You've Gotta Study
“Haaaah….”
Being home and messing around on my phone really is the best. Lying there sprawled across my bed, I already missed the good old days — though, granted, the good old days were literally yesterday.
Every day, parked in front of the computer, playing games, snacking, taking a nap whenever I got sleepy, then getting up for dinner…. You know, it's a little like that feeling — when I was unemployed I bawled my eyes out wanting a job, and then the moment I got one I bawled my eyes out wanting to quit? Back when I was living the elementary schooler's life, I did occasionally wonder whether it was okay to live such a trashy existence, whether I wasn't actually good for nothing.
But the second I actually started going to school, I missed my trashy life. If I'm being completely honest, I don't feel like going to school made my day any more productive. It just felt like the good vibes I had stored up were getting sucked dry by the little kids and the older students. Not that the older students really did anything to me. So it was the kids who were the problem all along?
Starting tomorrow they'll be kids I stop seeing after third period anyway, but still. It stung a little. They'd keep sneaking looks at me during dismissal and stuff.
“Ah..! It's that guy..!”
The man who comes across as impossibly cool and gentlemanly, always in immaculate suit fits, hair waxed and coiffed like he stepped out of a photoshoot — and who, in reality, is exactly the type to knock back straight soju and shovel kimchi into his mouth with his bare hands. I felt utterly betrayed.
Come to think of it, if you're awakened, couldn't you hold your hands up or do push-ups for a hundred hours, two hundred, no problem? Sunbae Gyeongwon and sunbae Byeongho held the push-up position from the first bell to the last and didn't show the faintest hint of strain. They even goofed off whenever the teacher wasn't looking…. My body's exactly the same as an ordinary civilian's, but every other awakened hunter out there, whatever their ability or grade, possesses power that simply doesn't compare to a normal person's.
So why am I the only weird one?
“Tsk….”
Beep?
“Daengdaeng, you don't want to go to school either, right?”
Beebeeep!! Bibeepbeepbeep!!!
“Excuse me..?”
Apparently Daengdaengi does want to go to school, since the kids adore him. This little rascal. Traitor!
— KNOCK! KNOCK!
“Princess?”
“Ah, Ophelia?”
“Might you have a moment, Your Highness?”
“A moment? Yes! Is something the matter?”
I'd been rolling around on my bed when Ophelia knocked and let herself in. I half-assumed she'd come to call me for dinner, but something about her air said this was not a dinner summons.
“Sir Galahad has just contacted us to report that he has finished preparing the materials for Suri's upgrade.”
“O-ooooh..! Suri! Finally!”
Right — it was Suri's turn now. The metal that went into Minium had been Ophelia's improved alloy with a few extra refinements layered on by Grandpa Galahad, so that one came together quickly, but since Suri has to fly, the lightweighting process must have held things up.
Apparently there's an extraordinarily light rare-metal involved, which is ruinously expensive and apparently gave them no end of trouble to import.
“Then shall we head out right this second!?”
“Yes. I shall make the preparations.”
Everything just glides along the moment Grandpa Galahad arrives. It feels a little like we simply keep putting him to work, which makes me feel slightly guilty — but Grandpa Galahad says he loves the forge, so.
“Hee hee hee. Suri is going to look so cool.”
We departed around two-thirty in the afternoon and reached the forge by four. The trip was faster than last time, because we'd purchased a prime stretch of Nova-owned land ringing our forge and paved a shortcut across it. What used to take roughly two hours now took an hour and a half at most.
“Whoaaaa…. Wait, you need this much?”
Kii..?
“No, no, that's not what I meant…. I'm not saying the metal going into you is a waste.”
Before us towered an absolutely absurd quantity of metal. Since it was lightweight alloy, judging it by weight would have been meaningless — instead, square ingots were stacked in ranks all the way up to my shoulders. And there were more than a few extremely high-grade mana stones mixed in as well.
Handling mana stones commercially apparently requires some sort of certification process, which — Ophelia informed me — Nova's assistance had smoothed right over.
“Suri, you were an expensive girl all along, huh.”
Kii….
“Kuhahat! That's because Suri's true form was never this shape to begin with!”
“Really? Wasn't Suri originally an eagle?”
I mean, an eagle suits Suri perfectly well, if you ask me. What, was she originally a dragon or something?
The Suri of today was made after Ophelia — a golem Ophelia built by splitting off a portion of her own metal. She was a completely separate being now, so there wasn't really any deeper connection to speak of.
“Well, we'll never know until we try! Princess! I entrust the enhancement to you!”
“Yes sir!!”
With an expression of solemn resolve (entirely unchanged from her usual face), Suri beat her wings furiously and clambered up onto the ingot pile. She was built from the rare-metal Dohee-unni had given me, an alloy slightly below what we'd been using lately.
She'd been made way back in the earliest days, and knowing she'd waited this long for her upgrade made me feel a little guilty.
“Suri! Thank you for everything up till now! I won't forget you!”
Kii….
“I'm not saying you're going anywhere, you know. I know that much.”
I still hadn't forgotten how she high-handedly swapped out my clothes for children's wear, but she had also saved me right in front of my eyes when a gate tore open. Honestly, if Suri hadn't been there, those radiation wolves might have turned me into a lunchbox.
“Whew..!”
— Clank!
“Hm? You're telling me not to be nervous? Hee hee, thanks.”
Minium, standing beside me, thrust a thumb straight up into the air, while Ophelia, Grandpa Galahad, and Daengdaengi looked on from the side.
“Suri. Receive the blessing your Princess bestows, and return to your true form.”
— Wuuuum..!
In an instant, a colossal amount of mana was sucked inward. It felt as though Grandpa Galahad's post-crafting backlash was flaring up all over again, despite him having fully recovered. The metal that had melted into a slack, molten pool now moved as if to cradle Suri like an egg, and before long the rounded mass of mana came to a rolling boil and split clean in half with a blinding burst of light.
And standing there, in the very place Suri had been —
“Y-you….”
“YOU'RE SO BEAUTIFUUUUUL!!!!!”
“Kuhahaha! Now THAT is a job well done!”
— Clank!! Creeeak..!
— Bibeepbeepbeep!!!!
“Magnificent work, Princess.”
She was so phenomenally cool that even Minium bounced around until his joints creaked. What was that word for it again…?
“A g-griffin!! It's a griffin!!”
Kii….
Suri had never been a champion parrot-snack-scarfer at all — she was one of the fabled beasts of legend, a griffin!! Her frame had swelled enormously, two more legs had sprouted, and she'd shifted to a four-legged stance.
Though it was pretty funny that her face still showed traces of the old look. But she still felt like the Suri I knew, and I loved that.
“Huh? Hold on, weren't griffins supposed to have lion hind legs?”
But looking closely, those weren't a lion's legs — they ended in what looked like horse hooves. Something different from a griffin, then?
“It is a hippogriff, Princess.”
“O-ooooh…. What's that, exactly.”
According to Ophelia's explanation, a hippogriff is a child born between a griffin and a horse. So she was an eagle-and-horse hybrid? Then again, on the ground, a horse probably would outrun a lion…?
Either way, still just as cool!
“Whoaaaa!! At this level I could totally ride her and fly!!”
“As a matter of fact, that was the principal purpose. A means for Your Highness to travel with speed has been devised at last.”
“D-does that mean… I get to ride Suri everywhere..?!”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
“OOOOOOOHHHHHHHH!!!!”
Officially certified as ultra-hyper-ultimate cool. I would be riding Super Great Ultra Mega Cyclone Suri the Hippogriff .ver straight through the school gates.
“Mm hee hee.”
“However, Princess — there is one thing you will require first.”
“Yes! What is it?!”
“You must study, Your Highness.”
“Aww.”
Hold on. Me? Study? What on earth was that supposed to mean?
“Under the Special Hunter Act and the aviation laws of the Republic of Korea, any person boarding a familiar or summon capable of flight at forty meters or more above the ground must first obtain an Aerial Familiar Riding License.”
“HOOOEEEHHH!!!!!”
“Because turning ability, flight speed, and other characteristics differ by mount, the practical examination is conducted aboard the mount you actually own.”
“Th-then! Suri just needs to fly really well, and that's that!”
“Precisely. In that sense, the practical rests upon Suri's own competence. The problem is the written examination. Only once Your Highness passes the written test will you be granted eligibility to sit the practical.”
“Oh my gahd….”
Kii….
What kind of law even is that? Our Suri just flies superbly — she doesn't need any paperwork.
“Haa… what am I supposed to do..?”
“There is no alternative. Your Highness must simply study until you can secure a passing score.”
“Kuhahat! Isn't the Princess the finest intellect in the whole kingdom! Of course she'll manage!”
“Waaah.”
Who said that? That I was smart? I never studied back when I was a student either — I got chewed out by my teachers for it.
“For the record, I have already completed the written examination myself. Much of the difficulty and question format is identical to the driver's license test, so I would judge it relatively easy.”
“S-sob, that's because you're a genius, Ophelia….”
Me? I don't even have a driver's license. How could you do this to me.
Kii.
“You're cheering me on? Thaaanks….”
Say what you will — study you must. When in Rome, do as the Romans do. Truth be told, even in other countries you need a license to ride a flying summon, so unless you plan on galloping around somewhere over the Pacific, the studying is mandatory.
One mercy: Korea's licensing authority is apparently a rather high-tier body, so a license issued in Korea lets you ride in other countries too. That said, actually crossing a border on Suri's back would obviously be illegal — you'd have to get the license renewed in each country you visited.
“Ughhhh….”
“Eve, what's wrong? Why have you been sighing all morning?”
“Ah, Minseo….”
Minseo, second-in-command of the Yoo Choa Cartel, wandered over. Since I was sighing my lungs out, she came around beside me and set her little desk mirror down first.
“I have to get a license, so I apparently have to study….”
“Whaaat? You're a hunter, though? As a golemancer, are you going for your electrician's certification or something?”
“H-huh..? No, it's not that….”
Kids these days know everything, don't they. Scary fast.
“I got something I can ride around in the sky, and apparently I need a license to ride it. Like a driver's license.”
“Ohh, I see. I study LSA over school breaks — it's easier than you'd think.”
“What's LSA..?”
“Light-sport aircraft pilot certification? I can't take the exam yet because of my age, but I fly a lot following my grandpa around. I'll get certified eventually.”
“Whoa.”
So this was what the regular students at Seoul Aegis were like.