After getting the living daylights beaten out of me by Professor Atra, my body was now a canvas of bruises, perfectly adorned from head to toe.
On the way back to the dorm, there weren’t many people around, which was nice, but with a face like a mottled mess, I was bound to draw unnecessary attention in class tomorrow.
I pressed down on the ice pack, and while it eased a bit, it was still a sight to behold.
At least I could hide my body under my clothes, but the face… oh boy.
“Looks like getting beaten up also requires skill…”
It might look like I’ve been randomly bashed, but upon closer inspection, my body was surprisingly intact.
Yes, there were bruises, but pressing the ice pack showed that nothing serious was wrong.
As the next day rolled around, the bruises began to fade. At this rate, they should completely disappear soon.
Still, my face was a mess, and I pondered my options. I thought about tossing on a hijab or something, but I decided to just go out as is.
I felt like it was overreacting; besides, regardless of whether I covered it or not, attention would be on me anyway.
Showing off my beaten face for the world to see? I decided to just suck it up. It’s not like it was an embarrassing injury; I got it from attending a class taught by a professor.
All through school, I felt the stares. I arrived a little late to class.
“Hayiul! Hey… Oh my goodness!”
Elia, who had arrived early, turned her head with a bright smile. But as she waved, her eyes froze on my face.
Her eyes widened as if she saw something horrifying, then she clamped her hands over her mouth, shooting up from her chair.
“Hayiul! What happened to you?!”
She leaped out of her seat, rushing over in a panic while everyone else’s attention shifted to me.
“What on earth happened?!”
With a look of deep concern, she examined my face, gasping in shock when she realized there were bruises not just on my face.
[It happened in class.]
“Excuse me… What kind of class was it…?!”
Elia’s lips quivered, and she clasped her hands together.
In that instant, I felt the flow of magical energy gathering. I reached for her hand.
“Hayiul?”
As she looked at me, puzzled, I shook my head, and she wore an even more confused expression. She backed away a few steps and tapped her smartwatch.
[You can’t heal!]
“??”
The confusion on Elia’s face only seemed to multiply.
“You can’t heal…? Why not?!”
[Because it’s a recovery training!]
“??”
Elia furrowed her brow, tilting her head. Her friends, who had jumped up with her, were also staring at us, puzzled.
“Recovery training? Is that even a thing?”
“I have different majors, so I wouldn’t know.”
“No way, do a lot of people actually do that?”
“…At least I haven’t seen it.”
Hearing their chatter, Elia’s expression turned even stranger.
“Isn’t it supposed to be a widely used training method?”
It was a method I started using in the second round, right after failing the first.
I was intentionally keeping my character’s HP low to gradually boost stamina, durability, and regeneration.
Back in the early rounds, with every second counting, it was a common training method.
But if you lowered it too much, you risked permanent HP loss, and if you couldn’t bring yourself to lower it at all, you wouldn’t get any benefits. Finding that sweet spot was essential.
Initially, I had my doubts, but I was following Atra’s advice.
That’s when I sensed Hong Yeon-hwa within my spatial awareness.
I felt her moving down the hallway towards the classroom.
– Click
Not long after, the back door swung open. Hong Yeon-hwa walked in, wearing her red jacket again, just like yesterday, looking around the room before her gaze landed on me.
A faint smile graced her lips as she approached.
“Hayiul! Good, uh… sneez-!”
– Thud
Her words stumbled as she caught sight of me. Whatever she was about to say dissolved into the air. It felt like a chill breeze suddenly swept through the room.
“……”
Her friends, who had been chatting, fell silent, panic written all over their faces as they shifted between me and Hong Yeon-hwa.
The previously bustling classroom was now deathly quiet. Not a single pin drop could be heard.
I was the cause of this silence, as an ominous energy surrounded Hong Yeon-hwa.
Everyone sensed it—there was a bomb ready to go off. Tension hung thick in the air as we all held our breath.
And I especially held mine now, staring her down.
Her expression turned cold, her eyes fiery like hellfire. If her gaze had been directed at me while open, I wouldn’t have been brave enough to meet it.
Hong Yeon-hwa’s mouth, previously a firm line, finally broke open. Rage had started to bubble just beneath the surface in her voice.
“Who did this?”
[Me?]
“What kind of bastard… did this to you?!”
For whatever reason, Hong Yeon-hwa held back her harsh words in front of me. Maybe she didn’t have the luxury to care about that at the moment.
“…Ugh.”
I noticed her softer demeanor, though I had some understanding of her indirectly worrying about me.
I had anticipated a reaction of some sort when I showed up like this, but this intensity was off the charts.
I could feel her gaze sharpen through my spatial awareness. The sound of her grinding teeth echoing in the silence, her hands trembling.
And the overwhelming heat of her magical energy—a flaming entity tightly coiled inside her, was unmistakable.
Her unique ability, Gop-hwa, inherently carried a fiery quality that was easy to distinguish.
Sure, there were others with similar magical fire, but it didn’t compare to Hong Yeon-hwa’s.
If others were torches, she generated a consuming flame that swallowed them whole.
There was a clear distinction that couldn’t be mistaken.
Hong Yeon-hwa’s Gop-hwa was something special, among all past holders, her output was extraordinary.
And right now, it was even more terrifying. The flames that had been erratic were now raging like a storm about to burst.
“Who did this to you?!”
Fire ignited in her eyes. A wave of fury fueled the flames that danced wild around her.
“Ugh…”
My face drained of color as the flames loomed menacingly in front of me.
My right arm began to ache.
– …!
Sudden childhood memories crashed back.
– …Damn it!
That day, flames surrounded me. The black ashes reaching up, obscuring my vision.
That day, my throat felt even tighter.
– Aaaah─!
It was the day my parents, who felt anything but parental, perished in the flames.
The scent of charred flesh filled the air, bringing an unsettling satisfaction.
I thought, good riddance, for the devil had what it deserved.
Flames had consumed my arm back then as well, but even amidst the destruction, there was a sliver of twisted joy.
– What the hell! Why is fire out of control…!
– Aaaaah! P-Please, save me─!
…It was the day I had once yearned for my parents’ love that ended in relentless flames.
That day.
As I flailed about, trying to shake off the flames licking at my right arm, it merged with the fire swaying before me.
Why were the flames dancing together? Was it because of some shared trait, like both being fire-related?
It was an unsettling moment.
Suddenly, the wild flames recoiled, retracting their ferocity.
The fiery anger began to simmer down, occupying the space where Hong Yeon-hwa stood, uncertain of what to do.
“Ah, ahh…! I’m sorry! I’m so sorry…!”
Hong Yeon-hwa waved her hands, her eyes a mix of anxiety, panic, and guilt, beads of cold sweat cascading down.
“I’m sorry for losing my temper…! It wasn’t aimed at you…! I just got too worked up…!”
The menacing atmosphere had dissipated in a flash, replaced by her frantic frenzy, and I was at a loss for words.
With a shaky breath, I nodded. My heart raced. I pressed my hands together against my chest. Honestly, I almost fainted standing there.
Confronting the wild flames face-to-face was terrifying enough, but feeling it through my spatial awareness and magical sensitivity made it all the more intense.
[It’s okay.]
After some time, my heart calmed down.
Even after I repeatedly assured her I was fine, it took a while for Hong Yeon-hwa to settle down.
What frightened me was how much more anxious she seemed than I was.
“…Recovery training? People are still using that old-school method?”
With time before class started, I had the chance to explain myself better.
I sat down, calming down Hong Yeon-hwa, who kept calling herself trash, and methodically broke down what had happened.
[Old-school?]
“Yeah. It’s not like I’ve never used that method…”
She frowned deeply.
“The efficiency is absolute trash. It’s absolutely… Uh, I mean! I misspoke! The efficiency is just really poor! People just stopped doing it these days.”
[Uh-huh.]
Hong Yeon-hwa, muttering like she was processing her emotions, panicked when she blurted out “absolute trash” and quickly sought to backtrack, checking for my reaction.
Why she felt the need to sugarcoat “absolute trash” into “really poor” baffled me.
It seemed uncomfortable to mask her words like that.
I continued to encourage her to speak candidly, but for reasons unknown, Hong Yeon-hwa kept insisting that it was a slip of the tongue and persisted in her overly refined manner of speaking.
“Is there an improvement in recovery? It’s not that there isn’t, but… is it even meaningful?”
[Oh, I see.]
So it was a method useful only at the beginning and not particularly effective.
She mentioned that you might hurt yourself more outside… resembling the original, where staying hurt risked permanent HP losses. I could confirm that later, it didn’t yield much effect.
“Yeah. Here it’s not entirely useless. It’d definitely be effective with growth bonuses. But if you’re asking if it’s necessary, then I’d say no.”
After wrapping up her explanation, Hong Yeon-hwa sighed heavily.
“Ugh… I’m really sorry about earlier. I lost control of my emotions… But are you really okay? It doesn’t hurt, right…?”
[It’s manageable. I’m not in that much pain, really.]
It’s like my soul is being pulled from my body, and I really want to run away. I questioned even needing to go through this.
But hey, you’re the expert here, right? You surely know better than a total noob like me…
“…So? What’s the professor’s name?”
As I organized my things, it seemed like I was finishing up. Hong Yeon-hwa, propping her chin on her hand while gazing my way, asked.
[Professor Atra Clyde.]
“Professor Atra, Atra… Okay, thanks for letting me know.”
I reflexively replied, but Hong Yeon-hwa nodded without making eye contact.
…Though her head was turned, I could sense her expression through my spatial awareness. There was an ominous coldness as she muttered something under her breath.
A chill ran down my spine.
I reminded myself not to ignore those instincts.
Just before coming to this world, I vividly recalled the frantic warnings to never hit the character creation button.
I sensed something eerie from Hong Yeon-hwa as she murmured in frightening tones.
So, during breaks, I desperately defended Professor Atra, insisting she was not to blame.
For the last couple of days, she had been doing her utmost to teach me about weapon handling.
I emphatically reiterated that this recovery training was an act I willingly participated in.
“Ah, I got it. I was just curious about the name…”
With my insistence, the chilling tension surrounding Hong Yeon-hwa seemed to diminish somewhat.
But as I continued to tease, perhaps out of irritation, her face flushed as she gestured for me to back off.
The growing sense of foreboding loosened its grip.
I didn’t know why I felt that way. But it would’ve been bad if I just let it be…
Letting out a small sigh of relief, I felt a wave of calm wash over me.
.
.
.
In the vast Old Training Ground.
Professor Atra handed me a long spear while wielding a magical staff in her other hand.
“Today, we’re practicing with spears.”
I accepted the spear with a blank expression.
Just one day, and the equipment had changed completely.
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