[3: For What It's Worth]
(A few moments before)
After admiring and having a little sightseeing of the U.A. campus, I entered the auditorium. Needless to say, my uniform was getting a lot of eyes.
"Um, excuse me, are you a teacher here? Where do I go for the written exam? I'm new here."
I looked at the person who came up to me and asked me the question. Not anyone I know from the story, just a random. A bit harsh, but it's the truth.
Although the fact that I got mistaken for a teacher or an authority figure because of my uniform does give me some ideas. I'll put a pin in that.
"You're mistaken, I'm not a teacher here, I'm a student."
"What?"
They were shocked. I would be too. Someone with a black uniform, a cape, and a bicorne hat with a plume just screams someone important, especially in a setting like this.
"Yeah, I'm also a student here, but I think we just have to follow the signs." I pointed to some signs that gave instructions on where to go. Like, come on now, just open your eyes.
"Oh. Thanks."
Well, that's that. There are a lot of people here. I wonder what the percentage of those who pass is. Ah, not important or something for me to care about.
/\\//\\//\
(Present)
Ignoring the fact of perhaps the greatest discovery in archaeological history, this test isn't too bad. The English test was easy, obviously. Math was easy, and some science things were unknown, but it was mostly easy. Overall, not as hard as I thought it would be.
There was one weird question, though. It wasn't worth points because it was way too open-ended. It was one of those "get to know you" questions that tried to see how you think.
It asked, "who is the most influential human in history?" Like I said, really open-ended. You could put so many people there, and it would be right. I'll bet good money the majority of people here put All Might or something. These people are way too short-sighted. I mean, it's all of history, you can't put people who are still alive, since their impact isn't fully realized, which is why the older people have the advantage here.
My answer? Very, very easy. Charles Babbage. No one else in history comes close to the way this man has affected the entire world. No conqueror like Alexander the Great or Napoleon, no empire, no kingdom, nothing. This man has affected the entire world. No one else has done that on the same scale. And I bet no one knows who he is. Because, you see, the question of "most influential person in history" kind of becomes a popularity contest, and not something that tries to get to the core of the question.
You might be asking: Who is Charles Babbage? He's the guy whose ideas and theories led to modern computing. Computers basically run the world. To name a few things, computers control global finance, sustain the global economy, run engineering, underpin AI, lead to spaceflight and exploration, and support scientific research. Long term, this guy has planet-defining influence, but you won't see people talk about him. People would rather focus on stupid and idiotic stars and celebrity drama, and that endless spew of rotting gossip. People would rather look up to them and have their minds rotted instead of the people who've actually made a change for the betterment of humanity.
Whatever, I wonder how the other test takers here answered. Probably…Oda Nobunaga? Emperor Meiji? I don't know much about Japanese history, to be honest. If it's anything not Oda Nobunaga or Meiji, I'm lost. Maybe all these people put some heroes. Yeah, they probably did. I wouldn't count any heroes in a list of the 100 most influential people in history. Just no.
My other options, if I had to choose besides Charles Babbage, would be Johannes Gutenberg, the Chinese alchemists who discovered gunpowder, Jonas Salk, Edward Jenner, or Alexander Fleming. Especially those last two. You want to talk about people who've saved lives? Jenner's invention of the first vaccine and Fleming's discovery of antibiotics have literally saved hundreds of millions, if not billions, of lives all over the world. Those are heroes.
But well, if people like that aren't known in my time, then even less in this time, because of quirks. Even more so, since being a pro hero is an actual thing here, that takes even more attention away from them. But, oh well, what can I do? I'll just go along my path. I'll graduate here, do hero stuff, then go home to Alaska and live the rest of my life there. So, yeah, no grand ambition.
Not in Japan, at least. Their laws are too strict around quirks. I prefer looser laws, but I can't do anything about it. And it's not my country, so I'm not going to involve myself in that stuff.
Although, I may not like or fully support the hero system here, I'll have faith in it. And while I may know things that will happen in the future, maybe I can inspire someone else who can act to change the system to be better. What better way than to change it from within? Yeah, maybe, I'll try to do something like that while I'm here.
Honestly, I'm just waiting for—
"ARE YOU READY!?"
There he is. And just like in the show, complete silence. It almost makes you wish for the cliche cricket noises. But finally, the moment I've been waiting for. Just have to sit through this explanation. It was the same thing. The small robots were 1 point, the medium ones were 2 points, and the big ones were 3 points. And of course, the 0 point robot, the one that is supposed to represent that you can't face everything, or something like that, not like it matters to me. Because like, one railgun shot would annihilate it. I'm more worried about the collateral damage from a railgun shot. That projectile will easily pierce it and continue flying, landing who knows where.
Well, actually, the robot will absorb the force of the projectile, but is that saying much when the thing goes Mach 8 at minimum? Short answer is no, and force equals mass times acceleration. Long answer is…a long lecture.
But it doesn't matter. It's nothing a few drone strikes can't solve. So far, everything's the same. Written test, which I probably did average, maybe above average, since there was new knowledge over such a long time.
Anyway, time to head to the exam sites. I wonder if there'll be anyone from the main cast at my site. I think there should be? I'm most definitely replacing someone, I just want to see who. Well, the answer should be obvious. The purple guy—no Five Nights at Freddy's—with the grapes on his head or something. If there's no one from the main cast, then I'll take all the points from the others. Sucks to be them, but oh well. It's a competition for a spot in the best hero course. And well, I guess I have to represent or something for America? 'Cause I'm a transfer student and whatnot. Are transfer students kind of expected to show off their country's educational prowess? I don't know how this works.
I'll just go out there and do what I do. This isn't the Olympics or anything like that, where you have to represent your country and be all patriotic. But it's different for the sports festival…that's a good platform for that kind of stuff. But that's for later.
For now, it's the moment I've been waiting for.