30. The Korokoro Tribe's Settlement (1)
After that day, Flame started keeping a strangely deliberate distance from me.
Naturally, a certain rumor began trailing behind it like a tail.
'Baek Yuseol and Flame broke up.'
Those two had always been stuck together,
so honestly, it would have been stranger if people hadn't noticed the odd sense of distance between them.
On top of that, Flame's expression somehow didn't look good either, and since she was someone who always gave energy to everyone around her with her bright and lively face, it was probably only natural that people started worrying when she suddenly looked as gloomy as someone who had been smashed hard in the solar plexus with a hammer.
Even when people asked her if something had happened, Flame herself denied it and said it was nothing, but when the dark circles under her eyes had sunken in that deeply, how could it possibly be nothing?
'They broke up.'
'They broke up.'
'She got dumped.'
Flame, who had been happily enjoying romance for several weeks straight, reveling in happiness, gets harshly dumped by her partner!
That was the picture forming in the minds of all the boys and girls.
'What? Those two broke up?'
'My god. They were acting like they were going to get married.'
'What happened? Who dumped who?'
'I heard Baek Yuseol dumped her. That's why Flame's practically dying these days…'
Since they had been such an unusually high-profile couple, the sudden breakup news spread faster than expected.
Of course, Flame and I both flatly denied it, but when we weren't even spending time together anymore and things had already turned awkward between us, denying it didn't mean much.
"Haah."
Well, the contract dating period was almost up anyway…
so it really was about time for us to break up.
Still, I never expected her side to end up moping like that.
'Is it really that shocking that I'm from Earth?'
Judging from her reaction, she definitely figured out where I came from.
But why was she reacting so excessively?
'No idea.'
A woman's heart was hard enough to understand, and hers especially so.
Then again, if I really understood women that well, I would've had a girlfriend ages ago.
A real girlfriend, not a fake one like Flame.
What was the point of agonizing over it?
Still, honestly, it didn't matter that much.
Flame was someone I could trust.
Even if she figured out where I came from, she wasn't going to stab me in the back or anything.
'I almost want to just lay it all out and get it off my chest.'
Who I had been back on Earth, where I lived, what kind of work I did, what school I went to, which singers and celebrities I liked…
things like that.
Just sharing the same hometown made it ridiculously easy to form common ground, and there were countless stories you could tell while picking over old memories.
[There is insufficient Narrative Force.]
But that damned Narrative Force was the problem.
Even if I wanted to speak openly, it forcibly shut my mouth.
I had even tried asking why exactly I couldn't tell Flame where I came from, but no answer ever came back.
If not for that damned Narrative Force, I might've called her out somewhere long ago, cracked open a bottle of soju, and spent the entire night talking about Earth and reminiscing.
Anyway, that was that.
Now it was time to think about what came next.
First, the Aslan Seminar.
Honestly, as far as what happened there went, there was barely any room for dark mages to get involved, and most of it was just verbal sparring anyway, so there wasn't much I could prepare for.
A girl named Eizel and another named Selien were going to clash there…
but whether I'd even be able to step in and help in the middle of that was another matter.
More importantly, I thought it would be better to prepare the keyword item related to the 'ruins of Ancient Carmenset.'
Zeliel would probably stay quiet for about a month, but after that, she would definitely try to make my life miserable one way or another.
'I'm pretty sure one of the keywords drops in a dungeon somewhere…'
As I slowly searched through the [Dungeon] folder of the Bulbul Glasses, I found what I was looking for almost immediately.
[The Korokoro Tribe's Settlement]
The Korokoro Tribe.
If I remembered right, they were that unusual race with three horns on their heads.
It was recorded that at the far end of the settlement where they lived, one of the map fragments leading to the ruins of Carmenset would drop.
Estimated difficulty: Risk Level 4 If you're around Class 3, going in with a party is recommended If you gather three or four experienced people, you can clear it without a problem! Don't bring inexperienced people. If they troll at the final boss, it's seriously infuriating
Strategy Guide
If I had to compare my current level to that of other mages, I was probably around Class 3 at least.
Which meant that if I added just two or three more people, clearing that dungeon wouldn't be especially difficult.
Since Stella Academy cadets could submit an application for permission to personally conquer a dungeon just like official magic warriors, it was possible for students to tackle one together.
And didn't I happen to have quite a few capable Class 3 mages around me?
Dungeons were hard to discover, but their rewards were generous.
Not just in terms of money, either.
Dungeon-clear rewards could permanently raise things a mage absolutely needed, like increasing their maximum mana capacity or raising elemental affinity.
So if I dropped a proper hint, it wouldn't be hard to rope just about anyone in.
'Then the first person I should pull in is obviously…'
Ma Yuseong.
He was absolutely indispensable for dungeon runs as the meat shield…
no, the tank.
"You want to go to a dungeon?"
"Yeah. You got time?"
"Yup. Sounds fun."
Seriously, it was great how positive he was about everything.
He probably wasn't interested because of the dungeon rewards at all.
Most likely, the biggest reason was just that it "sounded fun."
Whatever the reason, it worked for me.
Next, I needed someone who could pour out explosive firepower from long range, and the person who came to mind first was Flame.
Unlike Hong Biyeon, she didn't have overwhelming destructive power, and unlike Eizel, she couldn't cover a vast area, but the utility of Radiant Magic was the best in the entire setting.
But that option was out.
There was no way I could coax her into going to a dungeon while she was over there moping around on her own.
So I went to find the next candidate I'd had in mind: Eizel.
"…A dungeon?"
"Y-Yeah."
She was in pretty terrible shape, writing something with a haggard face.
From a quick glance, it looked like she had been up all night organizing the paper she would present at the Aslan Seminar.
"It's going to be… a little difficult. I'm presenting a paper I wrote back at the entrance ceremony without any real knowledge… so I've got quite a lot of preliminary research to do…"
"…Looks like it."
At a glance, the sheer number of grimoires and major texts piled on her desk like a tower was enough to make your head split open.
"Let's go next time… next time…"
So there was no choice but to cross Eizel off.
The next candidate was Hong Biyeon.
For some reason, she looked to be in an extremely good mood, though her physical state wasn't much different from Eizel's.
"You want to go to a dungeon?"
"Yeah."
Unlike Eizel, who looked grimy because she had barely even washed, Hong Biyeon still looked remarkably neat even though she had also been studying through the night.
Apparently, she maintained herself thoroughly no matter what.
Aside from the faint dark circles under her eyes, there wasn't much about her that looked different from normal.
"…Right now, that would be difficult. The schedule's tight until the seminar."
"Yeah, well, can't be helped."
Her eyes moved between the grimoire and me, as if she found it regrettable somehow, and then she said in a subtly suggestive tone,
"Not this time, but next time, I could go with you…"
"Hm? I'm not going next time."
"…Then get lost."
"Oh. Uh… okay."
Leaving behind the suddenly icy Hong Biyeon, Ma Yuseong and I ended up wandering around.
The truth was, there were more than enough Class 3-level mages in S-Class.
The problem was that I wasn't close with most of them.
"Hey, you've got lots of friends, right? Anybody you can bring?"
"I do."
"Oh, really? Man, figures. Popular people really are different."
Ma Yuseong immediately headed somewhere.
The person he went to find was Hae Wonryang, who was in the training grounds releasing magic with all his might.
Boom, boom-boom!!
There was something strangely off about the sight of him blowing his magic apart violently while wiping away cold sweat.
'…Is that really only Class 3-level?'
The Hae Wonryang I knew was someone who reached Class 4 after Flame, Eizel, and Hong Biyeon.
Those girls were only just barely catching hold of the clue to Class 4 right now, so for Hae Wonryang to already be at that level…
'Is this the payoff for overcoming the dark-magic corrosion event?'
I didn't know for sure, but…
if Hae Wonryang had really reached Class 4, then among the first-years, he would currently have the strongest offensive power.
"…You want to go to a dungeon?"
"Uh-huh."
Ma Yuseong walked right up to him and made the suggestion, and Hae Wonryang looked between him and me.
Then he carelessly let out a single line.
"While some people are sick from heartache, others are casually planning dungeon raids?"
"It's not like I'm exactly at ease either…"
I looked at him with an expression that clearly said, So what's your answer?
After thinking for a moment, Hae Wonryang nodded.
"Fine. I had some magic I wanted to practice in live combat anyway."
Just like that, a three-man party for the dungeon raid was formed.
Break time between lectures.
Students usually returned to their classes to rest, but Stella had its cafes and gardens arranged so well that there were quite a lot of students who spent their time there instead.
Hae Wonryang went all the way into the farthest corner of Stella's western garden and found Flame, who had crawled all the way in there and hidden herself.
Perhaps it was fitting to call her a model student, because even while radiating gloomy energy and curling up her already small body like a shrimp, she was still clutching an ancient rune vocabulary book in one hand and glaring at it.
"…Flame, are you okay?"
He quietly sat down beside her.
She lifted her head to look at Hae Wonryang, then blinked those large eyes.
"Yeah. What is it?"
Unlike the way she had been dragging herself around for the past few days, she looked to be in fairly good condition.
"…Looks like you've thrown off whatever was weighing on you."
"I guess."
"Did something change in your state of mind in the meantime?"
"Mmm, yeah~ How should I put it? If he's trying so hard to maintain things between us, then me deliberately keeping my distance is just stupid, isn't it? So I'm going to go back to how things used to be."
She had done a lot of thinking.
She had even felt guilty.
Wasn't it possible that she had broken, in a single instant and on her own whim, all the effort he had put into trying so hard to keep his distance from her?
Even the act of entering into a 'contract relationship' must have gone against Baek Yuseol's beliefs and resolve.
But now that she thought about it again…
even if it had been nothing more than pretending to date, during those moments at least… Baek Yuseol had seemed like he was truly having a good time.
He had laughed even at the smallest things.
Most likely, back then, Baek Yuseol had not been thinking of the current her, but of 'another me.'
But that wasn't her.
That was someone else.
She could not have the exact same feelings as that other girl.
So—
back to how things used to be.
Just as Baek Yuseol had done all this time.
Go back to before the contract relationship that had been forced into motion by Jeremy's scheme, and just be ordinary friends.
He had worked to make that possible, so she would do the same.
…That was all.
And yet, even though she had decided that much, why did her chest keep feeling so tight and her head so complicated?
She didn't know the reason.
"So when you say you're going back to how things were…"
"Hm?"
Hae Wonryang glanced at her expression and then said,
"Does that mean… you're breaking up with him and becoming friends again?"
"Huh? Umm~ I guess it does~?"
"I see…"
"Well, let's not make it too serious. Want to go get something to eat?"
As Flame energetically rose to her feet and started walking ahead, Hae Wonryang followed after her.
She probably thought she had accepted the situation cleanly enough,
but in Hae Wonryang's eyes, watching from beside her…
it only looked like she was forcibly trying to erase a love still filled with lingering attachment.
Since I had a free period this afternoon, I had time to head out for a bit.
Lately, I had been coming to Iphanel's Garden fairly often.
More precisely, I had come to Ha Taeryeong's cave, which was connected to Iphanel's Garden.
There was a peculiar magical formation installed here…
or rather, something better described as an array formation, and it had an extremely beneficial effect on training a mana leakage constitution.
Below this cave, a dragon vein flows.
This is a phenomenon entirely different from what mages call a 'mana vein.'
A dragon vein is a place reached by the flow of heavenly qi, a place where the earth exhales its breath, and a place like the very root where all life begins.
In other words, for one with a mana leakage constitution who must absorb the qi of nature, this will be a truly heavenly training ground.
Look closely at the floor.
I have drawn a special formation there in order to gather the energy of the dragon vein into a single point.
Only while standing upon this will you be able to sense a part of heavenly qi as well, and sink into nature on a deeper level.
However, there is one thing you must take care with.
The moment you sink too deeply into it…
you will become completely one with nature.
That is to say, you will die.
I was fortunate enough to avoid that fate because an excellent partner helped me train, but whether such a fortunate encounter will also reach you who read this is unknown.
Please take care not to lose yourself.
Ha Taeryeong had kindly left behind not only an explanation of how to use the formation, but also warnings.
Honestly, the part about becoming one with nature and dying was a little terrifying, so until now I hadn't tried it.
It's not as if I were some wuxia protagonist who could suddenly attain enlightenment and succeed in a training arc to find myself in one go.
But as Ha Taeryeong had written, if there was an 'excellent partner,' then there would be no problem.
Ah, this! It's been a while!
In other words, if I had Iphanel's help, it was perfectly fine.
I liked this too~
"Why?"
Because every time I did this, I got stronger too!
"Really? That's kind of unusual."
Did the dragon vein have some kind of effect on divine beasts too?
Since Ha Taeryeong was the only person in this world who knew how to control a dragon vein using an array formation, even checking the Bulbul didn't turn up anything.
We were going to the dungeon this weekend, so until then, I intended to keep training hard and continue practicing until I could activate Taeryeong Divine Art whenever I wanted.
Even now, activating Taeryeong Divine Art required me to stand completely still and concentrate for at least ten seconds, and even if I did activate it, it would break the instant I made a violent movement like swinging a sword.
A disastrous level, really—too pathetic to use properly in live combat like a dungeon.
So even if it was a little dangerous, I had to use the dragon vein and get stronger as quickly as possible.
Just as I was about to step onto the dragon vein, I looked toward the strange sword embedded at the center of the storage space.
'Ha Taeryeong's swordsmanship~? That's in the storage too.'
'Huh? But there wasn't a sword manual.'
'There is! Ha Taeryeong said he sealed all of his swordsmanship into the sword itself!'
'Sealed it into the sword…?'
'Yeah, yeah. But he said someone who isn't qualified won't even be able to hold it.'
There was a strange barrier spread around that sword, which was filled with an unusual aura.
So unusual and bizarre that even the Bulbul Glasses couldn't interpret it…
That wasn't magic.
In the present age, things that were not magic were often described with words like 'non-magic' or 'mystery,' and those terms fit it perfectly.
But if someday I became qualified—
then I would be able to learn the 'Anti-Magic Battle Swordsmanship' created by the ancestral swordsman Ha Taeryeong.
When that day came…
I might be able to grow far faster and far stronger than 'Baek Yuseol the game character' ever did.
With that day in mind, I threw myself into the dragon vein.
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