The Subtle Beginning of Something Bitter
Perhaps the first encounter had been a curse.
The noble young archduchess of the northern kingdom of Slavia. And during her second year. The Snow Maiden, Yuri Tarkovskaya, who never lost the top spot in student rankings at Eins Academy.
To her, the one who first dealt her a defeat was a single student. Lee Minsu. A bottom-tier student whose name she had never even heard before.
Using the flame spell Undying Butterfly’s Flame Scale, that Minsu had defeated her. At that moment Yuri had not slept a single comfortable night for days, overwhelmed by the humiliation she had never experienced before.
Yet it was precisely that humiliation that sparked her interest in him. And that was unexpected.
Back then Yuri had felt nothing toward men at all. No, quite the opposite—she had actively avoided them.
It was because of her father, Andrei Tarkovsky, Grand Duke of Slavia. Because of Andrei she carried a deep distrust of men.
But… why… was it?
Even so, the interest could not possibly have been rational. It was only the burning wish to repay the humiliation she had suffered a hundredfold to that man, Lee Minsu.
Yet that curse of an encounter slowly transformed into something more as time passed.
Yuri had plenty of acquaintances around her, but in truth she had no real friends among the students.
Yuri had never truly wanted a friend, but even so. As a perfectionist and someone who valued her pride, she had never once revealed that inner side to the foreign students.
Yet in this foreign land called Korea, she too had felt a little lonely.
The other students… always looked at me that way alone.
The image those students expected of her was the flawless, cold, arrogant Snow Maiden. She could never be friends with such people.
Because she knew that rather than the real Yuri Tarkovskaya, they were only chasing the outward appearance of her superior background and her status as the top student.
She could not be honest.
Friends… yes. Back then, Min-su and I…
But Lee Minsu was different. Because of that curse and that humiliation, no matter what, they were inevitably drawn together again in Eins Academy.
Whether Yuri deliberately provoked him to wash away her shame, or whether he unexpectedly came to her first and spoke with her, the two of them naturally began spending more and more time together.
She could not quite say they were friends, but as they met so often, at some point they had become something closer than mere acquaintances.
And during the winter break of their second year. The distance between them changed completely after that moment. Because Yuri’s feelings had begun to stir.
Special preparatory training. In that training many things happened between Min-su and her.
Perhaps if the two of them had simply walked toward a normal future, those precious memories would have been called such. Moments never to be forgotten.
And even at that time, Yuri was surely conscious of Lee Minsu. Far more than ordinary friends. In the realm of emotion.
But Yuri had been immature back then. Even now she would have been the same. For her, the feeling of liking someone was far more difficult than any hard test at Eins Academy.
And through the things between her father Andrei and her mother, she had known since childhood that the affection between men and women was nothing but an illusion.
Yet despite always searching for him inside herself, she could never accept that emotion with pure honesty.
And that graduation… the Tragedy of Eins…
So the feeling inside her only grew heavier as graduation drew near. At that time Yuri had been anxious. She was to return home to Slavia after graduation.
And she had been assigned to join her father’s Snowfield Knights. The pure-blood Snowfield Knights could only admit those of Slavian blood.
That meant the same thing as never seeing Minsu again from now on.
No… I couldn’t bear that.
Yet Yuri still did not know her own feelings toward him.
Actually, she had known, but she simply did not know what to do about it.
While she was still wavering like this, Minsu had told her: After graduation he had something to say to her.
Of course Yuri had understood the meaning, but even at the graduation ceremony she had postponed the moment of truly defining her own heart.
Even thinking of Minsu’s heart.
And a while later. Finally the graduation had come. That event, the Tragedy at Eins Academy.
“The Doubtful Monster.
Even a ghost that should never exist makes one with a doubting heart. But for hunters, the villain by that same name is far more famous than the old saying.
And the hunters who know the Doubtful Monster well say the name Suspicious Demon suits the villain far better.
Just as the saying goes, the Doubtful Monster was never an ordinary S-rank villain.
Usually mental-manipulation villains stir the victim’s mind, shaking emotions and creating endless doubt and confusion.
But the Doubtful Monster was different.
His ability intervened only with pure logic. He strengthened the victim’s rationality while making emotions and feelings hazy.
So on the day of the nineteenth class graduation.
Thanks to Red Lake’s scheme, the students of Eins Academy had been sealed inside a dungeon-like barrier and were under attack by monsters.
But the first two days, under the guidance of the third-year S-class and the student council, they repelled the attack without panic.
Of course, everything had gone exactly as the Doubtful Monster planned. The excellent S-class and student council students had kept their composure. They quickly began to judge the attack with pure rationality.
And… among the students there was also a conclusion that the villain’s internal collaborator existed…
Otherwise they could never have created the wide-area barrier that covered the similar dungeon and Eins Academy itself.
In fact there had been an internal collaborator. Red Lake villains disguised as students, hiding among them and subtly manipulating the students.
Lies grew stronger when mixed with even a little truth. And the students who thought only with that clumsy rationality had concluded the false information was correct.
The most suspicious student at Eins Academy. Lee Minsu.
In his first year he had clearly been the lowest-ranked student, but by the time of the third-year graduation he was an unnatural presence even among the S-class, reaching the very top.
Awakened ones… ability users cannot grow simply by effort, after all.
And he had always been that way. As if he knew the future. As if he had already seen all the answer sheets and acted ahead of everyone.
Of course such a Minsu had been listed as the most likely internal collaborator.
But that fact alone was not enough to label him a collaborator. The real problem was the twisted information spread by the Doubtful Monster. The students’ clumsy rationality had begun to mix with that information.
Finally their group rationality had reached its conclusion.
- What if we lock up Minsu in a mana-sealed room for just two days?
If Minsu was truly a collaborator, he was far too dangerous among even the third-years. They could not leave a suspicious student alone.
Especially as student council president Yuri had the authority to act. And the start of the tragedy had already come for Yuri herself—she was already tainted by the Doubtful Monster’s mental manipulation.
The Doubtful Monster’s ability worked even more effectively on people who considered themselves rational. Especially on someone like Yuri who believed she was rational.
- Minsu said he had something to tell me after graduation.
Clearly she had expected that. She had thought there might be a confession from him.
But at that moment her tainted rationality had drawn another conclusion.
- Yes. It was strange. He had been a Red Lake collaborator all along. He was trying to confess his crime to me, the student council president.
If her feelings had been stronger than her rationality, even if Minsu had been a Red Lake collaborator she would have desperately denied it right there.
Yuri had not.
And the fact that he had always been especially close to her. If there had been some other motive, that suspicion would have been enough to confirm the conclusion reached by pure rationality.
Yuri, who had excluded every emotion, had not trusted men.
- From now on I will lock Minsu in the mana-sealed room for two days.
At that point Yuri’s ice magic had already been complete. The prison of eternal sealing. Her ice-seal magic had bound Minsu.
And because of the two days he had spent sealed there, they had lost the golden time to stop the Tragedy of Eins.
If I… if I had believed in Minsu to the end…
She had been student council president. And in the situation where she alone among the students could give orders while the instructors and staff were sealed away.
But Yuri had not.
She had been completely different from those three. Kwon Si-woo. Chae Mina. Seong Arin. They had not fallen for the Doubtful Monster’s mental manipulation.
In the student council only those three had opposed the students’ conclusion.
Even after the Tragedy of Eins, Yuri had continued to investigate the incident. And now she knew.
The reason those three had opposed it. They had absolute faith in Minsu.
Because of that unbreakable trust, the Doubtful Monster’s mental manipulation had never worked. The three’s trust was far stronger than rationality—a feeling.
But Yuri’s clumsy feelings had not allowed her to trust Minsu to the end.
Yuri had clearly been different from them.
That conclusion had left her with a bitter regret.
The reason the cryomancer Yuri, who felt no cold, still felt a heart-freezing chill inside herself.
That chill she had felt ever since the day two years ago when Minsu had defeated the Doubtful Monster and fallen into a coma.
And for the last two years, whenever Yuri thought of Lee Minsu, her emotions had always stood far ahead of her cold rationality.
“Guild Master? Guild Master. We have arrived.”
At that moment. Beyond the lingering afterimage of that painful dream. The voice of a man she had always felt warm again.
It was beginning to echo once more.
Yuri had slept for quite a long time.
Her vulnerable sleeping figure had remained exactly as it had been then. I drove carefully, avoiding the gaze that always came from the side.
I had not driven manual much before, but for the sake of the job I had practiced desperately and it had not been difficult.
And to avoid thinking of Yuri, I had recalled the Tragedy of Eins and the Doubtful Monster from that time.
The difference with the original novel. Of course the villain attack had been planned even in the original graduation. But the villain had not been S-rank.
Originally Si-woo would have blocked it easily.
The protagonist of The Academy’s All-Rounder Hunter, Kwon Si-woo, who had grown through the first and second parts of the story after spending his academy life at Eins Academy.
It had been the episode where he and his S-class classmates and student council had easily stopped the attack together.
But with the appearance of the Doubtful Monster the original story had changed completely. The villain had infiltrated Eins Academy long before the graduation to prepare the tragedy.
With that prior preparation and the special mental-manipulation ability, Eins Academy had become the villain’s slaughterhouse.
In the end I had somehow defeated the guy, but the damage had been too great. I had only been able to defeat him because Si-woo and Mina had sacrificed themselves for me.
Damn it!
I had suppressed the memory of that time and the feelings that rose again. Instead I had recalled the words the Doubtful Monster had spoken to me with colder composure.
- There are two talents who will become the Red Lake’s Vessels. Haa… it was worth all this troublesome preparation.
Vessels. The word had appeared even in the original novel.
In the original novel Red Lake had been the main villain. Their full appearance had come in part three after Si-woo graduated, but in that part three Si-woo’s hunter guild had continued to intertwine with the story.
The word ‘Vessel’ mentioned in part three. But exactly what it meant was unknown. Because the original Academy Hunter had run for an entire year in part three.
And with Si-woo dead the story of Academy Hunter had lost its direction.
But the AA-rank dungeon, Uiryeong Man-Eater, had been cleared by Yuri, Soso, and Flame. So the thing that Si-woo should have done had already been done by the main characters of the original novel.
Then I must help with whatever Flame is trying to do, no matter what I have to do.
Now that Yuri and I were alone. The many feelings of the past rose up, and a faint panic tried to lift its head again.
I calmed my heart. I had to get used to it. To wash away all my mistakes. And the remaining time I had to give to the legitimate characters in this novel. To the main characters like Yuri or Soso.
That was why I had joined as Flame’s operator.
In the meantime we had arrived at the destination. I woke the sleeping Yuri.
“Guild Master? Guild Master. We have arrived.”
“… Uhm? Really? I guess I fell asleep for a bit. Then let’s get out quickly.”
I had parked in a shabby empty lot. Right in front of us lay the free trade district. The rundown, dirty buildings of a slum stretched out before us.
“Do you know the way here?”
“Team Leader Seo sent me a map on my phone.”
Still feeling the aftereffects of sleep, Yuri’s expression looked dazed. To tease her I had asked playfully.
“But, Guild Master. Why did you come all the way here? If it’s a trading market, there must be much better places. I don’t think places like this are what our association-certified guilds visit. It seems a bit below your rank as guild master.”
“No. I had to stop by here. I came all the way here to buy something for Minsu.”
At Yuri’s answer my mouth had momentarily sealed shut.