The Black Fox of the Supernatural Ability Academy — Chapter 5
At the ICU ward on the fifth floor, Jeon Chayeon gave her own outfit a fresh once-over.
The tracksuit from Athletic House clung to her petite frame, and her hand rested lightly on the hilt of her sheathed blade.
Showing up at the hospital in this kind of getup felt a bit off, like she was playing the role of some overzealous visitor.
She’d only meant to pop in, drop off a few things, and then head straight to the gym after. That was exactly why she’d come dressed like this.
Well, nobody was going to scold her over it.
DRRRR—
When Chayeon pushed the door open, the two girls inside the room turned their heads toward her.
One was Arena, leaning against the bed, and the other was a familiar face whose identity she still couldn’t quite place.
She looked about the same age as Arena.
“Whoa, the white knight on a horse has arrived?”
“W-What?! N-Never mind! Shut up already!”
The girl with the familiar voice blurted out something weird, and Arena’s face flushed bright red.
“I’ll be leaving first. See you tomorrow.”
“Get out! Don’t come! If you’re going to say weird stuff like that, just don’t show up!”
Even though Arena stomped around in a huff, the girl just giggled softly, the sound familiar to her.
“Then I’ll leave Arena in your hands.”
The girl brushed past Chayeon with those words and stepped out of the room.
Leave Arena in my hands? What does that even mean?
“Ugh…!”
Arena trembled all over, still fuming.
She looked healthier than expected.
“I didn’t say a thing!”
“As soon as I saw you, you didn’t say a word.”
“That’s not it! You didn’t mention you’re a guy!”
Arena’s face burned red as she raised her voice.
That girl who called me “the white knight on a horse” or something like that…
But honestly, she didn’t care.
“You’re looking good. Heard you woke up today.”
“Hmph! Of course I am! It’s me, after all!”
Her tone and expression had completely flipped from the time before she collapsed. She looked cheerful.
Other than the full-body cast, nothing else had changed.
Chayeon stepped closer and set the bag she’d brought onto the bedside table. Arena’s eyes widened in surprise.
“W-What’s this?”
“Couldn’t come empty-handed.”
She’d picked up a fruit juice set from the stand on the way over.
“You! Who are you?!”
“Huh?”
“There’s no way Chayeon would do something thoughtful like this! You fake! Give Chayeon back!”
Just what kind of look had she been giving Chayeon all this time?
Chayeon locked eyes with the glaring Arena.
People say first impressions matter, right?
The way she’d started cursing the moment they met in the classroom probably shaped a huge chunk of her image.
“Enough with the nonsense. How’s your body feeling?”
Chayeon glanced at Arena’s arm and asked.
“A-Alright… Nothing wrong anywhere else, but the hand…”
Arena stammered, unable to finish.
“The hand?”
“…There might be some lingering after-effects. Holding a sword might still be tough for a while…”
She trailed off, then pulled herself together and returned to her usual self.
“But I’m getting better! When I’m fully recovered, I’ll finally take you down, Chayeon! So stay tense and wait, hmph!”
“Alright.”
Chayeon smirked.
Arena’s eyes widened, and she stared at her with her mouth hanging open.
“W-Why?”
“Y-You can actually smile?!”
Who does she think she’s dealing with?
“That’s just normal.”
“But! You’ve never smiled once before!”
Arena had been yelling loudly just a second ago, but now her face flushed crimson and she dropped her gaze, fidgeting with her fingers. The cast probably hid it, but she somehow looked flustered anyway.
“Y-You even make that kind of face…”
“Huh?”
Whatever she muttered under her breath in a mosquito-sized voice.
Chayeon couldn’t make it out at all.
She really was the strangest person she’d ever met.
“Heard you got demoted.”
“…Y-Yeah. Teacher Seohee told me earlier.”
As she spoke, her eyes drifted toward the snack set on the table.
That must be a gift from Teacher Seohee.
With her teleportation ability, she must be running around non-stop.
Good or bad, she didn’t know.
“Jeon Chayeon, you took him down, right?”
Arena looked back at her with serious eyes.
“By chance, yeah.”
“…I see. Impressive… Ah, no! Of course I could’ve taken him down too… but… even now I can’t…”
Her expression darkened, then suddenly lit up with passion as she twisted her body, only to sink back into gloom once more.
Out of everyone Chayeon had met so far, this girl showed the most dramatic mood swings.
Seeing how inconsistent she was made her feel oddly similar.
She wasn’t actually a bad person.
Just stupid.
“When can you get out?”
“At least a month of watching. They said.”
A month.
It sounded like a long time, but also kind of quick.
After all, this hospital in Jindal wasn’t exactly ordinary. There were healers here and there.
“Alright. See you later, then.”
“W-What? Already leaving?”
“What else was I supposed to do?”
“Oh…”
Arena’s shoulders drooped.
Looking at how she’d been trying to avoid Chayeon, this felt completely out of character.
“You have a lot of friends. More people will probably come. Take care of yourself.”
Just as Chayeon turned to leave, Arena’s voice stopped her.
“You weren’t scared, were you?”
Her voice shook badly.
“Scared of what?”
“That day… that woman. She was a demon.”
The way she spoke carried a weight far heavier than before.
Chayeon could almost feel her emotions.
Whether she’d received an ability or was skilled with swords, Arena was still just a seventeen-year-old girl.
A girl who had spent her entire life without any major trauma.
Yet she’d ended up on the brink of death, bones shattered, suffering torture, right before she was saved.
Of course the shock would be immense.
And Chayeon felt the same way.
She was only twenty, after all.
She’d blacked out in one hit, then fought back to win.
What if she’d gone through the same thing as Arena?
Thank goodness the demon that invaded was female-shaped.
She remembered what Seohee had said in Arena’s hospital room on the day she woke up.
Sometimes it happens. Before an ability user gets eaten, they can get sexually tortured.
Thankfully, Arena hadn’t suffered anything like that.
“I was scared too.”
Chayeon only spoke those words and stepped out of the room.
Fear can only be conquered by facing it head-on.
There was nothing she could do to help.
She’d come here with a spirit inside her, become a woman, and received an ability.
She’d entered Jindal, and now she was in the demon’s crosshairs.
Just how heavy was this burden weighing on her fate?
Hey, you still there?
The Black Fox remained silent.
***
“Ah, damn it.”
She’d hoped to avoid running into him, but here they were again.
Chayeon’s face twisted in displeasure the moment she spotted Ju Jihyo on the courtyard.
“Huff, huff… Hey, you showed up today?”
From the parallel bars, Ju Jihyo had spotted her and descended, walking straight over.
“Yo, get lost. Don’t come any closer.”
“Whoa, you’re scary.”
Chayeon leveled her blade at him. Jihyo raised both hands in surrender and stopped in his tracks.
“If you pull that same stupid stunt again…”
“I’m sorry about last time.”
“Huh?”
Chayeon’s snarling face went completely blank at the unexpected apology.
“Sorry. I was just messing around to make friends, but I guess I overdid it.”
“…”
What kind of nonsense was that?
Chayeon’s eyes rolled in confusion, trying to read his intentions.
“It’s true. After that, the hyungs chewed me out. You saw them, right? The Extrast guy last time. He said if I pull any more pranks like that, he’d kill me.”
Jihyo smiled brightly as he spoke.
He still looked like a villain who’d sunk deep into the back alleys.
“Extrast is terrifying. I don’t want to die. And yeah, I think I really went too far.”
Jihyo kept his hands raised above his head.
Was he still waiting for something?
Am I imagining things?
He looked terrifyingly dark on the outside, but maybe his insides weren’t like that?
Maybe he’d been dealing with her bad reputation just because she was pretty.
Jihyo was still smiling.
Once she started thinking about it, the smile suddenly felt less sinister and more awkward.
“So… lower your hands.”
Chayeon obediently lowered her blade.
Even so, Jihyo didn’t approach.
Instead, he stepped away from her and headed back toward the parallel bars.
Chayeon approached hesitantly, but he ignored her completely and kept doing his sets.
“…Hey.”
“Hm?”
“Get hit once first.”
CLANG!
A crisp sound rang out as Jihyo clutched his forehead.
Then he laughed like nothing had happened.
Was he accepting it sweetly?
The guy really was terrifyingly dark.
He looked like a movie villain actor.
“Is that enough? You were all excited when you heard we got the same demotion.”
After that, Jihyo didn’t even glance back at her and resumed his workout, breathing heavily.
His toned muscles strained visibly against his clothes.
“…”
Chayeon felt embarrassed and looked away, gripping the parallel bars herself.
She started with hanging leg raises.
Whether it would work or not, she had to try.
She held the bar lightly, lifted her legs off the ground, and slowly pulled her knees toward her chest, contracting her lower abs.
Up, up, up…
“Ah crap!”
Not happening.
Her abs were ridiculously weak.
This body had no proper exercise whatsoever. She still couldn’t do even one proper push-up.
She practiced every evening in her room, yet her muscles weren’t growing at all.
Why isn’t it working?
Even as a girl, her muscle development was abnormally slow.
It felt like her body was stuck in the same state, completely unchanged.
Chayeon glanced sideways at the sheathed blade she’d propped up.
What if I try that?
She gripped the hilt lightly with her left hand.
With that, she held the parallel bar with her right arm and pulled her chin up.
It worked.
With almost no effort, her right arm lifted her entire body.
Even with both hands, chin-ups had been impossible, but this was easy.
She’d expected it, but experiencing it so blatantly still left her dumbfounded and laughing.
Chayeon repeated the motion several times.
No strength was used at all.
This isn’t exercise.
This wasn’t the kind of muscle-burn feeling she wanted after hard training.
Just forget it. No point.
She let go of the blade, and a strange exhaustion washed over her arms.
Holding the bar felt impossible.
Still, she had to keep going.
Chayeon tried all kinds of parallel-bar exercises after that—hanging leg raises, pull-ups, and more—pushing herself to her absolute limit with sheer willpower.
Overtraining could actually hinder muscle growth, but this body was a complete beginner when it came to exercise anyway.
She couldn’t push herself even if she wanted to.
“Hah, hah…”
After finishing with jump squats as a finisher, she was on her knees when Ju Jihyo appeared.
He offered her a water bottle.
“That was tough. Impressive.”
“Hah… thanks.”
Chayeon accepted the bottle gratefully; she was extremely thirsty.
Just as she was about to drink, she froze.
No, don’t tell me it’s laced with something weird?
She quickly brushed the thought away.
It wasn’t like a crime movie.
After all she’d been through, her imagination had gone wild.
GLUG— GLUG—
“Ah, tastes good.”
Chayeon drained the entire bottle, let out a satisfied sigh, and looked up at the sky.
The heavy fatigue after a full sprint felt strangely refreshing.
“Water tastes good, huh?”
“Y-Yeah, it’s refreshing.”
Rehydrating after exercise was heaven.
It was literally sweet.
“All gone?”
“Ah, sorry. My throat was really dry.”
Shiver—
Her legs trembled.
Her whole body felt exhausted.
Too much running, maybe.
The world swayed.
Wait, what?
Something felt wrong.
THUD—
A sound of something collapsing reached her ears.
Her vision darkened, the sky singing in her ears.
Through the blurring view, she saw Ju Jihyo’s smiling face as he looked down at her.
He just stared silently, that same smile on his face.
Oh no.
Not again.
This, damn… son of a… bitch…