Academy's Savior
I stepped in front of Seong Ha-ri.
She hated using her Spirit Devourer trait. And I had no intention of forcing the woman I loved to do something she despised.
The wind that had been howling past us brushed against me and moved on.
"Will you interfere?"
Seong Ha-ri and a wind spirit I had never seen before in my life. Whose side I would take was never in question. I would have preferred to talk this out — but the wind spirit had already gone too far. Conversation was no longer an option.
I raised my blade and leveled it at the spirit. Its elephantine face twisted as though wounded.
"So. In the end, you're just another human."
The wind turned vicious. The tip of my blade shuddered left and right under its force.
"Oppa. Let me handle this—"
"Hari. You hate using that skill, don't you? I'll take care of it. Stay put."
Even as I spoke, the wind grew stronger still. It felt like trying to hold a conversation in front of an industrial fan running at full blast.
Close the distance and go for the core. End it in one strike.
I charged the spirit.
The wind's direction shifted without warning, becoming a sudden updraft that lifted my body into the sky. At this rate I was going to end up just like those three Chinese hunters getting tossed around over there.
Stormbreaker!
Stormbreaker materialized before me, then disassembled and locked itself onto my body as armor. The added weight dragged me downward. The spirit's trunk twitched. The wind intensified, shoving me back up.
Seong Ha-ri is… thankfully clear of the wind's influence. Her instincts really are sharp.
CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!
Blades of wind hammered against the armor. They lacked the force and cutting power to pierce Stormbreaker. More importantly, the plating was dense — the wind never touched my skin.
That didn't mean I held the advantage. The moment the spirit changed how it manipulated the wind, I would be completely at its mercy.
Makina.
Makina popped into existence beside me in her spiritual form. In that state, the wind had no hold on her — but she couldn't exert any power either.
"You're calling me already? I thought I was supposed to be watching that bald old man."
I had assigned Makina to tail and monitor Yang Zishen. I'd figured something was off about him.
Can't you see this is an emergency? Possess Stormbreaker.
"Fine."
Makina answered without fuss and possessed Stormbreaker. That was the Spirit Jade oiling paying off.
If only she were this cooperative all the time.
As she took over, the armor's design shifted into a futuristic suit. The right hand in particular transformed into a cylindrical cannon, its muzzle glowing as it spun, drawing in the surrounding wind for power.
Makina's abilities were remarkably versatile. The downside was the enormous mana cost that came with them.
"Charged! Just pull the trigger!"
The problem was the wind. Aiming through that gale was anything but easy.
CLANK.
Steel wings unfolded from my back, helping me hold steady in the howling air. Having Makina's support made everything considerably easier.
BOOM!
A mass of energy blasted from the cannon toward the spirit. It twisted its body in a desperate dodge — and in that same instant, the three Chinese hunters appeared behind it, swinging their swords. True to their A-Class status, they had broken free of the wind on their own and gone on the attack.
"AAAAAARGH!"
The spirit screamed as its core took the hit. I aimed the cannon again. It wasn't fully charged, so I poured my own mana into it, topped it off in an instant, and fired.
Just before the energy round connected, a colossal wall of wind erupted and rocketed skyward, a barrier of pure force. The three Chinese hunters who had closed in were blasted away with it.
"Unforgivable! Unforgivable! Unforgivable!!!"
The spirit went berserk. As if answering its fury, the spirit core flashed and pulsed with light.
It's burning its very existence for power. This is… genuinely dangerous.
We were dealing with a high-ranking spirit. Unleashed like this, its power could erase this entire area and still have strength left over.
I had to finish it before it could act.
There has to be a way—
"Auntie's moving."
"What?"
I looked down at Seong Ha-ri.
She was biting her lip hard, advancing on the spirit. Razor winds barred her path, but she pressed forward one step at a time.
She wasn't unscathed. Every time she closed the distance, the wind carved into her body. Droplets of blood rode the gale upward, and her black hair whipped wildly in every direction.
"Seong Ha-ri! Fall back!!"
I shouted with everything I had. Whether the roaring wind swallowed my voice or not, she showed no reaction at all.
…If she can't hear me, I'll have to go myself.
I tilted my floating body downward. Under normal circumstances that would have sent me plummeting — but the ferocious wind made my descent agonizingly slow. And the wind was only getting stronger.
"Makina! Any ideas?!"
"No good. Too late. Even with thrusters, the wind is stronger deeper in! You saw it block the energy round!"
"……"
Would Heavenly Mind make it possible?
"How is Auntie even holding on? Anyone else would've been blown away like those guys earlier."
The same question hit me a beat late. How was Seong Ha-ri advancing through that wind? Superior physical ability? Impossible. Her current physical stats weren't that impressive — roughly on par with the three Chinese hunters who'd just been flung aside.
Sheer willpower, then? There were things willpower could accomplish in this world, and things it couldn't. The latter far outnumbered the former.
It's the Spirit Devourer trait.
Spirit Devourer (S) was definitely reducing the damage she took from the spirit.
"Yujin. Are you just going to sit there?"
"……"
I watched Seong Ha-ri. She was stepping forward of her own free will. Did I have the right to stop her? Was that even what she wanted?
"…I respect Seong Ha-ri's choice."
Even so, I kept my eyes locked on her. The moment anything went wrong, I would go to her.
"Auntie's going to be in so much pain! What do we do?!"
Makina's worried voice rang through my head. For her to sound like that, Seong Ha-ri's condition had to be dire. Her clothes were in tatters, and every step left a bloody footprint stamped into the ground.
And then, at last, Seong Ha-ri stood before the spirit.
"G-get away!!"
Fear laced the spirit's cry. Seong Ha-ri advanced in silence.
Even terrified, the spirit refused to retreat. Instead, it attacked. A whirlwind powerful enough to level the entire area in an instant crashed down on her.
Seong Ha-ri swung her spear.
The wind was cleaved clean through and vanished. She closed the remaining distance, and her spear drove straight through the spirit core with perfect precision.
"Ah… AAAAAARGH! AAAAAAAAAARGH!"
The spirit let out a raw, agonized scream. I could see it thrashing in a final bid to command the wind — gathering it into a single point in midair, clearly intending to detonate it like a bomb. But the wind never finished forming. It simply disappeared.
More precisely, the spirit's power had been absorbed into Seong Ha-ri.
"…Auntie just ate the spirit."
Makina's tone was grim. Fair enough — from her perspective, she had just watched one of her own kind get devoured.
Didn't look as grotesque as I expected, honestly.
The wind died.
My body plummeted. Thanks to Makina firing the thrusters mid-fall, I touched down safely.
I walked over to Seong Ha-ri, who stood there with a dazed expression.
"Hari. You okay?"
She gave a weak nod.
"I'm fine."
Up close, she was a mess. Torn clothes, a body soaked in blood. Fortunately, nothing looked fatal. I pulled out a potion and poured it over her head.
The blood washed away under the potion's flow. Her lacerated skin knit itself smooth under the top-grade recovery formula.
"Is it okay to just dump expensive potions like that?"
She said it playfully, trying to lift the heavy mood.
"You're more important than any potion."
"…Thanks, Oppa."
I summoned a fresh set of clothes and handed them over. Seong Ha-ri started to change, then froze. In the distance, the three Chinese hunters were approaching — battered and bloodied.
"So you had potions."
"Wouldn't mind a share of those ourselves."
"We'll pay you back for them later."
They demanded potions with complete confidence.
Makina.
"Okay!"
WHIIIIRRR.
A drone materialized in the sky and shot toward the Chinese hunters. Their eyes went round — they'd never seen a drone before and couldn't process what it was. By the time they tried to dodge, a magnetic field pouring from the machine locked down their movements.
"Hahaha! Self-destruct!"
Makina crowed with delight.
The result was considerably less delightful. A massive explosion obliterated the surrounding area. A crater opened in the ground as if a meteor had struck — the natural consequence.
The three Chinese hunters vanished without a trace.
"Hahaha! This is my power! You human scum!"
Makina materialized fully, arms crossed, laughing.
Ordinarily, Makina alone couldn't produce force on this scale — but the Spirit Jades she'd consumed over time, combined with the environment's transformation into a spirit-warped domain, had given her a serious boost.
She drifted slowly toward us.
Seong Ha-ri's expression was dark. Not because the three Chinese hunters were dead — she seemed afraid of how Makina would react.
Makina was a spirit, and Seong Ha-ri had just literally eaten one right in front of her. She was probably terrified that Makina would fear or despise her for it.
"Hari. You're not dying, right?"
"I-I'm fine."
"Thank goodness!"
Makina dove into Seong Ha-ri's arms the way she always did. Seong Ha-ri's eyes went wide. Then, relief softening her face, she smiled faintly and held Makina close.
"Thanks for worrying about me, Makina."
I was grateful Makina wasn't an ordinary spirit. Even Mocha, a high-ranking spirit, subtly avoided Seong Ha-ri — but Makina showed no aversion whatsoever.
Afterward, Seong Ha-ri went behind a tree to change and came back out.
I snuck a look. There might have been wounds in places I couldn't see, after all.
Midway through, lust surged hard enough that I nearly jumped her — but the serious look on her face made me hold back.
"Hari. What do you say we just run? From where I'm standing, this whole situation reeks."
I had already smashed the radio the Chinese Hero Association provided. That alone was enough to make enemies of them — and on top of that, we'd killed three of their heroes. Relations with the Chinese Hero Association were already past the point of no return. Running was the smart play.
"If we run, the millions of people on this island will die."
"I care more about you than millions of people I've never even met."
"Oppa…"
Color rose in Seong Ha-ri's cheeks.
A soft, pink atmosphere settled over us.
Spending a little happy time right here wouldn't have been the worst idea.
BOOM!
An explosion thundered in the distance, and Seong Ha-ri snapped her expression back into place.
"Let's go, Oppa."