Beginning (3)
This anthropophobia made my body seize up whenever a person was nearby, whenever someone came too close, or whenever I was forced into contact with a stranger.
That was what I had thought.
But...
- Thud.
For a moment, it felt as if the thread holding my mind together had snapped. My strength drained out of me all at once.
Signaling to Professor Han Seohwa, who looked utterly shocked, and to Han Riae, who looked ready to leap off the platform at any second, that I was fine, I forced myself to stand on trembling legs.
Even if there weren’t any people standing close by, there were still countless eyes on me. It seemed the panic button for my anthropophobia had been pressed after all.
Aware of my whole body shaking, I struggled to gather myself and get back on my feet.
As I did, I pulled Han Riae’s sky-blue jacket tight around me.
If I could just hold on to this jacket, maybe the trembling would calm down a little.
The fabric still carried that sweet, warm yuzu scent of hers that had never left me.
“I’m Lim Paran, one of this year’s special-admission students for Sielm Academy’s 273rd class. I may not seem very trustworthy, but I’ll work hard and do my best to prove myself.”
My body was still shaking violently, but I carefully shaped each syllable and finished introducing myself.
When I was done, applause broke out.
The reaction was neither especially good nor especially bad. It was just... ambiguous.
After I finished speaking, I glanced toward Professor Han Seohwa, who had been standing silently at one side of the podium.
She looked as though she had witnessed something deeply moving, her eyes shining.
It seemed she thought it was admirable that I had stood back up and stubbornly introduced myself anyway.
Then, as I was taking in the students’ mana through mana erosion, I caught snippets of their voices.
— Did you see him collapse earlier? He must really be sick.
— He was shaking that badly even while introducing himself...
— He looks kind of pitiful, what with how small he is and everything.
— Hmm...
— I’ve never seen blue hair before. It’s really pretty.
What I heard now was nothing like the reactions I’d gotten at the entrance ceremony.
Not envy. Not jealousy.
Rather, there was pity, mixed with disbelief at my condition...
A strange kind of gaze and reaction fixed on me.
If it had been a negative stare like jealousy or envy, I could have at least brushed it off somehow. But this was the first time I’d been met with so many of these eyes at once, and I didn’t know how I was supposed to react.
Still trembling, I shuffled back to my seat.
Once I sat quietly down, the classroom’s hushed atmosphere felt dreary beyond belief.
“Ahem... a-all right, then. We’ll be seeing a lot of each other from now on, so let’s not do anything that’ll come back to haunt us later, okay? Now, next...”
Professor Han Seohwa hurriedly rushed forward and cut through the gloom hanging over the lecture hall.
It was obvious she was trying to change the mood.
“All right, then, next up is cadet 000! Please come on out!”
Professor Han Seohwa continued drawing reactions out of the cadets with her bright, clear voice.
My turn to introduce myself was over, and the other cadets were continuing theirs.
But none of it was getting through to me.
That earlier remark from Professor Han Seohwa kept echoing in my head.
— Let’s not do anything that’ll become a future black history moment?
Future? What future? I had just created that black history moment right now.
How important was a first impression, and I had thoroughly ruined mine.
Think about how I must have looked to them.
I’d walked up to the podium to give the same introduction everyone else had to give, only to stand there trembling for a while before losing consciousness and collapsing to the floor.
I’d made a bizarre spectacle of myself over nothing more than a simple self-introduction, then dropped to the ground with a thud.
What would anyone think of a guy like that?
Especially a special-admission student, acting like that.
The answer was obvious.
It was miserable.
I felt pathetic, and a crushing sense of self-disgust swelled in my chest.
Why did I keep being like this...?
It was painful, disappointing, stupid.
I really was a hopeless idiot—
“Paran, are you okay?”
“... Huh?”
Just as I was bowing my head and silently chewing myself out, an all-too-familiar voice from beside me cut through the negative spiral.
“Paran, you look really pale. Are you sure you’re all right?”
“.....”
Han Riae’s voice saved me from drowning in my self-reproach and panic.
For a moment, I’d almost tipped into a full-blown panic attack like last time.
“... Y-yes... I’m fine...”
I forced out an awkward smile, trying to ease Han Riae’s worry.
I could feel tears rising, but I held them back with everything I had.
“Come here, Paran~”
Seeing my state, Han Riae spread her arms and called me over.
And I, already weak enough to fold at the slightest pressure...
- Swoosh.
I’d already reached the limit of what my mind could endure, and I couldn’t resist the temptation.
“That’s it, take it slow. Breathe and relax.”
Han Riae wrapped me gently in her arms and slowly stroked my head.
Each stroke pulled me out of the swamp of memories and self-reproach that had swallowed me just a moment ago.
I had missed this familiar, warm, enveloping embrace so much.
It was a pair of arms I never wanted to leave.
My trembling body gradually stilled, and the tears I couldn’t hold back began to subside as well.
When Han Riae realized I was quietly sniffing, she spoke to me in a soft, clear, beautiful voice.
“Don’t swallow everything up inside, okay? If something hurts or you’re struggling, you have to tell me. Promise, Paran?”
“... Yes.”
Thanks to her help, most of the symptoms in my body had stopped.
I didn’t want to leave that warm, gentle touch and embrace, but...
“Riae... I’m okay now...”
It really was an embrace I didn’t want to leave, but I also knew it wasn’t the sort of thing one should do in public, so I reluctantly pulled away.
“O-okay. Then... tell me if it gets hard again...”
Seeing her look disappointed made my face start to burn.
The moment the collapse from earlier and Han Riae hugging me flashed through my head all at once, my cheeks flared hot.
The soft feeling of her and the weight of her generous chest surfaced in my mind.
Apparently I knew it was embarrassing, because my face only grew hotter.
When I looked at Han Riae still staring at me with concern, my head felt even heavier.
To hide my feverish face, I slumped forward over my desk.
“Paran, are you still having a hard time?”
No...
That’s not it at all......
.
.
.
After Han Seohwa, the professor in charge of Wolchun Class, left the stage, the common classes held by each homeroom began.
The morning subjects were Basic Mana Operation and Monster Ecology.
In Basic Mana Operation, we learned how the mana we normally used moved through the body and how to use it more efficiently, while Monster Ecology covered which monsters were generated in which dungeons, what sort of ecosystems they had, and how they attacked.
I had read enough about Monster Ecology in the books at the treatment center to have some basic knowledge already, but Basic Mana Operation was full of things I didn’t know at all.
What I knew about mana—how to release it, how to hold on to it—was nowhere near enough. This was fairly specialized knowledge, and not at all something I could understand just from the surface.
Fortunately, the course started from the absolute basics, so I was able to concentrate at least a little and barely keep up.
But because it really was the basics of the basics, most of it was already known to the other students, and the pace of the lesson was beyond anything I’d imagined.
Since it was mostly material they already knew, they seemed to be rushing ahead and skimming over it.
The problem was that “most of it was already known” did not include me.
It was only natural that there would be an enormous gap between someone who had lived on the continent their entire life since birth and me, who had woken up just two weeks ago with all my memories erased.
And to bridge that immense gap in common knowledge, there was no choice but to focus as hard as possible in theory class and keep listening steadily.
Of course, if I wanted good grades too, I had to pay attention in theory classes no matter what.
Apparently, at Sielm Academy, cadets whose grades fell all the way into the bottom ranks were judged to have no further aptitude as hunters and were expelled.
And I could be the one expelled.
Even if I didn’t aim for top marks, I had no choice but to care about my grades to some extent.
Of course, there were plenty of parts I found difficult to understand or that still felt hazy, so I planned to review them on my own after returning to the dorm.
Checking the time on the watch built into my bracelet, I saw that it was already past one.
We had definitely started class at nine, so each lecture had eaten up two full hours.
Lunch break would be here soon.
It’s already lunchtime...
Since it was lunch time, most of the cadets were leaving the classroom to go eat.
Everyone was meeting up with whichever friends they had already made, along with whatever menu they’d decided on ahead of time.
I did think about going to eat too, but...
I didn’t really have much of an appetite, and I wasn’t exactly hungry either.
Maybe I should just skip it...
“Paran, want to go get lunch together?”
“... Huh?”
While I was quietly gathering my things, I turned toward the voice coming from beside me.
There was Han Riae, already packed up, sitting there and looking at me.
“Let’s go eat together, okay?”
“Ah...”
The offer was nice, but...
“Aren’t you eating with Yoon Hwayeon?”
“Yoon Hwayeon... Her? Well... she’ll eat on her own, I guess...”
Perhaps she could sense the confusion in my stare, because Han Riae only averted her eyes and muttered the words like an excuse.