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….
Haa... Pathetic trash. I help him, I speak the truth for him, and they chase me off like I'm the devil. Worlds change, but people remain the same assholes.
"I..."
"Clint?" Enega put her hands on his shoulders.
"Um..." Enega was looking straight into his eyes, making Clint feel insecure, but then the atmosphere shifted again. "You're annoying... He's applying to U.A., and he's learning to use a Quirk. Why he's trying to hide the truth is beyond me."
After those words, everything snapped back to normal instantly. Enega recoiled sharply, standing there in shock.
"I... It's weird that you didn't want to tell me. That's good news!"
Even Clint could detect the falsehood in Enega's words, but he didn't want to call her out on it. Deep down, he had a feeling that doing so would lead to big problems.
"Y-Yeah, sorry..." Clint laughed nervously, quickly turning away to unpack the groceries while Enega went into the living room.
Silence fell. The boy's thoughts were consumed entirely by Enega, specifically, her reaction to the news.
Originally, he hadn't planned on telling her about the application at all because he didn't believe he would get in.
And if he did get in, he would have told her calmly, expecting... Praise? Joy? Certainly not this reaction. It threw him into a stupor.
Sigh, you humans are so complicated...
"Like you weren't human once..." Clint whispered irritably.
I was. That's why I say you're complicated. Better to be a monster in people's eyes than to worry about useless things. The longer Andrey spoke, the more his lazy tone annoyed Clint. You cling to ephemeral feelings and miss the result.
"Have you stopped considering yourself human?" Clint latched onto the most important part.
What makes you say that? Andrey answered casually, as if he hadn't just been bragging about how great it was to be a monster.
"You said it yourself..."
Haa... Andrey sighed wearily, as if he'd had this conversation a thousand times. Why do you assume that if all monsters aren't human, then all humans aren't monsters? Evil lives in all of us. The important part is when you realize it's not that scary. Sometimes, it's even useful.
"You're talking about morality now," Clint noted, putting a bag into the cupboard.
Weren't we?
"Ugh... I don't know..." Clint answered heavily. "How does this even relate to our topic?"
What topic?
Clint didn't like to exert himself. Not that he was a lazy slob or anything, but if he could avoid doing something, he was happy to skip it.
He also hated getting emotional and tried to avoid situations that would trigger strong feelings.
Unfortunately, hiding from his main source of irritation was impossible right now, seeing as the source was currently squatting inside his head.
Anyway, none of that matters. You've got serious problems coming up this year and the next. The apocalypse alone is going to be a real headache, heh.
"Apocalypse. Right, very important." At first, Clint assumed he was joking, so he brushed the words off. "Wait... What?"
Like I said: you get into U.A., and I'll sketch out a rough timeline of events for you. For now, don't panic, but don't relax either.
With those words, his mind went blank. No mockery, no voice. It was the sign that Andrey had left the spectator's chair.
"Hey, what apocalypse?" Clint asked lostly into the void, then closed his eyes and muttered, "Don't panic, but don't relax... Easy for you to say."
….
"Well, well... Looks decent enough..." the ghost mumbled, trailing slightly behind Clint.
At the moment, he had transferred himself back into the doll to explore the city separately from Clint.
Sure, the limitations of the doll body were annoying, but being two meters tall was still better than watching life through a screen in someone's head.
"The art style is definitely influenced by the real world here, but I guess it works," Andrey offered his unsolicited opinion on the aesthetics of a flowerbed.
"I thought you wanted to tell me something about the exam?" Clint asked, unable to endure the monologue any longer.
"Huh? Hmm... Oh, right." Andrey paused, tapping his long fingers against his chin, accidentally clicking against the teeth located on his neck.
"Look, for the theory part, I think you can handle it yourself. But for the practical exam, you'll need to put in some work. Or rather... you'll need to cheat."
"Cheat how?"
"What do you know about Rescue Points?" Andrey asked. Seeing the confusion on Clint's face, he immediately continued.
"Sigh... Basically, the practical exam is beating up robots for points. But at the end of the exam, a giant robot worth zero points will appear."
"What's the point of it then?" Clint asked.
"It's going to be fucking enormous, and it'll destroy the artificial city, leading to 'civilian casualties.' The heroes might step in, but tell me, what happens to a student who personally saves someone?"
"Hmm... Well, he gets rewarded." Clint thought for a moment. "Maybe extra..."
"Do you have the memory of a goldfish? You didn't forget about Rescue Points already, did you?" Andrey interrupted him.
"Ah... He gets Rescue Points?" Clint guessed, punching his palm.
"Exactly. It's a Hero exam. Saving people should be right here." Andrey tapped his temple while floating horizontally in mid-air, a sight that just felt fundamentally wrong to look at.
"Got it..." Clint drawled, walking through the archway.
Stepping into the courtyard of the building where the written exam would be held, he suddenly realized there was nothing distracting him inside his head, which meant the noise of the crowd flooded in.
His temples immediately began to throb unpleasantly, his eyelids felt heavy, and tears pricked the corners of his eyes.
Ignoring Andrey, Clint reached for his pocket to grab his headphones, but finding nothing, he froze in horror.
In public, he always kept one ear covered with an earbud to drown out the noise. He never went outside without them.
"Hah..." With a heavy sigh, Clint took one last look at his path, closed his eyes, and trudged toward the entrance, completely ignoring everything around him.
….
If you want to read ahead chapters from here you can check out my patreon.
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