The day after my participation in the Academy Competition was confirmed and I submitted the 3rd Circle Magic to the organizing committee, I remembered that the middle school seniors secretly called me to their hotel room to explain the enemies we would face.
[Lee Jae-hwan, Jo Soo-yeon, Park Jun-yong, Lee Min-young. These four have been connected for nine years now, and aside from Lee Min-young, they all come from well-off families, so you could say they lead the whole grade.]
[And if I say it negatively?]
[They’re just a bunch of clueless brats with good grades. Thanks to them, a few kids have transferred out.]
Due to the closed nature of Altair Academy, where going out was impossible except on weekends, the kids built their own society within that small space.
[Especially Lee Jae-hwan, whose mother is the green party’s parliamentary representative, and Jo Soo-yeon, whose great-grandfather is a cardinal; these two are the core. Lee Jae-hwan mostly uses natural barrier magic based on biomimetic technology, while Jo Soo-yeon, being part of the Catholic Archdiocese of Seoul, adopted Aquinas’ Theological Treatise as her philosophy.]
[Who’s the remaining one?]
[Oh Deok-jae, a peculiar senior who graduated from our Sephiron Academy. He probably had to repeat a year. His parents are just researchers at the Defense Science Institute, and… well, nothing too special about him.]
[But how does your senior know all this information?]
[Oh, a friend of my parents works in national policy… uh!]
Just thinking about why the foundation in the United States took charge of gifted education in Korea made the answer obvious.
Whether it’s Sephiron or Altair, they gathered the children of the so-called “corrupted powers” that people commonly mention, so how could it operate normally under the supervision of a Korean educational institution?
“Are there only two left now?”
My tattered shirt sleeves were really bothering me.
I surrounded my fingertips with aura, neatly slicing through the rags.
In the meantime, Lee Jae-hwan had been eliminated, and Oh Deok-jae came in as the last contestant.
It was truly madness to deal with kids who unleashed their ultimate skills right from the start.
There must be a reasonable reason why heroes unleash their full power only in critical moments.
“Ugh, my neck is killing me.”
Jo Soo-yeon said, twisting her head.
Due to the tournament rules, we couldn’t threaten our opponent during substitutions, causing the Arabesque Knot to naturally vanish.
Jo Soo-yeon, now recovered, was glaring at me with intense eyes filled with intent to kill.
“Look, Jo Soo-yeon, we have the numerical advantage, so let’s watch the situation and take it slow.”
“Shut up, you otaku bastard. If you interfere with this fight, I’ll kill you.”
Jo Soo-yeon cut off Oh Deok-jae’s words sharply. Her Aura Heart began to tremble, manifesting her strong will to the world.
“I’ll deal with that little brat.”
WHOOSH—!!!
The aura responded to Jo Soo-yeon’s will.
Soon, a pure beam of light erupted, illuminating her head like a halo.
“Is this the onset of External Manifestation?”
It wasn’t perfect, but she had broken through the outer walls of the Imaginary World.
“Shut up. It’s the grace of God.”
Jo Soo-yeon retorted, biting her lip.
SWISH—!
Her inner world, built on blind faith, granted the girl a powerful body.
Her legs propelled explosively as she raced toward me, disrupting the mana in her path.
With her tightly clenched fist, she molded the twisted mana like clay until white thorns erupted recklessly from her fingertips.
“Lord, forgive our sins!”
“What are you, a werewolf or something?”
SWISH—!
With each swipe of her nails, countless white flashes tore through the air.
Each one was a fatal attack I couldn’t manage to endure.
As I widened the distance, Jo Soo-yeon marched over and indiscriminately rained down attacks.
Focusing my aura in my eyes, I deflected the deadly thorns that were aimed at me.
Our gazes locked across the training arena as the breathless skirmish continued.
“Just let me hit you once! Just once! AAAAH!”
“Ugh.”
Even if it looked like she was losing her sanity, her steps and movements were eerily precise.
She was probably trying to maintain a vague distance to prevent me from casting the Demon King’s Horn again, overpowering me with reach difference.
Instinct or not, she was a born fighter.
As I was pushed back against the arena wall from her dozens of consecutive kicks, she inhaled sharply and glared fiercely.
“You didn’t see this coming!”
With the intuition of a critical moment, Jo Soo-yeon launched an uppercut from below, rising from the ground.
“..!”
I was much shorter than her.
So unless she bent at the waist significantly, I wouldn’t get hit by an uppercut to the head.
At that moment, a ring of light shot up from the ground, wrapping around my upper body.
CRASH—!
Just as I was bound and immobilized, Jo Soo-yeon grabbed me by the collar, raising me up to her eye level.
My feet easily lifted off the ground.
The panting girl, soaked in sweat, scanned me from top to bottom before breaking into a sinister smile.
“Ha ha, damn… you didn’t let out a single scream even in this situation?”
“…”
“Haah… Na-me, now you see why I never take the lead in competitions? It’s because I can’t match the level of Sephiron brats. Infidels aren’t worth my time.”
CRACKLE—
Once again, she drew an arcane discharge magic circle with my horn.
However, Jo Soo-yeon menacingly grasped my horn with the other hand and disbanded all the mana.
“Don’t do anything foolish, friend. No matter how much you struggle, I’ll always be seven years ahead of you. If you wanted to fight, you should have been born earlier. Do you think you can do anything by barging into the middle school competition unprepared?”
The shape of the horn slowly distorted.
Just as I was about to revert back to the state of mana, I focused my eyes on her expression.
“Does your god free you from pain?”
“What?”
“Just a piece of advice—don’t touch my horn carelessly. You might get hurt.”
[Project: Demon King’s Horn – Engraving]
[Cast: Pain Synchronization]
CLANG—!
My horn shattered into pieces, splattering her face with fragments.
“AHHHH, what the hell!”
Jo Soo-yeon recoiled in shock, shaking her head.
But soon, the mana scattered in its natural state, disappearing.
Nothing happened, and she wore an expression of disbelief.
“My horn is a semi-permanent organ but can also serve as a medium for engravings like a tablet or magic stone. Do you understand what this means?”
“…?”
“In gaming terms, sister, you got caught in my trap card.”
Though scrolls couldn’t be brought into the competition, using engraved magic itself wasn’t prohibited.
So like Jo Soo-yeon hid a chain-casting magic circle in Gáe Bulg, I had also placed a special engraving on the Demon King’s Horn.
The triggering condition was contact with the horn’s damage.
And the engraved magic was Pain Synchronization.
I pinched my left cheek hard.
“AH!”
Jo Soo-yeon squinted her eyes, rubbing her face.
This time, I pinched my right cheek.
“Ugh!”
“Okay, I’m losing interest in you, sister. Hurry up and surrender.”
“Do you think I would surrender to such a shabby magic? That only tickles-”
[Formation: Silicon Dioxide – Amorphous Solid]
I immediately created a piece of glass.
Lifting the sharp shard high into the air, I showed it clearly to her.
“What are you doing! You can’t be serious…?”
“Long ago, dark wizards made this a part of daily life.”
“Hey! Stop!”
Of course, considering the standards of a world filled with mana.
The cold, sharp touch of the glass felt through my palm.
CRUNCH—!
I applied more force to break through the microscopic barrier.
The spot where the glass scraped created a line of scarlet blood that trickled down and dripped onto the sandy floor.
The following sound was deafening.
“AHHHHH!!!”
Jo Soo-yeon screamed out in raw terror, causing the crowd to stir.
“Jesus was nailed to the cross, yet why is his disciple so weak?”
Jo Soo-yeon’s sturdy legs crumbled tragically.
Even writhing in agony while clutching her hand, the pain still sent electric signals coursing through her mind.
“Didn’t you learn at the academy? It’s easy to dismantle interlinking magic circles, you know. It should be covered in the middle school curriculum.”
I slowly approached her, who was groaning in pain.
“Ugh…! That’s…!”
Hearing my words, Jo Soo-yeon reached for the magic circle.
But there was no way I was going to let her unbind it.
I slowly maneuvered the shard of glass toward her wrist.
RIIIP—!
The barrier shattered and repaired repeatedly, this time pouring even more blood onto the ground.
A vertical crack crossed her left arm.
“Ugh! Ugh! AHH!”
Finally, I raised Jo Soo-yeon’s tear-stained chin to face her.
Fresh blood from my arm dripped onto her face, blending in with the tears.
“I’m scared… it hurts… ugh, please just stop. What did I do wrong?”
Amidst her sorrowful cries, a desperate scream erupted.
The once fierce expression softened.
I discarded the glass shard and knelt down to embrace her tightly.
“So, let’s promise to speak nicely from now on and not ignore people. That cringy way of speaking has been bothering me since earlier, so make sure to fix that too, okay, sister?”
“Ugh…”
“Good job. Take a break.”
I patted the back of that religious zealot a few times and stood up again.
‘What a stubborn brat, acting all tough while whining.’
She could have surrendered at any point, but it seems she’d rather die than lose to me.
Ultimately, judged by the referees, Jo Soo-yeon was declared unable to fight and was immediately carried out on a stretcher.
[Cast: Organization Regeneration]
Since it was made of magic glass, the neatly cut surface was perfectly sutured.
And just as Jo Soo-yeon said, I shifted my gaze to the boy who hadn’t intervened until this point.
“I thought it was all over…”
“NoName…”
“The most interesting part hasn’t happened yet, has it?”
After meeting Katsuhata Emika recently, I had become a bit too picky, so the kids participating in the Academy Competition didn’t satisfy me much.
I had planned to just go to Japan and enjoy endless battles with her, but seeing Oh Deok-jae made me postpone that thought, even if just for a moment.
As I was reading the mana to select Jo Soo-yeon’s threatening thorns, I sensed his presence simultaneously.
From a distance, his analytical attitude, as if this were his fight, couldn’t be more impressive, and astonishingly, his judgment matched mine perfectly.
I wasn’t the only one surprised.
“NoName, how far does your talent extend?”
Oh Deok-jae adjusted his glasses and asked.
“How did you perceive all of Jo Soo-yeon’s aura? Is it even possible for a human… no, for an eight-year-old?”
With a height just above 160 centimeters, slightly shorter than my peers, a stout build, and skin dotted with secondary sex traits, his appearance didn’t seem particularly distinctive at first glance; however, reality was different.
As he exerted his strength, the muscles on his limbs bulged significantly, and his elongated eyes were always fixed on the heart of the battlefield.
Suddenly, he rolled up the sleeves of his dress shirt and tossed his tie down to the floor.
Lowering his weight center by bending his knees, he placed his left hand toward the ground while hiding his right hand behind his waist.
This was the standard posture to signal the start of a duel.
By performing an action that could meaningfully affect the win rate, even by 0.1%, he indicated his seriousness about this duel.
Shedding all prejudices associated with age, he recognized me as an actual opponent.
“Finally… finally…!”
Then, I couldn’t afford to hold back either.
I threw the magic items gifted from Baek Bong-gon, the Grandmaster, into the corner of the arena—the golden hairpin and the hair tie.
Then, I took out a simple rubber hair tie that I had prepared in my pocket and tied my long hair up into two tight ponytails.
The suffocating sensation restricting my Aura Heart output completely dissipated, and I felt as refreshed as after eating a peppermint.
“If you’re that curious, senior, why don’t you check for yourself how far my talent goes?”
I was confident I could roll him up properly.
