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Inspired by Jeong Gyeoul’s cheers, Lee Ha-yoon unleashed a barrage of magic.

Thanks to that, more than half of the villains were already incapacitated.

The villains, who were of the Magic and Super Ability categories, tried their best to use their abilities to block Lee Ha-yoon’s magical bombardment, but…

Even if she was just an Awakened One, an S-Class is still an S-Class.

The quality of her magic power was different.

Jeong Gyeoul had trained to block Lee Ha-yoon’s magic even when she was a C-Class, but the villains, who couldn’t manipulate magic as delicately as her, found it impossible to block Lee Ha-yoon’s spells.

Amidst all this, miraculously, there were no fatalities.

Of course, Lee Ha-yoon was just firing magic randomly and didn’t care about the villains’ lives.

But it was possible because Jeong Gyeoul used telekinesis to adjust the path of the magic while cheering.

Now, there were no villains left below B-Class.

There were no more weaklings left to be crushed by the randomly fired magic or telekinetic pressure.

“I’m starting to run low on magic power…”

“You did well, Ha-yoon. Take a short break to recover some magic power, even if it’s just a little…”

She wanted to let Lee Ha-yoon rest all day after continuously releasing magic, but that was impossible.

Most of the remaining villains could be handled by Jeong Gyeoul alone.

But Fox Mask, the Apostle, and Lee Cheol-jin hadn’t made their move yet.

If they stepped in, Jeong Gyeoul wouldn’t be able to handle them alone,

and Lee Ha-yoon’s help would be crucial.

Jeong Gyeoul glanced back just in case, but everyone was munching on popcorn, as if they had brought it from somewhere.

They say the most entertaining thing in the world is watching a fight.

The two middle school girls placed at the front were thoroughly enjoying the show.

As Lee Ha-yoon’s magic stopped, the remaining villains started to stir.

“Is… is it over?”

“She seems to be out of magic! Attack!”

“Who’s giving orders here?”

“Shut up, you idiots!”

“There are more of us! Charge!”

Excluding the three most dangerous villains, the remaining villains all charged at Jeong Gyeoul.

‘Why aren’t those three moving…’

Lee Ha-yoon was recovering her magic, and the so-called adults didn’t seem to have any intention of stepping in.

She needed to conserve her stamina and magic to deal with those three, but…

Most of the charging villains were B-Class.

She wasn’t confident she could win overwhelmingly.

If it were Jeong Ha-yul, she would have knocked them all out with one Demon King Punch.

Once again, she thought telekinesis was useless and pulled out the daggers embedded in her Hero Suit, floating them in the air.

‘If your ability is weak, you have to rely on equipment.’

The daggers looked incredibly sharp and sturdy.

They were made from the bones of a Disaster Species monster and embedded in the Hero Suit.

It was a gift Park Seol-hwa had added when she heard Jeong Gyeoul would be using the Hero Suit during its production for the Association.

Daggers worth over a hundred million each started to fly.

At that moment.

Something flew in from behind Jeong Gyeoul.

‘Oh my god!’

Even if she hadn’t dodged, it wouldn’t have reached her.

But her unconscious defensive instincts made her duck.

The round object flew past Jeong Gyeoul and landed among the villains.

BOOM—

A deafening explosion erupted, as if a grenade had gone off.

Jeong Gyeoul immediately tackled Lee Ha-yoon to the ground, shielding her.

She braced for the aftershock, wrapping herself and Lee Ha-yoon in telekinesis, but…

Nothing happened.

“…What?”

“Wow… that was scary… but why is it so quiet?”

Jeong Gyeoul stood up awkwardly and looked ahead.

“…”

It was a sight that left her speechless.

“Who did that?”

“Sister! Sister did it, Gyeoul! If you come to Daehyun Guild, she can make hundreds of those!”

“I told her to handle the villains properly, and she’s out here recruiting kids.”

It didn’t seem like the small fry would be good experience for the kids.

They were just useless extras draining their energy.

Jeong Ha-yul, who wanted the kids to face the real villains, had Park Seol-hwa knock out the weaklings.

“…Well, she helped anyway.”

“I didn’t think you’d waste so much magic on those weaklings. She should’ve done this from the start.”

Two aspiring students from the Hero Academy.

Both just 14 years old.

Even though the two of them had subdued nearly fifty villains, Jeong Ha-yul didn’t seem satisfied.

“If you want to enter the world of heroes, you have to make those weaklings too scared to even look at you. Remember when we first arrived? Just sitting there made the villains want to go back to prison.”

Jeong Gyeoul was speechless at Jeong Ha-yul’s words.

‘That’s because you half-kill the villains every time you face them…’

But she didn’t make the mistake of saying it out loud.

Even though hormones were raging and the Black Flame Dragon was going wild,

even they were quiet in front of Jeong Ha-yul’s seriousness.

After running it through multiple filters in her mind, the words that came out were very gentle.

“Maybe it’s because those villains have seen your incredible feats before? If villains are scared of aspiring students who haven’t even debuted yet, they don’t deserve to be called villains.”

“Didn’t they fear you even when you were just an aspiring student?”

‘It’s because you’re too violent that they’re scared of you! If they’re scared of us, who are just aspiring students, are they even villains?!’

But the response came back.

‘Yeah, they were scared of me even when I was an aspiring student.’

Conversations with Jeong Ha-yul often went like this.

Even when teaching magic manipulation.

“No, if you circulate your magic like this and release it like that, the efficiency doubles, right?”

“That’s what I’m saying, but how do I do that?!”

“You did it right after awakening, didn’t you?”

“…”

Or when teaching the Demon King Punch.

“No, if you channel your magic like this and punch like that, it’s simple, right?”

“I tried that, but it doesn’t work… With this punch, I can only break through a wall.”

“That’s why, if you do it like this and that, you can do it too, right?”

“…Forget it!”

Jeong Gyeoul also had incredible talent.

To those who knew her, she was called a genius.

But the true genius was someone like Jeong Ha-yul.

Knowing that continuing the conversation would only stress her out, Jeong Gyeoul ignored Jeong Ha-yul and stepped forward.

Lee Ha-yoon had almost fully recovered her magic and stood beside Jeong Gyeoul.

2 vs 3.

The enemies were two A-Class and one S-Class.

Even worse, they were active villains who had committed all sorts of crimes.

‘Can we really win…’

The remaining three villains slowly gathered their magic and took their stances.

Jeong Gyeoul and Lee Ha-yoon also tensed up and started gathering their magic.

“Wait a second.”

“…?”

“…?”

Suddenly, Jeong Ha-yul intervened.

Seeing the villains gathering their magic, she thought 2 vs 3 would be too much and stepped in to balance the scales.

“You’ve been eating well in prison, huh… Why are you stronger than before? Cheol-jin, come sit with me for a bit.”

“Shut your mouth, you bitch.”

“This isn’t a request… come here quickly, unless you want all three of you to die.”

Lee Cheol-jin, as if refusing to go, gathered his magic even more intensely and nodded at Fox Mask and the Apostle standing beside him.

“If we all attack at once, we can create an opening.”

They nodded in agreement, but the moment he turned his head back to Jeong Ha-yul…

“Ugh!”

Fox Mask and the Apostle seemed to have different plans.

They used the magic they had gathered and pushed Lee Cheol-jin away.

Losing his balance, Lee Cheol-jin was delivered to Jeong Ha-yul, sweating coldly.

“You traitors! Selling out your comrade!”

“Oh, were we ever comrades?”

“Comrade from North Korea is South Korean, right? I’m British, so no relation.”

In an instant, Jeong Ha-yul took Lee Cheol-jin and stepped aside.

“2 vs 2 looks much better. Do your best.”

Lee Cheol-jin, with his neck grabbed, was quietly dragged away.

He could have resisted, but he was as docile as a kitten being carried by its mother.

As soon as Jeong Ha-yul stepped aside, Fox Mask and the Apostle moved simultaneously.

Fox Mask, a Physical Category ability user, took the front.

The Apostle, a Magic Category ability user, took the rear.

The Apostle tried to use his specialty, necromancy, to kill other villains, but Jeong Ha-yul’s voice was faster.

“If you kill even one person here, I’ll kill you too?”

“Tch.”

Necromancy using corpses as a medium was the most efficient, but it was blocked by Jeong Ha-yul.

Reluctantly, he started using necromancy with his own blood as the medium.

Cutting his hand and scattering the blood, skeletons rose from it.

“…Are you really the one who terrorized the Academy?”

“Shall we do it like last time?”

Lee Ha-yoon, recalling the time she swept through skeletons with light attribute magic at the Academy, asked Jeong Gyeoul for her opinion, but Jeong Gyeoul shook her head.

“I can’t do it like last time, I won’t be able to handle Fox Mask. Ha-yoon, you take care of the Apostle.”

“Got it. Be careful, Gyeoul.”

Unlike the villains who split into front and rear, they decided to split left and right, each taking on one.

Lee Ha-yoon, who could handle light attribute magic, wouldn’t find it too difficult to deal with the Apostle, presumed to be a necromancer.

The plan was to quickly subdue him and then team up against Fox Mask.

But the situation didn’t flow that easily.

 

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