Chapter 6
Terminally Ill, but It's Okay — Episode 6
The dorm conditions were as excellent as Taehak's reputation.
Twenty-five pyeong, one person per room.
It was as clean as if newly built, and even the latest appliances were provided.
I only retrieved the luggage I had sent ahead by delivery and came right back out.
First I stopped by the department office and submitted my track change form, and after walking about ten more minutes, I arrived.
Combat Training Ground No. 3.
It offered various challenges, allowing mock tests that closely matched the format of the diagnostic evaluation.
I had skipped lunch to come, so the place was empty.
I chose a room near the entrance and went in.
The size was about that of a small lecture room. But what you could see wasn't everything.
This place was a world straight out of a novel, where cutting-edge science and unscientific supernatural abilities existed in harmony.
In other words, with a single touch, even something like this was possible.
Combat training simulation will now begin.
Year 2, Class A, Park Ha-yul.
User information confirmed.
Please state your desired assignment.
Since it was my first time, I chose something easy.
"Interception type."
Please select the assignment level.
Naturally, I selected the lowest level as well.
"Level 1."
Setup complete. Summoning the field.
Five targets will now be generated.
Rrrrrumble.
As soon as setup finished, the space expanded with a faint vibration.
The walls on all sides receded, and the expansion stopped when the space reached about half the size of a soccer field.
It was the result of large-scale spatial magic.
Whirrr. Whirrr.
The targets were circular objects resembling plates, generated about twenty meters ahead.
They were drifting slowly through the air, as if strolling.
"Let's take this calmly."
I took a deep breath and activated Manifestation.
Familiar, welcome motes of light drifted at the edge of my vision.
"What should I try first?"
Through the effect of Appraisal, multiple one-star sorcery formulas surfaced simultaneously.
Among them, the one I chose was 'Flame Bullet.'
Similar to the 1st-circle spell Fireball, but a Fire-Style Sorcery with half again the destructive power.
As I extended my hand and visualized the formula, the particles arranged themselves into geometric patterns according to my will.
Tzzzt.
First a circle was drawn, and at the four cardinal directions—east, west, south, and north—the symbols for Accumulation, Purification, Refinement, and Origin were inscribed.
The basic structure was complete, so it was time to draw the connecting lines that would activate the four axes.
Now I had to account for the hour.
The energy of the Myriad Phenomena never rests and is ever in motion, so one takes an absolute law as the reference point.
[Remaining Time: 1 day 1 hour 28 minutes]
As confirmed by the unceasing clock, the current time was the Hour of the Goat.
It was the eighth hour of the day, between 12:30 PM and 2:30 PM.
"In that case······."
With that as the standard, the information in my head rearranged itself.
I calculated an estimated value according to the formula, and the result was immediately imprinted, forming a circuit and linking the four axes.
Finally, at the exact center of the sorcery formula, near the core, I inscribed the symbol representing Jowang, the god of fire.
[Manifestation complete.]
[Manifestation accuracy: 75%]
Manifestation accuracy was roughly how closely the manifested image matched the one in my mind.
There were some crooked parts, but what mattered was speed.
It took roughly five seconds to imprint.
The average for Taehak Sorcery Track students was about eight to nine seconds, so the sheer brokenness of Manifestation and Appraisal was plainly on display.
I infused mana into the completed sorcery formula.
It felt like quite a lot was draining out.
Tzzzt.
The formula revealed itself in the air as if red paint were spreading.
A 32-stroke, 1-star Fire-Style Sorcery, Flame Bullet.
But maybe because it was my first time firing one?
"Huh?"
Before I could do anything, a scorching heat erupted and a crimson fireball shot out.
Whoosh.
The fiercely burning sphere spun at high speed and shot forward rapidly.
Boom.
By luck, it struck the first target and triggered the initial explosion—and that set off the rest.
Boom-boom-boom. Boom.
It widened its range and set off three or four more explosions.
Thanks to Flame Bullet's chain-explosion property, the blasts swallowed the surrounding targets as well.
Control or not, the targets had practically let themselves get hit, but two thoughts suddenly came to mind.
One was that the power of a one-star sorcery was strong enough to exceed expectations, and the other was······.
"This is fun, isn't it?"
That was my honest feeling.
Should I say I felt a different kind of satisfaction than manifesting an Armament?
Ranged attacks had their own appeal: they could strike across a distance in an instant.
Level 1 cleared.
Would you like to proceed to Level 2?
I grinned like a kid holding a new game console.
* * *
[Remaining Time: 1 day 1 hour 34 minutes]
I stayed in the training ground for nearly twelve hours.
With my mana, I could only use a one-star sorcery three times in succession.
Depleted mana took four hours to recover, so I only used sorcery nine times in practice.
But would I have invested my precious twelve hours in only that much?
While my mana recovered, I practiced sorcery formulas using only particles, without manifestation.
I counted and counted, then got tired of counting and stopped.
Still, it was meaningful time.
A well-imprinted one-star sorcery could exert greater power than a sloppy two-star sorcery, after all······.
[Manifestation accuracy: 78%]
[Manifestation accuracy: 79%]
[Manifestation accuracy: 80%]
.
.
From that perspective, Manifestation Accuracy was a very useful metric.
Because sorcery was a supernatural ability with a set answer.
The length and thickness of the lines composing the formula. The angles formed where lines met. Whether the combined symbols were complete, and so on.
Putting all of that into numbers made intuitive judgment possible.
"Is my preparation more or less done?"
I had done everything I needed to do, so I decided to head back soon.
According to the original story, the diagnostic evaluation would use the Breakthrough type, which was more difficult than the target type.
Speed was the main objective, making it an inherently bad matchup for the complex, slow Sorcery Track, but I wasn't worried.
Because nothing was better than sorcery for exploiting a blind spot in the evaluation.
Those three sorceries alone were enough for a fourth-place finish.
* * *
I left the room with a light heart.
Maybe I was the very last one, because the training ground hallway was utterly deserted.
Well, it was the day before the evaluation.
And who else but me would be crazy enough to train until past midnight?
"I should turn off the lights before I go, right?"
Thinking of it as basic courtesy, I pressed every switch I saw on my way to the exit.
Click.
Darkness settled behind me with every switch I pressed. Just before I stepped outside, only a single light remained on in the hallway—and then it happened.
"Aack! No, what the f—. Which bastard is it?"
From somewhere in the darkness, a scream and thick curses echoed.
What?
I focused my gaze and saw another lunatic raging around the middle of the hallway.
"Hey, you're the culprit, aren't you? You're a total psycho, you know that?"
The lunatic shouted at me the moment our eyes met, without any preamble.
Tch, kids these days and their attitudes······.
"That's a rough way to talk to someone you've just met. How about calming down?"
"What?"
"I thought I was the last one here. You shouldn't waste electricity you don't need. No need to make a big deal out of it."
The moment I felt something strange was right then.
Tap-tap-tap.
With the sound of feet pounding the floor, the distance between us closed dramatically.
Superhuman Track?
"What century are you living in, going on about electric bills? What, did you forget magic exists?"
I had no time to react.
The guy got right up in my face, jabbing his finger at me and spraying spit everywhere.
······.
But I couldn't say a word, as if my breath had caught in my throat.
It wasn't that I was overwhelmed by the force of it, or so startled I couldn't speak.
It was just the face illuminated by the moonlight seeping through the window.
The lunatic····· no, the moment I saw her face, I went blank for a brief second, as if an error had occurred.
"······You."
I had known she would resemble her, but I hadn't expected it to be this much.
It was at the level of a complete copy-paste.
Half out of a faint hope, half from an unconscious response to a particular stimulus.
Before I knew it, I'd said the name aloud.
"Yoo So-young?"
* * *
When you turn words on a page into visuals, you inevitably have to model them on something.
You can't create something from absolute nothing, so you build the framework from what you know and have experienced.
That meant starting with people I knew.
I listed the people I knew—especially the ones I was familiar with—and compared them with the characters the author had created.
I analyzed the written descriptions, chose people to serve as the models, then refined the designs in detail.
And now a character born from that process was alive and moving right in front of me.
"Yoo So······ what?"
······Cheon Seo-yoon.
The girl I had drawn using Yoo So-young as her archetype because her bold personality and easygoing nature resembled her.
One of the three main heroines of [Epic of Salvation], and the one who'd been absent today because a family event conflicted with the schedule.
But, even looking again, she really did resemble her.
Skin as white as moonlight. Mid-length hair with a dark blue sheen, and beneath it, eyes set like stars.
On top of that, even her height, which seemed to just barely reach my jawline.
If only her current outfit hadn't been a uniform but a shabby tracksuit, if only she hadn't had that long sword strapped to her back······.
I might have run over, grabbed her hand, and pulled her along right then.
"Oh my god, this is so frustrating. Stop ignoring me and answer."
"......"
But my mouth wouldn't open.
Before seeing her in person, I had been sure I would be glad.
I had thought I could comfort myself by occasionally looking at a similar face······.
But actually facing her, it wasn't that simple.
Because it felt like something had been stolen.
That face, that way of speaking······.
Even her voice was similar, and it soured my mood.
Could Cheon Seo-yoon have taken Yoo So-young's place? My mind kept repeating such groundless suspicions.
"Sorry. I apologized, so let's stop here."
A colder tone than usual slipped out.
"Hey, when did I ask you to apologize? And if you're going to do it, do it properly. If you're going to act all sulky and show how annoyed you are—"
"I said let's stop."
"······What?"
"Like you said, I'm annoyed. So let's not waste time pointlessly and just go our separate ways."
"Hah, seriously. Wow···."
I knew well enough that my behavior was pathetic and childish, enough to make Cheon Seo-yoon look dumbfounded.
I had drawn her myself, and now I was taking out my anger on someone innocent.
"What kind of jerk acts like that? Hey! Are you not going to stop?"
Still, I ignored her and kept walking.
If I talked any more, the situation would only get worse······. I needed time to rein in my unruly emotions.