Chapter 42

A blue window flashed up the moment I connected. I mulled it over briefly, then simply entered the ID I used for the alchemy guild.

Veritas.

Latin for truth.

For the password, I typed in the one I used everywhere else. With that settled, a whole menu of customization options unfolded before me. Buying a ready-made appearance from another player usually ran about 500,000 won, an absurd price, though considering what the rig itself cost, everyone seemed able to burn that kind of money without a second thought.

When I opened the appearance shop, all sorts of options came up. A few were of the loud, look-at-me variety, but most boasted perfectly solid quality. I settled on a reasonably handsome male avatar, one considerably uglier than my real face, and topped it off with a Faceless Mask.

Not bad.

Avatar chosen, I headed for the street. It was packed with people, though the catch was that every last one of them was impossibly good-looking, and you couldn't tell a single person's gender.

"Fresh C-rank mana stones for sale!"

"Mammoth ivory stone at a ten percent reality ratio, for sale!"

"Anyone looking to buy a giant's claw at fifteen percent reality ratio?"

Street vendors were scattered among them. The reason this place had grown so lively in the first place was simple: the Electronic Witch had built it as a space identical to reality.

"Um, excuse me, what's a reality ratio?"

"Ah, a newbie? It's exactly what it sounds like. The reality ratio is the proportion extracted from a material that exists in the real world. Say you brew a potion through alchemy using a similar ratio; you can expect a comparable potion to come out in reality as well."

A vendor offering pointers to a passing newbie. I watched the exchange for a moment, then found myself thinking about my bank balance.

The figure sitting in my account surfaced at the edge of my vision. Between the royalties that had ballooned once I started releasing my recipes in volume and the contract advance I'd accepted in exchange for letting a single company hold exclusive rights, money had quite literally ceased to be a worry.

I made a full circuit of the market, checking whether anything useful turned up. Most of it, however, was either outrageously overpriced for its value or outright useless. One lap in, having found nothing worth buying, I was on my way out when my footsteps stopped.

There was an avatar with the appearance of a green-haired boy.

That one.

The very person who had given me my reason to sink my teeth into alchemy in the first place.

WantToEscapeTheLab.

NonLab, for short.

I walked toward NonLab's stall.

"Welcome!"

Just as the sign promised, NonLab greeted me with a bright smile. The voice, however, was feminine. She had picked out the boyish appearance she loved, but with no money to spare, she hadn't been able to modulate her voice to match.

I looked over the potions and elixirs arrayed on her stall counter.

Outstanding ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠effects. As for elixirs, there were none in sight; judging by that, a professor had confiscated them.

"These effects are pretty good."

"Yes! The price is good too. 30,000 won a bottle."

"...That really is a good deal."

At that price, she was barely scraping back the cost of her ingredients.

"Then I'll take this one and that one."

"Coming right up, thank you!"

NonLab bundled the two potions together and wrapped them up for me, and I slipped them into my inventory. It had cost a fair amount, but this was a potion that demanded a tedious process to brew. Count it as buying back my time, and the trade wasn't bad at all.

I selected the option to carry the potions into reality, and my thoughts drifted to NonLab herself.

She ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠was someone I genuinely respected. Always smiling brightly, always dealing out hope to the people around her. Even at rock bottom, she chose to look on the bright side. She truly deserved admiration, but she had one fatal flaw.

Shotacon tendencies, that was it.

Sure, she was a pervert hopelessly lost in 2D. She insisted otherwise, but one look at the characters and boys she fawned over made it abundantly clear that she wasn't.

I fought down the urge to regard her with nothing but contempt.

Joint practical training. Our class filed outside and gathered in the grand hall, students clustered together in chattering groups. Inside the hall stood one peculiar structure, apparently the equipment we'd be using this session.

A monster hunt, then.

It looked to be an exam where teams formed up inside a massive shooting-range enclosure and hunted monsters. I sat back at my ease and looked around.

"Not nervous at all, are you?"

"I'm taking it easy."

Hong Yuhwa regarded me with haughty eyes.

"This time, I absolutely will not lose."

Yuhwa declared it while holding my gaze. Beside her, Kim Ara, giant's blade in hand, stared at me with dark, brooding eyes.

"..."

Betrayal steeped those eyes, and her expression carried the solemn resolve to make me regret this. I didn't know whether to laugh.

All I did was pick a teammate.

That was right. I had chosen Seo Gayeon as my teammate. With Kim Ara, I knew she would shoot up on her own now that the Giant's bloodline and her Primordial Force had bloomed, but ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Gayeon needed me ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠at her side, looking after this and that.

And the mana Gayeon possessed was a downright cheat, realizing magic from sheer imagination alone. There was a reason she had only barely scraped past students hovering around 700th place at the last midterm. Which meant that as Gayeon kept growing like this, her gains would effectively copy straight onto my record. For someone who had to defend the top seat next semester as well, choosing her wasn't even a choice.

"Oh, Seoha!"

Seo Gayeon came to my side, her voice warm with relief. At that, every gaze in the vicinity swung toward her. Hong Yuhwa and Kim Ara were glaring daggers. The fragile-looking Gayeon flinched, but sat down beside me all the same, as if to announce that the team was her and me, and no one else.

Gayeon and Ara locked into a staring contest. With the mood overheating, Hong Yuhwa rolled her eyes for a moment, and then our gazes met.

What is wrong with those two?

No clue.

That was more or less how Yuhwa and I traded looks. She rolled her eyes briefly, then kept her aloof expression firmly in place while a cold sweat ran down her back.

"Attention, everyone!"

Fortunately, Instructor Seo Wooju arrived before the atmosphere could turn any stranger.

"Everyone, gather over here."

Having lined the students up, Instructor Seo Wooju addressed us from the front.

"Today's session is about getting in sync with the teammates you were grouped with earlier. You will be evaluated on 'how' you hunt the monsters that emerge from the Tower of Ordeals."

A monster-hunting assessment adapted from the Tower of Ordeals. It boasted absolute safety, and because it paid out rewards according to how quickly, and how skillfully, you cleared the tower, it had settled into place as one of Korea Hero Academy's signature traditions. The only school that could rival it was the one up in Heaven.

Four teams entered per practical session, and the AI Alpha had handpicked each team's monster according to the members' combat power and rankings. Above Instructor Seo Wooju's head, the rosters and their opponents were written out in the air.

"The teams listed above will hunt their monsters. Every hunt will be recorded by drone, and the professors will analyze the footage and assign comprehensive scores. Ten minutes from now, you will hold your team meetings, then enter."

A glance around showed that nobody's expression was good. The AI had chosen, for each team, the monster its members would find most troublesome.

Kim Seohyun's team has it easiest, probably.

That came down to Seohyun's particular quirks.

I turned my mind to the Mistwing Bird. It was, quite literally, a creature whose body was made of mist, which made it nearly immune to physical attacks.

"I-I'll do my best!"

"...Don't worry. You won't be fighting it alone."

Gayeon had probably only ever seen me fighting with my body, so she seemed to have concluded that dealing with the thing fell entirely to her.

"Oh, right. Your specialty was something else to begin with, wasn't it, Seoha?"

As if it had only just dawned on her, Gayeon looked up at me, her small mouth parting.

My specialty had been my body from the very start, though...

Unwilling to correct her and shatter the illusion, I quietly walked forward.

"So how are we going to fight it? How far have you gotten with your magic?"

"Up to intermediate spells. Attribute transformation is still too hard, so I haven't learned it."

Starlight Mana carried a nature that rejected every other attribute.

"What about non-elemental magic, then?"

"So far, nothing outside of Spear of Judgment..."

"That'll do."

That was more than enough to land a real blow on a Mistwing Bird.

It would be simplest for me to step in myself.

But that was exactly why Gayeon's skills never grew.

"Have you learned any binding magic?"

"No, not yet."

So it was attack magic or nothing. Gayeon and I spent the remaining time hashing out this and that.

"The four teams listed above, head inside!"

We walked in through the wall.