Week 2 Strategy Battle (4)

Why on earth would she ask to see my hands, out of nowhere?

She must have heard something from Gwak Seung-jae—no doubt about it.

— There is a student at this school who has learned Inferno Fist.

— And in all likelihood, that student is also connected to the banned items that have gone missing.

From the Disciplinary Committee's standpoint, they would want to smoke out the culprit not a minute later than absolutely necessary.

The clues were Thief's Step, Hummingbird, the Transparent Ghillie Suit, and the burn that anyone who had actually used Inferno Fist was bound to carry on their hand.

First of all, Thief's Step was hard to call a valid clue. It was a universal skill favored not only by rogue-type classes but by a fair number of ranged dealers as well, so using it to single anyone out was practically impossible.

Hummingbird and the Transparent Ghillie, on the other hand, were relatively easy to narrow down. Plenty of people might have learned Hummingbird, but those who could control it well enough to pierce Gwak Seung-jae's guard probably numbered around ten in this entire school. The Transparent Ghillie Suit was likewise an expensive item, so not many students would own one.

Now, look at those two facts through Song Cheon-hye's eyes. I was quite adept with Hummingbird, and Seo Ye-in, whom I happened to be close with, owned a Transparent Ghillie. What if I had borrowed the ghillie suit? Somehow, the pieces would seem to click together.

Suspicion would be inevitable. And so she had apparently come to check whether the prime suspect—yours truly—had a burn left on his hands...

But would things really go her way?

I put on an innocent expression and asked.

"My hands? What about my hands?"

"Can't you simply show them to me?"

She marched right up to me, unreasonable as ever, her gaze dropping downward, so I clasped my hands behind my back to hide them.

The doubt in Song Cheon-hye's eyes only deepened.

The moment she swiftly wheeled around behind me, I spun in place to keep her in front of me. Song Cheon-hye circled behind me again; I rotated again. After two turns of this, I slipped my hands into my pockets.

"Ah!"

"I really don't understand this obsession you have with other people's hands. Give me a reason first—then I'll decide whether to show you or not."

"That's..."

Her excuse must have been flimsy, because the answer didn't come easily.

She could come out and say she was "looking for anyone suspicious," but that would amount to confessing, "I think it's you!" She had pressed me at the entrance ceremony and come up empty, pressed me again during the Ban Wave and come up empty once more—if the same thing happened a third time, wouldn't it quietly scrape at her pride?

I should show her, I suppose.

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

If the Disciplinary Committee's attention kept narrowing in on me ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠like this, even my room to maneuver would shrink, little by little. There was a real need to let her confirm, here and now, that my hands were perfectly fine.

So I casually handed her a pretext.

"What, want me to read your palm or something?"

Song Cheon-hye's face lit up.

"Yes! Palm reading!"

And she took the bait, hook, line, and sinker...

Come to think of it, wasn't abruptly offering to read someone's palm ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠exactly as strange as demanding to see their hands? But objecting to that would drag us right back to square one, so I decided to play dumb. It would probably be quite a while yet before Song Cheon-hye caught on and kicked her blankets in mortification.

"..."

Two soft hands closed around mine.

Song Cheon-hye set about earnestly kneading my hand and studying it. In case I was masking a wound with magic or an item, she even surreptitiously fed mana into it as she inspected. The result, needless to say, was nothing but a clean, healthy, bare hand.

"...I'll look at the other one as well."

"By all means."

Palm readings do involve both hands, after all. Not that there was the slightest chance the other hand would be covered in wounds—I hadn't taken any damage in the first place.

The suspicion drained rapidly out of Song Cheon-hye's face. She released my hand and tossed out a question.

"What did you do this past weekend?"

"Am I supposed to report that to you too?"

"...No. I spoke out of turn."

At the first flicker of displeasure on my face, Song Cheon-hye started and promptly owned up to it. Even to herself, interrogating me like a suspect in this situation must have felt like going too far. In the end, she bowed her head and withdrew.

"My apologies."

"Hold on a second."

"...Yes?"

I asked the girl retreating toward her seat, my tone playful.

"You can't leave without telling me the reading. How's my luck in love looking?"

"...You're in for a great deal of hardship ahead. A great deal."

With that flat reply, Song Cheon-hye walked off.

Just like that, I was off the suspect list. Judging by the furtive glances she kept darting my way even after returning to her seat, though, she hadn't entirely let the suspicion go.

Bang! Bang!

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Seo Ye-in was firing her pistol one-handed. Her other hand shuttled back and forth between a bread bag and her mouth, popping in tiny mini donuts one after another. Considering how little she usually ate, I hadn't bought much, but today, for some reason, the bread just kept vanishing. Her body seemed to be demanding energy to make up for all the mana she was burning through in training.

Bang! Bang!

Since I had instructed her not to use Magic Bullet, nothing but raw streams of mana spewed from the muzzle and slapped against the target. From a certain angle, it looked like a kid squirting a water pistol.

After who knew how many repetitions, Seo Ye-in's eyebrows lifted slightly.

"...!"

She turned her head toward me, realized her mouth was still full, and simply kept chewing for a while. Only after slowly washing down the drink I'd handed her did she finally open her mouth.

"...Got it down."

"Already? That was fast."

Less than half a day after starting, she had gone and mastered [Ejection]. Once again, her pace had sailed clean over my expectations. Her talent was simply beyond reason.

At this rate, she'd be fine grinding out her D-rank [Magic Bullet] without me hovering at her side—she'd said herself that it was nearly finished.

"I'll head in first. You can handle the rest on your own, right?"

"Yeah. See you tomorrow."

Seo Ye-in gave a small, lazy wave. The crack of mana-gun fire kept ringing out behind my back as I left the Training Center.

And the next morning, Seo Ye-in came to school looking at least twice as sleepy as usual. She opened her mouth a sliver and yawned at half speed, and what she said came out in a long, drawn-out mumble:

"Bumped it up one more step..."

"[Ejection]?"

"Yeah..."

D-rank [Magic Bullet]—and on top of that, E-rank [Ejection], a skill she had only just learned yesterday, both achieved entirely under her own power. Talent aside, I could picture exactly how hard she must have pushed herself overnight, somewhere out of my sight.

I nodded.

"Good work."

And that just bought us a day.

The plan had been to pour one more day into [Ejection], but with Seo Ye-in having leapfrogged that stage on her own, there was no reason to delay.

"Let's head over right after class."

To update her score.

After school, I shook Seo Ye-in awake—she had spent the entire lesson sprawled face-down, fast asleep. Leading the half-dazed girl along, I headed for the Dungeon Hall. Thankfully, by the time we arrived, most of the sleep seemed to have burned off.

We sketched out a rough plan of attack before entering the dungeon, then set our feet into the teleport portal.

"Let's give it a go."

"Okay."

Rat-tat-tat!

The instant it began, Seo Ye-in loosed several mana-gun shots into the empty air. The gunfire rolled across the silent swamp, and—

"Krek?"

"Kruruk. Kek!"

—soon the whole area was as loud as a stirred-up beehive. From the opening moments, goblins began poking their heads out here and there.

Beat the grass, and the snake startles. A startled snake will either coil up tighter or bare itself to bite. And right on cue, the boss snake revealed itself.

Thud.

"Grrruk..."

The Beheader Goblin had dropped down at the commotion, but it swung its head around without managing to pin down our position. Seo Ye-in, meanwhile, had been preparing ever since the moment she fired those first shots into the air. A long rifle barrel leveled itself at the creature.

Almost the very instant it spotted us—

THOOM—!

a Magic Bullet tore loose, packed with staggering force. A single blue line drew itself between the rifle and the Beheader's head, and then—

BOOM!!

Not just its head but its entire torso snapped backward as it crashed down. That was how much power the shot carried: even after toppling over, the thing rolled head over heels several times across the ground.

"Graaargh..."

One shot had left the Beheader Goblin groggy and senseless. If a health bar had appeared above its head, it would have been hovering near zero percent. A stark contrast to before, when it had only finally gone down after absorbing four or five shots in a row. Into the creature as it clawed at the ground, flailing and crawling, a merciless finishing blow slammed home.

BOOM!!

At this rate, she could paste a 900-point run onto the board without breaking a sweat.

A high-grade mana gun, a perfectly sculpted D-rank [Magic Bullet], and E-rank [Ejection] stacked on top—together they spewed out a terrifying destructive power. Plenty of other aspects still needed shoring up, but judged on single-shot firepower alone, she could already stand toe-to-toe with the academy's rising stars. If she nailed the art of the ambush, I suspected she could ride an unstoppable surge all the way into the 900s.

"Great work. Let's keep moving."

Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat!

Her dual pistols had received a massive boost as well. Before, bringing down a single goblin had meant drilling several rounds into its vitals; now one or two sent them flopping over. Seo Ye-in hosed her pistols across the field as if scattering seed, and goblins dropped left and right.

Soon a totem came into view. Without breaking her running stride, Seo Ye-in simply aimed her pistols and raked it with rapid fire.

Rat-tat-tat!

The totem burst apart into scattered fragments.

Dungeon clear.

Putting down the Beheader Goblin in a single stroke had saved a huge chunk of time. She had also picked off plenty of goblins along the way, so her record came in far ahead of any of her previous attempts. My own strategy-battle quest had been cleared without breaking a sweat, too.

"Perfect. High five."

I raised my open palm, and Seo Ye-in lifted her own hand to press it lightly against mine. A soundless high five. Tap.

"Huh? You smiled."

"...?"

Seo Ye-in tilted her head. She didn't seem to have noticed it herself, but the faintest ghost of a smile had been resting at the corner of her mouth—so slight you'd hardly catch it. Without a word, she prodded at the corner of her own lips with a finger.

Next up: the solo dungeon. Compared to the two-person version, the terrain structure and monster placements differed in small ways. And naturally, each of us would have to clear it alone.

"The solo dungeon shouldn't give you much trouble either. Someone like you can pull a high score all by yourself, no problem."

"Yeah."

"Still, just to be safe, run practice mode a few times before you go in."

"Got it. Thanks."

Seo Ye-in stepped through the teleport portal and into practice mode. I scanned my student ID at the terminal as well—except unlike her, I was skipping practice entirely and going straight to the real thing. It was all already in my head, after all.

Coddling the rookie: mission accomplished.

From here on out, it was the veteran's time to shine.