Even if Gang Hanbyeol’s talent was outstanding, he was still nothing more than a student who had only just entered the academy.
He was still too young for his talent to have fully blossomed.
Because he was overwhelmingly lacking in experience, he could not yet handle the power he had been given to its fullest.
There was no way Su Hoguk, who in his youth had faced countless villains, earned their fear, and excelled in one-on-one combat, would be unable to deal with him.
The battle, which at first had seemed like a close contest, quickly tilted against Gang Hanbyeol.
In the end, he failed to steal the ball and had to retreat.
‘He’s still immature in some areas, but he has the eye to read the flow of battle. As the Fighting Demon’s disciple, that’s only natural. I think I can understand why the chairwoman pushed through his special admission.’
While dealing with the students rushing at him,
Su Hoguk evaluated Gang Hanbyeol highly as the boy caught his breath in the back.
Worthy of the name of the Fighting Demon’s disciple, he showed that he had a solid grasp of combat.
He had no hesitation when facing people, could read the state of battle, see the flow, and seemed to know when to strike and when to pull back.
He also liked the fact that, unlike the students who lost their fighting spirit after failing once, Gang Hanbyeol was not intimidated and still had eyes burning with will to fight.
‘How will you come at me next?’
Gang Hanbyeol’s gaze was intense.
His eyes moved ceaselessly as he tried to grasp Su Hoguk’s movements.
At the same time, the corners of his mouth were raised.
It was the face of someone looking forward to another challenge.
Su Hoguk inwardly praised his fighting spirit and waited for that moment as well.
Before long.
‘Looks like he’s finished preparing.’
Gang Hanbyeol stepped out in front of Su Hoguk.
This time, perhaps having no intention of fighting alone, he had two people beside him.
They were Lisa Grace and Bak Sagun.
Su Hoguk showed curiosity as he looked at the party of three.
“I thought you’d come charging in alone. I didn’t expect you to form a party of three.”
“You said it didn’t matter even if several of us attacked at once, Instructor. It’s frustrating, but… as I am now, I still can’t beat you.”
“I’d like to say it’s admirable that you objectively assessed and acknowledged the difference in skill between us. Then do you think the three of you can beat me?”
“Yes, three of us are enough.”
“Whether that’s true or not… I suppose we’ll find out.”
“Yes.”
The conversation ended there.
Gang Hanbyeol kicked off the ground and ran.
Matching his speed, Bak Sagun, holding a massive axe, followed close behind.
Lisa used her staff as a medium to cast buff magic on them.
───!!
The sound of air being torn apart rang out.
Gang Hanbyeol’s sword swung first, and immediately after, the axe came crashing down.
Su Hoguk swiftly blocked the attacks and widened the distance.
Gang Hanbyeol was one thing, but Bak Sagun was not someone whose skill could be taken lightly either.
If he did not use both hands, it would not be easy to respond to the attacks coming from both sides in succession.
Having made his judgment, Su Hoguk tossed the ball in one hand above his head.
The ball, imbued with mana from his body, hovered in the air without ever falling.
While facing them, he controlled it with mana so that no one else could snatch it away.
The ball flew here and there.
───!!
Once again, a fierce metallic sound rang out.
The axe Bak Sagun brought down was quite threatening.
It was best to discard any naive thought of clashing against it with a sword.
He could not face it head-on.
Su Hoguk aimed for the moment his axe fell.
The axe struck the floor.
“…Kugh!”
“Your defense after attacking is weak.”
Su Hoguk immediately swung his elbow and struck Bak Sagun hard in the jaw.
His head snapped upward.
The hand gripping the axe loosened.
In that fleeting instant, Su Hoguk shifted his gaze and immediately launched a roundhouse kick.
The axe fell from Bak Sagun’s hand, and he was sent flying away.
Whoosh!
Gang Hanbyeol did not miss that opening.
A gap appeared in Su Hoguk’s guard.
He immediately thrust his sword into that weakness.
“…!”
Su Hoguk’s eyebrow twitched.
Hurriedly twisting his body, he barely managed to block the sword that grazed past the side of his chest.
But Gang Hanbyeol still had the upper hand.
Without retreating, Gang Hanbyeol advanced and pressed him.
His sword rushed in, leaving afterimages behind.
Amid them, Su Hoguk firmed his defensive stance and looked for an opportunity to turn the tables.
And the moment that opportunity arrived.
“…It seems I’ve won.”
Su Hoguk acted without hesitation.
His sword accelerated in an instant and touched Gang Hanbyeol’s nape.
Gang Hanbyeol flinched after having his neck given up in the blink of an eye.
But there was no sign of frustration from him.
On the contrary, he wore a broad smile.
“That’s strange. Wasn’t this a class where we’re supposed to steal the ball, not win?”
“…”
Only then.
Su Hoguk realized that, midway through, he had become absorbed in the fight.
He quickly raised his head.
The ball that should have been flying through the air was nowhere to be seen.
That ball was in Lisa’s hand.
“When on earth…”
“While you were focused on us, Instructor, Lisa secretly took control of it. It was really hard making sure you didn’t notice, you know?”
“…”
“I may have lost in the fight, but I think I won in class?”
“Hah…”
“Well, Master says that counts as part of battle too.”
Lisa and Bak Sagun approached Gang Hanbyeol’s side with triumphant expressions.
Realizing that he had been had by them, Su Hoguk let out a hollow laugh and withdrew the sword he had held out toward Gang Hanbyeol.
He called the three of them by name.
“Gang Hanbyeol, Lisa Grace, Bak Sagun.”
“Yes!”
“The three of you receive five bonus points.”
The three of them cheered.
And Su Hoguk burst into hearty laughter.
* * *
Yu Noeul tied a rope around my waist and attached a tire to the end of it.
I sighed as I looked at the tire, which I had no idea where she had gotten from.
“By the way, how much does it weigh?”
“No-no. How can you ask your instructor something like that? Your instructor is a woman too, so it’s rude to ask her weight.”
“…When did I ask your weight? I asked the tire’s weight.”
“Oh, is that what you meant? Since that’s a seventeen-inch tire… it should be around eighteen to twenty kilograms.”
This person was doing this on purpose.
Even in the game, Yu Noeul was described as the type who enjoyed teasing people and watching them get flustered.
Gang Hanbyeol suffered a lot because of it too.
‘Anyway, about twenty kilograms…’
To an ordinary person, it would be quite heavy, but to me, who had trained my body to become a hunter since birth, it was not that heavy.
When I was in elementary school, I had run with several tires like that attached to me.
‘I even once ran with Yeeun, Haneul, and Mother riding on them because I wanted to increase the weight further.’
So the tire Yu Noeul had attached to me was not a burden.
Normally, that is.
Treating the tire and my body as one, manifesting my internal mana evenly, and running across the desert was an entirely different matter.
It required considerable mana control.
“Wrapping mana around your own body isn’t difficult as long as you know how to manifest it. It’s only natural that you understand your own body well. But wrapping mana around something other than yourself, whether another being, an object, or a target you don’t understand, is difficult. If the target has mana, it’s even harder because the target’s mana will resist.”
“So you’re telling me to cross the desert back and forth with a tire attached?”
“Yep, that’s right. By treating the tire like part of your own body, you’ll become able to smoothly exercise mana control over targets other than yourself too.”
“Ugh…”
If her intention had simply been to tease me, I would have refused without even thinking about it.
But Yu Noeul as an educator was serious.
Her advice made sense, so I could not blindly refuse.
In the end, I had to drag the tire.
‘I thought it wouldn’t be easy, but this really isn’t easy…’
Because I held the Navy Blue Sword in my hand, it was easy to perceive, and since I had swung it countless times, imbuing it with mana was simple.
But the tire was different.
Since it was tied to a rope and being dragged behind me, I could not grasp it precisely.
All I felt was the pressure tightening around my waist.
Also, unless I turned around, I could not confirm it with my eyes.
Because I had not accumulated repeated experience with it, my understanding of the tire was lacking.
As a result, manifesting and maintaining the mana in my body while perceiving the tire was no simple task.
On top of that.
‘When I move, the tire doesn’t move at the same time. I move first, and then the tire moves afterward.’
While calculating the change in my center of gravity, I also had to consider the tire’s movement and maintain my manifested state.
Maintaining just one of those for a long time was enough to make my head split, but with one more variable added, it only became more troublesome.
At this rate, my hair would fall out.
‘Damn it…’
I had barely moved away from the starting line.
Again and again, I ended up falling into an antlion pit.
‘Climbing up the sand is hard too.’
The weight of the tire pulled at my body as I tried to get out of the pit.
Enduring so I would not be swept away by that force, I climbed back onto the desert.
Perhaps because I had already completed one round trip, I could hardly find any strength.
I was physically exhausted.
Even so, I pushed off my knees, stood up, and crossed the desert again.
“If, if, if only I had better stamina, something like this would be nothing…”
In the middle of it, I ran into Min Arin.
Unable to get out of the pit in the end, she had been rescued by Hong Yena and was starting over from the beginning.
But perhaps because her stamina had run out, she staggered like a zombie.
“I… am Min Arin. The little… griffin… of the mage Min family. Do you think someone like me… would collapse… from something this trivial?”
“…”
By the time I caught up to her.
Min Arin was crawling along, her hands and feet trembling like a newborn fawn.
It was honestly quite pitiful.
“You should jog with me every morning too. Starting tomorrow morning, let’s run together.”
“What? Why would I jog… Kyaaak!”
“…”
The mana inside Min Arin’s body fell into disarray.
Because I had spoken to her, her concentration had broken.
I felt sorry as I watched her get caught in the giant whirlpool.
“Do, Do Gyeonwoooo…!”
“Uh… sorry.”
Min Arin slid down toward the center of the pit as if riding a slide.
Lying flat on the bottom, she looked up at me with a face screaming in despair, and it was terribly sorrowful.
Strictly speaking, it was not my fault, but rather her lack of concentration, but I still offered an apology.
Then I quickly tried to leave the area.
But the pit she had fallen into…
‘…Damn it…’
Had, of all places, spread to where I was.
One foot slipped down the slope, and because of that, my body lurched.
As I put strength into my body to regain balance, a change occurred in my manifested state.
The desert sand detected that change and turned the ground beneath my feet into an antlion pit.
In the end, I fell into the pit Min Arin was in.
“Damn it, because of you…”
“Min Arin.”
“What! What! Why!”
“Apologize.”
“What? What did you just say?”
“I fell because of you, so apologize to me.”
“Don’t talk nonsense! Why is that my fault! Who told you to be standing there!? If anything, you should apologize to me!”
“Sorry. There, happy?”
“…”
“Now it’s your turn.”
“So, sor… I’m not sorry!? Why would I say sorry to yoooou…!”
“Ah, seriously.”
The antlion pit grew even deeper.
I grabbed Min Arin by the scruff of her neck as she was about to be buried almost entirely in the sand.
She let out a squawk, but I ignored it.
“B-breath…!”
“Stay still.”
My evasion instinct activated.
Holding Min Arin by the scruff of her neck, I took a posture as if I were swimming.
At some point, she quieted down, allowing me to assume the position comfortably.
Thanks to that, the sand stopped flowing down, and the pit did not deepen further.
“Seriously… how do we get out of here…”
“Hawawa…”
The sky I looked up at while lying in the desert was truly clear and blue.
In the end, Hong Yena rescued us, and we had to start over from the starting line.
That day, Min Arin ultimately failed to complete a round trip across the desert before class ended.
The same went for me.
“Gyeonwoo, you still have good sense, so if you try a few more times, you’ll be able to do it. Even after you leave, make sure to set aside time to train separately. You can use coins to rent this Gate too.”
“Yes…”
“And as for Arin… Hmm… wouldn’t it be best to build up your stamina first? Your instructor recommends climbing.”
“Yes…”
“All right! I’ll give both of you candy, in the hopes that you’ll do even better from now on!”
“…Thank you. Arin, are you going to eat yours? If you’re not, then give it to me…”
“Hmph, too bad, but I’m going to eat it. You were going to give it to Yeon Haneul again, weren’t you? This is mine, so give up. Yum.”
“Tch.”
It could not be helped.
Since I had already eaten candy once, I did not eat the candy I received from Yu Noeul and put it into my pocket.
I should give it to Haneul after class.
I Became the Childhood Friend of the Mid-Boss