Chapter 43
“I’m screwed.”
Yuna washed her face and ran a hand through her tangled hair.
Getting on the homeroom teacher’s good side was important for earning good grades, but she was already terrified at the thought of what the teacher might think of her after she had suddenly stormed out of the classroom.
If she lost points over this... she didn’t even want to imagine it.
On top of that, she had already promised herself she wouldn’t cry so disgracefully again, but when she looked in the mirror, her eyes were truly red.
She firmly believed all of this was the fault of the rumored transfer student, Name.
The fact that Sihoo had scored 84 and she had scored 82 was frustrating, but she could still look forward to the next opportunity.
But seeing the transfer student confidently score a perfect hundred, Yuna felt even the little self-esteem she had left crumble away.
How had she lived,
What kind of family environment had she grown up in,
What kind of amazing teacher had taught her,
that she could be so overwhelmingly good at magic?
A pain that felt as though it were constricting her chest made Yuna gasp for breath.
She envied the other children.
She wanted to learn magic without deprivation, in a family wealthy enough that she couldn’t spend all its riches even over a lifetime.
She wanted to worry about the distant future instead of worrying about making it through today and tomorrow.
But she couldn’t, because she was her family’s only hope.
She had worked so hard to get into this academy... That was why Yuna couldn’t put down her pen, even in the middle of the night.
Her reflection appeared in the water pooled in the sink.
Dark circles had formed heavily beneath her eyes.
It was the result of sleeping only in short snatches for days on end while preparing for the aptitude assessment.
If she just slammed her head into it like this...
“Are you okay?”
“Who are you! Ah...”
Yuna jumped in surprise and turned around.
At first, she thought it was a ghost, but when she lowered her gaze a little, she saw a small girl staring intently up at her.
“Get lost.”
“I don’t want to.”
“I said get lost!”
“I came to take my medicine, too. It’s not like you’re the only one allowed to use the bathroom, right?”
Yuna wondered what the hell was wrong with this girl.
But regardless, Name came into the bathroom and spilled several empty potion bottles she had brought tucked in her arms onto the sink.
Then Name uncapped the only bottle that contained liquid and drank it in one gulp.
A clean one-shot.
Then she calmly went to the adjacent sink and neatly rinsed the glass bottles.
Black, filthy water bubbled as it flowed down the drain.
“You.”
“What now! I said to leave if you’re done.”
“Your forehead’s bleeding. Come here.”
The wound had come from Yuna hitting her head hard against the mirror when she entered the bathroom.
Name grabbed Yuna’s head with both hands and forcibly lowered it to her own eye level.
“What are you doing?”
“Stop squirming and hold still.”
[2nd-Circle Cast: Tissue Regeneration]
‘When did she...?’
Warmth moved from Name’s hands to Yuna’s forehead.
Yuna hadn’t noticed Name recording anything, let alone any sign that she was casting a spell.
It wasn’t even inscription magic recorded in advance; it was a direct cast.
It was a spell she had never seen before.
Since it was green, Yuna could only vaguely guess that it was probably related to life processes. Even that guess wasn’t accurate.
Unlike the flustered Yuna, Name had been calm from the very beginning.
As though she considered it simply something that had to be done.
Yuna narrowed her eyes to get a better look at Name.
She hadn’t been able to see her face properly because Name was so short,
but now that she looked again, her eyelashes were remarkably long and pretty.
Yuna wondered how such delicate features could all fit so neatly on such a small head.
The attractive upward tilt of her eyes in particular
reminded Yuna so strongly of the Siamese cat she had raised as a child that she had just been thinking they looked exactly alike.
“Don’t get hurt.”
“What, are you bragging that you know how to use magic on me now?”
Contrary to the feeling inside her that wanted to say thank you, a curt remark came out first. It was a long-standing habit of Yuna’s.
“Then do you want to learn, too? Come here.”
“Huh?”
Name’s hand came down over the back of Yuna’s hand.
At the sudden physical contact, Yuna tried to pull away, but their fingers were already interlocked.
“You know all the runes up through the second circle, right? Then I’ll just teach you how to draw it. Remember it well.”
Name’s mana flowed into Yuna’s hand.
A strange energy.
Yuna felt a little dizzy, and it seemed as though her body were heating up.
“You must never draw the outer circle first when casting Tissue Regeneration. Then you have to fit every control formula to the size of the outer circle, which is troublesome. You start by drawing the triangle like this.”
Slowly, yet gently, their interlocked hands moved.
In addition, Name kindly explained each and every detailed element of the magic circle.
Each time, the breath she exhaled brushed Yuna’s shoulder, tickling it.
“If you want to keep the magic circle active, using just a quarter of the mana from the initial infusion is enough.”
“Yeah... I understand.”
“Then do you want to try?”
“You want me to try? Now? This?”
Did she think everyone was a genius like her?
But Yuna couldn’t let herself be looked down on like this, so she desperately recalled the knowledge Name had taught her.
“Draw the triangle first... Three ‘Maven’ runes at each vertex, no, two... and one ‘El’ rune. Then calculate the area and draw the circle, and the control runes go like this, right?”
“Yeah, that’s it.”
Yuna tentatively infused mana into the completed magic circle.
The same magic circle Name had made earlier began to vibrate.
“You’re a genius, too.”
“Of course I am...! No, why are you telling me this?”
“Injuries you get when you’re young can stay with you for life. So make good use of it in your everyday life, too.”
Name left her with that cryptic remark, making Yuna tilt her head briefly, but she quickly figured out the reason.
“You’re young too, so why do you talk like that?”
“I’m an adult.”
“What are you talking about?”
When Yuna looked closely into the mirror, her wound had healed cleanly without a single scar.
Having experienced the wonder of healing magic firsthand, Yuna asked Name where she had learned it.
“Who taught you this magic?”
“Taught me?”
“Someone must have taught you. Your parents, or a private tutor.”
“I taught myself.”
“Don’t lie.”
“Magic is something you have to learn on your own from the beginning if you want to get the hang of it.”
“Still, your parents must have helped you.”
“Neither of them is around?”
“You’re not lying again... are you?”
“No. I’m not lying.”
“...”
Suddenly at a loss for words, Yuna fidgeted with her fingers.
Who could have known that Name’s parents weren’t around?
From the outset, the academy was packed with young masters and ladies from wealthy families whose lives had not contained even a single minor hardship, so Yuna had never thought to consider it.
In the end, after racking her brain, the words that came out were:
“I’m sorry... I don’t have a dad either, so let’s call it even.”
* * *
‘This is bad...!’
It had already been fifteen minutes since Name had gone to look for Yuna, and she still hadn’t returned.
As time passed, Sihoo grew increasingly anxious.
It was only natural: he had come to realize that, judging by the evidence, the people backing Name were no ordinary people, and Yuna had provoked one of them head-on.
There had been no word from them at all—so little that he wondered if Name had taken Yuna not merely to bring her back, but to lock her in a janitor’s closet and beat her.
‘Should I go check, even now?’
But Yoon Sihoo had no pretext to go bring them back.
It was only natural; what teacher in the world would believe that one of their students was a spy?
Sihoo himself decided to dismiss the absurd thought from his mind.
No, but what if...
There was the possibility, remote as it was.
Even if Name wasn’t some kind of spy, Yuna had given her more than enough reason to harbor ill feelings toward her.
If Name really was skilled enough to beat upperclassmen with a single wave of her hand, as Seori had said, then even Seo Yuna would be subdued in an instant.
She might be trapped in the last bathroom stall with her head plunged into a sink full of water.
Rattle.
“...!”
Contrary to Sihoo’s worries, the two of them looked perfectly fine.
Name came in through the back door first, with Yuna following behind her.
But Yuna was far more docile when they met again than she had been earlier.
‘What happened in the bathroom?’
“Sorry, Sihoo, Yohan. You couldn’t do the group activity because of us, right?”
Name apologized.
“No, it’s okay! Seo Yuna, are you okay?”
“Huh? Yeah, I’m fine...”
Was this really the same Yuna who had been spewing profanities too vile to repeat just moments ago?
Apparently Yohan felt the same thing as Sihoo, because he was sweating profusely.
Korean class, one of the less important subjects at Sephiron Academy, eventually petered out without anything coming of it.
As Yuna had feared, it wasn’t a subject with conduct grades, and she only needed to do well on the midterm and final exams.
“Name!”
Once they returned the desks to their original positions and recess began, Seo Yuna hurried over to Name’s desk and called out to her.
“That thing from earlier... teach me again. I forgot how to do it.”
“Come here.”
“Okay.”
“Your hand.”
“Here.”
Yuna knelt beside Name’s desk and placed one hand on top of it.
The scene was exactly like a dog trainer teaching a puppy.
Sihoo wanted to faint right there.