Always an Incident at the Entrance Ceremony (4) - Kim Si-woo's Perspective
Today my luck is absolute garbage. I was sleeping in at home when my parents suddenly woke me in a panic. I threw myself together and rushed out, but I missed the train to the academy. After sprinting the whole way and somehow arriving on time, I realized I’d lost my name tag. Then someone showed me kindness only to feed me poison under the excuse that it was a healthy tonic. That would-be assassin of a brat declared herself a possessor. And on top of everything, the brat turned out to be a pineapple-on-pizza, mint-chocolate, rice-in-soup, kkakdugi-loving lunatic. Money is tight at home, so I’d tried to pre-register for a decent job only to have her interfere with that too… Still, seeing Peony—the protagonist of the original novel—within a year of arriving in this world was genuinely wonderful. Meeting her in person was completely different from the illustrations. The way she expressed her happiness with zero filter was incredibly cute. She seemed to lack filters in other areas as well, but that was part of her charm. I loved how her transparent, pure character stood in such stark contrast to this rather gloomy world. If only the circumstances of our first meeting had been better, it would have been perfect. But what could I do?
I nearly ended up late again, but thanks to that brat I made it just in time. Her claim that she had spent years rigorously building her strength was no bluff. When the gate erosion broke out during the entrance ceremony, monsters fell like dead leaves even though she didn’t appear to be using her full power. I couldn’t just stand there. Right in front of me loomed a wooden bear easily twice the size of a normal one. Bare hands did almost nothing, and even after receiving that ridiculously heavy, ugly stick from the brat and a buff from Peony, I could only just manage to slice it in two.
Thud. I had already collapsed from exhaustion twice today. At least this time it was Peony who came over instead of poison, pouring vitality and healing into me. She really was kind—unlike a certain someone. As I stood up, the pale wooden forest began to fade, as if the situation were being resolved. But I had read the web novel. I knew exactly what would happen next.
Boom! With an earsplitting roar, Peony was hurled into the air. In the original story that attack injured her arm and forced her to retreat. In that case, couldn’t I save her? And if I saved her, wouldn’t that earn me a fair amount of goodwill?
Having devised a plan that was perfectly advantageous both publicly and privately, I glanced at the brat. She was simply hovering in mid-air. It was suspicious, but a person who needed saving still needed to be saved. I jumped toward the falling elf—only for the brat to appear in front of me and catch Peony first. She flashed that smug little grin again. That arrogant brat…!
Ever since receiving Peony’s buff, my head had felt feverish. My breathing was ragged. Come to think of it, from the moment I met Peony the brat had been subtly wedging herself between us, and I hadn’t liked it one bit.
“No! Not yet!”
So I decided to be a little unreasonable myself. With Peony’s eyes squeezed shut, a frantic tug-of-war broke out. After tangling and twisting through the air we finally landed, and I felt a heavy weight settle onto my shoulders. At some point the brat had climbed onto me piggyback-style while still holding Peony. I tried to protest, but Peony suggested we fight like this and the brat agreed it was fine. In the end we fought in that absurd formation.
Maybe the buff was still active, because I dodged the downward strikes with surprising ease. Peony blocked attacks for me as well, so the formation turned out to be more useful than expected. The brat raised a barrier to stop the vine whips, then suddenly shouted for me to move back. The vibration rising from the ground felt dangerous, so I leapt backward. The spot I had just vacated was mercilessly skewered by spear-like tree roots. If I had been even a second slower…
Then something soft wrapped around my neck. Before I could process the sudden contact with bare skin, something even softer pressed against the back of my neck and began to squeeze. My buff-enhanced senses registered the texture of a skirt and the distinctive feel of the fabric beneath it before my brain could catch up. When reason finally caught up, it supplied the utterly unnecessary observation, ‘Good thing(?) she’s wearing underwear.’
Only then did it hit me that the person sitting on my shoulders was a girl… Aaaaaagh!
With no time to collect my thoughts, I dodged forward again. Being more conscious of my rider this time, I felt the heavenly softness of her body pressing hard against the back of my head, and the dark brown hair brushing my face registered far more clearly. A sudden sweet scent flooded my nose. And on top of my head was something slightly firm yet squishy… My heart, which had been pumping blood vigorously throughout my body thanks to the buff, seemed to be asking whether it should reroute some to an emergency side path.
If this continued I was going to die socially. The other party was a possessor, so mentally she had probably long since passed adulthood. But no—physically it was dangerous! It wasn’t enough for one or the other to be satisfied; both had to be. News cameras were covering every inch of the ground and air during this major incident in the academy auditorium.
Moreover… ‘Wow, that’s gross…’ I really didn’t want to admit it, but the greatest combat asset currently available to me could vanish. With the East Sea and Mount Baekdu drying up and wearing away… I was racing through the national anthem at top speed, already on the third verse for the sake of my honor, when Haneul asked Peony to layer on another buff for me.
No. If I took that buff, everything would be over.
“No, no! Vitality isn’t necessary! I was just distracted for a second!”
While dodging the pursuing thorn traps, the ground suddenly rose into the air and the pointless chase ended. I felt far more relieved that my social life had been saved than my biological one. Fortunately the buff seemed to have expired as well; the intense urge from earlier had faded.
Seeing the boss in tatters, I figured it was about time to set her down when rain began to fall and lightning struck. It tore away the remaining top of the building and detonated it. Had the boss created a flash storm? Should I finish it off? Looking for the cause, I saw it was taking the brunt of the lightning. A self-destruct? Yet it was still viciously guiding the bolts toward us—it must have harbored quite a grudge.
Still, the boss’s final struggle produced no meaningful result. The brat who had set us on the ground released Peony and climbed down from my shoulders. At her gesture, rebar tore free from the half-destroyed building and formed a tall pillar. The lightning that had struck the iron column once and the boss ten times now shattered downward from the pillar’s top, ending with its destructive force slamming into the reverse side of the boss’s face at the base.
Today’s luck, it seemed, hadn’t been all that bad after all.
The destructive power had been enormous, yet there was almost no damage. I had set up a lightning rod, but most of the bolts had struck the boss anyway. The only real harm was a few people complaining of tinnitus from the thunderous roar. The paramedics who had been on standby for emergencies, now with nothing to do, loaded the tinnitus sufferers into ambulances and sped off toward the hospital. Next to move were the graduate students. Like ants drawn by pheromones they gathered one by one until a huge crowd had formed, hauling monster corpses back to their nests. They even brought chainsaws and excavators for the boss; by tomorrow morning there probably wouldn’t be a single otherworldly remnant left in the auditorium.
In the middle of all this activity, a woman in a suit came running frantically.
“Huff, huff… Excuse me, your name is… Lee Haneul, correct…?”
“Yes, that’s right. This is Peony unnie, and this is Kim Si-woo.”
The woman caught her breath for a moment, relayed our names over her radio, then dashed off toward another area.
We thought the situation had been peacefully resolved, but before long a victim of the incident was discovered. A robot vacuum that had been roasted by the lightning was found by the graduate students. Peony hugged the ruined vacuum and burst into tears.
By what must have been noon we had arrived at a nearby hotel. After confirming everyone was accounted for, the academy had rented out the entire building and stuffed all the new students inside. The academy grounds were still in chaos, so they probably wanted us to rest here. Staff members were posted at every exit, making it impossible to leave. On top of that, a subordinate sent by the dean of academic affairs had delivered a desperate plea: if I were spotted anywhere else, the academy’s reputation would plummet, so please just stay put.
It looked like I had no choice but to rest. In that case, I might as well go ask the protagonist what I was curious about.
Knock knock. I rapped on the door. It opened shortly afterward.
“May I come in?”
“Yeah.”
I stepped inside the guest room. The layout was… naturally identical to the one I had been assigned. When I looked at the protagonist, she seemed to have questions of her own. In situations like this it was better not to overthink—just ask directly.
“What is this ability?”
“Your mental age is that of an adult, right?”