Something had gone wrong with his body. The point at which Pyo Do-hyeok noticed that fact was the moment he had just stepped through the dormitory's rear door.
"Cough!"
The fellow who was the cause of the incident, whom he could not bring himself to leave to die and so had dragged along by force, collapsed as if tripping. The lobby lights connected to the rear door lit the fallen cadet's face.
'His skin is——'
He was rotting alive. No, he had already rotted and festered. Black blood streamed out between his parted lips.
"Kuhak!"
Nor was that all. Among the cadets who had run ahead, someone came staggering too.
Seeing that, Pyo Do-hyeok reflexively stopped his steps. It was fortunate, rather.
Right after, even his legs threatened to give out. Had he not been in a halted state he would certainly have fallen.
"Wh-what is it?"
"What's wrong with you lot?"
At that scene the few cadets passing through the lobby tried to come closer.
That must not happen. In preparation for any possibility every cadet had to keep distance from the rear door.
"Run, run away!"
Pyo Do-hyeok forced strength into his legs and shouted. That alone made his head feel as though it were spinning.
"A Yeom, a high-risk Phantasm is rampaging!"
"What!?"
"Get away at once! And, a discipline officer! Where is the discipline officer!"
Stagger. His body finally tried to buckle.
"What, what are you talking about?"
"A discipline officer? Uh, where were they again?"
"What? What's going on?"
"Huh, what are they doing over there."
Meanwhile even the lounge connected to the lobby grew noisy. The problem was that five or six cadets had collapsed as a group and yet somehow not one person felt any sense of crisis.
Nor was there even a quick-witted cadet who would immediately call a discipline officer.
"Wait, isn't that blood?"
"Insane! Hey! Call an instructor!"
"The medical corps! Contact them!"
Only after approaching to close range did someone properly recognize the situation. It was only after coming within 5m that they realized the others had not simply fallen but had collapsed vomiting blood.
Dim as the lighting by the rear door might be, they were too dull.
"The discipline officer? He isn't at his post?!"
"The medical corps! How do we contact the medical corps!"
"Wh-where is the radio?!"
One minute thirty seconds to here. But the commotion might spread, and yet there was no feeling that it was heading toward being resolved.
Panicking over the fallen cadets, being at a loss, or trying to find a way and floundering for lack of ability — that was all of it.
His field of view began to dim and dim.
'......No!'
In that moment, Pyo Do-hyeok struck his own cheek. Only after a stinging pain had spread did his mind clear a little.
'I cannot let him die!'
Ya-hwi was a member of the same squad. What's more, he was a good fellow who always volunteered to be the one who stayed in a dangerous moment.
Even the discomfort he felt toward him was merely an emotion arising from Pyo Do-hyeok's own inadequacy; it was not as though Ya-hwi had done anything wrong.
So he had to be saved. In fact, even had he not been a good fellow, that was what one ought to do. That was the value Pyo Do-hyeok had been taught all his life.
"Move!"
Talk to the cadets here for a hundred days and they will only be thrown into confusion; not one of them will do it properly.
Having learned that fact at the cost of a full two minutes, Pyo Do-hyeok struck away the hands trying to help him and rose on his own.
"Hey, you have to get to the medical corps right——"
The kids are making this much of a commotion and still nobody is coming out. Which means the discipline officer is not where he ought to be.
In that case must he rummage through this enormous building looking for a discipline officer? When there is no telling when or where he will be found?
'If he is not at his post...... then I will simply make him come out.'
Pyo Do-hyeok chose his partner Phantasm and then flung to the floor the piece of raw radish he always carried.
Then he put on the Ox-Head Mask he carried at his waist. At once his body turned into a bull.
"Uh, uh-uh!!"
The dormitory had alarms installed in preparation for cadets making trouble with Phantasms.
That was exactly what Pyo Do-hyeok was aiming at. Since a Phantasm is a thing that could blow away the building itself if handled poorly, once the alarm sounded the discipline officers would have no choice but to come running at once.
Mooooooooo!
The problem was what sort of trouble he had to make for the alarm to go off, but.......
In a state of rotting alive, deep thought was beyond him. Pyo Do-hyeok decided to go simple.
CRASH!
"Wh-what's he doing!"
"Kyaah!"
He charged the wall. Wounds taken in the bull state persist even after returning to human form, but that was not enough to make him afraid.
CRASH! CRASH! CRASH! With a force fit to break his bones, he threw his whole body against the wall.
"What is going on here!"
He did not know how much time had passed. In truth he had forgotten by now how many times he had struck the wall.
The pain was so intense that nothing remained in his head but the thing he had to do.
"One cadet, is buying, ti——"
But he had done it. That much was certain.
Watching the discipline officers run off with radios in hand, Pyo Do-hyeok let his consciousness go.
.
.
.
"......is the whole of my memory."
"I see. I express my thanks for your cooperation, Cadet Pyo Do-hyeok."
Pyo Do-hyeok looked at the investigators who had descended on his hospital room.
It was an investigation that had driven in without a moment's rest, but he did not think them harsh. If what he remembered was correct, this situation more than warranted it.
"Um, may I ask what the state of the damage is?"
Instead, Pyo Do-hyeok asked the matter he had been curious about ever since waking. It seemed not to be a difficult question, because the investigator answered at once.
"All affected cadets have now completely recovered, and there are no fatalities either."
That was quite a fortunate thing. Pyo Do-hyeok was relieved for now.
"That fellow. No, is Cadet Ya-hwi all right as well? Since he remained to the last and faced the Yeommae, his injuries would not be slight......"
But at this question the investigator flinched for a moment. It did not feel like a very good sign.
The sound of his heart filled the inside of his skull with an aching thud.
"He is a cadet strong enough to kill a Yeommae. It is good of you to be concerned, but there is no need to go looking for worries."
"......Pardon?"
Fortunately the answer that came back was positive. In kind, at least.
At the unexpected word 'kill,' Pyo Do-hyeok's hand reflexively curled into a fist.
〚In your class there is one great tree that will hold up the Hwadam Army hereafter. There is no need to be close to him, but conduct yourself so as not to earn his hostility.〛
Along with it, the words his mother had left about 'Ya-hwi' before enrollment filled his head. It was a single remark he had barely managed to forget.
"Is that...... so."
He had known that fellow was a genius.
Not necessarily because of his mother's words. From the special treatment that was not special treatment, to the 'presence' he had experienced during the Live Combat class, there was no way not to know.
That was talent, and that was strength.
"Truly...... nothing comes out but the word amazing."
But every time he felt that genius in this fashion, Pyo Do-hyeok became as though the inside of his belly were boiling.
Jealousy, inferiority, self-reproach...... it was a sensation not explained by such words.
The feeling was strange.
〚Fall back at once! If you don't want to die!〛
But for Ya-hwi to be simply hated for that fact, he was too good a fellow.......
"What you accomplished is also a great thing. So do not feel too deprived."
Listening to the investigator's consolation that was not consolation, Pyo Do-hyeok made his decision anew. He resolved once again to maintain the attitude with which he had been treating Ya-hwi all along.
After all, the discomfort he felt toward Ya-hwi was of a sort that would never be resolved, and even so he could hardly hate so good a fellow.
In a situation like this, simply opening the distance was best. So that he would not be caught up in this emotion, and so that he would not needlessly become a nuisance to that good fellow.
"You know, today the visiting restriction was lifted? And the moment it was, the instructors came looking for me like mad."
So from now on too he must open the distance.......
"They even came in a horde at lunchtime and pitched their clubs at me."
Open......
"Ah, you know it's club recruitment season from this week, right? Is there anywhere you've thought of going?"
One hour since he had resolved not to get entangled.
Pyo Do-hyeok looked at the person chattering in front of him and sank into thought for a moment.
"The club I wanted to go to happens to have an instructor who got into a fistfight in front of me. So I don't know whether I should go."
Why on earth is this fellow here?
***
"......That is a shame. But why are you telling me that."
I am currently visiting Pyo Do-hyeok's hospital room.
"Because you're the only cadet worth meeting in this hospital, and as it happens I was wanting to get closer to you?"
I say it again. I am currently visiting Pyo Do-hyeok's hospital room.
"Why the expression, Mr. Pyo Do-hyeok? Have I said something I shouldn't?"
"......Haaah."
Pyo Do-hyeok let out a long, long sigh over me. An expression of 'I have nothing to say' was a bonus, and since it happened to be an expression made by Pyo Do-hyeok it was a little funny.
So this son of a bitch does have facial muscles.
"I brought chicken too. Give me a break."
"......I never wanted chicken."
"But it tastes better than hospital food, right?"
Pyo Do-hyeok made a face lost for words again, but I was unabashed. Because the Hwadam Army hospital's food was, in the end, nothing but hospital food.
"Go."
"Ah, play with me a little. I've been really bored all this time."
Pyo Do-hyeok wouldn't know. Since he's in the position of having collapsed on Friday night and woken on Monday morning.
But I was fully conscious that entire period. Meaning I was shut in for three days fully conscious.
There's a limit to exchanging news with the kids by text, and for me, who is sick to death of hospitals, it was time no different from hard labor.
"I am not your friend."
"I know that. That's why I'm working hard at buttering you up right now, to become one."
"What the——!"
The visiting restriction was lifted as of today. But what use is it when the permitted visitors are limited to instructors?
In the end there was not much I could choose from as I was. Nothing but playing with someone hospitalized in a room on the same corridor — movement that far was permitted.
"Do you...... do you have no sense at all? I do not like——"
"I know. I want to get closer even though I know."
The problem was the occupants of the rooms on the same corridor...... however bored I might be, I do not lack enough spine to hang around with the bastards who attacked me. So it was Pyo Do-hyeok.
"You're the one who first showed me that you can set personal feelings aside for a public matter. That you can be trusted with something that has a life riding on it."
"......!"
Of course Pyo Do-hyeok does belong to the cadets who do not like me...... but is that a big deal? When I heard he crushed his own head in order to save me?
"Would a person who showed this even in an accident act differently in actual combat? I don't think so."
In fact, even if Pyo Do-hyeok had not gone that far, I would have survived fine on my own. That is what actually happened.
But does that make the fact that Pyo Do-hyeok cracked his head open for my sake disappear? It does not.
I think that is a part that absolutely cannot be dismissed.
"I know you dislike me. But I still want to get closer to you."
Above all...... where will you find a comrade as dependable as a fellow who can stake even his life for a person he does not even like?
Have one friend like this and military life would be truly dependable. At the very least, when I go out on an operation with him I won't have to worry about him betraying me.
"#@%@#$%!!"
At my words Pyo Do-hyeok suddenly began to leak sounds that were neither one thing nor the other.
Whether because of the blond-and-blue-eyes combination, or because of an inborn air of good breeding.
Even such strange behavior did not look all that much like a madman's. At most the only gag that came to mind was, is this a young master with no immunity to compliments.
"Mm. Do you find me horrific to the point of loathing, by any chance? If that's the case I'll back off."
They say there is no tree that will not fall after ten strokes, but I do not much like that saying.
Meaning that if the reason Pyo Do-hyeok dislikes me is the sort that can be resolved I will make the effort, and if it cannot be, I will withdraw cleanly.
"......"
Whether that meaning was conveyed properly, Pyo Do-hyeok flinched.
"......First of all, it is not that I dislike you."
"Then? If it's something that can be resolved I'd like to try resolving it."
"That...... is not a problem originating from you. So your efforts are meaningless as well."
"Okay. Then may I ask where it does originate from?"
At my words Pyo Do-hyeok gripped the blanket covering him tightly. The already white backs of his hands went pale enough to look blue.
"......It is my problem. So just give up. Everything is because of my own pettiness."
So that's how it is.
In fact I had expected as much. From a rough look he seems to have a character thoroughly strict about separating public and private, and someone of that type didn't seem likely to dislike me for a petty reason.
"That I cannot control a single emotion is my own failing, but there is no reason for you to bear it. For your own sake, just give——"
"Wait. Then keeping your distance was consideration for me too? You really are a good fellow."
"......!!"
If Pyo Do-hyeok had made an excuse of himself I would have given up quickly enough. But even this was consideration for my sake?
At that point, human psychology being what it is, you want to give up even less.
"Hey, actually, I didn't just bring chicken as the friendship fee, I brought some decent news too."
"What on earth is a friendship fee——"
"The instructor in charge of the Phantasm Research Society club says if there's a Phantasm you want, write a request form and submit it. He said he'd show them to you as far as possible."
"......What?"
"For the record he said amorphous-type and phenomenon-type are possible too. How about it? Won't you go and apply together?"
Amorphous-type and phenomenon-type Phantasms do not come out at the first-semester Selection Ceremony in first year. Meaning there are heaps of individuals whose compatibility Pyo Do-hyeok has not been able to check.
"I hear people like you have insanely high compatibility with specific individuals. The so-called type whose power is the strongest once they find their match?"
Of course, finding a match would not mean he could contract right away. Considering the incident that broke out on Friday, merely showing a large number of Phantasms to a first-year meant the club instructor was taking on plenty of risk.
"So let's give it a try. It's no loss to do it."
At my words Pyo Do-hyeok repeatedly opened his mouth, shut it, and opened it again. It was a unique expression.
"......The instructor? The instructor made such an offer?"
"More of a sales pitch than an offer? Along the lines of, we can do this much for you so please come to our club?"
"Wait, that is a transaction in the end!"
"Huh. Why is this a transaction. I never asked him to do that. I never promised I'd join if he did it, either."
"Even so, that, that is all a debt! Don't you know that a debt of obligation of this sort is the most dangerous kind?!"
"I-is that so?"
Is this something grand enough to be called a debt? It doesn't seem so.......
"But even if I owe it, it's me who owes it. Why are you bothered?"
"No......!"
Pyo Do-hyeok pressed a hand to his own forehead as if exasperated.
I thought I understood how he felt, but I did not bother adding more words. Having said until a moment ago that he was uncomfortable, the fact that he could not stand by and watch me take a loss was really funny.
"......I dislike it because it is a privilege."
"Oh, is this a remark sniping at me?"
"That is not what I—— It is simply that I am a Pyo......!"
"What's special about being a Pyo?"
This is a question I ask sincerely not knowing.
Since I am in the position of having been possessed into the middle of things, there are occasionally bits of near-common knowledge I lack. And the previous Earth and this Earth don't have completely identical histories either.
"......My mother is an active-duty soldier."
"Aha."
Pyo Do-hyeok, wearing the expression of a man who has much to say but cannot bring himself to say it, produced a plain answer. That alone was roughly enough to convince me.
Active-duty people ought to be careful with one another. What's more, at our parents' generation their ranks would be considerable.
"But hold on, a privilege dispute comes up even over a thing carried out by collecting the whole first year's opinions? The Hwadam Army really is uptight."
"Wait. The whole first year?"
"Hm?"
"......It is not that they are collecting only your personal opinion?"
"Aha?"
The moment I heard that I understood the situation. No wonder he was being so touchy about debts and privileges — it was all a misunderstanding caused by a gap in perception.
Right, realistically there is no way this could be a debt or a privilege.
"I put it a bit strangely. Sorry."
"No, no. I was too sensitive."
With the misconstruction that had caused the mismatch resolved, silence pooled for a moment. It was an inevitable awkwardness.
"So-o, are you really not interested? If your surname bothers you that much, just submit your opinion anonymously. Then nobody can say anything."
"That...... would certainly be all right."
"Oh, good. Then we're going together?"
"......"
Was it that he was embarrassed at having misunderstood. Pyo Do-hyeok no longer refused my proposal.
For me that was a positive thing.
"......But is there anything in this club that would be of benefit to you?"
"Hm?"
"You already have the Twin Dragon Swords. If it is because of me——"
"Your self-love is tremendous. Thinking I'd decide a club over you alone."
"Th-that is not what I meant——!!"
"I'm joking."
This son of a bitch Pyo Do-hyeok. A character just right for teasing.
Of course, tease him too much and Pyo Do-hyeok would raise again the hurdle he had gone to the trouble of lowering, so I hurriedly spat out an explanation.
"I do have another club in mind. But it's also true I have business with the Phantasm Research Society."
"Business, meaning?"
"This."
I tapped the swords I had brought all the way to Pyo Do-hyeok's hospital room.
"It's a 'research' society in name, isn't it. Then couldn't I get some help with how to handle the Twin Dragon Swords too?"
However strong the Twin Dragon Swords may be, if I cannot handle them it means nothing.
As it happened, the Phantasm Research Society was a club that had appeared in the original as well. There was no reason not to use information I had.
"Even for a hundred battles undefeated, knowing yourself and your enemy comes first."
To live the life I want, I still had to get stronger.
Tab 26