Where the Banned Items Gather (3)
Say fire fist, and the first thing that springs to mind is a flame mage's [Fire Punch] — a spell that wreathes the fist in flame to strike. Its destructive power is nothing to write home about.
All the more so given how frail a mage's body tends to be. Then again, casting it demands nothing grander than mana. In other words: low risk, low return.
[Inferno Fist], by contrast, was ultra high risk and ultra high return.
Rather than sheathing the fist in flame, it made the fire take root in the fist — and in doing so, burned away everything a fist was made of: skin, muscle, blood vessels, bone, all the way down to the mana circuits. Every cast left the hand horrifically burned, which was why — even backed by top-grade recovery items — users dared it only once in a great while. Ignore that warning and chain four or five casts together, and the fist would char into a black lump of coal and simply break apart.
The payoff for all that was destructive power so overwhelming that Fire Punch wouldn't even register as a matchstick's flame. And if a person could erase the risk from that monstrous skill and pocket only the reward—
That would be an absolute jackpot.
There was no need to haul the book out with me; I resolved to learn it right then and there. A banned skill book always demanded careful handling — my case being the exception. After all, the elemental penalty couldn't so much as scratch me.
Using Skill Book — Inferno Fist.
Acquired Inferno Fist (C).
C-Rank from birth, just as expected. Probably a book confiscated off some third-year.
Dang Gyu-young called out to her club members. "Everyone got their haul?"
"Yes, boss lady."
The Temporary Confiscation Storage looked a good deal barer than it had when they'd arrived — quite a few banned items had already vanished into the Thief Club's inventories. And yet the theft couldn't be called complete. Not until they made it out alive would any of this truly count as stolen.
"Let's move."
They used the same route out that they'd used to break in — back through the corridor to Practice Room A, then swiftly down the spiral staircase outside its window. Geum Johan's double was still patrolling the same post with a dazed look on its face. All that remained was to clear this place. Masks hid every expression, but the air around the group had grown giddy with exhilaration.
But then—
— Rrrrumble...
Just as the crew began picking up speed, a wooden door shot up in their path. It swung open, and a male student strolled out. "Off somewhere in such a hurry?"
……!
Second-year necktie pin, Disciplinary Committee armband. In one hand he clutched an enormous emerald orb. A mage versed in both wood and earth magic.
Apparently acquainted, the twins traded remarks in turn.
"Gwak Seung-jae..."
"Him again..."
"Every single time we do anything, he pops up."
"I'm telling you, that wooden door of his is going to start showing up in my dreams."
"The Old School Building is hardly your own backyard. I can hardly let you waltz in and out as you please."
The wood-and-earth mage fiddled with a compact transmitter — and instantly the girl with the tablet rendered it dead. Next he raised his orb-free hand above his shoulder; bright light shot skyward, only for shadow to chase it down and swallow it whole.
……!
A flicker of interest entered the mage's eyes as he spotted the sender of that shadow: Dang Gyu-young. Judging there was no further point in hiding her face, she tore off her mask, tossed it aside, and waved. "Hey, Seung-jae."
"Good day to you."
The wood-and-earth mage — Gwak Seung-jae — bowed at the waist at once.
"Can't you just let us go?"
"I shall. That said—"
With a gesture, he indicated the open wooden door. "First, you'll be accompanying me to the Disciplinary Committee Room for a moment."
"And once we're there, spit back up everything we swallowed?"
"None of it was the Thief Club's property to begin with, was it."
The smile on Dang Gyu-young's lips deepened. "...Then I guess we're punching our way out."
"By all means, if you can."
"That confident, are you?"
"How could I possibly presume victory against you, senior?"
"Exactly. It'd take a third-year to be worth my while. The Axe Lady I've written off, the rest are away on outside jobs, and Squinty-Eyes is... huh. Nowhere to be seen?"
So that's why it's been this easy.
I'd been wondering how everything was falling into place so neatly — and as it happened, only a handful of third-year Disciplinary Committee members were left at Dragon Slayer Academy right now. The "Axe Lady" had to be the Hell Club bruiser who'd been holding the entrance of the Temporary Confiscation Storage, and "Squinty-Eyes" could only be the Committee Chief himself, Oh Se-hun.
Gwak Seung-jae answered in an even tone. "The Chief is attending to another matter at the moment. He will be along shortly."
"And you can hold us off until then?"
The shadows around her bristled menacingly, but Gwak Seung-jae showed not the slightest hint of intimidation. Which meant he still had something he trusted up his sleeve — and Dang Gyu-young's expression grew grave by degrees.
"Circumstances being what they are this time, we too have enlisted an extra hand."
……!
Gwak Seung-jae stepped aside, and through the open wooden door walked one more person — a handsome young man with pale brown hair swept straight back. A third-year, wearing no Disciplinary Committee armband; instead, a single insignia sat on his chest. The insignia that marked the Student Council President. Topazes glinted in the pitch-black gauntlets on his hands.
Dang Gyu-young scowled. "...Song Chungi."
"So this semester, too, begins with you stealing something."
"And what gust of wind blew you into doing the Disciplinary Committee's legwork? You always struck me as hopelessly glued to your seat."
"That is not something the likes of you need to know."
While the two traded barbs, a shadow wriggled across Dang Gyu-young's back, stitching itself into letters.
The situation was going from bad to catastrophic. Disciplinary Committee members kept streaming in from every direction — first-years including Han So-mi and Song Cheon-hye, and second-years whose names I didn't even know. Total encirclement was a matter of minutes.
Before that happened, Dang Gyu-young would tear open a small gap. That gap would be their one and only chance to run.
"The talking ends here, Dang Gyu-young. Disarm, and follow us quietly to the Disciplinary Committee Room."
"And if I refuse?"
— Krrrumble...
Song Chungi raised his mana without a word, and that alone was enough to set off a low peal of thunder. "You will be governed by the discipline of Dragon Slayer Academy."
"Hmm..."
Chin propped on her hand, Dang Gyu-young weighed her options. A few seconds of dead silence. Onlookers watching without a sound. Then she lowered the hand from her chin — and abruptly flashed a grin.
"Nope—!"
Shadows erupted outward in every direction like a detonation. At the same instant, someone screamed, and the Thief Club members hurled themselves apart in all directions. "Scatter!" Gwak Seung-jae stayed rooted where he stood and, eyes nailed to his orb, issued his order. "Let not one of them escape."
"Huh? Where'd he go?"
A question mark practically floated above Han So-mi's head. She'd been glued to my tail, and I'd vanished in the space of a heartbeat — no wonder she was flummoxed. She darted this way to poke around, then flitted that way to poke around some more. Needless to say, none of it would turn me up.
Good thing I borrowed it.
The Transparent Ghillie Suit I'd borrowed from Seo Ye-in was earning its keep in spades.
"? ...Huh?? Huh???"
Bewildered, Han So-mi ransacked all the wrong places — until she apparently decided she'd do more good reinforcing the other committee members, and hurried off. Give her a straight fight and she was superb, but the shadowy tricks of the trade were completely lost on her. Shoring up weaknesses like that was half of what Dragon Slayer Academy existed for. She'd pick it up in time.
The real problem is that wood-and-earth mage...
Gwak Seung-jae, was it? Rewinding how he'd managed to seal off the Thief Club's escape route with such pinpoint precision, I could guess most likely... He'll be on my tail in no time.
A fight looked unavoidable. And if I wanted to keep any other meddler from piling in on top of him, the best move was to open up as much distance as possible first. I kicked my speed back up and kept running.
Gwak Seung-jae peered into his orb.
To call it a mere crystal ball would be selling it short — it was an Orb worked from a single colossal emerald, a masterpiece of the Emerald Magic Tower. Seven red dots glowed inside it; one of them was Dang Gyu-young, trading blows a stone's throw away.
— KRRRUMBLE! KA-BOOM!
Lightning fell in sheets while shadow blades whirled in a frenzy — but that fight had long since been decided, and wasn't worth a second glance. So he watched the other dots instead. Two had already gone still, subdued. Three were being run down hot by his fellow committee members.
But there was one red dot — one dot drifting farther and farther away with no pursuit attached at all. It seemed he would have to step in personally, so he cast his spell.
— Rrrrumble...
A great wooden platter settled onto the ground. No sooner had Gwak Seung-jae stepped aboard than palm-shaped hands of earth rose beneath it, hoisted the platter up, and went streaking across the terrain. His view lunged and swung, the distance to his target collapsing in moments — until he had caught up completely.
To the naked eye, there was nothing there at all. But Gwak Seung-jae's Orb glowed—
— KU-BOOM!
—and the ground a short distance off heaved upward, spike after spike. A warning spell, cast to force his fleeing quarry to a halt. Gwak Seung-jae spat out a single word, dry as dust. "Out."
The empty air writhed, and a masked figure peeled himself into view. The Optical Camouflage Ghillie Suit. Impressive that the Thief Club had managed to lay hands on gear that pricey. Or perhaps they'd simply stolen it. With a transparent ghillie suit, shaking off first-year pursuers would have been trivial — and yet somehow, Gwak Seung-jae had tracked him anyway. The way he'd done it was...
The masked figure flicked a glance at one patch of ground — with the manner of a man who knew exactly what was there. Gwak Seung-jae nodded. "Correct."
From the soil, a tiny earthen gnome popped its head out. A lesser spirit of the earth — the Nome. Gwak Seung-jae had sown Nomes in a wide ring around the Old School Building, and with their help he read through the ground what his eyes could not see. It was much the same now: just before the Thief Club members bolted, he had fastened a Nome to each of them, and that was what had made the chase possible.
Judging by his reactions, this one had tumbled to it a while ago. Curiosity piqued, Gwak Seung-jae asked, "How did you know I'd planted Nomes?"
……
"Cat got your tongue?"
……
Clever.
He had every face on the Thief Club's roster mapped out, so even through a mask he could roughly place an identity. This one, though, was a complete blank to him — he'd asked in hopes of catching a voice, and the figure had caught on at once and shut up entirely. It hardly mattered. He need only subdue the man and check for himself.
"I take it... surrender isn't on the table."
……
In lieu of an answer, the masked figure crooked a finger. To Gwak Seung-jae, the gesture rang out loud and clear:
— Quit stalling. Come at me.
A little surprising, that. Every other Thief Club member had been scheming for a gap to slip away through, yet this one was openly asking for a fight. Every now and then, this isn't so bad.
The two regarded each other for a long breath. Then the battle began.
— KU-BOOM!
The Orb flared green, and the ground burst upward in jagged eruptions, lashing for the masked figure — who worked his feet with silken ease, sliding between the crisscrossing spires of earth. His [Thief's Step] was so refined he might have been skating across the ground itself. The gap closed in a blink, and the masked figure snapped a kick at his face—
— THUNK.
—only for a wall of surging earth to swallow the blow. The next instant, a boulder-heavy mass of soil plummeted from behind the masked figure. Whether he had eyes in the back of his skull or not, he dropped back a split second ahead of it. Then his retreating hand flashed bright, and a streak of lightning tore toward Gwak Seung-jae.
A Hummingbird.
[Earth Gatling]
A machine gun wrought of earth hammered out round after round of densely packed soil — a two-for-one play, swatting the Hummingbird from the sky while keeping his opponent in its sights. But the masked figure flowed aside yet again with that same seamless grace, and the Hummingbird itself wove between the bullets before coming to rest on Gwak Seung-jae's shoulder.
— CRACKLE!
!!
Gwak Seung-jae was mildly taken aback. Just how masterful did one's control have to be for a Hummingbird to fly like that? His body never went numb — one of the defensive spells he'd pre-cast shattered in its place, and he offered the masked figure a silent salute of respect. Well done. But there won't be a second time.
Because his own masterstroke would end it here. At some point, a thin earthen wall had risen to enclose the entire clearing — so that the masked figure would have nowhere left to dodge what came next.
[Earth Gatling]
[Earth Gatling]
[Earth Gatling]
Earth machine guns erupted at every corner of the ring at once and dumped hundreds of rounds down onto the masked figure in a single collapsing wave.
[Crossfire]
— RATATATATA!
The space inside the earthen ring vanished beneath a churning fog of dust.
……
When the dust thinned, Gwak Seung-jae believed beyond any shadow of doubt that he would find the masked figure sprawled in the dirt. Instead, the man stood untouched exactly where he had been. Without so much as a scrape.
This one... is beyond me.
Earth Gatling was his signature spell, and he took no small pride in it. If casting it several times at once hadn't landed a single point of damage, then the right call was to treat this as an opponent he could not fell. Where in the world had such a man crawled out of? The likeliest read was that he'd lose — but judging by the shape of the fight so far, he wouldn't fall quickly, either. Which meant he would keep this one's feet mired and wait for reinforcements.
— KU-BOOM...
The thunder of battle rolled in from afar — other committee members were trading blows. Between the Disciplinary Committee and the Thief Club, the result was a foregone conclusion. They would be subdued within minutes, and then support would come pouring his way.
The masked figure turned his gaze briefly toward that distant clamor. He, too, seemed to grasp how little time remained to him.
……
Before long, he faced Gwak Seung-jae dead-on. The very air about him changed. As he set his stance, his clenched fist began to smolder, glowing a deeper and deeper red. Fire magic, then? But the color of that burning fist was deeply wrong — a flame so dark it was nearly black, a blood-dark crimson, seething and hissing. Goosebumps marched up Gwak Seung-jae's spine.
It couldn't be!
If his hunch was right, a careless answer would be fatal. Gwak Seung-jae hurriedly reeled in every active spell and threw everything into defense.
[Triple Stone Wall]
[Reinforced Wall]
— KU-BOOM!
Three walls of stone rose in overlapping layers, thickened, and hardened into something like bedrock. Even that struck him as not enough — and in the very heartbeat he moved to layer on yet another fortification spell, the blood-dark fist met the first stone wall.
— KWA-KWA-KWA-BOOM!!
The stone walls detonated, and a monstrous tide of heat and shock slammed into Gwak Seung-jae. The defensive spells he'd laid in advance, every piece of protective equipment, every accessory — even his uniform itself — was annihilated in a single breath. Left rolling across the ground as a human scrap of rag, Gwak Seung-jae thought: so his hunch had been right after all. The true identity of that skill was—
...Inferno... Fist.
[32] The Support Ate It All