The Worst Possible Timing (1)
'Graaagh!!'
-Whiiiing!
"Haaagh…! D-Dark Spear!!"
-Thwock!
'Graa, grraaagh!!'
Dodging the Owlbear's attacks with Cha Eunju cradled in my arms, for what felt like an eternity — well over a dozen seconds — while my exhausted body had long since hit its limit. Even the exploding adrenaline couldn't suppress the screams ripping from every muscle in my body.
"Hah, hah, hah…."
I'd never been this worn out, even training with Choi Marie. The fact that my body was screaming this loudly despite using Suggestion: Adrenaline Explosion to forcibly numb the fatigue meant… I'd probably hit my limit a long time ago.
…Let's just hope this ends at full-body muscle soreness and nothing worse, once the fight is over.
'Hold on. Just hold on. All of this is for Han Sora and Kim Isabel.'
This was honestly the only way the current me could build any rapport with those two. It would be flat-out weird for a Combat Support student like me to just go visit an Archery Department student and a Recovery Department student out of nowhere.
For the sake of winning over two girls so beautiful and charming that they absolutely had to be added to my heroines, this much pain was nothing. I could bear it a hundred times over.
…I never expected this to be easy in the first place. Stealing the protagonist's awakening event with a body that has zero physical abilities to speak of — when has that ever been easy?
-Whiiiiing!!
"B-Black Bomb!!"
-BOOOM!
'Graaaaagh…!!'
In the original story, Cha Eunju learned Black Bomb sometime around the first-semester finals, if I remember right. So I guess a sense of crisis really does make people grow. Or, y'know, maybe she awakened it through the power of love — her desperate desire to protect me. Personally, I find that version way more appealing.
-Vuuuuuum!
"Hiiyahhh!!"
"Huuuh, huu, huuuh…."
…No, seriously. I think this is actually it. The real limit.
The only mercy in all of this was the glow rising around Kim Isabel's body — her Sacred Chain was mere seconds from completion. Han Sora's Careful Shot had been trained on the Owlbear for a while now too, waiting for the moment it would be pinned in place.
Just a few more seconds of enduring this hell, and it would all be over — that was what I was thinking, when—
-Vuuuuuum!!
"Ugh…!!"
"…."
…The monster's palm — a strike neither of us could possibly dodge — came crashing down right in front of me and Cha Eunju.
How… how can he push himself that far?
"D-Dark Spear!!"
"Hah, hah, hah…."
Lee Seonho, who had been sprinting nonstop with a girl in his arms, and Cha Eunju, nestled in his arms as she drew the Owlbear's attention with dark magic.
Of the two, it was the man — this Lee Seonho — who stirred something in Han Sora: a mixture of wonder and genuine astonishment.
'He's really… completely different from that guy.'
Some bastard out there was a Physical Enhancement Type, and yet when the moment came, he'd bolted like his tail was on fire without so much as lifting a finger to save the people right next to him.
Meanwhile this guy — a Mental Type buffer from the Support Department, no less — was throwing himself across the battlefield with everything he had, just to do the one thing he could do.
And his tactical orders for killing the Owlbear had been remarkably precise, come to think of it. He'd first asked whether she, an archer, had any technique capable of killing the beast. Then he'd asked Kim Isabel, who wielded holy power, whether she could cast a binding spell that used it. And when told it would take time, he'd simply started running — buying that time with his own body.
The way he commanded the battle with such fluency — as if he'd already fought it once before — was, no matter how she looked at it, beyond the level of a mere exam applicant.
Judgment like that belonged to a professional hunter at the very least, or a senior academy student on the low end.
'No wonder Cha Eunju relies on him. If I had a partner like that, I'd probably want to trust him too.'
…Honestly, she wished her partner were Lee Seonho instead of Seo Woojin.
Compared to the guy who couldn't even fill a vanguard's role, this boy was effectively the party's leader in every way that mattered. Next to that coward who ran when it counted, the man who sacrificed his body with everything he had at the moment of greatest need shone all the brighter.
The fact that he was aiming for Combat Support, or that he supposedly lacked combat ability — those felt like nothing more than trivial footnotes now.
"…Please, grant me that merciful power…."
-Vuuuuuum!
"Hiiyahhh!!"
"Huuuh, huu, huuuh…."
…Are those two going to be okay?
Nearly a full minute had passed, and Kim Isabel was still chanting her incantation while Lee Seonho's movements looked seconds from giving out entirely.
And yet through it all, he never once let go of Cha Eunju in his arms. Han Sora prayed, with all her heart, that he would somehow hold on until the very end.
-Vuuuuuum!
'Ah…!'
The monster's swinging palm was unmistakable even from a distance, and her brow furrowed before she could stop it. That Owlbear strike would leave them severely wounded, if it didn't kill them outright. She prayed desperately, silently, that both of them would come through unscathed—
'…Huh?'
Just before the monster's attack engulfed the two of them, she witnessed a scene she could not believe even with her own two eyes.
-Thud!
"Aahk!!"
Cha Eunju, who had been cradled in Lee Seonho's arms the entire time, was suddenly flung down to the ground.
-CRASH!!
"Khh…."
…And then, in her place — taking the monster's full attack alone — she watched Lee Seonho fall.
'…Ah.'
My head is ringing.
The impact feels like my whole body shattering; my consciousness is going hazy at the edges.
'So… what happened, again?'
The Owlbear's palm came flying at me and Cha Eunju at the end there. I couldn't see any way for the two of us to escape, so at the last second I let go of her — threw her, really.
Somehow I scraped together the last of my strength and hurled Cha Eunju toward safety, and then I…
I… was just standing there, alone, in the one spot where the attack couldn't miss.
'I heard that with injuries this severe, you're not supposed to feel any pain at all — that's the normal response, right?'
Yeah, well, that's a load of crap. The pain is very much present, and my brain refuses to work.
Supposedly your brain floods you with adrenaline to counteract the pain and prevent shock — but I'd probably already burned through my entire supply by forcing Adrenaline Explosion earlier. My body had been running on fumes; there was probably nothing left in the tank to secrete.
'Right — Cha Eunju. Is she…'
…She seems okay, at least.
She's sitting on the dirt staring at me with a dazed look on her face, but thankfully, it looks like I was the only one who took the Owlbear's hit.
Yeah. That's how it should be. Cha Eunju not getting hurt matters far more than I do.
Watching my woman get injured because of me is something I honestly couldn't live with.
…Not that "couldn't live with" is meant literally or anything. Anyway.
-Thud!
"…."
My body, which had felt like it hung in the air for ages, finally hit the ground. I felt bones — already broken once — grinding and jolting inside me from the impact. For some reason, though, no scream came out.
Can holy power even heal this? I'd need to know what the state of medical technology is in this world first. It sounds like even a full saintess might barely manage emergency treatment at this level — but hey, Saint Candidate Kim Isabel is right here, so surely something can be done.
…Oh, wait. She has androphobia, doesn't she. If I pass out, my Suggestion will probably wear off. What happens to my treatment then?
'My thoughts… won't organize themselves.'
It felt like my mind was drifting along on the current of my own consciousness. Is this what it feels like when you take a hard hit to the head?
At least my eyes still worked, so I could check on the situation one last time. Small mercies.
-Fwaaash!
With a sound of something erupting from the earth, dozens of luminous chains of light whipped up and coiled around the Owlbear's body.
-Thwock!
And in the very next moment, an arrow loosed from where Han Sora stood flew true, punching clean through the Owlbear's forehead.
"…Hey! …Seonho, stay with me…!!"
Cha Eunju, scrambling up belatedly, was rushing toward me with tears streaming down her face.
'Everyone seems safe, so… I guess I can rest a little now.'
…My mana's just about run dry anyway. I probably won't be able to maintain the Suggestion much longer, so I can't count on Isabel's treatment either.
All I could do was pray that the academy's rescue teams would find us as quickly as possible.
-Thwock!
'Graaagh….'
-Kuuoong!
A single arrow, embedded dead center in the giant monster's brow. And with that, the Owlbear's massive body tipped sideways and crashed to the ground.
It was a feat almost impossible to believe had been accomplished by four academy applicants — and yet not one of them could simply celebrate their victory.
"Seonho, wake up!! Seonho!!"
"H-How could he…."
"…Hey, Lee Seonho! Are you okay?! Hey!!"
All because of one man, sprawled motionless on the ground where he'd been flung by the monster's final blow.
Lee Seonho had, if anything, worked his body harder than anyone else throughout the entire battle — which meant that for the girls, his condition outranked even the Owlbear's death and material harvesting as the very first thing that needed checking.
"No, Seonho!! No!!!"
"C-Calm down, Eunju! You could hurt him if you shake him like that!"
"Seonhoooo!!"
"…."
Cha Eunju wailing as if her beloved had been struck down before her eyes; Han Sora watching the fallen Lee Seonho with eyes full of worry.
And Kim Isabel, who — fear warring with urgency — carefully approached the unconscious man barely clinging to breath.
'I have to heal him… quickly. I have to….'
She was terrified.
Forget healing — even drawing near, even looking at him straight on, made her tremble.
Her mind screamed that emergency treatment couldn't wait a single second, but the androphobia that was, for a Recovery Type ability user, nothing short of a fatal flaw had Lee Seonho's ankle in an iron grip.
'Why… why must this torment me even here, even now…?'
With every step she forced forward, memories from the past whispered at her, begging her to run away. The terror of wanting to flee this place right now coiled around Kim Isabel's entire body.
Dozens of writhing tentacles. Mud rising past her chin, engulfing her — that was what this dread felt like.
And yet, even drowning in that fear, her footsteps carried her forward, one step at a time, toward the fallen man.
'…In this single day alone, he has saved my life three times.'
When she'd been isolated in the forest, hunted by a pack of goblins.
When she'd stumbled and fallen behind while fleeing the Owlbear's ambush.
…And then, just now — when he bought her the time to cast her sacred miracle and end the beast.
'I'm still afraid. So afraid that the flutter of my heart just moments ago feels like it must have been my imagination. But….'
She was not so selfish as to leave three lives' worth of debt unpaid.
And besides, there was something that frightened Kim Isabel now far more than the fact that he was a man.
The possibility that the man who had saved her three times over might leave this world without ever hearing her properly thank him — that was the greater terror.
"P-Please, step back, both of you…. I-I have to, t-treat him…."
"Isabel…! S-Save Seonho! Please — I-I can't let Seonho die…!!"
"Just step back, Cha Eunju! You need to give Isabel room to work…!"
"Huaaang, Seonhoo…."
Shouldering the weight of it, she gingerly peeled back the man's shirt and poured holy power into his bare skin.
His breath still clung to him — barely. But his body was already in a state that could not be called that of a living man.
Bones fractured in place after place, the muscles of his limbs torn nearly to ribbons. It was almost a miracle he was breathing at all.
'Before a man who suffered this much… and I hesitate, just because I'm afraid….'
He had carried her in his arms while fleeing, after all — his injuries were unquestionably hers to answer for, at least in part.
Behind her veil, Kim Isabel wept secret tears of guilt as she poured every last drop of her holy power into Lee Seonho's body, while the other two girls prayed with everything they had for his recovery.
…And then.
"…I-I came to help! Han Sora!!"
"…."
"…."
"…."
…The belated arrival of the "protagonist" was greeted by nothing but the cold, stony eyes of three women.