135. Wrap-Up (2)
135. Wrap-Up (2)
'I'm exhausted.'
Baek Seol-hee had been suddenly deployed to the S-rank Gate explosion that erupted in Pohang.
Had this been a gate "clear," there would have been no need for every instructor to mobilize.
An S-rank Gate was something Magic Emperor Rina could wrap up by herself.
But this wasn't a clear—it was an explosion.
Once monsters spill outside a gate, the workload multiplies tenfold.
Since it was an S-rank Gate that had burst, the monsters were high-level, and the civilian casualties were at a level that couldn't be ignored.
Even with Rina using telekinesis to sort out the collapsed buildings across the area, personnel dispatched from the Hunter Management Bureau handling rescue operations, and the Demonized Human Extermination Squad members plus Baek Seol-hee wiping out the monsters, the backlog of work stretched on hopelessly.
—S-Squad Leader! You're, you're too fast!!
—I'm, I'm gonna die!?
—Stop being dramatic. You're worse than first-year cadets.
—I mean it, I'm seriously dying!!
—Quiet.
Squad members who had survived training so horrific it could be called a nightmare were now whining—that was how relentlessly tight Baek Seol-hee's pace was.
But even so, Baek Seol-hee only carved through monsters more and more fiercely.
—SKREEEE! Grrk!?
—Th-thank you. Thank y— Huh? Wh-where'd she go?
Her mind was racing.
A vague unease kept spurring her on.
If she didn't get to the testing grounds where the Midterm Evaluation was being held right this instant, she would surely regret it later.
That was what her intuition was telling her.
So she had carved through the monsters.
And right after she had mostly cleaned up the ones that were conspicuously dangerous,
she went to Rina and said,
—I'll return to the testing grounds ahead of schedule.
At that, Rina's eyebrows twitched and she asked in return,
—......You'll return?
—Yes. The squad members and the Chairwoman are here, so you'll be able to manage the rest.
Even as she spoke those words, Baek Seol-hee had braced herself for considerable reprimand.
No one knew better than she did what a stupid thing she'd just said.
The leader of the Extermination Squad saying she would slip away alone in the middle of an active mission.
Was that even something that could be said?
The fact that Rina usually treated her comfortably with a light atmosphere didn't mean that applied during a mission.
However.
Rina silently gazed at Baek Seol-hee for a long time,
and then readily gave a nod.
—Fine, go. I'll send the coordinates. I'll teleport you to somewhere close.
Rina's attitude took her a little off guard. But Baek Seol-hee simply nodded back.
And now.
Seeing Jin Yu-ha standing in the middle of that brutal slaughter scene, Baek Seol-hee clicked her tongue.
'I can roughly guess what happened.'
* * *
"Your sword is wavering."
An oddly familiar, flat voice sounded from behind me.
Halfway through thrusting my sword at the Demonized Human bastards, I whipped my head around.
"M-Master......!?"
By all accounts, Chairwoman Rina wasn't supposed to return to the uninhabited island until after the Midterm Evaluation was completely over.
The instructors were likewise supposed to return together with Rina.
'But she came back in a single day......?'
I looked around her, but the other instructors and Rina were nowhere to be seen.
With a dumbfounded face, I stared at Baek Seol-hee.
Torn clothes, a face spattered with blood, even eyes that were slightly narrowed as if from fatigue.
Her always-immaculate appearance was a mess.
Anyone could see she must have pushed herself past considerable limits.
"Do not let the sword wield you. Did I not teach you otherwise?"
Click-clack.
Click-clack.
Baek Seol-hee swept her hair back and walked toward me.
"Emotion is a potent driving force. A blade that carries emotion is like an arrow. Its instantaneous destructive power is fierce. But once loosed, it cannot be recovered."
"......Ah."
"Right now—is this battlefield truly one worthy of carrying your emotions?"
Baek Seol-hee met my eyes and asked in a serious voice.
"......No."
I shook my head in answer.
"Were you that angry?"
"......."
"Hoo, honestly...... Too much affection is a sickness all its own, as they say."
Wearing an ambiguous expression that was hard to read as either worry or pride, Baek Seol-hee gently stroked my head.
"But you did well. Thanks to you, despite the major incident of Demonized Humans appearing, no one had to die. All of that is what you accomplished. Take pride in it."
"......Yes."
That was when it happened.
"M-Master!? Ah! Then you, you must be that academy's instructor!!! Then get that crazy bastard under control!!!"
"H-how can an academy cadet kill people so easily like this! What the hell are you teaching them!"
"That's right! You, you human butcher bastard! Keep a leash on your student!"
"We'll behave and turn ourselves in! S-so hurry up and stop him!!!!"
Paradoxically, those words came pouring from the Demonized Humans who were cornered.
They must have figured that now that an academy instructor had arrived, they wouldn't be dying here today.
"The mouths on these trash are still alive, I see......"
Baek Seol-hee swept her gaze over them with eyes that were utterly frigid.
"So when you bastards kill, it's not murder, but when an academy cadet kills, that makes it murder?"
"B-but! To attack an enemy who's lost the will to fight! That's what a hunter's supposed to—"
One Demonized Human whose arm had been severed struggled to protest as if it were an injustice.
"Bullshit."
Baek Seol-hee instantly cut him off.
"Weren't you all trash who killed unarmed civilians who couldn't even be called enemies to begin with? And did you really think I wouldn't know what kind of thoughts you've been nursing?"
Shing—
With a languid hand gesture, she drew her sword.
"The instant you managed to escape, you were going to take those cadets hostage and use them to threaten my disciple, weren't you. To exploit this child's soft heart."
Flinch.
At that unyielding voice, the Demonized Humans trembled.
And so did I.
'......Uh, um. No, that wasn't it......? It was just because of Gukbap.'
I stared at her with an awkward expression. But Baek Seol-hee kept speaking.
"Because of you, my disciple nearly set foot on a path he's still too early for. From that moment, your fates were already sealed."
Then she turned her head and looked at me.
"Hm, at the moment your master's condition is not the best...... but there is a lesson I can give you right now."
"A lesson, here, all of a sudden?"
When I asked her with a bewildered look, Baek Seol-hee gave a slight nod.
"Yes. Shall we wield our swords together?"
* * *
Baek Seol-hee's entrance.
In that chaos, it was the arrival of just a single instructor, but the watching cadets felt a sense of relief deep in their hearts and let out a sigh.
The sight of Jin Yu-ha cutting down enemies as if wringing a chicken's neck had been partly exhilarating, but......
To be honest,
it had been terrifying.
The killing intent Jin Yu-ha radiated had not been directed solely at the Demonized Humans.
Of course, the Demonized Humans bore direct responsibility for what happened to Lee Yu-ri, so the intensity wasn't comparable—
but no matter how little they knew, the cadets had only been standing there blankly watching from behind while Lee Yu-ri was reduced to that state. So to Jin Yu-ha, they too were targets of his resentment.
The cadets, who had been cowering from that thick killing intent, gradually recovered the light in their eyes as they heard Baek Seol-hee's words.
Emotion welled up right after.
"......We, we almost became hostages?"
"So that's why he was that angry."
"I-I didn't even realize that......"
"To Lee Yu-ri, and to Jin Yu-ha too...... we were nothing but dead weight....... And yet, for us......"
They'd realized that Jin Yu-ha's furious drive to cut down the Demonized Humans wasn't only because of what happened to Lee Yu-ri.
It was also to stop the demonized bastards' underhanded schemes.
And Lee Min-young, who had been mixed in among the cadets, received a resonance that felt as if her very soul had been pierced.
'......Ah.'
Someone who throws himself into such a desperate struggle to protect.
A truly and deeply noble person.
And how were we looking at someone like him......?
Her personality had changed a little oddly compared to before, but her core had not yet changed.
Even though she had always sparred with Jin Yu-ha, she had still judged him only by his appearance, still refused to acknowledge him, still treated him with hostility.
And yet here he was, throwing his own body into a bloody battle against Demonized Humans to protect us.
So how had we been looking at someone like him?
'......At the very least, at the very least, we mustn't look at him like this.'
Lee Min-young bit down hard on her lip.
She turned her head and shouted to the cadets.
"All of you! Burn this fight into your eyes clearly!!! We are all indebted to that man with our lives! Even for the sake of remembering that fact, you must not miss a single moment!"
And the cadets cast off their terror-stricken gazes and, with earnest eyes, watched the fight between Jin Yu-ha and Baek Seol-hee.
And Lee Min-young, feeling a tickling sensation in her chest, stared at Jin Yu-ha's back with eyes full of admiration.
Even if the entire world came crashing down,
she paid it no mind and stood firm like a great, rooted tree—
Lee Yu-ri's conviction.
Seeking goodwill from no one,
stepping alone into the abyss—
Jin Yu-ha's will.
All of it felt so dazzling.
'I want to join the Utopia Party too.'
Lee Min-young couldn't help but think to herself.
*
A sword dance performed by master and disciple as one.
Beneath the brilliant moonlight, two swords sway like blossoms.
One sword was dynamic.
The other was serene.
As the blades reflecting the moonlight intertwined, dancing together as they sliced the empty air,
the two swords began to resemble one another.
The blade that had been blazing hot was gradually tempered, sublimated into sharpness.
The blade that had been as bitterly cold as winter frost gradually began to hold a sense of life.
Every part of the scene blended together like a single beautiful painting.