Dog Training Must Be Firm
“Kaaaaah—!!”
Three Shadow Wolves bared their fangs and charged. Screams erupted across the training ground. Some students squeezed their eyes shut while others frantically began chanting defensive spells. Even Professor Barcas on the dais stood frozen, staff half-raised. To everyone watching, the scene promised unavoidable tragedy.
Everyone except Kang Yeomyeong.
The speed is fast, but the trajectories are straightforward.
To Yeomyeong’s eyes, the wolves’ rush resembled a flood of urgent emails pouring in the night before a deadline. The volume was high and the momentum ferocious, but if you simply assigned the right priorities, it was nothing that couldn’t be handled.
Number one, frontal assault. Number two, leaping from the left. Number three is circling around toward Miss Seol-ah.
The assessment took only an instant. Yeomyeong’s left foot slid forward half a step. At the same time, Ilwol-ryuinternal energy drawn from his dantian flowed heavily down his right arm. There was no brilliant flash, no deafening roar—only the dense, compressed power hidden beneath the surface, like boulders resting on a riverbed.
The first wolf to arrive opened its maw wide. Thud. A dull sound rang out as Yeomyeong’s fist drove upward, striking precisely beneath the beast’s jaw. The massive monster’s body bent at a right angle in midair before slamming flat onto the ground, limbs splayed. After a brief tremor, the wolf’s eyes rolled back and it went limp. It had fainted.
“……Huh?”
A dazed voice slipped out from somewhere in the crowd. But the situation was far from over. The second wolf, leaping from the left, cast its shadow over Yeomyeong’s head. He didn’t even bother looking up. Instead, his left hand shot upward with casual indifference and seized the descending wolf’s foreleg.
“Your landing spot is over here.”
Yeomyeong gave a light twist of his wrist and yanked downward. Boom! The giant wolf’s back slammed full-force into the marble floor. Cracks radiated outward from the impact point, and with a short, strangled yelp, the beast lost consciousness.
Only one remained. The third wolf, which had been circling toward Seol-ah, instinctively froze at the sight of its two packmates being floored in the blink of an eye. Even through the boiling frenzy of its berserk state, the animal’s survival instinct screamed a warning.
That is not prey.
“Grrr…… rrr……”
The wolf began to back away, tail curling between its legs. Yeomyeong walked toward it slowly, unhurried steps that resembled nothing more than a casual stroll. Yet with every step he took forward, the wolf retreated two.
“It’s too late to run,” Yeomyeong murmured quietly.
The moment the words left his lips, his figure blurred and vanished. The next instant he was already standing beside the wolf, his right hand transformed into a knife-hand strike that chopped down precisely on the back of its neck.
Thump.
The third wolf collapsed on the spot as if its legs had given out.
From the moment the iron cage first opened until the final wolf fell, less than ten seconds had passed.
……
A heavy silence settled over the training ground. Hundreds of students stood frozen with their mouths half-open. The student who had been chanting a defensive spell remained stuck in an awkward pose, incantation only half-finished. The one who had closed their eyes opened them belatedly, saw the three magic beasts sprawled across the floor, and doubted their own vision.
There had been no magic. No glow of aura. He hadn’t even drawn a sword. Just fists, palms, and the edge of a hand. With three movements that looked more like disciplining a neighborhood mutt, he had neatly dispatched three Shadow Wolves—beasts that normally required a team of three 1st-Circle mages to handle, and which had clearly been driven into a frenzied state.
“W-what the hell was that……?”
“I didn’t feel any mana flow at all. I really didn’t sense anything.”
“Bare-handed? Against Shadow Wolves? Bare-handed?”
The murmurs spread like a wave. To the mages of the West, power was something that had to be visible. The light of incantations, the patterns of magic circles, the radiance of aura—strength had to be displayed with form and color. Yet what they had just witnessed was power that showed nothing at all. A force that couldn’t even be detected, and was therefore all the more terrifying.
Seol-ah stood frozen in place as well. The deadly fangs that had been inches from her throat only moments ago. The terror that had gripped her entire body. And the broad, solid back that had erased that fear in an instant.
……Kang Yeomyeong. Just who are you?
The evaluation she had heard about him back in the Huangjing Kingdom was merely “a useful escort warrior.” While he practiced the martial arts of the Ilwol family, she had never heard he was anything exceptional by the standards of her own country. Yet what was that movement just now? The casual composure with which he had subdued three charging magic beasts at a speed the eye could barely follow, without even disturbing his breathing.
“Miss Seol-ah, are you injured anywhere?”
Yeomyeong had approached at some point and was asking with his usual good-natured smile. The chilly gaze he had worn while knocking out the magic beasts was gone without a trace. Once again he wore the round, friendly face one might see anywhere in town.
“……No.”
Seol-ah barely managed to squeeze out the single word. The frost that had been forming at her fingertips had already melted away without a trace.
“That’s a relief. Then—”
Yeomyeong gave a light bow, turned, and walked toward Professor Barcas on the dais. In his hand was one of the Mana Restraining Devices that had fallen from a fainted wolf’s neck—he must have picked it up at some point.
“Professor.”
“…………Y-yes. Kang Yeomyeong, that was quite the demonstration.”
Professor Barcas’s voice trembled faintly. He was trying to maintain a benevolent smile, but deep in his eyes, bewilderment churned.
There were two reasons for his panic. One was that the Eastern exchange student who should have been humiliated had instead displayed overwhelming martial prowess. The other was—
“A demonstration? You flatter me. More importantly, Professor, would you please take a look at this?”
Yeomyeong respectfully offered the device with both hands.
“I apologize for speaking out of turn during class, but I believe this is directly related to student safety, so I must report it. This Mana Restraining Device appears to have had no suppression function active at all.”
“……What?”
“Those wolves earlier were not in a state with seventy percent aggression suppressed. On the contrary, they were more excited than usual. As you saw yourself, Professor, their charging speed far exceeded the category of lower-grade magic beasts used for training.”
The hall stirred once more. Now that he mentioned it, it was true. The explosive speed the wolves had displayed was clearly not the movement of “restrained training beasts.” Professor Barcas’s complexion turned deathly pale.
“T-that can’t be. I definitely inspected the devices before class……!”
“Of course. If you inspected them, Professor, they would surely have been normal.”
Yeomyeong continued speaking with an expression of genuine concern for the professor, without the slightest trace of sarcasm.
“Which makes the problem even more serious. It means a malfunction occurred after your thorough inspection. Whether it was a natural failure of the magic tool or…… perhaps some other cause. If the next group of students had encountered the same situation, it could have led to a truly horrific accident.”
Yeomyeong paused there for a moment, slowly scanning the students in the training ground.
“I was lucky enough that my body reacted first, but if it had been any of the other students…… Ah, just imagining it makes my head spin. If any of Valtern Academy’s precious talents were to be injured, wouldn’t that be a loss for the entire kingdom?”
……
Barcas’s mouth opened and closed, but no sound emerged. It was a perfect checkmate. Yeomyeong had not accused the professor. On the contrary, he had praised him by saying “your inspection would have been perfect.” Yet those words officially established, in front of the entire student body, the possibility that someone had tampered with the devices after the inspection. Barcas could no longer bury the incident. If he tried, he would become “the professor who ignored signs of a student safety accident.” But if he ordered an investigation, he had no idea where the blade might ultimately point.
“……U-understood. I will have this device collected and sent to the magic tool management office for precise analysis. Today’s practical session will be replaced with theoretical lecture until safety can be confirmed.”
“A wise decision. As expected, you always place the students’ safety as your top priority. I am deeply moved.”
Yeomyeong bowed deeply once more. Professor Barcas accepted the device with a sour expression and hurriedly turned to call for the cleanup crew. In his retreating back as he descended the dais, not a trace remained of the benevolent educator’s composure.
Good. Now the ball is in their court.
Yeomyeong neatly organized his thoughts. The problem is…… who the real culprit is.
His fingertips brushed the small metal fragment he had secretly tucked inside his sleeve. It was a piece of the restraining device that had broken off during the suppression of the wolves. The one he had handed to the professor looked perfectly normal on the outside, but this fragment was different. On the cross-section where circuits were engraved, something clearly distinct from the original blue mana stone—a dark crimson foreign substance—had melted into the material like a thin thread.
A magic tool that passed inspection doesn’t spontaneously change into a berserk circuit. Someone tampered with it. And it was an insider with access to the magic tool management system.
And the wolves’ target had been precisely Seol-ah. Was it simple territoriality? Or something more?
I’ll keep it for now. More evidence is always better.
Just as Yeomyeong was about to return to Seol-ah’s side after organizing his thoughts—
“Hey! Wait a moment!”
With a clear, ringing voice, a petite girl with red hair tied in twin tails pushed through the crowd of students and came running. It was Seria, the commoner-born genius mage who had raised her voice in protest against the professor earlier.
Seria stopped in front of Yeomyeong, amber eyes sparkling with pure curiosity as she looked up at him.
“That thing you did just now! What was that?!”
“……Pardon?”
“When you moved beside the wolf at the end! I was watching without blinking, but I couldn’t see the intermediate process at all! Short-range teleportation magic? No, that can’t be—it didn’t have any mana reaction. Body reinforcement type? But there wasn’t any of the lingering mana scent unique to reinforcement spells either. So then what principle did you—!”
The rapid-fire barrage of questions left Yeomyeong blinking for a moment. There was no wariness, no contempt, no fear. What filled the girl’s eyes was one hundred percent academic curiosity. Like a mathematician who had discovered an unsolved equation.
“Oh, and how did you notice so quickly that the wolves were acting strange? It was before the iron cage even opened! I only felt something was off after they came charging out!”
“……For now, perhaps you should calm down first.”
“Ah! Sorry. I forgot to introduce myself. I’m Seria, first-year in the Magic Department. You heard me protesting against the professor earlier, right? Anyway, that footwork you used—”
Even her self-introduction ended in another question. Yeomyeong unconsciously let out a small chuckle. In the week since enrollment, this was the first time he had encountered this type. She didn’t keep her distance because he was from the East, nor did she wrap herself in the kind of fake friendliness Julius displayed. She was simply a person who said she was curious when she was curious.
Even Seol-ah, standing a little distance away, watched Seria as if observing a strange creature. To her, who was accustomed to wary glances, this unreserved approach was almost disconcerting.
“I am Kang Yeomyeong. I came from the East.”
“I know! You’ve been famous since the entrance ceremony. So about the principle behind that movement—”
“I’m afraid that’s a trade secret.”
When Yeomyeong placed a finger to his lips and smiled mischievously, Seria’s face crumpled as if the world had ended. It was exactly then that—
From the dark passageway at the training ground entrance, where layers of student shadows overlapped, someone silently turned and left. The final unrecovered gaze lingered for a brief moment on the inside of Yeomyeong’s sleeve—precisely where the fragment of the restraining device was hidden—before disappearing. No one inside the training ground had noticed it yet.