Chapter 10
Terminally Ill, but It's Okay — Episode 10
Riiip.
The moment I tore the selection ticket, a new message appeared.
[Using Armament Selection Ticket.]
[Selecting recommended armaments.]
As the space in front of me wavered, I clasped my hands together even though I wasn't religious.
"An armament with a mana-boosting effect would be nice......"
I hadn't been able to purify myself, but my reverent heart alone would have put any ascetic to shame.
The result appeared as quickly as my racing heart.
[Presenting recommended armament list.]
[1. Lancaster's Robe]
[2. Nagamoto's Matchlock]
.
.
[Please select one.]
Out of ten total, four were mana-related armaments that I needed.
That seemed like a decent result, so I examined them one by one.
"Hmm......"
If I had to pick the best, it was the first armament, Lancaster's Robe.
It boosted concentration and increased mana capacity by 0.3, so purely in terms of performance, it was hard to beat.
......But.
"Ha, this is a bit......"
I couldn't bring myself to choose it.
The problem was that it had to be a robe, of all things.
Well, for me.
If it only raised my stats, I was confident I'd wear it even in midsummer.
But I feared other people's stares and preconceptions.
A Sorcery Track student from a bloodline that was practically the head sorcerer family, wearing something exclusive to the opposing Magic Track while using sorcery?
It would be like showing up to a Western wrestling match wearing a traditional Korean wrestling belt......
It would be shocking enough to bring national network reporters running, not just Min Young-ji.
"Yeah, this is really not it."
I looked over the rest again, excluding the robe.
Maybe it was because I looked more closely this time.
One armament I'd passed over after only looking at its grade suddenly caught my eye.
[Samjaegong]
[Grade: Normal (High)]
[Description: A mental cultivation method created by an unknown figure. So abstruse that no one has properly mastered it. If successful, mana can be accumulated artificially.]
[Effect: Acquisition of pure mana]
Somehow it felt familiar.
"Isn't this from a martial-arts setting?"
Exactly.
It wasn't my area of expertise, so I didn't know much about it, but it looked like a technique martial artists used to build internal energy.
For a moment I got confused about the genre and went back over the setting.
As expected.......
This was a modern-day fantasy setting. The concept of a mental cultivation method didn't even exist here.
In this setting, mana capacity was innate and increased naturally as one grew stronger.
"Then it's an Armament that doesn't exist in the original setting......"
But did a mental cultivation method even count as an Armament?
The thought struck me as odd, but the more I considered it, the better the idea looked.
Sorcery and armament manifestation based on pure mana......
Judging by the sound of it, it could only help, not hurt.
No matter how abstruse it was, if I used Appraisal, there probably wouldn't be a big problem.
The choice was obvious.
[You have selected 'Samjaegong'.]
[Recommended armament list disappears.]
When I closed the shop, motes of light gathered in front of me.
The sparkling light soon transformed into a red-tinged wooden bracelet and an old, thick book.
* * *
6 p.m. The comprehensive training ground, quiet now that the diagnostic assessment was over.
In Room 3, one of the few rooms still lit, a lone figure shot upward as if taking flight.
The man kicked off the ground, radiating a piercing intensity.
He cut down the enemies blocking his way in a single strike, opened a path, and dashed forward like a gale.
Rumble.
Then a massive wall surged up in his path, but he charged without a moment's hesitation.
With a flash of light, he blasted straight through it and reached the target point.
[Lap time: 1: 53: 48]
But it seemed the record wasn't what he'd hoped for.
The man bit his lip and muttered quietly.
"Set it up again."
And this scene repeated like a dream from which he couldn't wake.
"Again."
Again.
"One more time."
And again.......
The man showed no sign of stopping.
Until he finally seized the record of the bastard who had knocked him down to second place—that agonizing target hovering just out of reach.......
"Yoon-gi, how about taking a short break?"
In the end, the onlookers who couldn't bear to watch any longer cautiously spoke up.
They were the rowdy noble-born crew who usually followed him around.
"Yeah. Drink something and then go."
"Right. Nothing's changed no matter how many times you try. Maybe you should....... Hk!"
But the man's chilly gaze.
The moment Seol Yoon-gi's eyes flashed fiercely, they flinched and shut their mouths.
Usage is restricted for 5 minutes to prevent system overload.
The message rang out at just the right time.
Without the training system forcing a break, he would have gone right back to repeating the same endless challenge.
"......Nothing's going right."
Seol Yoon-gi reluctantly turned away.
When he returned to the waiting room, intense reactions followed one after another.
"Here, have some water."
"Rest a bit and your record will improve."
"That bastard Baek Sa-young just got lucky."
They were reassuring words, but Seol Yoon-gi's expression barely changed.
Unlike the others grinning around him, he looked utterly disinterested.
"Oh, and I took care of the kid who wrote that article."
"......?"
Then, suddenly, he looked at Lee Dong-wook, who always caused trouble with his somewhat flippant words and actions. Reproach and censure rippled in his sunken eyes.
"...Why? Wh-what's wrong?"
Lee Dong-wook panicked when he realized his attempt to curry favor had backfired.
"Ha. Who the hell are you to step in, you little shit."
The reprimand was delivered by the short-haired man with a stocky build.
His name was Kang Cheol-min.
In terms of skill, he was second among them, so no one could easily cut in, and they all hemmed and hawed.
"If this blows up, are you going to take responsibility?"
"No, I did it for Yoon-gi......"
"What bullshit. How is that for his sake? You're screwing him over. For fuck's sake, think before you act. Stop starting shit like a dumbass."
Kang Cheol-min wielded the justification that he'd stepped in for a friend, his twisted sense of justice, as a weapon while spewing vicious words.
"Kang Cheol-min, that's enough. Stop."
In the end, as if deciding it had gone far enough, the first one stepped in.
Seol Yoon-gi turned toward Lee Dong-wook and warned him, chewing each word.
"Don't butt in on your own from now on."
"Oh, okay. Sorry."
He wasn't usually in this foul a mood.
That was how shocking today's matter was. For Seol Yoon-gi, who had sharpened his blade all vacation to beat Baek Sa-young.......
"Now, now, let's not be like this among ourselves. Okay?"
The awkward silence was broken by the blond guy who usually played the mood-maker.
"Did you guys hear that news?"
"What news?"
"Park Ha-yul, they say he passed as a special scholarship student?"
He tossed out a hot, controversial topic. He was trying to change the subject.
"That bastard? Wow, that's fucking ridiculous."
"At this point, isn't his family backing him?"
"Nah, no way. What influence would his family even have at Taehak?"
"True, it's been a while since they lost their pull."
When a suitable prey appeared, everyone chimed in with a word.
Except for Seol Yoon-gi, who made no fuss, and Kang Cheol-min, whose expression was twisted.
"......Is that certain?"
"Oh, right. Kang Cheol-min, you're the biggest victim."
"Yeah. If that bastard Park Ha-yul hadn't used a shortcut, wouldn't you have passed?"
There was reason enough.
He was the unlucky applicant who had narrowly finished fifth by a mere five-second margin.
He didn't show it, but he was secretly hoping Park Ha-yul would be disqualified so the scholarship might fall to him.
"Don't waste your energy on worthless things. Everyone, go."
Whether they did or not, Seol Yoon-gi, who had remained indifferent the whole time, stood up the moment exactly five minutes had passed.
"Haha, I don't care either. I just applied for fun. Did I get shot in the head? Getting tangled up with Lee Taek-jin......"
Kang Cheol-min also shrugged his shoulders, pretending to be fine.
"Oh, then isn't this something to celebrate? Let's go grab some hard liquor. I brought a good one."
"Yeah? Then let's go. Let's have a drink. Yoon-gi will find us annoying soon anyway."
As if nothing had happened, the crew snickered and left the training ground.
But perhaps because everyone's minds were elsewhere.
"......A bastard who runs wild just because of his family. I'll fuck him up one of these days."
The username following behind them was Steel Man.
No one saw Kang Cheol-min's cold expression.
* * *
The day after the diagnostic assessment.
[Remaining Time: 3 days 1 hour 54 minutes]
"Today we will examine the situation of Goryeo after that day in the year 999, the day called the Day of Punishment. According to the records, at that time three red moons......"
As if a new seed were sprouting, Taehak's semester also began in earnest.
Today's first class was History, notorious for being boring. Since it was a required second-year course, I was more or less forced to sit through it too.
"Humanity did not know. That all sorts of negative emotions condensed since the beginning of time would create monsters called Demons......"
The professor's name was Cha Myeong-hwan.
He was an elder among elders, recording the lowest lecture evaluations every time with a teaching style as rigid as his abundant white hair.
"In any case, when the gate blocking the demonic realm and the human realm opened, countless Demons and Monsters invaded. Humans also experienced the phenomenon of awakening in response, but......"
But now that I was actually listening to it, it really was boring.
The theory-heavy lecture format was bad enough, but his heartbeat-steady monotone made me yawn without even meaning to.
And I wasn't the only one who felt that way.
Nod, nod—
That back of a head, swaying regularly like a woodpecker pecking at a tree.
It belonged to Cheon Seo-yoon.
I tried not to pay attention, but she kept doing conspicuous things, so my eyes kept landing on her.
Sss—
Cheon Seo-yoon jolted awake, wiped away her drool, then guiltily glanced around.
Then our eyes met.
"......!"
She furrowed her brow hard, as if she'd spotted a mosquito on a summer night.
There was no time to react.
A few seconds later, she was nodding off again.
Good grief.
Whatever else you could say about her, she was remarkably faithful to her characterization.
"Let's just train."
I'd gone off on a tangent for a moment and wasted a fair amount of precious time.
Even if I had more time than before, I wasn't in a position to waste a single minute or second.
[Using trait, Manifestation.]
A moment later, sunlight came in through the front window.
As the manifestation particles, holding that warmth, bloomed little by little, I granted them will and pictured the form I wanted.
Fwoom—
Soon a virtual anatomical diagram appeared, like Leonardo da Vinci's.
It was a kind of supplementary study.
Yesterday I had activated Appraisal while alternating with the shaman's bracelet, but my Samjaegong comprehension value was only around 3%.
They said it was abstruse....... I really hadn't expected it to be this much.
At this rate, it seemed like it would take a full month before I could actually practice it, so I decided to borrow the power of Manifestation whenever I had spare moments.
Visualizing those vague sensations made them much easier to understand.
I stretched out a clump of particles long and pulled them out.
After dyeing them blue, I moved them slowly along a set path.
"Looking only at the result, humanity won. It was thanks to the rise of the prestigious families and the dimensional rift that had barely narrowed. However, life changed drastically. Monsters swarmed across the country, and Demonkin born with Demon blood appeared......"
Using Professor Cha Myeong-hwan's voice as white noise, I quietly recited the verses of Samjaegong.
"Passing through the body's vital acupoints, Jeonjung and Jungan, from Singwol the circuit......"
It was a relatively leisurely time, but it probably wouldn't last long.
If the quests followed the original story's development, the second Main Quest would occur this afternoon.
Soon I would be so busy I wouldn't have time to breathe.