The Butterfly Effect of an Unexpected Intruder
“Put the sword away. You don’t even act like a senior, you bitch.”
Even under Junhyuk’s murderous threat, Yukyung only smiled as if she found the whole thing entertaining.
“Grabbing a blade bare-handed—what kind of guts is that?”
“Because you’re clearly not just any ordinary crazy bitch.”
“You could lose every one of those fingers.”
At that, Junhyuk locked eyes with me for the briefest instant before glaring back at Yukyung and answering.
“Five fingers aren’t too high a price for the person who matters more.”
What the hell is he saying at a time like this? I wanted to scold him, but it clearly wasn’t the moment, so I bit my lip and dropped my head.
Yukyung let out a short, scornful snort—then burst into full-throated laughter, clutching her free hand to her stomach.
“Ha! Puhahaha!”
“Wow. That was actually cool.”
Even under her mockery, Junhyuk kept staring her down with eyes sharp enough to cut.
Blood kept streaming from the hand that gripped the blade, yet he didn’t seem to care in the slightest.
“You’ve got presence.”
The moment the words left her mouth, Yukyung yanked the sword free. Almost in the same breath Junhyuk vanished from the spot in a double-thud of smoke, reappeared, and drove a fist straight at her face.
“Oh!”
She twisted her head at the last second and let the blow skim past.
Having seized the initiative, Junhyuk pressed forward with a relentless barrage, but Yukyung spun and weaved with practiced ease, then swept her sword in a wide arc that forced him back.
A sharp whistle of steel sliced the air where his throat had been a heartbeat earlier.
Yukyung opened distance again, smiling as if she were having fun, and caught her breath.
“Talking to your senior like that? You need a lesson.”
The instant she finished speaking, the blade in her hand began to writhe like a living whip. Before I could even wonder what was happening—
Yukyung swung her arm. With a dazzling whirrr, a whip of pure light erupted from the hilt and danced with lethal grace. The wind of its passage was about to crash down on Junhyuk—
“Hup!”
Thud!
Junhyuk slammed his foot into the ground and closed the gap in a single explosive burst, driving in so close that even her superior reaction speed couldn’t save her.
Then he fired a fist straight at her solar plexus.
Or so he thought.
“Tch.”
Yukyung had already reformed the blade and planted it squarely in the path of his punch.
I have to stop—!
“Hhk!”
He managed to halt his fist a hair’s breadth from the edge, but the split-second of shock was all Yukyung needed. She lashed the whip without mercy, spinning the hilt in a dazzling blur meant to coil around his entire body.
Before the light could finish wrapping him, Junhyuk once again dissolved into smoke and vanished—
“You hop back for an instant and then reappear, right?”
Her dynamic vision had caught the pattern. She thrust the hilt far behind her at the same moment—
“Ghk!”
Junhyuk’s left palm, already lunging forward again, was punched clean through with a wet thwack. Blood sprayed. He clutched the sudden hole in his hand, biting down hard on his lip.
The tip of the now-solid blade dripped with his blood. Yukyung licked it and smiled, thin and cold.
“Sloppy footwork and big movements… yeah, a first-year’s still a first-year.”
“Shut up.”
“Round two. Shall we?”
With those words the blade flexed into a whip once more and tore across the ground in every direction. Earth and stone were gouged open as if the whip itself were carving wounds.
Even so, Junhyuk was a pure martial artist. He knew her dynamic vision and reaction speed outclassed his own—
“Haaah!”
—but the only option left was to go in.
He dropped his stance as low as it would go, focused every shred of concentration, and tracked the whip’s trajectory with his eyes alone.
Then he stamped the ground in short, rapid bursts.
Moving and retreating at such blistering speed that afterimages began to trail him, he forced a breathless high-speed duel in which the whip kept scattering those ghosts. And the moment the whip swung in an especially wide arc, creating the tiniest opening—
—he launched himself behind her and locked an arm around her throat.
“Got you.”
“Ghk…!”
A rear-naked choke. Yukyung tried to wedge the scabbard between his grip, but Junhyuk was simply too fast. With the technique locked in perfectly, seven seconds would put her out cold.
Yet the tip of her blade suddenly bent like a snake, seeking the space behind her—
“The person more precious than your fingers, was it?”
—and with cunning precision she stretched the hilt and snapped the blade straight toward me, still sitting on the bench.
“Huh?”
Like a snake that had coiled tight and then struck, the tip of the blade shot toward my chest in a single blink.
“No!”
Junhyuk, still behind Yukyung, gritted his teeth and threw himself forward.
And then—crunch.
By a hair’s breadth he shoved me aside. The lower right side of his chest began to bloom bright red.
The tip that had failed to pierce me trembled, then pulled free of Junhyuk with a wet shlick and reformed into its original shape above Yukyung’s hilt.
“Yeom Junhyuk…?”
I spoke his name in a dazed whisper. Still bleeding freely from the hole through his right chest, Junhyuk lifted a hand and gently wiped the blood spatter from my face.
“Hey. You’re bleeding.”
“…That’s yours, you idiot.”
How can he still… in a situation like this…
Watching the blood pour steadily from his chest, my face grew colder and colder.
Junhyuk, however, acted as if it were nothing.
“Good. I made it in time.”
That was all he said before turning back around.
Blood was still jetting from the exit wound on his back as well. I hurriedly raised my hands and began casting healing magic on the injuries.
But all I could manage was basic hemostasis. The wounds themselves refused to close even a fraction.
There was nothing more I could do in this fight. All that remained was to pull out my phone—exactly like the crowd of bystanders watching us—and call the police and an ambulance.
Suddenly the fact that I was wearing an Academy uniform felt unbearably shameful.
Then or now, I’m still completely useless. Fury and humiliation made me clench the hem of my skirt.
Yukyung watched, then gave a thumbs-up and a sharp whistle.
“Yep—definitely more precious than fingers! I’ll give you that!”
“Why go this far?”
Blood still streaming from palm and chest, Junhyuk forced the question out between ragged breaths. Yukyung sheathed her sword as she answered.
“Money.”
“What?”
Just for a full scholarship? Junhyuk’s face twisted in disbelief. Yukyung clicked her tongue and shook her head.
“Moron. You really don’t know a damn thing. A full scholarship is just the tip of the iceberg among the perks.”
The real reason she was so desperate to dismantle any newborn team, even if it meant overreaching—
“Priority rights to every mid- and low-rank dungeon that spawns in the assigned region. Do you have any idea how lucrative that is?”
Every Academy graduate ultimately becomes human capital for fighting monsters. The system had originally been designed to help them adapt quickly to real combat and ease financial strain with dungeon by-products.
But with the supply of monster-fighting personnel overflowing, the original purpose had been twisted into a tool for monopoly.
“If we picked the representative team by fighting it out, we’d just kill each other. Sadly, that’s not how it works.”
“So you try to break them before they even form? So no competition can even start?”
“In exchange I let the absolute best ones join. Isn’t that enough?”
She shrugged as if to ask what the problem was. Junhyuk let out a hollow laugh of pure exasperation. Yukyung rested the sword on her shoulder and sneered.
“The thought of flashy, empty-headed newcomers like you snatching the representative slot and vacuuming up all that money… I just can’t stand it.”
She drew the blade again. The metallic shing rang ominously through the air.
“Then round three. Shall we keep going?”
Just as the hilt began to glow and transform into a whip once more—
“That’s enough.”
A girl with an unfamiliar voice appeared at Yukyung’s side as if she had always been there and stopped her. Purple hair pinned with a hairpin, expression blank, looking about middle-school age.
The Academy-uniformed girl lightly laid a hand on the tip of Yukyung’s sword. Yukyung’s face twisted.
“Choi Minji. Don’t stick your nose in. Get lost.”
“Police and healers will be coming through a Portal any second.”
“I don’t care about that.”
“The disciplinary committee will.”
The calm but unyielding tone made Yukyung glare at Junhyuk for a moment longer before she finally slid the sword back into its sheath. Only then did the girl called Minji knock twice on empty air—knock, knock—and open a Portal.
“You there. Horned little kid.”
“…Yes?”
“Choose carefully. I’ll be waiting.”
With those parting words Yukyung vanished through the Portal.
The girl named Minji looked back and forth between the bleeding Junhyuk and me, then bowed her head with a pitying expression.
“I’m sorry, underclassmen. I’ll come visit again soon.”
That was the last thing she said before she, too, disappeared through the Portal.
Junhyuk stared blankly at the spot where the Portal had been, then slowly turned his head to look at me.
“You hurt anywhere?”
“…As you can see.”
Being fretted over by someone who was still bleeding made me feel unbearably awkward.
Still, thanks to that recklessness I hadn’t ended up in a far worse state.
“Thank you.”
I had to say at least that much.
The entire time he was being treated in the emergency room, Junhyuk wore a sour expression, clearly unhappy about having ended up in a hospital at all.
“I don’t even have money for the bill. Why’d you call 911?”
“How many people were standing around? You think I was the only one who called? And I’ll cover the hospital fees, so stop worrying about useless things.”
“You could’ve just healed me yourself.”
Those words made my chest feel a little heavy. I suddenly wondered if this was how a teacher felt when stuck with a student who just couldn’t study.
“I can’t. I already tried earlier.”
Healing magic is like wireless internet. You can technically stream a 4K YouTube video on a sluggish free data plan, but you’ll suffer endless buffering. I could have sat down and eventually healed him completely—if he hadn’t bled out first.
In doctor terms I wasn’t even a resident yet; in data-speed terms I was stuck on 2G. As a healer, I was completely useless to Junhyuk right now.
“That how it is?”
Still clearly displeased, he let out a long sigh.
The doctor finished the treatment, ended the healing spell, and slipped his hands into his pockets.
“If any organs had been damaged it would have been a much harder recovery, but the puncture radius was narrow and there were only two wound sites, so we managed without major complications.”
“Yeah.”
Junhyuk answered listlessly and nodded.
The doctor glanced at him, then smiled gently in my direction.
“Your boyfriend is impressive. There are plenty of ability users these days, but not many who would willingly throw their own body in the way to save someone else.”
“He’s not my boyfri—”
I almost snapped the denial out of pure reflex, then suddenly became conscious of Junhyuk watching.
“Yes. I think he’s pretty amazing too.”
It wasn’t like the words would wear out from use. I decided I could give the person who saved me at least one nice line.
Sure enough, the perpetual grumpy expression on Junhyuk’s face softened just a little.
He was ridiculously easy to read.
“…Don’t smile.”
I suddenly felt so embarrassed that now I was the one getting snippy. The look Junhyuk gave me in return burned with so much open affection that even the densest person on earth would have noticed.
It was so overwhelming I thought I might die.
“Hey. You.”
“Hm?”
“What exactly do you like so much about me?”
I swung my legs restlessly and avoided his eyes as I tossed the question out.
“I snap at you all the time. I only think about using you. I run away the second things get awkward. And…”
“And?”
“…I even told you I don’t feel anything for you.”
I had never received love like this before, so I genuinely couldn’t understand it.
Junhyuk, however, answered without a single second of hesitation.
“You said the exact same thing to me before you lost your memories.”
“What? Said what?”
“That you weren’t scared. That you’d put me first.”
“Ah…”
“You said it even before the amnesia.”
No, that was completely without any romantic feeling. You just looked so depressed that I decided to lend you some strength. That was literally all I meant—nothing more, nothing less…
I turned to tell him exactly that—
—and my eyes fell on the ugly, haphazardly healed scars covering his body.
Those scars seemed to speak for every poor, lonely, painful year he had lived through until now.
I couldn’t bring myself to say, “That’s just your misunderstanding.”
So I grumbled in defeat instead.
“Fine. Whatever. If that makes you happy, then okay.”
Even if it’s a delusion, be happy beside me.
I can’t live up to your expectations, but I can at least be a good friend.
“Philin. Listen.”
Seeing the pity in my eyes, Junhyuk scooted closer and took my hand.
Ugh— I almost yanked it away on pure reflex, but managed to hold still.
Then I heard the careful request he made next.
“This weekend… could you hang out with me just once?”
And I fell into an enormous dilemma over what answer I should give.