Chapter 7
Terminally Ill, but It's Okay — Episode 7
The next day, 7:00 a.m.
A tidy space without a single thing out of place: Lee Taek-jin's faculty office.
Knock, knock, knock.
"Professor. May I come in?"
Lee Taek-jin, who had been savoring the quiet morning with his coffee, answered in a deliberately displeased tone.
"Come in."
When the door opened, a beauty with a refined air bowed in greeting.
Her name was Kim Mi-young.
She was the head teaching assistant on the associate professor track, and a talent who enjoyed his favor.
"A total of five students have submitted track-change applications."
"Five? Quite a lot of spineless ones. They must think changing paths will make something of them."
Lee Taek-jin snatched up the documents Kim Mi-young held out.
He flipped through them one by one, examining the students' names.
As expected, they were all bottom-ranked nobodies.
One from the Superhuman Track to the Support Track, another from the Summoning Track to the Magic Track.
They had probably made some grand resolution, calling it the challenge of a lifetime, but to Lee Taek-jin it was nothing more than a flimsy excuse.
Their true intent was surely escape from reality.
The whole time he checked the paperwork, Lee Taek-jin's gaze remained heavily sunken.
"This one......"
That is, until he turned to the very last page.
Lee Taek-jin compared the name written at the top of the application with the face in the photo and frowned.
It was him.
That insolent bastard who had reached out with his filthy hand and grabbed his own.
"Ah, student Park Ha-yul also applied."
"Now?"
"Pardon?"
"Never mind."
Lee Taek-jin waved his hand roughly, recalling the unsavory incident from the day before.
Park Ha-yul, from a sorcerer family.
From an arrogant family, with unremarkable grades to boot.
Because he was a disagreeable sort who possessed everything Lee Taek-jin despised, Lee Taek-jin had given him a test that hadn't been part of the plan.
The pretext had been plausible, and the problem had been certain.
It was a problem he had posed while confident it would make the boy fail.
But the boy had answered.
With a response that left no room for fault......
If it had ended there, he probably would have dismissed it as mere coincidence.
After all, it wasn't impossible if the boy's tastes aligned and he had taken an interest in monster studies.
But to think he would submit a track-change application as if to prove a point.
Was he choosing Sorcery to earn a sympathy vote from his family?
Or could he actually be aiming to pass?
When his thoughts reached that point, Lee Taek-jin suddenly let out a scoff.
The boy had gone too far. Far too far.
Such a thing was one in ten thousand. No, wasn't it as unlikely as one in a million?
He could not even imagine someone so lowly entering under his command.
"I'll accept them all. You may leave."
The conversation ended there.
If he assigned meaning to every lucky squirm of a single worm, everything in the world would become exhausting.
A worm was just a worm.
At a flick of Lee Taek-jin's hand, Kim Mi-young exited without a word.
He hurriedly picked up his teacup, but unfortunately it had already cooled past the temperature he preferred.
Lee Taek-jin pushed it far away and opened his academic journal again.
"......"
It was at that moment that the long scar on the back of his hand caught his eye.
The boy was clearly not even worth his attention.
"A sorcerer family......."
Right. How long had it been since he had encountered an heir of that arrogant family?
It would truly be a waste to simply let it pass.
"There is no method more certain than comparison for learning one's place."
An inexplicable satisfaction seeped from Lee Taek-jin's twisted lips.
* * *
[Remaining Time: 17 hours 8 minutes 59 seconds]
The day of the diagnostic evaluation dawned.
Perhaps because the end of yesterday had been so unsettled, my whole body ached.
As I dragged my heavy body along, I soon arrived at the Grand Training Ground, Gwanggaeto Hall.
This massive circular building where the diagnostic evaluation would be held overflowed with solemn grandeur, as if styling itself a modern-day Colosseum.
Who on earth designed it?
Admiration welled up the moment I saw it, but I had no leisure to stand around gawking, so I hurried onward.
Inside Gwanggaeto Hall, containers like those you might see at a port were installed in rows.
Evaluation boxes. A kind of set.
Spaces specially constructed for evaluation.
Even so, if you included the hidden spaces, it was probably about the size of three soccer fields.
It was the result of high-grade spatial magic applied like in the comprehensive training hall.
I found the Class 2-A evaluation box and entered.
A buzz of noise—
The indoor atmosphere was somewhat excited, perhaps because of the tension.
I was about to move to a corner spot when a pair walking over from the opposite side caught my eye.
"You trained until late last night, right?"
"It's what I always do."
"Take it easy. You'll hurt yourself at this rate."
It was Baek Sa-young and Cheon Seo-yoon, whose similar tastes made them get along well.
But why were they coming this way?
Normally I wouldn't have cared, but it hadn't even been nine hours since we'd gotten on each other's nerves.
This was a pain.
Avoiding them was the best move, so I was just about to quietly turn away.
"Oh? You, you......"
Ah, damn......
"It's you, right? That guy from yesterday. Whoa, running into you here too~ We're in the same class?"
"You two know each other?"
"Who? Him?"
"Yeah. Aren't you talking about Park Ha-yul?"
"Aha, so your name's Park Ha-yul. Sure, I know you. We've met before, right?"
Cheon Seo-yoon's eyes gleamed as she leaned her face in.
"Did you get home okay after getting on my nerves that badly yesterday?"
"......"
"Oh, ignoring me again? Want me to turn off the lights for you? Gotta save on the electric bill~"
With Baek Sa-young beside her, she was really laying on the sarcasm.
Well, I could understand. The responsibility was on my side, after all.
"Oh, it's you. The girl who was cussing me out from the first meeting."
But that didn't mean I had to keep enduring it.
Even if I'd made myself look bad, I hadn't cursed, and I had apologized for what needed apologizing.
"Cussing you out?"
Baek Sa-young looked at Cheon Seo-yoon questioningly. Flustered, she raised her voice.
"Hey, what the hell are you talking about?"
"Why? You didn't? You did it yesterday."
"I did what? Where is this slander coming from?"
"Slander?"
I smiled brightly and spat back the curses I'd been fed yesterday.
"X—."
"......"
"You fucking psycho."
"......No. I mean......"
"Psycho."
Unable to take it anymore, Cheon Seo-yoon shouted.
"There were circumstances. If you'd at least let me explain the reason......"
"Reason? Whatever it was, it wasn't bad enough to justify 'f—' and 'fucking psycho,' was it?"
"Ugh."
At a loss for words, Cheon Seo-yoon just opened and closed her mouth.
"You really did that?"
"No. I mean, I did do it...... Wow, I'm going crazy, seriously."
She admitted it. Then that settled it.
Baek Sa-young let out a shallow sigh and lowered his head.
"Then why did you provoke him and make it exhausting for everyone?"
I would try to live quietly, but if someone messed with me, there'd be no mercy.
That was a lesson I'd engraved into my bones when I was thrown into society from an orphanage.
I walked past Cheon Seo-yoon, whose face was flushed with anger, and headed for the back seats.
It was still an uncomfortable, unpleasant face to look at for long.
* * *
Occasionally Cheon Seo-yoon's sharp gaze turned this way, but time passed quickly.
At exactly nine o'clock, he appeared without fail.
"Since everyone seems to be here, let's begin right away. This is Assistant Kim Mi-young. You'll see her often, so familiarize yourselves with her face."
This time the beautiful assistant was with him too.
Kim Mi-young.
Despite her plain name, she had an impressive résumé.
Four years ago, she had been one of the top graduates who had stirred up Taehak.
She had appeared occasionally in the original work, but her role wasn't very significant.
"The purpose of the diagnostic evaluation is to assess your level. It is reflected in your grades, but the proportion is low."
Lee Taek-jin began an untimely lecture before the evaluation.
"However, you should do your best. It's about time outside eyes and ears started paying attention. Have goals and keep striving. As long as it isn't absurd, it will be worthwhile."
But from the moment he said "absurd," his gaze lingered especially on me.
Was he saying that for me to hear?
While I felt inexplicably unsettled, Lee Taek-jin finished speaking and went up to the control room on the upper floor with Kim Mi-young.
Before long, an announcement came over the speakers.
—This diagnostic evaluation will use the Breakthrough type.
—The evaluation measures the time taken to reach the target point and converts it into a score.
—Students will enter in order as their names are called.
It was Kim Mi-young's voice.
As expected of that professor's assistant, even her formulaic tone was a copy of his.
—Special scholarship selection candidate, Superhuman Track student Cheon Seo-yoon. Please enter the field.
The evaluation proceeded just as in the original work.
"You've got this, Seo-yoon!"
"Cheon Seo-yoon. Do well."
Cheon Seo-yoon stepped forward boldly, as if she were leading the vanguard.
As she rolled up her sleeves and stood at the starting line, a timely breeze scattered her short hair.
"Perfect. I was in a foul mood anyway. I'll smash everything."
She looked so worked up from what had happened earlier that she gave off an almost chilling air. Then—
Beeeeeeep!
The start signal rang out, and interference scarecrows rushed in from all directions.
Setting aside my discomfort, I focused on her for now.
Breakthrough tasks were a difficult type requiring you to break through enemy obstruction and reach the target point, so a careful strategy......
"Raaaah. Bring it all on. I'll sweep you all at once."
......But Cheon Seo-yoon immediately kicked off the ground and charged in.
Well.
Come to think of it, even that hair-trigger temper was a dead ringer.
From this world's creator, that is.
* * *
Cheon Seo-yoon's family, the Lightning Cheon Family, was powerful enough to contend for the top spot among the ten great families.
They could manifest lightning, one of the higher attributes, or channel it through their muscle fibers to strengthen the body.
Cheon Seo-yoon was no exception, but whether she actually used it was a separate matter.
She refused to use it herself.
Boom.
Thus, she faced the scarecrows using only pure mana.
If you asked whether that made her weak—no, it didn't.
Crackle.
You could picture it like this.
A towering Can-X Bar. In other words, she was holding a sword swollen like a club with mana and beating the innocent scarecrows with it......
It was possible because her innate mana reserves were monstrous.
"Does that make any sense? She's just brute-forcing it with talent."
"I'm jealous. She pours it out like that and it doesn't even decrease."
With the students' envy and admiration at her back, Cheon Seo-yoon advanced unstoppably—then came to an abrupt halt at someone's shout.
"She already cleared Section 1!"
As she entered a specific section, the interference scarecrows disappeared.
Rumble, rumble, rumble.
With a tremor of the earth, a thick, massive wall shot up.
She had entered the final part of the evaluation: Section 2.
On the surface of the dark wall, small sparks crackled ceaselessly.
It was probably a 2nd-circle shield spell.
She had to break through that to reach the final target point.
"Hoo."
Cheon Seo-yoon took a deep breath and let it out.
They said Superhuman Track students controlled their mana through breathing.
Powerful mana gathered in her sword.
Mana of a deeper topaz color than before coiled around the blade, and Cheon Seo-yoon calmly extended her hand.
BOOM—
In an instant, a brilliant light flashed with a tremendous roar.
It took exactly one strike.
Rumble, rumble.
With that single slash, the wall and shield that had seemed like a fortress collapsed.
Almost absurdly easily.
At least, that was how it looked to my eyes.
Beep!
[Lap time: 2 minutes 11 seconds 04]
When the final record appeared on the front panel, the students burst into cheers.
Even Lee Taek-jin, who was stingy with praise, personally picked up the microphone.
—Good work. Return to the waiting room.
That must have meant even the grade-obsessed professor was satisfied.
I was impressed too, but it was still too early to be surprised.
Cheon Seo-yoon's overall rank was 8th.
There were still two powerhouses ranked above her.
Baek Sa-young and Seol Yoon-gi.
The 1st and 2nd overall ranks of the second year, that is.
I looked forward to seeing what they would show.
Probably......
"If anything, they'll be even more impressive."
Huh?
At that moment, a strange voice came with a tingling sensation, and my head turned.