Encounter
So even this can’t fix it, after all.
Yeona let out a quiet sigh and reached to pull the Deus Ex Machina free once more.
In that instant a sudden wave of dizziness rose—then stopped short, never quite arriving.
“What…?”
A strange sense of déjà vu settled over her. She felt as though she were missing something important…
“Ah, well. It’s probably nothing.”
When you possessed perfect recall and still felt as if you had overlooked something, the feeling itself was almost certainly wrong.
Yeona glanced down at the pocket watch resting in her palm, then lifted her head.
It was time to head back for the exam.
Kwaaang—!
“You won’t find it easy to move freely!”
Julia unleashed a shockwave that momentarily shattered Iris’s sense of balance, then rode a following gust of wind and closed the distance at blistering speed. In the next breath a painting of pure swordplay unfurled from the tip of her blade, carving indiscriminately into Iris.
This… hurts more than I expected…?!
Iris, who had been as careless as usual, flinched at the sudden pain and drew her body in.
“…I can’t afford to hold back anymore.”
She spun the holy spear once through the empty air. At the same moment a white banner bearing a golden cross unfurled along the spear’s shaft. The wind caught the cloth and set it streaming; sacred power surged up from the earth itself and blanketed the sky.
“That’s—! Everyone, get down!”
Julia recognized the technique at once.
A wide-area attack. And not just any wide-area attack—one powerful enough to annihilate every living soul present and still have strength left over.
“Beneath the sacred banner.”
“Why the hell are you announcing the skill name?!”
“The judgment of pouring meteors.”
“Oh, for crying out loud!”
The sacred power took visible form. Hundreds, then thousands of spears materialized high above. One by one they tilted their points earthward and began to fall, their golden trails painting the sky like a meteor shower.
“Whoa… pretty.”
Julia slammed a dazed cadet’s face into the dirt before the boy could finish admiring the spectacle.
“I said get down, you idiot!”
She swept both hands overhead, weaving a curtain of wind, and ducked low. Moments later the replica holy spears struck. The ground heaved under a colossal shockwave.
“Cough…! Cough…!”
When Julia rose again, the park had become hell.
“What in the world…”
Every tree that had once shaded the battleground was ablaze. Where the spears had landed, craters five meters across pocked the earth. Small hills had vanished without a trace. At the center of it all a vast crater had been gouged out, grinding everything nearby into nothing—not even ash remained.
Most shocking of all, Iris stood at the very heart of that crater, unmarked, exactly as she had been at the start.
She isn’t even tired?
That she could unleash an attack of this magnitude was already astonishing. And it wasn’t even a finishing move?
The appearance of a powerhouse far beyond anything she had anticipated left Julia’s thoughts in chaos.
“Haa…!”
She drew her sword anyway, though she honestly doubted she could win. Ever since she had been born with the absurd unique ability of Wind Sovereign, she had never felt a wall this high. The demonkin she had once faced—she could imagine surpassing them someday. This woman, however, felt as though she would always stand ahead no matter how hard Julia tried.
“Just surrender already.”
“Unfortunately, I have to take first place…!”
“Knowing the gap in skill is one of a hero’s basic virtues. At least fight someone on your own level.”
Someone on her own level.
The moment the words left Iris’s mouth, something rose from deep in Julia’s throat—words she desperately wanted to say.
“Yeah. Reading the difference between yourself and your opponent and pulling out early is an important virtue too.”
“Then…”
“But the person I know? I don’t think she ever would have done that.”
Iris blinked.
“…It’s like looking at my past self.”
“Your past self?”
“…I used to be the same. I never understood the gap in skill and charged in recklessly. Nearly got myself killed.”
“But you lived, didn’t you?”
“I did. But without a patron, I would have died.”
“…Sounds like something happened.”
Julia’s face reflected in Iris’s golden eyes. For some reason, though no clear negative emotion showed, something about the woman felt twisted.
“The less you have to lose, the more reckless you become. And I think… you’re in that state right now.”
“What?”
“You look bright on the outside, but the gloom underneath is plain as day. Force a smile long enough and it shows.”
“…”
“Depression isn’t what most people think it is. Even the brightest person can be drowning in it. In that sense schizophrenia is almost kinder—at least those patients smile on the outside and don’t quietly kill themselves the next day without a word.”
Julia’s expression hardened in an instant.
I feel like shit.
Why? There was no reason to feel this way.
Everything just feels like shit.
The woman in front of her, the unpleasant air against her skin, even her own reaction to this entire situation—everything.
As her emotions surged, the air around them grew heavy.
Just as the battle was about to enter a new phase, a chill brushed against them from somewhere unseen.
“Huh…? This is…”
What… is this?
Julia lifted her head and scanned the surroundings. Only then did she notice the thin film of ice spreading across her own body.
“What the hell—”
“Who’s there…!”
Both Julia and Iris whipped their heads toward the source of the cold. In that same instant someone snapped their fingers behind them.
The ground fractured. Groundwater erupted upward like an explosion.
“Uwah!”
“My balance—!”
The water froze in the blink of an eye, sealing Iris and Julia inside walls of ice.
“Finally caught you. If there hadn’t been groundwater, this would have been a real problem.”
“You…”
Iris studied the newcomer. Male, height around the mid-160s. Short for a man, yet his proportions were good enough that he didn’t look particularly small. His main weapon was a saber, but its shape made it clear it was no factory product—at minimum a masterwork, and very likely one that incorporated magic engineering.
But that was all.
Had the opponent been stronger than her, the Warrior’s Heart—one of the abilities she had received—would have activated. And this ice wall, thick as it was, could still be shattered by the power of the holy spear. She was confident she could pulverize concrete of the same thickness; a hastily formed wall of ice could never hold her.
“Hup…!”
Iris steadied her breathing and thrust the holy spear. The Spear of Longinus traced a straight line and slammed into the ice. Cracks spider-webbed outward; the wall shattered into hundreds of fragments and collapsed.
Most people would have considered their plan a failure at that moment.
But the instant Yeona had truly been waiting for was exactly this.
Taat—!
She kicked off the falling shards of ice and closed on Iris at terrifying speed. Her body, pushed to the extreme by Maxwell, had already transcended human limits. Heightened senses and enhanced physique combined into near-perfect technique as she slipped into Iris’s blind spot.
“Wha—!”
Iris spotted her too late and lashed out with a kick. It was more of a panicked flail than a proper strike, yet the force and speed behind it were monstrous. The blow sent Yeona flying ten meters backward.
“Ugh…”
Her body was in bad shape. Something felt broken.
It didn’t matter.
With casual ease Yeona rewound Maxwell’s pocket watch. The same scene unfolded once more—only this time she anticipated the kick and slipped past it cleanly.
As her entire body closed in again, Iris erected a repulsive barrier that flung away anyone who approached. Yeona tried desperately to stop, but the distance was already too short. The attempt failed, and she was hurled twenty meters back.
This time it felt as though a muscle had torn.
She rewound the pocket watch again.
When she returned to the moment just before the barrier, she drove her saber into the gap between the force fields. The characters engraved along the blade flared with light and pierced straight through.
At last—
“Kh…!”
The first meaningful blow landed on Iris. Yeona yanked the saber free and leveled it at her throat.
“Sorry, but hand over every magic stone you’re carrying and get out of here. Do that, and I’ll let you live for now.”
“Kgh…”
The mysterious man who had subdued Iris—someone dozens of cadets had failed to restrain—after only a handful of exchanges looked down at her and spoke those words.
And that was the first meeting of the three who had once received Seo-hyun’s help.