064. Personal Combat Class (1)
064. Personal Combat Class (1)
Among the first-year cadets currently enrolled at Velvet Academy,
the name of the male quota student Jin Yu-ha was more widely known for his face than his skill.
Of course, Jin Yu-ha had been proving himself without particularly hiding his strength all along.
The group sparring and finals during basic training,
the thorough re-education of the male cadets who followed Shin Se-hee,
and most recently, even the Demonized Human subjugation.
However, his opponents in the group sparring consoled themselves that they lost only because they took advantage of an opening when Jin Yu-ha let his guard down,
and nearly two-thirds of the cadets were absent from the finals.
The male cadets who received that re-education were also mostly Healers and Supports at best, so no matter how much they ran their mouths, it never became much of a topic.
The resolution of the Choi A-ram Demonized Human incident was the one case that properly revealed his skill, but
regrettably, it had happened only the day before and wasn't even fully settled yet,
so the rumor had only spread quietly among the second-year cadets, and there hadn't been enough time for it to reach the first-years.
Beyond that, the existence of two celebrities played a part in the evaluation of Jin Yu-ha being this harsh.
Cheonhwa (千花), Shin Se-hee.
Fighting Dog (鬪犬), Kang Do-hee.
A man with extraordinary looks squeezed between those two celebrities—
naturally, people's eyes were drawn to aspects other than his skill!
In other words, the evaluation of Jin Yu-ha among the current first-year new cadets was.......
《The Homme Fatale Beauty Who Stirs Up Love Triangles》
《A Face That Invokes Patriotic Fervor》
《The Man Who Claimed the Tier-1 Healer Spot with Looks Alone》
《Flower on the Cliff》
And so on and so forth.......
Opinions related to his appearance were the mainstream.
Because of this, the cadets who visited the training ground for their Interpersonal Combat Practical class couldn't hide their bewilderment.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
A-Rank : Kang Do-hee, Jin Yu-ha
B-Rank : Lee Min-young, Yoon Sae-rom, Kim Da-young.......
C-Rank : Kim Hye-soo, Choi Yoo-rim, Koo Yoon-ah.......
.
.
.
.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Murmur, murmur━
The rank chart hung prominently at the training ground's main entrance.
A commotion arose among the cadets who checked it.
"Is this for real?"
"Jin Yu-ha, is that the guy? That face genius."
"Yeah. Probably......?"
"No, doesn't this make no sense? He's the same A-Rank as Kang Do-hee?"
"If he hangs around with her, do they just rate him at a similar level......."
"The way he looked in the finals back then was impressive, sure, but still, this is too much."
Just then.
THOOM—!
A massive hammer slammed into the floor, shattering the cadets' murmuring.
It was a woman with a bear-like build and a large frame.
"Nice to meet you, cadets! I'm Hong Ji-na, the instructor in charge of Interpersonal Combat Practical!"
She spoke in a booming voice.
The cadets' gazes converged on her in an instant.
"The rank chart you cadets just checked at the entrance is a classification by skill based on each instructor's evaluation during basic training!"
At that moment, a female cadet with orange hair raised her hand.
"Hm? Cadet, you are?"
"Ah, yes. I am Cadet Lee Min-young."
"Cadet Lee Min-young?"
Hong Ji-na briefly shifted her gaze toward the rank chart to check the name.
"A B-Rank cadet, I see."
"Yes, that is correct."
"Alright, Cadet Lee Min-young. Is there a problem? Perhaps you have a complaint about your rank."
At that, Lee Min-young shook her head with a composed face.
"No. I have no particular complaint about my own rank. I don't consider myself to be on the same rank as Cadet Kang Do-hee."
"Hmm, then?"
"However, I have come to question another cadet's skill."
"Another cadet?"
"Yes, among the cadets whose names are written in A-Rank, I acknowledge Cadet Kang Do-hee. But Cadet Jin Yu-ha is a bit hard to accept."
As she said this, she turned her head and threw a glance at Jin Yu-ha.
* * *
'Hmm, I kinda expected this kind of reaction the moment it got plastered on the main entrance like a giant billboard.......'
I turned my head and met eyes with the orange-haired female cadet who had just raised a complaint about my rank.
'A playable character, Lee Min-young.'
She was a 3-Star character.
A balance-type Damage Dealer who used a mace and a small shield simultaneously.
But unlike a Gukbap-type character who goes all-in on a single ability at 3-Star,
a balance-type was a truly hopelessly ambiguous character.
'Of course, I did pull her so I used her but....... Tch. Got tangled up with a slightly annoying one.'
She wore a stubborn expression and didn't avoid my eyes to the very end.
While we were staring right at each other like that,
the instructor opened her mouth.
"Hm, so, Cadet Lee Min-young is saying she doubts Cadet Jin Yu-ha's skill!"
"Yes, that is correct."
"Then it's simple!"
"Pardon......?"
THOOM—!
Hong Ji-na slammed her massive hammer into the floor once more.
"Everyone, focus! Since it's been brought up, I'll explain how this Interpersonal Combat Practical class is run."
She glanced at the rank chart, then turned her gaze back to the students.
"Right now, this rank chart was assigned through preliminary investigation during basic training, as I said. However, these ranks are by no means absolute!"
"What do you mean by not absolute......."
"Yes. Ranks can change at any time."
Grin—
She twisted her lips up into a grin.
"This Interpersonal Combat Practical has no separate exam or test. Only pure skill! Your rank itself becomes your score."
"Oh......."
"Then you must be curious about how to raise your rank."
At that, the cadets nodded as if overwhelmed by her charisma.
"Sparring! Within the time allowed by this class, a lower-ranked student may challenge a higher-ranked student at any time! And if the lower-ranked student wins, they can exchange ranks with that higher-ranked student. However, as this is a format of repeated sparring, the use of skills will be restricted."
'Ahh, so that's how it goes?'
In the end, this class was structured as infinite sparring.
Those given lower ranks would continuously challenge those with higher ranks.
And the higher-ranked students had to defend their rank without getting exhausted by the constant sparring.
'So this is why Kang Do-hee liked this class?'
I glanced at Kang Do-hee, who was standing next to me with a blank expression, as I thought.
In the game, whenever Kang Do-hee took the Interpersonal Combat Practical class, she was in good condition from the very morning of the class.
Even now, her fingers were twitching; she seemed quite eager.
"How about it, Cadet Lee Min-young. Will you challenge Cadet Jin Yu-ha?"
"......Yes, I will."
Lee Min-young nodded with a stiff face.
And so, I ended up stepping forward for the first sparring match of Interpersonal Combat Practical.
*
"Thank you for the match."
Lee Min-young, who had come out to the sparring ground, bowed her head stiffly to me.
"Yeah. Thank you for the match."
I nodded and returned the greeting.
I narrowed my eyes and pulled up information about my opponent from my memory.
'Righteousness Freak (正道蟲). Lee Min-young.'
A justice-obsessed broken record who couldn't tolerate injustice and always went around spouting idealistic theories.
And on top of that, she had a strong competitive streak, making her a seriously headache-inducing character.
Because of that personality, she caused some seriously frustrating stretches in both the Main Story and her Personal Stories.
Just think of her as exactly the kind of hero-type you'd find in an old fairy tale book.
Insisting she must walk the path of justice, she picks a fight over every little thing, saying not even one person should suffer unfair treatment or be left unsaved.
'She's the complete opposite of Shin Se-hee.'
If Gukbap was Shin Se-hee's natural enemy in a hierarchy relationship, this one felt like the polar opposite position.
Honestly, even in the game, every time she picked a fight, it made me want to give her a good knuckle rap.
'She's a character who gradually learns to prioritize what's important over that "righteousness" (正道) and learns to aim for the best possible rather than perfection as her Personal Story progresses. Well, it's got nothing to do with me.'
She wasn't even a character currently available from the game's gacha, and I had no intention of accepting her as a comrade, so all I needed to do was give her a proper re-education.
'Time for those knuckle raps I couldn't land back then. Min-young.'
Shing—
Moonlight was drawn from its sheath.
I pulled the sword out and aimed it forward.
"Here I come!"
She honestly issued a declaration of war and charged.
I calmly took in her movement path and attack direction.
'The instructor's lessons turned out to be pretty damn helpful.'
Besides the stat increase, I could stay calm when facing an enemy.
Even though it was just a single lesson,
the experience of being exposed to that overwhelming, irresistible killing intent had been a tremendous help when I captured the tutorial boss, Choi A-ram, and it was still helping me now.
I settled my eyes and brought Moonlight down.
SWOOSH—!
At that moment, Lee Min-young, who had been about to swing her mace, thrust her shield forward instead.
She seemed to intend to block the sword first, then counterattack.
CLANG—!!
The sword descending from the air clashed against the shield.
"Ghk—!?"
Unable to even think about a counterattack, she let out a groan and pulled her body back.
Perhaps the impact was greater than she expected, as she stared at me with a dazed look before gritting her teeth.
Hah!
She kicked off the ground and charged again.
Thanks to Instructor Baek Seol-hee's lesson and the experience of facing the tutorial boss,
I had gained a bit of composure, enough to think about other things in my head even while swinging my sword.
'A sword without using skills, huh.......'
Even though I had raised my Specialization Rank with the Swordsmanship book I received when I first transmigrated, that ultimately just raised my aptitude stat for the sword.
Because of that, I still did not possess a specific swordsmanship style.
In other words, a Form (式).
Since that was something given as a reward upon advancing to the next school year.
So until then, aside from skills,
it meant my main combat method was seeing an opening and thrusting, slashing, and swinging like I was doing now.
'But would the system really just hand me a swordsmanship style here once I moved up a school year?'
Honestly, I was a bit skeptical.
Since a lot of things had changed as the game became reality.
'And I've never raised Jin Yu-ha before, so I don't even know what kind of swordsmanship this guy uses.'
Whoosh—!
"Hngh—!!"
Lee Min-young gritted her teeth and swung her mace, but I lightly deflected the mace's haft with the tip of my sword.
'The first swordsmanship I've ever seen.......'
In an instant, a certain scene flashed through my mind.
Come to think of it, exactly once.
I had witnessed, and faced, a proper swordsmanship style.
That time, when I first entered the academy, picked up a sword, and crossed blades with Baek Seol-hee.
Baek Seol-hee had unfolded her swordsmanship toward me, and I had responded in kind.
At that moment, it looked at first glance as if we were forming equal exchanges, but
she had been teaching me by showing me each and every Sword Path.
As if to say, here, you should swing like this.
After that, I had been so focused solely on drawing a perfect straight line that I hadn't had the chance to recall it again, but
now, when I had to swing my sword without using skills,
her Sword Paths suddenly brushed through my mind.
'Then, shall I try to reproduce that sensation from back then?'
Mana swirled, and a blue energy began to shimmer at the tip of the sword.
And Moonlight smoothly glided through the empty air.