"But if that’s the case, why did you tell me to take the recommendation entrance exam?"
"Honestly, I’m still curious about that Quirk from earlier too... It was similar to One For All, but somehow different. What was it?"
Midoriya kept muttering to himself after that, analyzing everything on his own.
He was especially interested in my [One For All].
In the end, he even reached for his notebook and pen, so I grabbed his arm.
"You talk too much."
"Have you ever lost anything by listening to me?"
Midoriya flinched, clapped a hand over his mouth, then slowly lowered it again.
"...No, not at all, no matter how I think about it. Sorry."
"I don’t need an apology. Stop talking and listen."
I crossed my arms and leaned against the wall.
"The special admissions exam and the general exam are both just paths other people have already walked."
"Even if you walk that road again, at best you’ll only be treated like an elite."
"And even in the special admissions exam, your performance wasn’t enough to stand out on its own because of that ‘variable.’"
Midoriya lowered his head even further, as if admitting fault.
"I’m sorry... no, it’s because I’m lacking. You invested so much in me, Tenma, but I didn’t produce results."
"No. Excluding me, you were the best of the ones who took that exam. That’s why I’m telling you this."
Midoriya looked up at me in surprise.
"Me? But compared to Todoroki or Yoarashi... no, you’re right, Tenma."
I took Midoriya’s gauntlet and lifted it.
"Remember what All Might said? Those two might be better fighters than you, but right now they’re less suited to reassuring people than you are."
"You’re number one in the general entrance exam."
"Not because I believe in you, but because it’s the most likely prediction."
Midoriya’s eyes, which had been swollen from crying his heart out earlier, turned red again.
But he tilted his face toward the sky and fought to keep the tears from falling.
"I’m not going to cry... and I’m not going to say sorry or thank you in front of you, Tenma."
"Instead, I’ll prove it. I’ll become number one."
I let go of the gauntlet and lifted the corner of my mouth slightly.
"Show everyone that what you have isn’t luck or tools, but overwhelming ‘qualification.’"
"Give up your chance to pass and become U.A.’s first legend to conquer two exams."
There had recently been rumors that I might be connected to Hawks, so it was good to see his motivation returning.
If he gave up his chance at U.A. admission, that insane move would generate a ridiculous amount of noise marketing too.
By the time it was time for him to go home, Midoriya drifted away from me, then hesitated for a long while.
Just as I was about to leave, he finally shouted, "No matter what anyone says... Tenma, you’re the hero who saved me!!!"
"You’re one of the people I respect most. So... I’ll see you tomorrow!!"
The word hero twisted my lips unpleasantly, but Midoriya had already run off.
For me, who had died four times while helping heroes, hearing that word was always disgusting.
A few days later, the general entrance exam arrived.
I had already laid out the perfect plan for my score farming.
All I had to do now was move to the exam site and execute it, but... the people around me were noisy.
Toga kept shoving through passersby like it was a nuisance and inching closer to me.
"Tenma... if I pass this exam, you’ll give me a ‘reward,’ right? Let’s go on a date, just the two of us!"
No matter how hard Hawks and Public Safety worked, passing U.A. without taking the entrance exam was apparently still difficult, so the guests staying at the safe house had no choice but to take it too.
"We’ll watch a classic movie with a chainsaw guy and a bomb girl spraying blood everywhere, while drinking red ‘secret’ juice through the same straw!"
When I pushed Toga away again while no one was looking, Rappa clenched his fist and laughed.
"If it’s an exam, there’ll be tons of strong guys!! If I can, I’d rather have people I can beat on than machines! Hahaha!!"
Even though I’d finally gotten younger, it felt like the wrinkles between my brows were already deepening.
And since we were out on a street packed with people, I couldn’t openly ‘correct’ them.
"Hold on. Aren’t you embarrassed acting like that in front of a kid? Seriously... it’s embarrassing to be seen with you. Eri, cover your ears."
Tsutsumi, holding Eri’s hand, kept her distance from the two of them with open contempt.
Toga folded her arms and pretended to turn her back on Tsutsumi.
"Hmph! Tsutsumi-chan is just being petty. You’re jealous of how close Tenma-kun and I are, aren’t you?"
"You even brought her to kindergarten on exam day... No matter how cute Eri-chan is, that’s overprotective."
Tsutsumi adjusted Eri’s hat and replied flatly.
"She’s graduating kindergarten and going to elementary school soon. If I’m living with people like you, I’d better keep an eye on her."
"Besides, she’s not even worried. She’s having a great time with that rat thing. You’re worrying for nothing."
As if to prove it, when I looked down at Eri, she was petting the mouse I had made first.
"It’s not a rat thing... it’s [Kakkyu]," she said, sounding oddly downcast as she corrected Toga, apparently having even given it a name.
"Squeak! (Lord Father! I, Dojisa, will gladly serve the young lady! But... could you at least let me prove that I can handle my own duties?)"
Come to think of it, the mice had reported that, instead of just taking information from them, they had elected a representative to present their opinions and intelligence.
Apparently, they had compromised on the title of "Lord Father" after a messy indirect vote over all sorts of honorifics.
Since they were good at doing what I told them, I still didn’t pay them much attention.
Most of the guests were either friendly toward them or indifferent.
"Ugh. Don’t touch that. Rats are so filthy."
Tsutsumi was the only one who hated them so much that her lips practically curled all the way inward whenever she saw one.
"There are plenty of cute things like hamsters or guinea pigs, so why rats of all things? Their tails are disgusting too. Can’t you just let them go?"
"Squeak! (That’s slander! You don’t know how hard I work... no, how well I assist! The young lady even does my laundry every day!)"
Of course, there was no way Tsutsumi could understand what the rat was saying.
Even if I could, I had no intention of translating it, much less replying.
Eri moved her doll, [Ringon], and used the doll’s hand to pet the mouse.
"...Kakkyu is clean. I give him a bath [five] times every day. He has horns like me too, so he’s my friend."
Tsutsumi pressed two fingers to her brow as if her head hurt.
"Fine, whatever. If the landlord doesn’t complain, I can’t exactly say anything. ...Can rats even be neutered? Absolutely no more infestations like before."
"Squeak! (Save me!!)"
Seeing that scene made me glad I hadn’t gone with Midoriya.
If the place had been crowded with people too, I might not have been able to hold back and secretly released rats to drive them off.
*
After taking Eri to kindergarten,
I entered the exam waiting room after the briefing ended.
People who were fascinated by Midoriya always crowded around him, so I didn’t go near him directly.
I sent messages to Midoriya and the guests, telling them to be careful around metal objects and keep their distance if they heard sirens.
While I looked around to pass the time, nothing especially noteworthy caught my eye.
To me, the special admissions exam was a verified department store.
The general entrance exam was more like an auction house.
I hadn’t expected much from the low-end stock, but if I could pick up even one good item, I’d come out ahead.
Just then, Present Mic shouted, "There’s no countdown in the real thing!!"
With the starting signal, the examinees rushed out in a panic.
As for me, I didn’t run. I hid as much as possible so I wouldn’t become the ‘main character.’
I closed one eye and opened the other wide.
The eye I’d opened wide split apart and floated away thanks to the effect of [Tail Severing].
My tracking was already good enough, but the speed was lacking.
"Strong Wings."
I separated all the feathers from the red wings on my back.
"Overhaul."
When I took hold of the feathers and my eye, the two fused, taking the form of an eye with red wings.
"I can see it."
This was different from when I had tested [Overhaul] alone before.
Maybe because [Tail Severing] had fully connected the optic nerves too, the vision remained shared even after separation.
My ‘eye’ soared through the sky at high altitude, identifying villains.
[Strong Wings], with its shared vision, was basically a high-performance radar.
To subdue the villains quickly, I gathered the red feathers, had [Overhaul] hold them, and touched the ground.
When I fused them again, they became a giant arrow with dozens of red feather tips.
I separated [Overhaul]’s hands as well.
"Begin score acquisition."
At the command, the arrows shot out in all directions like hunting dogs.
When my eye in the air rolled around and found a villain,
the arrow would pierce only the villain’s head and subdue them.
Finally, my hands would reassemble the villains into wheels and move them to my territory.
Find. Pierce. Reassemble. Repeat.
My flying eye felt intense fatigue and dryness, but only one minute had passed on my wristwatch.
I had already long since passed the safe zone, and if my eye wasn’t wrong, I was just over 100 points.
As proof of the result, voices spread around me—frustrated and uneasy, complaining that someone had already beaten them to it, with villains lying around holes in their heads.
At this rate, I could wipe out the villains entirely and monopolize the score.
I could eliminate about eighty percent of the students just by choosing to.
Instead, I divided the villains’ remains. Using my experience, I made a giant ‘speaker.’
I plugged an ‘earphone jack’ into the hole I’d prepared.
Waaaaaah!!!!!!
The ear-splitting roar, almost like a siren, flooded not just the surrounding area but nearly the entire exam site.
Different kinds of villains reacted to the sound and swarmed in.
My [Overhaul] touched the leftover debris while it was still idle.
The debris turned into a rectangular prism.
The charging villains were forcibly drawn toward it.
They crashed into the rectangular prism again and again.
By the ‘magnet’ I had reassembled, countless villains were either smashed apart or piled up while still moving.
The completely shattered debris created more speakers and magnets.
The villains that were only barely moving piled up like mountain ranges.
It wasn’t just machines that were drawn in by the sound.
The bizarre, overwhelming sight and noise brought in a fair number of examinees too.
So this was the beginning.
"Time to start score farming."
The people who had gathered fell into three groups.
Those who already had more than enough points and came just to watch, and those who came to investigate the variable.
Those people weren’t my customers.
The ones who had come here with even a sliver of hope were my ‘potential clients.’
The ones whose feet didn’t move right away were the ones worth expecting something from.
"What the hell are you trying to do? In the U.A. entrance exam, where passing or failing can come down to a single point, you’re tying up villains you don’t even intend to subdue!! That’s wrong!"
A blue-haired guy with glasses lectured me.
"Yeah! Yeah! It’s not like you’re just being a jerk!"
"Are you trying to brag about having talent?"
The other students seemed to want someone to blame too, so they started whining.
To say things like that in a timed exam...
They really did sound like people who wanted to be heroes.
Of course, I had already prepared for this kind of pressure too.
It was an almost ‘invincible’ method, and one U.A. couldn’t easily criticize either.
I covered the eye-less side of my face with one hand, yawned as tiredly as I could, and slowly backed away.
Most of the arrows gently dropped as well.
"Yawning while someone’s talking? You—"
Thud.
My body slumped weakly, leaning a little against the wall.
...Time to sleep.
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