A Winter Flower Blooms in Midsummer
Seong Hanbyeol was in a poor mood today, of all days.
'Nobody expects anything of us.'
A joint class between the second-years and the first-years. Joint was a polite way of putting it; as a rule, this was a fight the second-years won.
There were children in this world raised from infancy on curricula even more brutal than the academy's. But when it came to rewards, few places anywhere could outgive the Korea Hero Academy. There was the Tower of Ordeals, and the prizes it bestowed — and there was the vice-principal, said to carry in his veins the blood of the man called the Emperor and of a dwarf besides. The masterworks that left his hands commanded a minimum of several hundred thousand dollars apiece on the open market. Insane prices, for insane craftsmanship.
That was why stars from all over the world had gathered here. And of them all, the second-years were the class that had drawn the least expectation. The generation directly above them — the current third-years — had earned the name Golden Generation by toppling half of the then-second-years back when they were freshmen. The second-years, in their own first-year joint classes, had fallen across the board. Every last one of them, save a single exception.
Seong Hanbyeol hated the way her seniors dismissed her. And she hated watching her whole class written off along with her. So she grew strong — fortunately, talent was on her side. Strong enough to cut down most of the third-years and take the student council presidency.
The admiration of the second-years. The jealous vigilance of the third-years. Every time it landed on her, something inside her felt as though it were warping out of shape, and every time, she swallowed it down. She had a duty to lead the second-years.
'What is with that guy, seriously.'
The person she was most hostile toward — and the student every professor and instructor cherished most. And so, uncharacteristically, she had performed the part of a flower that must bloom in lofty solitude, the way such a flower was expected to.
'Seriously, what is he…' Which was exactly why that gaze of his weighed on her so.
Lee Seoha. Ranked first among the first-years — or so it was said. Every single rumor about the man was unsettling in its own right. The moment he enrolled, word rippled through the guilds and the Association that a monster had appeared, one who had rewritten every record in the academy's history. Here in Korea, an underground tug-of-war over him had already begun; China, it was said, was pacing in anxiety, Japan was treading carefully, and America was openly courting him.
'Seriously, what is he…' And a student like that was looking at her with eyes that were anything but ordinary. It was the gaze of a man in love. Or perhaps the love of a father pouring boundless affection over a daughter — a gaze hot enough to leave anyone caught in it flushing. Today, for the first time in her life, Seong Hanbyeol learned that a person could confess with their eyes alone.
'D-did he fall for me at first sight?'
Objectively speaking, she knew her looks were exceptional. But she had never once seen eyes like those. Admiration she had seen. Lust she had seen. Never this. If she'd had a father, she thought, he would surely have looked at her exactly like that.
And the gaze did not stop. Not even after she had ascended to the sparring grounds for their duel.
'Seriously, what is he.' Seong Hanbyeol did not want to fight. By her own honest reckoning she was no model student, but she drew a firm line at crossing blades with someone wearing eyes like those. The title of second-year representative had dragged her into it anyway. She still did not want to fight.
"Now then, we will begin the mat—"
"I don't think that's a good idea."
What is he saying? Honestly, she hadn't wanted to fight in the first place.
Seong Hanbyeol had been groping for an excuse of her own when she felt it — a surge of mana swelling from the shoreline, primitive and savage in nature. The very wellspring from which monsters commonly drew their strength.
'Thank goodness.' The thought rose in her before she could stop it — and the next instant, she flinched at her own reaction.
'Why am I relieved…?'
She hadn't wanted to fight. But that didn't mean she couldn't. Not that Seong Hanbyeol knew it, but she was terribly weak against anyone who pushed her head-on.
Shaaaaaa. The sound of waves rolled in. Heard on any ordinary day, it might have soothed the heart. But riding on that sound, a colossal mass of mana began to swell.
It was the authority of the merfolk, the people of the sea: waves stacked layer upon layer, then loosed all at once to birth a single monstrous one. A wave taller than most any building. A technique called Myeolhae — the Sea-Annihilator. Saturated with mana, it was dense beyond any natural swell, its pressure rivaling heavy siege equipment; an ordinary person would be crushed to death by a glancing touch.
"…Insane. What the hell even is that!"
A student stared at Myeolhae, cold sweat running down his temple. It was tall. And an immense mana sat coiled inside it.
Mystery. The word named the very laws that wove this world together. The System belonged to Mystery — and the merfolk, through a racial authority all their own, could lay hands on that same power. Humanity alone had never been granted it.
A towering wave, layered high with all of it. The moment I laid eyes on it, I hurled myself forward.
'That wave is a little dangerous.' The difficulty, maybe. There could be a monster here that had reached the Upper tier. Or a whole crowd of Mid-tiers, for that matter.
Upper-tier, huh. It occurred to me that I wasn't the least bit tense — strange, for opponents who were anything but easy. I laughed wryly to myself. Upper-tier monsters were always a headache.
"I'll take that wave."
"If you'll allow it."
Student Council President Seong Hanbyeol nodded without a moment's hesitation. As it happened, the timing could not have been better.
I could stop Myeolhae myself. The only problem was the obscene amount of Yeokcheon ki it would burn through.
I fixed the Sacred Dawn Eye on Myeolhae. One look — and in that single act, the eye that beheld the brightening dawn found exactly what I wanted. 'There it is.'
"Yeongcheon."
"Yes, sir! Ready when you are, Master Seoha!"
Yeongcheon answered with plenty of snap, weaving a spell-formula in the same breath, and I poured Yeokcheon ki into it. I felt the ki compress, slow and deliberate. By Yeongcheon's and Heukcheon's telling, this was a technique that belonged to me and me alone. 'All it really amounts to is compression, though.' Possible only thanks to the conceptual stats I possessed. A small bead floated up above my palm.
Whoong! I charged the orb with my will and flung it at Myeolhae. The instant it struck home, the whole wave roiled. Hundreds of beings had pooled their power to raise that wall of water — and precisely because of that, its seams refused to hold tight. All I had done was prick a pinhole into a great dam.
'And of course, from here it would be more than enough.' Given what Seong Hanbyeol was capable of, that is. I stole a glance her way; her eyes flicked back a silent word of thanks. I did my best to keep the corners of my mouth from climbing on their own.
I stamped a foothold into the empty air and leapt again. I was gathering Yeokcheon ki, a heartbeat from readying the Chaotic Slaughter Art, when—
Pyoong! Something pierced the air with a razor shriek. I threw my body aside in the same instant. Instincts tempered by the Sword Demon screamed that this strike meant death. The moment I lifted my head, I felt a few strands of hair shear away, clipped clean by whatever had been launched at me.
…The Sacred Dawn Eye. The eye that beheld the brightening dawn locked onto the enemy. Blue skin, fish scales glinting across it. Shaped like a man, but in scale like nothing human — a masculine frame a good three meters tall, tail and all. A creature hefting an ink-black spear.
It was grinning savagely at me. Undisguised hostility in its eyes — and, just as plainly, the look of a hunter sizing up its prey.
'…Prey, is it.' Absurd. A snort escaped me before I could help it. And in that moment I realized I was more worked up than I'd thought. This was an Upper-tier, after all. And it hadn't even come alone — it had brought its minions with it.
'Worth a try?' I ran the numbers on my full strength, and on the enemy's abilities. Then I asked myself the question, and answered it. Worth a try.
I conjured another platform underfoot. That was the second time I'd used it today — which meant I had one left, then.
A leap. In the same motion, my hand settled on the hilt of Baekhong. Heukcheon wasn't with me. In her place, the Winter Sword lay asleep in its depths. I glanced down: dozens of merfolk glaring up at me, hostility bristling from every last one of them.
'A crowd this size should do nicely for an experiment.' For the new technique, I meant.
I couldn't properly wield the Winter Sword. That was the single flaw of the Black God Art as I carried it, with its Yeokcheon ki. Because I bore Yeokcheon ki, I could never make full use of tools. Divine power could not mend me. I drank potions and elixirs, yes — but their effects never truly bloomed. Perhaps the Black God Art itself had been born the same way. Perhaps the Heavenly Demon, judging that Yeokcheon ki alone could not solve everything, had chosen to invest her time in the body instead.
Drawing a split second of explosive power through Baekhong was a sound idea on its own, and substituting the Black God Art's body in its place was hardly a bad call either. 'Even if the damage output did fall short of what I'd hoped.' It still came with one advantage: it let me absorb the opponent's opening move and start fighting from there.
Shring. A metallic note rang out. The Winter Sword slid free of Baekhong, trailing blue light. Creak. I put strength into my arm. What I was about to do was, at its core, the simplest thing in the world — drawing the sword. I was merely folding a little ingenuity into the motion, contemplating my body through the Black God Art and reaching into its currents.
My blood began to run faster. My skeleton hardened; my muscles swelled. Yeokcheon ki started flooding into my right arm.
'It's fine.' This was a form of self-harm. No — viewed a certain way, it might be worse than that. One misstep, and my body could be ruined for good.
'It's fine.' But a body forged by the Black God Art does not break from this much. It is flesh that surpasses its own limits the very moment it presses against them.
Creeeak. My head swam faintly. My muscles ached from the strain, threaded with the grinding ache of bones twisting out of true. And yet — the Black God Art's body took all of it in. The dizziness faded by degrees; the muscle condensed further; the bone-pain subsided, and the blood ran smoother than ever. And at the very fiercest point my flesh could endure—
I drew the sword.
A blue flash swallowed my vision. Behind it, winter mana rode the length of the blade, freezing everything along its trajectory.
Crackle—crack—crack—crack! As luck would have it, we stood beside the sea, and the winter mana caught the water mana's current and ran wild with it. Everything before me drowned in blue radiance. And everything began to freeze solid.
In the very heart of summer, a winter flower bloomed.