Discipline 18. The Disciplinary Committee Leader Thwarts the School Villain's Plan (4)
I thought back to the refreshingly decisive heroes of countless popular media.
The kind who wore resolve like armor at the critical moment, and breezed through whatever adversity life threw at them.
Those were the heroes I'd drawn on heavily when I first put on the mask of the Disciplinary Committee Leader.
Needless to say, the reality of me was different.
I was a coward.
Crushed daily under the weight that came with my position, restless and anxious, whipping myself forward however I could in a desperate effort to make my wishes come true.
Not that I considered that a bad thing.
If anything, precisely because I was such a hypocritical coward, I believed that the fruits of all the effort I'd honed and sharpened would eventually carry me to a happy ending.
So I gave it my all.
Even when the thought that I might already be too late pried its way into my head and tried to stir up self-loathing, right now all I could do was what was within my power.
I ran to my junior, whose flank had been raked by the claw.
Dropping to one knee, I examined her.
"Leader... sir..."
"Don't talk."
The junior looked up at me, her face drained of color, breathing with painful effort. Between her parted lips came the faint hiss of escaping air. Her listless, half-lidded eyes looked as though they could close at any moment and never reopen.
The wound is deep.
Beneath her torn uniform, blood was pouring from the flank she was pressing down on, gushing like an open faucet.
I immediately pulled out my radio. My smartphone might have been dead, but the radio still worked fine.
"Send a medical drone to my position, now! Hurry!"
Then I clamped down on the junior's flank in her place. It was to stem the loss of blood, though it had no dramatic effect.
Still, I couldn't give up.
I had to hold the bleeding off as best I could until the medical drone arrived.
That was what I could do.
My breathing grew ragged.
Calm down. Manage your expression.
I spurred myself on and forced my emotions under control.
The Disciplinary Committee Leader couldn't be seen faltering, after all.
"Khh...!"
The junior coughed up the blood pooled in her mouth, then let out a weak, hollow laugh—as if something about it struck her as funny.
"Ahaha... Leader... it hurts..."
"I said don't talk."
"I'm... fine. You don't have to help me anymore, so... please, go help the others first..."
The others.
At those words, cold sweat broke out and trickled down my cheek.
She wasn't the only one.
Even at this very moment.
Countless students here were being marked as Han Seo-jin's targets, their lives hanging in the balance.
If I stayed here like this, wouldn't I lose others I could still save?
Had I made the optimal choice?
Was I acting rationally?
More than that—
Why... didn't I foresee a crisis like this sooner?
Would things have gone better if I'd prepared more conservatively from the start?
Would the situation have changed if I'd been just a little wiser?
...No.
This was no time for self-recrimination, no time for regret over the past, no time for agonizing.
This was the time to resolve the situation.
"Just hold on a little longer. A drone will be here soon to patch you up. Just a little, a little..."
The medical drone should have arrived instantly. It was taking too long.
It had to be off helping other students.
One second passed.
Another second passed.
"......"
The junior seemed to have no strength left to speak. Her eyes were slowly drifting shut.
"Don't close your eyes!!"
The shout tore out of me before I knew it.
But the silence that followed drove home, achingly, how powerless words were.
The face-saving dignity of the Disciplinary Committee Leader meant nothing to me now.
Watching a member I was responsible for slip away before my eyes, my mind was pushed to the edge of a cliff, one step from falling.
Was this, too, because of my sense of duty?
"Leader..."
Wearing a smile, the junior wrung out what voice she had left.
"Thank you... for everything..."
"Shut your mouth."
"......"
"......?"
As I stared at her flank, keeping the pressure on, the strength quietly drained from her hands.
My gaze snapped back up to her face. She hadn't quite finished closing her lifeless eyes; she was simply staring at the sky.
My breath caught. In an instant my heart went arid and dry, and something in my chest sank, hollow and distant, spilling down toward the ground.
What came back into view were my own two hands—smeared with blood like a fool's clumsy paint job, still pressed against her flank to stop the bleeding.
My brain screamed at me to hurry and go save the other students. But I couldn't bring myself to let go.
Clutching at a straw of hope that she might still be savable, I kept compressing her wound. The medical drone would arrive soon, and then all that would be needed was emergency treatment.
Even if her heart had stopped, I could perform CPR using my lightning mana.
I reasoned it out like that, and yet—
"......"
I couldn't shake the feeling that it was already too late.
The reality of it pressed against my skin.
This can't go on.
I was the Disciplinary Committee Leader.
I was supposed to pursue maximum efficiency in carrying out the Committee's duties.
This kind of indecision was an attitude to be shunned.
It felt as if every drop of blood in my body had frozen over.
Even so, I slowly began to ease the pressure from my hands, to let her go.
That was when—
"It's okay."
A soft, pliant hand settled over the back of mine and pressed it firmly back against the junior's flank.
Another hand came to rest on my chest, as if to say: leave this to me.
Beside me stood a girl with flowing black hair.
I looked up at her.
A first-year, watching my junior with eyes red as rubies, a sly fox's smile spread across her face.
"Lee Se-ah...?"
Red mana bloomed from her hands like flowers bursting into full blossom, taking the shape of a small analog clock model. A figure she had sculpted from mana.
Fwoooosh!
Petal-like wisps of mana whirled around it, and Se-ah's power wound itself around my junior's wounded flank.
And then, a miracle occurred.
As if a video were playing in reverse, the red blood that had spilled across the ground rose back up and flowed into the junior's wound.
Flesh knit together, skin regenerated, and at last the injury was restored to a perfectly normal state.
Faaah.
Only then did Se-ah's mana scatter.
"Huh?"
Life returned to the junior's eyes. She looked around in bewilderment, clearly having no idea what had happened.
I was every bit as dazed.
"Ta-da! Problem solved, just like that!"
Somehow the strength drained out of me, and I nearly staggered.
"Ahaha. Well, 'just like that' might be overselling it. It's my unique ability, you see."
"What on earth is...?"
Slack-jawed, I stared into Se-ah's crimson eyes.
"That's a bit of a private matter, you see. I'm afraid I can't tell a stalker senior what my ability actually does!"
It felt entirely different in nature from recovery magic.
What had that been?
Time reversal?
Causality inversion?
Could it really be some impossible power like that?
Or substitution?
Come to think of it, I hadn't even known Se-ah had a unique ability until this very moment.
Se-ah placed a hand on my shoulder, keeping her usual sly squint, and grinned impishly.
"Your problem, senior, is that you try to shoulder things you can't possibly carry alone~. Do that, and you'll burn out in no time, you know?"
"......"
I didn't have the energy to argue with her playful scolding. Before long, she let her ruby-red eyes gleam bright once more.
"...Your Disciplinary Committee is holding up quite well, actually. Some of my classmates from the evaluations were Committee members, and they all seemed to be fighting bravely. Sense of duty, maybe? Oh, and I'm sure it helps that you personally slew a whole horde of those creepy skeletons, senior?"
Se-ah flashed a sheepish grin.
She'd clearly noticed my state and was trying to reassure me.
"Welp, our Volunteer Club is doing its part too, you know?"
She spread both arms wide to either side of her face, playing the clown.
"Helping those in need is our motto, after all!"
I could practically picture it—the Volunteer Club crew cackling their wicked 'kekeke' and 'kikik' while they helped students.
"...Right."
Whatever the case, there was no time to waste.
I looked down at the junior, confirmed she was fully conscious and unharmed, and rose to my feet.
"Thank you, Se-ah."
For now, a single word would have to do.
I'd thank her properly later.
"Don't mention it~. Shall we get moving? It looked like you have someone else to deal with, senior."
"I'll leave this to you."
"Yessir."
Carrying a small measure of relief, I slapped palms with Se-ah in a light high-five and left the spot.
I reinforced my body to its absolute limit and sprinted full tilt toward the center of the barrier—toward where Han Seo-jin was.
I would have preferred support from the Committee members, but with Seo-jin's minions swarming everywhere, that was easier said than done.
Seo-jin was mine to face, and no one else's.
Before long—
When I reached a broad stretch of open ground, dotted with ornate structures—
Crash!!
"...!"
A current of water, shimmering with an eerie radiance, came crashing down before me sharp as a blade.
Instinct had already flagged the threatening mana, so I kicked off the ground and vaulted backward, narrowly evading the attack.
The current fell, hissed, and sank into the earth.
And there, dead ahead—
Someone stood before the structure at the very center of the clearing, staring straight at me.
A skull mask.
A black robe.
A magic staff.
The exact appearance I knew from the game.
"Han Seo-jin."
The breathing of one of the Six Sinners, the Necromancer, reached my ears.
"Leader."
A machine-like drone of a voice—neither male nor female.
A voice modulator.
"So you knew all along... that I didn't come to this academy with pure intentions."
...I didn't, actually?
I only found out just now.
I had no idea what misunderstanding she was laboring under, but that hardly mattered at the moment.
"Stop this. Right now."
I suppressed and refined the emotions boiling up inside me to keep from losing my composure, but traces of them still bled into my voice.
"I'm sorry, but I can't do that. There is something I must accomplish."
She lowered the front brim of her cap to hide the veins bulging at her forehead.
This was the junior I had poured genuine care into—the rising star of the Disciplinary Committee, someone I'd treasured.
Which was exactly why my anger burned hotter.
"You damned bastard..."
I spat the curse in a flat, level tone.
Why Seo-jin had enrolled at Ahseong High, why she'd joined the Disciplinary Committee, why she was doing this here—I could interrogate every last detail of it later.
Right now, all that mattered was putting down this situation.
Could I actually take down Han Seo-jin with my own strength?
I didn't know.
But whether it was possible or not didn't matter right now.
I had to settle things with Seo-jin as quickly as possible.
And I wanted to.
"Apprehending the suspect on-site. Lawbreakers will be punished to the fullest extent."
Reciting the official line the Disciplinary Committee spoke under school regulations, I gathered my mana and poured lightning into Iron Dragon Flail at maximum output.
In answer, Seo-jin channeled mana through her staff as well. The mana stone set in it began to glow violet—the exact same shade as her eyes.
"A filthy criminal like you, most of all."
Every muscle in my body drew taut.
I gripped the Iron Dragon Flail tight.
A slight bend of the knees.
A lean of the torso forward.
PAHT!
I charged at Seo-jin at full speed.