Hero Academy (3-67)
Seong Sua had been carrying me along on the wind for some time when she suddenly began to stagger. She touched down with careful, unsteady steps and started gasping for air.
"Hah… hah… hah…."
"Instructor Seong Sua! Are you all right?"
She was panting hard, her face drained of all color — a vivid picture of just how bad her condition had become.
The spells she'd used earlier had already burned through a considerable amount of mana, and the escape magic she'd just unleashed was by far the worst offender of the lot, devouring her reserves with catastrophic inefficiency.
I'd assumed she simply had mana to spare and was spending it freely. Turns out that wasn't it at all.
She had poured out every last drop she had left just to get us out of that crisis.
Thinking about it, if she'd had mana to spare in the first place, she never would have been cornered like that.
Given the emergency, I'll have Ms. Rena on standby.
…Do it.
I hated the idea of waking Rena, but dying would be a much bigger problem.
Ideally we'd never need to call her at all — but I decided to keep her ready just in case the worst came to pass.
The silver lining was that Seong Sua's magic had put real distance between us and that thing. I couldn't hear so much as a footstep from the creature, let alone its wailing. The escape, at least, had been a complete success.
Now it was time to face the real problem.
"Hah… hah… hah."
"Instructor Seong Sua, just catch your breath for a moment."
She was so deep in mana exhaustion that my words barely seemed to reach her. Labored breathing. A face gone paper-white. And…
A black bra…
…
Cold sweat was slowly soaking through Seong Sua's shirt, the fabric growing translucent by degrees. It wasn't drenched the way it would have been in a downpour, but watching the clothes of a woman who'd maintained such a pure, refined image turn sheer was more than enough to get the blood pumping.
Unfortunately, this was not a situation leisurely enough to let my dick run wild.
I carefully hoisted Seong Sua onto my back — she couldn't even manage a simple reply.
"Up we go."
"Nnh… hah, hah… I can go on my own… hah, hah…."
"I'll get you outside somehow. Just hang on."
"Hah… hah…."
She gave a faint nod at my words, settled against my back, and began to go limp. Or rather — she simply ran out of strength.
Seong Sua stamped a massive imprint of her chest against my back and passed out cold.
Ticket confirmed. Departing now.
…
"_—__-!!"
The creature's howl rolled through the cavern and poured straight into Seo Jieun's ears.
At this rate…
Hidden in a corner of the cave, she carefully replayed what had happened earlier.
Following Instructor Sung Suho, she had eventually run into another group of cadets. She'd learned that Seong Sua was in danger, and Suho — under the pretext of going to help her — had entrusted the students to another instructor and left almost immediately.
The problem came after that.
Even if they're both instructors, not all of them are like him.
The instructor leading them had panicked the moment a pack of creatures burst out of nowhere, and started casting magic with nothing but his own survival in mind. Without a single order given, his frantic scramble to flee threw the cadet group into total chaos — and from there, things spiraled into the worst possible outcome.
…Did I make a mistake by stepping in?
Desperate to be of even the slightest help to the other cadets — more desperate than she was to preserve her own life — Seo Jieun had used her magic.
At first, it had genuinely helped. Her magic was strong enough to punch through the creatures' anti-magic resistance to a meaningful degree.
The problem was that, right in the middle of the fighting, another seizure had started.
Her shadow had begun targeting the cadets instead of the creatures.
Crouched in the darkness, sensing the invisible shadow around her, Seo Jieun despaired.
If only it would just attack me…
The reason she feared going to the Hero Academy had never been that she might get hurt. It was the fear of hurting someone else.
She curled up on the ground, burying her arms and face against her knees, and murmured,
"Father… Mother… please tell me what to do…."
She was on the verge of tears, longing for her missing father and her mother who lay vegetative in a hospital bed, when—
"_—_——!!!"
"Ah—!"
Whether it had caught the words that slipped from her mouth or not, she could feel a creature charging straight toward her.
Seo Jieun clenched her fists and whispered quietly,
"Please… even just for a little while…."
She drew up her mana, preparing to cast — but the flow of mana suddenly buckled and frayed, the same seizure from before threatening to erupt all over again.
Please…
The creature, however, had no intention of waiting for her to concentrate. Spotting her from not far off, it let out a shriek and came barreling toward her.
"Not like this…."
Seo Jieun gave up, letting the strength drain from her arms as she watched the shadow slip free of her control. Its gaze was fixed not on the creature, but on her.
"I didn't want it to end like this…."
She closed her eyes and surrendered to whatever came next.
FWOOM! CRUNCH!
"-___——!!"
"Huh?"
The charging creature was pierced clean through by a streak of yellow light and crumpled where it stood. Then came the sound of footsteps approaching, and a voice.
"Are you all right?"
"W-wait a second!"
The situation was so sudden that Seo Jieun's first thought wasn't gratitude for the rescue — it was terror that her shadow would attack the person who'd just saved her.
"You can't come any closer!"
"Hm?"
The shadow lurking at her side, which had been glaring at her, suddenly bristled with blades across its entire form. It whipped its gaze toward her rescuer and lunged.
Seo Jieun tensed every muscle in her body, straining with everything she had to reel the shadow back in.
Please! Please!!
The one thing she absolutely could not bear was harming the person who had saved her.
But the mana feeding the shadow had already slipped completely beyond her control. The harder she focused, the more the mana seemed to mock her summons, thrashing even wilder.
"No!!"
Her rescuer, however, simply watched the shadow charging at him with the curious expression of someone gazing at an aurora.
"Never seen anything like it. What a fascinating ability."
"Huh?"
Shff…
Before it could even touch him, the shadow scattered like dust and vanished.
D-did it… get controlled somehow?
Watching her shadow dissolve into nothing, Seo Jieun stared blankly at the man standing beyond where it had been. Only when he stepped right up to her could she make out exactly who he was.
"Cadet Seo Jieun?"
"I-Instructor Sung Suho?"
"That's right, it's me. But why are you out here alone?"
"Th-that's…."
The ordeal from moments ago had left her so drained she couldn't form a proper answer. But while she fumbled for words, the mana that had broken free of her control flared up again in what felt like pure spite, generating a new shadow — this time behind Sung Suho.
The shadow erupted at his back and was about to swing a blade at him when—
"Instructor! Behind you!"
"The more I look at it, the more fascinating it gets."
"Wha…?"
Shff…
Once again, without fail, the shadow crumbled to powder and disappeared.
Sung Suho stepped closer to the stunned Seo Jieun and asked,
"Are you okay? You're not hurt anywhere?"
"Th-that's…."
As he checked on her, he gently laid the person he'd been carrying on his back down onto the ground.
"Instructor… Seong Sua?"
"Yeah. She overused her mana and lost consciousness. More importantly — are you all right?"
Sung Suho approached her as if the whole situation from a moment ago barely registered as an incident, calmly asking after her well-being. The instant he came near, the tension holding Seo Jieun upright simply gave out, and she nearly collapsed on the spot.
"Ah…."
"Whoa—!"
The moment her legs buckled, Sung Suho caught her body and pulled her into his arms, his face tight with concern.
"Are you hurt somewhere? Say some—"
"I-I'm sorry. The tension just… drained out of me…."
But whether her nerves had settled or not, the mana inside her started thrashing again. A shadow formed behind the man holding her. Determined not to miss this time, it swung a blade at Sung Suho from his blind spot.
"Ah… ah!"
"It's fine."
"…Huh?"
Shfff…
Once more, the shadow faded away into nothing, hollow and futile. At the same time, Sung Suho rested a hand on Seo Jieun's forehead and spoke quietly.
"Don't worry about me. Just stay calm. That frantic feeling of yours might be exactly why you can't control it."
"Ah…."
Following his words, Seo Jieun closed her eyes and let her mind settle. This wasn't about trying to force something the way she had before. She simply let the warm heat of his palm against her forehead ease the tension from her body.
Dozens of seconds passed before Sung Suho finally lifted his hand and carefully helped her to her feet.
"Feeling any better?"
"…Yes."
Seo Jieun looked up at him, feeling a sense of ease she had almost forgotten for a lifetime. The mana that had been raging inside her had gone quiet, and no more shadows formed beyond her control. The one at her feet simply moved in step with her body, nothing more.
…What a strange person.
Her first memory of him was of someone watching her in secret. The classroom didn't belong to anyone, sure — but the feeling of being watched on the sly hadn't exactly been pleasant. And yet one day he'd come to her home, persuaded her, and gotten her to come on this field trip. On top of that, he'd done everything he could to take responsibility for that choice. And of all those things, what moved her heart the most was the sense of comfort she felt from him.
But comfort alone wasn't going to improve their current situation.
Confirming she had stabilized, Sung Suho hoisted Seong Sua onto his back again and started talking.
"Let's get out of here fast. There's something dangerous roaming around."
"Something dangerous?"
"Well…."
Just as Sung Suho was about to explain—
Beep-beep-beep…
"!"
"…Whew. Nearly gave me a heart attack."
Light spilled from the smartwatch on his wrist as a call came through. Even at low volume, a ringtone echoing through a dungeon was more than enough to set a horror-movie scene.
Sung Suho immediately raised his wrist and checked the caller.
"Ah, it's Ye-riel. One second…."
Still holding Seong Sua, he awkwardly managed to accept the call and start talking.
"Hello?"
"It's me. Are you okay?"
"Yes, we're all right for now. The situation is…."
Sung Suho reported everything that had happened with Seong Sua, as well as running into Seo Jieun. But he said nothing about the magic seizures.
"In your current state, do you think you can find the location I mentioned?"
"Hmm… summarizing what you've told me and making an educated guess — if you cut about seventy degrees to the right from your current heading, there's a good chance we'll run into each other."
"…If I actually go that way and we meet, I'll give you a seriously big reward."
"Haha…."
"Think of it as a kind of bet."
It sounded like something she'd said just to lighten the mood, but it worked. With that, Ye-riel ended the call.
Sung Suho let out a breath of relief as the line went dead.
"Still, it's a good thing we can send and receive calls inside the dungeon. All right — let's move."
"Um…."
"…?"
Watching Sung Suho start to take the lead, Seo Jieun opened her mouth.
"Earlier… why didn't you mention the seizures?"
"…That's not my business to share."
"…."
Seo Jieun's face fell, disappointment settling over her. The way he'd put it made it sound like her seizures had nothing whatsoever to do with him.
But Sung Suho didn't look back. He kept walking ahead and spoke again.
"My job is to solve problems when a cadet runs into one. I didn't become an instructor so I could go around broadcasting people's private struggles."
"Ah…."
"Come on, hurry up. This is no place to linger."
"…Yes."
A small smile touched Seo Jieun's lips as she fell into step behind Sung Suho.