One Sneeze Blew the Monsters Away
My nose tingled.
It was a thoroughly ominous kind of tingle.
I yanked the blanket up on the bed and clamped it over my nose.
"No."
Today was the first practical evaluation.
Yesterday, in front of everyone, I had moved rain and a gale. I had even kindly educated the Western dragons on the greatness of the Azure Dragon.
And the next day I skip class with a cold?
Erika would definitely clutch her stomach laughing.
Selene's notebook would end up with a line like this:
[Localized Environmental Control successful. Next day: absent with a cold. No self-management ability.]
That was not happening.
I would rather lose to a demonic beast.
"Hold it in."
I muttered through the blanket over my nose.
"You can do this."
The tingle eased a little.
I lived.
I let out a sigh of relief and threw the covers off.
"Achoo!"
Pwahhh!
A gale erupted inside the room.
The curtains flipped all the way to the ceiling, papers from the desk took flight like a flock of birds, and the chair scraped backward across the floor.
I caught the flying schedule sheet with my face.
Forest of Demonic Beasts — Practical Operation Evaluation
Through the paper, I saw the wreckage of my room.
"…Power's still fine."
If anything, it was overflowing more than usual.
No problem.
The cold itself was very mild. A little runny nose, a slight scratch in the throat, the occasional chill.
I decided to temporarily forget that those were exactly the symptoms people called a cold.
The problem had been staying up late last night practicing with clouds.
Just a little more.
One more time.
This time with the wind too.
I had kept repeating that until I fell asleep soaked by the rain I had summoned.
Apparently you could command the weather and still not command a cold.
I drank a cup of warm water and wrapped a scarf around my neck.
It was fine.
Today's job was clear.
Show the demonic beasts what I learned yesterday.
By my own will.
And do not sneeze.
The second part looked a little harder, but I set out anyway.
The Forest of Demonic Beasts on the academy outskirts was bigger than I expected.
Beyond the high fence, thick trees stood packed close together. Faculty and students had gathered at the entrance, and a blue barrier marking the practice zone arched overhead like a hemisphere.
I had heard it was a managed zone, but the atmosphere felt properly serious.
Every time the wind blew, beast-like cries drifted out from deeper in the trees.
I tugged my scarf a little higher.
Not because I was cold.
For dignity.
"Miss Cheongha."
My shoulders jumped at the voice behind me.
Lydia studied my face.
"Your voice sounds a little hoarse."
"It's always like this."
"It wasn't this morning."
The Saintess's memory was uselessly sharp.
I forced the most normal smile I could manage.
"It's really just a tiny bit of a cold. I'll say something the moment it gets hard."
Lydia's hand settled on my forehead.
Cool and soft.
She hesitated a moment, then tightened my scarf for me.
"If you feel even a little dizzy, you have to tell me right away."
"Yes."
"No hiding it."
"I know."
"You're answering too quickly. That makes me more worried."
Any more answers would only feed the suspicion, so I shut my mouth.
Beside us, Erika was flexing her fists open and closed.
"If you've got a cold, stay in the back. I'll take care of the beasts."
"I can do it too, you know."
"Then show me."
Her red eyes lit with open challenge.
Even with my condition exposed, it didn't feel bad.
If she thought yesterday's success had been pure luck, she wouldn't have said that.
A group assignment chart floated up into the air.
Group 7
Cheongha / Erika Rubellion / Lydia Aurelia
Two original main heroines and one irregular.
Kyle's name was on another team.
I spotted him at a distance, staring into the forest. Even while the other students chattered, his eyes were strangely serious as they scanned between the trees.
As if sensing my gaze, he turned his head.
Our eyes met and he raised a hand the way he always did.
I waved lightly back.
What is it.
Why does that guy look suspicious today of all days.
"Focus."
Erika flicked a finger against my forehead.
"They're starting."
The Mana Manipulation Professor stepped in front of the students.
"The evaluation will be conducted in groups of three. Pass through the three checkpoint locations installed inside the forest, recover at least one marker attached to a demonic beast, and return."
He handed out a small crystal to each group.
"If you judge the situation dangerous, shatter the Return Crystal. Supervisors will retrieve you immediately."
Lydia accepted our group's crystal.
There was even a safety device.
Managed zone after all.
"Begin the evaluation."
Multiple entrances opened in the blue barrier.
Students filed into the forest by group.
We passed through the seventh entrance.
Inside the forest was cooler than outside.
Sunlight fractured finely through the layered leaves overhead. Damp earth and grass smells mixed together and tickled the tip of my nose.
Tickled.
I hastily covered my nose.
"Are you all right?"
"Yes. It's nothing."
I held it in this time.
Willpower after all.
Erika took the lead and I walked behind her. Lydia naturally stuck close to my side.
No demonic beasts in sight yet.
Instead, faint mist was rising around our feet.
The same mist that had clung to me every time my body shivered since morning.
I stopped walking and gripped the Yeouiju.
Mist was water and wind in the end.
Forming on its own and moving on its own were two different problems.
I carefully seized the flow and pushed it behind us.
The mist brushed our ankles as it drifted away.
"Oh."
A murmur of admiration slipped out before I could stop it.
It went exactly where I wanted.
Erika glanced back.
"What are you doing?"
"Controlling the fog of the battlefield."
"It was tangled around your feet until just now."
"That was before I controlled it."
The facts weren't important. The presentation was.
Then a low growl came from inside the underbrush.
Erika's smile vanished.
Lydia's golden mana wrapped thinly around us.
Three wolf-type demonic beasts with gray fur and sharp horns emerged.
Red markers hung from their necks.
First opponents.
The moment Erika started to step forward, I threw out an arm.
"Wait."
"You doing it?"
"I'll go first."
My heart hammered.
Yesterday they had been motionless training dummies.
Today they were real demonic beasts baring fangs and charging.
I could still do this.
I gripped the Yeouiju and felt the wind flowing between the trees.
If I slammed it head-on, it would scatter against the trunks.
So I just had to bend it along a path.
Around the left tree.
Through the brush.
Into the beasts' flanks.
I drew an invisible path with my fingertips.
"Go."
The wind moved.
KWAANG!
A side-blasting gale sent the lead beast flying. The two behind it collided into each other and tumbled across the brush.
One slammed into a tree; the other two lay on their bellies whimpering.
Silence fell.
I looked down at my own hands.
It worked.
This time it wasn't a sneeze.
The cold hadn't moved on its own either.
I had set the wind's path and sent it exactly there.
"See?"
My mouth curved up on its own.
"This much is basic."
Erika looked back and forth between the downed beasts and me.
"Better than yesterday."
"My growth rate is a little fast."
"You succeed once and—"
"There are dragons who get full on the first spoonful, you know."
Lydia beamed too.
"That was really well done, Miss Cheongha."
"Right?"
"Yes. So now stop getting excited and breathe slowly."
Only after she said that did I realize I had been holding my breath.
I drew in a deep lungful of air.
The damp grass smell stabbed my nose.
Ah.
"A-achoo!"
A far more massive wind exploded than before.
KWAAAAAANG!
Fallen leaves and dirt spiraled upward. The three downed beasts lifted into the air again, sailed over the trees, and vanished.
In the distance, something slammed into things in rapid succession.
Thud.
Thud.
Thud.
Then quiet.
A single red marker the size of my palm came spinning down from the sky.
Erika snatched it out of the air and handed it to me.
"This basic too?"
I rubbed the tip of my nose and took the marker.
"That's the advanced application."
"Skill name?"
"…Azure Dragon Wind."
"You just made that up."
"Skills are completed by using them."
If a person was shameless enough, even a sneeze could become a finisher.
Lydia looked like she couldn't decide whether to laugh or worry.
"You're really all right, right?"
"Power is overflowing."
That part wasn't a lie.
The first attack had been entirely my will.
The sneeze had only boosted the output a little—no, a whole lot.
I pocketed the marker.
"Let's keep going. I'll take point today."
Erika snorted a laugh.
"Fine. If it gets dangerous, I'm taking over."
"Why would you take the beasts?"
"Because they look fun."
To a Red Dragon, practical evaluations really were just hunting-ground tickets.
We started moving again toward the first checkpoint.
This time I sent the mist ahead of us.
A thin layer of fog spread between the brush and followed the curves of the path. If anything moved, the flow split and gave away its position.
It was more useful than I expected.
Using the cold's mist like reconnaissance magic.
At this point it wasn't a cold so much as extra equipment.
A little later, a stone pillar standing between two trees came into view.
"Found it."
When I set my hand on the crystal, blue light rose and text appeared.
First Checkpoint Passed
Smooth so far.
We had taken down beasts.
We had obtained a marker.
We had cleared one checkpoint.
I straightened my back with confidence.
"At this rate we could even take top rank, right?"
"Since when does a group evaluation have a top rank."
The second Erika answered, birds exploded upward from deeper in the forest all at once.
Flutterflutterflutter!
Branches shook violently.
It wasn't one.
Left.
Right.
Front.
Dozens of disturbances were pushing through the mist toward us.
Lydia stepped in front of us.
"Something's wrong."
Beyond the fog, red eyes rose one after another.
Wolf-type demonic beasts.
Horned boars.
Even black lizards crawling along the treetops.
Creatures that should have been fighting one another were all pouring in from the same direction.
Erika clenched her fists.
"Pretty rough welcome for a managed zone."
I tightened my grip on the Yeouiju in my coat.
Until a moment ago this had been the first practical evaluation.
But somehow…
it felt like a problem that wasn't on the evaluation sheet had just begun.