The Red Flower Falls (3)
The curt, almost spat-out tone. And those eyes, filled with open hostility, glaring at me the entire time. It was immediately clear that a messy cocktail of unpleasant emotions was swirling inside her.
No matter how much I thought about it, I had no personal grudge or connection with Jin Yeseo. But great waves always carry people to places they never intended to go.
While I was away in the south, Jin Yeseo had apparently earned a major achievement by single-handedly annihilating an entire branch of the pseudo-religious cult that had been running rampant with external requests. Not only that, she had tied up dozens of fiercely resisting fanatics and handed them over to the local security bureau branch.
If not for the southern incident, the students’ attention right now would likely be on her instead of me and Yeon Minha.
“I’ll admit it. You’re not quite the total lightweight I first thought you were.”
“…”
“But I still can’t understand it. You supposedly took down that antenna snake all by yourself, then lost that duel against Senior Yeon Minha. And after that, you single-handedly killed dozens of bandits in the south? How can one person’s skill level swing back and forth so wildly?”
The longer I kept my mouth shut, the more vicious her gaze became as it bored into me.
“Hey. Since we’re already talking, let me ask you something. During the practical exam—that antenna snake. Did you really subjugate it alone?”
“…Do I have to answer that?”
I had no choice but to remain silent. The accident during the practical exam was bound by a confidentiality oath with the headmaster. The duel with Yeon Minha had been a deliberate loss in disguise. And in the south, I had redirected a significant portion of the credit to Yeon Minha. None of her questions were ones I could answer.
“…Tsk. Fine. I figured you wouldn’t answer anyway.”
The blonde girl frowned deeply, clearly displeased.
“Whatever. I’ll just check for myself. I’ll find out soon enough—whether you’re truly qualified, or just a parasite clinging to Senior’s prestige and receiving political favors.”
“…”
“Personally, I think you’re the latter. Guys whose achievements are vague and whose cause-and-effect relationships are unclear usually turn out that way. Am I wrong?”
Even taking our respective positions into account, Jin Yeseo’s words didn’t sound pleasant at all. Every single word she spat out scraped at my nerves. For a moment, irritation surged up at the thought that she didn’t need to be this aggressive, but then I realized that from her perspective, this might actually feel more comfortable.
“Both parties. Once greetings are finished, return to your positions.”
Jin Yeseo still looked like she had more to say, but when the examiner’s instructions came through the amplifier, she clicked her tongue and turned away. I was about to return to my own position as well when a loud commotion suddenly erupted from one section of the stands.
Someone had cleared the surrounding people and was now occupying the very center of the spectator seats. Even from a distance, her beauty radiated an undeniable presence. Our eyes seemed to meet for a brief moment, but Yeon Minha immediately put on a pouty expression and sharply turned her head away.
“Isn’t this the first time Minha has come to watch someone else’s ranking match…?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never seen her do it before either…”
Fragments of the murmuring reached my ears. To them, I had already become Yeon Minha’s loyal champion. After experiencing the southern incident together, the duel we once fought now held almost no meaning.
Yeon Minha kept her brows slightly furrowed, as if something displeased her. Yet I didn’t sense any particular hostility toward me in her behavior. If anything, it felt more like she was uncomfortable with the excessive attention focused on her. Still, perhaps she had finally begun to treat me as one of her own. I was grateful that she had gone out of her way to come watch despite her discomfort.
But on the other hand, a heavy, suffocating unease began to rise in my chest, as if something were pressing down on me.
“Ah…!”
“Wait… over there…!”
The next moment, Jin Yeseo’s face brightened with an expression of pure delight. At the same time, the students’ cheers grew even louder than before. The ominous premonition hit me like a prophecy come true, and I squeezed my eyes shut. I had to fight back the powerful urge to turn my head away.
Even without looking, it was painfully obvious who had just arrived at the arena. I had expected this. There was simply no way either of them would stay away. At this point, the ranking match had practically turned into a proxy battle between the two of them.
Even though I had anticipated it from the start, my heart still grew damp and heavy, weighed down by moisture.
Ding—! Ding—! Ding—!
I shook it off as best I could and walked to the starting position. The final warning bell signaling the start of the duel rang out. In the distance, Jin Yeseo wore a confident expression as she placed her hand on the particle arranger, preparing to unleash a magical barrage the moment the match began.
How should I handle Jin Yeseo?
I had told Yeon Minha otherwise, but my body was still far from normal. Unfolding the Predictive Eye across more than half its paths was currently impossible. After pushing my body beyond its limits for so long, it would actually be strange if I had already recovered.
This match might turn out harder than expected.
Still, I had no intention of losing. If anything, I felt a strong desire to show an even more decisive victory—both to Yeon Minha and to the other person present. Besides, unlike our last duel, I didn’t need to fake a loss this time.
Ding!
The final bell rang, and cheers erupted from all directions, filling the arena.
The masked male student drew his blade and strode briskly toward Jin Yeseo. His swift movement drew loud gasps from various spots in the stands.
Jin Yeseo focused on manipulating her particle arranger with calm but rapid precision. Soon, pillars of flame burning with an eerie black light formed in the air behind her, radiating heat in all directions. The black flames writhed like living serpents. The moment they were created, they shot toward the masked student charging from the front with ferocious momentum.
Kwaaaaang!
The male student slammed on the brakes and tried to dodge the black flame snakes. Some he deflected with his particle-infused blade, changing their direction, while he twisted his body in intricate maneuvers to evade the rest. The flexibility with which he moved his upper and lower body left the spectators in awe.
But he couldn’t avoid everything.
One of the flame snakes he had deflected earlier circled behind him, sank its fangs into his thigh with a vicious snap.
“…Ugh.”
The flame that landed a clean hit shattered into sparks and vanished into thin air. In its place, a large, blazing scar remained on his thigh, as if he had truly been bitten by a snake. The male student stopped in place with a groan.
Jin Yeseo didn’t miss the opening. She immediately conjured a rain of flames and poured it down on him.
Kwaang! Kwaaaang!
“Waaaah!”
“As expected of Yeseo!!”
Cheers for her rang out from all over the stands. Thinking of Baek Seoyeon, who must be watching her with a benevolent smile, the corners of Jin Yeseo’s mouth unconsciously curled upward.
She had barely managed to deploy a barrier in time to avoid further direct hits, but the duel had already turned into a one-sided beatdown in her favor.
The most basic winning formula for an Emission mage facing a Circulation mage was to never allow them to close the distance. Directly confronting a Circulation mage with their overwhelming physical reinforcement was practically suicide.
Unlike outdoor battles filled with terrain variables, a duel in an open, neatly arranged space like this tended to heavily favor Emission mages. While freshmen lacking real combat experience and mastery over spell formulas often allowed Circulation mages to approach, that didn’t apply at all to Jin Yeseo, who possessed overwhelming talent.
Kwang! Kwang! Kwaaang!
Jin Yeseo continued to bombard him relentlessly. Beyond the barrier he had deployed, the view was completely obscured by dust and flames.
“…”
The fight was progressing more easily than expected, and Jin Yeseo felt somewhat let down. His movements were certainly fast, but not fast enough that she couldn’t respond. In the end, he had taken a clean hit and been forced to stop moving. And stopping in open terrain against an Emission mage already meant the scales of victory had tipped heavily in her favor.
She had already suspected that the excessive praise for his skills was unwarranted. Subjugating the antenna snake alone was simply impossible no matter how she thought about it. While he had contributed to stopping the rebel terrorists in the south, the majority of that credit belonged to Yeon Minha, who had slain the ringleader.
Even so, this was too much. Maybe he had been hiding his true ability during the duel. Or perhaps the injuries he supposedly suffered in the south had yet to fully heal.
But whichever it was, it was a problem of his own making. There was no reason for her to show consideration for an enemy. There was only one option left for him now—to burst out the moment his barrier, unable to withstand the barrage, shattered, and attempt one final close-range assault even at the cost of bleeding.
Just as Jin Yeseo predicted, a figure soon shot out from the dust cloud and began charging toward her. She calmly created another swarm of black flames in the air, then twisted them into dozens of conical, burning spikes and hurled them at him.
Faced with an unavoidable attack that covered the entire area, he turned his body sideways and raised his blade to minimize the surface area that would be hit.
Kwaaaang!!
Clatter!
With the explosion, his anti-particle suit shattered into pieces and scattered across the floor. His upper body, already in tatters, charged toward her over the debris. She had no choice but to allow the approach due to his tenacity, but what could he possibly do after exhausting all his strength?
Clang!
The male student who had closed in raised his blade, aiming for her. Jin Yeseo quickly deployed a barrier to deflect the attack. The blade, which had shattered the barrier like breaking glass, came at her again, but she ducked her upper body and barely avoided the blade in that split second. Then she created a spear wrapped in black flames and swung it.
He tried to block the spear shaft with his blade, but the already damaged weapon snapped cleanly in two with a sharp crack.
‘Got him!’
Jin Yeseo cheered inwardly. The victory condition in a ranking match was to render the opponent unable to fight, or to force them to declare surrender. Although his blade had broken, strictly speaking, he wasn’t yet incapacitated. With physical reinforcement magic, he could still continue the fight.
But if the question was who could deliver a more threatening attack in this situation, the answer was undoubtedly her. He had already taken damage all over his body. The blade he used was now broken. Meanwhile, her particle arranger was still functioning perfectly. The amount of particles left in her body was still more than sufficient.
“Idiot! Did you really think getting close would change anything? You’re finished…!”
Certain of her victory, Jin Yeseo shouted at the male student with a mocking laugh. At the same time, she created another flame spear in one hand, preparing to throw it at him.
But in the next instant.
In a fleeting illusion where time seemed to slow down, Jin Yeseo suddenly looked down at her lower body. The masked male student had thrown away the bladeless hilt and was already crouching low, slipping into the space directly in front of her.
Before she could even consciously register the situation, his tightly clenched right fist slammed straight into her lower abdomen.
Thud!
The intense impact, unlike anything she had ever felt before, caused Jin Yeseo’s pupils to dilate until they nearly swallowed her irises.
“Khuurk…!”
A horrifying pain immediately spread through her veins to every part of her body. Her knees nearly gave out, but Jin Yeseo grit her teeth and endured. She tried to write a spell formula to counterattack the opponent now within reach.
Thump! Thud!
“Agh…!”
But her efforts crumbled instantly. The male student’s strikes to the back of both her knees made her stagger. The unfinished spell formula scattered in the air and returned to particles.
“Khuk… kek…”
Yet the male student refused to let her collapse on her own. He grabbed her by the throat as she fell and yanked her back up toward the sky.
Kwaang!
He squeezed her throat once, hard enough to make her gag, then used the strength of his arm to slam her straight down onto the arena floor. Jin Yeseo tumbled across the hard stone surface multiple times. The anti-particle suit that had been spotless just moments ago shattered into fragments and scattered everywhere.
“Hauk… kuhk…”
“…Huu.”
The masked male student finally let out a long breath. Then he walked leisurely toward Jin Yeseo once more. The audience, unable to keep up with the sudden reversal, remained in stunned silence. And from then on, a one-sided performance began.
Thud! Crack!
“Keheuk…! You bastard…! Ack…!”
Thud! Thump!
“Ugh… that’s a bit much…”
“I thought Yeseo was going to win easily…”
Behind the female students who were frowning as they spoke, Yeon Minha sat with a cold expression, remaining silent. In truth, she was exerting considerable effort just to maintain her composure.
Thud! Crunch!
“…Hng.”
Her body was trembling faintly without her realizing it. It felt like phantom pain was flaring up again, so she shook her head vigorously. Yeon Minha took a deep breath and steadied her mind.
His hostility was no longer directed at her. Rather, he was standing there for her sake. She held no personal grudge against Jin Yeseo, but the girl had willingly become Baek Seoyeon’s pawn and contributed to shrinking her own influence. So both by nature and by circumstance, seeing Jin Yeseo being mercilessly trampled right now should have made Yeon Minha feel good.
Yet that same strange, unpleasant sensation from last time crept over her again. Unable to understand why, she wore a puzzled expression. Yeon Minha tried to shift her thoughts elsewhere and turned her gaze toward the opposite stands.
What kind of face was that woman making right now? At the very least, it couldn’t be a good one. Not when one of her followers was being beaten so miserably.
“…?”
However, when Yeon Minha lifted her head and looked straight ahead, confusion began to frost over her expression. The face Baek Seoyeon was making was completely outside her expectations. With her brows slightly drawn together, she was tilting her head lightly, looking exactly like someone who couldn’t understand what was happening.