The Unfulfilled Yi Rumi
Prodigy. Genius. All-rounder. Those were the epithets that had followed Yi Rumi since she was a child.
Innate Multi-Ability
The power Yi Rumi had been born with did not merely make her a dual-ability user. It made her a multi-ability esper. Like a meteor shower pouring out of the heavens, she could take countless other people's abilities for her own with nothing more than a sidelong glance. Just as the name Shooting Star suggested, a whole constellation of powers trailed in her wake.
The world's verdict was unanimous.
"She lacks for nothing."
Her innate gifts, her talent, even the sense of justice she had been born with—in every respect, she had looked perfect. That rare and extraordinary ability, the likes of which almost no one had ever seen, let Yi Rumi walk the elite path even though she had been born into an ordinary family. Even the research institutes of the Central Area had taken an interest. There had been talk that she had every chance of rising as a Hero of the next generation.
But contrary to every one of those expectations, Yi Rumi threw it all away and stormed out of her home. She shed her school uniform, pulled on the kind of short clothes a delinquent would wear, dyed her hair, and painted graffiti across the walls. She drifted through the city, losing herself in a dissolute life and in art, living as if she had no need whatsoever for people's excessive attention. She fled, desperately, from the people who hunted her down—as if she had no other choice.
And so, just as the world's expectations of the prodigy who had once set everything astir began to gutter out, Yi Rumi abruptly sat for The Academy's entrance exam. As if to prove her former stature had been no illusion, she unfurled a host of abilities for all to see. Talk circulated that she had finally mended her ways—but others, seeing that she still clung to her street fashion, said she was only taking the challenge for a laugh.
And the truth of it was known to Yi Rumi alone.
"I can do it too…"
Meeting Siu and Sia had given Yi Rumi a great deal of courage. The two of them shone like glittering stars. She thought they might even become the aces of this class, every bit a match for Soyul of the Jin family. She had even taken down the Queen—a feat Jin Soyul herself had turned down. It was an achievement she found impressive even by her own standards. Treating her encounter with Siu and Sia as a blessing, Yi Rumi poured everything she had into it.
But then.
"Siu, Sia—what abilities do you two have? Judging by how fast and strong you are, acceleration? Super strength? Me, as you can see, I'm a multi-ability user."
Before they moved on the Queen, Yi Rumi had hoped they would lay their abilities on the table, understand one another, and be able to help. That was how you fought as a team.
"We're non-ability users, though?"
"…What?"
For a moment, Yi Rumi could not find her next words. The answer that came back was shock itself.
"To be precise, we just haven't awakened our abilities yet."
They had the aptitude for an ability, and they knew how to handle mana. They simply had not had a catalyst yet, and so they had not obtained one. Unlike her, they were existences that shone even as uncut stones. With nothing more than mana manipulation—something any ability user could do—they had been showing her power that rivaled her own.
That's a lie.
She could not believe it. And yet she wanted to. But the look in their eyes was nothing like the look of people telling a lie. If anything, a quiet pride lived in those eyes. Once she understood that, Yi Rumi felt something inside her crack.
Even after the 2nd Exam began, and everyone started heading for the abandoned building, Yi Rumi could not bring herself to ask Siu and Sia to come with her.
What Yi Rumi found, after failing to make that offer to Siu and Sia, was Jin Soyul. Finding her was almost too easy. Jin Soyul was sitting atop three concrete pipes stacked in a triangle in an empty lot, making no attempt to hide, openly announcing her presence as she waited for the villains to come.
The lofty star of the Jin family. Born to a prestigious house, possessed of the right and the power to climb as high as she wished, and of innate talent besides. Yi Rumi envied her—a girl who could grow as much as she worked for it.
Compared to her, I…
The wandering of the past several years had never been true wandering. The reason a girl raised as a prodigy had gone into seclusion for years and drifted through the streets was simply that she had not wanted her limits exposed. She had not wanted to admit it. So on the surface, Yi Rumi had acted free-spirited—as if the idea that a genius had no need to try were some kind of decent excuse.
As if something had taken hold of her, Yi Rumi looked up at a building rooftop.
"I can do it too."
She started climbing the stairs.
"I can. I can do this."
When is this mask going to come off?
Yi Rumi had always been afraid—afraid of the moment her limits would be laid bare, and every last scrap of people's expectations and attention would vanish. That was why she had run. Coming back to The Academy now, in the end, had been because she wanted to prove herself.
I can get stronger. I can do it too. I haven't hit my limit yet.
She drove herself on, working and working again. But reality refused to flow the way she wanted it to.
Night of Falling Stars. A special ability that could seize countless talents in its grip. A power dazzling by name alone. But all of it was also an ability that slipped through her fingers like grains of sand. No matter how tightly she clenched, all that remained in her palm was a mere handful. Only that much. Nothing more had ever been permitted to Yi Rumi.
There was a ceiling on her growth, and that ceiling sat absurdly lower than her hopes. No matter what ability she acquired, she could not raise it past a certain level. The fact that she could not look any higher drove her mad.
Yi Rumi had gone looking for a chance to change herself. She had entered The Academy's exam hoping that if she collided with her limits and overcame them, she might take one more step.
Is this courage? Or just reckless bravado?
With all of that as her fuel, Yi Rumi stood alone on the rooftop the way Jin Soyul had, unashamed. This time, she resolved, she would not run.
The moment she had been waiting for finally came for her. The monster that had brought down the Watcher came screaming toward Yi Rumi on the rooftop at a furious speed. She did not run. Endlessly repeating that she could do it, she met the monster head-on instead, without shame.
But then—
"What's a weakling like you doing here all alone?"
"Ah?"
The match was over in an instant. By the time she came back to herself, the monster had already wrecked her.
"Sh-she's just a total scrub, though?"
Yeah.
Unfortunately, every last one of my predictions had been wrong. Yi Rumi, who knew her own place and still thrashed around putting on a brave front anyway. I had run into the most common version of her.
Limited-period Lu Bu Yi Rumi. That was what the community called her. She was only strong through the first year, see. She grew up hearing herself called a prodigy and soaking in every kind of praise, and after that she went through the kind of ordinary growth that fell short of all those expectations, became a failed genius, and warped under the scorn that came with being a fallen one. Even in the game community she was treated as a second-string, maybe third-string extra.
"Why is it only me…! I just… I just wanted an ordinary ability. The kind where if you work hard like everyone else… it actually…"
She was the kind of character who died miserably saying things like that. The problem was that she caused every kind of collateral damage along the way. Not only did she drag major characters along with her to the afterlife, she also left the protagonist's party with serious mental trauma.
"Tiss… what are you planning to do?"
That's what I'm trying to figure out.
That kind of influence hadn't reached her yet, but the situation was still messy. Her ceiling showed before she even graduated The Academy, and on top of that she had a glass mental state. She could become a heroine. She could become a party member. But to players, she was a ticking time bomb. In most cases you used her as a discarded pawn, or else—
You take her out.
"A-are you really going to kill her?"
If you left her alone, she fell, turned villain, went berserk, and caused incidents. That was the cleanest way. Even in the game, a lot of people actually let an incident happen and then eliminated her. They called Yi Rumi a bomb, and they even passed around early-game bomb-disposal tips. Because taking her as a party member and properly caring for her the orthodox way until you broke through her ability's ceiling was genuinely, truly difficult. Raising the player character was hard enough without having to provide mental care on the side like she was a patient. The devs must have known, too—there was even an achievement for clearing the game on Yi Rumi's route.
There's also the option of just failing her here and now.
Then even if she ended up like any other villain, at least it wouldn't go off inside The Academy.
Crack!
"GAAAAAH!!!"
"That's vicious."
"Whoa… i-it's that bad?"
That's how desperate she is.
Even after I ripped the joint out of her right arm, Yi Rumi would not give up, and she would not go down on her knees.
"I'm… I'm not… done yet."
Fire, lightning, ice—none of it had any effect at all. Elemental attacks could not break my resistance, and attacks that enhanced her physique could not pierce the Ichor. Anything else unique she tried failed outright on proficiency alone. It was meaningless resistance, nothing more.
The way she kept trying to get up anyway, crying and staggering, tugged at me a little. But this was the moment to move coldly. Honestly speaking, having her heart thoroughly broken here and living out the rest of her life as an ordinary person would probably be the happiest outcome left to her.
"Isn't there some other w-way besides that?"
Usually, no.
"L-like using the methods the villains used, or something."
…Wait.
That… was actually not a bad idea. I had been thinking about this too much from a player's point of view. Time to flip how I looked at it. If you did it the villain's way, it wasn't that there was no method. The methods were practically endless. I just had to take the most efficient, most effective of the original's corruption routes and do it myself.
The worry was that because of the dark emotions sitting inside her, she could be easily swayed by some other real villain's temptation…
Then I just have to get my spit on her first, right?
"Haaahk…! S-spit…!"
Shan, it's not like that.
Stop thinking dirty thoughts!