Time Over (1)

A Disciplinary Committee member came hurtling down the stairs at a terrifying speed, rapier thrusting at us with every step.

- Shreeeeak!

Then, Han Gyeo-wool — who had done nothing but follow in silence until now — finally spoke.

"I've got this one."

She stepped forward a single pace, and in the next instant her magic was already manifest.

- THOOM-THOOM-THOOM!

Three thick walls of ice surged up from the floor, sealing off the pursuer's path.

The Disciplinary Committee's response was every bit as swift. Light flickered, and after a few impossibly clean slicing sounds—

- Swish-slash-swish—

—one of the ice walls had been carved into pieces before anyone could blink. At this rate, the other two wouldn't survive more than a few seconds.

But Han Gyeo-wool remained utterly composed, as if she had predicted exactly this. She pressed her hand against the ice and cast her next spell.

- KRASH—!

Every wall burst apart into hundreds of fingernail-sized shards that went swirling through the air. Then Han Gyeo-wool snapped her fingers — snap! —

and the shards hanging in midair converged on the Disciplinary Committee member in a single rush, freezing solid around her. In the span of a breath, she found herself entombed in a sculpture of ice fragments.

'Beautiful skill chaining.'

Raise the walls, blast them apart, then fuse the fragments back together to trap the opponent — a chain as smooth as flowing water.

- Creeeak, crack...

That said, with fissures already spiderwebbing across the ice, the prison clearly wouldn't hold for long. Han Gyeo-wool knew it too, and murmured a single line:

"Go on ahead."

Meaning that even after the ice shattered, she would stay behind and keep the Committee member tied down. Fighting the woman together, we could probably bring her down — but right now, even the time that would take was too precious to spare. Wasn't this exactly why the White Magic Club had attached her to us in the first place?

So everyone traded a look with her and filed past, heading up the stairs.

'Still, I should take this with me.'

Ice Wall was B-rank magic. With my current C+ rank Core, the mana cost was brutal — I wouldn't be able to cast it often. Still, it had its uses, and it beat the hell out of [Shadow Walk], which had been squatting in a slot doing nothing, so I copied it for now.

Hurrying up the stairs, we reached the fourth floor — where yet another formation greeted us. Same as before: I took point, and Dang Gyu-young threaded the whole party together in a chain of shadow as we advanced. Stepping into the formation changed nothing about what I could see, and that was precisely the trap. With my vision and sense of direction warped, walking straight ahead would only leave us pacing in place forever.

So, after a word of warning to the others—

"Just follow wherever the line pulls you."

—I veered hard and marched straight at the wall. The instant I was about to bash face-first into it, the corridor curled of its own accord to meet me.

'Experience really is the only thing you can trust.'

Veteran instincts hammered out through dozens, hundreds of formations. All that old suffering paid off — this time, too, I slipped through with ease.

Meanwhile, a thought crossed my mind.

'Something tells me they'll be waiting the second we step out...'

Right now my vision was distorted, making it look as though nothing lay beyond the formation. But this area was prime real estate for an ambush — perfect for watching anyone who crossed through, and perfect for striking first. They'd even posted a guard on the stairs; no way they'd leave a spot this good sitting empty.

- Whoooosh—

With all that in mind, I had thrown ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠up a Wind Barrier around us well in advance, and Choi Han-gil — clearly sensing something too — layered his own defensive magic on top of mine.

Sure enough, the moment we cleared the formation—

- Shreeeeak!

—a vicious shriek of parted air tore past. The ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠thing — sword aura, by the feel of it — slammed into our stacked defenses and canceled out in a burst of light. We scrambled out of the formation in a clump and froze, staring hard at what lay ahead.

"……!"

"……!"

A short distance away stood the Temporary Confiscation Storage. The problem was the two third-year Disciplinary Committee members guarding its front. The aura attack had come from one of them — or rather, not sword aura at all, but ax aura.

'The Hell Ax senior.'

I didn't know his name, but since he swung an A-rank Hell Ax as his main weapon, everyone just called him the Hell Ax senior. Between the Black Market and now, I seemed to keep running into him an awful lot. The other one looked to be a mage, two or three spheres drifting lazily around him.

The Hell Ax senior's eyes lit up at the sight of Choi Han-gil.

"Well, well. Never thought I'd see you in a place like this. Breaking academy rules — isn't that a first for you?"

From the sound of it, Choi Han-gil was apparently a model student. He answered in an easy tone.

"I belong to a group myself, you know. Sometimes you have to do things you're not keen on."

"If your heart isn't in it, pull out right now. I'll take that into account and let the discipline slide."

"Could I, after coming all this way?"

Choi Han-gil said it with a grin. A refusal, plain and simple — and the two Committee members bristled into combat stances.

Eyes locked on them, Choi Han-gil tossed a question at Dang Gyu-young.

"How much time do you need?"

"Three minutes? Five?"

"That's too long..."

"Then hold out as long as you can."

"Understood."

Choi Han-gil abruptly broke into a sprint, and the two Committee members instantly answered with ax aura and spells.

- BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM!

Choi Han-gil turned every attack away behind layer after layer of defensive magic — since when had he cast all that? — and in the next moment, a dagger sat in his hand. A dagger of absolute black, like a slab of night sky, stitched with stars.

Everyone's breath caught at the sight.

"……!"

"……!"

'He's carrying THAT?'

The A+ rank dagger, Severance Night.

Its raw cutting power and durability were, at best, a hair better than any ordinary dagger. The reason it still rated a full A+ was the magic woven into it — magic on an entirely different scale. For Disciplinary Committee members, it was a weapon to be avoided at all costs, and both of them hurriedly tried to open distance from Choi Han-gil.

But the dagger's forward thrust was faster.

The night sky making up the dagger swelled outward at a horrifying speed, swallowed everything in range, and vanished. The next instant, Choi Han-gil and the two Committee members were gone without a trace.

'So third-years really do each carry a trump card.'

Severed Space. A spell that generated an isolated dimension and dragged everything in range into it. Escaping meant either using a separate space-type spell or waiting for [Severed Space] to be released.

'Releasing it isn't the hard part, though.'

Severed Space's greatest weakness was its mana consumption. As a spacetime-class spell, simply casting it devoured an enormous amount of mana — and not only that, mana and concentration drained in real time for as long as it was maintained. For Choi Han-gil, that meant fighting under a crushing handicap, while the two Committee members only had to subdue their handicapped opponent to walk free.

Put differently: however long he could hold out was exactly the time granted to us. And that time would not be generous.

Dang Gyu-young had evidently arrived at the same math, and snapped orders at the members.

"Let's move. We're on the clock."

"Yes, boss!"

Everyone poured into the Temporary Confiscation Storage. One more second-year Committee member was waiting inside, but a joint assault from Dang Gyu-young and the other thieves put him down in seconds. After trussing him up and dumping him in a corner, Dang Gyu-young issued the next order.

"Grab everything, fast."

"You got it!"

"Roger that!"

The thieves bustled around the storage, sweeping banned items up by the armful. The two of us — me and Dang Gyu-young — were pickier, selecting pieces one at a time, since the Life Cube had a volume limit.

'High value, small footprint.'

Dang Gyu-young darted off to one side, came scooting back with a banned item, and slipped it into the cube.

"This one~"

Then she returned from somewhere else with another item and popped it in.

"Ooh, and this one~"

Then she scooted off somewhere else again, and again, and again. Every last one was a high-risk banned item, yet somehow the whole thing felt like grocery shopping at a mart.

Midway through filling the cart, so to speak—

"Found it."

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

Dang Gyu-young came back holding a thick hardcover volume. Dark purple cover, a few pages torn clean out.

The very item the White Magic Club had hired us to retrieve. Flipping through it, I found only a handful of pages missing — they must have gotten their hands on it recently too. Confiscated before they could even put it to proper use; no wonder they wanted it back so badly.

The Book of Chaos was tucked snugly into a corner of the cube, and the shopping trip continued.

'Now for my own haul.'

At the first Temporary Confiscation Storage, and at the Black Market, I had leaned on my S-rank [Elemental Resistance] and focused mainly on elemental penalty items. Now a new category was joining the list:

'Poison.'

Poison resistance would keep the damage to a minimum, and the Hermit's Hoodie could detox me on top of that. Besides, if I ever wanted to complete Thousand Poisons Immunity, I needed to swallow every poison in existence — the lethal and the mundane alike.

So I crammed the cube with every poison vial, poisoned blade, and toxic herb that caught my eye.

Who knew what they'd been planning to do with these before getting busted, but I'd secured poisons of a surprisingly high grade. At the same time, I kept browsing in hopes of grabbing any decent elemental penalty item as well — though unfortunately, nothing appealed this time around. I suppose gear on the level of Inferno Fist or Hyneum Jade Demon Finger can't just show up every single raid.

'Poison will have to do this time.'

Besides, even what I'd packed into the cube couldn't strictly be called mine yet. Infiltrating the Temporary Confiscation Storage was only half the job — the other half was getting out alive.

When Dang Gyu-young brought over yet another banned item and dropped it into the cube, I shut the lid.

"Let's leave it at this."

"Just one more."

"It's full. And we're short on time."

Dang Gyu-young looked mildly reluctant, but she seemed to accept the argument ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠about time. She immediately opened a channel to Jeong Chong-myeong.

A tripod-like device had already been set up in one corner of the storage — a Coordinate Anchor, an item that made spatial magic far easier to pull off.

Dang Gyu-young turned to me.

"You know how to work this thing?"

"Yes, I do."

"Then you go first."

With the Life Cube in my possession, it was fair to call me the heart of this operation. So I stood by, gripping the Coordinate Anchor.

- Bzzzzzt—

Before long, the mana around me was rippling harder and harder — and then it began pulling me somewhere. A single-caster, medium-to-long-range spatial movement spell: Teleport, manifesting.

But just as my vision was about to flip, a patch of night sky yawned open outside the Temporary Confiscation Storage.

Severed Space had been released.

"Ngh."

And with that single groan, Choi Han-gil rolled out across the floor. He had been in there barely a few minutes, yet his whole body was already laced with cuts.

Behind him, the two third-year Committee members trudged out and fixed their gaze on us.

'Time's up, huh.'

[259] The Support Ate It All