnecessarily massive area of the place. I wrote Front to be exaggeratingly huge, but I can't help but feel wasteful as I look at the place.

A hallway about ten meters tall leads to multiple hallways that are separated by rooms about half the size of football fields. With each respective room going from rows to columns, all the way up to 50. It's like a karaoke bar, except the size of an entire karaoke establishment is only considered one room here.

This is still used as a training area for the students, so I guess this amount of space is necessary, but damn.

As I walked through the hallways, trying to look for an available spot, I could see a multitude of reactions as people loitered around the hallways.

Disappointment, despair, anger, sadness, and a bunch of other negative emotions.

How come there's no one smiling, though?

Is the test that hard? I couldn't help but feel nervous as the reactions of the others continued to creep towards my confidence.

As I see more and more people, I seem to have realized that even if this is just the entrance examination, I'm already inside a battlefield.

I didn't even focus on this event when I was writing the story, as the main characters are either getting accepted through special means or are all incredible enough to breeze through such an event.

I can't say the same for everyone, though, myself included. This place is where the dreams of common people die.

But it's not like I'm not used to such an environment already.

I'm confident that regardless of what is at the other end of this door, I won't fall here.

As I pry the door open, an entire field enters my vision. Weapon racks stood on the side of the sandy floor that was enveloping the whole area. There's even evidence of battle scattered everywhere, like the clear markings on the walls and the chipped ends of the blades.

It was clear what this was.

This is an arena.

What? Am I fighting someone? Why is there an arena here?

"Hmm. It's a miscellaneous type this time around. "Suddenly, a voice escapes from the walls, seemingly uninterested and bored by my presence.

"Examinee 7915?" he asked.

"Uh, yes?"

"Alright, just go and change the scenario to whatever you want to do—potion making, weapon crafting, cooking, or whatever your jig is—just do it quickly. Magic will just move all that nonsense littered around," he says with the same uninterested tone.

"Uhm, why is it an arena in the first place, sir?" I ask the man behind the speakers.

"What? Of course it's because a combatant was here before you. If you don't know how to change scenario, just swipe to whatever you want to do on that tablet beside the weapon racks."

…

As I hear that exact sentence, the nervousness that was creeping towards me earlier seems like it just wasn't nerves getting ahead of me. It's a reasonable observation among the negative expressions, the weak personalities, the weak bodies, and the unconfident look everybody had as they went out of their respective rooms.

The uninterested and unprofessional tone of this guy shows that he's temporary staff, and this place, whatever it is, is not the miscellaneous department. It doesn't even exist in the first place.

This is where they send the "miscellaneous" or extra people whose worth isn't that concrete.

...

I'm fucking annoyed.

It seems like I'm going to have a change of plans. If it's like this, I might need a bigger impact than I originally thought.

When I could see such a deep prejudice between the weak and the strong, I realized that being passive in this academy seemed useless. If I go on a slow and safe journey, there'll be little improvement. No, I won't even have a chance at all.

It seems like I might have to be an attention-seeker after all.

"Are you going to start yet? "the voice asks with an annoyed tone.

"Yes, I am." I went towards the tablet and looked for something I was quite familiar with in the story.

I approached the tablet, which was a lectern-looking object made from marble with glass on the flat top part of it. It stood beside the weapon rack. There's a selection of scenarios that you can scroll left and right to, with descriptions at the bottom.

Before arriving here, I just wanted to showcase my ability in some unique way that they could utilize. But if I just do that, I'll become a lab rat at best.

I need to show off, and it must be explosive. I'm pissed about this whole ordeal, and I can't help but want to blow some steam.

...

Now that I think about it, there is one scenario that lets me beat someone up legally. A scenario that one of the main characters chose. The scenario that Rina Lux chose. The scenario that made her the best prospect of Front. The number one student in the academy, in a generation full of monsters.

"What?! Are you that stupid? To think you don't even know how to read? Do you even know what you picked? Why did I expect people in the slums to know about this technology? Go and click the production button on the tabl- "As I come to select a scenario, the voice suddenly shouts in annoyance.

But my swift movements seemed to have shut him up. I was swiping and clicking, like I've been using the device in front of me for ages.

"I'm ready, sir."

[Duel Against the Skilled]

A scenario with a pick rate of 0.2% from the entire history of Front. An incredibly difficult scenario that has only about 12 successful tries out of the hundreds and thousands of applicants.

How is it so hard? Well, you are put inside a virtual scenario resembling that of a VR game. Then you will have to fight against a staff whose strength will be adjusted to always be about two whole tiers higher than yours. If you are somehow a genius who already has the same strength as the examiner, it still wouldn't matter. As the VR game will raise their stats regardless of your rank, it's a battle of experience and IQ, not talent.

It's hard, but if you pass such an exam, your future will only grow brighter and brighter, as finishing something like this will leave you at the top of the leaderboard.

You could challenge the guards, trainers, and even professors to fight you. Bear in mind that to be a staff member of Front in the first place, you would need to be an alumni of it. Every single person here studied at the best academy in the world and graduated well enough to be accepted here as a staff member, so the gap between experience and IQ is nearly impossible to close... atleast in normal situations.

Today is a different scenario. As this device tracks all the working employees, regardless of their rank, the temporary staff that were hired are also allowed for selection. There are some deer that were allowed to join the tigers in a fight.

An exploit that I could take advantage of had appeared, thanks to the unexpected surge of students.

Although it wouldn't have the same impact as a regular win, this is enough and doable for me.

"You crazy fucking brat. Are you stupid?! "

[Choose your opponent]

As I scrolled through the long list of people involved in this training scenario, I couldn't help but notice a particular face that I had seen earlier in the day.

[Harold Bons]

Age: 35

Blessing: Surge of the Beast.

Rank: E-early Aura User

- A somewhat rare talent that exceptionally increases the strength of a man in a burst of a second.

Next to such details was the face of the temporary staff earlier at the gate, who was saying all that nasty stuff.

An E-early-ranked aura user...

The strength of this world falls under a ranking system that the heads of humanity came up with. From the lowest, F, to the highest, S+, an F-ranked person is about as strong as your everyday human, while an S+ can destroy a city with a single move. They also fall into three smaller parts, being early, medium, and peak stages, which separate the gap in ability in a single class even more. 

"Don't! Not that person!" The voice behind the speaker seemed to recognize who I was choosing as my opponent, as he shouted at me in urgency.

"That's a close friend of the young master of the Bons family! He might just be a lowly person, but their young master holds him dearly. This is clear disrespect! Do you want to suffer your entire school year?! " He screams even louder as he seems to have realized I wasn't paying much attention to him.

So that's why he's only an E-ranked. Guards are supposed to be stronger than that, but he isn't one, it seems.

Even more, the better. It's better to have the VR increase my opponent's level than decrease it. It just means that they're weak in a fight. And they won't know how to handle their strength very well. 

"Should I choose you instead, mister? I know you're another temporary staff."

As I said so, the voice suddenly turned quiet. It seems like even though I'm just a low-ranking person, he's a coward who's scared of losing.

Regardless, I don't care about what he just said. As nobles are just nobodies, from the future I was heading on. A future where, regardless of your status, a single arrow can take away your life.

Would you like to choose this person as your opponent?

Branded at the bottom of the panel was a button to confirm whether I'm sure about my opponent or not.

Well, let's not make this any longer.

There's only one decision.

"Bring it on."