Golden Arrow from the Rooftop
“Are you okay?”
In Cho Seohyun’s vision, the woman who had been about to strike her was gone. Sung Suho stood there instead.
She stared blankly at the hand stretched toward her, then quickly came to her senses, took it, and rose to her feet.
“…Thank you.”
“You’re not hurt?”
“No, I’m fine.”
Cho Seohyun scratched her head and scanned the surroundings. Her gaze settled on the monster that had lifted her earlier. The creature that had hoisted her leg now had a hole punched clean through its chest; the one that had been fighting Song Ara beside it was the same, its chest cavity blown open.
“Even if you put a hole through that thing’s head it comes back to life! Is there a way?!”
“It’s fine. Those two won’t be getting up again.”
“How do you know that….”
Rather than answer Cho Seohyun, Sung Suho swept the area with his eyes and shouted.
“The chest! These things have purple gems embedded in their chests! Smash those completely!”
The cadets and instructors who heard him immediately followed the order. Before long the monsters around them began collapsing one after another.
Cho Seohyun looked about, then turned back to Sung Suho.
“How did you even….”
“I’ll explain later. Cadet Song Ara! Link up with the other instructors and head for the faculty office!”
For some reason the alarm that should have been blaring still hadn’t sounded properly. At this rate, instructors and cadets who had already turned in early could take serious casualties.
“For now, team up with the other instructors—broadcast an alarm or handle it however you can!”
“Yes!”
Song Ara took his words, gathered the wounded, and moved toward the other instructors. Confirming she was on her way, he turned to Cho Seohyun.
“Instructor Cho Seohyun, head for the main gate.”
“What? Why the main gate?”
“Those things we saw earlier are still pouring in through there. Instructor Seong Sua is holding them off alone right now.”
Cho Seohyun’s brow twitched the instant she heard Seong Sua’s name, but she forced her expression smooth again.
“Understood. Then we’ll go together—”
“No. I’ve got somewhere else to be.”
“…Where?”
Sung Suho pointed straight up with his index finger and smiled.
“The rooftop.”
I muttered under my breath as I climbed the stairs.
Lucky break. Good thing fortune was on our side….
Cho Seohyun would not have gone down in a single blow, but she could easily have taken considerable damage.
On the way to the rooftop I had run into Cho Seohyun and Song Ara’s group by pure chance and managed to pull Cho Seohyun out of a bad spot.
We got lucky. Honestly, how the hell was I supposed to know the ones wearing clothes had a weak point sitting right in their chests?
Seong Sua and I had met the monsters at the front gate and planted arrows clean through their heads. Those same bastards had gotten back up and started attacking again. Only when Seong Sua’s fire magic burned their clothes away did I notice something on their chests; I put an arrow through it and finally killed the ones we had first encountered at the gate.
The real problem came after that.
Once we dropped one, monsters started slipping over the academy walls one and two at a time. Screams began rising from inside the buildings.
“Instructor Sung Suho! I’ll handle this side! Tell everyone else about their weak points!”
“What about you, Instructor Seong Sua?”
“I’ll keep blocking the ones coming this way for now!”
Looking at the numbers climbing the walls or pouring through the front gate, it seemed Seong Sua could hold them alone—especially now that she knew the weak point. I left the gate to her.
“I’ll spread the word on my way up. Once I’m on the rooftop I’ll give you cover with the bow, so hang on a little longer!”
There was no point staying on the ground just to pick off one or two. From the rooftop I could cover Seong Sua and still put arrows into every monster flooding the grounds. On the way up the stairs I told every cadet and instructor I met about the purple gems.
I grumbled the whole climb.
Elevator… my legs are killing me… can’t breathe….
…
Raising my stats would eventually fix the physical side, but casually climbing more than twenty floors of stairs was still beyond me. And in an emergency like this, using the elevator was out of the question.
After enough complaining I finally reached the rooftop.
“Haa… haa…. Good, clear view. Haa….”
I scanned the grounds around the school. Pure chaos.
“If it’s this bad outside the buildings, inside has to be worse.”
Sympathy and pity weren’t useful right now. I had a job to do.
Looking at the current situation, we should assist the Magic Department side.
Yeah. Over there they’re getting wrecked with no way to fight back.
The Knight Department was leaping around in full combat, but on the Magic Department side even the instructors couldn’t easily throw off the monsters charging them. Mages rarely fought on the front line; the instructors simply weren’t used to things suddenly rushing them head-on. And the numbers…
Compared to the Knight Department, the Magic Department really is short on both cadets and instructors.
Talent-based selection meant they kept their numbers small by design. I loosed an arrow toward the entrance of the distant Magic Department building. It punched straight through the chest of a monster chasing a cadet out the door. Every time another one appeared I put an arrow into its chest and dropped it. A few of the cadets looked around in confusion, then spotted me and started waving.
“Hope they figured it out.”
What mattered was whether the ones I had just saved actually noticed the weak point. I wanted to clear the monsters still inside the buildings too, but every Hero Academy structure used reinforced glass for its windows. My arrows would punch through, yet the moment they did the power dropped and they could easily deflect off course.
Even Aiming Force can’t account for that.
Aiming Force was a passive that triggered before the shot; it had no way to calculate variables like glass. All I could do was keep shooting. I kept putting arrows into monsters around the Magic Department and the dormitories, covering fleeing cadets. After several continuous minutes of it, dizziness hit hard.
Ah… this mana is a real problem.
In small fights the magic hit like a truck, but sustained fire like this drained the tank instantly.
I will restore it for you.
Mana flooded back into my body with her words. Feeling blood circulating properly again, I muttered,
Each shot packs a punch, which is great, but I really need to raise Magic Power and expand the mana pool.
I recommend the same. Once you are using the arrows, attack power is already more than sufficient….
This fucking—!
Paaang!
I loosed an arrow into empty air with a curse. It wasn’t one of the superconductor-charged shots, but it still cut the air with a clean whistle and buried itself in the vacant ground below.
…
…
Ten full seconds of silence. Armonia finally asked carefully,
What is the matter…?
…A fly.
…
Fuck!! Some fucking fly bastard was buzzing right in front of my face!!
I raged and spun around, hunting for the piece-of-shit insect. While I was still searching, Armonia’s voice came through again.
Suho, Seong Sua and Cho Seohyun’s situation does not look good.
Hoo….
Hearing their names, I shoved every thought of the fly out of my head and drew the bowstring.
Inside the VR training room a man screamed.
“Kuaaaak! This fucking bastard!! Kuaaaak!”
“What? Are you crazy?”
The moment he started thrashing and yelling, every figure around him turned to stare. Including the screamer, there were five of them. From the outside they looked identical—same cloaks, faces completely hidden. Darkness filled the hoods; no matter how hard anyone tried, the faces stayed wrapped in shadow. Their gazes were impossible to track, but every head was angled toward the cloaked man who had just lost it.
“Are you advertising that we’re about to steal the VR capsules? Have you lost your mind?”
“That’s not it!! Fuck… outside… the situation outside is bad!”
“Damn it…. Are we still far?”
“Yes. Dismantling data is too incomplete. We’re mapping the structure now, but the internals are complex, so….”
The other four were hard at work taking the capsules apart. The one who seemed to be in charge turned back to the man who had been screaming.
“Outside situation. Report.”
“That’s….”
Go Chungshin—the man who had been raging only moments earlier—began describing everything he had seen without filter. The start had gone exactly according to plan: pure chaos. But from a certain point the mess had been cleaned up at terrifying speed, and one instructor on the dormitory rooftop was single-handedly wiping the surroundings clean.
“That bastard smashed my fly—no, my tracker—so I also…. Kueeek….”
“Don’t throw up. It leaves evidence.”
The cloaked man listened, then lowered his head as if thinking. His expression remained completely invisible. After a moment he spoke quietly.
“You come with me. The rest stay on standby. I’ll take the ones waiting outside and finish this. Wrap it up as fast as you can.”
“Yes.”
Excluding Go Chungshin, the remaining four answered in unison and immediately returned to dismantling the VR capsules.
“You follow me for now.”
“Shit….”
Go Chungshin spat the curse and trailed after the cloaked figure.
Cho Seohyun shouted while cutting down the monsters surging in like a flood.
“Hey, has the inside still not been cleaned up? The numbers are getting bigger than I thought!”
She was right. Early on, Seong Sua had been handling the monsters alone without much trouble. Now they were pouring in from every other direction as well. Trying to cork a single entrance risked getting surrounded from all sides instead.
Sweat beaded in Seong Sua’s hair as she forced the words out.
“Haa… haa… j-just hold a little longer….”
“Hey! You fall back first!”
Seong Sua had already been dumping magic nonstop long before Cho Seohyun arrived. Talent or not, her mana wasn’t infinite; her complexion made her condition obvious.
“I-I’m fine.”
“Fine my ass!”
Cho Seohyun shouted, stabbed the head of the monster charging her from the front to stun it, then used the dagger in her other hand to slice open its clothes and drive the blade straight into the purple gem at its solar plexus. The real problem came after that. The endless stream made one-on-one fights nearly impossible, and Seong Sua’s side looked worse by the second no matter who was watching.
“Hey! Get out of there! Like that you’re just in the way—! Watch out!!”
“Ugh! Kyaak!”
A monster slammed into Seong Sua. She tried to fire magic and throw it off.
But—
M-magic won’t come out!
The magic she had trusted her entire life simply refused to answer. Worse, Cho Seohyun was not in a position to reach her in time. Cho Seohyun ignored the monster lunging at her own face, ducked low, and charged.
Aww shit! Even if I take the hit, I have to save her!
The instant Cho Seohyun threw herself forward and the monster opened its jaws over Seong Sua—
Paaaaang!
“Wh-what!!”
“Kyaaaak!”
From the sky—no, from the rooftop—an enormous beam of light arced downward. The gold-tinged radiance tore through the air with a sound that shook the heavens and streaked straight toward Seong Sua and Cho Seohyun. By the time their eyes registered it, only the afterimage remained; a thunderous roar had already scoured the path clean.
Cho Seohyun and Seong Sua carefully opened the eyes they had squeezed shut in shock. The monster that had been latched onto Seong Sua was simply gone—body evaporated as if it had never existed. Both women stared, stunned, along the glowing trail the yellow beam had left.
“Wh-what the hell was that….”
“M-magic…?”
The golden light had punched straight through every monster in its path, bored a tunnel-sized hole through the wall surrounding the Hero Academy, and kept flying until it vanished into the distance.
Then Sung Suho’s voice came through the smartwatch on Cho Seohyun’s wrist.
“Are you two okay?”