Week 7 Mentoring, PvP (5)
It was already common knowledge that Kim Ho relied on wind magic as his mainstay. She had watched him with her own two eyes time and again, as enemy and ally alike, and even in the recent sticker PvP assessment, wind magic had accounted for a sizable share of his success.
A skill that wielded physical force through the wind itself. It had pulled Hong Yeon-hwa out of danger at critical moments, cushioned impacts like a pillow, lending support at exactly the right times — while on the flip side, it disrupted and cut off Dang Gyu-young's movements, making it a remarkably versatile tool.
The only catch was that wind couldn't be seen, which made it hard to gauge how powerful it actually was. Rather than the skill itself being overwhelming, it felt more like Kim Ho simply exercised superb control, deploying it precisely where and when it mattered.
And so she had assumed that even against wind magic, she could somehow manage to hold out —
Whooo—
"Aaaargh—"
Too strong!
Hong Yeon-hwa, unable to withstand the gale, was shoved sideways yet again. No matter how desperately she strained to hold her ground, it simply would not hold.
Kim Ho came closing in, having shaken her around a couple of times until she didn't know which way was up.
Even in that daze, Hong Yeon-hwa snapped her fingers, and a magic circle flared to life.
FWOOOOM—!
Kim Ho slipped back out of the way of the surging pillar of fire. One by one he dodged the large fireballs that came hurtling after it, then gave a light sweep with the short spear in his hand.
Whooo—
"Aah—"
If she let herself get dragged this way and that much longer, she would drift farther and farther from the ground where her magic circles lay. The whole point of raising a fortress and digging in would be lost.
Determined to endure somehow, Hong Yeon-hwa swept her eyes over her surroundings — and at the sight of a nearby tree, something clicked.
'A tree! Roots!'
A tree with its roots sunk deep into the earth doesn't budge even in the fiercest gale!
All I have to do is become a tree!
Drawing on the physical abilities reinforced by Overheat, she drove one foot deep into the ground.
Whooo—
'G-Good. There we go.'
Whether because the hastily improvised idea actually worked, Hong Yeon-hwa's body swayed this way and that but refused to be pushed back.
Just as she steadied her tottering balance and moved to send fire spheres and arrows flying,
Whoooo—!
the wind blew fiercer still. Her swaying body lurched hard to one side — and she toppled face-first onto the ground.
"……"
"……"
Face-down where she lay, Hong Yeon-hwa thought:
'Somebody please just cover me with dirt...'
Because she wanted this spot to serve as her grave.
And wouldn't the headstone read something like—
Hong Yeon-hwa. Here lies one who perished of shame.
But regrettably, her wish went unfulfilled. Kim Ho, for his part, had stopped attacking and was simply waiting — which only doubled her shame.
'Better if he'd just come take the crystal already...'
But lying there face-down forever was every bit as embarrassing, so at last Hong Yeon-hwa staggered upright. As always, Kim Ho watched her with that impassive face — though this time, his gaze seemed to carry a trace of something like pity.
There was exactly one way to break this awkward mood.
'F-Fire! Arrow!!'
Fwoooosh!
Resume the fight, the sooner the better.
The moment Hong Yeon-hwa loosed her fire arrow, Kim Ho began moving to match it.
'I have to get back to my original position.'
She had already strayed a fair distance from where she'd first set up. However many magic circles she'd laid down to raise her fortress, it meant nothing if the caster herself couldn't get back inside it.
Hong Yeon-hwa kept hurling fire arrows while casting about for an opening to return —
Whooo—
"Huurgh—"
— but as if to say not a chance, a headwind rose and drove her stumbling backward. Getting back was clearly a lost cause, so she gave up on it fast.
Hong Yeon-hwa made do with activating the magic circles nearby, using them to hold Kim Ho in check.
FWOOOOM—!
Each time a pillar of fire erupted, the circles dwindled, until at last they were spent entirely. Now, the moment Kim Ho closed in, she would have no choice but to fight him hand to hand, however much it galled her.
'But hold on...'
A glance at the scoreboard showed the charge all but complete. It hadn't been her intention, but even while Hong Yeon-hwa lay sprawled and writhing in shame, the crystal had been charging away all the same.
'If I just hold out a little longer like this...?'
And wasn't a mere 27 percent all she needed for victory?
It felt as though the dying embers of hope had caught fire again.
Kim Ho, meanwhile, also flicked a glance at the scoreboard — and seemed to realize his time was running short. Before long he cast Thief's Step, closing the distance with movements like a blade sliding across the floor.
'Don't come!'
Fwoooosh!
Hong Yeon-hwa flung fireballs wildly and lashed out with her lava whip, but Kim Ho evaded them all by the narrowest of margins. Then he closed in right up to her and lightly took hold of her forearm.
A moment later Hong Yeon-hwa felt her body lift weightlessly — and watched Kim Ho recede rapidly into the distance. As it turned out, the one pulling away wasn't Kim Ho at all. It was her, flying backward.
So much for holding out a little longer.
'Like that was ever going to happen—!'
Hong Yeon-hwa sailed backward for a good while yet before her speed bled away on its own, and she touched down lightly where she stood. That she hadn't ended up rolling head over heels seemed to be thanks to Kim Ho exercising a certain consideration even as he wielded his wind magic.
The problem was that the Sanctuary's light no longer shone upon her. She had left its radius, and the link between the Sanctuary and her crystal had been severed. The energy stored in the crystal drained away in a steady trickle, the light it had soaked up dying just as fast.
CRYSTAL 61%
CRYSTAL 56%
The charge level dripping down in real time. It discharged several times faster than it had charged.
Hong Yeon-hwa made a desperate bid to get back inside the Sanctuary's radius — but Kim Ho, who had followed her at some point, cut off her path.
"……"
Kim Ho was speaking with his eyes.
Go on, then — try getting past me.
Hong Yeon-hwa's face crumpled to the verge of tears.
'Go through that?'
Somehow the duel felt more hopeless with every passing second. And yet the conclusion had been settled from the very beginning. Lose if she must — so long as she came away having gained and learned something. If she'd meant to give up, she would have done it before the duel ever began, back when Dang Gyu-young first paired the two of them together.
Hong Yeon-hwa steeled herself once more.
'...Just think of it as the sticker PvP.'
Dang Gyu-young had been an opponent she couldn't hope to beat either — but hadn't she pried off a sticker by worming into the tiniest of openings? This time, too, there was no telling. Maybe such a tiny crack would open up.
Fwoosh!
Hong Yeon-hwa raised the wand — now a lava whip — in one hand and kindled a fireball in the other. Then, the instant she hurled the fireball, she cracked the whip and kicked off the ground. Her plan was to seize Kim Ho's attention twice over, then slip out through whichever side his guard thinned.
"……"
Kim Ho tilted his body this way and that to slip past the incoming fire spells, then kicked off the ground in turn and planted himself squarely in her path.
Hong Yeon-hwa wheeled around at once, her attacks never ceasing.
Fwoooosh!
Both hands raining down spells, both feet darting left and right and diagonally, both eyes locked on Kim Ho as she hunted for any breach at all.
With her whole mind fixed on his every move like that,
'That...'
she seemed to catch sight of a very small opening. And that opening was widening, little by little, as time went on.
Kim Ho's movements felt somehow unnatural, too. She soon realized why: he was moving so as to avoid her flames. He was honoring the tacit condition set when she'd accepted this duel — that he would take damage from her fire magic. With every attack she made, the reach of her flames spread wider; in inverse proportion, Kim Ho's room to move shrank; and with it, the opening grew larger and larger.
Watching all of this as the exchange wore on, Hong Yeon-hwa finally pinned down the optimal timing.
'Now!'
She kicked off the ground hard and shot out on Kim Ho's diagonal.
At which point Kim Ho, as if he'd been waiting for exactly this, swept his short spear.
Whooo—
'Ah — wait. No way.'
He was faking the opening on purpose?
It was all an act?
In hindsight, there was no way that monstrous human being would show an opening just because a little fire had caught nearby. Eager as she was, Hong Yeon-hwa had walked straight into a simple trap.
A current of wind laden with physical force shook the swiftly darting Hong Yeon-hwa hard, once. Staggering, she kept moving fast along her own momentum — and cracked her head against a massive tree.
"……"
Hong Yeon-hwa clutched the spot she'd struck and curled into a ball.
Kim Ho came over and asked,
"Sorry. You okay?"
"I-I'm f-fine..."
She was not, in fact, fine at all. Tears welled and glistened in her eyes, but Hong Yeon-hwa did her best to look like nothing was wrong.
"What in the world is this situation now?"
Dang Gyu-young appeared, dropping her concealment. Ordinarily she'd intended not to interfere until the two of them finished their duel, but this absurd turn of events had forced her hand.
Dang Gyu-young crouched at Hong Yeon-hwa's side and examined the spot she'd hit.
"Let me see that head... Aigoo, that's a big bump."
Then she narrowed her eyes and leveled a glare at Kim Ho.
"Aigoo, I told you to go easy on the wind magic."
"……"
Judged strictly on the facts, this was, at most, an accident. Both of them bore fault for the head injury — Hong Yeon-hwa for moving so recklessly, and Kim Ho for shaking her around with wind magic. But in Dang Gyu-young's eyes, that vicious wind magic was unconditionally in the wrong. Therefore, the split of blame stood at 100 to 0, all Kim Ho's.
Watching the bump swell bigger and bigger, Dang Gyu-young handed down her ruling:
"Hey, this won't do. Out you go. Get yourself to the infirmary, and have Song Cheon-hye and Gwak Ji-cheol come in."
[121] The Support Ate It All