Chapter 33: Recommendation exams (II)

"Alright! It's time, you can all begin your work now."

This voice sounded a little weird, almost nasal. The students present raised their heads and couldn't find anyone. They were all seated in the places where their numbers were written.

Seemingly amused by their reaction, the voice spoke again,"Why do people always have the same reaction? Look lower!"

Everyone lowered their heads and were surprised. What stood close to the desk wasn't a human or mutant, but...a penguin. More precisely, he looked like an adult emperor penguin. He was wearing a green Hawaiian shirt, a white and black beret on his head, a pair of black glasses on his face and had a golden watch on his left...wrist? Wing? Flippers? Well, it didn't matter. All in all, he was weird but somehow, this get-up looked rather cool on a penguin.

It was the first time anyone present has ever seen a penguin dress up. As such, while they were surprised, they managed to calm and listened to him. They were not recommended students for show.

"I'm Hyoga. Those of you who will succeed will be able to call me professor Hyoga. I am a new teacher at UA."

They all understood and so they quieted down and waited. "As all of you know, today's test is on mathematics. The test would last 3 hours. Anyone who is caught cheating will be disqualified. Now, you can begin!"

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Shido, who was looking at the scene behind a screen, let out a smile. "Principal mouse, it seems that you have found a compatriot. Where did you rescue him from? He seems to hate humans as much as you do, maybe even more."

Nezu simply snorted at his nickname. No matter how many times he told Shido to call him just call him 'principal', he always refused and continued calling him 'principal mouse'.

"I found him on Pitcairn Island. It was a total coincidence that I was flying through that place when the island suddenly blew up. I decided to land and check on it and you know what happened next."

Shido just nodded his head and turned his attention back to Yoshinon and started playing with him. He didn't bother with the screens at all since he knew that the other teachers would keep an eye on them. Of course, it was all just a precaution. Nobody would dare to test their luck in cheating in the most prestigious hero school in Japan.

After three hours, the exam was over. In the room, one could say that about 90% of the students had the same expression, confidence. Nobody wanted to waste their chance of being a UA student and would all study very hard. The other 10% had other expressions such as sadness and indifference.

"It seems that there are actually students that are stupid enough to think that all they need is their quirks to pass the test. I wonder who recommended these idiots." Shido let out an innocent that didn't seem to match with the words he spoke.

"As harsh as always, Shido. But never mind, this test only helps to weed out the lowest of the lowest quality of each batch. The next part would be the main event. And I'm sure you're looking forward to it." Nezu replied back as he checked the papers one by one. Helping him were the other teachers who were too busy marking the scripts to care about Shido.

"Yeah! I sure am!" He exclaimed as he casually picked up a piece of paper.

"Yaoyorozu? Interesting...." A wider grin appeared on his face as he remembered a certain black haired girl.

*****************

"HEY! HEY! HEY! WELCOME YOU EXAMINEES! I HOPE YOU'RE READY!"

A tall, slim man shouted on top of the stage. He has long blond hair, which he wears spiked upwards in a huge tuft behind his head, and a small, brown moustache. He has rectangular eyes with concentric greenish-yellow pupils, and he was currently sporting a huge smile on his face.

Present Mic, seemingly not caring about the lack of reaction of the crows began to speak once again.

"IF YOU'RE READYYYY...SAY 'YES'!!!"

"..."

"OHHH! IT SEEMS LIKE THE CROWD IS ON FIRE! NOW LET'S BEGIN!"

A large holographic screen suddenly appeared behind him. On the screen, different pictures of robots could be seen. Present Mic began to speak once again,"SOOO! THIS STAGE IS DIFFERENT FROM THE STAGES FROM THE PREVIOUS YEARS. RECENTLY, WE RECEIVED COMPLAINS ABOUT THE FAIRNESS OF THE RECOMMENDATION TEST. AS SUCH, THIS TIME YOU'LL HAVE THE SAME TEST..."

He then began to explain to them about the different types of robots and the points that could be gained from it.

"Wow...no matter how many times I see this scene, I can't imagine someone has this thick-skinned." Shido whistled in appreciation seeing Present Mic hosting the crowd. Even Shido himself won't be able to talk to himself on stage like that. Lucky Present Mic was present to help host the stage, otherwise the principal would force him to speak up instead.

Currently, he was in disguise as the examinees, same as fifty other people present. They were all his clones, and would be playing the role of either a victim, or a fake victim.

As Present Mic gave more information about the robots, the tension began to ease. Everyone here had a more or less powerful quirk. This test should be a breeze. It was when they were having such naive thoughts that reality punched them in the gut. Really hard.

"...BUT YOU GUYS ARE RE-CO-MEN-DED. RIGHT? HOW COULD YOU BE PLACED UNDER THE SAME CONDITIONS AS THE NORMAL STUDENTS? SO, THERE WILL BE FOUR IMPORTANT CHANGES."

The tension began to grow. The crowd started becoming restless and started talking amongst themselves.

"ONE! THE TEST WOULD LAST THIRTY MINUTES INSTEAD, GIVING YOU PLENTY OF TIME!"

"..."

"TWO! INSTEAD OF THE NORMAL ZERO-POINTERS ROBOTS YOU WILL BE FACING, YOU WILL BE FACING A QUIRK OF A FAMOUS HERO INSTEAD. PHANTOM!!!! SO BE CAREFUL, AFTER ALL, HE'S NOT A PRO FOR NOTHING!"

Murmurs could be heard in the crowd, and some students were protesting. "Why must we face a pro hero here?! If he enters the test, how could we pass?!"

"FEAR NOT! HE'LL BE HOLDING BACK APPROPRIATELY. AND EVEN IF YOU LOSE A LIMB OR TWO, WE HAVE A WAY TO GAIN THEM BACK FOR YOU! WE ARE NOT UA FOR NOTHING!"

At the mention of the possibility of losing a limb, some students turned pale. They never thought they would lose a limb in an examination.

"This is inappropriate for a test! How could a test let us lose a limb?!" A student shouted in protest.

Hearing his question, Present Mic just smirked and shouted,"AS A FUTURE PRO HERO, YOU'LL OBVIOUSLY BE RISKING YOUR LIVES, WHAT'S A LIMB IN COMPARISON? OR DID YOU THINK THAT BEING A PRO HERO IS EASY? AND THAT YOU'LL CASUALLY JUST BECOME ONE WITHOUT HAVING THE RESOLVE TO RISK ANYTHING? THEN I'M AFRAID THAT YOU'VE CHOSEN THE WRONG PROFESSION TO JOIN."

Hearing his reason, Shido smirked. "I really like this place, not like the other wishy-washy hero school who just trains a bunch of corrupted heroes."

The student who shouted the question now turned red from embarrassment while the people near him just laughed at his embarrassment and humiliation.

Seeing that there weren't any more questions, Present Mic continued,"THREE! STUDENTS CAN ATTACK AND HINDER EACH OTHER. WHAT'S MORE, EACH TIME YOU BEAT SOMEONE, 50% OF HIS POINT WILL BE TRANSFERRED TO YOU. OF COURSE, NO LETHAL ATTACKS ARE ALLOWED. AND FINALLY FOUR!" Present Mic hurriedly continued his talk before someone could interrupt him again."VILLAINS WOULD BE HIDDEN! SO PAY ATTENTION TO THEM! EACH VILLAIN CAPTURED WOULD GRANT YOU 2 POINTS WHILE EACH ONE YOU KILL WILL MINUS 2 POINTS!"

This time, an uproar from everyone could be felt. The test changed each year, but a rule that was never broken until now was the rules of not attacking each other during the test. What could be the reason for this change? What did it mean? Furthermore, with the addition of villains, the difficulty and danger level just spiked up. Present Mic even added the word 'kill', showing the difficulty of this exam. This was truly the hardest exam that UA had ever thrown at the students since its founding.

"NOW! NOW! NOW! STAY CALM, THE TEST WILL BEGIN IN TEN MINUTES. AND LET ME GIVE YOU A HINT, ALWAYS BE CAREFUL OF BACKSTABBERS!"

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In the monitor room, every single professor, staff and teachers of UA were observing the situation. In the centre, Nezu was seated and behind him stood Hyoga who, this time, wore a butler outfit.

A black haired woman who seemed to wear the clothes of a dominatrix opened her mouth,"Principal, you're really evil."

Nezu smiled silently. This test was really tricky, and was very hard to organise. If not for Shido's presence, it would have been almost impossible to do this type of test. This test wasn't just a question of getting points. Right now, the smart students would begin to ponder. Since they can hinder each other, doesn't it mean that they can help each other?

The first batch of examinees had more than hundreds of students. Alliances will begin to form. What's more, only four will succeed in the hero course. As such, in order to succeed, one must destroy the maximum number of robots possible. Those who aren't confident can only hope to work for others, speaking nicely. Or put in a not-so-nice way, they would be lackeys. In a worse case scenario, they would be eliminated by others.

Hyoga served tea for Nezu who sipped it in a good mood. Another one, a dark haired man with a large scarf around his neck continued,"Midnight, you shouldn't say that. This exam will test many of their qualities. Leading, following, loyalty, discernment, team fights, solo fights, efficiency, their mentality, their resolve, their courage."

Nezu nodded, especially the last three, where Shido would play the most part in.

"Eraser head is right. Those who aren't confident will gather and form groups. Those who are overconfident will fight alone. Those with a weak mentality and resolve would faint after seeing blood, those without courage will just run away. The funniest thing is that they may never pay attention to the hidden requirements of this test. Don't you think so? Fufufu AHAHAHAHAHAH!"

Everyone decided to stay silent. They looked too much like the villains of the story plotting against the students.

After laughing enough, he took another sip of his tea calmly as if he didn't laugh like a crazy psychopath a few seconds ago. In order to avoid awkwardness, another teacher decided to speak up,"I wonder who will come out on top."

It was a short old woman this time. Despite her short stature, everyone here respected her greatly. Even Hyoga. There's no one here who hadn't been healed by her at least once. Beside her stood a young girl with a small horn poking out of her right temple. "I wonder how many people I will have to heal this time..." She muttered to herself, but due to the silence, everyone heard it.

Eri. The people in this room were already wondering if there was anyone beside Shido who was normal. Even the girl, who was seemingly harmless, could beat a lot of pro heroes just purely on martial arts. Only Eraser head could beat her in close quarter combat since his quirk made him rely on his body a lot more than other heroes. And as if that wasn't enough, her quirk was especially dangerous. But together with Shido, her quirk could easily be countered. She could rewind time on her target, healing all injuries back to their previous selves without any problems. This made her very useful, especially during this test where there'll be a lot of injuries and perhaps even missing limbs.

Similar to Nezu, everyone also decided to ignore her as monsters and freaks like Eri and Shido can't be real. Aizawa Shota, also known as Eraser Head, said,"I think that Endeavor's son, Todoroki Shoto will come out ahead. From what I know, he had a rather powerful quirk and was trained since young by his father. But what I'm interested in is how he'll deal with the zero-pointers if the rumours I'm hearing are correct."

The moment he spoke, the screen showed the image of a young boy with a white and red coloured hair plus a burn mark on his face.

"Tch!"

It was Midnight who did that. Still, no one remonstrated with her. None of them particularly liked Endeavor. But his abilities were the real deal, otherwise he wouldn't be the number 2 hero.

After a few more moments, silence continued to hang in the air.

"No one else? Really? This time there seemed to be lesser talents." Nezu shook his head.

"Yaoyorozu Momo. Her quirk seems very versatile." Aizawa said another name.

Nezu observed her for a while before shaking his head. "Her quirk is truly good, but we still don't know how well suited she is for battle. Her quirk isn't exactly made for head-on battle after all. But if she's smart in using her quirk, then that will be a different story...What about Inasa Yoarashi then? He seems pretty strong."

"He withdrew his recommendation." Hyoga replied.

"Withdraw from UA? Interesting..." Nezu muttered to himself.

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Ten minutes later, Present Mic screamed,"LET THE TEST BEGIN!

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A/N: Sorry I was a little late, feeling lazy today...

Question here, do you guys want Shido to have just one spirit dress, or multiple spirit dresses which he can change at will? Honestly, I'm fine with both, but I'm leaning towards the former since the latter needs me to remember every spirit dress that exists. Comment down on your choices but I will have the final decision, but up till chapter 79, he would have multiple spirit dresses.

And all five routes of Bokutachi wa Benkyou ga Dekinai (We Never Learn!) have finally ended!! Who is your favourite girl? For me, it's Uruka Takemoto, the tanned girl. Yeah, she's my favourite.

If you want to support me or/and want 14+ chapters in advance, link:

https://www.patr eon.com/spirits_everywhere