The Academy's Delinquent in Charge, Episode 15
A single room in the academy girls' dormitory.
Seol Hayun, lying on the bed, gently closed her eyes. Her silver hair, reflected in the light, cascaded brilliantly, illuminating her appearance even more dazzlingly.
Perhaps because it was the first day of admission, it was a night where sleep particularly wouldn't come. Rising thoughts shook her.
'Hayun... The future of Binggung rests on you.'
The burden of having to shoulder the future of countless Binggung people had bound her like shackles since some time ago.
The rims of her eyes, which had always been as cold as ice, flushed red without her realizing it.
'I... I'm struggling too.'
Since childhood, it had become natural for her to be someone's pillar, but even she sometimes felt the desire to lean on someone.
But even if it was hard, she couldn't show it.
Her collapsing meant snatching away the light from those who looked only to her.
That was why she mustn't struggle. That was why she had to hold her head high everywhere.
That was why she tried to discard her emotions.
'Because I am the Young Palace Mistress of Binggung.'
Currently, Binggung was on such a downward slope that its position among the Six Great Sects was precarious. To the point that there were even secret whispers within the Martial Alliance that they should be expelled.
'No, I will never let that happen.'
Unlike other sects that steadily received offerings or hunted monsters to earn income, Binggung, whose location was poor to the extent that it couldn't even hunt monsters, had insignificant sources of revenue.
Thus, Binggung was barely maintained on the Alliance's support funds alone. The debt owed to other sects was unimaginable.
At least until a hundred years ago, they had solved their income by selling ice, but even that had nearly vanished now that water purifiers enchanted with ice magic were in widespread use.
'Don't think weak thoughts. If I just achieve mastery in the Seolhwa Divine Art, I can create ice crystals...'
If she could just create ice crystals, Binggung's standing would be different from what it was now.
The tear that fell from her eye, bounced off the floor, and leaped up was like a beautiful ice crystal.
Staring blankly at it, she soon composed herself and wiped away her tears.
'I mustn't rest even for a moment.'
Having already gotten down from the bed and sat cross-legged, she began to circulate the Seolhwa Divine Art, Binggung's unique internal cultivation technique.
Along with the beautiful radiance bursting from her body, frost erupted in all directions from her silver hair billowing upward.
'Hmm...'
The sparkling frost clung together, trying to merge into one. But in the end, unable to combine, it was absorbed back into her body.
Furrowing her fine brows, she began circulating once more, but the result was the same.
'Ah, I can't concentrate...'
Concentration once broken did not easily return. The useless emotions she had tried to discard engulfed her once more.
Suddenly, the student who had been late to the academy's first class came to mind.
'If it were him, how would he act in my situation?'
The guy who didn't even show any reaction despite being eroded by the Sosubingong's chill.
The guy who didn't bat an eye even upon seeing her.
The strange guy who mimicked her apology.
And.
'A guy in whom no emotion can be felt.'
Once begun, her thoughts chased one another's tails.
'What could have happened to make him wear such an expression...'
Unlike herself, who tried hard to discard emotions, that student seemed to lack emotions from the very beginning.
'His name... was it Baek Iljin?'
She herself hadn't realized it, but at some point, distracting thoughts disappeared, and Baek Iljin filled that space.
At least for this moment right now, she was not the Young Palace Mistress of Binggung, who had never once taken an interest in a man since birth.
She was merely an eighteen-year-old girl, Seol Hayun, who had just come of age.
'Ah, I don't know! I should go out and train.'
Her heart was already pounding thump-thump- beating fast as she exited the room.
* * *
Having finished circulating his energy, Baek Iljin came out to the backyard searching for the grayish energy that had prevented his qi deviation.
'I definitely felt it from this direction.'
The backyard was overgrown with weeds, perhaps because it wasn't affected by maintenance magic.
'Is this what that real estate agent was trying to explain about the backyard or whatever?'
He stood blankly for a moment as if spellbound by the messy sight, then shook his head.
There was no need to blame others. He himself was the one who had sent Gelman away when the man tried to explain something more.
'By the way, where is it.'
The source of the energy he had felt during cultivation was definitely the backyard. The problem was that there were too many weeds, so he didn't know where to start looking.
'For now, I should cut the weeds.'
Rummaging through his subspace, he pulled out a person-sized battle axe.
He worried that the blade might have dulled since it had been stuck in a warehouse for a long time, but the edge still maintained a sufficiently blue hue.
'It will cut well.'
As expected, the dwarf-made artifact containing 8th-circle lightning magic sliced through clumps of weeds with every swing.
While he was busily cutting weeds, a spot with particularly no weeds came into view.
'Is that it?'
Baek Iljin, with the battle axe slung over his shoulder, approached and touched it.
'This is definitely the place.'
The feeling up close was different from what he had felt from afar.
Having confirmed the location, Baek Iljin grabbed the battle axe with both hands and dug up the ground. The battle axe was very useful for digging as well.
'It's not digging, it's more like crushing.'
Before long, a pit about the height of his thigh was dug in the backyard.
As the pit grew deeper, he could see energy visualizing and rising like smoke. While he kept swinging the axe, something went thunk- against it.
'There it is.'
It was a sword hilt without a blade—a sword handle. Perhaps because it had been neglected for a long time, the sword hilt looked extremely worn.
'What, is this all?'
Contrary to his expectations, such a shabby item came out, so Baek Iljin shook his head in disappointment.
'To think something like this prevented my qi deviation—I must have been mistaken.'
The moment he trudged over and picked up the sword hilt.
Zzzt-
A gray electric current shot out from the sword hilt.
Boom!
His figure, engulfed by the current, was instantly flung back to the mansion's fence. The school uniform he was wearing was torn and turned to rags, but fortunately, not a single scratch appeared on his body.
'What.'
Looking at his right arm, the bracelet artifact enchanted with defensive magic was charred black and emitting smoke. The other artifacts, except for the adventurer's ring, were all the same.
'That surprised me.'
It seemed someone had cast magic on that sword hilt to prevent anyone from touching it.
Putting all the broken artifacts into his subspace and dusting off his dirt-covered body, Baek Iljin approached the pit where the sword hilt had been buried again.
From the sword hilt, gray electric currents continued to discharge with a crackling sound.
'This time, I'll have to grip it tight.'
Approaching again, he brutally seized the sword hilt that was fiercely spewing electric currents.
Sizzle-
An intense heat was felt in the hand gripping the sword hilt. Blisters formed on his burned hand as it repeatedly regenerated.
Soon, the sword hilt twisted with a screech- as if rejecting his touch, but the more it did so, the more strength he put into his grip.
Boom- Crash-
Seeing the current shoot out once more, Baek Iljin quickly enveloped it with internal energy to block it.
'It's definitely weaker than before.'
After releasing currents several more times, the sword hilt seemed to have exhausted its energy and no longer scattered currents.
Having expended all its currents, the sword hilt began to absorb Baek Iljin's energy.
For about ten minutes, the sword hilt lapped up Baek Iljin's internal energy, but once a certain level was passed, it stopped rejecting his touch and gently complied. Then it began to vomit back the absorbed energy.
Thud.
The internal energy he had poured in and the energy the sword hilt originally possessed were swept away in an instant and burrowed into a corner of his dantian.
Baek Iljin fell over from the recoil force returning into his body. But his brutishly gripping hand did not let go of the sword hilt.
"-St... Stop!"
'What? Did someone speak?'
But even straining his ears, no voice was heard anymore. The sword hilt, which had been spewing energy for a long while, finally lost its light and stopped moving.
'Hah.'
The gray energy that had taken root in a corner of his dantian created a storm-like flow, rotating in his dantian and settling into place.
'Hmm, what exactly is this energy...?'
He stirred the energies condensed like a small sphere in the corner of his dantian. The gray energy that had been guarding its place proudly complied with his will more smoothly than expected.
'I can't tell what it is even looking at it. Is this sword hilt an artifact?'
Baek Iljin brought the old, shabby object—what had been an artifact—before his eyes and examined it. Looking closely, he saw some characters engraved on a corner of the sword hilt.
'Hmm, something is written here. Heaven...'
'Heaven' was faintly written on the sword hilt, but the other characters were too worn to make out.
But Baek Iljin didn't bother trying to decipher the characters and just shoved the sword hilt into his subspace.
Having expended all its energy, it was no more, no less than an old sword handle.
* * *
Tsssszt-
In a corner of the sky, space softened and rippled, then a man who had hidden his form within revealed himself.
A man with thread-thin eyes, Armut the Omnipotent.
Floating in the air with moonlight as his halo, his appearance even exuded a mysterious feeling at a glance.
Having felt an energy that distorted the natural geomantic energy inside Chang'an City and rushed here in one breath, his expression was unusually cold.
'Just what was that energy just now?'
To his knowledge, there was only one existence in this world that could emit such a presence.
'......Black Dragon Pietro?'
But that existence must not come out into the world. Especially not here.
"...Isn't it?"
The existence that emitted the energy was not Pietro. It was merely some strange academy student cutting weeds with a person-sized battle axe.
'Indeed, Pietro is in the pitiful state of a scarecrow bound by a blood oath...'
And there was one more question. The place where that academy student was right now. That place was where he had spread barrier magic.
'Just who is that student, to have entered there?'
With a suspicious expression, squinting one eye, Armut recalled that presence from earlier.
'The energy wave felt for a moment was so powerful that one could believe Pietro himself had appeared...'
Most likely, his sealing magic had been released due to that energy wave's influence. However, the student before his eyes now didn't feel like much of anything.
'Hrmm...'
While thinking for a while, large explosions were heard in succession. Armut turned his head toward where the sound came from.
There, the student who had been cutting weeds was brutishly gripping some worn sword hilt. At that scene, Armut's poker face crumbled for a moment.
'......?'
Armut, who had hidden his body in the shadows once more, approached closely.
The artifact that student was brutishly gripping right now—that object was not a simple item that any human could easily hold.
'Heavenly Demon Sword...'
If he had to guess, the essence contained in that object belonged to the last dragon, Lisiarin.
'If my guess is right, the Heavenly Demon must have sealed his spouse Lisiarin's energy in his beloved sword...'
Even he had nearly suffered great harm trying to absorb the energy contained in that object. Yet that boy absorbed it so nonchalantly.
'Pietro's successor?'
Indeed, unless he were the successor of that mad black dragon, there would be no way he could gulp down such unpleasant energy and remain so unscathed.
'Hrmm- Pietro's successor obtains the Heavenly Demon Sword...'
Recalling someone among his acquaintances who was desperately searching for the Heavenly Demon Sword, Armut smiled with a snicker.
'Mr. Guan Taishan would collapse from apoplexy if he knew.'
Having finished his thoughts, Armut took in Baek Iljin's retreating figure. He was leaving after shoving the Heavenly Demon Sword into his subspace.
"Is this fate?"
Fate.
Armut did not like the word fate. But if this current situation was not fate, what could explain it?
That he had left that object abandoned, that this student had discovered this place. And even Armut himself watching it.
Perhaps they were all within the great current called fate.
'Interesting.'
The smile on his face deepened as he entertained such sentimental thoughts for a moment.