Trading Life (1)
“Hah, hah…….”
I had done nothing but sweep the sword down, and yet my arms and legs were trembling. It felt like I'd burned through every last ounce of stamina in my body.
“Ugh…….”
And my arm hurt like hell. My fingers were visibly shaking, shaking so badly I couldn't control them.
The sword I'd been holding clattered to the ground, and my legs buckled and folded beneath me.
❝Sh-shit…….❞
Still, I had to see what had actually happened. Bracing myself against the ground with a trembling arm, I managed to lift my head.
There was the monster, standing there perfectly fine—though its mind didn't seem quite as fine—and behind it, the ground looked somehow… more radiant than before.
……If I hadn't adjusted my aim at the last second, I would have actually caught a Phantasm.
Every tree in a straight line ahead seemed to have vanished. I really hoped that was just my imagination. Though I doubted it.
I tightened my core and hauled my upper body up with great difficulty.
My head was swimming a little, but that much I was used to. It happened from time to time back in my hospital days.
“On purpose.”
The words came out somewhere between speech and cough.
“I let you hit me on purpose.”
It had cost me, but some things still had to be said.
I gripped Baek-ah where I'd dropped it. The sword was already heavy as a millstone, but now it felt too heavy to even lift.
“So…… please count it as a defeat on my part.”
I still had to keep moving. Without the strength to carry anything properly, I half-tossed my hands out and felt around for the scabbard and Heuk-ah. Both lay diagonally behind me.
A stagger. As I twisted toward them and pushed myself up, my balance gave out. Thank goodness I hadn't been fully upright—if I had, I'd have gone down in truly spectacular fashion.
❝……Counting it as a defeat is easy enough. But what exactly do you plan to do once you get there, looking like that?❞
“Better than not going at all.”
Right, but how the hell am I actually going to walk there.
I stayed slumped on the ground, uselessly clutching the empty scabbard and Heuk-ah. As far as I knew, high-grade Phantasms raised the physical specs of their hosts as well—so why wasn't I enjoying any of those benefits? That was one small grievance among many.
“Good grief. You're one stubborn bastard.”
“……?”
The voice sounded a little different now. I turned toward the monster. Its massive two-and-a-half-meter frame was melting away.
“Huh?”
Inside that black, liquid-form body was a person. Not quite two and a half meters tall, but every bit as huge.
“……Instructor?”
“Yep.”
So that's why the tone of voice felt a little off.
Whether I'd expected it or not, I scratched the back of my head at the reveal.
Honestly, what I'd imagined was the Phantasm tethered to the instructor relaying her words. It had never occurred to me that the instructor herself would be inside the thing.
“I lost. I lost, alright. Who the hell raises a kid like this.”
The instructor, having shed part of the Phantasm she'd been wearing, walked over with brisk, even steps. Her upper body was human, her lower half monster—an absurd sight, but she seemed remarkably at home in it.
“Congratulations. You're the first little bastard to survive.”
“Hrk—”
Her hand settled on top of my head and began ruffling it, pressing down hard with every stroke. This was the first such treatment I'd received since becoming Yahui.
Normally, my height alone—well past 180 cm—kept people from patting my head. With hands this violent, doubly so.
It was a strange feeling.
“I'll take you to the others, so take your time getting up.”
“Th-thank you, ma'am. But, um, are you sure that's okay?”
“How is it not? I have to go pick the kids up anyway. Everyone failed except you.”
“I see…… Wait, WHAT???”
What? Everyone failed??
How much time had even passed for that to happen already???
“You think those kids could've held out without their resident cheat code in the mix?”
“B-but…….”
Seong Gwon was there, though? They all failed even with Seong Gwon there? How did that make sense?
Or was it really my constitution that……?
“Was it—was it because of me?”
“Hm? Ah, no. It wasn't because of you. I live for the fun of screwing with you chicks, but you think I'd spring a surprise attack on you while you couldn't even resist? I sent the Phantasms in at times when they could at least move.”
“I see……”
That was genuinely a relief to hear. Even with the ambush coming at a range where the Phantasms could act, Seong Gwon had still fallen—which was surprising in itself.
“So even our squad leader—Seong Gwon—failed?”
“Seong Gwon, huh. Yeah. She'd have been the lone survivor if the others hadn't been dragging her down. Shame, that.”
……I had no idea what had happened, but somehow I had a feeling I knew.
I took the instructor's outstretched hand and got to my feet. Apparently I'd rested just long enough for some strength to return to my legs. Running was absolutely out of the question, but still.
I sheathed Baek-ah and gathered up Heuk-ah as well. The cloth that had served as the Ssangyonggeom's carrying wrap had been mostly shredded, so strapping them to my back was no longer an option.
I cradled the twin dragon blades in my arms and followed the instructor. She matched her pace to mine, so keeping up wasn't hard.
“There they are. The kids.”
“Oh…… Huh??”
It had taken about ten minutes at a slow shuffle.
The moment I spotted everyone sprawled out like the survivors of a routed army, I panicked.
I'd heard they'd all failed, but I hadn't realized it would truly be everyone. Not just my squad—every cadet in the vicinity was soaked through with fluorescent paint.
“Is everyone okay?”
The easiest people to approach were, naturally, my own squadmates.
I hurried over to the group sitting off to one side. Seeing my squadmates reduced to routed soldiers somehow put strength back into me.
I thought I heard the instructor snort with laughter behind me, but that wasn't what mattered.
“……Hwi.”
“You survived?”
“Yahui! Are you hurt anywhere?”
Kim To-eun greeted me on the verge of tears, while Lee Hoe-uk welcomed me with a perfectly dry face. Even Sa Seo-yeon's awkward smile had an undercurrent of unmistakable relief beneath it.
“It was straight-up hell after you left.”
“It really waaas…… Your absence left a hole way too big.”
“They were supposed to pull back if we stalled long enough, but they stopped retreating, so holding the line got genuinely difficult.”
Was it really that high a difficulty?
As I listened to them, I looked at Seong Gwon. Leaning back against the tiger's flank, she wore the same taciturn expression as always.
If not for the bright fluorescent yellow soaking her upper body, I might have wondered whether she'd actually dodged elimination.
“Welcome back.”
“Mm.”
Now that's the Seong Gwon I know. I was relieved by the familiar sight. If she'd been making a fuss, that would have been far more alarming.
……Then again, I'd have probably felt the same way if Pyo Do-hyeok had come to greet me.
“You chicks getting it together yet?”
By then the instructor had planted herself in front of us. Fourteen pairs of eyes, mine included—no idea where the missing people went—turned toward her.
“A vehicle's coming soon. You'll ride it to the medical office.”
Vrrrm.
“Speak of the tiger and it appears—here they come. Six per vehicle. Load up.”
The same jeeps that had scattered us across the forest began arriving one by one, and the cadets started climbing aboard.
“Can I ask how things went after I dropped out?”
Six matched our squad's full complement exactly. Conveniently, that meant I could ask what I wanted without shouting across a packed vehicle.
“……Haah.”
Lee Hoe-uk heaved a deep sigh before anything else.
“The composition of what came at us was exactly the same as before. Just—there was no retreat midway anymore. So we got steamrolled.”
“Even aside from that, having one person holding the front line made a huge difference. I swung my flail for all I was worth too, but close combat turns out to be no joke.”
“The Bully Pack got dispelled entirely as well. If their accumulated damage passes a certain threshold, the summon breaks.”
The explanations were all over the place, but pieced together, a rough picture emerged.
“Gwon-i's really a shame, though. If she'd ditched us and gone on alone, I think she'd have made it.”
“R-right. She could've lasted to the very end, but the luck just wasn't there……”
Kim To-eun and Sa Seo-yeon raised the most positive topic they could find, trying to air out the sinking mood. In hindsight, they'd have been better off saying nothing.
“Say it straight. It wasn't bad luck—some idiot trolled and got eliminated.”
Lee Hoe-uk, dry as bone until that very moment, quietly wore an enraged face.
And his eyes flicked toward one particular direction. At first I thought he was looking at Pyo Do-hyeok—the angle happened to line up that way.
But his gaze, on closer inspection, wasn't on Pyo Do-hyeok at all. Beyond the jeep we were riding in, another jeep rattled along at a careful distance.
I could see Squad 2 clustered together, led by Pyo Do-seok.
“……I glimpsed them earlier and there were three fewer people. Were they injured and pulled out?”
“No. They ran off on their own to save their own skins.”
I tried to steer the topic elsewhere to cool Lee Hoe-uk's anger. It failed. Realizing the sad truth, I shut my mouth.
“So—what happened with you, Yahui? Your paint's completely clean, so did you actually hold out?”
“Right! I've been dying to ask this whole time!”
At least this topic genuinely brightened the mood. Even Seong Gwon seemed curious; she was staring straight at me.
“It's nothing special……”
I gave a brief account of my fight with the instructor. In truth, it had been carried almost entirely by the Phantasm, which made it a little embarrassing to tell.
“Hwi, you're insane!!”
“So THAT'S why the ground was shaking like an earthquake earlier?”
“What the hell. How come you're on a completely different tier from the rest of us?”
For a moment I worried they might feel put off by it. After all, it was my particularity that had set me apart even now.
But my squadmates—everyone except Pyo Do-hyeok, that is—were genuinely good people.
All those stray thoughts had left my mood in a subtle slump, but it lifted, just a little.
Vrum vrum.
The jeep rolled slowly toward the bulkhead.
Shim Jae-gyeong watched the cadets getting scrubbed down by the creature nicknamed Slime.
The nickname hadn't been given lightly—the Phantasm bore the exact appearance of the gooey monsters that showed up constantly in video games.
Not that its body was actually made of acid.
It could digest whatever it swallowed, but it wasn't a man-eater.
On the contrary, its staple diet was the grime and contaminants stuck to people's skin and equipment, which was why it was always stationed in hygiene-critical places like hospitals. Within the bounds of not aggravating injuries, it could strip away every unclean thing.
For the same reason, it could occasionally be spotted around training grounds, where cadets were perpetually caked in sweat and dust. It was a small welfare benefit for trainees with no time to wash.
“Hm?”
Then a particular cadet caught Shim Jae-gyeong's eye. One whose face was unusually pale.
Pyo Do-hyeok of the 1st Platoon, wasn't it.
Since that platoon gathered only the very best talent, even instructors who weren't its homeroom teachers tended to know most of its members by name.
That was part of why Shim Jae-gyeong had recognized the boy on sight. Even if he hadn't been in the 1st Platoon, bearing the surname Pyo would have made her memorize him half against her will.
“You don't look so good.”
“……!”
Was it because the platoon contained talent that could justly be called a disaster waiting to happen?
Whatever it was, it felt far too murky to write off as simple inferiority or deprivation. It was the instinct of someone who had spent years working as an instructor.
“At ease.”
“Was losing one person really such a shock it knocked the wind out of you?”
Shim Jae-gyeong prodded at Pyo Do-hyeok. She normally didn't fuss over cadets to this degree, but this class was too exceptional to simply let slide.
If it were any other time, these would be the talents meant to become the backbone of the nation. If they collapse because of Yahui—because of that bastard—I've got a problem on my hands.
Forced to choose between seventeen and one, she would pick the latter for her country's sake. But that didn't mean she wanted to write off the remaining seventeen.
Shim Jae-gyeong stared at the cadet slipping away toward a corner that wasn't even a bathroom.
“Hm. Judging by your face, that's not it, apparently.”
What could it be, then? What had turned this boy—whose pride practically radiated off him at a glance—this shade of pale?
“Hm?”
Then something caught Shim Jae-gyeong's eye. The ox-head mask hanging at the cadet's waist.
“Ah. Could it be—you came face to face with Cadet Yahui's presence itself?”
“……!”
“Thought so.”
Once she'd found the answer, it made perfect sense. That was not something a mere cadet could withstand.
“I'm not in the habit of buying things for cadets, but…….”
Shim Jae-gyeong seized Pyo Do-hyeok by the scruff and hauled him down a corridor where he wouldn't run into anyone else. There sat a vending machine.
“Drink.”
“I-I'm fine, really…….”
“Shut up and drink. That's an order.”
She punched out a steaming can of hot chocolate and thumped her own forearm twice in invitation. Pyo Do-hyeok, brow faintly furrowed, took small sips from the can.
“Being afraid of him is normal.”
“……!”
“I'm not calling you a coward. What I mean is, a mere cadet holding steady against something that scared even me in the moment—that's the part that's abnormal.”
That insufferable genius's presence touches only Phantasms. Ordinarily, that is. Ordinary humans aren't supposed to feel that cadet's presence at all.
But what about those who wear Phantasms, or whose very bodies have been remade through a Phantasm's power? Were they truly still human?
Even if they were human in everyday life, the moment their flesh was transformed through a Phantasm—wouldn't it be fair to say they drew closer to the Phantasm itself?
“It was a truly horrifying presence. …Or was it?”
In the instant she had faced that cadet while wearing a Phantasm, only one thought had filled Shim Jae-gyeong's head.
How is that a human? How can that possibly be a human?
That vastness, which drained the color from heaven and earth by its mere existence—how could it be written off as nothing more than a human being?
“If it ever gets truly unbearable, request a unit transfer.”
“……!”
“That wouldn't be running away. Trying to endure that presence is the foolish thing to do.”
Shim Jae-gyeong was an instructor. So she couldn't run. She didn't want to run, either. An instructor getting spooked by a cadet—what kind of disgrace would that be?
But a fellow cadet was different. He had no reason to dig in and endure it like an idiot the way she had.
“……I am not running away.”
“Is that so.”
But if the man himself refused, Shim Jae-gyeong had no grounds to push further.
She shrugged.
“Suit yourself, then.”
The Pyo bloodline really is all stubborn as hell.
It was a remark laced with more awe than admiration, and full of respect and esteem where an insult might have been.