Entrance Ceremony (2)
One look at the middle-aged man, and the dimwit from my old neighborhood sprang to mind — the fellow who used to shuffle about in a ratty tracksuit, dragging a pair of half-dead slippers behind him wherever he went.
As if struck by the same thought, the two girls seated in front of me leaned together and began whispering. Though whispering was a generous word for it; they were loud enough for the entire vicinity to hear.
"That's the principal, right? He doesn't look all that impressive..."
"Don't be fooled. However he looks, he led the Dragon Subjugation Force back in his prime. They say he slew two fully grown fire dragons."
"Whoa, seriously?"
By tradition, the principal's seat at Dragon Slayer Academy belonged to the previous generation's Hero, retired from the front lines. And the title of Hero, much like Thunder Lord, was bestowed upon only one among the countless S-rank powerhouses. However shabby the man's exterior, a strength beyond imagining churned within him.
The hero I'd raised back then had carried around twenty S-rank skills, so this old-timer was probably in roughly the same league.
"They say he's still single, though."
"Oh! I heard that too. Got rejected by the Saintess four times, apparently?"
"Nope, he got shot down again just recently — that makes five."
"Oh my goodness~"
The principal's standing in my mind took a swift nosedive into pity. With a languid look, he cast a light glance over the assembly and opened his mouth.
"Welcome, new students. It is my sincere pleasure to welcome you all to Dragon Slayer Academy."
In an instant, the hall fell so quiet you could have heard a pin drop. The principal's expression, warm through the greeting, turned grave.
"Long ago, Dragon Slayer Academy was founded, true to its name, to prepare for war against the dragons — to raise up Dragon Slayers."
"Why did the first Hero insist on the word 'slay' amid so many finer words? I believe it was so that each of you would ponder, at least once, what it truly means to be a Slayer."
"What is a Slayer? One who has never cut down an ogre cannot become an Ogre Slayer, and one who has never cut down a dragon cannot become a Dragon Slayer."
"Thus, taking life is both the destiny and the essence of us Slayers. Do not turn your eyes away from that truth."
"At the same time, you must ask yourselves: Why do I wish to become a Slayer? For what purpose do I take a life?"
"I hope that by the time you graduate, each of you will have found your own answer."
The reason the principal went out of his way to raise such uncomfortable truths from the very start was that forging the inside mattered every bit as much as training the outside. And that inner forging began with setting a clear goal in one's heart.
The A-rank and S-rank monsters awaiting them after graduation were, in every sense of the word, living natural disasters. Anyone armed with nothing more than vague ambitions — a comfortable life, a fat wallet — would gutter out like a candle in the wind the moment they stood before such creatures.
I wasn't the only one, either; a fair number of students nodded along or sank into deep thought at the principal's words.
Had he stopped there, it would have been a truly splendid opening address.
"And finally, just one more thing—"
Unfortunately, the principal was a man who did not know how to end after the first verse.
The address stretched on, and on, and on. Students twisted in their seats with anguish, but the principal, without so much as a glance their way, kept droning at a lullaby's tempo, saying everything he had to say.
"Truly the last thing, just one more—"
If no one had stepped in, he might well have gone on for hours yet. The woman in the business suit waiting beside the podium sent him a gesture that might as well have pointed at her wristwatch. Only then did the principal apparently decide to bring things to a close.
"—May each of you be reborn as a true hero here at Dragon Slayer Academy. That is all."
"Uuughh..."
"Mom... my head hurts..."
The new students, one and all, were clutching their faces or moaning about headaches, sunk deep in despair. And in the midst of it all, Go Hyeon-woo — apparently profoundly moved by the principal's words — kept nodding along, smile intact.
"Hmm. A truly meaningful hour, that was."
"You weren't bored?"
"'Bored'? Brother Kim, what manner of insolent talk is that? Every last word of it was counsel to nourish blood and flesh. My master, too, used to grace me with advice of just this kind every single day."
"You listened to that every single day?"
No wonder the man's been tempered within an inch of his life.
I gave up on the conversation.
Meanwhile, Seo Ye-in sat with her arms crossed and her head bowed ever so slightly. I waved a hand lightly before her eyes; not a flicker of response. She was dozing with her eyes half-open. Deciding that waking her wasn't strictly necessary, I left her be.
The principal withdrew from the podium, and the woman in the business suit stepped up in his place. She looked airtight, inside and out — a woman without a single seam. Give Song Cheon-hye another ten years exactly as she was, and wouldn't she turn out just like this?
From the girls in the front rows, whispers drifted back to my ears: That's the vice principal. Anyone who didn't know better, seeing the two of them standing side by side, might have had trouble telling which one was actually the principal.
The moment the vice principal swept the hall with an icy gaze, the chattering students flinched and clamped their mouths shut. The swelling din died away in the blink of an eye.
"A word of caution. This year's list of banned items has been updated. Merely carrying any of these items on your person, or storing them in your inventory, is grounds for confiscation, with penalties of demerit points or beyond depending on severity. Familiarize yourselves with the list thoroughly, and comply — so that none of you need suffer for it."
"Furthermore, new students will sit all practical evaluations on the surface level of the Dungeon Building until a separate notice is issued. Should unauthorized entry into the underground floors cause an incident, the repercussions will extend beyond the individual to the sect, magic tower, or guild they belong to. Do not let a moment's curiosity bring misery upon everyone."
So saying, the vice principal cast the hall a warning-laden look. The new students, guilty of nothing, shuddered as if a chill had crawled up their spines.
"So that you may all have your dinner, the entrance ceremony ends here. Please return to your dormitories without delay."
The vice principal ended on precisely that note and stepped straight down from the podium. Compared to the principal's marathon oration, hers was a lightning-quick, combat-compressed briefing packed tight with nothing but the essentials. It had been so brief that students by the dozen stayed rooted in their seats, still under the impression the ceremony wasn't over. Only once the entire faculty had filed out did they begin to rise, one by one.
Go Hyeon-woo loosened up lightly in his seat.
"The evening meal, then. I was just beginning to feel peckish."
"Let's hurry. Any later and we'll be standing in line."
Just as we made to hurry off, we both remembered what we'd forgotten and turned around at the same time. There sat Seo Ye-in, still slumped in her chair, dozing with half-lidded eyes. Her presence was so faint we'd nearly left her behind.
"Seo Ye-in."
We had to wake her, but calling her name drew no answer. I stepped closer and gave her shoulder a light tap with the tip of a finger.
Only then did Seo Ye-in slowly lift her eyelids and straighten up. Still groggy, she blinked blearily around at her surroundings, apparently struggling to place where she was. Then she found me, and fixed a baleful stare on my hand — the culprit that had shattered her sleep.
"Ceremony's over. Let's go eat."
"Mm..."
Dinner was seafood pasta. Cooking hundreds of portions at once inevitably costs a kitchen something in flavor, yet this could have held its own against the pasta at any famous restaurant. It gave you a fair measure of just how formidable the kitchen staff was — and proof, too, that Dragon Slayer Academy lavished care on even the smallest details, down to the taste of its meals.
An institution charged with raising the future heroes who would protect humanity could hardly offer less, I supposed. It wasn't as if just anyone got in here.
"Hey! My friends, are we all enjoying the meal?"
"Oh. There you are."
Just as he had at our first meeting on the train, Shin Byung-cheol sauntered over without a shred of hesitation and plunked himself down in the seat beside us. Whatever he'd been up to in the meantime, three red claw marks now ran diagonally across his cheek.
Go Hyeon-woo, unable to contain his curiosity, asked,
"Brother Shin, what befell your face?"
"Ah, this? Just, well... a minor little incident, that's all."
A timid-looking girl, passing by, shot Shin Byung-cheol a wary glance — like a cat perched on his shoulder, hissing with claws bared. I resolved to have seen nothing.
The shrimp is excellent.
Shin Byung-cheol inhaled his portion of pasta and spoke.
"Eat hearty and rest up. Because tomorrow, the Big—Day awaits. That's what I'm telling you."
"A 'Big Day'? What do you mean by that?"
"What, you don't know? Tomorrow's the first day of classes."
"That much I know, but what happens on the first day of classes?"
Shin Byung-cheol opened his mouth to explain, then, as if changing his mind midway, curled his lips into a mischievous smile.
"Heh heh. Not telling. Consider it a treat saved for tomorrow."
"And you, Brother Kim? Do you happen to know something?"
"It's nothing much. Just wait until tomorrow."
"Hmmm... And yet I cannot help but wonder... Miss Seo?"
"Dunno."
Seo Ye-in didn't spare Go Hyeon-woo so much as a glance. Suddenly left out in the cold, he let fall a quiet lament.
"Heh heh... so the way of the kangho lies trampled in the dust..."
Even after dinner ended, we lingered in our seats, trading idle chatter. Out of consideration for Go Hyeon-woo, naturally, we never once let slip what tomorrow actually held...
We carried on like that for quite a while, until the Disciplinary Committee members announced that the hour had grown late.
"Time to wrap it up, everyone!"
"Head to your dorms!"
"If you don't know the way, don't wander around — come ask us!"
With darkness settling over everything, our final stop for the day was the dormitory. I pulled out my student ID; engraved on the back, since who knows when, were the digits 3-406. Building 3, Room 406. I found Building 3 and held the ID up to a device glowing softly with magic, and the door swung open.
But that Go Hyeon-woo fellow kept trailing right along behind me. Through the door together, up the stairs together, down the same corridor together... Even after I stopped in front of Room 406, he kept coming, so I asked,
"Hey, what room are you?"
"Room 407. And you, Brother Kim?"
"406."
"Oh."
So that was it. Through some prank of fate, the two of us had abruptly become next-door neighbors.
"Right next door, no less. What a welcome coincidence."
"I wouldn't call it all that welcome, myself."
"Haha. Then rest well, Brother Kim."
I waved a careless hand at his courteous farewell and stepped into my room. It was sleek and spacious — hardly what you'd expect from a dorm — and every facility I could need was in place without a single gap. I'd have believed it if someone told me it was a hotel suite.
The everyday details that had once merely flickered past in a game were reality now. A strange swell of feeling rose in me as I settled onto the bed. The bed, too, was a genuinely high-end piece, so comfortable that the moment I lay down I felt I might drop straight off to sleep.
But tonight, sleep was not on the agenda.
There was work to do.
Create the [Core].
I had copied [Hummingbird] from Song Cheon-hye, but it was useless to me for the moment. To use any skill that drew on magic or internal energy, you first needed an engine to supply the power. And serving as that primary engine was none other than the [Core].
Ordinarily, forging one took weeks of patient investment, but I was a grizzled old hand who had walked these shortcuts hundreds of times over.
One night would be plenty.
Thanks to the [Dark Ice Crystal] I had absorbed on the train, mana was already stockpiled inside me to overflowing. All that remained was to compress it and shape it into a true [Core].
I stripped away every stray thought and began to focus my mind — to bring the vast energy pooled within me under control.