Chapter 57
"Mr. Kihwan, haven't you been getting too sluggish lately? Try working with some energy, like you did when you hit me."
"Come on... How long ago was that? And I have seniority here."
"What's with the seniority excuse?! Besides, if that's how we're counting it, Uncle, you'd be crushed to death by the rice grains Ms. Jihye drops."
Thwack!
I lightly smacked him on the back and instructed him to help train An Nari.
Of course, it would be wrong to expect too much from someone who had spent all his time doing nothing but beating people up and apprehending them, but wasn't lying around all day a bit much?
Just how much was his salary, anyway.
"All right, that's enough over there. Shall we go look around too?"
"I don't spill rice, Lady Raebi."
"Ah, I know..."
"Aren't we going straight to the Japanese lodging?"
"If you mean Lady Iroha, she sent me a private message asking me to meet her at the lake. It seems her attendant keeps giving her grief for going out to play when her schedule is already so packed."
With that, we began walking.
We were currently in Balkhash, southern Kazakhstan.
Below the city lay a vast lake called Balkhash, and beyond it, across the plains, stood a large training ground.
The area was wide open and had almost no civilian residences, so apparently even if a fierce battle broke out, it was unlikely to cause much damage.
We were told to be careful because starting at A-rank, even the sturdiest training grounds were frequently destroyed.
They said there were various other cultural reasons as well, but I refused to study the details.
What mattered to me was moving up Korea's rankings and earning my certification.
“Lady Raebi. This way.”
“Oh, right.”
It was a gigantic lotus-shaped facility spanning 33 square kilometers. Since even the entrance was quite a distance away, we took a car.
"By the way, Ms. Nari is admirable. Volunteering for training like this."
"It's only natural, Lady Raebi."
"There you go being cold again. Still, you held up well in front of Lord Aiden last time."
"I didn't hold up. I froze because I was scared, and that's why I'm undertaking individual training."
As always, Han Jihye had some harsh words for her. The other attendants seemed to think she was being too blunt and argumentative, but this was actually Han Jihye's way of showing consideration.
Since I always acted according to my whims whenever I met someone, this was part of her mental training to teach me not to squander my ability to read the room.
Put simply, it was training to keep me from being a sucker.
"How are things going with April's attendant?"
"I'm receiving reports every four hours. There have been no suspicious approaches to the room so far."
I had asked April to lend me an escort. If anyone tried something pointless, ordinary non-Awakened people would have trouble dealing with them.
Since the second semester consisted of practical training, violent incidents occurred fairly often, so An Kihwan had no choice but to accompany us this time as well.
Only the cleaning attendant Kim Sooyoung and culinary attendant Han Cheol remained at the Thebes annex.
I had originally planned to leave Im Bora behind, but apparently she felt safer staying close to me.
I saw Im Bora getting scolded by Han Jihye for asking, 'How long are you going to stay so gloomy?' I didn't get involved.
I could understand both Im Bora, who had gone through something unpleasant, and Han Jihye, who had taken temporary charge of the attendants.
We arrived at the lake.
It was an enormous crescent-shaped body of water spanning 17,000 square kilometers. With blue stretching endlessly into the distance and even faint waves rolling in, it was called a lake, but in practice it felt like an inland sea.
I immediately called Vincent.
-Yeah.
"What are you doing, big brother?"
-I told you. I have to clear three Gates today. I'm busy, so get to the point.
"I'm relaxing somewhere with nice weather and clear water right now. Thanks to you working so hard, I'm happy..."
Click.
The call ended with an irritated click. I tucked away the smartphone I had been holding, chuckling.
Han Jihye looked over with an inscrutable expression, but how could I explain such high-level humor to someone with a personality as icy as hers? I gave up early.
The slight reaction she'd shown during Kim Chahun and Iroha's meeting the other day had been a special case, at least.
"What's so funny, Lady Raebi?"
"Oh, Lady Iroha. When did you get here? Where are your attendants?"
"They'll get here eventually, I suppose."
'......Oh, dear.'
Iroha's behavior was growing bolder by the day. I felt sorry for her attendants.
Coming ahead alone did mean she trusted me that much, but put another way, wasn't it deeply worrying behavior from her attendants' perspective?
When I jokingly asked, 'Aren't I going to be hated by Lady Iroha's attendants?' her expression turned dead serious.
"I'm afraid there's nothing I can do about that. One cannot be loved by everyone."
"Wow... You're really shameless."
"Hehe, I've learned a lot from you too, Lady Raebi. Anyway, what were you thinking about?"
......What had she learned?
Of course, I'd told her stories about various experiences, but I had never gone too far in front of Iroha herself.
I wasn't going to get summoned to the Shimizu household for ruining their perfectly good daughter, was I?
On a whim, I pressed Kim Chahun's berserk button.
"Lady Iroha's hair flowing like cherry blossoms, and her smooth skin as though carved by the gods..."
"You little rascal!"
Iroha gave both my cheeks a sharp pinch.
"Are you sorry or not?"
"I didn't do anyfing."
"Phew... If you keep this up, I'll make you face Father one-on-one during the tour of Japan."
"I did wong."
I immediately apologized.
Iroha was kind, but she didn't say things she didn't mean. If I made a mistake, I might end up spending six nights and seven days at the Shimizu residence.
After that, she and I exchanged playful smiles and chatted face-to-face.
"By the way, something feels strange here."
"What does?"
"I can sense mana inside the lake."
"Ah, I heard a dungeon break occurred just two days ago. There are probably all sorts of aquatic monsters roaming around."
Apparently, because it had occurred on the lakebed, they had given up on clearing it in advance.
Weak Hunters couldn't remain underwater for long, while there had been no volunteers when it came to deploying high-ranking Hunters.
Since an E-rank Gate could be cleared by a few relatively strong non-Awakened people, they seemed to have decided to wait for a dungeon break and deal with it then.
The magic-type Hunters would handle the bottom, while non-Awakened people would catch the creatures at the surface with harpoons. It would take some time, but apparently exterminating them wasn't impossible.
"Hmm... I wonder if it will affect the ecosystem."
"It'll probably cause some damage. At least the buffers are strengthening the native creatures, so at E-rank they won't simply be eaten without a fight."
After explaining that, Iroha added that our conversations always took an analytical turn whenever she talked with me. She said it was fascinating every time because that normally wasn't the sort of thing a ten-year-old girl would think about.
I awkwardly raised the corners of my mouth.
'That is true, but...'
There was, in fact, something she didn't know.
Ever since I moved into this body, my tastes had completely changed. I used to like intense, masculine things, but now I preferred soft and feminine ones.
I had become more interested in teddy bears than monster trucks racing through rough terrain on enormous wheels.
I hadn't said it aloud because I still didn't want to admit it to myself.
"Um... Lady Iroha. There must be some monsters that look cute, right?"
"There are. For example, the 'Two-Line Slime Adherer' looks like a slime, but it has round little eyes, a nose, and a mouth."
"You were the one who told me about that."
"Oops."
I gave a hollow laugh.
Wasn't that thing a Grade 1 dangerous species that appeared in low-level dungeons?
A vicious species that paralyzed its prey by spraying poisonous gas, then savagely ground up and ate its flesh with transparent teeth. If you approached it mistaking it for a slime, it was a perfect way to die.
I hadn't had time to think deeply about its appearance while memorizing its traits, but now that I thought about it, it was kind of cute.
As though trying to make up for her mistake, Iroha said to me,
"Then how about this, Lady Raebi?"
"What is it?"
"The news that lots of those Slime Adherers are currently roaming around the Amazon."
"Eww... Why aren't they dealing with them?"
"It seems things are quite bad in South America right now. I've heard that, because corruption is so rampant, no one except the nobles is actively dealing with Gates."
'So it's still like that over there.'
South America had already been in turmoil before I was imprisoned.
There had been many areas where the governments of individual countries could not reach in the first place, so they had no proper way to control the Awakened whose numbers surged after the announcement of the Gates.
Countless people played king in areas beyond the World Nobles' Council's reach, only to run away whenever a powerful Gate appeared.
Gates generally formed in places with high population density... If the social system was that messed up, it was the perfect place for a hellscape to unfold.
"Lady Raebi. We shouldn't pretend not to know each other, okay?"
"Of course! If Shar's Gate appears in Japan, I'll rush right over!"
"Pfft...! Thank you."
"You're welcome!"
......
"By the way."
Iroha drew her brows together awkwardly.
"What is Shar...’s Gate?"
"......."
It was a monster-language expression for a catastrophic-level Gate.
Perhaps because I had gotten a little excited, it had slipped out for no reason.
I pondered what to do, then came up with an idea on the spot. I shook my head vigorously and explained as though embarrassed.
"It's my own language that no one else knows."
Since it couldn't exactly be called a lie, my voice came out sincere. Iroha laughed and said she'd sometimes made things like that too, calling it cute.
'Phew...'
I needed to be careful.
Deciding that any further conversation could be dangerous, I coaxed her into returning to the lodging.
*
Two days passed.
We received a detailed briefing for the training.
The first stage was position-based training, and the second was cooperative training.
Once the cooperative training ended, we'd enter an international competition in tournament format, and our final pass or fail would be determined based on the data from it.
The second semester lasted two months, somewhat shorter than the first, and the match schedule proceeded mercilessly regardless of how many injured competitors the country in question had.
'This is even harsher than the Hunter Academy...'
They said it was a method for conducting an extreme practical test.
Since one person's mistake could put the entire party at risk, they didn't grant certifications to anyone unreliable.
There was also a way to obtain one separately at a Hunter academy for commoners, but even if such a person joined a mediocre party, they would probably die before long.
"I'm in this group. Do your best, Raebi."
“Yep! You too, sis! You can do it!”
I chose the assassin path over the magic path.
All my magic consisted of was curses and buffs, neither of which I could readily reveal.
More importantly, the assassin path had a strong 'support' aspect, making it highly advantageous for obtaining the specialized certification in item crafting.
"Welcome, aspiring assassins of the twenty-first century! I'm Eva de Chateaubriand, and I'll be in charge of training the assassin position! Feel free to call me Instructor Eva."
A young French noblewoman who looked to be in her thirties. Around 170 centimeters tall and slender, she had exactly the right look for an assassin.
She got straight into training without beating around the bush, and we learned various combat techniques and how to use commonly deployed traps.
In the end, whether we proceeded to the second training stage would be determined by how quickly we destroyed the dummy target on the map assigned to our rank.
Various traps were laid out along the route to the target, and being hit seven or more times meant disqualification.
'They aren't dangerous, but...'
According to Vincent, the course had been designed to make it impossible to avoid them from the outset. It seemed we'd have no choice but to get hit at least twice.
But if I performed only moderately, it could hurt my ranking, so I decided to use a little trick.
"Instructor, may I use an item I made myself on the test?"
"Of course. We're training on the assumption of actual combat, so if you have abilities you've been hiding, use them to your heart's content."
"If I happen to pass the test, will I still be able to attend the classes?"
"More precisely, you have to attend them. There is no early graduation during the practical semester."
"Understood. Thank you, Instructor."
'......'
Ding-
[Shield of Porthoceras]
-------------------------------
An elongated, conical item
modeled after the shell of a primitive cephalopod.
Allows the use of the 'Breakthrough' skill.
(Consumable)
-------------------------------
Store purchase price: 50,000 G
Store selling price: 8,000 G
That day, I gathered all the assassin-track students staying at the lodging.
"......Everyone. Tomorrow, we'll all take the test at once."