Week 9 Midterms (4)
Seo Ye-in's luck had a habit of erupting at the most unexpected of moments, leaving me utterly at a loss for words — and this was exactly one of those moments.
A crystal that even a Headhunter or a troll would only sometimes drop, and she'd gotten it by hunting goblins. Goblins we were meeting for the very first time, no less.
If anything, this works in our favor.
Aside from the sheer absurdity of it, there wasn't a single downside. Especially not when, as her partner, I shared in every benefit her luck reaped.
"In that case, let's bend our route a little."
"Going to charge it?"
"That's the plan."
The original objective had been to find a crystal through treasure hunting, but with my lucky charm having picked one up out of nowhere, that could wait. Charging what we already had seemed the smarter play for now.
And so I led Seo Ye-in toward the nearest Sanctuary.
A gristmill topped with an old windmill, standing roughly three stories tall. The windmill's blades had been whittled down to bare bones as if to announce how long the place had been abandoned, and the building itself was weathered and worn.
First, I gave Seo Ye-in her orders.
"Switch to the rifle for now."
"Okay."
Her mana pistols came apart on their own, the pieces snapping back together with brisk clicks until they had reformed into a sniper rifle. I pointed to a spot on the mill's rooftop — a perfect perch for a single person, with the whole surrounding landscape laid bare at a glance. Prime real estate for a sniper.
"I'll lift you up there, so snipe anything that comes into view."
"Mm."
Whooosh—
Chaining Levitate Zone into Wind Force, I kicked up a rising current of air, and Seo Ye-in bounded skyward on Featherwalk, landing lightly on the roof. She glanced down at me once, shimmered, and vanished from sight — she had thrown her Transparent Ghillie Suit over herself and gone into hiding.
I pulled my gaze from the rooftop and stepped inside the mill. The interior proved as unremarkable as the exterior. The only thing of note was the enormous crystal affixed to the ceiling.
Hummmm—
The ceiling crystal brightened by degrees, then cast a vivid pillar of light down toward me. And the moment that pillar linked up with the red crystal in my hand—
Crystal: 1%
Crystal: 3%
Crystal: 4%
the charge began to climb, slow and steady.
Keeping the connection alive, I moved to the window and looked out.
Let's see how long this takes.
We were, unavoidably, advertising ourselves to the whole neighborhood. A mill towering three stories high stood out plenty as it was, and now light was flashing off it in bursts — there was no way we wouldn't draw every eye in sight.
And nobody could fail to realize what that light meant: a crystal, charging. Everyone had been dropped onto this deserted island mere hours ago, still scrambling to find their footing, barely beginning to adapt. And already, someone had picked up a crystal and was charging it? Of course people would want to come take a look. Plenty of them would want to take the crystal for themselves, too.
Right on cue, two students came shouldering through the forest in the distance, closing in on us. There wasn't a shred of stealth about it — they came strutting out in the open.
I clicked my tongue inwardly.
That complacent, huh.
They carried themselves as if the crystal would simply be theirs the moment they arrived. And shortly, they paid the price for that complacency — because if their approach was obvious even to my eyes, there was no way Seo Ye-in, up on that roof, had missed it.
Bang!
A magic bullet slammed dead center into the brow of the student in the lead. He toppled backward, twitched once or twice, then vanished as though he'd evaporated — ruled combat-incapacitated and ejected from the dungeon.
...!
His partner, scared out of his wits, spun on his heel and bolted.
Crystal: 42%
A second team showed up around the time the crystal passed the halfway mark. Their fate didn't diverge much from the first pair's.
Bang!
If there was any difference, it was that the survivor's demeanor was comparatively composed. He ducked behind cover, watched us for a while, and in the end withdrew.
Not a complete idiot, at least.
With one of their number already sniped into incapacity by Seo Ye-in, pressing the attack would have meant fighting two against one. He'd judged it wiser to preserve the status quo than to get greedy for no reason.
Bang! Bang!
Several more gunshots rang out. Perhaps because they'd caught on to the sniper's existence, the newly arriving teams didn't go down easy. Their movements were stealthier now, more careful.
But while they crept closer, inch by measured inch—
Crystal: 100%
Fwoooosh!
The charge completed, and the crystal flooded with crimson light.
"All done. Come on down."
Bang!
After one last warning shot, Seo Ye-in started down from the roof. I whipped up a headwind to sharply slow her fall and caught her in my arms.
"Let's move."
"Mm."
With more than one or two teams closing in, this mill was about to become a battlefield. Our goal accomplished, there was no reason to linger and get caught in the crossfire.
I asked Seo Ye-in, "Where's clear?"
"Over there."
She pointed in a direction without a moment's hesitation. She'd mapped out the other teams' positions from the rooftop and picked a route that wouldn't cross any of them. We'd only been running that way a short while when—
BOOM! BOOM! CRASH!
A string of collisions thundered from the direction of the mill. Several teams appeared to be brawling it out — apparently convinced that someone was holding a crystal there. Meanwhile, the actual holders had left the premises long ago.
"Let's steer clear of that area for a while."
"Mm."
Our next objective was the treasure hunt we'd shelved earlier. Time to go dig up a hidden crystal.
Kerruk.
Kek-kek.
On the way, we ran into two more goblin packs, and on the off chance lightning struck twice, I let Seo Ye-in clear out every last one.
Rat-tat-tat-tat!
Her assault rifle spat blue fire in rapid bursts, and goblins dropped like flies. But even after she'd finished off the whole lot, nothing dropped this time.
Right. This is how it's supposed to go.
Luck or no luck, goblins raining down two or three crystals at a time simply defied reason. Even one was a staggering windfall. Confirming that this game hadn't yet gone completely off the rails left me feeling a good deal more at ease.
As Seo Ye-in and I kept carving our way across the island, our destination — or more precisely, our target — revealed itself.
A single ancient tree, planted bold as brass in the middle of the forest. Its girth was impressive enough, but its height was on another plane entirely; the three-story mill would have looked cute beside it. Branches and leaves grew thick and lush, and tracing my gaze up toward the crown, I could make out large fruits hanging in clusters.
And among those fruits, one alone burned a conspicuous red.
"Suspicious, isn't it?"
"Suspicious."
"I'll lift you up just like before. Shoot every last one down."
"Got it."
Amplification activated.
Wind Force rank increased: C+ → A+
Whiiiiish—!
The powerful updraft sent branches and leaves thrashing wildly. Holding Wind Force steady, I launched Seo Ye-in upward; she floated up and alighted on a branch. From there she climbed the way one climbs a ladder, stepping from branch to branch, and once the fruits were within easy reach, she settled into position and fired the assault rifle in short, controlled bursts.
Rat-tat, rat-tat—
The fruits came raining down in a rustling shower, and I used Wind Force to catch them one by one before they could break. Anything shattered by a magic bullet or smashed against the ground would be inedible, so this was the only way.
Splitting the conspicuously red fruit in half with my knife, I found not flesh inside but a red crystal.
"This one's red too."
Two red crystals now — but that hardly mattered. The more we had, the more we could do with them: trade them away, cash them in for bonus points. The more the merrier.
I waved the crystal up at Seo Ye-in.
"Hey, Miss Seo! Come on down now!"
"......"
But Seo Ye-in just sat right there looking down at me, showing no intention whatsoever of moving.
What had gotten into her all of a sudden?
"Come on, get down!"
"......"
"Just jump! I'll catch you!"
"......"
Even then, Seo Ye-in maintained her stubborn silence. Left with no alternative, I cast Wind Force and started climbing the ancient tree myself. Kicking off branch after branch as I bounded upward, I reached the top in no time.
"Why won't you come down? I told you I'd catch you."
"......"
At my question, she stared at me blankly for a moment, then opened her mouth.
"High."
"Too high, you mean?"
Nod.
Unpacking Seo Ye-in's eloquence at greater length: it was so high that jumping down frightened her.
Funny how much she enjoys being hurled around with Wind Force, then.
Then again, I could hardly blame her. Even by my reckoning, the height we were at was no joke. However much she trusted me, being told out of nowhere to leap from this height would give anyone pause.
But if we kept dawdling up here, we risked catching another student's eye. Out of options, I climbed up to the branch where she sat and turned my back to her.
"Hop aboard, milady. We'll descend at a leisurely pace."
"Okay..."
Seo Ye-in climbed obediently onto my back and wrapped her arms around my neck. Part of me wanted to just bungee straight off in this position, but I figured that would leave her with a trauma, so I held myself back.
Moving from branch to branch, one careful step at a time, we made our way down — and once we'd reached a height that no longer qualified as scary, I sought her approval over my shoulder.
"We can jump from here, right?"
"We can."
And the instant her assent landed, I leaped.
Even after we touched down, Seo Ye-in stayed clinging to my back, arms looped around my neck, for a good long while.
"Might I suggest dismounting now?"
"......"
"You're a sloth. A Kim Ho sloth. Get down. Hurry up."
Only then did the arms around my neck slowly unwind.
I stowed a few of the intact fruits from the ground into my subspace bag, then peeled one clean with my knife. Cutting it into apple-sized slices, Seo Ye-in and I took turns eating them. It tasted something like kiwi and mango blended half and half.
Between slices, I posed a question.
"What's your battery at right now?"
"...Thirty-five?"
She'd burned through half of her seventy percent already. Her fuel efficiency really wasn't great.
I held up Red Crystal Number Two.
"Then let's charge just this one and call it a day. Deal?"
"Deal."
On top of Seo Ye-in's draining battery, the sky was slowly bleeding into orange. Darkness would fall in the blink of an eye, so we'd need to secure a spot to spend the night — which meant charging Crystal Number Two and stopping there was the right call.
Just then, Seo Ye-in and I both froze mid-motion and exchanged a glance.
"...?"
"Something's coming."
I'd sensed a presence closing in fast from far away, and it looked all but certain to be headed straight for us.
"Go hide."
At my order, Seo Ye-in threw on her Transparent Ghillie Suit and melted from sight. And barely a few seconds later—
Shrieeeek!
A piercing crack I'd heard somewhere before split the air beside my ear. I flung myself out of the way, and a cluster of all-too-familiar arrows thudded into the spot where I'd been standing mere moments ago.
By this point I had a fair idea who it was, so I offered a breezy greeting.
"My, my. Long time no see. Been keeping well?"
"......"
Two figures emerged from across the way. One of them, just as I'd suspected, was the Guild Alliance's rising archer prodigy — Cha Hyun-ju. She glared at me with murder in her eyes, teeth grinding.
Grrrrind—
[181] The Support Ate It All