Practical Training (4)
"W-what is this place…"
Hurled into a darkness so thick they couldn't see an inch ahead, the first thing they felt was pure bewilderment.
"It's so dark I can't see a thing… What do we do…"
With their vision suddenly cut off, everyone milled about in confusion.
"Stay calm. We've got glow sticks for exploring dark areas. I'll throw first — each of you toss one in a different direction."
Min Ji-won issued the order with steady composure, snapped a stick-like rod, and flung it far into the dark.
It was the kind of glow stick you'd see at a concert, but the light it gave off was anything but feeble. The rod that clattered across the floor began to blaze with a near-blinding radiance, flooding the surroundings as if a streetlamp had just flared to life.
Thok. Thud-thud.
Ji-won's glow stick served as the signal flare. The rest of the team hurled theirs in separate directions, and before long the pitch-black dark peeled back as bright light washed over the area.
"I can see!"
"What is this place? Why is it so huge?"
The light covered a fairly wide radius, yet even so, the space was simply too vast. Even glow sticks boasting that much luminosity couldn't drive back all the darkness stretching into the distance.
"I think… we've been dropped into a dungeon."
"…!"
"You've got to be kidding me…"
Ji-won stated the fact flatly, piecing together everything that had just happened, and the atmosphere froze over in an instant.
"Th-this is part of the exam too, right?"
"…They said entering a dungeon would cost us points. And we're supposed to take a test in here?"
It wasn't only Ji-won — the other teammates knew full well that the one who'd dumped them into a dungeon was their supervising teacher. For a brief moment, a hopeful thought flickered through their minds. Then they replayed the situation and snuffed that hope out just as fast.
While everyone reeled from the shock of being forced into an unwanted dungeon, Min Ji-won slowly rose from the floor and drew her sword.
"Get ready."
Grrrrrrr.
There was no need to ask why. The moment the words left her mouth, the snarls of wild beasts rose from every direction.
"Whether this is a test or not, what we have to do right now doesn't change."
A hard, matter-of-fact declaration. A month ago, a situation like this might have sent them into a full panic.
"…Got it."
"Yeah."
One by one, they drew their weapons at Ji-won's words and settled into combat stances. And as if it had been waiting for exactly that, the monsters began to emerge from beyond the pitch-black dark, one by one.
Four monsters stood at the front. Dungeons had their own hierarchy of power — when a pack gathered, the highest-ranked beasts typically took the lead. It was safe to assume those four filled that role now. But the beast sounds rolling in suggested far more than four, and that rational assessment wound every muscle in their bodies tight with tension.
What do we do…?
They'd learned all sorts of things in Academy classes, but how to actually conduct yourself inside a dungeon was a lesson they hadn't received yet.
How are we supposed to move…?
Their thoughts locked up, and their bodies started to lock with them — until a voice cut through.
"Listen carefully! The ones in the back are about E to F-Rank! You can ignore them for now! What we need to worry about are the D-Ranks! Four up front, and two more coming in slow from behind!"
Min Ji-won, the most keenly attuned of the group, was the first to read the monsters' presence and lay out the situation. The teammates' frozen minds kicked back into gear. The bodies that had gone rigid a moment before loosened just enough for them to take in the battlefield with a wider view.
Six D-Ranks.
Two they might have managed somehow. Six D-Ranks was a death sentence.
Grrrrrng — kiiiiiing!
As if Ji-won's words had been the starting gun, the D-Rank monsters began to stalk slowly into the light. Two Double Wolves, three Bones Boars, and one Toy Monkey stepped out of the darkness one after another.
Even this is more than we can handle…
And it didn't end there. Spearman Hwang Min-su tightened his grip on his weapon and swept his gaze through the darkness beyond their sight. Just as Ji-won had said, the ranks were lower than the ones up front — but there were quite a few of them.
"Snap out of it and listen! I'll take the two Double Wolves! You handle the other four! Spearman, focus on keeping monsters from closing in on the front line! Shield, cover any attacks that slip past the front!"
"Rear guard — hit the closest ones first and pin them down! When an opening appears, Bird Blade goes in! Don't try to finish them in one hit — stack the damage!"
"Got it!"
"Yeah!"
"We'll try!"
Ji-won's instructions were remarkably detailed, yet it hadn't taken her long at all to spit the whole plan out. She had to be rattled herself, and still she read the situation in a heartbeat, found the approach with the highest survival rate, and issued orders. It was a composure no one would believe belonged at the entrance of a dungeon.
"With what you've got right now — you can do this!"
The words had barely left her mouth before Min Ji-won charged straight at the D-Rank monsters. Every last one of them snapped its aggro onto her.
"You little—! There's a person standing right in front of you and you're looking the other way? Rude!"
Spearman Hwang Min-su swung his spear in a rough arc and wrenched several of those gazes back onto himself.
Two Double Wolves…
Hwang Min-su scowled as he watched Ji-won drive into the heart of the D-Ranks. Double Wolves were classified as D-Rank, but with two heads and attack patterns far more varied than other D-Ranks, they could rival a decent C-Rank. In the middle of all this chaos, Ji-won had taken the toughest ones herself out of concern for the rest of them.
We're so damn weak. Seriously.
He resented their own lack of skill — but what he needed to do right now wasn't wallow in it.
Kieeeee—
A Bones Boar came barreling straight at Hwang Min-su.
"Haaah!"
His spear slammed into the boar's flank rather than its front and shoved hard. The Bones Boar, charging with tremendous force, lost its balance and skidded sideways. As if that had been the plan all along, ice spikes came flying in from behind Hwang Min-su a heartbeat later —
Pababababak!
— but the Bones Boar righted itself at once and dodged them clean.
Puhk!
I'll pin this one here.
While he roughly beat back the Bones Boar as it charged again after dodging the ice spikes —
Kweeeeeee!
"One got past!"
— another Bones Boar blew past Hwang Min-su and barreled toward the rear.
Thung.
The words had barely left his mouth before Ahn Hyeon-su, one-handed sword and shield at the ready, sprinted out to center. He caught the charging Bones Boar on his shield and, with practiced ease, redirected its momentum and shoved it aside.
"Another one up front!"
The moment he pushed the boar off, a massive chunk of rock came flying from somewhere —
"Hup!"
Thung!
— and he knocked that aside just as cleanly, sealing off every attack aimed at the rear.
The rock-thrower was the Toy Monkey, chittering from a short distance away from the Bones Boars. With the monkey hanging back like that, they needed a long-range answer.
Whoosh — thak! Thak!
Two daggers streaked out from behind the shield and buried themselves in both of the Toy Monkey's legs.
Kiiiik!
The Toy Monkey shrieked and clutched at its legs — and in that opening,
Pook—!
ice spikes slammed mercilessly into the immobilized monkey. While the barrage left it reeling —
Whoosh—!
— Bird Blade Park So-jeong closed the gap in a blink, flung her daggers, and carved the Toy Monkey to pieces.
Puhbuhbuhbuk!
They were light bird-blade strikes, but the damage had already stacked high enough that finishing the Toy Monkey wasn't difficult. The moment it went down completely —
"Get back!"
— another Bones Boar, the one they'd briefly forgotten, came charging straight at Park So-jeong. She heard her teammates and tried to fall back to position at once, but —
Too late…!
— there was no way she was going to outrun a Bones Boar already in full charge.
Kwieeee—!
"If I can just buy some time—"
Oh So-hee, holding the rearmost position, was about to open a gap so So-jeong could escape the Bones Boar right on her heels when —
Chaaaaak! Chaak!
— the sound of thick hide being carved open rang out, and the Bones Boar that had been chasing Park So-jeong crumpled lifelessly to the ground.
"Bird Blade, finish it! Supporter, help the spearman with your spikes!"
Min Ji-won issued the order in the same breath she dropped a Bones Boar — a beast famous for its toughness — the moment she arrived. Her teammates stood dazed for a second, then snapped back to themselves and moved one by one on her command.
Joining the fight, Ji-won immediately sprinted to the front line where the spearman was holding and threw herself into the Bones Boar hunt. With rear support and solid teamwork, they wiped out the D-Rank monsters completely.
"Stay sharp! We've still got E and F-Ranks left!"
The lower ranks had been shoved out of the hunt by the D-Ranks up front. But with no higher-ranked monsters left above them, those lesser beasts would come flooding in by sheer numbers.
"What do we do?"
Every teammate looked to Min Ji-won. Deep trust shone in their eyes. Even in a situation like this, her gaze didn't waver in the slightest.
"I'll cut down whatever comes at the front. You pick off the ones I miss from behind. They're not D-Rank, so you don't need to shove them back. If you judge you can finish one, swing hard."
"Okay!"
Remarkable.
Yu I-jin — the one who had shoved Team 7 into the dungeon in the first place — watched them fight with everything they had and let out a genuine murmur of admiration.
By his reckoning, they shouldn't have lasted long in this dungeon before being wiped out. Contrary to that expectation, Min Ji-won and her teammates had cleanly crushed the D-Rank pack, and now even the E and F-Rank monsters were on the verge of being driven off.
At this rate, I can afford to get my hopes up.
The "sacrifice" required for the ritual he was about to perform. He had chosen Min Ji-won for that role, but honestly, he hadn't expected much. For the ritual to succeed, the grade of the soul offered as sacrifice had to be high — and to Yu I-jin's eye, Min Ji-won had shown nothing particularly special.
But look at her now. As if to prove his earlier judgment wrong, the Min Ji-won before him was demonstrating her worth. Outstanding command of her teammates, her own abilities on full display, keeping her companions from losing heart. She might not have intended all of it, but both as an individual and as a leader, she had grown into something that stood out.
"That growth is going to make the world beautiful."
"Haa… ha…a."
"Is… is it over…?"
"Yes! We made it!"
With every nearby monster cleared out, the teammates let out cheers. Compared to the D-Ranks, the E and F-Ranks had gone down without much trouble — but the anxiety of not knowing what might happen next in a dungeon, that uncanny space, left them feeling twice as drained as usual.
"I know you're exhausted, but this is a dungeon. Don't go slack — we need to find the exi—"
Ji-won was speaking to the teammates who looked ready to sink to the floor when —
Clap. Clap. Clap.
— applause drifted down from above, and someone dropped from a height to land lightly on the ground.
"Truly excellent work, all of you. I was certain you would die, and yet here you are, surviving so splendidly."
The moment Yu I-jin appeared before Min Ji-won's group, they snapped into combat stances. Even so, the chill in the way he looked at them sent goosebumps crawling up their skin.
"Why are you doing this?"
Ji-won fixed him with a hard stare as she asked. The corner of his mouth curled upward.
"Student Min Ji-won. If sacrificing one life could save ten — what should one do?"
"What are you talking about."
"That one life must be sacrificed."
"……"
She stared at him, dumbfounded by the sudden turn — but he paid her look no mind whatsoever and pressed on.
"Of course it's a sad thing. But that one person's sacrifice allows far more people to live. The moment that becomes clear! That person's life is stamped with a value far higher than anything it held before!"
The feverish passion in his words made Ji-won's brow furrow.
"That's the kind of philosophy you'd only hear in an apocalypse story."
"Student Min Ji-won — is the world we live in so different from that?"
"……"
There was chaos, yes. But how that connected to what he was saying, she neither knew nor wanted to know.
"This world is mad! It is dangerous! It is precarious! And yet there is still a way to stop it!"
As he kept talking, the veins in Yu I-jin's eyes began to stand out.
"So there is no time to quibble over what is humane and what is not. We must act for the happiness of the absolute majority! To make more people happy, we dirty our hands and shoulder the sin!"
"Teacher Yu I-jin. You're with Freedom."
Ji-won's face twisted further as she looked at him.
"I've heard about it from my father. Freedom's ideology is that they'll commit any inhumane act without hesitation, all in the name of the absolute majority's happiness."
"And is that so wrong?"
He asked it with eyes of pure, genuine innocence. People like him only ever heard what they wanted to hear, no matter what logical argument you threw at them. Talking any longer would only wear out her mouth.
So there was only one thing left to do.
"I don't know. At the very least,"
She drew her sword and settled into her stance.
"I can't bring myself to call it right."
Yu I-jin watched her, then dropped his head with a soft sigh. Slowly, he lifted it again and looked at Min Ji-won. On his raised face sat an expression of pity and sympathy.
"Student Min Ji-won will understand as well. Once that life is put to proper use."
He pulled a set of knuckles from his pocket and slid them onto his hands.