Inside the dark sewer field.
"What the hell kind of skill is this......?"
Seyong ground his teeth, barely keeping his balance on one leg.
"Telling us to catch the Rats while binding our legs — isn't that just telling us to die?"
His voice, demanding an answer with bulging veins, was a mix of bewilderment and fury.
His point was that stripping away mobility against fast, hearing-sensitive Grinder Rats was excessive.
But Sahyeon responded with a scoff.
"A Gate's not going to dole out penalties while considering your circumstances."
Gates assigned penalties at random to the hunters who entered.
That place was, by nature, without mercy.
"You going to insist on a penalty redraw in a real fight too?"
"......"
Seyong clamped his lips shut as if he had no comeback. Just then, Mugeon gestured toward Seyong and shouted as if asking.
"What'd he say??"
His hearing was cut off, so he couldn't catch the conversation.
Seyong, watching this with a wretched look, soon pressed his case again.
"But this is a class! Isn't this too much? It's practically torture!"
"This counts as torture......?"
It should be a nice clean state, no phantom pain or anything.
Sahyeon expressed his bafflement, as if he couldn't comprehend it.
He felt he was beginning to understand why hunters these days were all such a mess mentally.
Raised like hothouse flowers like this, of course their heads were full of flowers.
Sahyeon let out a sigh and slowly stepped toward the monster cage.
"If you've got a grievance, file it after you pass. And the disqualified don't get a say."
His hand moved toward the cage's locking mechanism.
Tension swirled among the students.
"No, Teach! You seriously want us to fight in this state?!"
Euno staggered upright and protested with difficulty.
Sahyeon said nothing.
Instead — click. The lock released.
"Ah, for the record, if you don't pass within the hour......"
Sahyeon added quietly.
"It's remedial training."
CLANK, CREEEEAK—
The heavy iron door swung open.
The Grinder Rats poured into the field as if they'd been waiting.
Sahyeon left a single line and turned away.
"Training, begin."
***
The training hall control room.
"You can watch from here."
Haeseong guided Sahyeon to a spot with a clear view of the monitors lining the wall.
The screens broadcast every corner of the sewer field in real time.
"Clearer than I expected."
The students wandering the field, and their conversations, came through vividly.
Sahyeon pulled up a chair and sat, then tapped the tip of the thin, long microphone on the table.
— Test, test.
When Sahyeon pressed the mic button and spoke, his voice rang out across the field.
The students on-screen looked up at the ceiling in unison.
— If you feel like you're about to die, send an SOS. Of course, remedial training will be waiting for you.
Jaeyun was already running, dodging monsters with Euno hoisted on his back.
Euno, riding piggyback, shouted boldly.
"We'd never quit partway!"
"If the regular class is this bad, I'd rather not know what remedial training is like......"
Gyeol, running alongside them, muttered quietly.
Meanwhile.
"What did he say?!?!"
Mugeon, sensing sound through the faint vibration of the speaker, shouted into the air.
Watching this, Haeseong spoke in a worried voice.
"...Mugeon doesn't seem to have caught it properly. Will he be okay?"
"Leave him. He'll shout if it gets dangerous."
Sahyeon answered with indifference and sank back into the chair.
Haeseong nodded, then stole a glance at Sahyeon's face.
Sahyeon's eyes, gazing at the screen with chin propped, languid.
Still tinged blood-red.
'As expected of Mr. Sahyeon......'
Applying skills through paper as a medium — he quietly marveled at the high-difficulty technique.
'What he laid on the drawings is probably a delusion skill.'
The caster's mental drain was said to be enormous.
Yet even targeting six A-ranks, Sahyeon looked perfectly composed.
Haeseong's eyes naturally followed Sahyeon's gaze.
It was the Combat Class B screen.
***
Combat Class B, scattered in their own directions.
Each time Mugeon's footsteps touched the shallow water flowing across the floor, a loud splash rang out.
He pushed deep into the sewer.
In the end, his path was blocked by a single creature.
Mugeon lowered his stance and prepared for battle.
The instant the rat lunged, clicking its sharp teeth—
Mugeon twisted his whole body to dodge and seized it by the nape.
SIZZLE—!
Heat radiating from his palm scorched the monster's hide an angry red.
"That do it."
Just as he was about to finish it off—
"......!"
A chilling sensation grazed his back, and he turned his head.
SCREEEEECH!
In his blind spot, another monster lunged at him.
Mugeon released the monster he'd grabbed and rolled clear of the spot.
When he righted himself and lifted his head—
"......"
Three monsters surrounding him.
Mugeon had been cornered before he knew it.
The monsters had swarmed in, drawn by the racket of his battle.
"...When did they all gather."
Mugeon wet his dry lips with a troubled look.
***
"...What an absurd penalty."
Meanwhile, Seyong, hiding in a corner of the sewer.
He ground his teeth, unable to hide his resentment.
His state, dragging his right leg, was already a wreck.
Just fending off the rats raining down attacks at high speed had pushed him to his limit. But Seyong gritted his teeth and held on.
"No way I'm losing to rookies."
The corner of Seyong's mouth twisted viciously.
And another Class B student, Do Ryua.
She tapped her right arm with her left hand, then tilted her head.
"Oh ho, I'm right-handed and my right hand's the one paralyzed?"
She smiled brightly and swept up her long hair.
"Guess this is a chance to let my left hand shine for once~!"
Ryua kicked off the ground and leapt.
Her body slid along the sewer wall like a ghost.
Gripping a pipe with her left hand, Ryua hung suspended midair.
Below, a single rat fixed its small eyes on her, gleaming.
"All right~ here I go!"
Ryua let go of the pipe and attempted a flashy spinning descent.
Normally she'd adjust gravity to land gracefully and unleash a flurry of strikes, but—
"Uh, uh-oh?"
Her right arm, unable to overcome the centrifugal force, flailed of its own accord.
When her balance pitched to one side as if weighted down, Ryua traced an off-kilter trajectory and plummeted.
"Aaah!"
In the end, with a splash, she went sliding spectacularly through the water.
"Aw~ I can't even land the way I want!"
While she swept back her ruined hair and rubbed her smarting lower back—
SCREEEEEE—
A rat approached, eyes wide and menacing.
Ryua frantically waved her left hand.
"Ah wait, time out!! Just ten seconds, no, five seconds!!"
***
Unlike the rowdy Team B cameras, the Team A camera was quiet.
A pitch-black space like a black hole.
The three of them were hidden inside Gyeol's skill, 'Shade's Shadow.'
"—Knew it wouldn't be ordinary from the first class."
Gyeol let out a long sigh.
"Ooooh! It really is like I don't have a leg?"
Euno thumped his sensation-less right leg with a fist.
"...What do we do? Moving around properly's going to be tough at this rate."
Jaeyun kneaded his limp left hand with a worried face.
Gyeol chewed his lip, deliberating, then spoke with a resolute expression.
"Here, let's move together."
"Aw, the running's the hard part — I can handle hunting on my own! In a cramped field like this, moving in a pack is a pain!"
When Euno voiced his objection, Gyeol scrunched his face in displeasure.
"You think I like moving solo? But look. Tae Euno, your strength is speed strikes and you can't use your right leg. Jaeyun can't use his left hand, so his power's limited, and I've only got half my vision."
Gyeol then shared his strategy.
Jaeyun, who'd listened closely, nodded with a comparatively brighter face.
"Sounds good!"
"Ooh~ this'll be fun! I'm in too!"
Just as Euno readily agreed, a question struck him.
"But if one of us passes first, what happens to the rest?"
Gyeol answered calmly, as if he'd anticipated it.
"The pass condition is hunting 'at least one.' Passing first doesn't kick you out, so the three of us coordinate and take them down one at a time."
"Oho?"
"Right!"
Just before diving into the field, Gyeol gave Euno a word of caution.
"You remember what Teach taught us in the Gate yesterday? Leave only the certain strikes."
"Okay!"
Euno shouted confidently.
Gyeol let out a faint sigh and scanned for presences beyond the shadow.
Inside a long, straight stretch of pipe.
'Timing is everything.'
GRIND, GRIND—
He sensed a monster gnashing its teeth.
The monster drawing steadily closer.
"—Go!"
Gyeol flung himself out of the shadow.
SCREEEE—!
The rat's small eyes turned to Gyeol.
Gyeol deliberately stomped hard in a water puddle and ran along the straight pipe.
Monsters swarmed at the sound.
One, two, and...... three.
Gyeol stopped at the end of the straight pipe and shouted.
"Now!!"
THUD—!
In that instant, a rat hurled its heavy body at him.
Failing to spot it through his obscured vision, Gyeol toppled over.
"Ugh......"
He gritted his teeth and barely held off the snapping teeth.
"Hyung! Hold on just a little longer!"
And then.
A massive figure burst out of the shadow.
Jaeyun lifted Euno with one arm as if he weighed nothing.
"Heeeere we go!!"
Euno raised the corner of his mouth, eyes flashing.
And then Jaeyun hurled Euno forward with all his might, like firing a cannon.
Euno soared through the air, splitting it open.
[Skill 'Formless Blade (A-)' has been activated!]
The path Euno crossed left a trail of blue shimmer.
In an instant, Euno reached the end of the pipe.
SLASH, SLASH—!
In a split second, Euno carved deep into the nape of the rat pinning Gyeol down.
Bouncing off the ground with one hand, Euno's blade swung toward the next target.
SLASH—
Scattering blood in turn, Euno whipped his head toward the final target.
As if sensing it, the rat swung its claws menacingly.
Euno laid his upper body flat and drove the tip of his blade hard into its chest.
SQUELCH—!
The rat's gleaming eyes gradually lost their light, and its heavy body crashed straight to the floor.
— Tae Euno, pass.
A low voice echoed through the field.
"Nice!!"
Euno wore a triumphant smile.
***
"Covering each other's weaknesses through teamwork — clever."
Haeseong let out a faint gasp of admiration.
Now all that remained was for Gyeol and Jaeyun to deal with the two weakened rats.
Sahyeon smirked and tapped the table with his index finger.
"If you're weak, you'd better at least join forces."
This is survival, not competition.
Meanwhile, the news of Euno's pass visibly rattled Team B.
Ji Seyong's face, in particular, twisted gruesomely.
— ...Goddammit.
Tae Euno's leg was clearly paralyzed like mine, and he caught a Rat in that state?
He clutched his plaster-stiff leg and let out ragged breaths, seething.
— No way......!
Seyong's eyes flashed as he pulled the slip Sahyeon had handed out from his pocket.
The crude doodle still glowing red.
Crumple. The slip wrinkled in his grip.
Seyong ground his teeth.
— ...All because of this scrap of paper, I—!
And then, like a madman, he tore the slip to shreds.
"......! W-Wait! If you forcibly release that—!"
Haeseong, watching on-screen, cried out in alarm.
He whipped his horror-stricken eyes toward Sahyeon.
"He's making the worst possible choice."
Sahyeon let out a scoff.
The instant his red eyes sank to a deeper shade—
KABOOOOOM—!
Centered on Seyong's scattered paper scraps, a thick, scalding energy erupted as if exploding.
A dark-red current coiled around Seyong's body like a serpent.
— A-AAAAAARGH!!
A wretched scream rocked the training hall.