Chapter 6
The Student Guidance Department was in an uproar.
It wasn't as if there had never been attempts to run away from the school.
If you locked energetic students up in a school to begin with, there were bound to be a few runaways every year.
Usually, runaways were punished lightly or severely depending on how long they were gone.
But most of them were caught after trying, so very few students ever got disciplined.
However, they'd never experienced or even heard of anything like that.
Even the guards trembled.
“Catch that bastard!!”
“That bastard's just a monkey! He can even climb trees! How the hell are we supposed to catch him!”
“Haaah, haaah. You pathetic stamina-lacking losers!”
“Aren't you lacking too!!”
“Did he learn assassination techniques or something!?”
Even Reinhardt's guards were all mages of rank 3 or higher.
There was no way they'd be left in the dust by a student who'd only just learned the rank-1 basic attack spell...
Or so they thought.
Until they met that insane bastard.
***
Those bastards won't catch me even in a hundred years.
What did I learn at the training camp!
How to use terrain, evasion techniques, night combat, and divide-and-conquer tactics.
At least in real combat, I'm stronger!
Another ability of [Dragon Eye].
Night vision and eyesight sharper than a normal person's.
This gave me the advantage.
And this place was a forest.
With [Nature Affinity], I'd had the animals I'd met keep the guards busy.
That would slow the pursuit again.
I spotted the guards' blockade and fired an attack spell with the output set as high as possible to draw their attention.
Then I sprang up into a tree in one leap.
“Wha... what!?”
I broke through the guards' second line of defense just like that.
“Bind!”
They tried to bind me, but....
I won't be caught.
I use the ability I already had to control the mana in nature.
“That bastard's not at freshman level anymore! Encrypt the formula!! We're getting jammed!”
“Encode, Bind!”
“It's already too late!”
Thanks to what happened with Karnarov, I'd already gotten the hang of breaking formulas.
And, [Magic Circle Mathematician].
Once I'd seen how it activated, it wasn't hard to find the mana's center with just a little twist!
They're no Karnarov!
After breaking through them all, I found that cave.
And the place where mana gathered.
I threw myself into it!
“Kiiyooooooot!!”
***
“Kwoooar...”
“Kiya! It's been a while since I've been here too.”
I said, patting Gomi.
I found him as soon as I left the tree hollow and walked a little.
When he isn't drunk, this guy even nuzzles up to me on his own.
“Gom-gom.”
“Take me only as far as the middle of the mountain, pleeease.”
“Gom.”
“What? Bone-in meat for when I come back?”
“Gom.”
Gomi doesn't attack people.
Because I taught him that if he attacks people, he'll be hunted down and killed.
Instead, he'd hunt fish to eat, or occasionally ask me for meat.
“Do you know how expensive that stuff is these days?”
This bastard has gotten such refined tastes that he won't even touch frozen meat.
“Kwoong.”
“The taxi fare's more expensive? What the hell does a bear know about taxis?”
They say even a dog raised at a village school for three years learns to recite poetry.
Or is its intelligence growing too because of my trait's influence?
Who knows.
When I first met Gomi, he was insanely hungry, and even then he didn't attack me.
I rode on Gomi's back to the middle of the mountain.
“Thanks, as always.”
“Gom-gom.”
“Yeah, yeah, you beast.”
This guy knows how to keep score.
He's cute, so I'll let it slide.
I roughly calculated the time.
“Running away for more than three days is a serious disciplinary offense...”
Then I just have to finish it in two days!
“But what was today's class again?”
...I guess it doesn't really matter.
***
“…So, you want to take the Tower-climbing test?”
“Yes!”
“…You do know how many times you've taken it now, right?”
“No, I know, I know? This is my first time seeing you, isn't it? There's no way I wouldn't know. You know me already, don't you!”
The receptionist, Woo Suhyun, looked at the person in front of her with a troubled expression.
Anyone at the Chuncheon Hunter Exam Center would know this person.
She still looked like she wasn't fully grown, yet everyone who passed her turned back for another look.
Top graduate of Chuncheon Hunter Training Center's 13th class, and a ten-time repeat examinee for the Tower-climbing test.
Anyone in Chuncheon with even a slight connection to hunters had heard the name at least once.
“Ah, hurry up, please! I'm in a rush!”
That was the identity of this beautiful girl.
But underneath that, she was also just a completely insane nutjob.
Woo Suhyun sighed and said.
“You can't bring a sword again, destroy everything, and then insist you used your ability, okay?”
She had once brought in a greatsword much taller than herself and smashed every target's head in under ten seconds.
Honestly, if that were all, she'd just think the girl was skilled...
The week she spent sleeping rough in this building and throwing a tantrum to demand a passing grade had become legendary.
Of course, Woo Suhyun didn't think this person lacked the ability to climb the Tower.
At the very least, this person wasn't someone who would die on easy mode.
'It's just that the system is weird.'
A law meant to keep people with neither mana nor skill from challenging the Tower just to gamble on its bonus perks and turn their lives around.
The loophole in that law was that there were people who had skill but couldn't climb if they lacked an ability.
She sighed.
“I get it already. Jeez.”
Come to think of it, her outfit was a little different.
The hoodie and baggy pants were the same as before.
But she had a long stick tucked into her waistband.
And her clothes had a lot of dust and fur on them.
“Here you go.”
“Got it.”
The test fee was 1 million won.
After accepting payment by credit card, he grabbed her wrist as she was about to sign.
“What's wrong?”
“That card isn't yours.”
“I'm not an adult though? I don't have my own credit card. It's my mom's.”
“You're an adult, aren't you? I saw you leaving while chugging a bottle of straight soju.”
She was spouting a ridiculous lie that didn't even make sense.
Yumia sighed and said.
“It's Isera's. Mine is mine. Hers is mine too. I won it from her in a drinking bet.”
“…You're talking about Hunter Isera? Come to think of it, where did she go? She was looking for you like crazy.”
Isera was such a rare A-rank hunter in South Korea that she'd make even a conglomerate chairman look ordinary.
And she was also Yumia's classmate.
There was probably only one person in South Korea.
who could secretly use Isera's card and get away with it.
“Get caught and it'll be a pain, so hurry up and swipe it.”
“I'm not handling the aftermath.”
“I'll take care of that myself.”
“What ability is it this time? If you're making it up again, just leave.”
Normally, it was impossible to see another person's status window.
So she had to check what ability she was using.
“Magic. Basic magic.”
“…A magic type? You?”
“What's the problem?”
“…Well, let's see.”
If no mana was detected anyway, she would be disqualified.
“It'll take some time to set up, so please wait.”
“Understood... hmm... do you have any capsule coffee here? I'm going in~.”
Yumia naturally walked into the second-floor office.
Before Woo Suhyun could stop her.
A scream echoed from the second floor.
“Hey!! Why are you coming in here!”
“Wow, you've got every kind of capsule coffee here. Boss, can I take some?”
“Get out!”
“Aw, that's cold. Want me to bring the kids over once? There are a lot of wild boars in the mountains. If we sweep this place clean and run, it'll be a pain for you to clean up.”
“…Ghh! Hey! Woo Suhyun! Why is she coming in here! Keep an eye on her!!”
“S-sorry!”
“Hey!! I brought that back from Japan and was saving it!! My wife said I'd get fat, so I left it here, but...”
The chief, whose ridiculously expensive snacks had been looted, wailed.
“This is tasty. I should've bought more.”
“Hurry up and get the test ready and throw her out!! What, has she been eating nothing but bread scraps for the past three days!”
“Oh, how did you know? Great intuition.”
“Ready! It's all ready!”
***
Woo Suhyun watched Yumia warming up inside the test area.
Marionette.
An automaton doll that moves with mana and repairs itself with mana.
If you can destroy all three within 180 seconds, you pass.
Depending on the Tower's difficulty, the monsters usually line up in formation.
So there are also three dolls to destroy.
One doll handles ranged attacks.
One doll moves quickly and handles melee attacks.
One doll carries a shield and tanks.
The three move at the same time, and the method is simple.
Land a headshot and destroy it in one blow.
Or destroy the entire body.
However, if only part of it is destroyed, it can still function fine without any repairs.
That said, hitting the head is quite difficult.
'Those bastards really do protect their heads...'
Hitting the head of a marionette with reflexes and speed beyond those of an athlete was like plucking a star from the sky.
In close combat, destroying the head was almost impossible.
That was why even Woo Suhyun, a D-rank hunter, could only barely clear the three-minute mark on the third try.
'And I barely made it back alive from the Tower....'
But Yumia showed no sign of nervousness at all.
She just warmed up by stretching and doing exercises.
[Get ready.]
The moment that voice rang out, magical power gathered on Yumia's staff.
And before the lined-up marionettes even moved.
[Start]
Yumia's left pupil split into a straight line.
“Casting, Bullet.”
—Puh-puh-bang.
[Result: 0.1s, new Korean record!!!]
A fanfare rang out.
Woo Suhyun's jaw dropped.
A mana bullet cleanly pierced only the heads.
Woo Suhyun was a hunter, after all.
It was obvious at a glance that this was purely her own ability.
Then the door to the test center waiting room was thrown wide open.
It was Isera, Korea's A-rank hunter.
Woo Suhyun felt even more dazed.
“Hey! What on earth have you been up to again…??”
And Isera, who followed behind, also dropped her jaw.
Only Yumia calmly straightened her back and said.
“I told you it would work, didn't I?”
***
Strictly speaking, the marionettes were not lined up in a straight row.
Their head shapes and sizes all differed depending on position, and so did their stances.
So to pierce them all at once, she'd have to adjust the trajectory entirely....
'What the hell is that bastard doing?'
Could even an S-rank hunter do this?
“Wow, I tried it once and it worked. Still, I was a little off. If their heads hadn't been so big, I might've missed.”
She's spouting nonsense like that.
Three headshots in a row.
Woo Suhyun felt something closer to fear than awe.
Of course, two of the three holes were a little off-center.
But... isn't it already weird just to hit them at all?
“Th-this is...”
“Oh, Isera, you're here?”
“This is all... what is it? Don't tell me you really found a way?”
“What is it? Let's go eat already... I'm hungry.”
Yumia said, throwing herself into Isera's arms.
Isera petted Yumia and looked at Woo Suhyun.
Chills ran down Woo Suhyun's spine.
'Why are they so close!?'
At that point, weren't they more than just acquaintances?
They looked at least like sisters.
'...Am I in trouble?'
She'd heard that Isera was fairly mild-mannered for a high-rank hunter.
She'd even seen her around in passing because of Yumia.
But her rank was A.
To a low-level branch office worker who would never even see an S-rank, she was no different from a god.
“I thought you'd pull it off someday, but... just issue the hunter license already.”
“Ah, yes! Y-yes! Right away!”
Woo Suhyun hurried into the office.
“Huh! Doesn't this take a week once you apply!? I heard the other hunters get chewed out for not doing any work.”
“W-what are you talking about! Obviously it's because we're busy...”
“When I went into the office, everyone was just loafing around... mmph! Mmph!”
Woo Suhyun quickly reached out and clamped a hand over Yumia's mouth.
And she glanced at Isera, but there was no sign of discomfort.
But she couldn't help trembling at every word Yumia said.
Yumia was grinning at Woo Suhyun.
'That little troublemaker...!'
Woo Suhyun was seething inside, but there was nothing to be done.
“If you don't like it, you should be friends with an A-rank too—augh!”
“Hey! I told you not to do that! Sorry. She's immature...”
“Ow! Why are you hitting me!? And by age, you're way older than me by a whole—ghek.”
Isera grabbed Yumia by the nape of the neck.
Yumia went quiet in an instant.
Having received her hunter license, Yumia was grabbed by Isera and dragged away.
“Bye! I'll come again!”
That bright smile and wave were pure Yumia.
'Are you a cat or something....'
Woo Suhyun let out a dry laugh in disbelief.