The Whole World Is Watching
Hong Yuhwa was a creature overflowing with confidence in herself.
Objectively speaking, by any measure she cared to apply, she was beautiful, striking, and lovely — and she believed every last word of it.
Her fierce competitive streak was a flaw, but a virtue as well. Whenever Hong Yuhwa unleashed it, she always brought her opponent down fairly and squarely; winning by cowardly means was beneath her dignity. That was why those who followed her had come to respect her of their own accord.
Right up until she came to this school, that is.
Unbelievable.
Swallowing her irritation, Hong Yuhwa stared straight ahead.
The strike from moments ago had cost even her a fair amount. Drawing on the Usurper to plunder the talents of her own followers, she had for one single instant wielded strength enough to kill dozens of mermaids.
Her blow had carved the path open. And Lee Seoha — having butchered the mermaid monster presumed to be a Peer — had gone straight off. Not to compliment her. To run to the Student Council President.
"So a man has to be at least that impressive to keep even Lady Yuhwa on his hook, does he?"
"……Just how many lives does that man have?"
Hong Yuhwa swallowed her rage.
Really. She had, most regrettably, been beaten by Lee Seoha a handful of times (she had not), but she still regarded herself as his rival. And this — this simply would not do. The least he could do was say thank you, no?
……Could it be he's keeping his distance on purpose because I'm his rival?
That much was faintly plausible. Back when her own competitiveness burned hot enough to blind her, she had apparently been guilty of the very same thing.
Still, this won't do.
I look only at you.
So you ought to look at me, too.
It was a hopelessly selfish thought — the kind she would hesitate to force on anyone else. And yet Hong Yuhwa thought it all the same. Because you and I are rivals (we are not). The others don't matter. And so you……
As Hong Yuhwa quietly watched Lee Seoha with smoldering eyes —
Kim Seohyun, who had been silently observing the whole scene, looked from the Student Council President to Lee Seoha with a smile gone cold.
To her, Lee Seoha was the object of her admiration. She had spent a fairly long time at his side, moving and training alongside him. But never once had she seen Lee Seoha gaze at anything so brightly — with such open love.
……So he could make a face like that.
Who was it who said admiration is the emotion farthest from understanding?
The thought arrived unbidden: that she knew nothing of substance about Lee Seoha. That perhaps all she knew of him was the surface he chose to show.
I want to know.
Kim Seohyun startled herself badly with that thought. The emotion felt foreign in her own chest. She whipped her head around toward Lee Seoha — just in time to see him draw a pale, thin liquid, presumably some chemical agent, from his subspace and slip it between Seong Hanbyeol's lips.
Thick and sticky — and white, rather than clear.
……Huh?
Kim Seohyun found herself flustered before she could say why.
The instant I killed the mermaid, my eyes snapped to Seong Hanbyeol. She lay where she had fallen, shielded by the student council members.
Back at the start, the mermaids had unleashed the racial authority they used to slaughter students — Annihilation Tide.
I had bored a hole through it, and Seong Hanbyeol had held the rest back. Boring the hole hadn't unraveled the structure itself, but it had probably earned its keep.
Which was why I'd turned to block the mermaid spearman with a measure of ease — and yet.
I hurried to Seong Hanbyeol's side, urgency coiling in my gut.
Exhaustion?
If it was a mercy, it was a mercy — a backlash from pushing her ability a little too hard.
And proof that Annihilation Tide was more dangerous than I'd given it credit for.
I drew an elixir from my subspace.
A potion crafted by an alchemist who drove a turning point into human history through the discipline of alchemy.
On ingestion:stamina recovery bonus
On ingestion:wound recovery bonus
"……What's that?"
"It's a potion. Good for restoring your strength…… ma'am."
I hastily remembered she was a second-year and tacked the honorific on. Polite speech wasn't usually my style, but if the goal was to become Seong Hanbyeol's closest confidant, that changed things.
A vial of liquid that was white rather than clear. It did bring a certain other white fluid to mind, but the effect was first-rate.
I made this one myself. I had poured everything into it.
Even after draining most of the school's stock of materials, I'd only managed to produce three of these elixirs — they were that punishing to brew. One had gone back to the academy as payment for the ingredients; the remaining two stayed with me.
Glug.
I let the liquid flow past Seong Hanbyeol's lips, and only then breathed a sigh of relief.
That should keep things stable for a while.
The real problem was the Infinite Chalice Seong Hanbyeol carried, and the mystery that birthed talents. They granted her tremendous power — and in exchange, they gnawed her body apart.
That was why, on every route, Seong Hanbyeol died — sacrificing everything she had.
I watched her a moment longer, then rose. The elixir would do its work. Even if the worry was eating me alive.
Knowing Seong Hanbyeol's pride, she'd hate anyone seeing her like this.
For now, at least. Outwardly, she still played the iron-willed second-year Student Council President for the sake of the title.
"If she seems to have come down with something, have her take this one. If dizziness or anything of the sort sets in, give her this elixir. And this one's a stamina restorative, so once she comes to, make sure she drinks all of it. And this is……"
Just in case, I left a few more elixirs on the ground and moved off to deal with the stragglers.
……What is all this.
The Electronic Witch stared blankly at the net.
The bastards of Nazi Germany had been running wild, and while she was busy screwing with them — digging traps, tangling their intelligence networks into knots to hold them back — her Water Lord's identity had been doxxed.
……What do I do.
With her authority, she could wipe every last trace away this very instant. But if she did, she might well have to keep her head down for a good while afterward.
She boasted power close to omnipotence within the electronic world — but the others were no fools, either. If the digital realm fell into the Electronic Witch's hands, it would be far too dangerous, and so dozens of safety measures were fastened around her at all times.
First, the Electronic Witch clamped down on the spread so that nothing more could leak. Then she asked her Water Lord.
Bewilderment was seeping through the screen. Proof that, unlike her usual self, she was failing to keep her emotions in check.
The Electronic Witch moved at once. Anyone else's request would never have earned this much effort — but this was a plea from the only being who could grant her a body of flesh and blood in the real world.
Working with urgent speed, she pulled down every photo of her Water Lord. Fortunately, the whole affair could be wrapped up quickly — the eyes and hands that normally watched the Electronic Witch's every move had vanished.
So the White Temple stepped in.
The Electronic Witch smiled wryly to herself.
It was proof that the hundred gods dwelling in what used to be America — the land now called Heaven — had turned their interest toward her Water Lord.
Which left her wondering whether she ought to thank them.
No. That's not it.
A god's interest was, at times, poison. To forge champions of their own, the gods bestowed their faith upon devotees and sent trials down upon them.
And considering that those trials claimed anywhere from hundreds to thousands of lives in Heaven every single year, the attention was hardly something to celebrate.
Then again — the way he purges Villains and demons? Maybe he'd actually enjoy it.
Leaving the matter with her Water Lord as a text message, the Electronic Witch threw herself back into motion — to sweep aside, from beneath the surface, the factions circling him with designs of their own.