Side Character Who Became the Pseudo-Protagonist

Chapter 11: The Worst First Place

A figure suddenly walked on stage, saving me from my lamenting.

It was a serious-looking woman with sharp eyes, her dark gray hair tied up in a high ponytail. She was wearing a simple neatly tucked white office shirt along with a pair of black gloves.

Even without saying anything, the room had gone quiet.

It wasn’t just me, everyone who was here knew who she was.

Professor Irene Hayes, an ex-member of the 12th Platoon and one of the country’s most promising Operators who rose to the position at Asgard Academy at just 28 years old.

She had a solid record of clearing dozens of Class-A Gates and many other achievements that can’t even begin to be named.

A Citadel-Class Operator, just one rank below the highest classification an Operator could be classified as.

"Everyone, I’ll cut to the chase."

"If you aren’t confident in anything, forfeit now and don’t waste your time, or mine."

A few murmurs spread throughout the crowd and some even stood up to leave, probably the ones that realized how much of a commitment being a full-time Operator was.

"Right...here’s how this is going to go. You’ll be evaluated in two stages."

"The first is the basic metrics. We’ll be testing your Output, Control, Projection, Processing, and Storage. Those who achieve a passing score will move onto the second Stage, which is the field evaluations. But first..."

She tapped something on the podium, causing a holographic panel to open just above her head for all to see.

"The gimmick is this. You’ll be picking which Pillar you’re the most confident in, allowing you to gain double points from it. But if you perform lower than our standards, you’ll be penalized."

"Here at Asgard Academy, we don’t tolerate mediocrity. We want specialization, training students who become the best at their craft."

Suddenly, from the arm of my chair, a small tube emerged. Inside were five ribbons, each representing a color for one of the Pillars of Logos.

’Obviously I’m choosing Storage...’

I took the blue ribbon and tied it around my wrist.

Looking to my right, I saw a purple ribbon around Cecilia’s wrist and a yellow ribbon around Colette’s.

’Makes sense. Cecilia’s got crazy damage in the game and Colette’s got one-turn spells in her toolkit.’

In the corner of my eye, I saw Ruby tie a ribbon to her wrist as well, but from the distance, I couldn’t see what color it was.

The speakers rumbled again as the Professor spoke loudly.

"Now! Let’s begin the Entrance Evaluations."

***

I didn’t get much of a choice for which evaluation to go to first.

There were still so many people that I eventually found myself in the Projection area first, my absolute favorite.

Well, the test was simple enough.

There were a few targets lined up and placed at different distances, similar to a shooting range.

The applicant was provided with a Bracelet-type Spell Driver, already pre-loaded with the spell [Magic Bullet].

Since the spell was already pre-loaded, technique didn’t matter. All the applicant had to do was supply their Logos and maintain the sequence until impact.

In other words, it was a pure Projection test, in every sense of the word. A test of how far you could send a spell before the sequence collapsed.

I watched a few other applicants go before me, most managed to hit the first target about three meters away, but usually failed on the second or third.

Among them, some outstanding individuals managed to hit the fourth and even fifth target all the way in the thirty meter range.

"Contestant Number 404, Nolan Midgard, please come forward!"

’Great, they just straight up announced my name to the whole world. Seems like I’m in for some public humiliation today.’

I stepped up and took the Spell Driver, feeling the metal cold in my hand before the test even started.

’Please just let me hit the first target, just the first one. I’ll do anything you ask for. I’ll fulfill my role diligently...’

Click!

The spell sequence registered, gun lighting up before—

BANG!

A bullet made of compressed Logos shot out from the barrel, flying towards the first target about three meters away.

But just as it reached the halfway mark, the bullet started to wobble. The compressed Logos lost its shape, flickered once, then collapsed into a sad little burst of blue sparks before it could reach the target.

"..."

Somewhere behind me, someone coughed, suspiciously sounding like a laugh instead.

’Ah...I hate my life.’

"Ahem...Nolan Midgard, do you perhaps...want to try again—?"

"No."

"Projection score...recorded."

[Projection: 1.5 meters]

***

The three tests that came next were a mix of highs and lows.

Output was next.

In other words, this was where I got my get-back.

The test, once again, was extremely simple. Wear this Glove-type Spell Driver, load your Logos into it and punch this dummy.

Needless to say, when everyone expected me to tickle the poor thing and I ended up sending it flying into the air...

Well, some stress was relieved there.

[Output — Peak Logos Discharge (measured in Larcs): 726 Lc]

Considering most applicants were hovering around the 200 to 300 Lc range, with the exception of Cecilia breaking into four digits, I was pretty proud of myself.

But then came the inevitable dip in my excitement as the Control test was next.

I had remembered Ruby talking about controlling some kind of string made of Logicite, a crystal made of pure Logos, but I didn’t know it’d be so hard.

The sensation was the equivalent of having to balance a book on your head while you were on a wooden raft in the middle of a thunderstorm.

Needless to say, my string snapped quickly.

[Control: 3.89 seconds]

Then came Processing, which wasn’t anything much to talk about.

For the test, the applicant had to place their hand on a specialized Spell Driver which only contained the [Halt] Spell.

A weight would drop from above and we’d have to cast the spell to catch it mid-fall.

Most others caught the weight at around the halfway mark, which was around half a second. But I was pretty proud to have caught it around the quarter-second mark.

[Processing Latency: 250ms]

Well, not like Colette, who caught it so fast even the examiner thought the test was faulty because the weight didn’t move at all.

***

Finally, I’d managed to get to the test I had been waiting for.

Not particularly to flex my EX-Rank Storage, although it was the cherry on top...I was personally curious about what EX-Rank would even look like.

Because in the game, EX-Rank wasn’t possible at all.

I stepped onto the pedestal, where an object waited that looked suspiciously like an ordinary book. And something else laid beside it, a pen, but I could tell it was actually a Spell Driver.

The examiner beside me leaned in and pressed a button.

"Alright, for this test. Once we begin, continuous and raw sequence data will be loaded from the Data Bank into your Logos Cortex.

"Data Bank...?"

"The book."

"Ah..."

"Once the sequence is loaded, the display will vanish. Please use the provided Spell Driver to transcribe as much of the sequence as you can from memory."

"From memory?"

The examiner corrected himself.

"More accurately, from retention. Copy the sequence in five-digit blocks if possible. The test will end once your Logos Cortex begins rejecting the data, or when you make three consecutive transcription errors."

’Hmm...that doesn’t seem so bad?’

"Begin."

As soon as the buttons were pressed, a string of numbers appeared in front of my face, scrolling so fast that my eyes could barely keep up.

Actually, my eyes couldn’t keep up at all.

The numbers blurred together, turning into a river of meaningless digits that should have slipped straight through my head.

But for some reason...

I remembered everything.

"31415 / 92653 / 58979 / 32384 / 62643..."

This is kind of boring compared to the other tests. Was something supposed to happen?

After a few seconds, the numbers suddenly stopped altogether.

"Uhm...excuse me?"

"Yes?"

"Is the machine faulty? I kind of ran out of numbers..."

"..."

"..."

[Storage Test Complete]

[Standard Sequence Capacity: Exhausted]

[Errors: 0]

[Storage Classification: Measurement Limit Exceeded]

Ah. That didn’t look good.

The examiner’s face went pale as he tapped the screen several times, probably hoping the result would magically change.

[Applying Doubled Score...]

[Calculating...]

[Calculation Complete.]

[Nolan Midgard — Preliminary Evaluation Ranking: 1]

"..."

There goes my plan of laying low.