065. Personal Combat Class (2)
065. Personal Combat Class (2)
I took a shallow breath.
My mind sank, calm as a still lake.
And I recalled her sword.
'Instructor Baek Seol-hee's sword is quiet.'
I don't mean the sound when she swung her sword, its cry.
Of course, those sounds were quiet as well, but I could tell by intuition that it came from a difference in realm.
'How should I put it... it feels like every extraneous detail has been stripped from the movement itself?'
The management of her gaze, her breathing, the flow of her Mana, her toes, a single finger.
A restrained beauty, where nothing is wasted carelessly in the act of swinging the sword.
In Baek Seol-hee's swordsmanship, I sensed something akin to a compulsive paranoia.
I sank my gaze low, clumsily imitating Baek Seol-hee's sword as I had experienced it that day.
*
CLANG—!
"Ghk—!"
Pushed back by Jin Yu-ha's sword, Lee Min-young let out a groan.
There was something she could never permit.
An evil path that strayed from the righteous way.
And to her, Jin Yu-ha was that evil path.
Unlike the special admission cadets who proved their skills through results and received proper treatment,
Jin Yu-ha had entered through the male quota.
From the moment she first heard the rumors about him, Lee Min-young had felt disgusted.
He used his looks as a weapon to leech off Shin Se-hee and Kang Do-hee and won the group sparring.
And that wasn't the end of it—even after the basic training period, he kept testing the waters between them, continuing his vulgar behavior.
Recently, there was even Lee Yu-ri.
Rumors had reached her that he had even taken her into his arms.
'So shameless...! You gold-digging bastard! You even dared sink your claws into Lee Yu-ri!'
Lee Yu-ri had been Lee Min-young's opponent in the group sparring.
The conviction and fighting spirit Lee Yu-ri had shown then. And that utterly dependable figure who earned the trust of her comrades.
She was a person who perfectly matched Lee Min-young's own ideals.
Since laying eyes on her, Lee Min-young—though a woman herself—had become a fervent follower of Lee Yu-ri.
Thus, bearing a grudge over having Lee Yu-ri stolen from her, she had already been sharpening her blade for Jin Yu-ha.
Was this fate?
She ended up in the same class as Jin Yu-ha.
Interpersonal Combat Practical.
And then, this vicious man crossed the line once more here.
To receive an A-Rank despite being someone who swaggered around under the protection of special admission cadets.
As one who aspired to the righteous path, this was an act she could never accept!
In that moment, for Lee Min-young, Jin Yu-ha went from an opponent she must defeat to an opponent she absolutely could not lose to.
'And so, I was going to expose his true colors in our first sparring match...!'
From the moment his swinging sword collided with her shield, her face had no choice but to stiffen.
Because a shock far more powerful than expected shuddered through her entire body.
'Ha, w-well, he's not without skill! I'll get serious now too...!'
Lee Min-young inwardly raised her assessment of Jin Yu-ha as she gripped her mace tightly once more.
And as the sparring continued, she became more and more earnest.
On the other hand, Jin Yu-ha seemed to be losing interest in her instead.
"Hup...!"
Lee Min-young gritted her teeth and charged at the expressionless Jin Yu-ha.
"Block this if you can!"
Whoosh—!
The Mana she'd squeezed out enveloped her mace, and the mace descended toward Jin Yu-ha's head.
And at that moment.
Swish—
The arc of his sword moved too fast for the eye to follow and settled lightly upon the shaft of the mace.
'Don't make me laugh...!'
Lee Min-young compressed another layer of Mana into the head of the mace and pressed down.
The mace emitted a deep orange light, the same color as her hair.
Opposite it, Jin Yu-ha's sword seemed at a glance to be wrapped in nothing but a thin layer of blue Mana.
"D-danger!!"
"Even if he won't die!"
"That'll traumatize him!?"
Only Kang Do-hee watched his sword with a silent gaze,
while the other cadets watching all shut their eyes tight, imagining Jin Yu-ha's horrific future.
But Jin Yu-ha's sword did not meet that force head-on; it slipped past the mace's head as if sliding, pressing it aside.
And with an anticlimactic shift, the mace's center of gravity veered sideways, slamming down onto only the innocent training ground floor.
BOOOOM—!!
A deafening roar erupted.
For a moment, Lee Min-young couldn't hide her bewilderment, but she quickly composed her face and thrust her shield toward Jin Yu-ha.
However.
SWOOSH—!
BANG—!
His sword snapped a short strike into the side of the shield.
Lee Min-young's shield, which had charged at Jin Yu-ha, once again failed to achieve its purpose and swung wide.
And in that instant.
Jin Yu-ha's sword left an afterimage like a blue butterfly and pierced through her opening.
Lee Min-young urgently rolled her body to the side to evade the blade, but she couldn't completely nullify the attack from moments before.
FWIP!
"Ghk!"
Her side tore open and blood leaked out.
Hah!
Then, Jin Yu-ha shot his body forward once more.
He lowered his body, aimed at her ankle, and swung his sword horizontally.
SWOOSH—!
She pressed her shield to the floor, attempting to defend against it.
BOOM—!
But unable to even set her stance in time, she couldn't withstand the collision's impact and was sent tumbling sideways.
She rolled ignobly across the floor before planting her mace against the ground and barely managing to raise herself up.
Huff—
Huff—
Lee Min-young, steadying her breathing, stared at him with eyes that saw a monster.
Her pupils trembled as though shaken by an earthquake.
'Wh-what on earth is going on...?'
She couldn't get a grip on her senses.
Even though it was unexpected, she was now facing him with all her strength.
But Jin Yu-ha was dealing with her lightly, as if toying with her.
Even when she swung her mace at full power, her attacks couldn't graze even the hem of his clothes.
Jin Yu-ha's sword, having approached before she knew it, flew in quietly, leaving the afterimage of a high-speed sword.
'Ah....'
Despair settled in her eyes.
And his sword stopped right in front of her throat.
"......."
A stinging, pricking pain.
A single drop of blood trickled down her neck.
She stole a glance at the sword stopped below her chin.
She parted her lips, which simply would not move.
To utter words she couldn't even have imagined when she first sparred with him.
Deep inside her, a thick sense of defeat crept upward.
"I, I've l-lost......."
At that moment, Jin Yu-ha's brow furrowed.
"Why are you ending this on your own?"
"......Eh?"
"I'm not accepting your surrender, you know?"
Lee Min-young looked up at him, a bewildered look on her face.
"It's not over yet."
In an instant, Jin Yu-ha's sword moved again, falling down over her head.
'......Ah, e-even if it won't kill me, to do something like this to someone who surrendered......!'
Thinking that this man really was a scoundrel far removed from the righteous path, Lee Min-young squeezed her eyes shut.
But.
THWACK—!
"Kgh—!?"
A sudden pain flared atop her head.
A sound mixed with bewilderment sprang from her lips.
"Wh-what is the meaning of this—!"
Lee Min-young lifted her eyes and glared at him.
And this time, she could see it.
Jin Yu-ha's sword, coming down with an expressionless face.
THWACK—!
The sword he swung bent supplely along its side and struck her forehead with a satisfying thwack.
"Ack!"
THWACK—!
"Aagh!"
THWACK—!
"Wh-why...!!!"
Lee Min-young looked up at him with eyes full of indignation.
"Well, I've got some things piled up against you. Mm, I'm still a long way from feeling completely better, so take a few more knuckle raps."
Suddenly saying some incomprehensible things and calmly declaring he would beat her, Jin Yu-ha.
Lee Min-young's eyes shook mercilessly.
* * *
SMACK—!
"I-it hur—!"
THWACK—!
"Guaack!"
THWACK—!
"S-stop!"
A training ground that had fallen quiet.
Only the sound of a sword thwacking an opponent satisfyingly and the accompanying screams could be heard.
The cadets, whose faces had initially been filled with shock at Jin Yu-ha's skill, were slowly changing their gazes.
Gulp─
One female cadet swallowed dryly.
'S-somehow... I feel a little strange...?'
'Mmm, a pretty guy like that, hitting me mercilessly with that blank face....'
'Is this some kind of reward?'
'......Should I try challenging him to a spar next time?'
While a few female cadets' sexual orientations thus shifted in a concerning direction.
Instructor Hong Ji-na, who had been putting on a deliberately composed expression, was inwardly sweating bullets.
'Wh-what the hell did that crazy bitch teach the kid...!?'
Of course, it still looked clumsy and unpolished, seeming like an ordinary sword at a quick glance.
But the sword he was swinging faintly gave off the scent of the Slaughter-Crazed Woman.
'She transmitted the Extermination Sword to a kid who just entered the academy...?'
Because it was a sword used against Demonized Humans, it was utterly brutal—a murderous sword oriented purely toward extreme, compressed practical combat.
It was a sword said to be transmitted solely to those among the Demonized Human Extermination Squad who had succeeded in killing their own humanity.
'And what about that bastard doing it just because he was told to!'
Being able to imitate, even this much, a sword whose learning process is utterly atrocious—what a tremendous feat that was.
Hong Ji-na, obsessed with every kind of martial art, knew this all too well.
'There won't be anyone here who can match him...? No, that's a sword you shouldn't be facing for long in the first place!'
Defeat at the hands of the Extermination Sword carried the concern of leaving an indelible trauma on the cadets' minds.
That was when it happened.
"Instructor."
Instructor Hong Ji-na turned her head.
There stood a cadet, holding a hair tie in her lips, roughly tying up her red hair.
It was Kang Do-hee.
"I'd like to face Jin Yu-ha."