〈 Episode 4 〉 What Are You?
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Erié. A genius born into the Reurwisie family, one of the so-called three great houses, who entered the Magic Department of Melheim Academy as the second-ranked student.
Following her grandfather’s words that “politics is the accumulation of influence,”
she was exerting herself to engrave herself into the memories of those who would later advance to the central political sphere.
“Because impressions formed during one’s school days last a lifetime.”
If she could somehow gain their “positive” impressions here in any form,
they would all become her influence and could help her achieve the grand goal she pursued.
Therefore, for the sake of her influence, she designated the clumsy commoner priestess before her as an “enemy” and gathered sympathy from others.
“To be honest, I don’t bear any malice, but…”
She possessed conditions all too perfect to be made a public enemy.
For example, saying things like, “The Hero is alive!” though whether it was an appeal to be different from others, she didn’t know.
Or being a “commoner” of unclear origins… such things.
“So.”
Even if she openly showed hostility toward her without worry,
she thought there would be no disadvantages, nor would it become a problem later.
…That is, until someone threw a stone.
Right around when she was picking a fight with the priestess spouting strange words as usual, raising her own value,
she heard the sound of someone running from the side.
The moment she tried to check who it was, in case it was the disciplinary committee or a teacher who could make the situation bigger,
she saw a pebble flying, drawing such a beautiful trajectory that it could be called the most beautiful line she had ever seen.
Dazed by such beauty, she stared at it blankly,
then came to her senses and quickly raised her mana to create a protective barrier.
“This much is nothing.”
No matter how fast the pebble flew,
at best, it was just a “pebble.” It was no danger at all to her, a 3-star magician.
She stood still, trusting the barrier without much worry, but—
Crack.
The pebble ruthlessly trampled her thoughts and pierced through.
“Crazy…!”
It was something normally impossible,
but the pebble he threw made it possible.
Like a stone hurled at a window, it pierced through everything and lodged itself hard into her side.
“Kyaaack!”
Along with it came an intense pain she had felt for the first time in her life.
Along with that pain, her gastric juices reversed and nausea rushed over her,
and she retched, vomiting what she had eaten that morning.
“Uweeehk.”
It hurt enough to bring tears to her eyes, but not enough to lose control of her body.
So she wiped her mouth and tried to stand up immediately, but
from her side struck by the stone, her mana kept disappearing, making her body stagger.
“……Huh?”
This was the first time. Her mana disappearing.
At such an alien sensation, she trembled and felt fear.
“This makes no sense.”
Her mana was disappearing? How could that be possible.
She immediately denied it, but denying it did not make reality disappear.
Her fear only grew greater.
“What the hell… is that guy?”
At that horrifying sensation of unknown identity, she couldn’t help but shiver.
* * * * *
Jeonghyeon saw the nameless woman hit and fall by the stone he had thrown as a threat.
He grabbed the wrist of the cowering priestess as he had initially planned and ran out with her.
After running like that for a while, he heard an exhausted voice from behind and had no choice but to stop.
“E-excuse me, let’s rest for a bit…!”
The moment he stopped, the priestess plopped down on the ground and breathed roughly.
She seemed to have been struggling beyond her limits.
Jeonghyeon looked at her and likewise sat down on the ground, taking a deep breath.
Though he hadn’t shown it, he too was exhausted to death.
‘Shit, I need to raise my stamina first…’
Jeonghyeon let out a rough breath, recalling his stamina of a mere 4.
‘I feel like I had more than 4 stamina even before I died…’
He couldn’t figure out how his stamina was only 4.
While he was thinking he needed to reinforce it through training as quickly as possible,
the Achievement Score System window, which he had momentarily forgotten due to exhaustion, caught his eye.
**
[Achievement Score System]
- Once you accumulate achievement scores beyond a certain point, leveling up becomes possible!
**
In this world, achievement scores meant the experience needed to level up.
There was one reason it was called achievement score rather than experience.
‘Because levels have far greater influence than in other RPGs.’
In other RPGs, leveling up only raised stats slightly and unlocked skills,
but here, it was said that leveling up made you grow to the extent that your “rank” changed.
‘If I had to compare it to a mobile game, would it be like the difference between a 1-star and a 2-star character?’
He couldn’t know exactly since he had never leveled up before,
but everyone said the difference was enormous, so he figured it was roughly that much.
‘Well, anyway, it’s probably best to raise it as fast as possible.’
Since that would be a great help to him.
With that thought, he looked at his right arm, which was continuing to ache with a throbbing pain.
‘…It’s completely wrecked.’
It was swollen red, and the skin was torn to the extent that it could be described as tattered. He let out a hollow laugh.
There was no way this would happen just from throwing a stone.
He realized it had happened because he had unconsciously used holy power.
‘Holy power.’
He looked at the holy power rising from his right hand like a heat haze and made a complicated expression.
This holy power had clearly been given for his sake, yet it always plunged him into trouble.
Complicated thoughts arose, but he soon shook them off and focused on his right arm again.
‘It doesn’t hurt as much as I thought.’
Perhaps because, compared to the pain the collar had given him, this was something he could laugh off lightly.
Thinking it wasn’t so bad,
he smiled slightly at the newly appeared message.
[Your stats have increased.]
‘And above all, my stats went up.’
His stats went up even though it barely hurt?
This was no different from getting something for free.
‘In reality, overexerting yourself leads to negative results.’
That didn’t seem to be the case here.
He was finding this interesting when
the priestess beside him seemed to have regained her senses. She sat up, looked at him, then started and spoke.
“A-are you okay? Your arm…”
At those words, Jeonghyeon nodded briefly.
Though it was bloody to a gruesome degree, the pain wasn’t as great as it looked.
So he said he was fine and tried to stand up, but—
“Wait…! I’ll heal you.”
He flinched at the word “heal.”
Whenever he made mistakes, that bitch Rea would repeat violence and healing under the pretext of penance.
So he had bad memories of healing and was about to refuse,
but something pure white and warm—
a sensation completely opposite to what he knew—flowed in through his palm.
“You’ll be healed immediately, so don’t worry.”
“…Thank you.”
“It’s nothing. You’re the one who helped me first, so you don’t need to thank me.”
Hearing those words,
he silently looked at the priestess.
As if to prove she was a priestess, her snow-white hair and skin that symbolized pure white caught his eyes.
He blankly stared at her appearance, like pure white snow that no one had touched,
and saw her lower and raise her long eyelashes as she examined his arm this way and that, saying, “I’m done now,” and smiling in satisfaction.
‘…She is pretty.’
She had such splendid looks that one could say a god had descended and modeled her after himself.
He was thinking he had no choice but to admit this
when suddenly she asked him an out-of-the-blue question.
“…You too must think that the Hero doesn’t exist, right?”
At those words, Jeonghyeon laughed hollowly inside.
The situation of asking him whether he himself existed was funny in itself.
Jeonghyeon pondered briefly what to answer, then replied shortly.
“I think he exists. I’ve seen him too.”
“R-really? As expected… right?”
He only felt bitter because she seemed so happy.
He silently watched her chatter on about something
when she suddenly met eyes with Jeonghyeon and spoke as if something was fascinating.
“By the way, hmm. I think you look like the Hero I saw. Though it’s been several years, so I’m not sure.”
He didn’t know what to answer and kept his mouth shut.
She saw his reaction and spoke with an awkward smile.
“Anyway, is there anything I can help you with? If I’ve received grace, it’s natural to repay it. I’d like to repay you if possible…”
Repayment.
At that word he hadn’t heard in a long time, Jeonghyeon smiled and answered.
“Then I have one request.”
“Yes? What is it?”
At those words, he continued speaking while maintaining his smile.
“For starters, I think we’re the same age, so we can speak casually, right?”
“Y-yes? Yes.”
“And let’s go somewhere for a moment.”
At the sudden chain of events,
she blinked her large eyes full of confusion with a blank expression.
* * *
A back mountain crowded with trees everywhere, with no maintained paths and scarce human presence.
Jeonghyeon held her wrist and went deeper and deeper.
As they gradually went deeper into the mountain, she showed signs of panic,
and soon, unable to bear it, she shouted at him with her face burning red.
“A-ah, no. We have to be really close before doing something like this, so no…!”
Jeonghyeon frowned at her words.
“You said you’d help.”
“But… at the very least, it’s right to do this after becoming close…”
Since she seemed to be firmly misunderstanding something,
before she kept screaming,
he decided to clear up that misunderstanding first.
“I think you’re misunderstanding something. I only brought you here to ask you to use some healing during training.”
“You beast…! As expected, men are—”
She had been screaming, but paused for a moment.
She made a somewhat foolish expression and tilted her head.
“Huh?”
“I found a way to raise my stats quickly earlier. So I wanted to experiment how much they go up, and I need your help for that.”
She still looked at him with an uncomprehending expression.
Jeonghyeon gave up explaining and immediately changed the subject.
“Anyway, how serious of an injury can you heal, and how many times?”
“Well… as long as you don’t die, somehow? About 100 times…? For severe wounds, about 20 times…”
More times than he thought.
At this level, it seemed like several times more than that bitch Rea.
He wondered why a priestess could use healing magic so many times and expressed a brief impression.
“Good. Then I’ll be counting on you.”
“What do you mean by counting on me…?”
He thought showing would be better than telling.
Without answering, he fiercely punched the tree in front of him.
Pathetic strength and stamina.
Because of that, the power in his hand itself was insignificant, but
holy power assisted all of this and granted him overwhelming strength impossible to bear.
It allowed him to exert several times the force he could normally produce.
But as always, overwhelming power destroyed him.
The recoil from the immense force shattered his arm again.
[Your stats have increased.]
Having exceeded his limits, his stats rose another level as the price.
‘I tried it on the off-chance, but it really works.’
Though pain surged, the satisfaction he felt upon seeing his stats rise came before that.
He was thinking it wasn’t a bad training method
when a voice of shock came from behind.
“…Are you crazy?!”
Along with that voice, a warm energy immediately flowed into his arm.
He watched his arm gradually return to normal and answered briefly.
“I’m not particularly crazy.”
“But why are you shattering your own arm!”
In this world, where it took at least a few days, or even years, for a stat to rise by 1 with normal training methods,
how would she know how lucky it was to raise a stat with a single swing?
He tried to explain but soon found it bothersome, and this time silently filled his leg with power and kicked the tree, continuing his training.
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