I Became a Veteran in the Academy Novel (52)

[Live Combat Practicum] — class session.

Twelve cadets bearing S-Rank abilities, myself included, stood at attention before Instructor Choi Jiyoon.

Other than us, the training grounds were completely empty.

Hands clasped behind her back, she paced silently in front of our ranks.

Two S-Rank cadets had died.

According to Yoo Seolha, my group and everyone else gathered here had already paid their respects at the memorial altar the academy had prepared for the two of them.

The atmosphere couldn't have been heavier.

And yet, none of them could bring themselves to blame Instructor Choi Jiyoon or Yoo Seolha for it.

Everyone knew that the supervising professor had deliberately concealed the fact that it was an irregular dungeon. On top of that, the people who understood the two victims' strength better than anyone were the very S-Rank cadets standing here now. If those two had barely managed to crawl back alive, it meant that any one of them, had they been in that position, couldn't have guaranteed their own survival either.

Amid that suffocating mood, Choi Jiyoon spoke.

"Today, I was thinking we'd run a 3-on-3 stronghold defense. What do you say?"

The cadets hesitated, glancing at one another, before answering one by one.

"Yes. Understood."

"Sounds good."

Then someone thrust a hand into the air.

"Instructor, couldn't we do 1-on-1 sparring instead?"

A man with bleached-blonde hair and the classic tanned-delinquent look asked the question, then shot a quick glance my way.

Ah. So that's Yoon Seokhyeon.

Just like the novel described him — a real golden sun of an asshole.

Standing beside him was Seo Yujin with her twin tails.

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

Seo Yujin, the third heroine of So-A-Ka.

By now, she was probably in the middle of a flirtation with Yoon Seokhyeon. Both of them were meritocrats to the bone — believers that S-Ranks were royalty, F-Ranks were commoners, and that this world ran on the law of the jungle.

With such similar ideologies, and both of them easy on the eyes, it was no surprise they'd developed feelings for each other.

In the original story, Seo Yujin grew even closer to Yoon Seokhyeon over the following months, coming within a hair's breadth of actually dating him. Then, over the break, she went through one incident after another at the academy alongside the protagonist Kim Seonghyeok, fell for him instead, and had her might-makes-right worldview corrected in the process.

Right now, we were a few months before any of that happened. And Kim Seonghyeok no longer existed.

Seo Yujin.

On the surface she had an innocent, adorable face, but her true personality was that of a lunatic who did whatever the hell she wanted, drunk on the authority of her S-Rank badge.

Back when I was reading the novel, that lunatic ended up on our side, and I couldn't have felt more reassured by it. That's why Seo Yujin had been my favorite heroine of all.

'So how do I win her over?'

While I was lost in that thought, another member of what looked like Yoon Seokhyeon's clique raised his hand.

"It's been a while since we've done 1-on-1s. I think that'd be great."

Their intent was written all over their faces. They'd clearly done the math: a guy who could only use holy magic wouldn't have a prayer in a 1-on-1 duel.

"Let's do 1-on-1, Instructor."

"Might be fun."

One by one, the other S-Ranks began chiming in behind Yoon Seokhyeon.

They were all thinking the same thing.

'Look at these bastards.'

They weren't even hiding it — they wanted to make me their initiation rite. I could also sense, underneath it all, the psychology of people who couldn't direct their resentment over a fallen comrade at Yoo Seolha or Choi Jiyoon, and so wanted to dump the blame onto me instead.

Yoo Seolha deliberately refused to look my way.

[Disgusting bastards.]

She knew all too well what kind of looks would come her way if she so much as glanced at me with a worried expression.

Choi Jiyoon came to a stop.

"1-on-1? Hmm..."

She looked at me.

If her status-reading abilities were as good as they should be, she'd have seen it — that I'd gained Vajra Body [U] and Immunity to All Poisons [S+].

[What the— when did he pick up skills like those?]

Immunity to All Poisons would be useless here — unless our opponent happened to be one of the Four Great Poison Families or an assassin who worked with toxins. But Vajra Body was another matter entirely.

And not just any Vajra Body — a U-Rank one. The perfected ultimate of external body cultivation pushed to its absolute limit. Raw physical power came guaranteed, and that supple-yet-indestructible state of the flesh would not be easy for even an S+ skill to break through.

Choi Jiyoon asked me outright.

"Ian, what about you? It's your first class today — are you okay with a 1-on-1?"

I scratched the tip of my nose.

"No, Instructor. I only got in on the strength of a single holy spell. Unless there's a demon or evil spirit hiding among us, I don't think I could beat anyone here."

Snorts of laughter rippled through the ranks. Judging by the mood, roughly half of them seemed to be siding with Yoon Seokhyeon. Someone muttered under their breath.

"Then why not demote yourself back down to A-Rank~"

It came from the two-meter slab of muscle standing at the very back.

"Look at him, all high and mighty. God, I wanna fold him in half."

At his words, snickering broke out around Yoon Seokhyeon.

Yoon Seokhyeon himself, however, spoke with a serious face.

"Instructor, we may not be licensed hunters yet, but out there we're already called one-man armies. Each of us can handle a hundred F-Class hunters single-handedly."

He'd used the counter word for animals to describe F-Class hunters — in front of an instructor who had climbed her own way up from F-Class to S-Rank as a hunter.

A deep furrow carved itself between Choi Jiyoon's brows.

The laughter around us died in an instant, and the air turned heavy. The sheer pressure radiating off Choi Jiyoon — an S-Rank assassin — was overwhelming.

Yoon Seokhyeon pressed on regardless.

"But just because someone's single skill tests as S-Rank, they get treated as S-Rank outright? With all due respect, I think that's an insult not only to us, but to the prestige of the entire academy. And—"

Everyone turned to look at Yoon Seokhyeon.

No — to be precise, they were looking at the space behind Yoon Seokhyeon.

At some point, Choi Jiyoon had come to a stop directly behind him.

She spoke in a low voice.

"Go on. Finish your thought. And?"

Yoon Seokhyeon was the youngest son of a chaebol family that owned a world-class hotel chain. He was the kind of man who had lived his whole life saying whatever he pleased without reading the room. He swallowed hard and stammered.

"S-some people might, uh, suspect it's special treatment rather than, y'know, actual merit."

Now every gaze swung toward me. A malicious rumor seemed to be circulating that I'd survived a dungeon alongside Yoo Seolha and Choi Jiyoon, done this and that with the two of them, and ridden their coattails straight into the S-Rank class.

Well.

Half of that is technically correct, I'll admit.

I cleared my throat and turned to ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠face the students.

"Ahem. The truth is, my holy magic is so powerful that it doesn't only work on demons and evil spirits. It's dangerous. You all could get hur—"

Before I could even finish, the place exploded with laughter. They clearly took it for a desperate, flailing excuse to weasel out of the situation.

Choi Jiyoon spoke.

"Fine. Whatever.

Then it's decided — we'll do 1-on-1 sparring. It's been a while."

The 1-on-1 format was exactly as I remembered it from the novel.

Choi Jiyoon headed into the control room and fed the training scenario into the drill ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠grounds. Simulation mana particulates generated the terrain, the weather, the objects scattered about. Once the cadets inhaled simulation mana in place of the real thing and entered the field, they could physically interact with the terrain and the rest of the simulation.

Because everyone was running on simulation mana, skill lethality was dialed down, and automatic protective barriers activated to block lethal strikes. Even with those safeguards in place, however, taking an S-Rank skill head-on still carried tremendous impact, so in 1-on-1 duels it was far from rare for an opponent to be knocked down and knocked out cold.

'Which is why the medical team is on standby over there.'

Names began cycling at random across the jumbotron overhead, and the bracket generated itself.

'Why does this feel so familiar...'

Somewhere, I could almost hear a crowd chanting dildo-king! Dildo-king! in celebration.

"Here."

Yoo Seolha handed me a spray canister loaded with simulation mana.

I'd taken a hit of it once before, during my S-Rank evaluation. I inhaled the mana.

The drill grounds, which seconds ago had been nothing but a sandbox, transformed into a ruined city as though war had swept through it.

Choi Jiyoon announced:

"Stages are random. No-item match."

Skills had elemental matchups, and combat positions had matchups too. A ranged mage who whiffed a single attack immediately lost the turn to a melee fighter. There were duel formats that placed items around the stage specifically to soften those matchup imbalances — and then there was the no-item format, like now, where matchups were ignored and even luck counted as skill.

Choi Jiyoon seemed to ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠have judged that, since this was my first 1-on-1 as an S-Rank, removing my opponent's item access worked in my favor.

[Ian has Vajra Body. Strip away the item variables and he'll manage somehow.]

Yoon Seokhyeon, on the other hand, seemed baffled by Choi Jiyoon's decision.

[What? If Kim Ian's got no items, he has literally nothing he can do. Does that bastard's holy magic actually deal damage to things that aren't from the demon realm?]

Choi Jiyoon spoke.

"Five minutes per match. Higher remaining HP wins."

It was the same in the novel. Like a fighting game — take a hit, and the HP bar floating above the training grounds drained.

'Surely I'm not in the first match.'

The randomly cycling bracket locked in. Everyone turned to look at me.

'Son of a bitch.'

The first match, of all things. I'd wanted to watch how the others fought before stepping in myself.

"Haaah—"

I buried my face in my hands. Snickering rose from all around me.

"Whoa, no way."

Someone even started clapping.

[Of all people, Oh Hyunsoo. That poor bastard's fucked, huh?]

[If he gets caught, it's over.]

Wait, who's Oh Hyunsoo again? It's been a while since I read the novel, and unless you're a main character, my memory's fuzzy.

I turned my head.

Thud. Thud.

A faint tremor ran through the earth. The two-meter slab of muscle who'd wanted to fold me in half earlier came lumbering forward. 'He's already using his skill.' It was probably Weight Amplification, the signature tanker ability.

He asked me in a low voice.

"What was your skill again?"

"Holy Explosion. It's a kind of holy magic, but—"

He cut me off with a crooked grin.

"Good luck running, then."

Since I'd apparently gotten into S-Rank on holy magic, he'd pegged me as a full-time mage.

"...Right."

"For the record, I run the hundred meters in eight seconds."

"E-eight seconds?"

My eyes went wide with genuine surprise. If a body that size came thundering toward me at hundred-meter-in-eight-seconds speed, yeah, I could see that being terrifying.

He rolled his shoulders and neck, closing in on me menacingly.

"What, trying to get me to drop out? Not happening."

"Huh? No, that's not — I wasn't trying to drop out..."

"Good. Smart choice."

Oh Hyunsoo and I moved to the center of the map, each taking our marked positions roughly ten meters apart.

Vuuuum—

A pulse rippled outward with a low hum, and in the blink of an eye the war-ravaged city became a pristine, empty green field.

Yoo Seolha bit her lower lip, face tight with worry.

[This is way too much, isn't it? The map's totally against him. There's nowhere to hide, nothing to use. Shouldn't someone stop this right now? Unni — no, Instructor — is she seriously going through with it? And what the hell is Ian betting on, walking out there like that?]

She slid half a step forward, sly and slow.

[I don't care. If Ian's in real danger, I'm going in.]

Eerily enough, Yoon Seokhyeon and Seo Yujin were thinking the exact same thing.

[Yeah. If he wins this, I'll acknowledge him.]

[Same. Beat him and it counts.]

Truly incurable meritocrats.

'What are you two, the Acknowledgment Society?'

A wind swept across the field — whooooosh.

It felt eerily real. I glanced around nervously, playing anxious.

'...No walls. Can't send him flying, then.'

Oh Hyunsoo studied my expression and dropped into a crouch, poised to charge me at any instant.

The countdown echoed across the training grounds.

3

2

1

BZZZT—

The buzzer sounded, the earth groooaned, and Oh Hyunsoo came hurtling at me.

"Whoa."

My admiration was completely sincere. The sheer presence of it was genuinely badass.

Seeing me stand rooted in place seemed to fluster him instead.

[He's not running?! You little—!]

I charged him.

[?!]

The distance vanished in an instant. Before Oh Hyunsoo could even react, my hand closed around his collar.

'Can't send him flying, after all.'

I twisted my hips and drove a punch into his unguarded right flank.

KUUUUNG!

His massive weight-amplified body turned into one enormous resonating chamber, and the sound of the punch rang out loud and deep.

'There it is.'

The liver shot landed clean. I twisted my fist, buried precisely in his flank, and shoved it deeper in — then yanked his collar down hard.

Crack.

I felt ribs splinter against my knuckles.

I looked up.

Oh Hyunsoo stood with his eyes bulging, his mouth falling open in a silent ah—. The two arms that had meant to seize me and fold me in half dropped limply to his sides.