How Far I Can Go

The stone bench was cold beneath me.

Not the kind of cold you notice and forget. The kind that slowly seeps into your bones, reminding you that the world has no reason to go easy on you. I sat still, hands crossed on my knees, staring at the Academy's walls.

Thirty meters of dark basalt. A massive enclosure stretching two kilometers, taller than any building I'd seen in the Ruins. The stones were smooth, almost polished—not by time, but by decades of methodical, relentless, military construction. A province-rank dragon wouldn't clear these walls. Maybe a country-rank one, with a running start.

*They built this to survive. Not to live. To survive.*

Around me, the crowd of candidates buzzed with poorly contained anxiety. Hundreds of people. Young, less young, faces I didn't know and might never know. Some wore brand-new uniforms, still stiff. Others, like me, just wore what they had.

I clenched my fists on my knees.

*Stay focused. You survived ninety-two Night Walks. You survived the Ruins. You outran looters with cans of food in your arms.*

*You can survive this too.*

---

📢 *"All candidates are asked to line up in front of the gate. Opening is imminent."*

The voice echoed across the courtyard, cold. Mechanical. Final.

I stood up with the others.

The steel gate opened with a slow, heavy groan, as if even this place's doors wanted to warn you: *what awaits you inside is nothing like anything you know.* A woman appeared in the opening. Tall, straight-backed, square shoulders beneath a dark military coat. Her gaze swept the crowd with the precision of an inventory count.

Crossing the threshold felt strange.

On the other side of the walls, the world was different. Quieter. The air smelled of cold stone and machine oil. The inner courtyard was massive, paved with gray slabs worn down by thousands of footsteps. At the entrance, we were each handed a metal plate—my number engraved on it: *112*.

I gripped it tight in my palm.

The woman spoke. Her boots echoed on the pavement with every step.

*"I'm Emma, Captain of the 8th Brigade. Welcome to the Dragon Slayer Academy entrance exams."*

Her voice was clear, direct, without the slightest effort to soften what she was about to say.

*"You'll face three trials: written, physical, and a duel against a Captain. You need to score at least half the total points to have any hope of passing. You are one hundred fifty candidates. Thirty of you will join the Academy."*

Thirty.

The word dropped into the crowd like a stone into water. I saw shoulders sag around me. Someone behind me muttered a curse under their breath.

*One candidate out of five. Not one out of two. Not one out of three.*

*One out of five.*

---

Beside me, a boy was twisting his fingers without realizing it. His shirt was already soaked through on his back despite the coolness of the courtyard. He turned to me, his eyes searching for something—anything—to hold onto.

*"Hey. You okay?"* His voice was a thread. *"How are you so calm? Thirty! Only thirty out of a hundred fifty!"*

I shrugged.

*"Panicking doesn't solve anything."*

It wasn't really wisdom. It was just something I'd learned in the Ruins. Panic costs energy. And in a world like ours, energy is the only currency that really matters.

He looked down at his hands.

*"My older brother failed here. My family put all their savings on me. Everything they'd saved up in the Ruins. I... I can't disappoint them like he did."*

I really looked at him for the first time. Not just an anxious face in the crowd. A boy carrying the weight of people who weren't even there.

*"I get it. I'm from the Ruins too."*

A pause.

*"If you want, we team up. I'm Rashford."*

He hesitated for a second, then something loosened slightly in his expression.

*"Rafe."* A breath. *"I'm in."*

---

The written test lasted two hours.

The room smelled of dust and ink. The questions covered dragon physiology, dragon classifications, squad combat strategies, the properties of mental energy. Terms I'd heard in the Ruins sometimes, slipped into survivors' conversations—but never truly learned. Never formalized.

I saw candidates cheating. Furtive whispers, glances sliding over neighboring papers. The proctors didn't react.

*Interesting. They let it happen.*

I gritted my teeth and focused on my own sheet. Some answers came easily. Others I guessed at. On half the questions, I sketched out something rather than nothing.

During the break, Rafe rushed over to me, eyes bright.

*"That wasn't so bad! I think I got well over half!"*

I grimaced slightly.

*"Mine was... complicated."*

He gave me a look of genuine concern that I found almost touching.

*"You didn't cheat?"*

*"No."*

He seemed unsure what to say to that.

---

The physical test was different.

Running, jumping, raw strength, reflexes. Trials designed to measure what the body can do without mental energy—just raw human mechanics.

The Ruins had prepared me for this without me even knowing it. Years of running on unstable ground, carrying loads, fleeing, fighting over scraps of food. My body responded without hesitation. I ran faster than most. I lifted heavier than expected. I struck with a precision I didn't know I had.

For the first time since the day began, something that felt like confidence settled into my chest.

*This test, I passed.*

---

The courtyard for the final test was silent in a way that felt entirely unnatural.

One hundred fifty people. Not a sound.

Captain Emma stood at the center, her tone grave.

*"This test is the most decisive. Passing it guarantees your entry, regardless of your previous results. Three Captains are present today. Each of you will face one of them for ten minutes. The Captain holds a flag. Your objective: take it from them."*

She gestured toward the courtyard's entrance.

What followed, I wasn't expecting.

A pressure. Invisible, massive, as if the air itself had decided to grow heavier. Not painful. Just... crushing. Like suddenly finding yourself at the bottom of an ocean you never saw coming.

Several candidates staggered. Someone to my left dropped to one knee.

*Tap. Tap.*

Footsteps. Slow. Measured. Three silhouettes entered the courtyard.

*"Today, you'll be evaluated by Captain Leu, myself, Captain Emma..."*

She paused for a tenth of a second.

*"...and Captain Joe."*

The name spread through the crowd like a cold blade.

Rafe leaned toward me, his voice dropped to a whisper.

*"Every time Joe's the one evaluating, the pass rate crashes. You'd better pray you don't get him."*

I looked at the silhouette at the far end of the courtyard.

I'd already seen him. The night of the Night Walk. That closed-off face, those eyes reflecting nothing warm, that way of moving as if the rest of the world barely existed.

My heart beat a little faster.

*Of course.*

---

In the waiting room, a familiar voice.

*"Hey, kid. We meet again."*

Caster. His smile was the same as that night at the bunker—relaxed, faintly mocking, with something genuine underneath.

*"You took my advice. Good. See it through. Don't disappoint me."*

*"I'll do my best."*

He nodded, as if that was enough for him.

Then my number echoed down the hallway.

*Candidate 112.*

---

I opened the door.

The room was small, plain. Four walls, a stone floor, a narrow window. And at the center, Joe Ng-Kak.

Nineteen years old. Five years older than me. In any other context, he would've just been a young man. Here, in this room, he was something else. His gaze swept over me for a fraction of a second—not with interest, not with contempt. With the same attention you'd give a file you flip through before closing it.

He set a small square of red cloth on the table beside him without a word.

*The flag. Too easy. Too accessible.*

*Is this a trap, or is it contempt?*

I stepped forward carefully. My hand reached toward the red cloth.

It vanished.

Not into Joe's hand. He hadn't moved. The flag was simply... somewhere else. On the other side of the table. As if it had never been where I thought.

I tried again. Same result.

Again. Again. Again.

The minutes ticked by. I changed angles, sped up, tried to feint. Nothing worked. The flag always slipped out of reach with a fluidity that had nothing human about it. Joe, meanwhile, barely moved. His hands stayed at his sides. His expression never changed.

He wasn't fighting. He was simply waiting for time to pass.

*That's what's unbearable. Not that he's strong. It's that he doesn't even take me seriously.*

Only three minutes remained when he spoke for the first time. His voice was flat, without inflection, like a statement made simply because it was true, and for no other reason.

*"You run fast for someone from the Ruins. Good physical reflexes."*

A pause.

*"But you don't have mental energy. Without it, you'll never be able to kill a dragon. No matter how fast you run."*

It wasn't cruelty. It was worse. It was total indifference. He wasn't trying to hurt me. He was simply stating what he saw, like a doctor reading test results.

*"People like you get into the Academy, learn the basics, and die on their first real mission."*

He met my eyes fully for the first time.

*"It's pointless."*

Something broke in my chest.

Not because of his words. But because he was right. Because I already knew it. Because I'd survived ninety-two Night Walks by hiding, by fleeing, by relying on luck and on other people. Not on my own strength. Never on my own strength.

*Your parents are dead and you did nothing.*

The thought wasn't his. It came from me. It had lived inside me for years, crouched in some dark corner, and his cold words had just pried the door open.

*Even today, you'll do nothing.*

Two minutes.

My body trembled. Not from fear. From something deeper, older. A rage with no name, fed by years of survival without dignity, nights in bunkers, mornings in ruins.

*I refuse.*

*I refuse to let that be true.*

*I refuse to die without even trying to become somebody.*

---

It started in my hands.

A warmth. Not the kind from blood circulating or muscles working. Something else. Something rising from deeper down, as if a part of me I hadn't known existed had just violently woken up.

My body moved before my brain had even finished forming the command.

My vision changed. The room's edges grew sharper, the shadows more precise, the flag's movement easier to read. My heart pounded hard but steady, powerful, like an engine being pushed to full throttle for the very first time.

*That's it. That's what this is.*

*Mental energy.*

Joe stopped.

It was imperceptible—a fraction of a second where something shifted in his posture. His gaze settled on me differently. Not with interest. Something harder to read. An observation.

Only thirty seconds left.

I lunged.

Everything I had—the speed, the rage, the warmth burning in my arms—I poured it into that last attempt. The flag came within reach of my hand. My fingers brushed it.

Not enough.

The timer hit zero.

Silence returned.

Joe retrieved the flag without hurrying. He looked at me one last time, and his voice was the same as at the start—cold, flat, final.

*"You awakened your mental energy. Too late to change today's result."*

A one-second pause.

*"If you get into the Academy, don't die stupidly."*

He turned away.

That was it. No encouragement. No cruelty. Just a fact stated by someone who'd already moved on to something else before you'd even left the room.

I stepped out into the hallway, my legs heavy.

---

Rafe was waiting for me, worry in his eyes.

*"How'd it go?"*

*"I didn't get the flag."*

He winced.

*"You got Joe?"*

I nodded.

He stayed silent for a moment, then awkwardly placed a hand on my shoulder.

*"You survived ten minutes against him. That's already something."*

I didn't answer. In my palm, the warmth of the mental energy had faded, leaving behind a dull exhaustion and a question that refused to let go of me.

*How much longer until I'm strong enough for that look to change?*

---

An hour later, Captain Emma returned to the courtyard.

The wait had been silent, tense, each minute longer than the last. The candidates had clustered into small groups, some standing, some sitting on the pavement, all staring at nothing in particular.

She unrolled the list.

Two candidates had scored perfectly across every trial: Naoz and Anna. Their names echoed through the courtyard with something that sounded like relief for them, and resignation for everyone else.

Then the names began to fall, one by one.

At the twenty-fifth name, Rafe jumped.

*"That's me!"*

His voice cracked somewhere between a shout and tears. He turned to me, eyes shining, and I saw in his face the weight that had just lifted—his family, his brother, the savings from the Ruins.

*"Rashford, I made it!"*

*"I know. Congratulations."*

He laughed, a short, trembling laugh, and I smiled at him without really being able to help it.

The names kept coming. Twenty-six. Twenty-seven. Twenty-eight. Twenty-nine.

My stomach twisted.

Captain Emma paused imperceptibly before the thirtieth name.

*"The last candidate admitted to the Dragon Slayer Academy is... candidate 112. Rashford."*

I didn't move right away.

Thirtieth. Last. The one who'd almost not made it.

But I was in.

I looked at the metal plate in my hand. The number 112 engraved into it, cold and precise. I gripped it tight, until I felt the edges press into my palm.

*I didn't die in the Ruins. I didn't die in the Night Walks. And today, I wasn't eliminated.*

*It's a start.*

*A damn small start, but a start.*

Somewhere in my head, Joe Ng-Kak's cold, indifferent voice still echoed.

*If you get into the Academy, don't die stupidly.*

*I don't intend to.*