Firefly Lights in the Dark
Where is she?
Rustle—
Moon Yoojin pushed his way through the underbrush, walking through the darkened forest. Yet no matter where he looked, there was no trace of Seol Jihyo or Lim Lisa.
"Yoojin, leave this area to the rescue team and head back for now. You're way past time."
The teacher following behind him spoke as though admonishing a child. And it was the right call. Under normal circumstances, Yoojin would have done exactly that. There was no reason for him to go out of his way to search for the two of them.
"...Let me look just a little longer."
Truthfully, even he couldn't understand his own behavior. Was it that offhand remark from Seol Jihyo that was nagging at him? He couldn't say.
"Hold on—what is that?"
Suddenly, a flustered voice rang out from behind. One of the rescue team members conducting the search swept his flashlight toward the base of the cliff.
"Looks like an Infected corpse?"
"What? An Infected?!"
"Good lord, why would something like that be here..."
The atmosphere began to stir. Yoojin's hand, mid-motion in the brush, went still.
The Abyss is right around here. What if something happened to her?
It couldn't be—
The color drained from Yoojin's face, and just as he whipped around toward the cliff—
"Hey! Look over there!"
With someone's relieved cry, every gaze shifted to a single point in the darkness.
...Fireflies?
A forest steeped in deep night. Faintly glimmering points of light. And through them, the sound of footsteps drew closer.
"Teacher!"
Two girls appeared, voices tinged with tears. It was Seol Jihyo and Lim Lisa.
The moment he laid eyes on them, the rigid tension on Yoojin's face melted away all at once. But the relief was short-lived.
What the flashlight revealed of the two girls was a sorry sight indeed. Lisa was riding on Jihyo's back, apparently injured somewhere, yet Jihyo herself looked far worse off—hair come loose and disheveled, uniform torn in places, scraps of dried blood clinging to her skin, bruises mottling her in shades of purple and red.
"..."
Amid it all, Yoojin's eyes met Jihyo's. She looked genuinely surprised to see him—as if, after the way they'd last parted, it had never crossed her mind that he might still be here.
"What on earth happened to you two?"
The Core Application teacher barked the moment he saw them. Lisa quickly slid down from Jihyo's back and bowed her head out of habit.
"I'm sorry."
"No, there's nothing to be sorry for—but what happened to you? Did you run into some wild animal? ...No, never mind. Rescue team! What are you all doing over there? Get over here, now!"
What followed was a whole flurry of commotion. Thanks to everyone's help, Jihyo and Lisa made it safely back to the academy building, where they received emergency treatment in the infirmary.
"You stepped on loose footing and fell off a cliff?"
The school nurse gaped at the state of the two girls.
"...Yes."
"Well, be more careful from now on. It's a good thing you're Awakened—an ordinary person would have died. And an Infected showing up with no warning alert, of all things. Honestly."
By the time they left the infirmary, it was already well past nine in the evening. The Core Application teacher, who had been waiting outside for the treatment to finish, hurried over the moment he spotted them.
"So? What did the nurse say? Nothing serious, right?"
"No. I'll be fine thanks to my Core."
"Me too... I only twisted my ankle."
At their answers, he finally let his shoulders relax, as if he could breathe again.
"Has something gone wrong with the Abyss lately? Why do these accidents keep happening... Good grief."
"Is it not usually this common?"
When Jiu asked, the teacher waved the question off as if the very idea were absurd.
"If things like this happened often, we'd have had students carried out of here on stretchers ages ago. I wouldn't even think about holding classes near the Abyss in the first place."
Well, fair enough. If even one student had been hurt during today's practical, the responsibility would have fallen squarely on him.
The teacher looked at Jiu and Lisa as though he'd aged ten years in a single day.
"And you're telling me a boulder suddenly came loose and crushed the Infected?"
"Yes."
Jiu answered without a flicker of shame, and Lisa nodded along.
"Heaven was on your side, truly. A falling rock, then Yoojin of all people—I swear, you two and I have all lost ten years of our lives today."
...'Yoojin'?
Did he mean Moon Yoojin?
"That kid, the moment he came down the mountain, he asked me to call the rescue team. You can't imagine how startled I was."
Come to think of it, Moon Yoojin had been there when they rendezvoused with the rescue team earlier. She'd been too preoccupied boarding the bus and heading back to the academy to notice, and by the time she realized it, he was already gone.
"I've been teaching for years, you know. Do you think it's common for every single student to come back exactly on time? Half of them use practicals as an excuse to slip down to campus and slack off. It's only natural for some to run thirty minutes late, an hour late—you'd agree, wouldn't you?"
"Yes, well..."
"And then Moon Yoojin of all people suddenly starts talking about the rescue team. My heart nearly gave out."
Because the boy's conduct was ordinarily so exemplary, it had shaken him all the more, the teacher said, shaking his head.
Listening to all this, Jiu felt something odd stir in her chest. It was Moon Yoojin who'd called for the rescue team? He'd acted like it was none of his business—so why? Had his conscience suddenly gotten the better of him?
...I don't know. I can't read him at all.
"If anything goes wrong during a practical, it's my neck on the line. And if it involves Yoojin even remotely, the higher-ups wouldn't just let it slide—"
"The higher-ups?"
"Ah... ahem. That's grown-up business."
The teacher very obviously changed the subject.
"Anyway, you two head in for the night. I'll report this incident to the Chairman separately. Honestly, we may have to suspend lessons near the Abyss for the time being."
Just then, as he turned to leave, the teacher paused as if something had occurred to him.
"Oh, right. What were you doing all the way down at the bottom of a cliff in the first place?"
"Ah, that..."
"We went to collect magic stones."
Lim Lisa answered. In that instant, Jiu's gaze flicked toward her—but Lisa was already digging through her pocket, facing the teacher, and drawing out something glittering.
"Here. It's a bit late to submit them, but..."
Magic stones. And an enormous number of them.
"You—what..."
Jiu's eyes went round with shock. Even a rough count showed well over ten. The stones Yoojin and she had gathered together had totaled just nine.
The teacher, for his part, was just as stunned.
"I'm the one who fell off the cliff, so you don't have to give me any points—but could you use these to raise Jihyo's score instead? She came down to save me, so..."
"N-no, given the circumstances, that won't be necessary."
One, two, three...
As he counted Lisa's stones, the teacher suddenly burst into a short laugh.
"Seventeen in total. Remarkable. Your group submitted nine this afternoon, so that makes twenty-six altogether. No need to look any further—your group takes first place."
"Really?"
Lisa's face lit up as though someone had flipped a switch inside her.
"These pack far more of a punch than they look. Well then, congratulations. I suppose it made it worthwhile to comb every inch of that cliff face."
At that, Lisa smiled shyly and nodded. Jiu watched her out of the corner of her eye.
* * *
Afterward, Jiu and Lisa left the academy building together and headed back to the dormitory. Lamplight spilled across the walkway, and the chirping of crickets and the crunch of fallen leaves underfoot stirred the still night air.
"I'm so glad. First place—I'm really, really glad."
Lisa kept murmuring the same words over and over. Of course, taking first was a good thing, but... had Lim Lisa wanted first place that badly? Yoojin too—maybe the students here were more desperate about their scores than she'd assumed.
"Do you think I... helped, even a little?"
"Helped?"
Jiu turned around as if to say, where did that come from?
"I-I wanted to make sure I wasn't a burden... so I really tried hard to gather them. I'd be glad if they helped, even a little..."
"Don't be ridiculous. Without you, we wouldn't have taken first at all."
"...!"
Lisa's face flushed scarlet. Meanwhile, Jiu—who had been studying her with a blank expression—spoke up abruptly.
"Why didn't you tell the teacher?"
"Huh? About... what?"
"You fell off the cliff because you were gathering magic stones, didn't you?"
Jiu stopped walking and asked again.
"Someone pushed you, didn't they? Or threatened you."