Week 5 Mentoring, PvP (10)
Hong Yeon-hwa had been living through very painful days lately.
Fwooosh!
As she backpedaled rapidly and poured fire magic into the space ahead of her, a wave of scorching heat washed over her, and her vision filled wall to wall with flame.
Dang Gyu-young burst out of the roaring blaze with her fist drawn back.
Hong Yeon-hwa barely deflected the incoming punches one by one.
But her guard grew sloppier by the second as her strength failed her.
BAM!
At last, a massive shadowed foot sent her flying with a brutal kick.
"Hk—"
Air wheezed out of her as Hong Yeon-hwa rolled across the floor.
She'd been kicked hard enough that the distance she rolled was quite respectable. She tumbled on and on before flopping face-down, lying as still as the dead.
Dang Gyu-young looked down at the sight with a blank expression, then spat out coldly, "Get up."
"……"
Being knocked down and rolling around was nothing new — she'd been through it a dozen times already in their one-on-ones, and every time, she'd scrambled to her feet at Dang Gyu-young's word.
She had learned through her whole body that the longer she dawdled, the worse it got.
The fact that Hong Yeon-hwa was still lying there now meant she didn't have so much as a finger's worth of strength left.
Dang Gyu-young knew it too, so she wrapped up the day's sparring.
"That's it for today. Rest."
"……"
Even after Dang Gyu-young left the Circular Colosseum, Hong Yeon-hwa stayed glued to the floor like a discarded piece of gum for a long, long while.
And before long, a pitiful sound rose from that gum.
"Hnnnnngh……"
It was the third day since the mentoring began.
Once again today, she'd fought Dang Gyu-young in a one-on-one close-quarters match.
Using shadow magic, Dang Gyu-young conjured every conceivable kind of attack a melee class could throw out.
As had been proven on the very first day of mentoring, Hong Yeon-hwa had absolutely zero chance of beating her in a one-on-one.
Stack the close-combat restriction on top of that, and the odds shrank to nothing.
In the end, all she did was get thoroughly beaten into the dust from start to finish.
But the beatings were at least paying off, because her skill was growing sharply, steeply, visibly fast.
As she threw herself into twisting her body to take one hit fewer, close-quarters combat was sinking into her without her even noticing.
If she took 100 hits on the first day, then 99 the next, then 98, then 97…
There was just one important problem: whether her mental fortitude could hold out.
Her skills would surely keep improving tomorrow as well, but that still meant eating 96 hits, didn't it?
She could understand a day or two of this, but wasn't the mentoring period four whole weeks?
And it's only Wednesday…?
Three weeks and four more days of this to go…?
The more she thought about it, the darker the world before her eyes became.
What made things even more bleak for Hong Yeon-hwa was that, despite growing at this terrifying pace, she hadn't so much as touched a sticker yet.
She was struggling just to avoid getting hit — how was she supposed to peel stickers in the gaps between blows?
It seemed she'd need far more time to build her skill, so the PvP Assessment would likely end without her even attempting it, settling for the flat 50-point deduction.
Forget the other teammates — for Hong Yeon-hwa, who'd been hemorrhaging PvP points all over the place lately (mostly losing to Kim Ho), fifty points was catastrophic.
"Hahh…"
Twice as gloomy as before, Hong Yeon-hwa let out a long sigh into the floor.
I'll just go in and rest…
She hauled her body up and began trudging toward the Ruby Magic Tower club room.
Wouldn't eating the cake she'd stashed in the club room relieve at least a little stress?
Her trudging footsteps grew a very slightly bit lighter.
However…
Fate, it seemed, had no intention of letting Hong Yeon-hwa rest easy.
Upon entering the club room, Hong Yeon-hwa looked for her older sister first, as always.
"Unnie, the cake I bought yesterd— huh."
She'd meant to ask, You haven't touched the cake I bought, right? — but the words cut off in a sharp intake of breath.
"……"
There, before her very eyes, sat a person who should never, ever have been in this place.
Kim Ho, seated with perfect composure, tilting a teacup.
Hearing Hong Yeon-hwa's voice, he turned his gaze toward her, unhurried.
When those cold eyes landed on her, her body flinched and shrank back on pure reflex.
Across from him sat Hong Yeon-hwa's older sister and president of the Ruby Magic Tower club, Hong Ye-hwa.
And sitting all alone between the two of them: Hong Yeon-hwa's cake.
By the look of it, he had arrived mere seconds before the first stab of the fork.
Under normal circumstances she would have exploded in fury, but Hong Yeon-hwa couldn't even find the room to get angry.
"No, this is, what, what on earth—"
Flustered beyond all sense, her words came out in stammered fragments.
Hong Ye-hwa, by contrast, greeted her sister as if she'd been waiting for exactly this.
"Perfect timing. We were just talking about you."
"Unnie. Unnie. Unnie. Come out here for a sec."
"Why?"
"Just — quickly. For a sec."
Hong Yeon-hwa grabbed her sister's wrist and dragged her out, no questions tolerated.
Only once they were beyond earshot of Kim Ho, out in the hall, did she speak.
"What is that?"
"What is what?"
"That!"
"That what?"
"That person!"
Hong Yeon-hwa jabbed her finger wildly in the direction where Kim Ho sat.
Her urgency made it seem as though some monstrous beast had been loosed inside the club room, but Hong Ye-hwa's reaction was merely lukewarm.
No — if anything, she seemed quite taken with Kim Ho.
"He's a pretty decent kid. Polite to his senior, good manners."
"Wh… what?"
Hong Yeon-hwa doubted her own ears.
A decent kid…?
Good manners…?
Is he some other Kim Ho I don't know?
Absurdity sealed her mouth shut.
Truthfully, the temperature gap between the sisters was only natural.
Unlike Hong Yeon-hwa, who had experienced Kim Ho firsthand in PvP, Hong Ye-hwa had merely heard word that her little sister had lost to him a few times.
She couldn't help but remain comparatively neutral.
When Kim Ho had shown up at the Ruby Magic Tower out of the blue, she had been slightly wary at first, but figured she could at least hear him out and received him as a guest.
The large ruby he'd brought — presumed to be taken from Hong Yeon-hwa — was reason enough to welcome a guest, too.
And after sitting across from him for a while, hearing this and that, honestly it had been quite informative and satisfying.
She'd been able to clear up a good portion of the things she was curious about regarding Kim Ho — things that had frustrated her because Hong Yeon-hwa flatly refused to talk about him.
"You're in the same mentoring group as him, aren't you?"
"He told you?"
"I asked first. Why?"
Since Kim Ho was also a first-year, the conversation had naturally drifted to mentoring.
She'd thrown out a light question — Are you getting mentoring? — never imagining he'd turn out to be grouped with her own sister.
That, too, was one of the things 'Hong Yeon-hwa flatly refused to talk about,' so she'd pried deeper, and Kim Ho, apparently deciding there was no particular reason to hide it, shared what he knew.
"You haven't peeled a single sticker, hm? I told you over and over to practice your close-quarters combat, and you wouldn't listen. I knew this would happen."
"N-no, why me? None of the others can peel any either!"
"How nice for you, then? Sounds like you have plenty of company?"
The sisters glared and growled at each other as usual, but with a guest present, neither actually lobbed fireballs at the other.
Hong Ye-hwa spoke in a tone that brooked no argument.
"Anyway — in this PvP, you peel every last sticker. I've already made arrangements with him."
Apparently some manner of deal had already passed between the two of them.
Since they were paired, it was only natural for Kim Ho to help her — but the decisive point was that the job of peeling stickers would be ceded to Hong Yeon-hwa alone.
In exchange, Hong Ye-hwa had no doubt paid compensation to match.
Hong Yeon-hwa was all the more exasperated, and huffed explosively.
"Why do I have to do all of it?"
"Oh? So you won't? Were you planning to coast on everyone else's backs?"
As Hong Ye-hwa's expression froze over bit by bit, Hong Yeon-hwa wilted and answered in a voice that crawled into the floor.
"That's not it… ugh, fine, fine, I'll peel them all, okay?"
"Good. And — you have Song Cheon-hye and Gwak Ji-cheol in your group too, right?"
Flickering flames ignited in Hong Ye-hwa's eyes.
"Losing to Kim Ho for now, I can understand. But those two, you absolutely must beat."
Since the skill gap with Kim Ho seemed considerable, demanding she surpass him immediately would be an unreasonable ask.
Wasn't that the whole reason she'd signed up for mentoring — to grow stronger?
Besides, for whatever reason, word of her losses didn't seem to be spreading, so there was no need to rush a grudge match.
But Song Cheon-hye and Gwak Ji-cheol were a different story.
Song Cheon-hye was Disciplinary Committee, yes, but closely tied to the Topaz Magic Tower, and Gwak Ji-cheol belonged to the Emerald Magic Tower.
The Magic Tower Association cooperated as fellow members — but at the same time, they were rivals in ceaseless competition.
If word ever reached her ears that 'the Ruby Magic Tower ranks below Topaz and Emerald,' there was no telling what Hong Ye-hwa might do in her uncontrollable fury.
She emphasized it again.
"It's fine if you can't peel all three. But you peel more than either of them. Got it?"
"I know."
On this point, Hong Yeon-hwa agreed with her sister.
The one opponent she absolutely could not lose to was the Magic Tower Association.
Especially since she absolutely despised being compared to Song Cheon-hye, she was fully resolved to post the better results by however slim a margin.
As the fire began to kindle in Hong Yeon-hwa's eyes, Hong Ye-hwa felt quietly pleased.
She'd been a little worried watching her sister cower the instant she laid eyes on Kim Ho, but apparently her fighting spirit hadn't died after all.
"That's how it should be. Now let's go back in."
"Huh? Go back in…?"
It suddenly dawned on Hong Yeon-hwa whose face she was about to see again.
Her pupils darted rapidly left and right, and she began slinking backward in retreat.
Hong Ye-hwa's hand clamped onto her wrist.
With a sweet smile,
"This is the club room. Where exactly are you going?"
"N-no, I was thinking I'd just go rest in the dorm today. My condition's a little off, and—"
"Come. Right now. You don't keep a guest waiting."
Hong Ye-hwa dragged her sister along by the wrist and back into the club room.
Kim Ho was still in the same seat, in the same posture, tilting his teacup exactly as before.
The closer Hong Yeon-hwa drew, the more she felt the fighting spirit she'd kindled moments ago guttering rapidly out.
Hong Ye-hwa shot her a look that was half exasperation, half worry, then soon let out a silent sigh.
Time will take care of it…
Nurturing a small hope that, after being thrown together through mentoring day after day, her sister would get over it on her own.
She smoothed her expression quickly and settled a service-industry smile onto her lips.
"Sorry for the wait. It's been a while, hasn't it?"
"Not at all. I needed some time to think as well."
"Then, as we discussed — I'll leave Yeon-hwa in your care."
"Of course, Senior."
Hong Ye-hwa with her soft, honeyed tone; Kim Ho with his composed, faultless courtesy.
The gulf between this and everything she'd seen of them until now was frankly surreal.
Hong Yeon-hwa could only stand there, utterly at a loss for words, watching the two of them converse.