Why Are You Doing This to Me? (4)
The quiet silence spread cold and suffocating.
When Cheon Seong had first picked up the wooden sword to start the sparring match, a few students had seen his strength before and waited with eyes full of anticipation. But the rest—those who had never seen it and those with strong pride—mocked him, hoping he would be humiliated.
Of course Yu-seong was among them, and he had hoped for Cheon Seong’s greatest humiliation more than anyone else.
There had been no trace of doubt in Yu-seong’s hope. The reason wasn’t just that Aren was Highest rank.
In the early episodes of the academy arc in the novel *The Sword God’s Survival*, Aren’s role had been small. But in the later war with the Celestials, his importance had skyrocketed beyond anything that came before.
The scene where his sword carved through mountains, buildings toppling like dominoes in a wind storm had been described as if the man himself were the gale.
The first to kill a Celestial had been the protagonist and his group, led by Seol Si-yun. Yet Aren had been the one to deliver the first great wound to a Celestial.
He had charged into the heart of the enemy ranks alone, cutting down countless traitors, to reach the protagonist’s group in time. Even when the protagonist’s party had already given up on resistance, thinking help would never come, Aren had thrown them far away with the order to leave the rest to him and swung his sword down with all his might, severing one of the Celestial’s arms.
Back then, the rest of us readers had still thought of Aren as nothing more than a supporting extra.
He had slipped into the midst of the enemy lines solely to save the protagonist, then healed his own severed arm with a casual touch while asking the Celestial why he had come here to die. “They’re my students!” he had shouted.
Even now, the memory sent a chill through my entire body.
Aren had fought hard against the regenerating Celestials, but in the end he could not escape death.
As his limbs fell away one by one, he bought the protagonist’s group the time to escape. And even that last Celestial had bowed in respect before taking Aren’s life with its own hands.
Because of Aren’s sacrifice, the protagonist’s group had escaped the Celestials and saved their lives. They had wept for his death, yet there had been no time for grief. They had slaughtered every traitor who had escaped his sacrifice and pursued him. Seol Si-yun had not wept, but he had sworn revenge with a deep fury that burned like iron.
And that fury had tempered him until he reached the Transcendent realm. In the end, after a desperate life-or-death struggle, he had achieved the first human victory over the Celestials.
I knew the dark period that followed from that thrill of victory, yet he had watched the novel through to the very end of the year.
Anyway, since I alone knew Aren’s strength better than anyone, I had expected him to crush that little bastard.
I had wanted the academy’s savior and protagonist—me—to take my Yuna away from the rival who had humiliated me on the day of the entrance exam, and I had wanted one of the few supporting characters I respected, Aren, to make my wish come true.
So when the little bastard had launched his opening attack on Aren, my trusted Aren had easily blocked the blow, then the little bastard had bounced backward and used wind magic at his feet to harness the momentum and strike again.
“Whoa, he used magic while flying backward like that?”
“Amazing. I can barely handle basic magic and my head already spins. What can’t I do?”
‘Hah, what’s so amazing about that? I could do it too!’
Yu-seong had scowled at the students who gasped in admiration at Cheon Seong using wind magic to propel himself. “That’s nothing I can’t do,” he had muttered, then turned to the others. “The guy’s overrated.”
‘Why aren’t you done yet?! Just end it already!’
Even I could have finished it in seconds, yet Aren still hadn’t. Yu-seong’s irritation kept rising.
Why drag it out when you could have ended it long ago?
Just as his anger was about to boil over, Aren finally struck.
Cheon Seong’s head snapped back from the powerful blow, his body lifting into the air. Then the jump-king Aren brought his wooden sword down hard.
**BOOM!!!**
The impact sent Cheon Seong plummeting straight down. He hit the ground without a twitch, and Aren shouted, “Get up!”
The other students had gasped at the force of the strike, but since Aren was Highest rank, they had assumed he had held back. So they waited for Cheon Seong to rise exactly as Aren had said.
The moment they did, their confident expressions began to sour. Then sweat broke out across their faces.
“Eh? He’s okay, right?”
“I-I’m sure he’s fine. Professor Aren wouldn’t have fought without holding back, right?”
“W-well, then why isn’t he getting up?”
“Eh? Eh?! Blood’s pouring out of his head?!”
“Hey! Anyone with healing magic?!”
Even though time passed and he still hadn’t moved—only to begin bleeding bright red from his head—some students with sharp eyes rushed to find someone who could use healing magic and ran to the fallen Cheon Seong.
“Hey! Hey! Are you okay?! Get up!”
“Whoa, whoa! Don’t shake the patient like that! First lay him flat!”
The first one to reach him checked Cheon Seong’s condition and started shaking him to make him wake up, but the student who could use healing magic stopped him frantically and cast the spell.
“Cheon Seong!! Get up!!”
“He can’t concentrate, so be quiet! Professor! I can’t do this alone! Call the health teacher—Professor?! Where did you go?!”
Ha-jin, hugging the unconscious Cheon Seong, shouted through his tears, “Get up already!” while the healer who had been treating him told him to stay quiet because he couldn’t treat it perfectly on his own and called for Aren.
But when he saw Aren fleeing without a backward glance, Ha-jin shouted in panic.
“Cheon Seong!!!!”
“Professor!!!”
Cheon Seong, lying unconscious in Ha-jin’s arms while receiving treatment from another student, thought.
‘…Fuck, this is so fucking loud.’
He was grateful to Ha-jin for worrying about him and to the nameless student for healing him, yet he prayed that they would just shut up.
***
‘Fuck… this hurts like hell.’
Cheon Seong, slammed hard into the ground by Aren’s sword, checked his own condition as if he were simply unconscious and thought.
Normally I was used to pain, so I could have said what the hell are you doing. But that wasn’t quite right. I was used to pain; I simply couldn’t feel it.
Of course, in my previous life I had endured all kinds of bizarre tortures and had learned not to feel pain at all. But even then, in the end I still felt pain.
I roughly scanned my body and found that several ribs and a few more had cracked.
Not only that—the broken ribs had pinned my lungs, making every breath agony. On top of that, I had barely used the falling technique because I didn’t want Aren to notice, so I had only half-completed it. That was why every bone in my body was screaming.
‘Just what the hell was that bastard thinking when he attacked?’
Since I couldn’t reveal my full strength, I had fought at a level that any talented student could handle. Yet the final blow from Aren had been far too powerful for a sparring match.
Several ribs and a few more had already been lost, and it was a miracle it had ended there. Had I not been training my external energy through the Heavenly Demon Divine Art, simply enduring the pressure of the blow, the ordinary student would have had every bone in his body shattered and might have died.
Even though the practical combat course had warned of the risk of injury, they had only meant minor scratches. This was definitely a serious wound.
Especially since the professor himself—the so-called safety officer who was supposed to prevent such accidents—was the one who had delivered it.
Fortunately, a few quick-thinking students had started treating me, but because they lacked real talent in healing magic, the wounds had hardly begun to close.
To fully heal me now, Yuna or the academy’s health teacher would have to come. Or at the very least, Dang Hwa-ran, who was excellent with medicine.
‘But what? Run away? Why run now?’
And Aren had actually run away.
After humiliating me like this, he hadn’t even brought in the health teacher and fled instead?
Was this the behavior of the academy’s practical combat professor who was supposed to be fighting while holding back?
I was no longer just speechless. I was completely drained.
I had thought his brain was made of nothing but muscles since the very first impression, yet I never imagined he would run.
My whole body ached and my head throbbed. And of course this news would reach Yuna. How was I supposed to calm her down when she saw me like this?
Moreover, how was I supposed to explain to the sister who had scolded me for hiding my serious injury?
“Cheon Seong!!!!”
“Professor!!!! Ugh!! Someone, please go to the health room right now!!”
It was really kind of them to worry, but I wished they would just shut up.
My head already hurt so much, and their constant chatter had made my head spin even worse.
‘Fuck… why are you all doing this to me…’
I really wanted to know what wrong I had done for everyone to be this cruel to me.