055. Tutorial Boss Battle (1)
055. Tutorial Boss Battle (1)
An indoor training ground tucked away in a corner of Velvet Academy.
Isolated from the other facilities, it was a long-abandoned place that had seen almost no use.
On an ordinary day, the only things filling this space would have been the stale smell of dust and pitch-black darkness.......
But today, hundreds of people had swarmed here in a bustling crowd.
Murmur murmur─
"Hey, you too......?"
"Did that bitch call you?"
Those gathered here couldn't hide their bewilderment as they openly stared at one another.
"Yeah. Uh-huh. That bitch Choi A-ram suddenly started cussing me out and told me to come to G-Wing Training Ground......."
"Crazy bitch. I wasn't even thinking about her and she sent me a nice long text full of swearing. Figured I'd come see what the hell a girl who couldn't even meet my eyes normally was thinking."
At first they'd wondered if it was a mistakenly sent message,
but Choi A-ram had painstakingly sent each person a long message, complete with their individual names along with subtle digs at their complexes and even their pasts.
"Yeah, with that level of effort, I figured I ought to show up. But it looks like she called every single person she knows?"
"What if she doesn't show today and just drops out instead?"
"If that's the case, I'll hunt her down to the very depths of hell and wreck her."
Ptooey─!
One of the women spat roughly onto the floor.
"Ah, fuck this. It's obvious that bitch isn't coming, so what the hell are we doing standing around like idiots? I'm out of─"
Clank─!
Just then, the sound of the door locking came from behind.
Thud─
Thud─
Thud─
Thud─
The lights above flicked on one by one, illuminating the platform at the front.
Tap
Tap
And then, accompanied by the sound of small footsteps, a woman appeared.
Pink hair, pink eyes.
A petite girl dressed in a suit.
It was Choi A-ram.
Everyone's gaze converged on her.
"Hello, everyone?"
She greeted them, her pink eyes brimming with sparkle.
"......."
"......."
"......."
Choi A-ram swept her gaze across the crowd, taking in their dumbfounded expressions, then parted her lips in a clear, ringing voice.
"Hmm, I see some friends I haven't seen in a long time, and a few I saw just recently?"
"Hey, you fucking bitch. What kind of bullshit is this? Did you miss your pill time?"
The first to speak up among the crowd was the black-haired, short-cut woman—the one who, just this morning, had told Lee Yu-ri to join her party. Kim Su-hyeon.
She snarled viciously, glaring at Choi A-ram.
"Fuck. That retard bitch already pissed me off today, and now what the hell are you?"
After finishing her Live Gate Training, she had received an unbelievable result.
The fact that her party was second—not first.
And at a time like that, suddenly another maggot from that same party.
The held-back Damage Dealer, Choi A-ram, was telling her to come out to the training ground.
That was why she'd headed straight there without even washing up.
"Whoa! Kim Su-hyeon! Earlier, you called Im Ga-eul a retard, didn't you!?"
Choi A-ram's eyes curved into crescents as she looked at her.
"Even if ignoring me all this time was a bit much, you—I can understand. Mm. Mm."
She nodded along as she spoke.
Kim Su-hyeon's brow furrowed sharply.
"This bitch really did scarf down a whole box of expired pills......."
"Hmm, if you keep talking like that, it won't be any fun, you know─."
"Fun? Fun my ass. You worthless maggot, you're dead today."
Kim Su-hyeon rolled up her sleeves and strode forward with long, heavy steps.
At that, Choi A-ram's face went ice-cold.
"As I thought, I really don't like people who talk too much. I do kind of like you since you hate Im Ga-eul, but you never exactly treated me well either, did you?"
Her slender finger pointed at Kim Su-hyeon.
"Fine, I'll make an example out of you. Without someone playing that role, none of you would ever listen to me."
With those words, a black flash burst from the tip of Choi A-ram's finger.
Ping─!
A sudden attack.
The flash that shot out pierced straight through Kim Su-hyeon's abdomen as she advanced.
"Ghk......!?"
Kim Su-hyeon's eyes flew wide open as she clutched her pierced stomach.
Choi A-ram looked down at the sight, a cruel smile spreading across her face, and spoke in a cold voice.
"I'm not the person you knew anymore."
Thud─
Kim Su-hyeon collapsed right where she stood.
Bright-red blood began spreading over her fallen body.
"Huh......?"
"Su-hyeon! Su-hyeon!!!!"
"Isn't that, isn't that Demonic Energy!?"
"That bitch sold her soul, sold her soul to a Demonized Human!!!"
In an instant, shrill screams and chaos filled the training ground.
Crack─
And then the floor began to split.
"Sh-shit, what the fuck is this!!!!!"
As fissures suddenly spiderwebbed beneath their feet, the gathered cadets scrambled frantically, trying to find any position that was even slightly safer.
Crrrrrack─!
The splitting seams weren't just one or two.
Bang━! Bang━! Bang━! Craaash━!
A violent, simultaneous earthquake erupted, and a deafening roar of something being destroyed shook the training ground along with the vibrations.
At last, a monster's hand tore through the floor and grabbed the jagged edge of the fissure.
And right behind it, countless more hands burst out from the other crevices.
Thick, muscular arms ending in hook-like claws honed to a razor edge, flaunting their savagery without restraint.
Chaos.
Worse still, most of the people gathered here hadn't been on guard against Choi A-ram, so they hadn't even brought their weapons.
A few tried to get the situation under control somehow, but faced with Demonized Humans and a sudden Gate Break, the confusion only accelerated.
"Th-that's right! The In-instructor! Contact the Instructor and the Chairwoman!"
A cadet shouted that through the chaos.
Choi A-ram watched the scene with a look of fascination.
She wanted to shatter the hope they were clinging to.
"Sorry, but we're already inside a Gate. Which means, no electronic devices will work."
"......What!?"
"Heh heh, it means the people you're so desperately waiting for won't be coming here. Well, they might figure things out later and show up eventually...... but by then, everything will already be over, won't it?"
Choi A-ram clasped her hands together toward the empty air as if in prayer.
"Ahh, that person truly is omniscient and omnipotent......."
She stepped down lightly from the platform.
And then placed her foot on the head of Kim Su-hyeon—the very woman who had charged at her just moments ago.
"Honestly, I don't get why none of you can grasp the situation. Right, Su-hyeon?"
"......."
Kim Su-hyeon, already unconscious with her stomach pierced through, couldn't give any answer.
But Choi A-ram carried on as if she didn't care at all.
"Heh heh. That's right. I've become a Demonized Human. Thanks to that, I can grind the people who ignored me like that right under my heel. This feeling......."
She looked down at Kim Su-hyeon pinned beneath her foot, dragging the corner of her mouth up into a smirk.
"It's absolutely the best!"
And with that, she ground her foot down, twisting it as she spoke.
"So you people have always been tasting this feeling, huh? Ignoring me, looking down on me like that......."
"......."
"So, how does it feel right now? Hm? How does it feel to have the tables turned on you by the person you ignored and treated like trash?"
Grrrr─!
Aaaaaah—!!
Right before their eyes, the monsters chased the cadets, and they fled, screaming.
The sight overlapped with her own image from before she became a Demonized Human.
The monsters wearing the faces of those who had ignored and scorned her, and the fleeing cadets wearing her own face.
Truthfully, the people here who had directly tormented her were only a handful.
Velvet Hunter Academy was a place where, no matter how hardy a person was, classes that tested their limits followed day after day.
So everyone poured far more time into training and recovering their own bodies than into bothering others.
But Choi A-ram believed their gazes, their dismissive attitudes toward her, all of it—was a sin.
After all, wasn't it the natural and self-evident way of the world for those with power to stand above those without?
Ahahahahahahaha!!!
Abruptly, she burst into laughter.
"Yes, it was all a fake world! You were all just worthless maggots......! And I, I never needed to live suffering like that......!!!"
She laughed for a long while, then let out a languid sigh.
Haaah─
"Hmm, so....... Where is Im Ga-eul?"
Choi A-ram craned her neck around, searching for her.
But no matter how hard she looked, she was nowhere to be seen.
"I really want to see her face."
Im Ga-eul, who had lingered in the same hell only to abandon her one day and escape alone.
Choi A-ram couldn't forgive her.
Hmm─
"It won't do if Im Ga-eul isn't here....... She has to be my finale─."
She narrowed her eyes and was intently scanning the fleeing cadets when—
"This Pink Brat bitch. Her eighth-grader syndrome's gotten even worse."
A voice pierced sharply into her ear, sudden and clear.
She turned her head.
Beside her stood a black-haired boy, his face set rigid and hard.
And behind his back, the one she had been searching for—
Im Ga-eul.
She was staring at her, biting down on her lip.
"A-ram. You've really crossed a line you should never have crossed......."
* * *
A horrific scene—a Gate Break erupting inside the academy.
'It was real.......'
Shin Se-hee swallowed hard, gazing at the landscape.
"We're not late. Right on time. This is exactly where the battle starts."
Jin Yu-ha looked around as he spoke in a hard voice.
At his words, Shin Se-hee's mind reflexively surfaced the conversation she'd had with him a short while ago.
"......Huh? Suddenly a Demonized Human?"
"Yeah. Hypothetically speaking—if one of the students became a Demonized Human, where in the academy do you think they'd pick to cause trouble? It just seems like things are going to happen differently from the original schedule."
Jin Yu-ha had come to her, saying out of nowhere that a Demonized Human might appear.
And what's more, that it was a cadet.
Honestly, the words were so sudden that her mind went blank for a moment.
Still, he'd asked, so she had to give an answer.
"......Hmm, I'm not sure, but. They'd probably go somewhere out of the instructors' sight, wouldn't they?"
"Can you pull together a list?"
"......Um, Jin Yu-ha."
"Yeah?"
"Setting aside the source of that information for a moment, wouldn't it be better to leave something this dangerous to the instructors?"
At that, Jin Yu-ha scratched his head roughly.
"Well, it's not like I haven't thought about that too...... but as you know, I was suspected of being a Demonized Human not long ago."
"......Yes."
"So I figured revealing that I know things in advance would be a bad idea. But at the same time, I don't think I have time to lay the groundwork either."
But his words were a little strange.
Information of unknown origin kept spilling from his mouth.
He seemed reluctant to reveal them in front of other people, yet at other times, he seemed to not bother hiding them at all.
Right—he doesn't hide them.
Especially not in front of us.
"Then why are you telling us?"
"Because you're my party members."
"......What?"
Jin Yu-ha folded down his fingers one by one.
"Hmm, well. First, Kang Do-hee's the type who'd never betray someone she's decided to trust. And Gukbap—well, if you can't trust her, there's nobody left to trust. And Im Ga-eul, even if she's suspicious, she's the type who just goes along with the flow."
"......W-wait. Im Ga-eul? Who is that?"
"Ah, she's a sunbae, a Support I'm planning to recruit."
Shin Se-hee glared at him with discontented eyes.
"You said you'd tell me first......."
"I met her today. That's why I came straight to you. To let you know."
Jin Yu-ha flashed a smooth, teasing grin.
Maddeningly enough, his voice and face instantly melted her mood.
But—
Shin Se-hee still hadn't heard it.
She understood that he believed the others would never betray him, even if he revealed just how suspicious he was.
So what about her own case, then?
For now, the fact that he was telling her this at all was proof that he trusted her, but.......
Given that their first meeting had been what it was, she was still uneasy.
She wanted to hear those words too.
"......Then, what about me?"
Shin Se-hee swallowed and asked in a hesitant voice.
At that, Jin Yu-ha glanced back at her.
"Honestly, in some ways I feel the most reassured with you, more than anyone else."
"......What?"
"No matter what kind of person I am—you'd never betray me, as long as I'm on your side. Right?"
She bit down hard on her lip.
How could he say something like that so casually?
This man always spoke as if he could see straight through her.
And always with the exact words she most wanted to hear.
"You and I are both suspicious as hell anyway, so what's the big deal?"
Jin Yu-ha said it with a grin.
"......M-my thing is just a hobby, okay!?"
Shin Se-hee whipped her reddening face away, trying desperately to act unfazed, but the pounding of her heart rang loudly in her ears.
"Heh. Yeah, yeah. I mean, at first I thought about hiding things a bit too...... but I figured if I did that, something really bad might end up happening. Especially since I don't even have any growth materials."
Jin Yu-ha stared into empty space and let out a deep sigh.
"If I end up regretting it because I couldn't handle something ahead of time—something I could've taken care of—just because I was busy hiding what I know. Well, doesn't that sound kind of wrong?"
As he said it, his eyes seemed to hold a deep remorse—or maybe even a deep fear.
Watching him,
Shin Se-hee could think of one possibility.
'......Jin Yu-ha. Don't tell me, can you see the future?'