Week 8 Mentoring: The Assault Battle (4)

Seo Ye-in emerged having just finished her first attempt. Seated in front of her, Ahn Jungmi was walking her through the feedback point by point, with meticulous care.

"Overall, you performed splendidly."

Seo Ye-in had evaded the ogre's attacks without the slightest trouble. Three weeks of Featherwalk training were paying off in no uncertain terms. For Ahn Jungmi, who had poured no small effort into teaching her, it was deeply gratifying.

The result: a successful crystal charge, with her health still sitting in the mid-80s. For a first attempt, an excellent showing.

"However, Miss, shouldn't you be paying at least a little attention to your partner?"

If there was one problem, it was that Seo Ye-in showed absolutely no interest in whatever her partner happened to be doing. Just now, no teamwork had materialized at all, and her poor partner had been battered black and blue by the ogre before being knocked clean out of the fight.

"……"

Seo Ye-in opened her mouth a crack and let out a long yawn. Then, her head bobbing as she fought off sleep, she asked in return, "……Last time I didn't have to, though."

"That was because you were simply too strong, Miss."

"Last time" meant the Defense strategy battle two weeks prior. Her partner had been all but ignored then, too, but Seo Ye-in's own firepower was so overwhelmingly ferocious that the flaw never came to light. When one girl was single-handedly grinding goblins and Beheaders into paste, who cared about a partner?

"But this crystal assault weighs teamwork far more heavily."

The ogre was not something even Seo Ye-in's destructive power could simply grind down, and the grading criterion was the remaining health of both team members. If her partner dropped out of the fight or lost too much health, it counted as a deduction against Seo Ye-in herself — which made cooperation half-mandatory.

"So at the very least, you must help your partner when they're in danger—Miss, you must not fall asleep right now."

"……"

"Miss? Miss? Wake up. Miss."

She called and called, but Seo Ye-in's eyelids only sank lower and lower.

Then, at the very moment Ahn Jungmi gave up and reached for a blanket, something that could only be called a miracle occurred.

"……?"

The eyelids that had half-fallen slid smoothly back up again.

Only one person in all of Dragon Slayer Academy could work such a miracle: the very person Seo Ye-in was now exchanging messages with. Ahn Jungmi asked, just to be sure.

"Is it Kim Ho-nim?"

"Yep."

"Might I ask what prompted the contact?"

"Says we should team up."

"The assault battle…… you mean? But Kim Ho-nim has his own group members……"

Ahn Jungmi tilted her head, puzzled. As she remembered it, Kim Ho belonged to the four-person team led by the Thief Club president. In that case, that mentor should already have paired everyone off two by two — so why was he not teaming up with them and asking here instead?

Seo Ye-in answered in a perfectly flat tone. "Out cold, he says."

"……"

Kim Ho's partner, it seemed, had been pummeled into ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠oblivion by the ogre, exactly like Seo Ye-in's random-matched partner. If so, then his wanting to form a new pair until the original recovered was entirely understandable.

Ahn Jungmi asked, "Does he want to put up a score in an actual run?"

"Yep."

"And is the mentor on that side aware of this?"

"Says he got permission."

Which left only one approval outstanding: that of the mentor on this side — Ahn Jungmi herself.

Her heart wanted to accept on the spot. For as long as Kim Ho took care of Seo Ye-in, life became positively tranquil. But one could not go about one's work on emotion alone. And so, forcing herself into a cooler frame of mind, she weighed the factors one by one.

Foremost among them was worry.

It's far too early for them to be scoring already……

Seo Ye-in and Kim Ho alike had only just finished their first attempt. If they entered a live run before enough experience had accumulated and an unforeseen variable reared its head, it could deal a serious blow to their results. Say one of them took a bad step and ate a clean hit from the ogre — instant knockout. Several hundred points, gone in one lump.

But if it's Kim Ho-nim……

With his ability, it might just be possible.

Of course, Ahn Jungmi had never managed to pin down Kim Ho's exact strength; he bundled it up and hid it far too well. But one thing was certain: he had the skill to flit in and out of the underground-floor dungeons as he pleased.

The [Wooden Cup of the Feathered Serpent Tribe] she had been using as her coffee cup these days had come out of a D-rank random box. In other words, it was physical proof that Kim Ho had cleared a D-rank dungeon.

Anyone capable of clearing D-rank would find the above-ground floors to be child's play, and posting a high score would be no trouble at all. The odds were therefore far higher that her earlier worries would end as groundless fears.

And even if they did fail…… it wouldn't be so bad.

Ahn Jungmi stole a glance at Seo Ye-in. The girl's most glaring problem at present was the absence of teamwork. That was why she had urged her, over and over until just moments ago, to spare some thought for her partner — but judging by the reaction, precious little of it had sunk in.

But if she entered the assault paired with Kim Ho…

Perhaps she would try that much harder to look after someone and sync up as a team.

In that case, even a failure and a low score would become meaningful experience.

And last of all — this was an exceedingly rare occasion on which that human sloth was showing any motivation at all. If Ahn Jungmi rejected Kim Ho's proposal here, that motivation would instead plummet straight to the bottom. And cleaning up after that would fall to the butler. To her.

The mere act of imagining it frightened her, and Ahn Jungmi gave a thin shiver.

After long deliberation, then, the decision Ahn Jungmi reached was:

"Very well. Go and run the assault with Kim Ho-nim."

"Will these rules be acceptable?"

Ahn Jungmi asked me. From her position, she would have liked to throw in an extra favorable rule or two, but since I had temporarily broken off from Dang Gyu-young's group, the settings had to be calibrated to the difficult side. And so, this time as well, the lone [Enfeeblement] was all we got.

I nodded as though it were nothing. "Yes, that's fine."

"……"

Seo Ye-in, too, gave a slight shake of her head, as if it made no difference to her. She took in the teleport portal with her eyes, then stared fixedly at me next. Her gray eyes seemed to ask, So when do we go in?

Overflowing with motivation today, aren't we.

Ahn Jungmi looked almost betrayed by this Seo Ye-in, so utterly different from the one she faced when the two of them were alone. But she managed her expression with professional poise and bowed her head. "Then I wish you both good fortune."

Carrying Ahn Jungmi's well-wishes on our backs, we set foot into the teleport portal.

The heart of ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a forest, and a massive cave looming before us. Seo Ye-in gave the cave a cursory once-over, then gazed at me in silence. Meeting her eyes, I pointed toward the far end of the woods.

"Let's grab the crystals first. I'll take this side, you take that one."

"Yep."

We split up briefly, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠then returned to our starting point, each of us holding one crystal. She listens so remarkably well.

Our next destination went without saying: the cave.

"Alright, move out."

"Move out."

We had been walking a short while when the goblins prowling about inside the cave discovered us.

"Kerek?"

"Kruuk?"

And before the creatures could offer their welcoming greetings, Seo Ye-in's automatic rifle was already spitting blue fire.

— Ratatatatatat!

"Kik."

"Kehek."

Her marksmanship has gotten sharper. To the naked eye it looked like wild spraying, but not a single magic bullet went to waste. Exactly one round per goblin, each striking square between the eyes, and down they dropped.

Drawn by the gunfire, goblins poked their heads this way a few at a time, but Seo Ye-in picked them off one by one faster than they could confirm us from their end. In the end, she was the one who dropped every last one of them.

For a moment, all directions fell quiet — then,

"Kerruuk!"

"Kekek!"

A pack of goblins came surging in all at once. Far too many to pick off one by one with the automatic rifle.

Seo Ye-in must have reached much the same conclusion, because her magic gun promptly came apart and began reassembling itself. Watching the parts click together of their own accord, I asked, "Shotgun?"

"Yep."

The magic gun she had used before the mentoring began had shifted back and forth between dual pistols and a sniper rifle; this one shifted between an assault rifle and a shotgun. I'd seen it in Gwak Ji-cheol's PvP replay.

Switching to the shotgun now was presumably with the intent of clearing the goblin mob in a single sweep. The only issue was that, mid-reassembly, Seo Ye-in was for all practical purposes unarmed.

"You could use a backup weapon. For moments like this, when your hands are empty."

"Yep."

Seo Ye-in gave a small nod. I had a feeling her butler would be getting hounded the moment we got back.

In any case, buying time until the reassembly finished was my job. I raised Root and pointed it straight ahead.

— Whooosh—

The Levitate Zone granted to Root was generating a faint updraft, and on top of that I cast Wind Force upward. The charging goblins floated up off the ground and cracked their heads against the ceiling and the stalactites.

— Whooosh—

Then, just before the airborne ones could come back down, a whirlwind howled toward a single point, dragging the goblins in toward its center.

"Kek, kekek?"

"Kik!"

They squirmed and thrashed, but for a mere F-rank monster, resisting C+-rank wind magic was simply not possible. And so the goblins ended up packed together in one spot like a fistful of rice.

Just then, Seo Ye-in's magic gun finished reassembling. She leveled the shotgun forward and squeezed the trigger,

— KABOOM—!

A fan of magic bullets burst wide, and the goblin rice ball was wiped from existence, clean as a whistle.

At the racket, more of the creatures came pouring out from deeper within, but their fate proved little different.

— KABOOM—!

I balled the goblins up with Twister, and Seo Ye-in finished them off with the shotgun — that was the routine. A few more repetitions of it as we pressed forward, and before I knew it, the path ahead was growing brighter and brighter.

Which meant the sanctuary was near.

"Against the ogre, the assault rifle will serve better."

"Yep."

Docile to my advice, Seo Ye-in switched the shotgun back into the assault rifle. Advancing while planting magic bullets into the goblins that popped out at intervals, we soon came upon a stone pillar radiating brilliant light.

Crouched nearby, its back turned to us, sat the ogre. In the first attempt, Gwak Ji-cheol had gone and uselessly shaken the whole cave down, so it had come out to meet us; left to its own devices, even a roused ogre preferred to stand by like this, waiting near the sanctuary.

— Whiiiing—

We drew a little closer, and the sanctuary and the crystal linked together in a thick pillar of light.

"Me first again, huh."

"……Guuooong?"

Before long, the ogre slowly turned its head, following the pillar of light. The moment it found me, its face contorted; it snatched up the club lying beside it and heaved itself up from its spot, unhurried.

"Guuuuuh……"

Holding my gaze steady on the ogre, I asked Seo Ye-in, "We went to the game center downtown, remember?"

"Gunslinger Adventure."

"Right. Let's do it exactly like we did in there."

"Hop-hop?"

"That's right. Hop-hop."

Today, class, we review.