Special Evaluation (3)
Special Evaluation (3)
Some time after Kang Han-na vanished.
"Ughhh, my eyes..."
"Can you shut up?"
"Sorry..."
Under Na Ju-hee's withering glare, Im Gyeong-su hunched his shoulders and closed his mouth.
Baek Ha-na glanced at the two of them rubbing their eyes, then shifted her gaze back down to Lee Na-young, who was resting on her lap.
"Are you okay?"
"Yeah, it's getting better little by little."
Lee Na-young had packed several types of potions to prepare for any possible situation.
Thanks to that, she was using a topical healing potion to recover her blinded vision.
"Whoa, I can finally see...!!"
"I said be quiet. What kind of man runs his mouth that much?"
"...Mm."
Im Gyeong-su had leaped up the moment the potion—applied like eye drops—restored his sight, only to shrink back under Na Ju-hee's scolding. This had repeated over ten times already.
"Yeah... I can see fine now too."
"Good. That's a relief."
"Oooh~"
Baek Ha-na pressed gently around Lee Na-young's eyes once before rising to her feet. With the whole team recovered, it was time to resume the raid.
"Na-young. The map."
"Huh? Ah, right."
Lee Na-young quickly pulled the parchment from her bag and spread it on the floor.
Im Gyeong-su and Na Ju-hee gathered around without prompting.
"I think we need to rethink the route."
"A-agreed."
"...Same."
They'd expected monsters spawned from a summoning device to be waiting for them, not a professor.
The professor had seemed to be operating under restrictions, but a professor was still a professor. If a newly appointed first-year instructor was that formidable, running into any other professor in these halls would mean elimination. Plain and simple.
"The overall plan won't change much. We'll move along the shortest route like we decided. The difference is, this time we won't rush straight in. We'll check inside first, then make our call."
As long as they didn't enter the rooms, there was no risk of getting trapped, and they could always double back.
"What if they chase us out?"
"If that were really a risk, planning would be pointless. The professors would be ambushing us wherever we went."
"Ah, um. Right..."
Im Gyeong-su awkwardly scratched the back of his head and fell silent again.
"If it looks like a professor inside, we turn back. If not, we push through."
"...That works."
"I-I agree."
Na Ju-hee and Im Gyeong-su nodded, and Baek Ha-na's eyes naturally shifted to Lee Na-young sitting beside her.
"What about you, Na-young?"
"I think it's fine too. But..."
Lee Na-young drew out the end of her sentence for a moment and lifted her head.
"Um, the God of Amusement said there were collectible items too, right...?"
"He did."
"I think there are definitely things hidden somewhere, like this parchment. And there have to be paths that aren't on this map."
"......"
"Uh, um?"
Lee Na-young, flustered by the sudden attention, fumbled with the parchment in her hands.
"S-sorry... I was just thinking out loud..."
"No."
"...Huh?"
Baek Ha-na placed a hand on Lee Na-young's shoulder before she could deflate completely.
"You're right, Na-young. What we can see isn't everything."
"Yeah, thinking back to that joint practice, there's definitely something hidden here."
Im Gyeong-su nodded in agreement after Baek Ha-na.
"Nobody mentioned a time limit when we entered, so it should be fine to move carefully and look around."
When Na Ju-hee added her nod, Lee Na-young closed her fidgeting lips and her cheeks flushed pink.
"Looks like we've got a rough plan, so let's get moving."
"Ah, y-yeah...!!"
Lee Na-young locked the direction of their shortest route into her head as she rolled the parchment back up and tucked it into her bag.
"Im Gyeong-su."
"...Me again?"
At Baek Ha-na's call, Im Gyeong-su reluctantly raised his shield and stepped forward to the vanguard. Watching this, Na Ju-hee wrinkled her brow slightly.
"Your position is tanker. Wouldn't taking the front be the default?"
"Well, yeah... I mean, it is, but."
Im Gyeong-su scratched his head and glanced over at Baek Ha-na.
"I was thinking it might be more efficient if I protected that one"—he gestured toward Lee Na-young—"and you took point, team leader."
The skill Baek Ha-na had shown in the fight against Kang Han-na had been overwhelming. So overwhelming that the thought of even trying to match it never crossed his mind.
"I don't mind."
"Really...?"
Im Gyeong-su turned to ask, and Baek Ha-na nodded.
"But."
"...?"
Baek Ha-na fixed Im Gyeong-su with a gaze far colder than the one she used for Lee Na-young.
"Don't forget the professors are watching."
"...On second thought, I'm definitely the right person for the vanguard."
Im Gyeong-su quietly turned his head back and walked toward the door.
Creeeeak—
The door swung open with a spine-chilling sound, revealing a suspiciously straight corridor to greet them.
"Wait."
Na Ju-hee stepped forward briefly and extended a hand over Im Gyeong-su's shoulder.
Fwoosh—!!
"Agh?!"
Im Gyeong-su twisted aside, startled by the shards of ice—large and small—that had shot past his ear.
-Patapatapat...
Fragments of ice scattered evenly across the floor, the walls, and all the way to the far end of the corridor.
"Doesn't look like there are any traps."
"...Say something first!!"
"What kind of man is that jumpy?"
"That's not—!!"
Im Gyeong-su shot to his feet, but Baek Ha-na turned him aside by the shoulder.
"Enough. And Na Ju-hee. Like you said yourself, there doesn't seem to be a time limit, so adding a word of warning beforehand wouldn't have hurt."
"...I'll be more careful."
Na Ju-hee turned her head away with a sulky expression, and Im Gyeong-su let out a small sigh at the sight. He'd realized that pushing the argument would only make the atmosphere worse.
"Im Gyeong-su. I'll watch ahead, so you keep your eyes on the floor."
"The floor?"
Baek Ha-na narrowed her eyes.
"Na Ju-hee did a quick sweep, but there could still be pressure-triggered traps."
"...Nothing's gonna drop from the ceiling, right?"
"I don't know either. So walk."
"...Haa."
Im Gyeong-su trudged forward, the picture of misery.
"Na-young, if anything catches your eye, say so immediately."
"Y-yeah...!!"
Contrary to all the tension, the corridor held no hidden mechanisms and no dangerous traps.
"Kinda anticlimactic..."
"Don't jinx it. If there's nothing there, just be grateful. Didn't they teach you that at your specialized school?"
"...It was just a figure of speech."
Admittedly, saying something like that in a real rift would've earned him far worse than a scolding. But this wasn't a real rift, and Im Gyeong-su was getting tired of Na Ju-hee snapping at him every chance she got. He grumbled under his breath.
"Left here... then right... straight ahead here."
They reached a fork in the path, having encountered a suspiciously complete absence of events.
"Left is the shorter room. Right is the one that goes around."
Lee Na-young pulled out the parchment again just in case, and both Baek Ha-na and Na Ju-hee—everyone except Im Gyeong-su—shifted their eyes to it.
They checked for discrepancies, but the squares marking rooms on the parchment were all eerily uniform in size.
"Let's start with the left, like we decided."
"...Left."
Im Gyeong-su radiated a sense of being left out as he turned, but no one paid his mood any mind.
Boom—!!
"Eek..."
"It's fine. Fake lightning."
The scenery outside the windows was unnervingly realistic. All four of them, including Lee Na-young, paused to look through the glass.
A fierce storm raged outside, the wind so violent that nothing was visible beyond the black storm clouds and driving rain—just darkness itself.
"...Let's move."
It wasn't exactly a pleasant view, so the group resumed walking at Baek Ha-na's command.
"I guess... I'm opening it...?"
Im Gyeong-su swallowed as he stared at the massive door right in front of him.
"We're not going inside, so can you just open it quickly?"
"...Fine."
Im Gyeong-su shielded his body with his shield arm and used his other hand to shove the door hard.
-Block it!!
-Can't you see I'm blocking?!
Urgent voices slipped through the narrow gap that opened.
"Open it, now!!"
"Huh? Uh, yeah..."
At Na Ju-hee's sharp command, Im Gyeong-su quickly put his strength into it and pushed the door open.
-What kind of exam is this?!
-Hey!! Left side!!
A grand medieval-style banquet hall.
And two classmates cornered against the wall, fighting desperately.
"Kang Seok—"
"Move!!"
Na Ju-hee shoved Im Gyeong-su aside and burst into the banquet hall, immediately activating her Elementalization.
【Get down!!】
Along with the mana-laden shout, a massive pillar of fire roared up around Kang Seok-ho.
-Kyaaaaaaak!!
The flock of wraiths circling nearby let out horrific screams the moment they touched the flames, burning to ash in an instant.
"Ju-hee?!"
【It's not over yet!!】
As Na Ju-hee had said, plenty of wraiths still prowled the hall. Ghosts numbering well over several dozen, at a rough glance.
Fwoooosh—!!
Powerful mana began gathering around Na Ju-hee, who had become fire itself. Baek Ha-na saw it, yanked Im Gyeong-su back, and pulled the door shut.
"Wh-what?"
"Don't open it yet."
Baek Ha-na pushed the bewildered Im Gyeong-su aside and stood in front of the door. Exactly one minute later, she opened it again.
"Whoa..."
The heat was staggering. Im Gyeong-su raised his shield, and Baek Ha-na released mana to shield Lee Na-young.
Large and small embers clung to surfaces everywhere.
The remarkable thing was that although the embers burned, none of them spread—each one blazed in place without catching onto anything else.
"Na Ju-hee."
"...Hold on."
Na Ju-hee released her Elementalization and wiped the sweat streaking down her face as she recalled the scattered embers around her.
"Ju-hee!!"
"...Haa."
Na Ju-hee let out a short sigh at the sight of her fiancé running toward her. She'd seen too many of his embarrassing moments lately, and the flutter she used to feel just wasn't there anymore.
"Thank you."
"...Hmph."
Even with everyone watching, her fiancé came right up and pulled her into a tight embrace. Despite everything, Na Ju-hee's previously flat mood began to tick upward.
"...Why are there only three of you?"
The other classmate who'd been fending off wraiths alongside Kang Seok-ho—like Lee Na-young, the core figure of this exam—was a fellow non-combat class student.
"Haha, a lot happened. What about you?"
"We ran into a professor the moment we opened the first door."
"...You all look pretty unscathed for that."
"......"
At her fiancé's vaguely evasive reaction, Na Ju-hee's brow creased slightly.
"What. Is there a problem with us being unscathed?"
"No, it's just, you look too unscathed. We ran into a professor too, actually. The two who aren't here right now... ahem."
Na Ju-hee's frown deepened at the way her fiancé kept trailing off oddly.
"Why do you keep coughing and hemming like an old man?"
"...Because it's embarrassing, okay? You're all fine, and we lost two people."
"So what? Every professor has a different skill level. That can happen. We would've all been eliminated in the first room without Baek Ha-na."
"...Really?"
"Yes."
"So you're saying it was Baek Ha-na who took down the professor?"
"That's right."
Na Ju-hee laid it all out without hiding a thing. Baek Ha-na had already beaten her in full view of everyone, so she had no reservations about praising Baek Ha-na's abilities.
"I see... Ah, hold on."
Kang Seok-ho stepped away from Na Ju-hee and brought over his teammates, who'd been standing blankly in the corner.
"Myeong-ho. Take that thing out."
"The thing we got in the first room?"
"Yeah. That."
The non-combat student named Myeong-ho opened the bag at his waist and pulled out a thin book that practically radiated age.
"What's that?"
"A book with the hidden rules of this exam."
"...Hidden rules?"
"Yeah. Come take a look, all of you."
Kang Seok-ho opened the book casually and held it out—not to Na Ju-hee, but to Baek Ha-na.
"......"
Baek Ha-na stared at Kang Seok-ho for a moment, then left Lee Na-young with Im Gyeong-su and stepped up beside Na Ju-hee to take the book.
[ ψ(｀∇´)ψ Hidden Info! ]
1. This exam is not a team competition. It is an individual competition.
2. Defeating another student and forcing their surrender allows you to claim the points they have earned.
3. The special reward is not limited to one person—every student who reaches the innermost area will be given the opportunity! (So there's no need to fight!! (っ˘ڡ˘ς) )
"Individual competition...?"
Surprising information was written on the very first page.
"Is this—"
"Ju-hee!!"
Na Ju-hee had raised her head to ask her fiancé about the book, but she turned instead toward the direction of Kang Seok-ho's urgent shout—
And then.
"Hrrrngh!!"
A face flushed bright red with exertion.
Her fiancé was gripping a pure white tail with both hands.