Several hours had passed since the virtual Gate’s backflow occurred.
Having no other choice, Han Oseong sent the students back first. In the virtual Gate training room, only Han Oseong himself, the vice principal, the virtual Gate inspector, and a few teachers remained.
The first to speak was the vice principal.
“……What happened with the request for support?”
A few minutes earlier, the vice principal had requested support from several guilds, clinging to the faint hope that Kang Daehyun might somehow still be holding out.
After all, they could not even enter the Gate in the first place, but he thought that official Superhumans active in guilds might somehow be able to do something.
“……Most said they could not come, and a few ignored the contact entirely.”
The female teacher in charge of contacting support lowered her head as she spoke.
The vice principal had expected that result as well, so he merely nodded.
‘The school is small, and above all, they must not feel it is worth coming.’
He was not a promising talent. He was merely one Superhuman student.
There was no merit for the guilds to set aside their busy schedules and come.
After all, guilds were also entities like companies that operated for their own profit.
“However…….”
Just as he was about to give up, the female teacher cautiously began speaking.
“It was not a guild, but there was one Superhuman nearby who said she would come. She is S-rank…….”
“……!”
Unexpected support.
Not A-rank, but S-rank! A celebrity whose face was difficult to see under most circumstances.
“Then we have to call her! Call her immediately!”
“The thing is…… that person is Superhuman Lee Mina.”
“…….”
The vice principal’s expression twisted.
S-rank Superhuman Lee Mina. The one people called the Crimson Witch.
She was not affiliated with a guild, but she was a kind of mercenary who received payment to work wherever she was needed.
‘……That terrifying woman.’
The vice principal seemed to hesitate for a moment, then immediately nodded and opened his mouth.
“Call her.”
“Yes, understood.”
After hearing his answer, the female teacher immediately tried contacting her on her smartphone.
After saying “Yes, yes,” and “Thank you,” a few times before ending the call, she calmly spoke to the vice principal.
“She says she is coming. She said she will arrive in a few minutes, so please wait a little…….”
CRACKLE—!
At that moment, the rift reacted intensely, and sparks flew.
“Hmm.”
Along with a low hum, someone began emerging from the rift.
“I suppose I did fairly well, all things considered.”
It was Kang Daehyun.
***
Daehyun lightly shook his head as he exited the Gate.
Perhaps because he had used too much Divine Power, his head ached as if it would split apart, and his whole body refused to listen, as if it had gone numb.
“I am so tired I could die.”
When he struggled his way out of the rift like that, the students were already nowhere to be seen, and people who looked like teachers were staring blankly at Daehyun.
“Y-you……”
“……Could it really be Kang Daehyun? Are you the Healing-Type student Kang Daehyun?”
A half-bald middle-aged man and a woman holding a phone stammered as they looked at him, but Daehyun tilted his head and silently scratched it.
He had never seen either of them before.
No, when he looked around, aside from Han Oseong, the teacher in charge of the Gate class, everyone else was someone he was seeing for the first time.
‘Have I seen them before and simply forgotten?’
Whatever the case, it did not matter.
He lightly nodded.
“Yes. I am Kang Daehyun. But…….”
Then he naturally turned his gaze toward the teacher, “Han Oseong.”
“May I consider the exam finished?”
Han Oseong’s expression was not much different from everyone else’s.
However, if there was one slight difference, it was that instead of staring blankly, he was looking at Daehyun with a hollow laugh.
“……The exam?”
Han Oseong looked at Kang Daehyun with dilated pupils.
‘I wish my eyes were mistaken.’
Even while seeing him directly, he could not face reality.
Kang Daehyun’s body was covered in wounds, but outwardly, he seemed fine.
That had been a D-rank Gate. No, perhaps even C-minus.
He did not know what had appeared inside, but it was not a place one could come out of with one’s body intact like that.
“Th-this is not the time to worry about the exam!”
“That is right! Student Kang Daehyun! Are you truly all right? Are you hurt anywhere? No, are you really Student Kang Daehyun?”
The words of that old vice principal and the young female teacher were correct.
What mattered right now was not something like the exam.
“Do you know what you have just done?”
“I cleared the Gate. That is all.”
Gate Backflow had occurred in a virtual Gate, its grade had risen, and a student had returned alive and intact.
How should he even grade this?
No, did grading even have any meaning in the first place?
Han Oseong could only stare blankly at Kang Daehyun.
“R-right! Support! Hurry and cancel the support request!”
“Oh my, where is my head? Understood! The number, the number was…….”
The vice principal, who had accepted the situation faster than the others, stammered toward the female teacher, and she quickly began operating her phone.
“The call…….”
The female teacher placed the phone against her ear after making the call, but at that moment.
Click—.
“Nice to meet you, everyone.”
The door to the training room opened, and someone entered.
***
Daehyun was silently grasping the situation.
“Hmm.”
The students had disappeared, so class must have ended a little early because of the Gate’s change. For now, it seemed the teachers here had gathered to deal with the aftermath.
If so, that potbellied man and the other middle-aged man over there must have gathered for the same reason.
“Superhuman Lee Mina! Y-you arrived early.”
“I said I would come quickly. So, where is the Gate that backflowed?”
But the one who bothered him was the person called Lee Mina.
She was a woman with vivid red hair that reached her waist, and her fairly pretty appearance and red eyes were quite striking.
“W-well, actually…….”
Furthermore, the potbellied man began treating the woman named Lee Mina with formality.
“Who are you?”
“……I am the client who called Superhuman Lee Mina, as well as the vice principal of this Superhuman Training School. My name is Jang Tae……”
“Ah. I do not need that much.”
She lightly ignored the hand the vice principal offered and quickly looked around.
To her, a mercenary, time was money.
It felt like a waste to spend her precious money on some random middle-aged man.
“So, the Gate is…… hm?”
As she turned her head, a male student covered in blood entered her field of vision.
CRACKLE—.
And at the same time, sparks flew from the rift behind him, and the rift vanished immediately after.
The Gate had closed.
“Hmm…….”
Considering the direction he was standing, his condition, and the gazes focused on him, it was not very difficult to grasp the situation.
Lee Mina cautiously walked toward Daehyun.
“Are you the student who was trapped in the Gate Backflow?”
As she said that, she looked Daehyun up and down.
His face was not extraordinarily handsome, but he had a somewhat pleasant appearance. He did not look strong, but he was not particularly frail either.
And above all…….
‘He has quite good eyes.’
Eyes filled with intense fighting spirit and an interest in battle.
Because she was Lee Mina, an S-rank Superhuman, she could tell.
These were not eyes an ordinary student could possess.
They were traces left by someone who had tasted both the bitterness and sweetness of the world alone, someone who had passed through countless battlefields.
“You cleared the backflowed Gate by yourself?”
Nod—.
Daehyun silently nodded while meeting her eyes.
He did not know what Gate Backflow was, but judging by the atmosphere, he understood it well enough.
“……Impressive.”
Judging by the energy flowing from the rift, that Gate’s current grade was D-plus.
To Lee Mina herself, that grade was little more than a plaything, but that was only because she was S-rank. It was not a Gate that could be ignored.
‘Seeing that he escaped with only light wounds, is he Assault-Type?’
Not only that, but dark-red blood was dripping from the male student’s hands.
Some of it might have been his own blood, but it was unmistakably monster blood.
Since he had no weapon, had he beaten the monsters with his fists?
‘Wait, this child might be…….’
Suddenly, Lee Mina’s eyes grew more serious.
As someone who always acted according to her whims, she nodded as if she had made up her mind.
“Hmm! I like you!”
After that, she immediately took something out of her bag and held it out in front of Daehyun.
It was an object that looked somewhat like a tooth and somewhat like a simple accessory.
“This is a gift from your big sister.”
After placing it in Daehyun’s hand, she quickly turned around and walked toward the vice principal.
Then, as though she had taken something else out of her bag again…….
Tap—.
“The fee. Confirm it.”
After lightly patting the vice principal on the shoulder, she opened the training room door and left.
“…….”
When the vice principal came to his senses and checked his shoulder.
On his shoulder was…….
[✕✕ Bank – ✕✕✕✕✕……]
A sticky note with that written on it.
***
The Superhuman Training School was thrown into even greater chaos.
Gate Backflow. Something absurd had occurred, in which that phenomenon had happened inside a virtual Gate, and furthermore, a single student had cleared it alone.
Those who had only heard it through rumor dismissed it as a lie. Daehyun’s classmates reacted with half doubt and half acceptance, while the people involved, including the vice principal and teachers, kept their mouths shut, but…….
“Daehyun! Dae-hyuuuun!”
At the very least, this guy, Kang Shinhyuk, accepted all of it as fact.
“That was insane! Totally insane! I heard the Gate backflowed!”
Listening to Kang Shinhyuk’s loud voice shouting in front of him, Daehyun silently drank the Fatigue Recovery Tonic in his teacup.
He was normally a noisy guy, but for some reason, today seemed even worse.
“And I heard you beat an orc to a pulp with your fists all by yourself! Bam! Crack! Like that!”
“……Where did you hear that?”
The fact that he had cleared the backflowed virtual Gate spread throughout the entire Superhuman Training School at great speed.
No, that was not all.
Apparently, there was a madman who beat monsters to death with his fists.
In truth, Kang Daehyun had been hiding his strength all along.
Such rumors and more.
The exam had clearly begun as an E-rank virtual Gate, but for some reason, his reputation kept swelling.
“The kids are calling you First-Punch Guy!”
“……Please just leave me alone.”
Since people said he won if he hit first, they called him “First-Punch Guy.”
Where had the Fist King gone, and what was this First-Punch Guy nonsense? First-Punch Guy?
Feeling as though his throat were burning, Daehyun took another sip of the recovery tonic.
“And I heard the Crimson Witch came today. How was she? Was she pretty?”
“Crimson Witch?”
“What? You do not know the Crimson Witch? Her hair is red, and her eyes are red! And she is pretty, so she is the Crimson Witch!”
“What is that? It sounds incredibly flashy.”
Since he had never had much interest in other Superhumans, he did not remember.
‘Still, I really do not remember too much.’
The alchemist was one thing, and the Crimson Witch was another.
Something was strange.
As he thought that and shook his head, Daehyun’s eyes flashed when the words red eyes and hair brought something to mind.
‘Come to think of it, some strange woman did come.’
When he had just emerged from the rift, the woman had walked toward him while looking at him.
She had possessed an unusual air, so Daehyun had not spoken and had merely observed the situation.
That was probably the Crimson Witch.
“So the Crimson Witch came to save you, right? Urgh…… Kang Daehyun, you lucky bastard!”
“I do not know about saving me, but she did give me something.”
Come to think of it, he had forgotten because he was tired.
Daehyun immediately went and brought out the thing he had placed on the desk in his room.
“Hm?”
Suddenly, Kang Shinhyuk’s eyes sparkled as he looked at it.
“This……”