[No title provided]
"I'll pass."
The words that came out of my mouth were a sharp rejection without even a second's hesitation.
Who the hell was I supposed to teach or spar with in this flounder body with 1 Stamina? I hadn't even practiced anything besides parrying that much to begin with.
Even at my firm refusal, there wasn't the slightest hint of disappointment or shock on Seol Eunha's face.
"Hm…."
Instead of looking hurt or flustered, she rolled her emotionless purple eyes toward the empty air, as if searching for some logical reason. It was an oddly whimsical action that didn't match her icy doll-like appearance at all.
It wasn't long before her lips parted again.
"Is it because my training is insufficient?"
"……Training or whatever, I don't even know who you are."
I thought that was a perfectly reasonable iron wall. Asking a total stranger out of the blue to teach you swordsmanship?
"Ah."
But upon hearing my response, Seol Eunha let out a small exclamation, then nodded as if she'd gained some tremendous insight.
"My mistake. I overlooked the most basic courtesy."
Before I could even ask what she'd overlooked, she straightened up and bowed toward me again.
"Seol Eunha. Age seventeen. Top freshman in the martial arts track for this Academy regular intake."
"……."
"Main weapon: longsword. Specialties: thrusts and combos using aura. Likes: sword training. Dislikes: meaningless time-wasting."
"…Are you interviewing me right here?"
Ignoring my jab entirely, she lifted her head and looked me straight in the eye.
"Now you know who I am. So teach me."
"No, what I meant wasn't— sigh. Fine. Anyway, I'm not teaching you. I can't teach you."
To be honest, there was nothing bad about getting involved with Seol Eunha.
She was one of Ether Frontier's major sub-heroines, an overwhelming genius who would later earn the title of Sword Saint. Just getting close to her would surely slash the brutal difficulty of the main story events ahead.
The problem was… I wasn't the great swordsmanship genius she expected.
"I'm not that great with swords. That time was just luck."
I thought that was an utterly honest, bone-deep answer.
But Seol Eunha's purple eyes trembled faintly at my words, then began to gleam with a strange light.
"Ah. I get it."
"Huh? No, what do you—"
"My shallow skills aren't even worthy of your teachings yet, right?"
"……What?"
The top martial arts freshman at the Academy, and that's what she gets from it?
While my brain was short-circuiting and my mouth flapped open and shut, Seol Eunha drove the final nail with a resolute voice, as if she'd reached her own complete conclusion.
"I understand your profound intent. Thank you for your consideration."
"No, it's not consideration, I really just don't know how to—"
"I'll come back stronger. I'll prove my worth so thoroughly you have no choice but to accept me as your disciple."
She bowed politely once more. Then the purple-haired beauty turned on her heel without a shred of lingering attachment and walked down the hallway.
"See you at tomorrow's entrance ceremony, Yoo Dohyun."
"……."
She's even more of a nutjob than she was in the game.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
The next morning, at the Academy's grand auditorium.
I was looking around with my phone out, trying to find my assigned seat.
"Let's see. Class 1, row 7… over here?"
The massive auditorium, big enough for thousands of freshmen, was already buzzing with aspiring hunters lost in sweet dreams of enrollment. Behind signs marking each class, rows of chairs were neatly aligned by section, and the murmur of voices filled the vast space.
In Ether Frontier's system, freshman class assignments are determined entirely by the combined scores from yesterday's tests.
The problem was, thanks to the tutorial skipping, I didn't even remember how I'd done on the written test or mana measurement.
At least I'd perfectly parried the professor's fierce attacks without a scratch in the practical— that was a godsend.
If I'd ended up in some backwater class instead of Class 1, the story progression ahead would've been a real pain.
I carefully wove through the packed crowd toward the Class 1 section.
"Hey, isn't that him? The monster who smacked away Professor Cha Yura's aura in yesterday's practical."
"No way, for real? But he looks so extraordinarily average."
The closer I got to Class 1, the more blatant stares and whispers from kids already seated stuck to my ears.
"He's a total one-trick sword pony, they say. Mana test was straight-up impossible."
"That's not all. Written exam was a total blank—zero points. Real fight-or-nothing psycho."
……Rumors spread that far already?
No, more than that— practical aside, a zero on the written? Did the character shell I possessed take the test on autopilot? Or just hand in a blank?
I clicked my tongue inwardly in disbelief and turned my gaze to the front row of Class 1. And sure enough, there was the familiar face I'd expected.
Seol Eunha.
The top freshman's seat, closest to the stage. The girl with neatly worn uniform and dark purple hair had her whole body turned my way, staring fixedly at me.
With those same emotionless eyes from when she'd knocked on the boys' dorm doors yesterday.
I swallowed a short sigh amid the burdensome stares around me and Eunha's unblinking gaze.
Then, acting like it was no big deal, I gave her a small wave and plopped down in my assigned seat.
"Hi! Um, are you acquaintances with the top freshman over there, Seol Eunha!?"
"……."
No sooner had I sat than a question shot in from the seat next to me.
After shoving through the lethal crowd, I'd just caught my breath.
"I know her, but… it's more like she unilaterally knows me."
I muttered a lazy reply dripping with annoyance and slowly turned my head.
And my vision filled with blazing red hair.
"……Yoon Seoa?"
The name slipped out in my mind unbidden.
Beast-like amber eyes sparkling with vitality. Red ponytail tied back energetically. Academy uniform jacket casually tied around her waist instead of worn properly.
It was a face I couldn't possibly not recognize.
Ether Frontier's main heroine, the hot-blooded idiot whose body moves before her brain. Yoon Seoa was beaming at me from the next seat over.
"Huh? You know me? I haven't said my name yet…… Ah! Did you see my entrance scores? Well, I did get pretty high on the practical!"
Seoa planted her hands on her hips with textbook confidence, puffing out her chest proudly. It was like seeing a big dog wagging its tail for praise.
I nodded along vaguely to play nice.
"Yeah, sure. Impressive."
"Hehe, right? I'm pretty good! Anyway……."
Her amber eyes flashed as she grinned happily.
Recalling our earlier chat, she leaned in close and lowered her voice.
"That thing you said earlier—is it true? That Seol Eunha, the only top freshman among us first-years, is the one clinging to you?"
"Huh? No, it's not clinging, just acquaintances."
"Whoa, awesome! That top freshman seemed super prideful. What on earth happened between you? She was staring like she wanted to eat you alive!"
Meeting Yoon Seoa's curiosity-sparkling eyes sent a chill down my spine.
If I spilled the truth here—'She barged into my room last night begging me to teach her swordsmanship'?
With this hot-blooded heroine's sky-high affinity and nosiness, by tomorrow morning the whole school would be gossiping, chewing, and savoring it.
I don't want to stir up weird rumors for Seol Eunha….
Best to brush it off vaguely.
"Uh…… just personal stuff. Secret."
"Aww~ Come on, tell me! See? Now I'm even more curious 'cause it's a secret! What is it? Childhood friends or something!?"
But my flimsy wall just poured fuel on Seoa's burning curiosity.
She yanked her chair right up to mine and stuck to me like glue.
"No, really, it's nothing, so back off a bit…."
"Hmph, obvious anyway."
I was sweating bullets trying to peel Seoa off when a guy in the front row half-turned with a sneer.
"Probably just forcing some trivial connection to act all buddy-buddy. Hoping for scraps sitting near the top freshman?"
Haughty vibe, complete with an expensive-looking engraved tie pin.
The moment I clocked those prickly eyes, a light exclamation rose in my mind.
Jo Geon? He's in my area too?
Direct heir to Korea's premier hunter family that first breached a gate. Son of an active S-rank hunter. Royal-class golden boy.
He was annoying just sitting there, but right now, that budding-yellow beak was a godsend.
Seoa's radar, drilling into me like mad, had perfectly swiveled to Jo Geon.
"You can't just say that without knowing! Rude for a first meeting!"
Seoa shot up halfway from her seat in outrage. But Jo Geon brushed off her shout like swatting a fly.
He openly tsked at my calm, unbothered face, which clearly irked him more than anger.
"Seol Eunha's got it rough now. Tangled up with a scrub like you who can't even handle mana."
With that obnoxious line, Jo Geon snapped his head forward without a backward glance. Seoa's amber eyes widened to saucers at his arrogant attitude.
"…You're ignoring me!?"
She glared daggers at the back of his head, then huffed and whipped back toward me.
"What a weirdo! Don't mind that jerk's rudeness!"
Just as Seoa opened her nonstop mouth to latch onto me again.
"Alright, quiet down now."
Nice timing.
A deep voice boomed through the mic at the perfect moment, echoing across the auditorium. The wave-like murmurs died instantly like a lie.
Seoa and I halted our chat and looked up toward the stage.
The Academy principal and key professors had lined up on stage before we knew it.
And among those overwhelming presences radiating authority alone, I spotted Professor Cha Yura, who'd overseen my practical yesterday.
"We now proceed with the freshman representative's oath."
"Oho."
No boring speeches? Skipping straight to it.
Such clean progression was gamer heaven.
"Overall top freshman this intake: Seol Eunha. To the stage."
Click-clack. Seol Eunha ascended in her prim uniform, face blank as ever.
Her icy, overwhelming doll aura had even Yoon Seoa beside me holding her breath, riveted.
Eunha at the mic.
As everyone awaited her words, she glanced down at the oath script on the podium.
And then.
Swipe—
She unhesitatingly shoved it aside.
"Huh…?"
"No script?"
Murmurs of confusion rippled from the professors on stage and students below.
But Seol Eunha stepped right up to the mic and spoke in a cool, flat voice devoid of inflection.
"Freshman representative, Seol Eunha."
Her clear voice rang crystal through the vast hall.
"I was just called, but I am not qualified for this freshman representative position."
"……?!"
No trite 'like dousing with cold water' could capture it. The auditorium's air froze solid in heavy silence.
"Gasp…."
Seoa's shocked gasp beside me rang out loudest.
But Eunha ignored the stunned stares, slowly raising her arm. Her pale, straight finger pointed precisely at one spot amid the sea of heads below the stage.
Her cool purple eyes locked perfectly with my dumbstruck ones in midair.
A bad premonition prickled up my spine.
"The one who truly deserves the freshman representative spot isn't me."
…No way.
"It's Yoo Dohyun in Class 1, row 7."
My name, amplified through the mic, echoed sharply through the hall.
Jo Geon's neck snapped around like it might break; his smug face twisted ugly.
Seoa beside me just gaped like a goldfish, her huge eyes unfocused.
Amid the horrific pressure of thousands of piercing stares converging on me.
"……Pardon?"
All I could do was blurt out a dazed retort.