The reward for Main Quest #1, becoming the Special Scholarship Student, was a staggering seven days.
Giving up had never been an option from the beginning. I had merely been waiting for a chance to make contact, just in case.
“How dare you……”
Lee Taekjin roughly shook off my hand, his eyes filled with irritation and contempt.
His reaction was so vehement that one might have thought I had smeared filth on him, but……
[Keyword: Reason for successful Magic Crystal transplantation.]
[Search successful.]
[Reading as much information as possible.]
I had bought myself more than enough time.
After a brief delay, the change came.
WHOOOOOSH──────!
Mana drained from me as a violent headache struck. Then unfamiliar information began surfacing chaotically in my mind.
[Reading terminated due to insufficient mana.]
[Comprehension: 90%]
The realization came almost instinctively.
The knowledge of Magical Beast Studies that had been utterly nonexistent only moments ago now hovered faintly within my mind, however little there was.
Before it could fade, I spoke.
“It was not the recipients.”
“……?”
“The subject that changed was not the human body, but some of the Magic Crystals used in the experiment. Certain properties that had caused them to reject humans were altered. For example……”
Since I still needed to smooth over my sudden physical contact, I used what had just happened as an analogy.
I went on at some length, and although it was ultimately something I had improvised on the spot, the explanation came out reasonably coherent.
“Does that answer your question?”
I looked at Lee Taekjin with a much more relaxed expression.
The confidence on his face crumpled in an instant, like a scrap of tissue tossed into a trash can.
Well, that probably meant I was right.
“Was that really the answer?”
“How should I know?”
The students began murmuring at the unexpected turn of events.
“Did anyone actually know the answer?”
“Of course not. Who studies the latest developments in Magical Beast Studies?”
What began as a quiet commotion soon grew loud enough to ring in my ears.
“Quiet!”
Lee Taekjin raised his voice.
“……Unexpected.”
“Was I correct?”
“Your explanation was rough, but the direction was correct.”
He could have simply said yes.
Being able to phrase things that evasively was a talent in itself.
“……The second test will be conducted together with tomorrow’s diagnostic assessment. Its results will directly determine the selection of the scholarship students, so I suggest you do your best.”
Lee Taekjin turned sharply and strode away.
Was that it?
The situation had ended successfully, yet something still felt strangely unresolved.
Then Lee Taekjin, having already recovered his characteristic expressionless face, handed me a small slip of paper.
“Ah, I nearly forgot. Student Park Hayul, three penalty points. You should pay the price for touching a professor without permission.”
“…….”
Of course.
I knew there was no way that man would simply let it go.
I did not care about my academic record anyway, so it hardly mattered.
“That concludes today’s schedule. Anyone wishing to change Systems should submit an application by six this evening.”
The orientation ended slightly later than scheduled.
Lee Taekjin left the classroom, shutting the door behind him with a heavy THUD.
“Damn, I thought my heart was going to stop. How are we supposed to put up with that for an entire year?”
“We will manage somehow. Let us go eat.”
The students who had been complaining soon brightened and began gathering their things.
A few glanced in my direction, but none came over to speak to me.
I also packed my belongings and prepared to leave.
My time was limited, and I had far too much to do.
FZZZT.
But the wavering sight before me stopped me in my tracks.
[Achievement-431: Become Professor Lee Taekjin’s Foil.]
[Reward: 15 hours added.]
[Time remaining: 1 day, 15 hours, 4 minutes.]
[You have earned 10 SP (Story Points) for a satisfying development.]
[Current SP: 10]
An achievement?
Apparently, certain actions could grant additional rewards……
Receiving fifteen hours for free was already a considerable gain, but the final message caught my attention even more.
Story Points……
Was that not also part of the Main Quest reward?
It could not have been a coincidence that I suddenly remembered the message from 4885.
Survival and a satisfying progression. Remember only these two things.
“Then survival means my remaining time, and a satisfying progression means……?”
I had thought this would be a long journey.
Until now, it had been like walking through pitch-black darkness.
A night so deep that not even moonlight could seep through, leaving me unable to see a single step ahead.
And then, with a click, a streetlamp had finally come on to illuminate the road before me.
***
Pleasant sunlight poured down, accompanied by a mild spring breeze.
Once the orientation ended, Taehak came alive for the first time in a while.
The grounds were filled with cheerful chatter and bursts of laughter.
Joo Arin and her friends were no exception, chattering endlessly about what had happened earlier.
“But seriously, what is with that Park Hayul guy?”
“What about him?”
“I mean, I did not even know someone like him was in our year. Did you see him saying whatever he wanted right in front of Lee Taekjin?”
“Yeah, I saw. ‘I believe I can prove that through ability, so I do not think you need to concern yourself.’ Like that.”
“Hehe. It was a little embarrassing, but he did have a certain presence.”
“Right? I was not the only one who thought so, was I? His family is respectable, and he is tall……”
“And what else?”
“His face too……”
“What? So it is his face again after all?”
“Hey! It is not like that!”
Everyone looked intrigued.
Everyone except one person, whose expression remained indifferent.
“Arin, what do you think?”
Walking beside them, Joo Arin answered in a tone as dry as her expression.
“Not interested.”
“Why? He is handsome.”
“Not my type.”
“His family is not bad either.”
“That makes it worse.”
Her attitude remained as unwavering as a solid bedframe.
If anything, she seemed displeased by her friends’ interest. She furrowed her elegant brow and continued.
“You all know he is ranked seven hundredth, right? If someone from a prestigious family is doing that badly, does that not tell you enough?”
“Tell us what?”
“Never mind. Just stop paying attention to him. He is not a good person.”
Joo Arin’s attitude was more than merely frustrating.
She sounded like someone who knew something the others did not.
“Hmm. Arin, you are suspicious. You know something about him, do you not?”
“Oh, right! You are both from prestigious families! Have you already met at some social gathering or something?”
Having found something to tease her about, her friends erupted into excited squeals, but Joo Arin simply lifted her chin and strode ahead.
“I do not know. I have never met him.”
“Hey! Are you not eating with us? A good French restaurant opened nearby!”
“I am busy since it is the first day of the semester. I also have to prepare for tomorrow’s diagnostic assessment.”
It was not an excuse she had made up on the spot.
Joo Arin truly was one of the busiest students at Taehak.
Her appearance, family, grades—
Everything about her ranked among the best, yet she had never once allowed herself to become complacent.
That was partly because of her family’s harsh traditions and partly because of her innate ambition, but most of all because she considered such effort an obvious duty.
A kind of noblesse oblige.
The dignity she could never lose as a member of a prestigious family.
The lofty pride that could never be allowed to bend.
She tempered herself relentlessly for the sake of both.
***
Meanwhile, with the diagnostic assessment only a day away, the physical training room was packed with students steeling themselves for the test.
“Whoa, is he lifting that without using any mana?”
“Hey, look beside him. Lee Daeho is not losing in strength either.”
At one end of the room, where the atmosphere was particularly heated, two of Taehak’s most famous students, Baek Sayoung and Lee Daeho, were locked in competition.
The barbell had been loaded to such an extreme weight that it was enough to inspire outright envy.
Both of them held on, their arms trembling violently, enduring and enduring until—
BOOM.
As though they had agreed beforehand, they lowered the weights at exactly the same time.
Baek Sayoung wiped away his sweat with a groan.
“Wow. I cannot keep up with your strength.”
“What? Are you seriously saying that to my face? At your weight class? What kind of training did you even do during the break?”
“You already know my usual routine. Want me to recite it for you?”
Lee Daeho stood a full head taller than Baek Sayoung.
He was an elite student himself, ranked fifteenth overall, but even he finally raised both hands in surrender.
“Forget it. What is the point of hearing it? It will only make me hate myself. Let us go to the lounge. It was technically a draw, but it feels like I lost, so I will buy the drinks.”
“Sounds good. We can rest and do one more set afterward.”
“You lunatic.”
Baek Sayoung grinned at the grumbling Lee Daeho.
“If we are going, let us hurry. Cheon Seoyoon will be here this afternoon. Once she arrives, we really will not get any rest.”
“……Ah. Cheon Seoyoon? She skips class but still comes to train?”
“She had circumstances this morning. Why? You do not like it?”
“Why would I? Another training-obsessed lunatic is joining us…… Ah, not a guy, I suppose. Anyway, that makes one more maniac. She will probably demand that we train until dawn again.”
The two bickered as they headed toward the lounge beside the training room.
After buying a canned drink each, they sat in a quiet corner.
Their conversation passed from the diagnostic assessment to the unexpected incident earlier that day.
“Do you not think Professor Lee Taekjin went too far?”
“With what?”
“That nasty question he gave as the first test. Baek Sayoung, you did not know the answer either, did you?”
“Of course not. Magical Beast Studies is one of the subjects I dislike too.”
GULP.
Baek Sayoung took a sip of his drink and recalled the question Lee Taekjin had posed.
In truth, it had strayed far from its supposed purpose.
Despite claiming to test basic proficiency, it concerned an area that would have been nearly impossible to answer without prior knowledge.
“But how did Park Hayul know? He really is as strange as the rumors say.”
“Strange?”
“Yeah. I heard about him from a friend who was in the same class as him in first year. Apparently, he stayed shut inside his dormitory and barely even attended class…… Anyway, it sounds like he was not exactly normal.”
“Is he sick?”
“Maybe? But I do not understand why someone like that would apply for the scholarship. He comes from a prestigious family, so he should have plenty of connections available to him.”
“Well, he probably has circumstances we do not know about. He has not been selected yet either.”
“True. He probably will not make it.”
Objectively speaking, Park Hayul’s chances of being selected were close to zero, so there was little point in discussing him any further.
“But you know……”
“What?”
“Today really was the first time we met Park Hayul, right?”
“What? Why are you asking me? You were in different classes before, and you were not in any of the same clubs. Unless you met him personally somewhere, today should have been the first time.”
“Hmm……”
“Why?”
“His build and voice just feel strangely familiar……”
“Maybe you saw him on television. Perhaps there is an actor who looks like him. That bastard is handsome, after all.”
Baek Sayoung frowned slightly, then waved it away as though it were nothing.
“Anyway, never mind. I was probably imagining things.”
“What was that about?”
“Let us get up. We have rested enough.”
“A-Already?”
“Yeah. Resting too long only makes it harder.”
Baek Sayoung stood first and casually extended a hand toward the trash can.
WHOOSH—
The crushed can was drawn cleanly into it, landing so perfectly that a hole-in-one would have seemed unimpressive by comparison.
***
The classroom was empty after everyone had left.
I sat there alone, brooding in the gloom as I repeatedly considered possibilities, predictions, and assumptions.
In the end, I reached one conclusion.
I absolutely had to accumulate SP.
I still did not know exactly what it could be used for, but there was always a possibility.
Perhaps once I gathered enough, I might obtain information connected to Yoo Soyoung.
For even the slightest chance of that, quests and achievements had now become indispensable objectives that I had to complete without exception.
Even if it meant twisting the original story’s progression……
I had already been desperate before.
Now I was even more so.
“Let us hurry.”
I calmed my excitement and decided to focus solely on the Main Quest: becoming the Special Scholarship Student.
The selection method was simple.
Only the results of the diagnostic assessment would count, so there was no need to consider anything else.
Four students would be selected, meaning I only had to place within the top four.
Furthermore, because of today’s first test, the number of applicants had already been reduced to six.
The competition ratio was not even two to one.
“Hmm.”
Still, judging solely from the numbers would be misleading.
Baek Sayoung and Lee Daeho.
And the one who had been absent today.
Those three formidable applicants were as good as guaranteed spots.
Realistically, that left only one opening.
Tsk.
Once I laid it out like that, I was not very confident.
Confident that I could fail, that is.
No matter how I looked at it, the final spot belonged to me.
I knew the format of the assessment, and I had Manifestation.
It would actually be harder to lose.
If there was a problem, it lay not in the result but in the method.
In an official setting, I would have to rely on sorcery arts rather than weapon Manifestation……
I took the GripTok from my pocket.
The moment I attached it to the back of my phone, a bluish light began to shimmer.
[Launching the Integrated Academic System ‘Gauri.’]
[Name: Park Hayul]
[System: Superhuman System]
[Approved.]
As expected, I was still registered under the Superhuman System rather than the Sorcery Arts System.
Despite being a member of the Origin Sorcerer Family, Park Hayul had possessed no talent for its arts, so he had given up early and chosen a different System.
The fact that Acute Senses and Robust Recovery were both physical traits had probably influenced that decision as well.
“I should change Systems immediately……”
Once I had the rough outline of a plan, I checked which dormitory I had been assigned to.
I intended to drop off my belongings, head straight to the training grounds, and begin practicing in earnest.
Sorcery arts.
The essence of Eastern supernatural arts.
These days, they had been pushed aside by magic for being complicated and slow, but their destructive power surpassed virtually everything else.