123. The Hunt (3)
123. The Hunt (3)
"This is insane...."
The freckled female cadet's eyes shook as she stumbled backward.
Couldn't believe it, I'm sure.
Sofia was the one and only character who could deliver heals from such a long distance that you couldn't even perceive the target.
"Th-this is ch-cheating...! Cheating, I tell you! That bitch pulled some kind of trick!"
The freckled one screamed hysterically.
But right now, I didn't even need to step in.
[ H-how dare...! You dog-fucking, shit-eating bitch!!! ]
Sofia's voice came through the earpiece I'd gotten from the shop.
She was seriously pissed off—I could feel the rage radiating all the way over here.
'Hmm, but did her dad teach her to curse like that too? It's got a real satisfying bite to it.'
I knew her backstory was that her dad was Korean, so she was pretty fluent in the language.
[ W-wounding our Yu-ha's body...! ]
'Or did she get into a keyboard war on some internet forum...?'
Nah, no way.
Well, she probably picked it up from Korean movies or something.
Movies these days just spit out profanity unfiltered, after all.
And that whole "our Yu-ha" comment she made flickered through my mind for a second, but I wiped it out again right away.
Swoooosh─!!
Thunk!
"Ghk!"
Thunk! Thunk!
Thunk! Thunk!
Thunk! Thunk! Thunk! Thunk! Thunk! Thunk!
A simultaneous hail of silver arrows rained down from overhead.
Sofia's main role was Healer.
Her primary skill was firing golden arrows charged with light Mana to heal a target.
But at the same time, her ability as a ranged Damage Dealer was outstanding—
by reversing the properties of her Mana, she could fire silver arrows to deal incredibly painful damage.
In other words, she was an all-around broken-tier character who could deliver ranged DPS while being a Healer!
She was Velvetsra's Mistake ver. 2, following Kang Do-hee.
'Seriously, they pushed her way too hard just 'cause she was a new character.'
I smirked and watched the scene before me.
"......Gaaagh!"
"Th-the arrows have attack power! I thought you were a Healer!?"
"Dodge!!!"
The Indian crew in front of me tried every which way to evade Sofia's arrows, but there was no good way to hide from arrows dropping straight down from above.
And the arrows she loosed weren't exactly weak enough for some nameless extras to dodge.
Meaning, they had no option but to just stand there and eat every arrow Sofia fired.
Unexpectedly, though, they didn't go down easily.
"Grrrk─!? Wh-what the... I-it doesn't hurt? No, wait, why is it h-healing...!"
Because Sofia kept mixing in golden arrows here and there, healing them right back up, and then beating them down again on repeat.
'Whoa, look at her just whaling on the same spot over and over. This is exactly why you don't make an enemy of Sofia.'
I made a mildly horrified face.
I was the one who taught her to use that method when she wanted to beat on someone for a long time, but did she really hate them that much?
'Well, they did insult her right to her face, so I guess she's not letting them off easy.'
The price for scoffing at Sofia to her face was steep.
Despair slowly began to cloud the eyes of the ones caught in an endless loop of healing and injury.
"......J-Jin Yu-ha! Wh-what did we even do wrong! Stop this cruelty!"
"Yeah! We did stab you, but it was a combat situation anyway! Just finish us cleanly!"
The Damage Dealers who'd shoved weapons into my body a moment ago shouted at me.
I scratched my cheek and answered.
"Umm, about that... it seems our Healer is pretty damn angry."
"......What?"
"She, uh... disrespected our Healer right to her face."
I jabbed a finger straight at the freckle-covered female cadet.
Her face went flustered, and she tried to argue back—
"I never... Gaahk!"
—but an arrow impaled her thigh and she screamed.
"I told her plainly that I'd already secured an excellent Healer and couldn't work with them. She kept pushing and pushing to get herself hired as the Healer. All while belittling my Healer as worthless."
"......Wha-what!"
At that, their faces twisted, and their heads whipped around toward her.
Because this meant the agony they were suffering right now was all because of this one goddamn woman.
"Ha... fuck. It's because of that bitch... we're getting this too...."
"Well, you guys don't really matter. You just got caught up in it. Sorry. I'll send you off quick."
"......Yeah, thanks."
The Damage Dealers bowed their heads and thanked me.
Though they didn't forget to shoot one last glare backward.
Slash─
I drew my sword at once and cut them down.
Shunk─!
And Sofia, having apparently seen what I did, stopped her personal revenge and finished off the freckled cadet too.
"Gaaagh!"
* * *
Hoo.
Shin Se-hee had been blasting magic nonstop, and she'd pulled back for a moment to rest and replenish her depleted HP and Mana.
"......Huh?"
She suddenly caught something in her field of vision and her eyes flew wide open.
Something was weird.
Something was wrong.
It was only the first day of the exam's second week.
She'd meant to end today's fighting with a moderate probing skirmish and pull back,
plan the next engagement....
"Uh.... H-how, how did it turn out like this...?"
Shin Se-hee turned her head around, looking utterly bewildered, and surveyed her surroundings.
The battlefield was sparsely dotted with empty spaces.
Half, no—
hadn't two-thirds of the cadets vanished compared to when she'd first looked?!
But the reason Shin Se-hee hadn't noticed this was twofold.
First, she'd personally thrown herself into the melee, which had narrowed her field of view.
And second, her own faction and Lee Yu-ri's faction were still maintaining a fairly even balance.
BOOM—!
BOOM!!
When she turned her head, Lee Yu-ri and Kang Do-hee were still trading light blows, keeping their fight going.
They wouldn't be planning to pour all their strength in on the first day either.
'To say it's because I performed well here... my magic can't really inflict fatal injuries unless it's a direct hit on a cadet.'
And with Healers around to recover those injuries, visibly whittling down the enemy's forces was tough.
So what on earth was going on?
Was she really the only one who'd sensed this bizarre incongruity?
'Someone... someone else intervened...!'
Shin Se-hee, having reached the conclusion belatedly, bit down hard on her lip.
That was when it happened.
"Been a while?"
Whirl─
"Who—!"
At the voice suddenly coming from right behind her, Shin Se-hee whipped her body around and yanked a dagger from her waist, leveling it.
But right away,
the strength drained from the hand gripping the handle.
It couldn't be helped, because
the intruder who'd appeared behind her was the very person she had wanted to meet so badly,
"......Huh? J-Jin Yu-ha...?"
that man.
Jin Yu-ha lifted both hands up and grinned.
"Yep, it's me. Long time no see."
At his perfectly unruffled words, Shin Se-hee let out a deep sigh of relief.
"......For goodness' sake, if you're going to come, at least let your presence be known...."
"Got surprised?"
"Yes, very much."
"Heh. Then sneaking over was worth it."
Abruptly, Shin Se-hee's gaze dropped to Jin Yu-ha's chest area.
'......Huh?'
[ 53040 Coin ]
A substantial amount of Coin.
When she'd checked before, Jin Yu-ha had only been hunting low-level monsters while training that Healer of his.
In other words, this wasn't Coin he'd gathered from hunting monsters!
Shin Se-hee completed the judgment in an instant and asked him in a low voice.
"......Jin Yu-ha. It was you, wasn't it?"
Her question omitted a great deal, but
Jin Yu-ha nodded, as if he had no reason to hide it.
"Yep, it was me."
"......."
At that calm answer, she bit her lip tightly.
Jin Yu-ha was signaling right now that he had no intention of forming an alliance.
Nor was it Lee Yu-ri.
He was declaring that he'd walk a solitary path in this fight.
Alone, with only the Healer he'd just found!
That direct rejection wounded Shin Se-hee's pride.
She decided to ask him outright.
When you thought about it rationally, what he'd done was blatantly inefficient.
"Why!? If you'd joined hands with me or Lee Yu-ri—no, even if you'd just linked up with Kang Do-hee—you could've claimed victory so much more comfortably! Why did you do this!?"
She knew her voice had risen a little, but she couldn't help it.
To that, Jin Yu-ha answered in a casual tone.
"Mmm, I'm planning to end the Midterm Evaluation today."
"Excuse me? What does that...."
"You want to know?"
Shin Se-hee nodded immediately.
At that, Jin Yu-ha scratched his head roughly as if put in a tight spot.
"......Well, the Demonized Humans are here."
"D-Demonized Humans!?"
"Yeah, and if a Demonized Human kills you, you die for real."
Shin Se-hee's mouth fell open in shock.
Demonized humans, all of a sudden, during the Midterm Evaluation?
This was utterly and completely out of left field!
But she didn't do anything stupid like questioning the veracity of his words.
On the contrary, she quickly spun her mind and finished processing it in an instant.
"......So, you seized the chaos of the free-for-all to send as many people up as you could? To keep them from getting killed by their hands."
"That's right."
"In that case, couldn't you have told us in advance too? If you'd said so, our party would certainly have helped you."
Shin Se-hee spoke in a voice that couldn't hide how hurt she felt.
"I was planning to tell you. Around today or tomorrow. But... well, thanks to you guys miraculously stirring up such a commotion, the plan changed."
"Stirring up a commotion?"
"You gathered the cadets all into one spot with your faction war. So I figured, maybe I could keep even a single person from dying. I didn't see this coming, honestly."
"......Then... I was helpful?"
"Yep. Tremendously so."
Jin Yu-ha chuckled softly and tousled Shin Se-hee's hair.
"Ah, j-just because you say that, you don't have to pet my head...!"
Shin Se-hee shrank her neck back with an embarrassed expression.
Jin Yu-ha withdrew his hand and looked squarely at Shin Se-hee.
"This is something that originally could never have happened. You can feel proud. You guys really did something incredible."
Ah.
'So in the future that Jin Yu-ha originally saw, a lot of cadets die during this Midterm Evaluation.'
And she had changed that.
At his words acknowledging her, a swell of pride rose up in her chest.
"......And now, I'm about to ask you a slightly... unfair favor."
Jin Yu-ha spoke now in an awkward, hesitant voice, unlike before.
She could tell why this man was acting this way now.
She could infer from the context what favor he meant to ask of her,
and why he had sought her out now.
'......Pfft. He could've just said it.'
The hurt she'd felt a moment ago washed away clean.
Shin Se-hee gazed at Jin Yu-ha with a relaxed smile.
'Hmm, shall I fluster him a little?'
Shin Se-hee abruptly reached out,
grabbed Jin Yu-ha's sword, and brought it to her own neck.
"The favor is asking me to die for you. Am I right?"
And with a soft, beaming smile, she savored the look of bewilderment on his face.