Dragon and Questions
"Ugh... the final exam range is way too broad..."
"The midterms were already a mess. You really think the finals would be any different?"
"I-I know, but still."
"At least it's a little lighter than studying for the CSAT, right? That thing forces you to cover the entire curriculum. No, wait—this is basically just half of that."
"That's exactly why I'm hanging my entire future on early admissions."
The war against finals was still raging on.
Ha-yan had spent the entire week stuck at school for night study sessions, but today she'd finally come home to study. Why? Because the exams started tomorrow.
It was all thanks to her cute little tantrum about how her head would explode if she kept night studying right up until the last day. And I was the kind of easy man who caved instantly to that kind of pleading.
Me? Study? Like I keep saying—I'm a dragon.
I might not magically know information I've never encountered, but every scrap of knowledge that exists on this planet is already sitting inside my head.
"Honestly, you get so annoying every time I try to study, Siu..."
After more than two hours of intense focus, Ha-yan finally slumped face-first onto the desk, looking like steam was literally rising from her head.
I stroked her hair as I spoke.
"Giving up is so much easier."
"Eeeeh?! Is that really what you say to your girlfriend who's suffering through finals prep right in front of you?!"
Ha-yan reacted instantly, launching a flurry of punches at me.
I casually blocked her fists and replied with perfect calm.
"One little spell from me and this whole problem vanishes. You're the one being stubborn about it. Even if you use magic to help, it doesn't stick forever."
"Th-that may be true, but... it just feels like using a cheat code. I don't want that. University is the one thing I'm going to get into with my own skills."
"I'm not going to stop you... but if it gets too hard, just say the word, okay?"
"Mmm... it is hard. It's hard right now..."
She wriggled over beside me and flopped down, using my thigh as a pillow.
I gently stroked her hair and cheek while she rubbed her face shamelessly against me.
"Just hang in there a little longer. With your current grades, you can easily apply to that school with this year's early admission scores, and you'll definitely get in. Once we head over to Japan for the magic evaluation, you can play as much as you want there."
"I know. That's why I'm keeping my mouth shut and focusing on studying right now. And..."
"And?"
Ha-yan turned her head toward me, looking a little bashful, and mumbled,
"I've been working so hard... so keep petting me more..."
"...I'll do it for the rest of my life."
This is exactly why I can never escape Ha-yan.
Finals week finally arrived. And those three days of exams flew by in a blink.
But for the two lunatics currently losing their minds right in front of me, the exam period seemed to have a completely different meaning.
"To me, you, and us, exam period means—!!"
"Shut up and get the tanghulu! It's a day we can inhale malatang as fast as we want, bwooooooo!!"
"Ugh, you absolute maniacs. If you're gonna go crazy, at least do it with some class."
I'd known these two were insane for a long time, but I hadn't realized they were this far gone.
No—Choi Hoon wasn't originally this bad. Do Ji-yeon had completely infected him.
I spoke up to the two of them, who were putting on their ridiculous performance right in front of me and Ha-yan, who was practically unconscious in my arms.
"Don't you feel even a little sorry for the other kids? Some of them are killing themselves studying for early admissions—"
"Not my problem! And it's not like we interrupted anyone during exam period, right? We didn't!"
"Ooh~ Choi Hoon's actually making sense for once! Exactly! All we want is for school to end early!!"
"Wishing for it doesn't make school end any faster, so why are you even—"
"Because I feel like it!!!"
"...Insane."
These two were thrashing their arms and legs, dancing right in front of me and Ha-yan so hard that the word "insane" kept slipping out of my mouth.
The only reason we were putting up with them at all was because finals had just ended.
And the reason they could act this shameless was because they were the pure CSAT-all-in types who had completely yeeted early admissions into outer space.
These lunatics had literally filled every single OMR bubble with "1" for every subject and then just gone to sleep. I still couldn't get over how absurd that was.
"To us, exam period is just the days school ends early! Ha-yan, you're done with exams, right? They're over, right? So we can go out and play now, right? You're gonna eat malatang and tanghulu with me, right? You promised! You said if I left you alone during exam period, you'd eat everything with me, right?"
"Hey hey hey. Soccer? Just say the word and we're going! Don't wanna? Then PC bang, let's go go? You've gotta hang out with me too! Do you know how bored I was during exam period? I almost died!!"
"You two are a matching set of absolute disasters..."
Ha-yan had completely run out of energy and fallen into a dead sleep in my arms, so I was the only one left who could calm these two down.
I considered grabbing some other classmates to divert their attention, but these two had been hovering so aggressively around me that everyone else had already fled the classroom.
I finally let out a sigh, raised the white flag, and spoke.
"Fine. Fine, just calm down for a second. And Ha-yan's completely wiped out right now—she's not even conscious. Just one hour. It's only two o'clock. Let her rest in the nurse's office for exactly one hour, then we'll head out, okay?"
"One hour? Yeah, I can wait that long. I know she was studying late last night."
"Hmm. Guess I'll just watch YouTube for an hour."
Once I gave them the green light, the two of them finally lifted their "siege" and wandered off to do their own things.
"Why did past-me ever choose these people as friends..."
Cursing my past self a little, I scooped up Ha-yan—who was sleeping so deeply she might as well have been unconscious—and carried her to the nurse's office.
"Oh my... is she not feeling well?"
"No. She's just sleeping ridiculously hard. She's always been the type who wouldn't wake up even if you carried her somewhere, and yesterday she only got two hours of sleep before diving back into finals studying."
"You've worked so hard, our young lady."
"Mmmph... Siu... I wanna eat pasta... hehe."
"Yeah, yeah. I got it, so just sleep for now. I'll put paralysis magic on those two if I have to and make sure you get some."
"Mmm... hehe."
Even in her half-conscious, completely unmoored state, Ha-yan gently clutched my sleeve and told me exactly what she wanted to eat.
Yang Ho-jin, who had been staring blankly at YouTube in the nurse's office like always, pulled a microfiber blanket reserved exclusively for Ha-yan out of a secret space and carefully draped it over her.
Even outside of exam periods, Ha-yan would occasionally come here whenever she felt a little off. This place was basically her personal rest area at this point.
Ah. What if a teacher or someone else suddenly walked in?
"The magic? It's been a while since anyone's come in. Is everything still working properly?"
"As long as Master's mana doesn't run dry, there won't be any problems. It's functioning perfectly."
"Good to hear."
I had designed this nurse's office to serve as an emergency shelter for Ha-yan in a worst-case scenario, so every protective spell I could think of was layered on thick.
Those, however, only activated in true emergencies. When Ha-yan and I came in just to rest, a different spell kicked in—any ordinary person who approached the nurse's office would suddenly remember something else they needed to do and never make it here.
Which meant Ha-yan and I could relax here without a care in the world.
"Mmm... hehe..."
Wrapped in the warm softness of the microfiber blanket, Ha-yan soon sank into deep sleep.
She was out so cold that even a painful pinch on the cheek wouldn't wake her for a while, so I casually asked Yang Ho-jin—no, the homunculus Ho-jin—
"Anything new show up at school after that mana stone?"
Ho-jin looked blank for a moment, then her expression shifted as if something had just occurred to her.
"If there had been, wouldn't Master have been the first one contacted?"
"Yeah, true. Ugh. Why did a mana stone have to turn up at the school Ha-yan and I spend the most time at?"
It hadn't just "appeared," either. It had been sitting right out on the athletic field, carefully placed as if someone had deliberately set it there.
I gently stroked Ha-yan's hair while she mumbled in her sleep like she was eating something in a dream, then asked Ho-jin again.
"Any other problems at school?"
"Problems? Not really. High schoolers are still high schoolers, so the third-years almost never get hurt. Just the first- and second-years drop by now and then. The girls come by occasionally for 'that time of the month,' too."
"No one giving off weird vibes?"
"I'll let my previous answer cover that one as well."
"Tch..."
There was a reason I had deliberately stationed one of my most capable, hardworking, and trusted homunculi at this school. Part of it was Ha-yan's safety...
But it was also because of that nagging "what if?" in the back of my mind.
No matter how I looked at it, something felt off.
Even neighboring Japan had so many mages that they ran their own government. So why did South Korea have no one except Ha-yan and her mother?
I wanted answers, but there were no remaining records that could give me any. I'd torn through the mage archives in Zaha of Antarctica and every other country's repositories, and nothing explained this situation.
So I'd formed a little hypothesis of my own.
What if they simply couldn't sense "mana" at all? What if they had the potential but just didn't know it existed?
"There aren't any. So please stop thinking about it already."
Ho-jin had clearly read my expression. She waved a hand in front of my face as she spoke.
I clicked my tongue and let my shoulders droop.
"Is there really no one?"
"If there isn't, there isn't. Why are you so hung up on this part?"
Ever since she'd arrived here, Ho-jin had been sending me that same puzzled look. Why keep agonizing over this when I could just live happily cuddling with Young Lady Ha-yan?
"Well... there is a reason. It's a racial thing."
"???"
It wasn't something I could explain right now.
I simply offered a small smile and continued stroking the hair of the deeply sleeping Ha-yan.