Hong Yeon-hwa's Ordeal (2)
Hong Yeon-hwa's Ordeal (2)
"Hey, why are you eating so much? Show some restraint."
"Excuse me? Ms. Hong, I'm only on my second piece here...?"
The breakfast table had grown rather boisterous these days.
It was the influence of the newest resident who had moved into the dormitory.
I mechanically shoved the tasteless meat into my mouth and tuned in to the conversation.
"You already ate two pieces? That's a ton. Stop eating."
"No, honestly, that's absurd. Who could fill up on just two pieces? Even an ordinary person couldn't get full on this! Let's not act like this among superhumans."
There was Hong Yeon-hwa, who had stopped eating to glare sideways, and Baek A-rin, who had even set down her chopsticks, dumbfounded at being nagged for eating only two pieces of meat.
The squabbling, kicked off by Hong Yeon-hwa's one-sided nitpicking, felt strangely like background music.
Maybe it was because I knew they weren't seriously fighting. The others, myself included, paid it little mind as we continued with breakfast.
Seo-yul was nodding her head up and down, still unable to shake off sleep, while Ellia and I sat on either side of her, looking after her as we ate.
Across from us, Hong Yeon-hwa, Baek A-rin, and Eriel sat eating their breakfast.
"I am presumptuous to say this to you, my lady... but you look truly pathetic."
Amidst the ongoing squabbling, Eriel, who had been quietly nibbling her food, slipped in a subtle jab at Hong Yeon-hwa.
At first, she had politely declined, asking how she could possibly eat at the same table, but lately, she had been sitting and eating with us without a word of protest.
"Oh, for fuck's sake, if it's presumptuous then don't say it! And besides, aren't you supposed to take my side?"
Hong Yeon-hwa snapped, raising her voice.
"I am?"
"What's with that reaction...? Aren't I your employer?"
"Strictly speaking, my employer is the clan head, Hong Jin-seon. Furthermore, I, Eriel, am the type of employee who can point out the faults of my employer."
"Right! They say even dogs aren't bothered while they're eating, and you're picking on her at the table?"
The tide had turned.
Hong Yeon-hwa, who had been unilaterally prodding Baek A-rin, now found herself suddenly ganged up on by Eriel and Baek A-rin, two against one.
Was Eriel harboring some resentment toward her normally? She showed no hesitation in jabbing at Hong Yeon-hwa.
"Ah, shit."
In the end, Hong Yeon-hwa sulked. Her expression crumpled into a deep frown, and she scooped up a large portion of spicy stir-fried pork from the table and stuffed it into her mouth.
Hong Yeon-hwa preferred meat side dishes, so meat dishes were put on the table every day.
She seemed to especially like the spicy stir-fried pork, so I had been making it often to suit her palate.
While watching her, I noticed that Hong Yeon-hwa's rice bowl was nearly empty.
"Yeon-hwa? Give me your bowl."
"Huh? Oh."
Hong Yeon-hwa, who had been grumbling complaints around her chopsticks, blinked at the hand extended in front of her.
Then she let out an "Ah—" of realization and subtly handed over her rice bowl.
I took it, packed it firmly full of steaming white rice, and handed it back.
"Here you go. There's plenty left, so let me know if you need more."
Superhumans inherently ate a lot anyway. My own consumption had increased much more than before, too.
At this table alone, there were four superhumans, one fairy, and one presumed fairy. The amount of ingredients consumed per meal was enormous, so I tended to deliberately make a generous amount of rice.
"Ha-yul...! As I thought, you're the only one I have...!"
Hong Yeon-hwa's eyes glistened as she took back her bowl.
I could see her expression clearly, even through the hazy fog that filled my perception.
Her flowing red hair and sparkling, pretty eyes looked especially beautiful today.
"Hehe."
A bright smile spread across my face. Whorl... Perhaps because the Calamity Flame was burning in real-time inside me, my happiness felt even greater.
Due to the Fearfire Trial, I had skipped most of my lectures.
I protested that I could manage my schedule, but the people around me immediately suppressed me and forced me to stay put.
My cheeks were squeezed firmly as they scolded me, asking how I could even think about walking around alone when my body was in that state.
[...You don't have to skip class just because of me...]
The problem was that it wasn't just me skipping lectures.
I hesitantly took in my surroundings. It was past 10 in the morning. Even though it was a time when lectures would normally be in full swing, Hong Yeon-hwa and Baek A-rin were still here with me.
"No, we absolutely have to skip. How can we know when your Calamity Flame might run rampant? If you're alone and it suddenly bursts out, we can't just laugh it off."
[I can control it... I managed it by myself last time too...]
"Eo-heo, ssh!"
"Yeon-hwa..."
In the end, I had to receive intensive care for a while.
Of course, I didn't just endlessly pour Azure Sea's power onto it to suppress the Calamity Flame.
Although it was called a trial, fundamentally, this phenomenon was occurring because the Calamity Flame itself was undergoing a change.
Ultimately, it wasn't about simply suppressing it, but required a process of acceptance and adaptation.
So, at such times, I had to meditate alone to govern the Calamity Flame, with the fire extinguishers known as Hong Yeon-hwa and Baek A-rin prepared at my side.
"Don't suppress it too much. If you push desires down too hard, they'll just burst out in inappropriate places... That's right, yes, yes, just like this~"
...Though I showed some embarrassing sides in the middle, I was somehow managing to gradually tame the Calamity Flame.
The question was why the Calamity Flame remained inside my body even after I turned off Mimicry.
Originally, the moment Mimicry was released, all the energies that had changed within me would revert to my original mana.
But for some reason now, the Calamity Flame showed no signs of dissipating.
'I'll have to check on this after the trial ends...'
* * *
After Lee Ha-yul grew more comfortable governing the Calamity Flame through meditation, they trained to manage it even in combat situations through simple sparring.
Kkwaaak... Hong Yeon-hwa gripped her sword fiercely.
Her strong grip twisted the handle, and the mana she channeled into it condensed on the blade, forming Aura. The Aura, bright red like flames, swelled up.
She pulled the sword above her head. Her body had activated the Body Reinforcement Technique. She cocked her leaping body back like a bow, then expanded it fully to channel all that moving force into the sword as she struck down.
A slash utilizing both Body Reinforcement Technique and Aura Technique. With Hong Yeon-hwa's physical abilities added on top, even a training sword—a bladeless club—could easily collapse an entire building.
"Haap...!"
The powerful strike that descended, tearing through the air, slammed into the spear shaft.
- Kuuuung...!
A roar that should have sliced through the spear shaft and shattered the ground entirely...
But the expected sound did not come.
What reached Hong Yeon-hwa's ears was not the explosion of the ground bursting and collapsing, but a long, drawn-out reverberation.
The spear had blocked the powerful strike.
It was not broken, nor cut.
Like a trampoline catching a heavy object, it bent downward, then repelled the force with a rebound, flinging her arm away forcefully.
- Kkwaang!
"Euk!"
The sword was pushed back. Hong Yeon-hwa's body floated up into the air. Only then did her red hair flutter in the roughly bursting wind.
Hong Yeon-hwa urgently thrust out her hand. Before the instantly approaching spear tip could reach her, she released mana from her palm.
Kwareureureu! The red mana, released without regard for fuel efficiency, pushed the opponent away and propelled Hong Yeon-hwa's body backward.
Her body, possessing the properties of fire, was easily pushed back. The moment Hong Yeon-hwa, having created distance, landed on the ground, the spear side closed in.
Her opponent dashed in as if skimming the ground, giving her no room. Facing Lee Ha-yul, who rushed in with his pure white hair fluttering and his spear thrusting, Hong Yeon-hwa countered.
She had already regained her posture. She gripped her sword tightly and slashed forward.
Her arm, with the Body Reinforcement Technique raised to its limit, moved leaving afterimages. Soon, countless scarlet slashes were scored across the space before her.
A reckless unleashing of powerful strikes with no distinction between feints and real attacks. Into an attack that would shred most monsters of a certain Rank into tiny chunks of flesh the moment they were caught, a pure white Aura suddenly thrust itself in.
Like a single mudfish clouding a pond, it slipped in slyly, scattering and disrupting the wild strikes.
Kwagagang! The slashes tore into the innocent ground. Lee Ha-yul suddenly emerged, pushing aside the dust that surged up with the deafening roar.
The distance closed. Sword and spear were thrust out.
The spear reached first. Hong Yeon-hwa targeted not Lee Ha-yul, but the interception of the spear strike.
- Chajajajang!
The weapons tangled chaotically. Aura of different colors scraped and pushed against each other.
'No...'
The red was being pushed back. The Aura was being shaved away.
The spear wedged its way in between the sword strikes.
Hong Yeon-hwa's attacks were often metaphorically likened to strength (强). She instilled maximum force into her solid fundamentals and honestly crushed her opponents. The straightforward path was filled and reinforced by Hong Yeon-hwa's experience and intuition, while the Calamity Flame was used in parallel to increase lethality.
Her powerful attacks were parried before they could even land, and her checks were, conversely, read and deflected with ease.
The spear technique Lee Ha-yul displayed was... if one had to categorize it, it was softness (柔). The spear, bending gracefully as if flowing along a gentle waterway, caught the powerful strikes and diverted the force elsewhere.
It was also illusion (幻). As if obscured by a hazy fog, the spear's image blurred, making it extremely difficult to read its next movement.
And next...
Kwang! Lightning flashed within the fog. The spear, gleaming like a bolt of lightning, pierced through a gap in her consciousness and charged in.
- Poke.
The spear tip parried away every hastily swung countering sword and finally tapped her solar plexus.
Hong Yeon-hwa's expression went blank.
Although she was clad in Aura armor, even if she hadn't been, there wouldn't have been a single scratch.
Even as he thrust the spear, the contact was gentle, as if he was worried she might get hurt.
While Hong Yeon-hwa flinched and trembled, Lee Ha-yul leaped back to create distance.
'How many times has it been now?'
The pattern had repeated over and over. Weapons clashed, and before she knew it, the spear had already found her body. At the same time, Lee Ha-yul was opening the distance again...
"Hup...!"
Baek A-rin launched herself forward.
She was the one who had been hurled far back by that massive attack earlier, now returned.
She too gripped a blunted practice spear and rushed at Lee Ha-yul.
Lee Ha-yul, spear in hand just the same, answered the charge.
- Pok
"Ah."
The pattern was similar. Like Hong Yeon-hwa, Baek A-rin clashed her weapon against Lee Ha-yul's—and before she knew it, the tip of Lee Ha-yul's spear was poking softly at her, then pulling back.
"Heeyah!"
Baek A-rin didn't flinch and kept pursuing him. A whirlpool coiled around her raised left arm. Crrrrack! Frost bloomed atop the azure aura spiraling like a serpent.
The Vortex Soul-Shattering Palm. The instant Baek A-rin thrust out her palm, Lee Ha-yul extended his own to meet it. His right hand, too, was wrapped in a whirlpool of pure-white aura.
Their palms met at a single point. Whooooom! An instant later, two different vortexes surged and tangled, bursting forth like a collapsing dam.
In that moment, Baek A-rin laced her fingers through Lee Ha-yul's.
As the vortexes churned chaotically together, her other hand let go of the spear and shrouded itself in aura.
Crrrrack! Wielding a streaming aura of Cold Energy, she thrust a strike of Azure Sea Water Energy—
- Pok
"Ah."
Lee Ha-yul had already freed their interlocked fingers and twisted his wrist. The wind around his hand warped, scattering the vortex.
The unleashed Water Energy jabbed into the front of Lee Ha-yul's shoulder. Scraaape! The feel wasn't flesh or aura but metal. Even Azure Sea Water Energy couldn't leave a scratch on a top-grade artifact.
In the time lost, a fist slipped through the gap in her awareness and tapped her squarely on the chest.
*Pok.*
Yet another strike effectively conceded.
Baek A-rin blinked vacantly.
Then she wrapped both arms over her chest and screeched.
"...Why do you keep aiming for my chest? That's sexual harassment!"
【Wha—】
【No!】
【That's not it...!】
For the first time since the sparring began, Lee Ha-yul's razor-sharp edge crumbled.
The rigid set of his expression collapsed, and he flapped both arms frantically like a penguin, signaling vehement denial with his whole body.
"Now!"
Without missing that opening, Baek A-rin abruptly thrust her spear forward. Beside her, Hong Yeon-hwa also launched an attack, half-startled.
【That's—】
【So unfair...!】
Neither attack landed effectively.
.
.
.
"Whew... Let's rest for a moment."
- Clink
Baek A-rin flopped straight down onto the grass.
She tossed her blunted spear aside carelessly, planted her rear on the blue lawn, and let out deep, exhausted sighs.
- ...Pwoohoo...
Watching Baek A-rin, Lee Ha-yul also exhaled heavily.
Probably from all that heavy movement, the Calamity Flame within him was flickering. Strange memories kept surfacing, along with the unpleasant ones he had tried so hard to bury.
His body was damp with sweat. Heat had built up inside him, making him perspire far too easily. People around him kept saying—somewhat embarrassedly—that his sweat only smelled pleasant, but he couldn't help being self-conscious about it.
He inhaled deeply and let it out, trying to vent some of the heat, and collapsed down with a thud.
"......"
Hong Yeon-hwa relaxed her stance too. Leaning against her sword, which she had thrust point-down into the earth, she blinked absently.
Through the Tower of Growth, the cadets had achieved immense growth.
They were already experiencing rapid development from the Blessing of Growth, which applied constantly in daily life, and inside the Tower, an additional multiplier was layered on top of it.
With a bit of exaggeration, simply breathing inside the Tower brought meaningful changes to the body. And in that very place, for five full days, they had pushed their bodies to the limits and swung their weapons.
It was an environment where growth was unavoidable, even for someone who didn't want it.
In particular, they had achieved staggering growth through this Tower entry's "Contemplation."
A desperate struggle against oneself embodied as a separate entity. That had been a stage of growth more valuable than anything they could have imagined.
Often, when trying to grasp your own strengths, weaknesses, and level, you seek advice from a third party or try to evaluate yourself from an objective standpoint.
This Contemplation had allowed them to feel their own objective level with startling clarity.
They say a single action is worth a hundred words. In much the same way, things they couldn't see no matter how much others pointed them out now came rapidly into view.
Their own advantages. The situations where they shone and what elements were outstanding. They came to know what made things difficult and troublesome from the opponent's perspective.
Their own weaknesses. They felt which situations accentuated those weaknesses the most, and which aspects were easy to exploit and could prove fatal from the opponent's view.
In a way, it was a time to reflect on oneself... a time of Contemplation, exactly as the word meant.
Through this Tower entry, Hong Yeon-hwa had gained an immense amount as well.
Her physical abilities and mana-related aspects had risen dramatically, and she prided herself on the fact that her technical skills had grown remarkably, too.
She even felt a tingling sensation at one corner of her head, as if a Technique-type Unique Ability might manifest soon.
Having reached that thought, she replayed the fight they just had.
To put it bluntly... they'd been crushed. Absolutely crushed.
The fact that she hadn't used Calamity Flame was no excuse.
This spar had been a close-quarters bout allowing only Body Reinforcement Techniques and Aura Techniques. The conditions were exactly the same for Lee Ha-yul.
And that was even after she and Baek A-rin had launched a coordinated attack.
They were simply overwhelmed in terms of pure skill.
Deep down, she had prided herself on having grown enormously inside the Tower of Growth, but seeing the extent of Lee Ha-yul's growth firsthand had completely deflated her.
'...What in the world...'
A Special Admission Cadet. The cadet of possibility chosen for the first time by the Tower Master of Growth.
She felt as though she had newly confirmed the weight of that title.
'So I have to try even harder.'
Hong Yeon-hwa steeled her eyes. Being overwhelmed was one thing, but she wasn't discouraged. She had no time to be.
If she was going to protect Lee Ha-yul, who kept getting caught up in incidents and accidents and coming back half-dead, Hong Yeon-hwa had to get stronger.
"?"
It was just as she made that resolution and took a deep breath.
She felt a gaze clearly fixed on her skin.
- Staaaaare...
The source of that gaze was Lee Ha-yul, collapsed on the grass.
The eyes that had been shut only moments ago were now wide open.
Hong Yeon-hwa blinked and followed the destination of that stare.
Truthfully, she hadn't even needed to look. That sticky gaze clung to her skin unmistakably.
Lee Ha-yul's mouth was hanging slightly open, his blank eyes stealing glances at Hong Yeon-hwa's chest... no, brazenly, piercingly staring.
'......'
Hong Yeon-hwa examined her own state.
Her chest was clearly exposed because of the sleeveless top she was wearing.
Steam was wafting faintly off her skin, which was flushed warmly after the workout, and drops of sweat trickling down her nape seeped into her cleavage... a fairly lewd sight, all told.
She shifted her body just slightly. Lee Ha-yul's gaze openly tracked the movement.
'Hmph.'
A smile bloomed at the corner of Hong Yeon-hwa's mouth.
'Cute...'
His gaze was far too blatant. He didn't seem to have any intention of hiding it.
No, it looked as though he hadn't even realized that Hong Yeon-hwa had noticed him staring.
Lee Ha-yul usually found it awkward keeping his eyes open.
Maybe he didn't even realize he had them open right now.
'Is it because of the Calamity Flame?'
And his gaze was incredibly heated. Lee Ha-yul was someone whose emotions were constantly being provoked by the Trial of Calamity Flame. Maybe it was only natural for him to be aroused by this kind of lewd sight.
Hong Yeon-hwa grinned mischievously and crawled across the grass toward Lee Ha-yul.
He must have been concentrating so fiercely that he still didn't notice her even after she approached right up to the tip of his nose.
A sweet scent tickled her nostrils. Lee Ha-yul was drenched in sweat too, and his own natural scent, now deeper, filled her senses.
Hong Yeon-hwa, overflowing with mischief, brought her lips to the forehead right in front of her.
- Chu
A sensation impossibly soft and moist met her.
Focus snapped into those vacantly open eyes.
They blinked a few times, then flew open wide as if he was only just now coming to his senses.
"...Heek?"
Immediately after, he let out a sharp, shrill sound and covered his forehead with both hands. The gesture was unbelievably adorable. Hong Yeon-hwa, the corners of her eyes curving prettily, pressed another kiss to the back of the hands covering his forehead.
- Chu
"Urk..."
An unformed, garbled sound escaped from between his tightly shut lips.
He was completely lost in embarrassment. The back of his hand was quite hot. A fair bit of time had passed since the last time she had cooled him down. She'd just do this much, then cool off the heat.
"Ha-yul?"
This time she didn't lean in first. Instead, she tapped her own lips with her finger.
Lee Ha-yul, a bit of sense returning, gulped audibly.
His head was spinning. His heat had built up a bit, blurring his reason. His pupils were spinning in circles. Whoosh! The Calamity Flame surged. His emotions were being fanned. Desire surged up. Ah, Yeon-hwa is so pretty, I want to be clingy, lips? A kiss?
Judgment linked haphazardly. A conclusion emerged. Blankly, he leaned his lips forward—
- Plap
In that instant, a hand settled onto his back.
"Oh my, the Calamity Flame has gotten this strong already..."
"He-eek?"
Cold energy permeated his burning body. Part of his reason returned thanks to the Azure Sea aura pressing in.
"Hey! You son of a...! What the hell is this!"
"Hm? What do you mean, suddenly... I'm only calming Ha-yul's Calamity Flame, aren't I?"
"I meant—! Why are you getting in the way right now?!"
"Getting in the way? I did no such thing~"
"Kyaaaaak!"
Hong Yeon-hwa let out a shrill scream.
.
.
.
"Hieeeeek...!"
Letting out a breathy cry, Lee Ji-yeon came flying at me.
Before I could react, she scooped me up and promptly buried me into her voluptuous chest.
"...Have all of you collectively lost your minds?"
Witnessing that scene head-on, Hong Yeon-hwa quietly drew her sword.