I welcomed my first weekend at the Academy.
When the old, timeworn main gate opened with a creak, the sense of openness created by the training institution’s vast grounds washed over me.
After experiencing real combat, my world had taken another step forward.
‘How did I live without knowing this until now?’
I was trembling at the richness of the mana circulating throughout the Academy.
Uh, wait.
‘This makes me sound like Choi Jio.’
I suddenly remembered Jio solemnly tanning in the lounge yesterday and opened my eyes again.
THOOM-CRACKLE!
Mana was colliding and raining down here and there. Even though it was the weekend and there were no classes, many students were not resting.
‘They really are amazing people.’
One might ask what I was doing while living so leisurely amid all this, but.
‘It should be fine to go around now, right?’
That was something I would learn after hearing what Giselle had to say.
***
The place Giselle had made her residence was not very far.
‘She might as well put up a nameplate.’
The strong perfume scent leaking through the crack in the door did not merely numb my nose. It made my head spin.
Knock. Knock.
Before I could even finish knocking, the door flung open.
“......”
Giselle leaned against the doorframe and looked at me, wearing full makeup and an outfit that was burdensome in every sense.
“Let’s hurry and go out. I feel stifled.”
As Giselle stepped outside the door, she naturally tried to link arms with me.
“Is there no way for you to walk quietly?”
Since I had already read the flow of her mana, I could easily avoid the arm she tried to link with mine.
‘I didn’t think I’d use it in everyday life too.’
“Oh, you dodged?”
Giselle looked at me as if she found me cute, then walked ahead.
As if proving she was from the Academy, Giselle moved through the streets familiarly.
‘I’d been thinking I should come here at least once, and now I’m here like this.’
The place we arrived at was the central plaza, where a dining district and cafés had been set up.
The antique fountain carved at the center held a faint rainbow.
For someone like me, who had only been going in circles between the dormitory, classrooms, and infirmary, it was an unfamiliar place.
Giselle looked around with a bright smile and said,
“So it was true that this cohort is a bit different.”
There were quite a few people in the plaza.
‘More precisely, it means they have that much skill.’
In other words, it meant there were many people skilled enough to rest on the weekend.
Giselle took a seat on the terrace of a café that sold desserts.
“Oh? It’s Wonwoo.”
Because we sat on the terrace, we had no choice but to run into the kids. Their reactions were all similar.
They looked at me, then looked at Giselle seated across from me.
“Wonwoo really is different......”
“I heard a rumor he’s from the underworld.”
“Last time, with Instructor Wagner...... somewhere secluded.”
That never happened. Ah, I did go to a prison...... but let’s not bother explaining.
Still, one word bothered me.
‘Me, from the underworld?’
I had no connection to that at all, and to be precise, I did not even know what the underworld was.
Giselle grinned and said,
“What exactly have you been doing?”
When Giselle smiled and lifted her coffee cup, the male students’ gazes naturally followed her.
“......”
“......!”
It seemed conversation here would be impossible.
Normally, the kids were busy staying away from me because of my infamy...... no, because of their misunderstanding, but.
“......Let’s leave.”
The male students enchanted by Giselle were already half out of their minds.
Fortunately, as if the teasing was over, Giselle straightened her clothes.
“Can we talk for a bit?”
“Of course.”
“Any time.”
When Giselle spoke in a strange tone, the kids nodded as if bewitched and left.
After watching them and the surrounding students, Giselle changed her tone and said,
“......It’ll be hard. Hard enough that they’ll do anything to endure it.”
“I see.”
Her tone was quite serious. It was as if she were speaking about something she had experienced herself, so it had a pull to it.
“It’s an excuse that isn’t really an excuse, but that’s why I also put my hands on things. And the important part is......”
Giselle suddenly leaned her upper body toward me.
“It doesn’t matter as long as you don’t get caught.”
Only then did she grin again. For some reason, I had felt it would turn out like this, so I had mentally prepared myself and did not panic.
It was also something I already knew.
‘I have ears too.’
In the closed-off Academy, rumors spread at an incredible speed.
Students disciplined after trying to steal Academy-owned items.
Students disciplined after getting caught trying to steal answer sheets the day before a test in order to make up for their lack of practice with theory class.
I heard stories like that dozens of times a day. However, the training institution did not stop such behavior.
Apparently, Heroes had to know how to use every means available to them.
Instead, the moment one was caught, if it was severe, they were expelled, and if it was light, they were removed from the rolls. Through this, the Academy taught responsibility for one’s choices.
Come to think of it, at some point, Jio had secretly brought in exercise equipment from the physical training room and made a “home gym” in the dormitory lounge.
......But why does he not get caught for that?
“Ah, right! This is why we met, wasn’t it?”
Giselle took paper and a pen from her handbag, placed them on the table, and began drawing.
I stared at it, then nodded.
‘She draws well.’
She was drawing a simple map, and though it looked careless, it was fairly easy to understand.
“If you keep going northwest, there’s a ruin.”
Her explanation still had a pull to it, thanks to the acting ability and eloquence that had grown through transformation.
‘But this place.’
I briefly cut in.
“It doesn’t appear on the map, right?”
I had once seen a map of the inside of the Academy. Thanks to that, I could tell that the rough map of the Academy Giselle was drawing had an awkward part.
“Yeah, that’s right.”
“How did you find out about it?”
“Why are you asking something so obvious? Obviously, I found out while being chased. You seem smart, but you’re surprisingly odd in some ways.”
“......I’m odd?”
Who was calling whom odd? And since when did being chased after stealing become obvious?
Two male students seated far away whispered to each other.
“They say new goods are coming into the elixir storage tonight......”
“Yeah, we’ve already gathered the kids. We just need you to come.”
If it was obvious, they should have told me sooner.
In any case, Giselle neatly folded the map she had finished drawing and held it out to me.
“Choices come with......?”
“Responsibility.”
I took it as if it were only natural, tucked it into my coat, and continued speaking.
“And you can’t be protected. Right?”
Before coming to the Academy, I could proudly say I had been a fairly good son who did not do things I was told not to do.
‘If I came to the Academy, I should follow the Academy’s laws.’
So let’s call this a light deviation.
‘What could be there for her to say that?’
My curiosity had already been activated. In the end, what Giselle was saying was that the thing there carried an aura like the Divine Beasts.
Hmm, in preparation for getting caught, if I ended up getting caught.
‘Right. I’ll say the instructor told me to.’
With this, my safety device was fully prepared as well. Giselle, who had been observing me, spoke slyly.
“Should I go with you?”
“That is a bit......”
If I were alone with her in some secluded place that did not even appear on the map, who knew what would happen?
***
At some point, it was the time when everyone would be deeply asleep. After talking for quite a while, Giselle had told me about good places to eat around the plaza, so it had been a useful day.
‘I should bring the kids there sometime.’
And Giselle also confessed that the reason she had deliberately been mischievous with me was a shallow revenge for what had happened in the shopping arcade.
‘Should I get going soon?’
I got out of bed and put on a robe for the first time. It was a robe in the same style as Instructor Wagner’s. Thanks to that, it had neither a nameplate nor the Academy’s mark.
So as long as my face was not discovered, it was just an ordinary robe, and no one would know it was me. I carefully slipped out of my room and headed into the corridor.
To go down to the first floor, I had to pass Jio’s room.
For some reason, I was tense.
‘......He’s not there?’
But when I quietly listened, I felt neither a human presence nor mana.
‘Where did he go again at this hour?’
Jio was a fanatic who lived with his door open, saying that a great man did not close doors by nature.
“He really isn’t here?”
As expected, the bed that should have been filled by Jio’s huge body was empty.
I passed through the lounge decorated in Jio’s style and stopped for a moment before the shared entrance.
Now that this ordinary door had become the boundary line of deviation, my chest strangely tickled.
‘Is this why the instructor always says things are fun?’
My conscience pricked a little, but it was enjoyable and exciting. I even felt as if I understood why Giselle stole things.
Even if this was nothing much within the Academy, it held that much meaning for me.
“Let’s go.”
However, the moment I stepped out of the shared entrance, my spirited eyes trembled faintly.
“......!”
Because Jio was right in front of me. Of course, I was not surprised because I had been caught. I was simply dumbfounded.
Jio was carrying new exercise equipment larger than his own body on his shoulder.
‘So why doesn’t he get caught?’
He is the only student with a body this large, and he is carrying a machine that huge on his shoulder.
After a moment, we exchanged light eye greetings and naturally passed each other.
***
The magic stones in the streetlamps lit the Academy’s streets. I pulled the hood over my head and was dyed in darkness.
Step. Step.
Security patrols were making rounds here and there through the streets. Because of that, I activated the Heavenly Hound’s special ability in order to visualize the guards’ auras.
“......It changed.”
It was visualized vividly and colorfully. It was like the time when, as a child, I had begged just once and experienced a 4D movie for the first time.
‘So that’s how it is.’
It was a change that had occurred because I relied on mana and aura without depending on sight.
‘It still feels stiff for now.’
Even though the performance had improved, the stiffness remained. So, since I was confident I would not be caught right now, I had to break through the streets quickly.
I detoured while looking at the residual mana left in places the security patrols had passed. With my sharpened senses, I estimated their positions and drew the best route in my mind.
That was when I was feeling confident.
“Hey! I saw everything.”
A security guard’s voice came from beyond one block.
‘He saw me? No, was that even directed at me in the first place?’
Even as I wondered, I did not let my feet rest. I tilted my head while running even faster.
Because there was something Dad had told me when I was young.
-Wonwoo, there is nothing more foolish than stopping just because someone tells you to stop.
Of course, Mom had nagged him for teaching a child something so good, but she had not entirely let go of that claim until the end.
In many ways, they really had met well.
Suddenly, I heard another guard’s voice behind me.
“Hey, would anyone come out just because you said that?”
“No, when I did this yesterday, someone came out from way over there. I was more startled than they were. Heh heh.”
Even if they were Heroes, I thought places where people lived were all similar, and broke through the street.
***
This was my first time coming this deep alone.
‘I think I’m almost there.’
Since I felt neither human presence nor anyone else’s aura, I took off my hood.
For later, I withdrew the Heavenly Hound’s eyes and lit a faded lantern.
Flare!
A faint smell of lamp oil secretly circled around me.
I stopped walking for a moment and shone the lantern over the map Giselle had given me.
Giselle must have drawn the map while recalling memories of the past, yet the terrain matched as if she had drawn it while looking at it right before her eyes.
“She wants me to go in here, right?”
I held out the lantern and moved forward while lighting the way ahead. Then I encountered a sign with warnings written in various languages.
‘Looks like there really is something here.’
Because language magic was always operating throughout the Academy, it was not difficult to read.
The warning was concise.
-Shout right now! Thousands of ears will hear you!
‘This is ambiguous.’
That was not a thought I had because of the wording on the warning.
It was because I could feel a distinct aura inside the forest.
It was ambiguous whether it was the aura of a Divine Beast or demonic energy. Since the difference between the two beings was clear, this was my first time feeling such a neutral aura.
Even Kubanda, who had originated as a magical beast, was thoroughly marked by the aura of a Divine Beast.
‘How did Giselle end up all the way here?’
Just who had been chasing her?
Still, the fortunate part was that the neutral aura did not yet come across as a threat.
I passed the sign as it was and moved according to the map Giselle had given me.
“......Interesting.”
I had not even walked a few steps, but the drawing on the map began to warp as if it were being interfered with.
Just in case, I looked back. The path I had walked along was overgrown with grass and trees, as if it were a path I had never seen before.
However, I was still calm.
“This much is nothing.”
After all, this was what I had saved it for. Slowly, the faint clusters of moonlight and the surrounding scenery warped.
The Heavenly Hound’s eyes had not helped in the shopping arcade, but the situation was different now.
Because the grass and trees here had taken root in the earth’s mana and used mana as nourishment.
Petty auras were thick in the surroundings, but they could not blind my eyes.
‘Is this illusion magic?’
When I ignored the blocking trees and walked forward, they disappeared like fog clearing and coiled behind me.
It was the moment the Heavenly Hound’s special ability manifested.