Pravos stared into the microwave, no, into the fast-time world with a baffled expression. What the hell happened? She quickly shut the microwave door and turned around, not daring to meet Vremya’s eyes as she did so. Luckily, she was only on a call with him. If he was there in person, he could obviously tell that the previously mostly empty world was now filled to the brim with people. “Everything is fine in there,” she said. “Absolutely no issues at all.” Even though she knew everything was in fact not fine and Vremya could discover that at any moment, she still chose to lie. She couldn’t help it! There had already been several incidents involving her choices with Rachel; if Vremya realized she had also messed up here, wouldn’t her spot by the god of time’s side be gone? Perhaps she’d even lose her head!

Vremya wasn’t an idiot. From Pravos’ obviously shifty expression, he knew there was something wrong. However, he didn’t care too much about it. The worst thing that could happen was his users perishing. Even if they somehow ended up crippled or on the verge of death, there was an endless number of medicines that could resolve those problems. In fact, even if his users perished, he could probably introduce some titans to the god of reincarnation and god of death and easily get the souls of his users back. Besides, even if his users were erased from existence, souls and all, there were still so many lifeforms in the lower dimension, he could simply replace them with ease. As such, Vremya decided to accept Pravos’ words. “Continue accepting customers. Make sure everything runs properly.”

“Of course!” Pravos said, bobbing her head up and down. When the call ended, Pravos exhaled and collapsed onto her knees, patting her chest with her hand. It was as if she had received a royal pardon. She might’ve been a bit foolhardy when it came to confronting injustice, but she was still sharp enough to realize Vremya caught her lie. What did that mean? He valued her more than his users! With that thought in mind, Pravos climbed to her feet, determined to figure out what the hell had happened while she was gone! As a god, her memory was impeccable. She definitely turned the microwave off before leaving, so something must’ve happened in the year that she was gone. Luckily, there were cameras installed in the place.

Pravos went to the back and checked the tape. There were a few gods who had showed up during the past year, but upon seeing it was empty, most of them left. A few braver ones went ahead and tried to operate the microwave, but without the appropriate divinity, they weren’t able to get it to work. There was one god, however, who got it to work: Kosmos. The god of space had waltzed in, activated the microwave, looked inside, then left after realizing the thing she was looking for wasn’t inside. Not only that, but the faint glow continued coming off the microwave for over a day. Pravos’ eye twitched. She had figured out where the problem came from, but what was she going to do? Even Vremya didn’t like dealing with Kosmos, so how would a puny god of justice like herself confront a giant like Kosmos? The only thing Pravos could do now was clean up the mess that the god of space had caused. She took in a deep breath and walked back into the room with the microwave. It was time to see how bad the mess was.

***

Howard panted and gasped as he ran. The academy’s doors were visible from the gate. At first, he thought there’d be all kinds of traps and dangers barring the way, but who knew that the only thing there was a space-elongating formation? The distance between the academy gates and the academy doors could easily be crossed in thirty breaths, but with the space-elongating formation, those thirty breaths became thirty-thousand breaths! In fact, it could’ve been more or less; Howard wasn’t sure, but he knew he was at the front of the pack. There weren’t any shortcuts, and one could only rely on their endurance. At that moment, an ostrich ran past him. On its back, a girl was leisurely reading a book while holding a parasol up with one hand. A bitter expression appeared on Howard’s face. Okay. Other than relying on their endurance, people could also rely on their wealth.

A fire burned in Howard’s eyes as he redoubled his efforts. No matter what, he had to join the academy. He had to succeed! He didn’t want to live a life of normalcy, one where he’d be stuck grinding monotonous jobs for a barely livable wage, not knowing when the forces of evil would come and attack. He wanted to be a hero, someone on the level of the four pillars. He wanted to be rich and famous; he wanted the forces of evil to tremble when they heard his name! As for the forces of evil, Howard didn’t know much about them; however, he heard rumors that their leader was a cruel and vicious woman who used butcher knives to fillet her opponents alive. She was supposedly a companion of the four pillars, but upon becoming an immortal, she broke off ties with them and set up her own faction! If it weren’t for the four pillars holding her back, the world would’ve already fallen under her control.

However, Howard was simply too weak right now. The test was a simple one, but it was already pushing him to his limits. He didn’t know how far away the academy doors were. If he paced himself and ran too slowly, what if he didn’t make it by the time the sun set? The only thing he was certain about was it wouldn’t be bad to maintain first place—ignoring the girl on the ostrich. As long as he was ahead of the pack, he was guaranteed to get in unless the academy wanted to reject every single participant. With that thought in mind, he ignored the burning in his lungs, the sharp pain in his side, the rasping in his throat, and the blisters on his feet. His eyes flashed with determination, and at that moment, the doors to the academy suddenly appeared in front of him. He didn’t have time to react and ran straight into them with such speed that his vision turned white upon the collision. It took him a moment to recover his senses, and when he got up, blood was pouring down from his face, but he didn’t take any notice of that. Somehow, he had passed!

Howard grasped the ancient-looking doorknob and pulled. The door didn’t budge. Could it be testing his strength? He planted his feet firmly into the ground and concentrated his energy into his hand. With a roar, he pulled on the doorknob. “Open for me!” he shouted while straining, his neck bulging with veins. His face turned red from the effort, and blood leaked out from underneath his fingernails due to the excessive force. Howard gritted his teeth, forcing all his strength into his arm. He had come so far; he didn’t believe he’d fail here!

A soft cough resounded near his ear, and Howard nearly jumped out of his skin. There was no one around him, but a voice clearly appeared in his mind. “You have to push the door, not pull.”

Suddenly, Howard felt like he wasn’t very worthy of entering the academy, but he also felt like the blame couldn’t be placed on him. The door was simply too poorly designed! If they were meant to be pushed, why did the outward appearance of the front doors look so pullable?

[Greetings, user! The great justice student system has been installed!]

What the hell was that!? Upon entering the academy, a line of text appeared in Howard’s vision. Was this another test? Perhaps it was a special formation created by the four pillars meant to introduce the academy to newcomers. With that thought in mind, Howard relaxed a bit.