Gabyul, I'll Definitely Save You...! (3)
Had he noticed?
No — he couldn't have noticed, right?
I stayed frozen with my face buried in the desk.
After days of work, I had finally managed to pin down his movements. That much had gone well. Him sitting so close to me had been unexpected, but judging by his reaction, it hadn't seemed like he'd caught on.
And yet — of all things — I had overheard him muttering about holy power and black mana.
My nerves had already been stretched razor-thin, and I had overreacted.
Please leave... please just go...!
I had covered my face before he could look at me. If I slipped quietly out of the library while he still couldn't see me, he wouldn't be able to identify who I was. I was a second-year, after all — a first-year like Baek Sejin wouldn't recognize my face that easily.
So I stayed slumped over the desk a little longer, keeping my face hidden from him.
I wish he'd just leave alrea—
—Ding-dong~ dang-dong~
"Excuse me..."
The bell rang, and a man's voice spoke at the same time.
Without thinking, I lifted my head.
When I looked up, a man with narrowed eyes was smiling down at me.
I jolted so hard I slammed my knee into the underside of the desk.
"Ghk...! Ow..."
"Are you all right? The warning bell had already rung, and you still hadn't gotten up, so I thought I should wake you..."
Apparently I had dozed off for a moment. I must have been exhausted from pulling another all-nighter. I had been staying up late a lot lately.
"Th-thanks. I'll be going, then!"
I bit my tongue in my haste, mangling the words. Covering my flushing face, I hurried out of the library and put as much distance between us as I could.
I'm doomed...!
I felt like I might cry.
I finished Thomas Nolan's The Duality of the Reaper.
It was a translation, which was a little disappointing, but I could more or less grasp what Thomas Nolan had been trying to say. The content was genuinely fascinating. Not only did it cover material about the Grim Reaper that never appeared in the original novel, it also forced me to reconsider some of my assumptions about Transcendent Beings.
I had never imagined that a human contracted to an angel could wield black mana. And not some fallen angel, either — a pure angel who used holy power.
Holy power and black mana, used together. How was that even possible?
Maybe someone born with black mana had contracted with a Reaper and gained holy power on top of it. Or maybe contracting with a Reaper simply granted access to both from the start. Researching a topic like that after graduating from the Academy didn't sound like a bad idea at all.
Anyway.
The blonde woman who had planted her face on the desk earlier still hadn't moved, even though the warning bell was about to ring.
She must have been really tired.
—Ding-dong~ dang-dong~
The warning bell rang right on cue, so I decided to do the kind thing and wake her.
I walked over.
"Excuse me..."
When I spoke, the woman lifted her head with a dazed look. Our eyes met. For a few seconds she didn't react at all — then she startled so violently she drove her knee into the desk.
"Ghk...! Ow..."
What was with this person?
"Are you all right? The warning bell had already rung, and you still hadn't gotten up, so I thought I should wake you..."
"Th-thanks. I'll be going, then!"
She even bit her tongue as she scrambled to her feet and hurried out of the library at a near-run.
...Well. That was that. Time for me to go too.
Next period was combat magic, I think. Or was it practical magic?
The answer was combat magic.
I was standing in a corner of the athletic field. Not alone — the entire Class 1 had gathered there with me. Warm sunlight washed over us, and a gentle breeze kept things pleasantly cool. It felt good.
The Academy really had chosen an excellent site. In a world where theories like feng shui were taken seriously, it made sense that the Academy would settle somewhere with good land energy.
"Up through last class, we covered the theory behind combat magic, right? Starting today, we'll be mixing in practical work."
A woman with long brown hair the color of hazelnuts spoke in a kindly tone. Yun Chae-hee — the homeroom teacher of Class 4, where Seong Hyeon was. A combat mage herself, she was the instructor primarily responsible for teaching combat magic, and one of the faculty advisors for the magic club. I had seen her at the club before.
"Using only the basic combat magic you've learned so far, destroy the dummy I create. That's a pass. Got it?"
As she spoke, Yun Chae-hee formed a scarecrow made of water and moved it to the center of the field. Then she demonstrated.
She raised her index finger. A flame bloomed at the tip and instantly compressed down to the size of a small bead — so tightly packed it no longer looked like fire at all, but a marble of blended red and orange. Before long the bead of flame was smaller than a fingernail.
She flicked it at the sandbag dummy and clenched her fist. The flame that touched the dummy expanded violently, swallowing the water scarecrow whole. The water bursting from the ruined dummy snuffed the fire out, but the scarecrow itself was destroyed.
"Roughly like that — wreck the sandbag and you're done. Who wants to go first?"
Yun Chae-hee formed another water scarecrow.
"I'll do it!"
Hwang Ju-hyeon shot his hand into the air.
"All right. Come on up and give it a try."
Hwang Ju-hyeon strode forward with big, confident steps.
"Gold Sun!"
"Gold Sun!"
Excited classmates chanted his nickname. Hwang Ju-hyeon flashed them a grin, then turned back toward the water scarecrow.
Standing before it, he drew up golden mana. As his body was dyed in gold, the students' cheers grew louder. He settled into his stance, clenched his fist, and drove it into the water scarecrow. A fist sheathed in golden mana smashed into the construct.
—BOOM!
It burst spectacularly.
"That's our Gold Sun!"
The students roared as the water scarecrow shattered cleanly apart.
"...Didn't she just say to destroy it with magic? Can someone explain this to me?"
Lee Ye-rin muttered in a hollow voice as Hwang Ju-hyeon thrust a fist skyward in celebration. He was about to make a triumphant return when Teacher Yun Chae-hee caught him — holding him in place with telekinesis — and set him back in front of a freshly restored water scarecrow.
"Ju-hyeon?"
"Y-yes, ma'am."
"I told you to use only the basic combat magic we covered through last class, didn't I?"
The only useful basic combat spell taught so far was Expansion Fire, so that was what she meant. It was the same spell she had demonstrated herself.
"I'm sorry..."
After the scolding, Hwang Ju-hyeon reset his stance. He raised a hand and kindled a flame the way she had.
"Expansion Fire, good. Don't forget — compression is what matters."
But where Yun Chae-hee had produced a tiny bead of flame at her fingertip, Hwang Ju-hyeon's flame was the size of his palm.
Expansion Fire — true to the name "expanding fire" — was a spell that made flame suddenly balloon outward to engulf its target. Compression determined its power. Depending on how tightly the flame was compressed, the spell's force increased exponentially; if your skill outclassed your opponent's, even this basic magic could be enough to overwhelm them.
Hwang Ju-hyeon was a fairly capable student, and even so the difference in flame size between him and Yun Chae-hee was this stark. Compressing the fire clearly demanded considerable skill — that much was obvious.
In the end, though, Yun Chae-hee's water scarecrow still broke under Hwang Ju-hyeon's Expansion Fire. She must have deliberately lowered its durability. For something made of water to lose its shape under a flame of that size, the toughness had to have been dialed down.
"All right, who's next?"
"Me!"
"I-I'll try."
"I didn't particularly want to do this, but since everyone so clearly desires it of me, I suppose I have no choice..."
A great many people were eager to smash the water scarecrow after Hwang Ju-hyeon.
"Hmm... then, Baek Sejin. Why don't you come up?"
Out of nowhere, Yun Chae-hee called my name.
I hadn't even raised my hand. Why...?
Well, a summons was a summons. I walked over to the water scarecrow.
"Go ahead."
With those words, Yun Chae-hee layered a new scarecrow over the existing one. In an instant, the water scarecrow became two layers thick.
"Why two layers?"
At my question, Yun Chae-hee gave an awkward little laugh.
"Ah — after watching just now, I figured one wouldn't be enough, so I added another. Don't worry, even with two layers it won't make much difference."
"Mm... understood."
I opened my hand and shaped a flame according to the formula for Expansion Fire. It was basic magic, so no magic circle was needed. Pure mana bloomed into fire in my palm, and the flame steadily shrank. What began the size of a basketball dwindled to the size of my palm, then smaller still, until it was no bigger than a finger.
I threw the finger-sized flame at the water scarecrow.
The critical part was keeping the fire from being snuffed out by the water that composed the dummy. If the flame was swallowed by the water, it would lose its power in an instant. Expanding it at the moment of near-contact was what mattered.
The flame I threw swelled just before it touched the water scarecrow. The suddenly enormous fire engulfed the construct whole. The water scarecrow lost its shape and collapsed into a puddle soaking the ground.
"That was some excellent compression. Everyone, a round of applause!"