Chapter 24
Chapter 24
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 24
Chapter Title: Fallout and Training
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Of course. For someone like me who knows the future, is there any better way to make money?
[Of course.]
[You're insane.]
Han Se-yeon's curt reply.
I pondered what to text back, but more messages came in right away.
[I'm disappointed. My trust in you has plummeted. I never thought you'd be this foolish.]
"What? She really sounds disappointed."
[I don't gamble with money on the line.]
[I don't care if you win or lose at gambling. The fact that you're gambling at all is the problem. Whatever, our deal ends this month anyway, so I'll let it slide.]
I could feel the affection draining from her messages.
Han Se-yeon was the calculating and cautious type.
My text just now must have soured her impression of me.
[Oh, and the potion you ordered yesterday is almost done. I'll have it ready for pickup the day after tomorrow.]
As I started typing a reply, a reputation message popped up in front of me.
[Character 'Han Se-yeon' is greatly disappointed in you. Her interest in you drops significantly.]
[Reward: Acquired 1,000 points.]
"......Ahem."
The trust I'd painstakingly built crumbled in an instant.
"Well, what can you do."
I need to make money too.
A sudden wave of annoyance hit me, so I put away my smartphone. But then an alarm rang from my smart student handbook.
[Sunbae! I won't rat you out about the beer, so can you do me a favor? (Begging emoji)]
It was Choi Seo-yoon. She'd probably looked me up in the student directory in the smart handbook.
A favor, huh.
'There's only one thing she could want from me.'
It had to be asking me to help patch things up between her and Lee Seo-jun.
The original Shin Young-jun went through the exact same thing.
'Hmm, read and ignore.'
I'd already gotten rid of all the evidence regarding the beer anyway, so it didn't matter if she told or not. Besides, Choi Seo-yoon wasn't the type to snitch.
I turned off the screen to rest again, but the alarm rang once more.
"Ah, persistent."
[Kim Sun-woo, you're really going to be my sparring partner?]
It wasn't Choi Seo-yoon—it was Yoon Ha-young.
She was important, so I replied right away.
[Yeah, with me.]
[Okay then.]
"Huh?"
An unexpected response.
I'd figured she'd brush me off once more.
I stared at the screen in slight confusion, and another message came in.
[Asked Seo-jun, and he said sparring with you would help.]
"Oh...... Lee Seo-jun. Nice one."
I snapped awake.
I sat up, stretching my back. It ached from lying face-down so long.
'What? When did I fall asleep?'
I stretched lightly and looked around.
The familiar sight.
It was the 2nd Year Class A classroom I saw almost every day.
"Now...... Magic Law Article 3, Section 2. This will be on the exam, so make sure to note it......
In front of me, an old teacher droned on in a boring voice.
But something felt off. Across from the teacher, nearly every student was slumped over their desks, asleep. Even if the class was dull, could this many students really be sleeping?
'Ah, I get it. This is that scene.'
I had a rough idea of the situation. It was described in the original story.
Glancing around confirmed it—just like in the original, only Lee Seo-jun, Yoo Ah-ra, and Shin Young-jun were awake and paying attention.
The top three in 2nd year not sleeping side by side wasn't a coincidence.
It would be revealed later, but that law teacher's voice contained a special magic that induced sleepiness.
"What applies to the law here is......
It was a latent trait—a rare power that appeared in a tiny fraction of people.
Of course, that latent trait had an activation condition. And the teacher's was probably 'when teaching knowledge.'
It wasn't a big issue right now, but far in the future, that trait would go berserk and cause a minor problem at school.
Then a sudden curiosity struck me.
The law teacher's latent trait rampage that would happen later.
If I resolved it, would my karma value go up?
In the end, to return to reality, I needed to build karma.
So I needed to think deeply about methods to accumulate karma and the process itself.
"Hmm."
Morning classes ended, and afternoon classes began.
As announced yesterday, afternoon was sparring class. Students headed to individual sparring rooms and started.
Yoon Ha-young and I moved to our private sparring room as well.
Once inside, Yoon Ha-young said to me,
"Shall we start sparring right away?"
"No, let's do manifestation training today instead."
"Why? We do that in main specialty class."
Yoon Ha-young gave me a puzzled look.
"Your basics are lacking anyway, so sparring won't help much. You need to learn the fundamentals properly first."
"......I've noticed since yesterday—you're subtly looking down on me? My grades are way higher than yours."
"Grades aside, your foundation is lacking—that's a fact."
"You're the bottom of the whole school, and all you do is talk."
Yoon Ha-young pouted.
"Don't be like that. Let's spar once. We need to gauge each other's level anyway."
Gauge each other's level, huh.
That didn't sound bad.
Her constantly harping on me being bottom of the school just tired me out.
"Fine, let's spar."
"Oh? For real? No backing out now?"
"Got it."
Yoon Ha-young bounced back excitedly with light steps, creating the perfect distance to start.
Before we began, I proposed to her,
"If we just spar normally, it'll be boring. Loser has to listen to the winner. Deal?"
"Heh. What makes you so confident? Sure, fine."
Yoon Ha-young accepted my bet coolly.
And just like that, our impromptu wager spar was on.
Yoon Ha-young and I gathered mana, preparing for battle.
Looking at her expression as she stared at me, I could see her confidence in beating me overflowing.
Truth be told, someone like Yoon Ha-young—I was confident I could beat her easily, even with my low mana. I knew exactly the weaknesses of inexperienced manifestation wizards.
The win or loss didn't matter in this spar.
What mattered was winning so overwhelmingly that I changed how she looked at me.
"Start!"
At Yoon Ha-young's shout, I focused mana into my legs. I kicked off the floor with mana-reinforced legs, charging at her at high speed.
Manifestation wizards typically showed weakness in close combat against reinforcement wizards. The less experienced, the more pronounced it was.
My main specialty was manifestation, but to subdue Yoon Ha-young effectively, reinforcement made it easier.
As expected, Yoon Ha-young hadn't anticipated close range like this and panicked. She manifested an ice lump late, but she'd already given me the distance to release.
"Ahh!"
In the end, Yoon Ha-young fell on her butt. I didn't miss the opening. I immediately stood before her, aiming a mana orb manifested in my hand.
Yoon Ha-young looked up at me with dazed eyes.
"Argh!"
"See? I win. No more backtalk. Got it?"
"......But watching you spar earlier, you were super fast. Why are you bottom of the school?"
"Hey. No irrelevant chatter. Focus."
"Ugh, fine. But do we have to do this?"
Cold ice lumps were clutched in Yoon Ha-young's hands and at her feet. She bit her lip hard, enduring it.
"Shh. Quietly feel the sensation of ice with your body."
The training I assigned Yoon Ha-young was attribute adaptation training.
Manifesting magic usually relied heavily on imagination. To build the imagination needed for manifestation, there were typically two things to imagine.
Attribute and form.
Imagining a vague neutral mana orb was harder than imagining an ice spear or fire arrow—combining attribute and form made detailed magic easier to manifest.
"Don't just feel 'cold' or 'painful.' Focus on what ice is like. So even with eyes closed, you can imagine the feel properly."
"Mm......"
"What's the feel of ice like?"
"......Hard. Slippery."
"......Yeah. And cold too."
"Mm."
The ice in her hand melted from her body heat, dripping water onto the floor.
"Open your hand again."
At my words, Yoon Ha-young opened her small hand again. It was red from the cold. I took ice from the ice bag and placed it in her palm again.
"Memorize that sensation so you can imagine ice even without any."
About an hour passed like that.
I told her she could stop.
"Huh? We can stop?"
"Yeah, class ends in like 10 minutes anyway."
Yoon Ha-young checked the clock in surprise at my words.
"Wow, really. Time flew."
"Try manifesting before you forget the ice sensation."
"Got it."
Yoon Ha-young extended her hand. She closed her eyes and focused her mana.
At the same time, a pure white ice lump began manifesting in her palm. The detail and clarity were far more vivid than usual.
"Now open your eyes and check how well you did."
Yoon Ha-young opened her eyes at my words.
"Huh? Wh-what? What's this? Did I manifest this?"
A ice lump infused with strong mana.
Yoon Ha-young stared at the ice she'd manifested and reacted with huge surprise.
I was a bit surprised too.
To improve this much from a short adaptation session. She really had insane talent.
"Remember this sensation well. It's only this good right after adaptation training. Tomorrow, you'll probably forget and go back to normal."
"Wah! Teacher Kim Sun-woo!"
Yoon Ha-young's eyes sparkled as she looked at me.
[Character 'Yoon Ha-young' trusts you.]
[Reward: Acquired 500 points.]
Wednesday morning.
I finished showering and stepped into my room. As I toweled my wet hair, my smartphone alarm on the desk rang.
[The potion you requested last time is complete. Can we meet around 3 today?]
Obviously, it was from Han Se-yeon.
As diligent as ever, she was busy even early morning.
She suggested 3, but school classes made weekdays impossible. I replied immediately.
[Sorry. I'm busy, so weekdays before 7 are tough.]
Sent.
I set down the smartphone and started putting on my uniform.
Ding!
[What are you so busy with?]
"......Replies super fast."
But isn't Han Se-yeon crazy busy? How does she reply so instantly every time?
I set aside the curiosity and pondered my response.
I couldn't say honestly, 'I'm a student.' So I needed a plausible excuse.
After about a minute, I decided to stick with the mysterious vibe like last time.
[Knowing would cost you.]
[That's seriously not funny, so I recommend against it.]
Feeling awkwardly embarrassed, I changed the subject.
[By the way, did you get the underground arena ticket?]
[Yes. Turns out it works with the underground auction membership. We can meet tonight and enter together.]
"Huh?"
Enter together?
[You mean go in with me?]
[Of course. Underground auction tickets aren't transferable, right?]
The Wizard Academy held a special elective activity once a week.
It was a system for giving students diverse experiences like combat practice, lectures, field trips, and hands-on sessions.
Think of it as a weekly field trip.
"Tomorrow's special elective activities are three options. By midnight today, access the info system via your smart student handbook and choose."
Wednesday's closing ceremony after all classes.
Jang An-cheol explained tomorrow's schedule to the 50 students.
"Departure times and locations for each are detailed in your student handbooks—check there."
The brief closing ended, and Jang An-cheol left the classroom.
Students immediately stood and started chatting.
"Where you going?"
"What's this week?"
"Demon safety training, cave exploration, Seoul Alchemy Association tour."
"I'm skipping anything physical. Alchemy it is."
Normally, they'd pack up and head to dorms right after closing.
But today, they discussed tomorrow's special electives.
I sat alone, pondering.
Hmm, where to go. Need to choose carefully.
Special electives tied into the main story of the original.
Some villains targeted these outings for surprise attacks.
Fortunately, this week had no major main story crises.
Unless the aftermath of me beating Demon Jang Han had derailed the original flow big-time.
I opened my smart student handbook and accessed the school info system.
The special elective selection page popped up first for easy access.
1. Demon Safety Training
2. Cave Exploration
3. Seoul Alchemy Association Tour
In the original, Lee Seo-jun chose Demon Safety Training first.
Nothing particularly appealed, so safely following him seemed best.
'Select 1. Demon Safety Training.'
[Selection complete.]
"Done."
School stuff wrapped up. I packed my bag and stood.
Time to go meet Han Se-yeon.