The Collapsed Root Cave (4)
Seo Woojin was growing visibly restless.
All he could think about was catching up to the party Han Sora and Lee Seonho had gone ahead with, even a single hour sooner.
Just how far in did they go?
His eyes, so dull and vacant in everyday life, had sharpened into something feral. The thought that Seonho—or any of the other boys who'd entered with them—might do something to Han Sora made his steps faster and faster.
"W-Woojin... c-couldn't we walk a little slower...?"
"Yah, Chae Eunbi. Why the hell didn't you ever build up your stamina instead of whining at Woojin all the time? Just hurry up and keep pace."
"A-Arin, you're a Physical Enhancement Type! What am I supposed to do, I'm a mage!"
The noisy squabbling of the girls came from behind his back. Seo Woojin had hoped that being inside a dungeon would earn him at least a little cooperation, but barely a few minutes after entering, he was already thinking it would've been better to come in alone.
-Grrrk.
"It's dangerous, so stay close to me, Woojin?"
"...Haah."
Lee Hayeon, the shieldbearer, clung to him as if she were his girlfriend. Chae Eunbi, the mage, did nothing but complain about her lack of stamina. And then there was Yoo Arin, the archer, whose prickly temper soured the party's mood at every turn.
It was true the group had been thrown together haphazardly during class, but the more they worked together, the worse the combination proved to be. And whenever problems cropped up, he couldn't help missing Han Sora—his teammate all the way back through the entrance exams.
I should've treated her better while I had her. I should have shown her she could rely on me while we were still on the same team.
Woojin was trying, belatedly, to make up for his past mistakes—but every single time he did, Lee Seonho would swoop in and sabotage him. If he ever wanted to repair his relationship with Han Sora, he'd need to drive a wedge between her and Seonho first.
All I have to do is catch up to them. The moment Seonho tries something on Sora, I appear and save her. And then everything goes back to the way it was...
Seo Woojin always believed his plans were flawless. It was just that they had never once actually worked out. Still, he clung to the hope that this time, this once, things would go right as he trailed after Seonho's party.
"Let's go this way."
"That's not a path at all, Woojin. We're supposed to follow the trail here."
"...No, we go this way. Look closely—there's a faint trail here where people have walked through."
"I mean, sure, but... does it have to be such a cramped one?"
"Ugh, I hate this.... If we squeeze into somewhere narrow, bugs or something are gonna come crawling out, I just know it...."
"..."
He'd finally found a trail worth following behind Seonho, and yet each of his party members spat out a complaint as if the whole thing displeased them personally. Suppressing the urge to scream, Seo Woojin forced his feet down the narrow passage.
"If you don't want to follow me, then don't. I'm going either way."
"Wh—Woojin?!"
"Woojin! We came here to train as a party! What are we supposed to do if you go off alone?!"
What mattered to him right now wasn't flattering his useless party members. It was getting Han Sora back. Nothing else.
Those women could have come by the truckload and still not been worth one Han Sora. She was pretty, she was talented, and they'd known each other for years.
Seo Woojin had realized that his awakening ability had weakened sharply ever since his falling-out with Han Sora. Getting stronger again meant winning her heart back—that single thought consumed him entirely.
"Ugh, fine! I get it, so stop walking off ahead of us, Woojin!"
"Haah, why is he so damn stubborn...."
"Uuu, I hate it here...."
Behind him, Lee Hayeon trudged along reluctantly, and behind her, Yoo Arin and Chae Eunbi followed despite their grumbling, unable to do anything else.
-Snk. Shhk.
"W-wow...."
The dissection knife slid beneath the Poison Spike Wolf's throat, cracked the hide open, and ran cleanly down the length of its belly. Watching my hands move with near-professional precision thanks to Delicate Touch, Han Sora stared for a moment as if entranced.
"With big monsters like wolves, there are two ways to take the pelt—splitting along the back or splitting along the belly. Usually it's better to follow the line along the underside."
"Mmhm, I see...."
"You try one, Sora. I'll walk you through it."
"O-Okay."
After watching my hands work through one full pass, Han Sora began to move her own knife, cautious and deliberate. Because her grip kept tensing and then slackening, the cut line came out noticeably jagged compared to mine. The pelt of a Poison Spike Wolf she'd killed practically without leaving a wound on it was shedding its value in real time.
She seemed aware of it herself—after finishing the belly cut, she stole a careful glance at my face.
"I-It's not going well...."
"It's fine, just work with confidence. This is exactly what you enrolled at the academy to learn, isn't it?"
"Well, yeah, but.... Ugh, it feels like such a waste...."
Still, once she got a bit of a rhythm going, she started peeling the hide away smoothly. Give it a little time and she'd be comfortable with it. And given that she was the classic commoner-born heroine—the one most sensitive to money—her personality practically guaranteed she'd master dissection fast, if only to avoid losing out on a single coin.
Honestly, this much is already a solid level for Han Sora.
Among the girls who claimed to be aspiring hunters, plenty would raise every kind of fuss to get out of skinning even a single pelt. I'm rear support, the vanguard should do the dirty work, or it's too gross, a man should handle it—there was no shortage of girls stacking excuses to dodge the work.
-Snk. Snk. Shhhk!
"D-Done!"
She'd slipped up here and there and damaged the hide a bit, but she finished the dissection without giving up until the very end. That alone was more than good enough.
"H-How is it? Is this okay?"
"Not bad for a first attempt."
"...Why do you talk like you've done this a thousand times?"
"Learned it in my club. The senior there taught me really well."
"Hmm... a club, huh...."
The moment clubs came up, Han Sora turned her eyes toward me with a subtly complicated expression. I wondered if I'd misspoke, and looked back at her in silence—what came out of her mouth was a remarkably cute reaction.
"Is she a girl?"
"Huh?"
"The club senior you keep mentioning. Is she a girl or not."
...Look at our Sora. She's learned how to be jealous.
It genuinely delighted me how beautifully she'd been trained. Of course, I couldn't let any of that show on my face, so I answered with practiced indifference, as if I couldn't fathom what she meant.
"It's a club, so obviously there are girl seniors and boy seniors both."
"O-Ohh... s-so you did joint activities with them, I guess...."
"Not really. When they were teaching me, it was just the one third-year senior."
"...Was she a girl?"
"She was, but... is that really so important?"
"N-No! It's not important or anything...."
Watching her try to cover for the fact that she'd been jealous was quietly adorable in its own right.
I was musing over that when I glanced toward Do Yoonchae, who seemed to have more or less finished preparing her own wolf pelt and was wiping the blood off her sword.
"Yoonsung, you done with the dissection?"
"...Finished over here."
Come to think of it, Do Yoonchae had run over with a strangely urgent look on her face back when I was about to be ambushed. I'd built up an image with her that was closer to training than affection, and yet when it came down to it, she'd come to rescue me without a moment's hesitation.
Maybe simple hatred had deepened into something like love and hate tangled together. Or maybe, without even realizing it herself, she'd grown attached to the first "friend" she'd ever truly made.
"The monsters here definitely aren't dangerous enough on their own. Apparently even a support-department kid like you can hold your own when it counts."
"Something like that. If you're both holding up fine, I was thinking we'd scout a little deeper. You two good with that?"
"O-Oh, yeah. I'm not really tired at all. There's still plenty of time left, so going a bit further couldn't hurt, right?"
"Fine by me."
With Han Sora's and Do Yoonchae's agreement secured, we pushed deeper in—three figures walking toward the hidden passage that led down to the third basement level of the cave.
By the time Lee Seonho's group had dispatched the Poison Spike Wolf pack and resumed their advance, Seo Woojin's party was trailing the three sets of footprints left behind along the narrow, root-choked forest path.
Can't be late. Can't be too late....
The farther he walked, the more traces of someone's passage caught his eye—freshly flattened moss, soil stamped with shoe treads. Examining each one, Woojin quickened his pace, more and more frantic.
"Woojin, is this actually a path?"
"Yeah. We go this way."
"Doesn't really seem like the kind of place people would come to train, though...."
Even the girls who had feelings for him were beginning to harbor quiet doubts about his stubborn, one-man-show behavior. And no one felt those doubts more acutely than Chae Eunbi, the mage trailing at the very back, leaning on her staff with every step.
"Hah... hahh... hahh..."
She was the only one of the four who wasn't a Physical Enhancement Type, which made her stamina the weakest by far.
She'd honestly stopped caring about the training itself. More than anything, she just wanted to turn around and head back.
...But having come this far, going back alone would be even more dangerous. So she had no choice but to trudge along after Woojin into the depths.
"Hurry up! You keep falling behind!"
"Hahh... haahh.... S-sorry...."
"..."
"..."
And Woojin didn't spare his party member's condition so much as a glance—he was outright shouting at her. Even girls as smitten as they were couldn't help but start to question him, just a little.
"Woojin, stop it and let's rest. If we keep going like this, Chae Eunbi's actually going to collapse."
"...Yah. Here, water. Sit down, drink, and rest a minute."
"Hhh... hhuuuh...."
Chae Eunbi snatched the canteen Yoo Arin offered, dropped to the ground, and gulped it down. Not so long ago, this same girl had insisted she didn't want to set foot in a filthy cave dungeon like this one—but fatigue waits for no one, and there she was, sitting right down in the dirt.
"There's no time to rest. Why are you suddenly sitting d—"
"Yah, Seo Woojin. Enough already."
"...What?"
"I haven't just talked this whole time—I've gone along with every single thing you wanted, so the least you can do is wait this out. This whole thing was your idea, remember? You're the one who dragged us into the Root Cave and started wandering down paths that aren't even paths. And you can't spare a few minutes for her?"
"I-There's no time to wait! If we don't get in there fast—"
"Look, I'm not exactly a fan of her whining either. But she hasn't complained once, and she's been chasing after you this whole time—can't you see that? And you're going to stand there and say there's no time to rest? That's what you have to say?"
"..."
"Anyway, I'm waiting until she's back on her feet. If you want to go in, go in alone or don't go at all."
It wasn't just Chae Eunbi, who'd been whining the whole way—even Yoo Arin, who had been taking his side until now, had turned on him. He wanted to argue back, to come up with some kind of excuse, but there was nothing to say. All he could do was stubbornly turn his face away, right up to the bitter end.
"Fine. Do whatever you want."
"...What?"
"Stay here or don't, it's your call. I'm going."
"H-Hey! Yah!"
Not even a full minute after his party stopped to rest, Seo Woojin strode deeper into the cave as if none of it were his concern.
"...W-Wait, Woojin! I'm coming too!"
"W-Wait a second.... M-Me too, I'll— hahh... hahh..."
Lee Hayeon blindly followed after him, and seeing the vanguard leave, Yoo Arin and Chae Eunbi had no choice but to rise and follow as well.