Mentoring Week Six: The Assault Battle (7)

Song Cheon-hye spread her magic field across the floor the instant the clearance battle began. She'd gotten decent mileage out of Lightning Field in the previous attempts, so there was no reason not to stick with what worked. Currents coursing along the ground wove a wide circular spell formation, and sigils began filling it in one after another.

Before long, the goblins flooding through the main gate set foot inside the field—

— Bzzt, crackle-crackle!

"Kerek."

"Kik!"

Sparks flew wildly off their bodies. But undeterred, the creatures kept advancing, so a wave of current came crashing down on them. Song Cheon-hye poured out bolts of lightning in thick streams, charring every goblin that approached pitch-black.

"She's definitely improving."

Perhaps because this was the third attempt, her spell chaining flowed more smoothly than before, and her accuracy had ticked up a little as well.

— Krrrumble, crack—

For my part, I held my position near the side wall, and when it crumbled to open a hole, I sealed it shut with Wind Force.

"Smooth sailing so far."

"Grrrruk……"

A little past the five-minute mark, the Beheader Goblin showed up right on schedule. But this time, Song Cheon-hye's response was a little different.

"I'll end this swiftly. Please cover me."

"By all means."

Instead of waiting for it to approach the main gate, she charged in first and swung down a thick bolt of lightning.

"Grulk?"

The Beheader crossed its cleaver to block, and a violent clash rang out. It managed to stop that one exchange, but the recoil threw the arm holding the cleaver out sideways.

A bolt of lightning slammed dead center into the chest of the monster whose stance had just collapsed.

— KRRACK, BOOM!

Even so, knowing it would take far more than that to bring the thing down, Song Cheon-hye immediately cast her next spell. She pressed the attack relentlessly, denying the Beheader even a moment to catch its breath.

Swift and decisive. She'd probably come up with it on the spot, but it was an approach well worth considering.

The single biggest obstacle in this defense was the Beheader Goblin itself. If she could concentrate her firepower and clear that one out early, all that would remain afterward were F-Rank goblins hardly worth a punch.

"Not a bad idea, honestly."

Unfortunately, though, Song Cheon-hye had overlooked one thing.

"Grrruk……!"

The Beheader was remarkably tough for a goblin. A close-range boss type with exceptional durability, it refused to fall even as Song Cheon-hye dealt it nearly one-sided damage.

Which meant the fight she'd hoped to end in one swift stroke was dragging on—

"Keruk!"

"Kerek!"

—and the main gate, meanwhile, stood wide open to enemy attacks.

Lightning Field stayed active, slowly whittling the goblins ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠down and dragging at their steps, but anything that crossed beyond the spell formation's reach entered the temple without the least hindrance.

"What else could I do? Cover it myself, that's what."

Right or wrong, Song Cheon-hye's choice had opened a gap, and as her partner, my job was to fill it as best I could. Feedback and tactical refinement could wait until after the attempt was over.

I abandoned my side-wall post and moved toward the goddess statue. When I set Wind Force blowing across a wide area, the goblins went tumbling across the temple floor like dead leaves. In the previous attempts, this alone had bought us quite a lot of time.

But……

"As if that senior of mine would just stand by and watch."

Barely had the thought crossed my mind before the goblins moved with crisp, unified precision, as though they'd just received fresh orders from Dang Gyu-young.

They encircled the statue at a fixed distance, and then—

"Keruk."

"Kerek! Kek!"

—began hurling the stones and spears they'd brought along. I whipped up a headwind on the spot and batted the projectiles out of the air, but a few still hammered the statue, however feebly.

"I knew this would happen."

My gaze flicked briefly to a corner of the temple. Dang Gyu-young was nowhere in sight, but if our eyes had met, I had a feeling she'd have stuck her tongue out at me.

As a mentor, Dang Gyu-young had her pride to keep up—she couldn't exactly let me run roughshod over everything with a single Wind Force. So she'd analyzed my skill's strengths and weaknesses in her own way and come armed with a way to strike at the gaps.

With the [Close Range] rule in effect, even the mightiest magic lost a drastic amount of potency once it stretched past a certain distance. Dang Gyu-young exploited exactly that, spreading the goblins wide so that I alone couldn't possibly cover everything.

The end result was that I had to let a portion of the ranged attacks raining in from all sides slip through. Every pebble that smacked against the statue nibbled its health gauge down, grain by grain.

"Kik!"

"Keruk."

And as if that weren't bad enough, more goblins kept flooding in through the gaping hole in the side wall and the main gate. With more and more attacks converging on the statue, the pace of its decline only accelerated.

The situation was souring fast, but I stayed calm throughout—getting antsy wouldn't change a thing. My own task hadn't changed either: protect the statue as best I could, and buy time. As long as Song Cheon-hye rejoined us before the statue was utterly destroyed, we still had a chance.

"Looks like she's nearly finished it off, though."

— KRRUMBLE!

I turned my gaze toward the main gate, and sure enough—the Beheader was beaten to within an inch of its life. From the moment it had appeared until now, it had eaten everything Song Cheon-hye threw at it without pause, and its whole body hung in tatters.

"A few more clean hits and it's done."

"GRAAAAGH—!"

Just as expected, the Beheader's final pattern burst out, proof that its life hung by a thread. It loosed a tremendous roar into the empty air, wrenched its cleaver-wielding arm back with all its might, and hurled the blade as if throwing its whole body into the throw.

"Ah."

Song Cheon-hye flinched and scrambled to respond, but her reaction came one beat too late. By the time she frantically poured out lightning magic, the cleaver had already left the Beheader's hand.

"I told her to watch it carefully and block. Swoosh, thwack—and she whiffed it."

Song Cheon-hye could only stare, dumbstruck, at the cleaver spinning away into the distance.

And I, positioned near the goddess statue, watched the incoming blade—a single streak of blue light—and thought:

"Still, I should let her succeed this time."

She was working this hard; getting a reward at this point would only sharpen her efficiency going forward. I trudged toward the blade's flight path, and in the instant the cleaver skimmed just past overhead, I compressed wind at my fingertips and flicked it upward.

That bent the cleaver's straight-line trajectory ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠slightly higher—

— KWACHUNK—!

Instead of its waist snapping, the statue's head was sliced cleanly off. The head of the war goddess dropped to the floor with a porcelain shatter.

The health gauge had dropped a whopping fifteen percent in a single blow, but it wasn't a failed defense yet—goddess statues don't die just because they lose their ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠head. It did look gruesomely the worse for wear now, granted……

"Sorry about that. We'll wrap this up fast."

Truthfully, I wasn't all that sorry—once the dungeon reset, the head would grow right back anyway. At any rate, when I turned my eyes back to Song Cheon-hye—

"……"

She was still sunk in a daze. Apparently the thought of having failed yet again had hit her harder than I expected.

I gave her a gentle sideways shove with Wind Force.

— Whoooosh—

Half-dazed, Song Cheon-hye drifted half a step in the direction the wind pushed her. The very next instant, the Beheader's fist smashed through the empty air before her eyes. It had thrown away its cleaver, so its hands were empty and it swung a fist instead—only for my timely support to knock the blow wide.

"Grrruk……"

"Hah!"

Only then did Song Cheon-hye jolt, snapping back to her senses. She sized up the situation within seconds: the goddess statue, whose waist should have shattered, had lost only its head, and the goblins and the Beheader—who would have vanished had the dungeon reset—were all still there. As the realization sank in that it wasn't over yet, the light returned to her eyes.

"Stay focused. We're almost there."

"Ah! Y-yes! Right!"

Song Cheon-hye evaded the Beheader's incoming fist by a hair's breadth, then thrust her arm forward, currents streaming down it.

— PZZT-CRACKLE!

The Beheader's body burned pitch-black and scattered as ash. Song Cheon-hye wheeled around at once and shot across the temple as a single bolt of lightning. The next moment she landed near the statue and released her current, and a whole heap of goblins was swept away in the blink of an eye.

Herding the rest aside with Wind Force, I said to Song Cheon-hye:

"Swoosh, then thwack. That's how you block it."

"Th-that's only because I'm still not used to it."

"This is already our third attempt, isn't it?"

"And only the second time we've fought the Beheader."

"Fair point. Then I take it you'll succeed next time?"

"O-of course."

— BZZZT-CRACKLE!

Another wave of current crashed over the goblins, and Song Cheon-hye and I swept the area around the statue in a frantic blur—

We had finally burned through the full ten minutes. The goblins swarming the temple vanished in an instant as if scrubbed away, and the dungeon reset.

Clearance battle: success.

But the joy of success was short-lived. Song Cheon-hye's eyes, fixed on her score, were far from satisfied. By the standards of an elite among elites, letting the statue come within a hair's breadth of destruction was practically a failing grade—and knowing that the grade was the fruit of her own judgment only made it sting worse.

Her voice shrinking a little, she murmured:

"……So much for ending it in one stroke."

"It holds up better than you'd expect, doesn't it? The Beheader."

"Yes. I'll run it defensively from now on, the way we did originally."

And so began the fourth attempt. To sum up only the important parts: this time, too, Song Cheon-hye missed the cleaver by the width of a sheet of paper. Left with no choice, I dealt with it myself again, and the statue lost an arm in place of its head.

Perhaps ashamed at having failed after boldly declaring she'd block it as a matter of course, Song Cheon-hye couldn't quite meet my eyes even after the battle ended, stealing furtive glances off to the side instead.

Still, judged on results alone, the fourth attempt was a success as well. Thanks to the defensive approach, the statue retained a little more of its health, too. If she kept improving her record bit by bit in a similar fashion, that would do nicely.

We capped the clearance attempts at two per day, and afterward—just like the previous week—we took turns sparring hand-to-hand with Dang Gyu-young, one at a time. For my part, I honed Wind Force and Twister against the goblins Dang Gyu-young sent my way.

The next day.

We had finished class as usual and were about to head our separate ways when a commotion broke out in the hallway. I stole a glance out and caught a flash of red hair threading between the passing students—and the murmurs began reaching my ears one by one.

"Hey, isn't that Hong Yeon-hwa?"

"What's Hong Yeon-hwa doing at our classroom?"

"She must be here to see someone."

"Yeah, but who?"

The "someone" in question was me. How did I know? Because Hong Yeon-hwa's gaze ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠was trained squarely on my face.

"Well, look who finally came."