Facing the Body's Owner (Part 3)
「Ugly piece of shit. Why don’t you fuck off already, you fat pig?」
Paying no heed to the crowd hemming her in, Jeonghye fired back with pure venom.
I knew she wouldn't be gentle, but I never expected her to be this ruthless. Besides, there was something fundamentally different about her shout compared to anything I could manage. The fierce glare burning in her eyes and the sheer force of her aura crushed the spirit right out of Henry’s gang. Just yesterday, those bastards had been spitting insults without a care in the world, but now they clamped their mouths shut. A heavy silence filled the lecture hall.
“Ha, haha! You think that’s going to scare anyone?”
Henry broke the brief quiet, his voice dripping with forced bravado.
“I saw it with my own two eyes—you got completely trashed by Miss Bella without even landing a scratch! I don’t know what kind of cheap tricks you’ve been pulling up until now, but...”
「Oh, really?」
Jeonghye took a step toward him.
「What about you, then?」
“...What?”
「Do you have the guts to think you can beat me?」
Flustered by her razor-sharp question, Henry choked on his words. Sensing his hesitation, one of the lackeys flanking him piped up.
“Hah! Your cards are already on the table, so where’s all this confidence coming from? In all the spars we’ve had so far, nobody has ever lost as pathetically as you did!”
Murmurs of agreement rippled through the surrounding crowd, seizing upon the spectacle of my recent defeat.
“I mean, we all know her dantian is tiny, but losing like that was a bit much...”
“Henry might look like a joke, but his skills are above average.”
“Bella might be top-tier, but wasn't that basically exposing that her past record was just pure luck?”
Emboldened by the chatter backing him up, Henry found his voice again.
“My defeat back in our first year was merely a fluke—a string of coincidences born from my own carelessness!”
「You're really that confident?」
“Of course! As if I’d ever lose to a commoner orphan bitch like you—”
「Then tell me,」 Jeonghye cut in right over his personal insult. 「What if you lose?」
“What...?”
「What will you do if you lose?」
Despite his blatant provocation, Jeonghye’s tone remained utterly indifferent, as if she hadn’t lost a shred of composure.
“T-There’s no rule saying you have to wager something when you lose a duel! Not that there’s any chance I’d lose, of course, but—”
「If I lose, I’ll grant you one wish. Whatever it may be.」
Jeonghye wasn't about to let Henry wriggle his way out.
「But if... just if you lose... what will you offer up?」
At Jeonghye’s bombshell, every single eye in the lecture hall locked onto the two of them.
「Don't tell me... you're scared? Of a commoner orphan?」
What had begun with Henry’s taunts was now turning into Jeonghye tightening a noose around his neck. The students watching the spectacle began whispering among themselves once more.
“Was she just in bad shape during the last spar?”
“Considering her grades from first year... maybe that really was the case?”
“If he backs down after she went that far...”
Henry was sweating profusely. Cornered by the shifting mood of the room, he couldn't afford to back out. He thrust his head forward and barked:
“Ha! I have no idea where you get off acting so cocky, but I accept!”
Mopping his flushed, sweaty face with a handkerchief, he declared pompously,
“I, Henry Marcus, will grant you one wish of your choosing should I fall in this duel!”
「Then... everyone here serves as our witnesses?」
“Fine by me! The duel is six days from now. You’d better not forget!”
With the surrounding students as their witnesses, the wager was sealed.
Once the agreement was finalized, Henry leaned his hefty bulk toward Jeonghye, grinding out each syllable. “I’ll teach you... just how carefully you ought to choose your words when offering to do anything.”
There was a sleazy, insidious gleam in his eyes.
「I’ll return those exact words right back to you.」
With the wager concluded, Jeonghye strolled out of the lecture hall with an indifferent expression.
“Uh... Miss Jeonghye?”
「What is it?」
“...You do realize that I’m the one fighting in six days, right?”
「Yeah, I know. And?」
“I don't know how to do a single damn thing! And the other students said Henry is above average!”
「Above average only by student standards.」
“And I'm not even at student level! What if I lose?! From the look of him, he's definitely not going to let me off lightly.”
「Don't worry.」
As I fired off my anxieties about the duel like a machine gun, Jeonghye cut me off with absolute certainty.
「Six days is plenty of time to beat that pig.」
“What...?”
「You've got me as your master, haven't you? There's no way you'd lose to someone like that.」
Declaring victory with total nonchalance, she was already treating me like her disciple.
“Master? You? My master?”
「You're going to learn how to fight from me, aren't you? That makes me your master.」
Master and disciple... Not exactly terms people threw around back in my original world, unless you were playing an RPG. But when I thought about it, she wasn't entirely wrong.
“Haaah... Master? So what am I supposed to do now?”
Jeonghye let out a short chuckle, clearly pleased by the title, before answering with exaggerated grandeur.
「First, let us return to the dormitory, my dear disciple. Don't be so terrified. It's really nothing.」
Our very first act as master and disciple was heading back to the dormitory. It felt like an eternity since I had last stepped into the room—probably because we’d spent the previous night sleeping rough outside. The moment we got inside, the first priority was taking a bath.
「First time in my life I've ever slept on the streets. Ugh, look at all the dirt on my skin...」
Being a gentleman with a conscience, I closed my eyes and looked away. Didn’t this girl have any sense of shame?
Once she finished cleaning up, Jeonghye sat cross-legged on the bed and shut her eyes.
And then...
「Yo.」
She materialized inside the inner world where I resided.
“Wh-What? How did you do that?”
「Entering your own inner world isn't anything strange. It’s only weird right now because you happen to be in here too.」
To my flabbergasted reaction, Jeonghye casually shifted the topic as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
「Anyway, technically speaking, today is our first lesson, isn't it?」
“I guess? But what are you going to teach me, and how?”
「First, try circulating the qi inside your body.」
Jeonghye stepped forward, placing a hand on my shoulder.
「Over the next six days, you’re going to learn just one thing: qi emission.」
“Qi emission? Don't I need to learn anything else?”
Just one single thing? Hearing my skepticism, Jeonghye explained in an uncharacteristically gentle tone.
「Do you know how I used to fight before you came along... before you swallowed that Dragon Pearl?」
“No, how would I know?”
「There was only one thing I prioritized above all else: the efficient management of qi.」
Perhaps wanting to clear my doubts, Jeonghye began laying out her martial philosophy.
「In combat, qi is like military supplies. Especially for someone like me who fights bare-handed. That’s why I always had to hoard and conserve my qi. But now... there’s no need for that anymore.」
“Because I swallowed the Dragon Pearl?”
「Exactly. Right now, practically no student in this entire Academy possesses a dantian larger than mine.」
“So that’s why you want me to learn emission first?”
「Bingo. Why let an inexhaustible well go to waste?」
She had been nudging me toward the answers all along. It seemed she was genuinely serious about taking me on as her disciple—and surprisingly enough, she was a much better teacher than I had expected.
「Now then... as for emitting qi...」
“Yeah, what do I do?”
At my question, Jeonghye flashed a wide grin.
「Take your stance.」
“Huh?”
「Get into a combat stance. Just get comfortable.」
“What do you mean by that...?”
She was smiling, but there was an ominous chill hanging in the air. A creeping dread washed over me as I pressed her for an explanation.
「Once you get the hang of it, qi is really no different from an extension of your own body. It’s no different from throwing a punch when you want to strike, get it?」
“Uh... I follow the logic, but why are you getting into a stance like you’re about to beat the crap out of me—?”
「Because in the end, true emission only happens when you attack an opponent or react to an incoming strike...」
Regardless of whether I was trembling like a leaf, Jeonghye advanced on me step by steady step.
「And when it comes to getting the feel of it, nothing beats live combat. Certainly not yammering on with useless talk.」
With that, Jeonghye brought her foot down with a resounding thud! against the floor.
「Now, let's see you struggle. Squirm with everything you've got.」
“Master, isn’t this taking things a bit too far?!”
BOOM!
Just like during that spar against Bella, Jeonghye kicked off the ground and rocketed straight at me.
「Don’t just try to dodge! Show me some intent to strike back!」
“That’s easier said than done, you crazy biiiiiitch?!”
And so began a session that could hardly be called a lesson—it was pure, unadulterated, one-sided violence. It felt like a preview of all the suffering waiting for me in the days ahead.
Just how many hours had we spent fighting—or rather, me desperately running for my life? Perhaps because we were inside the inner world, I wasn't out of breath, but a crushing wave of mental exhaustion threatened to drown me.
「Alright, that’s five minutes of rest, so—」
“Wait, hold on, wait a second—!”
If this went on any longer, my mind was going to literally shatter. Desperate to buy even a few seconds, I wracked my brain.
“Uh, hey... why were you trying to drop out of the Academy in the first place?”
It was a question I’d been genuinely curious about, tossed out both to stall for time and satisfy my wonder. I hadn't given it much deep thought beforehand.
Yet at my words, Jeonghye clamped her mouth shut, falling completely silent.
“Uh... was that too sensitive of a topic? Sorry, I—”
「No, it's fine.」
Cutting off my hurried attempt to smooth things over, Jeonghye replied quietly.
「I’ll tell you once the duel is over.」
With that, she dropped back into her stance.
Seeing the solemn look on her face, I had no choice but to silently raise my guard once more.