A Sparring Request
The Academy encouraged free activity after classes as the default.
There were no club activities to speak of — a measure meant to keep upperclassmen and underclassmen from colliding. Apparently they had existed until last year, but there had been far too much trouble, so they were abolished.
The sheer vitality of teenagers in their teens, it seemed, exceeded even my imagination.
Even so, after-school hours could still be called relatively free. You could hole up in one of the Academy's self-study rooms. Flash a student ID and most of the facilities on campus were available at a steep discount — more than enough entertainment for any student. Or you could simply enjoy campus life across the absurdly sprawling grounds.
One notable perk: the training halls stayed open, so you could borrow relics and throw yourself into personal practice. And if a teacher agreed to supervise, private spars between students were allowed as well. Plenty of kids looked forward to after-school training for exactly that reason.
Well. The penalties for breaking the rules are just as enormous.
Violations earned demerit points, and once those points crossed a certain threshold, expulsion was on the table.
Today, after finishing my first proper classes at the Academy, I had spent evening study hall putting Kang Min-hyeon through a bit of a wringer, then returned to my private dorm room.
"Alpha… I've never heard that name either."
Lee Yeon-hui and I had agreed to check in at the same time every day, trading whatever unusual details we'd each turned up.
"I see."
I had asked her about the person called Alpha — the name I'd overheard yesterday — but she clearly didn't know either. It never appeared even in the later parts of the original story, so her ignorance wasn't strange. I had only asked on the off chance, and I wasn't particularly disappointed.
"Did you catch today's call?"
"I eavesdropped when I went by earlier, but outside of the usual formalities there wasn't anything useful."
"Looks like they're being careful on their end too."
I had slipped near Lee Ju-won's room again today and listened in on his phone call, but the haul was empty.
"How about your side?"
"I've found a few suspicious faces, more or less. I'll need to watch them a little longer to be sure."
In the previous loop, Lee Yeon-hui had been the top student, which meant she would originally have spent her Academy life on the same campus as me. Hunting Freedom's spies over there, she had no advantage from the last loop — she was starting from absolute zero.
Even on this campus their identities aren't fully exposed yet. Hers has to be worse.
Since the novel had originally been told from her point of view, I could at least reverse-engineer some information on my end. Over there, the intel was practically nonexistent. No wonder her head hurt.
"Don't dig too deep. The worst possible outcome is them catching on and burrowing even further underground."
"Yeah."
A thin sigh drifted through the receiver, the sound of someone thoroughly frustrated.
"If it comes to it, why not try working with Choi A-rin? She's sharper than she looks. She might actually help."
"Choi A-rin…"
Choi A-rin happened to be right there with her, and I figured this was a good chance for the two of them to build some trust, so I suggested it. But the low way Yeon-hui murmured the name made it clear she was less than thrilled.
"…Did something happen with Choi A-rin?"
I considered changing the subject and not asking — but now that Choi A-rin was at the Academy, the odds were high we'd all be fighting side by side soon enough. If there was a knot between them, better to untangle it immediately.
"Tsk— No. Nothing happened. You're saying if things get hard, I should work with he— with her, right?"
"…Y-yeah. You don't have to force yourselves to move together if you don't want to, though…"
That sound just now — was she grinding her teeth?
Worried I had poked something I shouldn't have, I tried to scoop my words back up as carefully as I could.
"No, it's fine. Even a grub might have a talent for rolling. I'll give her a spin."
"……"
Something had definitely happened.
A little awkwardness was understandable. Given Yeon-hui's history, she might still be carrying leftover negative feelings toward Choi A-rin from a previous loop, so a bit of irritation made sense. But the prickliness felt excessive somehow.
The Academy had only been open a single day, and already there seemed to have been some kind of clash between them. As long as she wasn't refusing to cooperate outright, it was something the two of them needed to work out. Me sticking my nose in wouldn't help.
"But is it really okay to take our time looking? Too much has changed in this loop compared to the ones I've lived through. I'm a little worried."
"Hmm…"
Her concern was fair. Of all the countless loops of Yeon-hui's I had watched unfold in the novel, none had diverged this far from the original path. I had been moving briskly since before her return point, rewriting piece after piece. Of course things looked different.
"I hit a lot of the research facilities where Freedom was running its experiments. Not completely, but we should have a little more breathing room than last time."
I had leveraged everything I already knew and everything I had clawed out of new sources to deal real damage. But Freedom hadn't become one of the great villain organizations for nothing. For all the chaos I had caused, the best I had managed was probably delaying whatever they planned at the Academy by a few months.
Still, there was no need to be pessimistic. Compared to Freedom in the original story, their scale here had to be considerably reduced. In that state, they wouldn't throw away a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity by burning their spies on something pointless.
"Y-yeah. I guess."
I had offered a reasonably sound argument, but the unease in Yeon-hui's voice refused to fade.
"Being careful never hurts. Stay alert — but let's not rush."
"Okay. Got it."
"Be careful."
As things stood, if Freedom made a move, they were far more likely to target Yeon-hui's side than mine. I wasn't trying to sound full of myself, but I had already made a thorough mess of their operations. Hitting her campus rather than the one where I might throw another wrench in their plans was the smarter play for them.
That was the thought behind the warning. But—
"Pfft! Look who's talking."
Yeon-hui let out a small laugh and tossed my words right back at me.
"You're the one who needs to be more careful. For some reason, every dangerous incident seems to explode right around you."
The way she put it, I sounded like some bespectacled reaper who left a trail of corpses everywhere he went.
"Fine, fine. Just be careful when I tell you to be careful."
"Okay. You be careful too."
After a round of bickering, we finally exchanged goodbyes and hung up.
She was right about one thing — I couldn't just sit around waiting for information to fall into my lap. That meant I needed to somehow cook Lee Ju-won, the one solid thread still tying us to Freedom.
Was there a way to do it without tipping my hand?
I was turning the problem over when a decent plan suddenly brushed through my mind.
Ha… Honestly, I'm not confident I can pull it off…
The problem was that it demanded genuinely outstanding acting ability, which I was not exactly eager about. Still, it was the most plausible operation available under the circumstances.
With my kind heart, I'm not sure I can pull this off… but I guess I have no choice.
"Sloooow. Slow. Waaay too slow!"
In the training hall, where another team's live combat drill was in full swing, Park Yeon-chan's bellowing voice drilled straight into Lee Ju-won's ears.
A week had already passed since the teams were formed in that first class. Students had started finding their rhythm with their teammates and were growing at a fairly respectable pace. Groups that had clashed over every opinion at the start were gradually adjusting, beginning to look like actual teams.
Of course—
"Why is your cover that slow? Did you skip breakfast? Does your stomach hurt? Or can you just not see?"
"……."
—there were always exceptions.
Under the machine-gun barrage of Park Yeon-chan's words, Lee Ju-won kept his head down and took it in silence. And still Yeon-chan showed no sign of stopping.
"Ahh, I get it. You can't see, right? There's no other way you'd just stand there with your feet glued to the floor."
He twisted his face into a grotesque expression and stared Ju-won down. Anyone could tell it was pure mockery. And still Ju-won couldn't push back. He had made a mistake during practice, and Yeon-chan wasn't uniquely harsh with him alone.
Even so.
Even so, it had started to feel a little excessive lately. But among their teammates, there was no one who could rein Park Yeon-chan in. Yeon Min-ju just offered an awkward smile. Kang Min-hyeon, whose place in the hierarchy had been settled ages ago, was trembling as far from Yeon-chan as he could get while still staying inside the range that wouldn't earn him a scolding.
Who, exactly, was supposed to say anything to Park Yeon-chan?
"Ju-won. You listening?"
"Y-yeah… I'm listening."
"Or do you need to get rolled around the floor like Min-hyeon before you snap out of it?"
"Th-that's—! No! I'm fine!"
Ju-won had watched, in vivid detail, exactly how Kang Min-hyeon got put through the wringer every time he slipped up. Mentally exhausting as this was, taking the verbal beating was still better than getting physically rolled. Just look at Min-hyeon — every time his own name left Yeon-chan's mouth, even when the comment wasn't aimed at him, his whole body flinched.
But Yeon-chan's verbal assault showed no sign of ending there.
"Your grit is completely rotten. If you don't have the skill, you grind your body until you make up for it! Tch. Kids these days have no grit. No grit at all. Back in my day we weren't like this."
"……."
And what exactly am I supposed to do about that?
Also, this bastard is the same age as me — actually younger — so where the hell did he pick up this old-man mindset…
The words rose as far as the base of his throat before he forced them back down. He had absolutely no confidence he could survive the fallout if he ever said them out loud.
"Ju-won. You listening?"
"…Huh? Of course I am."
Listening to that machine-gun monologue long enough shredded your sanity, so he had briefly evacuated his soul somewhere else. The insane monster noticed instantly, dragged his soul back into place, and resumed the roasting.
After five straight minutes of relentless psychological assault—
"Hah… I've got nothing left to say."
"……."
—he let out a small sigh, as if today's quota had been filled. Of course, that did nothing to refresh Ju-won's thoroughly wrecked mental state.
You son of a bitch. One of these days I'm going to kill you…!
A full week of continuous attacks, and the stress had started stacking. But even that—
"Ju-won."
"Y…eah?"
—wilted the moment he met those eyes that somehow seemed to see straight through his thoughts.
"Let's do well."
"Y…yeah."
Yeon-chan gave his shoulder a couple of light pats, and somehow it felt like the joint had been knocked clean out of its socket.
So today's… over, I guess…?
It had become routine enough that Ju-won found himself waiting for this exact moment — and he hated himself for it.
Did it land?
The method for cooking Lee Ju-won.
The operation was simple: gaslighting.
Over the past few days I had gradually escalated how hard I rode him, cranking it up to near character-assassination levels and frying him thoroughly. One worry remained, though.
I'm such a fundamentally good person, I'm not sure this acting is even convincing.
My nature was so angelic that I worried I looked awkward saying things like that. Judging by his face, though, it seemed to be working reasonably well.
I was turning that over while casually observing Ju-won when—
"Focus! That was the timing when you were supposed to support from the back!"
—a familiar voice rang out across the training hall.
"S-sorry."
I turned toward the sound and found Min Ji-won glaring at a girl holding a staff.
"Even a slight delay in rear support can mean the front line dies and comes back to life. And once the front collapses, the rear gets wiped out in an instant."
Aside from that first shout, her volume wasn't particularly high — but the girl listening had clearly wilted, eyes lowered in silence. Min Ji-won seemed to have nothing more to add and started to turn away when—
"It's practice! People are allowed to make mistakes, aren't they?"
—a girl with daggers, apparently from the same team, burst forward to defend the staff-wielder.
"Sure, you can make mistakes in practice. But how many times has this been? The whole point of practice is to stop making them."
Judging by the exchange, this had already happened several times.
"Just because you're good, you think everyone else can do it too? You could at least phrase it more gently."
"How should I phrase it gently? 'Even if you mess up, the vanguard won't die that fast, so it's fine if your timing is late' — like that? Wake up. One wrong step and people die out there. Skill gaps and lack of experience are one thing, but people can die from a lack of focus. And you're going to brush that off with 'it's fine, it's fine'?"
Wow…
Laying out that kind of airtight logic point by point was hard enough on its own — and Min Ji-won delivered the entire machine-gun volley without stumbling over a single word. Nothing she said was wrong. She simply hadn't considered the position of the people on the receiving end at all.
These kids were far too immature to swallow that kind of hard truth. This was the age for spitting out bitter words and swallowing the sweet ones. There was no way they would quietly accept something that stabbed them so directly.
They only just left middle school. Their bodies are high schoolers; their heads aren't quite there yet.
Looked at that way, it made sense. Even an obvious point from a third party's perspective narrowed the moment you became the one being criticized — and at this age, that effect was even more pronounced.
"Team Seven, step back. Team Two, get ready."
A teacher cut cleanly into the argument at exactly the right moment, and the exchange ended there.
Lee Yeon-hui had asked me to look after Min Ji-won, but there wasn't much I could do at this stage. The gap forming in Min Ji-won's team ultimately came down to a lack of real urgency — and that was the kind of problem that solved itself the moment they went out on a field exercise, got run through the wringer once, and learned what tension actually felt like.
I had been thinking that, not paying it any particular mind, when—
"What…?"
"Spar with me. Just once."
Min Ji-won had just asked me for a duel.