Distortion

Once the three of us made our way out of the Circular Colosseum, Gwak Ji-cheol and Song Cheon-hye, who had been waiting outside, came hurrying over.

Dang Gyu-young gathered the four first-years in front of her and pointed at the sticker stuck to Hong Yeon-hwa's hand.

"Someone managed to peel one off after all. Seeing this, I guess all my hard work wasn't for nothing."

'She peeled it? A sticker?'

'Hong Yeon-hwa did?'

At the unexpected news, Song Cheon-hye and Gwak Ji-cheol's heads snapped up in astonishment. This week's PvP assessment had been so brutally difficult that, deep down, they had assumed no one would succeed.

Seeing all those shocked faces put Hong Yeon-hwa in an even better mood.

'I finally broke through.'

For the first time since entering Dragon Slayer Academy, she had outperformed Song Cheon-hye. It was true that the difference was merely one sticker versus zero, but a win was still a win. If she kept this up, the baseless rumor that 'Song Cheon-hye is a cut above Hong Yeon-hwa' would be put to rest for good.

'Ahem. Ahem. But I mustn't show it too much.'

She fought a desperate, ongoing battle to keep the corners of her mouth from twitching upward. Unfortunately, being constitutionally terrible at managing her expressions, the attempt was a resounding failure — to everyone else, she looked like she was wearing an openly mocking sneer.

Song Cheon-hye's eyebrows twitched, and the veins on her forehead began to stand out.

Oblivious or indifferent, Dang Gyu-young carried on where she'd left off.

"Those of you who couldn't peel one off did get noticeably better at close combat, though. But there's still a long way to go before you've patched up all your weaknesses, so you should keep doing one-on-one sparring regularly from now on."

"……?"

"Yes?"

Keep doing it regularly? From now on?

The first-years' eyes all fixed on Dang Gyu-young at once, but she simply wore an expression of exaggerated puzzlement, as if wondering what could possibly be so surprising.

"Of course we're continuing. The sticker PvP is what's over — not the mentoring."

It was not, in fact, over. Three whole weeks still remained. The frequency would drop off from before, but during the mentoring period she intended to keep slotting one-on-one close-combat matches in between everything else.

Without so much as glancing at everyone's visibly souring faces, Dang Gyu-young waved a hand breezily.

"Alright then, go get some rest. See you all tomorrow."

For a moment, no one managed to break free from the shock of her announcement, and they lingered frozen in place — but eventually, they began to drift away one by one.

The first to move was Song Cheon-hye. Ever since she'd heard the news that Hong Yeon-hwa had peeled a sticker, her mind had been consumed by a single thought.

'Is the replay still up?'

Since these were mentoring PvP matches, the odds were low that they'd been run privately. She simply could not bear the curiosity ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠of not knowing how — by what conceivable means — that girl had punched through Dang Gyu-young's defense and peeled the sticker. She had to hurry and check the replay first.

"……."

Next, Gwak Ji-cheol shot Kim Ho an unreadable glance before taking his leave, and Hong Yeon-hwa likewise made to quicken her own steps. But there was one thing she had to say first.

Hong Yeon-hwa approached Kim Ho cautiously and started haltingly.

"Um, well, that is……"

When his indifferent gaze met hers, her body stiffened out of habit — yet somehow, it wasn't nearly as crushing as before. Thanks to this week's PvP assessment, the fear she felt toward him seemed to have thinned out a little.

So she gathered her courage and pressed on.

"Th-th, thank you. For, um, helping me peel the sticker……"

"You don't have to thank me. It's all the result of your own effort."

Kim Ho shook his head slowly, but Hong Yeon-hwa knew better. Without him, even today's modest achievement would have been impossible. Yes, she had worked hard, and yes, her skills had improved by leaps and bounds as a result — but even so, actually peeling that sticker at the end would still have been a bridge too far.

And the only reason that bridge had become crossable was entirely because Kim Ho had kept hounding Dang Gyu-young, again and again, carving out openings for her. Above all, the decisive moment had come right before she peeled the sticker, when Kim Ho closed in on Dang Gyu-young and completely locked down her movements.

Even if Kim Ho had pointed all of this out and insisted it was all thanks to him, Hong Yeon-hwa would have accepted it without complaint. He had every right to be that arrogant. And yet instead, he had chosen to acknowledge her effort.

'Could it be……'

Have I been misjudging him all this time? That once you get to know him, he's actually a better person than I thought?

Her long-held impressions and this new assessment tangled together in her head until she couldn't tell up from down. Somehow, a corner of her chest felt faintly, distractingly tingly, too.

'Wha—!'

Then she snapped back to her senses and realized she'd been standing there staring blankly at Kim Ho for a good long while.

Flustered, Hong Yeon-hwa scrambled to salvage the situation with whatever words fell out of her mouth.

"A-anyway, th-thank you! S-see you, see you tomorrow! Tomorrow!"

With that she hurried off — though every so often her pace would slow, and she would steal glance after glance back over her shoulder in Kim Ho's direction.

As I watched Hong Yeon-hwa fade into the distance, stealing glances the whole way, something kept jabbing me repeatedly in the side.

Cutting my eyes over, I found Dang Gyu-young scowling at me, prodding me over and over with her index finger.

Poke, poke, poke.

When I deliberately ignored her and kept staring in the direction Hong Yeon-hwa had vanished, she relocated to my other side and began pressing down hard on both my cheeks in turn. Then she moved on to pinching them and yanking them up and down.

"Senior, my face is not a mochi rice cake."

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

"……"

"And why exactly are you in such a sulk this time?"

"You know your own crimes."

Of course I knew why she was acting like this. I had hounded her relentlessly with Wind Force throughout the entire sticker PvP assessment. Being angry was only natural.

But while I understood the reason for her anger, I certainly hadn't committed any crime, so I launched into my defense.

"I told you already — this is the only usable skill I've got."

"Okay, but that makes no sense. You claim you've graduated hundreds of times and you've only got one skill? Shouldn't you have like fifty more?"

"Everything resets when you start a new playthrough."

"There's no such thing."

"I have my complaints about it too."

Perhaps because my answers came out smooth as silk, Dang Gyu-young narrowed her eyes into slits.

"Hmmm. You slip away awfully neatly. Not a single hole in your story."

"That's because it isn't a story."

"Suuuure it isn't—"

And once again, she apparently decided to just shake her head and let it go.

The truth was that I had already received my reward for those hundreds of graduations. [Copy], [Amplification], and [Sovereign] — the perks I'd started this life with under the banner of "Reincarnation Quest benefits." Those were exactly what they were.

Of course, that was something I could never reveal to anyone — any more than I could admit I'd stepped straight into the world of the game itself.

Dang Gyu-young stretched her arms up with a long groan.

"Aigoo, aigoo— a whole week finally done. Being a mentor is secretly the most brutal job there is. No weekends, no holidays, nothing."

"Surely it beats cleaning out sewers, though?"

Had I not taken up mentoring, I would have been serving every one of my disciplinary penalties in full.

Even so, Dang Gyu-young's reaction was rather skeptical.

"Honestly, sometimes I wonder if I should've just taken the penalties instead. You've got to leave yourself some room to be lazy. Anyway, let's go too."

And with that, declaring she was going to rest at least a little, Dang Gyu-young set off.

However……

"Senior, where do you think you're going?"

"Hm?"

"My week isn't over yet."

The PvP assessment may have ended, but that didn't mean our one-on-one sparring was finished — did it? At the very least, not until I'd acquired [Distortion].

Dang Gyu-young pulled a face like she was about to die of exhaustion.

"Heyyy, let me rest a little too. Don't you feel bad for your senior, working through the weekend without hazard pay? Mentors have human rights too, you know."

"We're almost there. Just a little more and we're done."

"How little is 'a little more'?"

"Just a little more."

Of course, that "little more" came with absolutely no guarantees, and Dang Gyu-young eyed me with unmistakable suspicion. I did my best to meet that gaze with the most innocent, guileless smile I could manage.

"……Haah. Why did I even bother making that promise. This is really the last time."

Grumbling and muttering under her breath all the while, Dang Gyu-young evidently still regarded the promise as a promise, because she entered the Circular Colosseum with me all the same.

The moment we each took our positions, she pulled out a whole fistful of shadow daggers and began hurling them to station them in the air around us.

The black blades whizzed past me by the narrowest of margins, and five or six shadow butterflies were summoned to give chase. I worked my feet frantically as I spoke.

"You're in quite a hurry today."

"If we're doing this anyway, might as well finish it fast and rest."

In an instant, the Circular Colosseum descended into utter chaos. Yet neither I, darting desperately this way and that, nor Dang Gyu-young, raining down attacks without pause, looked the least bit strained — at least as far as our expressions went.

'My skills are improving.'

Earlier in the week, Dang Gyu-young would keep up her assault for a good long stretch before running out of steam and calling it off. Exhausting herself trying in vain to pin down a slippery eel like me had simply worn her out.

But drill the same pattern day after day for a week, and anyone would get used to it eventually. By now she could flow from one attack into the next like water, without a trace of fatigue showing.

She had even reached the point where she could carry on a casual conversation while doing it. Sure enough, scattering shadow daggers to all four directions, she kept the talk going.

"I've got a Wish Ticket, remember."

"Yes, you do."

"Well, I've been thinking about what to spend it on."

Dang Gyu-young also held one Wish Ticket, granted in exchange for secretly aiding my training. It shared a name with the ticket I'd won off Song Cheon-hye in our wager, but the contents were a different beast entirely.

If the former stopped at a simple question or a small favor — a Small Wish Ticket — then the latter carried a good deal more weight: something closer to a Medium Wish Ticket.

"And what wish would you have me grant?"

"You, next week or the week after — you're not busy, right?"

"Nothing besides mentoring."

"Then set aside some time then. Come somewhere with me."

"Somewhere? You're even spending a Wish Ticket on it?"

If it were some ordinary place, she could have simply asked me along. The fact that she was willing to burn a Wish Ticket meant there had to be a purpose behind it.

Dang Gyu-young pressed in close, dragging a dagger through the air at me as she answered.

"Where's the fun in telling you everything up front? I'll fill you in on the details when the time comes."

"Understood."

It was a bit suspicious, but I had no grounds to refuse. After all, when she'd brought up the Wish Ticket, Dang Gyu-young had attached her own condition — "You can hear me out later, and say no if it really doesn't sit right with you" — which meant she wasn't about to make a demand likely to be rejected.

Besides, factor in how she'd carved time out of her schedule to help me train even after the PvP assessment ended, plus the fact that I'd be needing her help going forward, and it was in my best interest to accommodate her as far as possible.

For a while, the attacks and dodges — and the inane small talk along with them — rolled on. Then, perhaps growing bored at last, Dang Gyu-young asked,

"How far off is that trait of yours?"

"Almost there. Just a little more and we're done."

"You said that an hour ago. Don't tell me……"

Dang Gyu-young's brow furrowed with dark foreboding.

"Don't tell me…… you're planning to keep this up the entire mentoring period?"

"I doubt it'll take that long."

Even before mentoring began, the evasion stacks I'd accumulated had been staggering, and the extra ones I'd stacked against Dang Gyu-young over the past week were nothing to sneeze at either. As of now, I was on the very brink of detonation.

Even with the worst luck imaginable, the breakthrough would come next week.

But they do say that when you speak of the tiger, it comes — no sooner had the thought crossed my mind than, in the instant I tilted my head to dodge an incoming dagger,

a notification flashed in the corner of my vision.

'See? Told you.'

Almost there, my foot — it had already arrived.

I stopped dead mid-scuttle and planted myself right where I stood. Dang Gyu-young was just then closing in with a fist loaded to bursting with mana, and I deliberately held my ground instead of dodging — partly to test what the trait could do.

When the man who'd been dodging everything by a hair's breadth until this very moment suddenly stood rooted to the spot, Dang Gyu-young's eyes went wide with shock.

"Huh?"

But an attack with that much momentum already behind it was far ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠too late to pull back.

Just as the mana-charged fist was about to slam squarely into my face —

Dang Gyu-young's entire arm bent and twisted like an octopus tentacle, swerving sideways and sailing harmlessly past.

"Gah!"

White-faced, Dang Gyu-young yanked her hand back instantly and retreated a good long distance away.

"What— what is— what was that, what WAS that?!"

She flapped around by herself, groping at the arm that had just been bent out of shape — but not a single wound marred it. Perfectly fine. Perhaps feeling a touch embarrassed, Dang Gyu-young quit her flailing and asked me,

"What just happened?"

"Just learned my new trait."

"Oh! So THAT'S what that is?"

A space-type trait of the rarest and most coveted kind. Once per activation, it could evade any attack whatsoever. An assassin's dagger, a sniper's bolt — they would simply slide harmlessly past, even if you stood there rooted to the spot, staring blankly at nothing.

It carried the constraint of a 24-hour cooldown per activation, but even with that factored in, the effect was downright absurd.

When I explained the trait to her, Dang Gyu-young's face went slack with disbelief.

"Wait, isn't this completely busted? Can I learn it too?"

"You can."

"Really? How?"

"Do exactly what I did with you, except with the faculty."

To stack evasion points quickly, the best method was to farm them off an opponent ranked two or three tiers above you. I was a first-year who had dodged every single attack from a third-year club president without ever being hit once.

So by Dang Gyu-young's standard, the equivalent would be B-Rank and A-Rank-tier heroes — in other words, the instructors. Dodge everything they threw ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠at her, and done.

Dang Gyu-young stood there blinking for a long moment, apparently comparing the conditions I'd laid out against all the sparring sessions she'd put me through.

Then she grinned.

"Nope."