The Breathing Tunnel
"Wh-what... what is all this?"
The pitch-black underground passage, which they'd assumed would stretch on and on, had at some point given way to a wall of living flesh.
The crimson wall, threaded with veins and blood vessels, quivered and pulsed as though it were breathing.
It felt like standing inside the belly of a beast. Simon found himself remembering the time he'd ridden the Underworld Whale.
This is underneath a school building?
Squish. Squelch.
And all along the passage, he could see countless shapes like the limbs of monsters writhing and crawling.
"Fall back."
Kajan said it flatly, leaving no room for argument.
"Everything past that point is unknown territory. Even as your guard, I can't promise you'd come out of there alive."
"……."
Simon bit his lip and hesitated, and Kajan spoke again.
"Uncovering the truth is all well and good. But your life comes first."
In the end, Simon nodded, his face hard.
He wanted to know what was inside that place, what Walter was scheming — but the air beyond genuinely reeked of danger now.
They'd already accomplished more than enough for one night.
"Let's go back."
Simon and Kajan escaped the building without incident and made it back to the dormitory. Dick's eyes went wide at the sight of the two of them, utterly worn out.
"Where on earth did you two go? You weren't just out for a glass of wine, were you?"
Kajan flung his clothes here and there, climbed straight up to the second-floor bunk, and buried himself under the covers.
Simon answered with a wry smile.
"We just did some late-night training. Kajan was spotting my Magic Combat."
"Haah! I'm jealous! I wanna train with Kajan too—!"
Fwish.
Before Dick could even finish the sentence, something like a dart zipped across the room and buried itself in his neck. From beneath the covers, Kajan was holding a needle-like tube to his mouth.
"Mmhhhnnn..."
Dick crumpled face-first onto his bed and began to snore.
"A sleep dart. I use them often myself. He'll rest well."
Kajan pulled the covers back and showed his face.
"At first light, I'll file an interim report to Lady Nephthys with everything we've gathered tonight. We may be necromancers, but what we saw down there was no ordinary sight."
"Yes. Please do."
"You should sleep too."
With that, Kajan disappeared back under the covers.
Haah.
Simon turned off the light and lay down in his bed, but sleep wouldn't come.
The horrifying things he'd seen in that place refused to leave his mind.
What was that thing? Where exactly was that place? Was Walter truly a bishop of the Blood Sky Cult? And what was he plotting here at Kizen?
Simon slept fitfully until the small hours of the morning.
The next morning.
Only the night before they'd had a startling little adventure, but the sun rose as bright as ever, and ordinary life resumed without ceremony.
Today was a Magic Combat day.
The Class A students, arriving on hippo-back, found themselves at a training ground none of them had visited before. Wooden dummies, straw scarecrows, bundled straw targets — a whole assortment of somewhat old-fashioned training equipment was set up across the field.
"Alright, alright! Take your zeats!"
Hong Peng, the Magic Combat professor, called out with a clap of her hands.
The students, sweaty and drained from the hippo ride, gathered around with a drink in each hand.
"Today we're going to do a quick reziew of everything you've learned zo far!"
Dressed in her training gear, she walked over with a light, springy gait and stopped in front of a nearby boulder.
"Now, watch the zkill I use — and tell me which zkill it iz!"
She placed her hand on the boulder.
BOOOM!
Without warning, the rock split apart in a great crater centered on her hand. The students cried out in astonishment.
"Chwita!"
Chwita — Hong Peng's original striking technique. A Magic Combat art built on gathering Jet-Black into the fist or palm, then detonating that power all at once.
"Well done! TA Brad?"
Brad climbed onto the boulder and shielded it with a wooden guard. Hong Peng didn't dodge — she drove her fist straight into the shield.
CRUNCH!!
Her fist passed clean through the wooden shield and gouged another deep scar into the rock behind it. The shield itself was untouched.
The students answered in one voice.
"Cheonhyung!"
Cheonhyung — a piercing technique that ignored armor and protective gear entirely to strike the body directly.
Hong Peng gave a light nod and lowered her stance. Jet-Black coiled around her right hand, and then — like a dagger appearing in her grip — a thin blade of Jet-Black extended from it.
She swept it through empty air.
SHING!
The massive boulder split in two along a perfectly clean cross-section. The students shouted over one another.
"Chakgeom!"
Chakgeom — another of Hong Peng's original techniques. It supplied the 'blade' that Magic Combat, built around fists and legs, so often lacked, and its reach and versatility made it useful at range as well.
Having demonstrated all three techniques, she pressed her fist into her palm in a formal bow. Thunderous applause rained down from the students.
"You've all learned each of these at least once, haven't you?"
Hong Peng waved her index finger back and forth.
"Then let's see zome hands! Zdents who ztill can't do even ONE of theze three!"
Tension rippled through the crowd. Two girls sheepishly raised their hands, sweat dripping down their faces. And as it turned out, Toto, seated in the back, had his hand up as well.
Hong Peng continued.
"Thoze who can do at least one!"
More than half the students raised their hands — Meilin, Camibarez, and Dick among them.
"Two of the three!"
The remaining students thrust their hands up in a flash.
Quite a few in this group too, and their faces brimmed with confidence. Among the people Simon knew, class representative Jamie was one of them — apparently she had a knack for Magic Combat as well.
"Now — zdents who can do ALL three!"
Nearly every hand dropped. Exactly four remained raised.
"Ooooh~"
Gasps and whistles rose from the onlooking students.
Simon, hand still up, locked eyes from a distance with Hector, who was raising his own with a deeply sour scowl. The other two were Magic Combat majors.
"Good! Everyone progresses at their own pace, but by the end, you'll train until you can wield Chwita, Cheonhyung, and Chakgeom all with ease! At the very least, theze zkills must be yourz."
She added with a smile,
"After that, fighting our TAs on even footing should be well within reach, right?"
That was right. The final assessment Hong Peng had built her course around was a one-on-one Magic Combat match against a TA.
"Today, we're going to drill theze zkills hard! Everybody up!"
A brief round of stretching, and the training began at once. The TAs moved among the students, correcting stances and technique. Those who already knew two techniques picked up the third at a brisk pace.
Simon, who could already use all three, had a little breathing room.
"Hey, Simon."
Just then, Meilin sidled up to him, fidgeting.
"Yeah? What's up?"
"Ahem. Ahem."
Her cheeks flushed pink, Meilin hemmed and hawed for a moment before forcing the words out.
"If... if you're not busy, could you maybe watch my Chakgeom...?!"
"Students who can do all three, over here!!"
At the TA's shout, Simon's gaze flicked away. Meilin silently screamed 'ARGH!' inside, but managed to paste on an awkward smile.
"N-nothing! It's nothing. Go on, hurry!"
"Forget it."
Simon brushed it off like it was nothing.
"You matter more. I'll teach you — so get into position."
"……!"
Meilin's face turned scarlet, from her cheeks to the tips of her ears.
This guy — once in a great, greaaaat while — would just swoop in out of nowhere like that.
"Which one do you already know?"
Simon asked.
"C-Chwita."
"Then let's start with Cheonhyung. If you can already do Chwita, you'll pick it up faster."
Simon corrected her stance and shared the tips he'd worked out for himself.
"We're all used to channeling Jet-Black into whatever touches our palms, right?"
He said it as he lightly took hold of her wrist. Her shoulder twitched.
"The way Jet-Black remembers can trip you up here. With Cheonhyung, you don't flow Jet-Black in like usual — the key is to consciously make it pass through. Don't register what's touching your palm at all. Feel like you're piercing straight through to what lies beyond it."
Simon gently laid his right hand over the back of her pale white hand, then raised his Jet-Black — and it seeped out from beneath her palm without her feeling a thing.
"See? You can't feel my Jet-Black, can you?"
"……."
"Meilin?"
"Wh-what? No! Absolutely can't feel it! Yep!"
She stammered out the answer. Simon smiled and continued the explanation.
"Don't consciously think about the object in front of you — focus on the target beyond it. Now, give it a tr—"
"SIMON POLENTIA—!!"
With a bellow, a hulking figure came stomping over.
It was Brad, the Magic Combat TA. He'd been on the verge of blowing a gasket anyway, and the moment he spotted Simon and Meilin holding hands, he snorted through his nose.
"Ha! Finally manage to accomplish something, and it's flirting?"
"Wh-what are you talking about?!"
Meilin yanked her hand back and shrieked. Brad dug a finger into his ear and looked at Simon.
"Three-skill freaks go to the training grounds. Teaching is TAs' business."
"On my way. Sorry, Meilin."
And with that, Simon headed off toward the training grounds. Brad crossed his arms.
"Was that punk teaching you Cheonhyung? Try it. I'll teach you ten times better!"
Meilin shot him a look of utter disbelief, then resignedly loosed a Cheonhyung into empty air.
"THAT'S not it!"
Brad bellowed.
"No power! Where's the POWER?! More like — PABAT! CHWAAK! Get that feeling into it!"
'What on earth is pabat-chwaahk?'
She tried several more times, but Brad just clutched his chest in frustration, demonstrated a Cheonhyung himself, and abruptly ordered her to copy it exactly.
"Why is this not working?! PABAT! CHWAAK! I SAID! Just do precisely what I do, nothing else!"
"I've got it now. Thanks so much."
Meilin stared at him with a look that said unbelievable, then flipped her blue hair and strode away.
This man, she decided, would never hold a professorship. Not in a lifetime.
Meanwhile, Simon arrived at the training grounds.
The course here was laid out with impressive system. Rails ran along both sides of the running lane, and wooden dummies traveled along them. Each dummy was fitted with a cluster of wooden arms bolted to its torso, spinning as it moved.
A Magic Combat-major student happened to be running the rails, practicing. As a dummy rotated toward her, its wooden arms swinging in, she batted them away in rapid succession — and each deflected arm folded at its joint, clearing the path for her to pass.
Just then, Hong Peng called out.
"There you are, Zimon! You're up next, Zimon!"
Simon asked, bewildered.
"What is all this?"
"A running azzezzment! It waz originally planned for next week, but—"
She flashed a grin.
"—we've been letting our honor zdents take an early crack at it, no prezzure!"
WHAM!
The student who'd been running the course ahead of him slammed into an incoming shield mid-run and went tumbling off.
So that's how it works.
At its core, it looked like a Magic Combat course designed to be cleared by weaving Chwita, Cheonhyung, and Chakgeom together on the move.
"Think you can manage it?"
At Hong Peng's question, Simon grinned.
"Yes, Professor. I think I can."
Hong Peng gave him the okay sign. Spotting it, a TA bellowed,
"Student Simon Polentia! Will attempt the training course!"
At the name Simon, the other students drifted over, crowding and craning their necks as though a good show had just broken out.
Simon Polentia?
Hector came closer too, his face rigid. The other two had both failed, but Hector had scraped through by the narrowest of margins.
Arms crossed, he ground his teeth.
Heh. It won't come easy for him this time.
Simon drew in a slow, easy breath and stepped up to the start of the course.