Sparring (2)
Sparring (2)
"Alright, everyone! The morning of Week 2 has arrived. Please look this way... and, well, you've all made it through Week 1 safely. Excellent news. They say getting started is half the battle, so let's keep growing from here."
Soft morning light filled the Ipchun Class.
Professor Liana stood at the podium, conducting the morning assembly.
"You'll all have seen this in the academic schedule notice, and you heard it on Day 1 of Week 1... Even so, I'll announce it again now."
She wasn't in the casual outfit I'd seen over the weekend, but in a robe that gave off a distinctly mage-like impression.
'...Is that an artifact too?'
A change that came with my entry into mana use.
Before, I couldn't read mana in any real detail. The spell formulas that composed magic were, at best, something I could barely glimpse from the formulas engraved into household goods.
Now it's different. I could read the formulas engraved into those household goods in their entirety, and even formulas that once looked like indistinct blobs of mana had become legible to me.
Professor Liana's robe was the same. I'd assumed it was just a robe heavily saturated with mana, but a closer look revealed countless intricate formulas woven through it.
It seemed likely to be a fairly high-grade artifact.
Just then, Professor Liana's gaze shifted this way.
Her green eyes blinked, and then the corners of her eyes curved gently.
- Vuum
I felt a brief resonance. A faint ripple of mana stirred from Professor Liana's body. With a level of mana control that drew instinctive admiration, a slender thread of mana slipped out and flew toward me.
- Good morning?
A voice that seemed to resonate directly inside my head made my shoulders hunch.
I nearly dismissed it as an auditory hallucination until I noticed Professor Liana's mana reaching me and understood why.
'Sound Transmission... my first time hearing it.'
A technique used occasionally by superhumans with exceptional mana control. You could think of it as a downgraded version of a Mind Speech-type Unique Ability.
It's a skill currently beyond my reach, but with Mana Affinity, I'd manage it someday.
I relaxed my shoulders and nodded.
Professor Liana, wearing a satisfied smile, swept her gaze across the room.
"......"
Hong Yeon-hwa glanced at me sideways. When I turned my head as if to ask what was going on, she looked away, saying it was nothing.
"As you all know, Week 3 has a dungeon assault on the schedule. To be precise, it'll run across two days—Monday and Tuesday of Week 3."
A dungeon assault.
An obligation that's difficult to avoid as long as you're active as a hero.
Siyoram is an educational institution whose purpose is training heroes. So naturally, most of the academic schedule revolves around hero work.
"The type is a periodic simple subjugation of a Grade 4 Dungeon. Each team will consist of three combat and two support personnel. I will note in advance that these teams were assembled for balance after considering positioning and performance."
In the past, dungeons were objects of terror.
They appeared in the world without warning, nibbling away at territory little by little, eventually causing collapses that polluted the surroundings and scattered waves of monsters.
And now?
High-grade dungeons are still objects of fear and vigilance. If a high-grade... a Grade 2 or Grade 1 Dungeon goes off badly, the surrounding area can be obliterated in an instant.
But lower-grade dungeons, these days, aren't much of a crisis.
What was it again? I'd heard somewhere that a few dozen soldiers armed with firearms could handle a simple subjugation of a Grade 4 Dungeon.
Of course, that changes if the place is full of traps, but in straightforward cases that only spawn low-rank monsters around the 8th Rank, they can deal with it.
Right after the Great Cataclysm, lower-grade dungeons were a threat because there weren't enough personnel to handle them and there were simply too many, but nowadays, they're practically money piñatas.
How diminished must dungeons be if they've even started showing up as managed farms? If you grabbed a hero from the most extreme days of the Chaos Period and showed them, their eyes would probably roll back in their head.
"Team rosters will be announced immediately before the assault begins. The intent is precisely to practice cooperating with arbitrary team members under emergency conditions."
I nodded at Professor Liana's explanation. In practice, when operating on a frontline, it was quite common to form a temporary party.
"Alright! That's the end of the announcements. Make sure you prepare thoroughly, and let's have a good week."
And with that, the assembly ended, and general lectures followed.
.
.
.
Perhaps because the dungeon assault was scheduled for next week, the morning general lecture block was packed solid with dungeon-related theory.
Some of it matched settings that commonly appeared in the original work. Some of it was different, or had never appeared at all.
I'd been thinking this for a while, but when it comes to this kind of thing, my knowledge of the original isn't especially useful.
Even the settings that do match are surface-level at best; the deeper content was never included in the original to begin with.
Not that there's zero hidden world-building lore in there.
For example, the business with Baek A-rin's 'mask'...
But that's forbidden knowledge that spells utter ruin the moment it leaves your lips—whether in the original or here.
I experienced that firsthand in the 11th Iteration.
Back then, I was one of those late-iteration characters with an absurd growth curve, so I could kill Baek A-rin and flee. Now, the only outcome I could see was myself getting gruesomely murdered.
Anyway, I needed dungeons—both to get the Confession Necklace in the near future and as part of the method to break one of my curses—so I crammed dungeon theory into my head with desperate intensity.
I also kept pushing my body at the same time. Professor Atra's training regimen remained brutal.
It seemed like she was determined to make me try every weapon in existence. Monday, she shoved a long battle-axe into my hands. Tuesday, she gave me metal gauntlets and had me fight hand-to-hand.
It looked like Professor Atra had gotten a read on All-Rounder. She probably thinks it's a combat-type Unique Ability.
Thanks to that, my All-Rounder proficiency is climbing fast. I've been dabbling in so many things lately that the rate just keeps exceeding expectations.
And so Wednesday arrived.
Unusually, today included a swordsmanship class. The previous two days had been nothing but dungeon theory.
"The sword has been a favored weapon in every era. Even in ancient history before the Great Cataclysm, the sword served as humanity's primary weapon for tens of thousands of years, and it continued to see use even in ages when gunpowder, not mana, powered warfare."
First-year general course: Practical Swordsmanship Basics.
Instead of the old-fashioned training yard Professor Atra and I usually used, I stepped into a near-future-design training hall painted in blue and pale gray.
The Ipchun Class had roughly eighty students, didn't it? Even with that many people indoors, the space felt generous.
After lining the cadets up, the professor in charge of Practical Swordsmanship Basics was introducing the history of the sword with a solemn expression.
He was a middle-aged man whose rigid features brought stone to mind. His neatly trimmed beard and slicked-back hair left a strong impression.
He looked like a blunt, unapproachable type on the surface, but the presence he unconsciously projected made it clear he was the real deal.
"Practical Swordsmanship Basics is a period in which we will directly demonstrate practical swordsmanship from ancient times to the present and examine the strengths and weaknesses of each style."
Practical Swordsmanship Basics. A familiar course.
Because it handed out sweet amounts of swordsmanship proficiency relative to time invested, it was a must-take subject in any iteration where I used a sword.
Because of that, I even knew a scrap of the professor's background.
As of Part 1 of the main story, the 1,120th-ranked hero in the Upper bracket of Anti-Personnel Combat: Nam Gyeong-jun.
A figure who once belonged to the Association department 'Backlight,' which handled villain response.
He retired after suffering a severe injury to one arm during a villain subjugation and became a Siyoram professor—was that the setup?
That's as far as my memory goes. The only reason I remember him at all is that he taught a subject with generous swordsmanship proficiency and was a side character who managed to shine without much backstory.
"First, I will personally demonstrate the fundamentals of the sword forms. Afterward, each cadet will analyze the sword art's forms and attempt to execute them directly with their body. Sparring between cadets is permitted during this process."
The professor drew the sword at his hip. The sharp blade caught the light, giving off its characteristic cold luster.
"The sword art to be analyzed is the Great Three Sword Arts—a foundational sword art composed of three stances and six sword forms."
With those words, the professor settled into a stance. Then, the sword cut through the empty air.
He executed the six sword forms in sequence, each built upon the three foundational stances.
The man demonstrating was highly skilled; even basic sword techniques carried a keen, piercing presence. How could he move like that with an injured arm? The forms he displayed one after another were also crisp and easy to absorb.
I focused my mind and scrutinized each movement closely. Every single detail would stack up neatly as proficiency with the sword.
"Hwaaam..."
Nearby, Hong Yeon-hwa, arms crossed, let out a small yawn. She'd been wearing a bored expression for a while now; apparently the drowsiness was starting to catch up.
I hesitated a moment, then rummaged through my pocket. I pulled out something I'd stashed earlier and held it out to her.
"Hm?"
Hong Yeon-hwa, who'd been tapping at her mouth with her palm, blinked. Her gaze shifted to my outstretched hand.
"Uh..."
Her eyes trembled as if flustered.
What I'd offered was a piece of candy. It wasn't the high-end stuff Hong Yeon-hwa kept pressing into my hands lately, admittedly, but it was the sort of candy that was supposed to help you wake up.
The flavor was lemon... or so the label claimed—I wouldn't know. At any rate, it sold well, the reviews raved about the taste, and I hadn't heard complaints, so it's probably decent.
"You're giving this to me...?"
I wanted to pull up a hologram, but with one hand extended, that wasn't possible.
I nodded instead, and Hong Yeon-hwa's lips twitched at the corners. With trembling hands, she accepted the candy.
"...Thanks."
Then she carefully stroked the candy cradled in her hand. Her voice, saying thanks, practically dripped with emotion.
...The reaction feels a bit intense. That thing didn't even cost 2,000 won, while the candies I've received from her run tens of thousands of won apiece—absurd pricing.
People say it's the thought that counts with gifts, but the price gap is what it is, so I'm the one feeling awkward here.
The professor's demonstration ended. We each received the sword art as a manual on our smartwatches and spent time attempting to perform it ourselves.
While Hong Yeon-hwa vanished at a friend's call, I read through the Great Three Sword Arts manual.
'It's complex.'
The professor's demonstration had made it look intuitive, but the volume of written description was no joke.
Why this stance was created, how it connects to the sword art's forms, how to execute and counter each sword form, and so on...
It was so exhaustively detailed that reading it all looked immensely difficult, but precisely because of that detail, fully understanding it would be helpful.
I was skimming through the manual when—
- Clomp, clomp.
Footsteps approached. That in itself was unremarkable. With this many people moving around the training hall, of course you'd hear footsteps.
The reason they lingered in my ears was that the steps were heading straight for me.
In my spatial perception, a male cadet strode toward me with purpose.
"?"
I didn't recognize him. Not a hulking build, but solid. The muscle clinging to his frame suggested a combat specialization.
[Is there something you need?]
When I tapped out the question on my smartwatch, the male cadet's eyebrows twitched momentarily. His gaze traveled from the hologram to my eyes, then to my mouth.
He seemed to hesitate for a moment, then opened his mouth with a resolved expression.
"I'm requesting a sparring match with Cadet Lee Ha-yul."
"......?"
My mind went blank for a second. A sparring request. From this person. To me.
Did I know him? I racked my brain, but nothing came up. We really were just classmates. Now that I thought about it, we'd never even exchanged greetings.
I felt a question mark floating over my head.
That's when a female cadet spotted us, looked horrified, and came scrambling over. Smack—her palm slammed into the male cadet's back.
The sound was so crisp it made me flinch involuntarily.
"Ack!"
"Yah! Are you insane? Why are you pulling this crap out of nowhere? Ah, I'm so sorry. This friend of mine is a clueless idiot with no sense of tact, you see..."
"No, hold on—"
As the guy and the girl bickered, the commotion drew eyes.
Hong Yeon-hwa, who'd been chatting with a friend, looked this way too. Her expression crumpled immediately, and she started striding over.
The girl, who'd been yanking the guy's hair, saw Hong Yeon-hwa approaching and let out a shrill shriek.
"Ah, sh—hey, cut this dumbass crap and—"
[I accept.]
"—just... huh?"
The girl, who'd gone pale, looked bewildered.
Hong Yeon-hwa, who'd closed the distance in a few quick strides, also tilted her head to the side.
Realizing my reply had been terse, I tapped the smartwatch again.
[I'll accept the sparring match.]
The surroundings fell into silence.