Two New Students Taking on an A-Rank Gate?! (1)
Two New Students Taking on an A-Rank Gate?! (1)
Aika had raced over at full speed, terrified that Yujin might be in danger.
But after entering the Gate,
her anxiety vanished as though washed away.
—Perk.
'Yes... If he's my disciple, he should be capable of at least this much.'
Worried about her disciple, she had deliberately shouted to test his response.
Yet she could sense three presences far below.
One of them was Yujin's.
Not only was he alive, he had already fought his way that deep.
Just as Aika herself had done in an S-rank Gate more than ten years earlier.
You're trying to conquer a Gate by yourself too!
Aika found her disciple's attempt to follow in her footsteps utterly endearing.
—Tap-tap.
"I'll be there soon, just in case!!!"
Even so, she continued racing through the dungeon.
It wasn't that she distrusted her disciple...
She simply felt as anxious as a parent who had left a child beside the water.
She could not allow so much as a scratch on her precious disciple.
'This might be a good opportunity to fight together and test our coordination. We should be perfectly compatible.'
She also harbored one slightly improper motive.
Yujin's Jaha Sword Art was a martial art that reached completion only when Aika was beside him.
Without Aika, Yujin's sword was only half complete.
So she would become her disciple's other half.
She would show him just how perfectly the two of them worked together.
The thought left Aika grinning from ear to ear.
"Are you hurt anywheeeere!!"
"Please stop shouting so everyone can hear you!!"
To Seol Hayeon, racing behind her, this was merely a disaster involving a Strategic Nuke going berserk in real time. Anyway.
And so the two S-rank awakeners raced through the dungeon.
They headed all the way to its deepest point in search of Yujin.
They reached the final floor in less than five minutes.
That was despite losing considerable time in the dungeon's maze of passages.
—Tap.
"Disciple! Are you all right—"
The first thing they saw was a Return Portal shining brilliantly.
Both women's eyes widened when they realized what it meant.
'Good heavens. Did he truly clear an A-rank Gate that quickly...!? With those stats?'
Seol Hayeon was astonished.
Cadet Alice Littenwood, who had been caught in the Gate with him, could not have contributed much. Yujin must effectively have cleared it alone.
He'd cleared an A-rank Gate alone and even defeated its boss monster?
It went beyond difficult to believe. It should have been impossible.
Aika had accomplished something similar, but she had already displayed S-rank physical ability at the time. That at least was comprehensible.
Yujin's physical ability, by contrast, was merely that of an ordinary first-year cadet.
His tactical mind was admittedly exceptional, and he possessed hypnosis as well.
Even so, could anyone accomplish this with physical ability that barely reached the lower end of C-rank?
These thoughts left Seol Hayeon baffled.
Similarly, Aika, too, was thrown into confusion.
—Stare.
'...Isn't that a woman's underwear?'
It was difficult to notice against the dark stone floor, but...
that was a bra. A soaking-wet bra.
"What is this?"
"......!!!!?"
When Aika asked what it was, her disciple's shoulders jerked upward.
He looked exactly like a child caught misbehaving by his mother.
Her pride in him flared into blazing anger.
—Grind.
'Hah? What did he do here to react like that? And why would anyone take off her underwear inside a Gate...?'
He'd said he was going to film with a female friend, so the underwear had to belong to that pink-haired British girl.
She had removed a perfectly good bra? Inside a Gate where the two of them were alone?
Even Aika, ignorant as she was about such matters, understood what that implied.
A Gate they'd been swept into by accident. A dungeon filled with danger.
A man and a woman who had miraculously fought their way through it...
alone together in a pitch-dark cave.
There was only one reason a woman would remove her bra in such a place.
'I came racing here because I was worried, and you were embracing another woman!?'
Her hands and feet trembled with betrayal.
The thought that her disciple might have been rolling around with that British girl while Aika rushed to save him...
made her unbearably irritated and furious.
'Of course, my disciple is a grown man. I have no right to interfere in his romantic life, but...'
—Crrrrick.
'I don't care!! He's my disciple, so I'll manage his affairs!!'
Those inexplicable feelings ultimately evolved into obsession—
an obsession with her one and only disciple.
"Lie face-down right here and pull down your pants."
"...Excuse me? What in the world are you trying to do?"
"I will punish my disciple for his misbehavior. Severely."
Aika sat on a nearby rock and firmly patted her thigh.
Both Yujin and Seol Hayeon were horrified.
'She's going to spank him!?'
'She only resorts to this when she's absolutely furious!?'
It was a famous form of corporal punishment, but...
a thirty-two-year-old woman was about to spank a twenty-year-old man.
How could that possibly be reasonable?
The first to step in and stop her was Seol Hayeon.
"C-Calm down, Ninomiya. Yujin is an adult. He is allowed to sleep with a woman, and it is certainly no cause for punishment!"
People sleep together. Why punish him for it?
It was an utterly unfiltered declaration from a comparatively open-minded sixty-year-old.
Yujin nearly jumped out of his skin.
"Chairwoman!? I d-d-didn't do anything like that!!?"
"Hold your head high. Cadets in the prime of youth can fall for each other and have sex. Why are you acting as though you did something wrong? Just use proper protection."
"I'm telling you, I really didn't do it!?"
If I'd actually done it, at least I wouldn't have felt so unfairly accused.
All we did was fight. Completely wholesome combat.
"Director Cha was there with Alice and me from the start! She filmed everything, so once we get outside, you will see—"
"You mean you filmed your bedroom activities!?"
"Has this old woman completely lost her mind!?"
Yujin had barely restrained himself until the Chairwoman implied that he filmed that sort of thing with a woman he considered his wife.
The Chairwoman erupted right back at him.
"I was trying to help you! Is that any way to speak to an elder!? Where are your manners!?"
"Th-That's... No, this is your fault, Chairwoman! Why are you talking nonsense when I'm offering to show you proof!?"
"You little brat, talking back to every word..."
The two awakeners glared daggers at each other, but...
fortunately or unfortunately, their quarrel didn't last long.
—Clap.
"———Quiet."
"Eek!?"
Aika, who had watched in silence, clapped once.
The icy killing intent in that single clap instantly brought the bickering pair to their senses.
They even began anxiously watching her mood.
"N-Ninomiya. On reflection, it was presumptuous of me to interfere with your discipline. I'll turn my back, so beat this brat until his backside is gone..."
"Y-Yes, ma'am!! I'll take my punishment!!"
Seol Hayeon swiftly abandoned him. Yujin chose death by humiliation over physical death.
Standing before them, Aika...
"Haah. Disciple, did truly nothing happen?"
"Well, that's..."
"Speak honestly."
"...We really did just fight."
"Very well. I believe you."
—Beam.
Forgetting the killing intent that had rolled off her moments before, Aika smiled.
And not merely a smile, but a bright, radiant one.
"Hmm? Ninomiya, just a moment ago you were..."
"Seol Hayeon, you are the rude one. There is no way my disciple would date a woman without telling his master."
"No, you were acting like you'd kill someone over a piece of underwear, so why all of a sudden—"
"On closer inspection, one shoulder strap is torn and the hook is broken. She must have removed it so she could throw it away later."
"......"
Seol Hayeon froze, dumbfounded by the abrupt reversal.
Aika, meanwhile, merely beamed at her disciple.
Affection practically dripped from her eyes.
'Of course. My disciple would never do such a thing!'
Her suspicions had already vanished.
He'd said he was filming a commercial, so of course a director might have accompanied them.
I’d filmed several times with a cameraman accompanying me. The explanation made perfect sense.
And since Yujin said there was physical proof, she had no choice but to believe him.
'Thinking about it properly, nothing could have happened anyway.'
There were two further pieces of evidence.
The first was sound.
Aika's exceptional hearing had allowed her to listen the entire time.
She had heard Yujin and the Dueoksini—
their fierce battle.
The sounds of fighting had stopped only about thirty seconds before she arrived.
Even Yujin couldn't have completed the deed in only thirty seconds.
This line of thinking reassured Aika.
—Glance.
'Most importantly, one glance shows that he is perfectly clean and dry.'
"You did well clearing an A-rank Gate, Disciple."
The second piece of evidence came from X-Ray Vision and was something she could never admit aloud. Anyway.
Yujin was acquitted, preserving his title as a wholesome young man.
Having narrowly escaped death, Yujin smiled in relief.
"Yes! Thank you—"
"But that is one matter, and this is another. Now lie down."
"...Excuse me?"
...His smile didn't last long.
"How did you fail to notice a woman taking off her underwear? She is a Westerner, so perhaps it is understandable for her, but you should have stopped her."
—Shift.
"You must be exhausted, so I won't strike hard. Come here."
"Um, if you could just let me off this once..."
"I have never had a worthless disciple who defied his master's command."
"......Yes, ma'am."
Yujin approached looking as though he were being led to his death.
Still wearing a gentle smile, Aika firmly patted the bare thigh visible through her robe.
And lastly,
"One more thing, Disciple. From now on, if you date a woman, you must report it to your master first. No—even if you merely find someone you like, tell me."
"Yeees..."
"Good boy. Good boy. How obedient."
"......"
'Ninomiya, that fool... Haah. It would be easier if she gave up like I did, but she is still of childbearing age. Tsk.'
Seol Hayeon wanted to say something, but she understood Aika's feelings all too painfully.
Unable to bring herself to speak, she turned away.
It was a small tragedy that history would never record.
* * *
After a brief session of public humiliation,
I was just feeling relieved that she had at least spared me from lowering my pants when footsteps sounded in the distance.
They belonged to Cheonhwa's raid team and the civilians under its protection.
"...Ninomiya. Hide."
—Swish.
Because her identity could not be exposed, Master pulled her robe over herself and concealed her presence.
In an instant, she erased her presence and blended into the surroundings so completely that only someone with exceptional senses could have noticed her.
And no one did.
"Hayeon!"
"You're a bit late. Did the escort take that long?"
"Yes. But who was that woman in the robe? She looked exactly like Aika Ninomiya."
"That woman, here in Korea? Don't suggest something that would start a war."
"Ah... Right. It doesn't make sense, I suppose."
They chatted without noticing Master in the slightest.
Then we entered the Return Portal one group at a time.
The pregnant woman on the stretcher went first, followed by the other civilians.
The awakeners followed from weakest to strongest.
Standard Gate protocol required the strongest to remain until the end in case of an ambush.
As a result, the ones left behind were...
"Rookie, you worked hard."
"Graduate soon and join us. We'll train you properly."
They were Cheonhwa's pillars and aces: A-rank awakeners.
And,
"Then, I shall close the Gate."
"......"
The strongest person standing openly among us: S-rank No. 4, Association President Seol Hayeon.
Hidden in her shadow was S-rank No. 1—my master, Aika Ninomiya.
And finally,
"Yujin. You know the method, I take it."
"Yes, ma'am!"
With Alice gone, only one MVP remained here:
A-rank awakener Seo Yujin.
I reached toward the Core embedded beside the Return Portal.
If I did not pull it free, the Gate would remain open even after we returned.
The monsters would be summoned again and multiply,
eventually reaching saturation and spilling into reality.
That was why society could not function without awakeners closing Gates.
—Slide.
"...Hayeon, you're not closing it yourself?"
"Chairwoman Seol. We understand that you favor him, but the unwritten rule still..."
Concerned voices rose around us.
The honor of closing a Gate belonged to whoever had contributed the most inside it.
As a rule, that meant the person who defeated the boss monster.
But neither the Chairwoman nor I cared.
Not in the slightest.
"Hmm. Do they believe I helped you after all?"
"......? No way..."
"Exactly."
—Pluck.
The moment I pulled out the Core, the portal rapidly expanded and enveloped all of us.
A blinding light swept over us, and a moment later we were back in Hangang Park.
A vast crowd of reporters had gathered around us...
"As of this moment, I declare today's A-rank Gate successfully cleared."
-Murmur, murmur.
"As expected of Seol Hayeon..."
"———Only two people deserve the credit."
The Chairwoman patted my shoulder and smiled.
"A-rank awakener Seo Yujin and academy cadet Alice Littenwood. I offer my sincere respect and admiration to these two young heroes, who cleared this Gate by themselves."
"......!!!!!!?"
The press erupted.