The Price of Hesitation
The class representative lay on the floor, unmoving. My mind flashed back to the barrier that had protected her during our sparring match—a defense more than capable of stopping an Intermediate-class monster's attack. If she had been alone, she wouldn't have lost to a mere Lower-class beast. But she was dead. Her face, as she sprinted toward me with desperate speed to save my life, had been etched with urgency. Had she deactivated her barrier to move faster? Or had the situation been so dire she hadn't had the chance to deploy it? Either way, the conclusion was singular: she died because of me.
I stood there, dazed, staring down at her corpse. The fluids pooling from her body stained the floor a deep, vivid red. A feeling of the same color began to spread through my chest—a thick, ominous, and viscous emotion. The girl who had been standing in the center ran over, clutching the representative’s body and wailing. She was sobbing, tearing herself apart, blaming herself for everything. In the distance, as if reacting to the sound, monsters ignored the attacks of the other students and charged straight toward her. If this keeps up, she’s going to die, too. Driven by that thought, I moved. I stepped in front of the girl and unleashed flames from my hands.
Unlike my usual fire, these flames burned a deep, crimson red, mirroring the emotion filling my chest. They were searingly hot. I felt a pain so intense it was almost unbearable, but I ignored it, reaching out with both hands to grab the heads of the charging monsters in mid-air. Held in my burning grip, the beasts incinerated. They let out agonized screams, but I gritted my teeth and refused to loosen my hold. Soon, the monsters were nothing but charred husks. I finally relaxed my hands, the heat intensifying until I cut off the flow of fire. Yet, the crimson flames that had latched onto my arms showed no sign of dying out, even after I blocked their source. The fire that had only been on my hands began to spread—from hands to arms, from arms to my torso. It was hot, so hot, and then it turned to agony. A searing pain engulfed my entire body. I let out a scream, the sound so similar to the monsters' cries from moments ago that it felt like I was losing my mind.
Then, a voice echoed in my head.
"Let’s burn it all away."
I didn't know. It hurt, it was hot, and—
"Don’t you hate the things that make you hurt? Aren't you angry? So, make them hurt just the same. Let’s burn it all. The things you hate. The world you hate."
The ominous voice whispered. Burn it. Burn it all. It hurt, I hated it, and thinking was becoming impossible.
"If you burn the world with your rage, the things that make you hurt will disappear."
If I burned it all... would it stop hurting? "Yes, burn it all. Leave nothing behind." Burn it. Start with the closest thing. "Burn it." I looked back. "Everything." The crying, the girl, the representative's corpse. "Burn it." Burn... it? "Burn it all away." ...No.
When I came to, I felt the gazes of Eve and the students upon me. My head wouldn't stop spinning, but a deep breath brought back the memory that we were in training. Beside me, the girl was crying, and two boys were gritting their teeth. Where is the representative? I scanned the room and saw someone lying on a mattress spread across the gym floor. I scrambled up and rushed to them. She was breathing heavily, her eyes closed, her face gaunt. Her neck looked fine. It seemed the events inside the hallucination hadn't affected our physical bodies. As I took her hand with trembling fingers, she cracked her eyes open. She looked at me, and even through her exhaustion, she smiled.
"You... you're safe. That's a relief..."
I wanted to scream at her. What kind of relief is that? Don't you realize you're like this because of me? Just as I was about to shout, "Waaaaah, I'm so sorry... I couldn't hold them back properly... *hic*... Waaaaah!" The girl who had been crying since earlier rushed over and began to wail so loudly the entire gym seemed to shake. The representative looked flustered by the girl clinging to her and sobbing, trying to calm her down by saying, "It's okay, Jessi... it's not your fault, it's okay..." but the girl showed no signs of stopping.
My team, including myself, sat in a circle around the representative, watching the other groups finish their training. At Eve's call, a five-person team stepped forward. With a snap of Eve's fingers, they vanished. Among the students who disappeared with their teams, some would reappear alone, screaming, before ten minutes had passed. Those students would collapse, faces deathly pale, clutching a part of their body, only to let out a sigh of relief when they realized they were physically unharmed. Eve would lay them on mattresses to rest, and we realized these were the students who had "died" within the hallucination magic during training.
One from Team 4. Two from Team 5. One from Team 6. Every time a student emerged early and struggled, our teammate would burst into fresh tears, so the sound of crying never ceased until the other teams finished. Those who had watched their teammates die during the training all gathered around their resting members on the mattresses with grim expressions, just like us. Eventually, the students who had recovered enough to sit up even began to comfort their distraught teammates, telling them they were fine and to stop looking so miserable.
These were children who had come here to become heroes, children who could feel the sorrow of others losing their lives more deeply than anything else. They were, by any measure, good people. I looked around the gym. It was as wide as a soccer field. I recalled the description from the novel: [The gym was filled with blood.] If blood were to fill this entire gym, how many people would have to die? It was certain that more than half of the students here would be among them. The thought made me sick. Just then, I felt the representative take my hand. Her eyes were full of concern; she didn't say a word, but she was asking if I was okay. I wasn't. If these kids were to die now, I would be devastated. I couldn't just let them die anymore. I must have failed to keep my expression neutral, so I forced my face back into a blank mask.
"If you've all calmed down, pay attention. I'll tell each team what needs improvement."
Eve snapped her fingers, and a hologram-like screen appeared in the air. On it, Yoon Siwoo was slaughtering a swarm of monsters with incredible agility. "Honestly, I have nothing to say to Team 1. Siwoo-kun was stronger than I anticipated, so the other students didn't even have a chance to step in. If I had to give Siwoo-kun one piece of advice, it would be: don't try to do everything alone. You might be able to do that now because you're far stronger than your enemies, but there will definitely come a day when you're overwhelmed." Yoon Siwoo gave a sheepish laugh at Eve's words. The other students were watching him with eyes full of shock. I had expected as much—it was the 'Special-Class Yoon Siwoo Show'.
The screen changed. It showed Team 2, which included Sylvia. Under her command, the team's performance against the monsters looked quite stable. Whenever other members made mistakes, Sylvia's spells filled the gaps. Since there were no major flaws, Eve offered only praise and minor suggestions before moving on. Then, when Team 3 appeared on the screen, Eve's eyes sharpened. It showed the first battle, where I failed to react to an unexpected monster movement. Fortunately, the girl in the center had used telekinesis to bind the monster and defeat it, but it seemed Eve didn't see it that way.
"For an Evande, that movement should have been easy to react to. Your response was much slower than during our sparring. If Jessi hadn't intervened, it could have been a disaster. Since there was no real damage, I'll leave it at that for now."
At the mention of "no real damage," the entire team fell silent. We all knew what had happened afterward. The video played the sequence: my hesitation in killing the monster, the creature breaking free from the telekinesis, and the representative's neck being bitten as she tried to stop it from attacking me. Eve paused the video and looked at us, her voice dry.
"Jessi, your ability usage is clumsy. If you weren't sure you could hold it perfectly, you should have at least alerted your teammates or used a weapon to keep it in check before it broke free. If you panic and do nothing while an enemy attacks a teammate's back, this will happen again."
The girl who had been pointed out nodded, eyes welling with tears. "Mei, your judgment was poor. No matter how much danger a teammate is in, you must help within the limits of your own ability. What do you think happens if you turn your back on an enemy you're fighting? At the very least, you should have created a defensive measure with your ability. That judgment led to a bad experience for you and your teammates. Reflect on it."
"Understood..."
Eve's criticism was relentless, even toward a student who had just indirectly experienced death. To her, these things were nothing more than training. If it meant students wouldn't die in real combat, she was the type of person who would drive them to the edge of a cliff over and over again. The representative bowed her head in response to Eve's justified critique. Then, Eve looked at me with eyes full of mixed emotions. She seemed to hesitate for a moment before asking, "Evande, are you afraid of fighting monsters?"
I caught my breath at the question. If it had been me from a short while ago, I would have desperately answered 'no'. I had thrown myself into sparring and other training without regard for my own safety just to make it look like I wasn't afraid. But now, with the gym doors open and my heart changed, I no longer needed to act. I nodded. This would likely mean I'd be staying at school next Monday, but... I felt like it didn't matter anymore. Eve watched me nod and added, "You'll have to get used to it. Otherwise, you might experience something far more terrifying. Understand?"
I knew what she was talking about. I glanced at the representative once, then nodded again. The video, which had been paused, resumed. It showed the girl wailing as she held the fallen representative, and the monsters rushing toward her. It showed me blocking their path, grabbing them, and burning them. The video ended with me extinguishing the fire in my hands and turning back to the fallen representative. It was a video showing exactly what had happened earlier. I should have known the contents already. But I felt a sense of dissonance. What is this feeling? I felt deeply uneasy, but even after thinking hard, I couldn't figure out what was wrong.
[■■■.]
Just then, I felt a faint pain in the hand I had been using to support myself on the floor. I flinched and lifted my hand to check, but it looked perfectly fine. Aside from a pitch-black mark that looked like it had been there all along, there was nothing to see. ...Was it just my imagination?
Only Eve's voice, scolding the boys in my team for letting the monster slip through and endangering a teammate, echoed through the gym.