Chapter 33
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: penny
Chapter: 33
Chapter Title: Academy's Summer Vacation (2)
-----------------------------------------------------------------
My bloated belly felt a lot better after a short nap.
The sun had set and it was dark outside, but the streetlights illuminated Global Academy brightly.
I didn't want to move, but I forced myself to anyway.
Checking my Status Window, I could feel the huge gap in combat power between me and Lee Sian.
At first, I'd possessed a body with the same combat power as mine, but Lee Sian had more than doubled his strength after just one quest, and then kept raising it through real combat experience afterward.
After living as that Lee Sian, switching back to Yoo Sian felt pretty empty.
It was supposed to be impossible for me originally, something I just couldn't do, but acknowledging that again made me hesitate a bit.
I left my room and waited for the elevator to go downstairs.
Ding.
The elevator doors opened, and the group of laughing and chatting guys inside smirked when they saw me.
Ignoring their sneers, I pressed the button for the first floor and closed the doors. Just before they shut, I overheard their voices through the gap.
"Heard that guy's the bottom of the whole school this time."
"Even Q Class has a last place. Julian Loa was first again, right?"
"You don't know? I heard he got first in the sparring exam. So yeah, probably."
'Damn bastards.'
Lee Sian could beat guys like that easily.
In my opinion, after fighting that evolved zombie, Lee Sian had mid-tier strength or better in the academy.
If I just had a little more time, I'd reach that level as Yoo Sian too.
The elevator reached the first floor without stopping midway.
I followed the brightly lit path under the streetlights toward the physical training room.
Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam!
Even from a distance, I could tell what was going on inside.
Vulcan Rudric's fist training, the famous spectacle of Global Academy's physical training room.
Since normal equipment couldn't withstand Vulcan Rudric's fists after his combat power skyrocketed from quests, he was pounding the reinforced measuring device installed there.
They say any second-year aiming for a combat track has to hit that thing at least once. I wanted to try it too once I got stronger.
Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam!
The closer I got to the physical training room, the louder the noise became.
I covered my ears with both hands as I walked, then grabbed the earplugs I'd left in the nearby shoe locker and put them in.
This way, my ears were safe.
I opened the door to the physical training room, and the somewhat muffled punching sounds stopped.
Vulcan Rudric wiped down his steaming-hot body with a towel and walked over to me.
I couldn't hear what he was saying, so I took out my earplugs.
"Ahh. You were wearing earplugs, huh. Thought you weren't coming today? Can you really use the same training room as the guy who punched you?"
Vulcan Rudric said with a grin.
"You're not gonna hit me again here, right? I don't plan on fighting you right now anyway."
"Oh? Right now? So you wanna go at it later? Cool."
I misspoke. Why did it turn into a fight promise?
Looking at his twitching muscles, I suddenly felt like something had gone terribly wrong.
As Vulcan Rudric headed back to the measuring device, I tossed out a question.
"Vulcan, what score do you get when you hit that?"
"This? 1000."
Vulcan thrust out a quick punch.
Bam!
The number on the display read exactly 1000.
Then he punched with the other fist.
Bam!
Again, 1000.
Bam!
Another 1000.
Watching that, I put my earplugs back in.
'He's not going all out—he's controlling his power precisely to hit exactly 1000? For over 30 minutes?'
I'd never had any rivalry toward Vulcan Rudric before, so I'd just thought, 'This guy's beating the hell out of that measuring device, making a ton of noise, what a nuisance.' But this was crazier than I imagined.
I knew second-years aiming for combat tracks only needed to exceed 500 on that thing, and here he was landing double that repeatedly.
He deserved his spot in the upper ranks of Q Class for combat ability alone.
If you ignored the written exams that'd become useless later, he was basically Q Class upper tier personified.
Today, instead of intense training, I started with some light exercise to get a feel for my body, like a measurement.
Vulcan Rudric had left, leaving me alone in the physical training room.
Reviewing today's measurements slowly, nothing had really changed.
Of course not—I'd been using Lee Sian's body, and my combat power had only risen somewhat from the possession experience.
My physical abilities were the same as ever.
I wished I could get a quest that boosted physical stats in one go like Lee Sian had.
I glanced around the empty physical training room, then approached the measuring device.
I picked up a sword from the various weapons placed beside it.
I'd always used a sword, after all.
Gripping it with both hands, I took long, deep breaths, exchanging the air in my lungs.
I tightened my grip on the hilt and swung down hard.
"Haaap!"
Clang.
Drawing on my experience smashing zombie heads as Lee Sian, I put everything into the best downward slash I could muster. The display showed 160.
"160? That's pretty good improvement."
Last time I'd tried it as a joke, it was only two digits. I'd gotten mad at the result and pounded the device diligently, but never even reached three digits.
Compared to back then, I'd definitely gotten stronger. Slower than others, but I'd made progress.
Satisfied enough with the result, I put the sword back and left the physical training room.
Starting tomorrow, I'd train with real combat.
I needed to visit the Dungeon Management Office, which I'd never been to since enrolling at Global Academy.
The Dungeon Management Office—I'd never been there before, but I'd heard plenty about it.
It managed the countless dungeons in the world and conducted initial explorations of newly appearing ones.
It was also the organization that selected hard-to-manage dungeons, destroyed their cores, and decided their erasure.
Usually, they handled dungeons that continuously spawned entities called monsters. Dungeon management workers made up a good chunk of Utopia's population.
It was work ordinary people without Status Windows couldn't do, but it was relatively safe, so ability users coming to Utopia often aimed for it first.
Like a civil service job? If you had the skill to suppress monsters at a manageable level, you qualified, and it offered long-term job security, so the competition was surprisingly fierce.
I'd originally targeted a job there after graduating from Global Academy when I first came to Utopia.
Of course, failing to clear the Tutorial Quest before finals tanked my first-semester grades and pushed that goal further away.
There was a branch of that Dungeon Management Office inside Global Academy.
More precisely, it was included within the Student Support Office.
I'd stopped by the Student Support Office a few times looking for high-possession-affinity bodies, but always came up empty, so I didn't have good memories of the place.
Back to the Dungeon Management Office: it assigned dungeons suitable for Global Academy students—ones with monsters matching student levels. Q Class kids frequented it.
Among them, the one who'd gone through the most dungeons was Evan Jack, the guy mastering fire skills.
Since his quests often involved killing enemies, he'd massacre monsters in dungeons whenever he got bored.
We'd fought in the sparring exam during finals, and damn, he was scorching hot but had this weird skill that kept him from burning.
Just left me feeling the burn all over. Damn it.
I passed through the automatic glass doors and entered the Dungeon Management Office.
There were quite a few other students besides me—probably making pocket money or training during their post-finals free time.
I took a number ticket and waited, looking around, until my turn came.
"Huh? Yoo Sian, right? Why'd you take a number ticket?"
The counselor greeting me said it out of the blue.
"Uh? Gotta stand in line if there's a line, right?"
I properly looked at the counselor spouting nonsense. She wasn't hiding her expression well—her lips were twitching up awkwardly.
Was this demon woman who shoved me into Global Academy working at the Dungeon Management Office's academy branch?
"Q Class folks can just tap their smartphone on the machine to jump straight to the next turn and meet me."
"First time here."
I'd just learned that.
Thinking back, when I first arrived at Global Academy, she'd said I might see her often. Was that what she meant?
It made sense for the quest-viewing staff to handle Q Class.
"Really? You've only done training quests? Wait a sec? Weren't you looking for someone with high possession affinity? Your quests are already 4/4? Rumor had it the one called the academy's weakest in first-year Q Class hadn't cleared any quests, so I figured it'd be you. Guess you did possess after all?"
I wanted to argue against her mentioning yesterday's me, but it was true, so I couldn't.
Even the academy's weakest rumor had spread here.
Makes sense—with so many students, stories about the strongest and weakest were bound to circulate.
"Yeah, that happened. Let's move on."
Explaining that combining my Lee Sian quests put me well over two digits, even if the perceived time was long but actually instantaneous clears, felt like too much hassle.
More than that, bad memories of this woman were bubbling up, and I just didn't like it.
"Well, dungeon office staff end up knowing quest details anyway. So, first time, huh? You know you can't go alone then?"
"Yeah. Heard you assign a guide senior or staff member."
"Most go with friends... Ah! That girlfriend from before? The blue-haired beauty healer who's kinda known around Global Academy? She's your healer girlfriend, right?"
Why does she know that? We broke up a few days ago, but saying it felt awkward, so I just brushed it off vaguely.
"Seo-yeon's not into fighting. Just get me a decent person."
"'Decent' can mean a lot of things. What kind? Sweet personality? Looks? Wait, you already have a pretty girlfriend, so not looks. Personality then? That can mean a lot too, you know?"
She winked playfully, and I squeezed my eyes shut at the sight.
I really didn't like this woman either.