31. Stella Knights (1)
[Magician Daily]
[The Return of the Ghoul ‘Kalaban’…]
[Why Did the Psycho Killer Target Stella’s Cadets?]
[The mage murderer who vanished ten years ago returns as a Dark Mage!]
At the time Baek Yuseol’s group was attacked, a single photograph taken by one reporter created a massive wave of public attention.
It had captured, in naked detail, the sight of the psycho killer returned as a Dark Mage tearing through a train and attacking Stella cadets.
The Stella cadets throwing themselves outside the half-destroyed train, and the two Dark Mages pursuing them.
Had it not been such a life-or-death situation, it would have made a beautiful and artistic image fit to be a musical poster.
That one image gave rise to countless rumors and controversies.
[How did Stella’s cadets survive?]
[A presence even the killer Kalaban cannot hunt down—Stella!]
The legendary ghoul Kalaban had a record of murdering numerous mages even before becoming a Dark Mage. And yet after returning as a Dark Mage ten years later, he had failed to hunt down even a group of seventeen-year-old boys and let them escape.
If a murderer could be said to have such a thing as a “career,” then this incident would surely have stained Kalaban’s beyond repair.
But regardless of whether Kalaban had been humiliated by Stella or not, the magical world was in an uproar.
One of the darkest stains in the history of the anti-dark-mage corps had been their failure to arrest Kalaban, and just when it seemed that shame was beginning to fade, he had reappeared.
Even if he had failed in his hunt for Stella, he was still a killer who had hunted numerous mage warriors, so the magical world had no choice but to tense up again.
…Though for Stella’s cadets, that was still a story a little distant from their immediate reality.
It had already been a full week since the incident, and the students were all too busy living their own lives.
Sunday morning.
No matter how elite they might be at the prestigious Stella, there was only one day of the week when even a little sleeping in was allowed.
There was a girl who had spent the whole stretch of night from fading twilight to receding dawn together with her work.
Hong Biyeon Adolevit.
Forcing her drooping eyes open, she put the final mark on her thesis.
‘It’s finished.’
Her mind was hazy, and there was no strength left in her body to cry out in celebration, but a joy and fulfillment deeper than anything else welled up inside her chest.
Hong Biyeon raised her palm and cast magic based on the thesis she had written.
…Pung!
It was only about the size of a candle flame, but the sound that rang out was like that of a tiny bomb exploding. Rather than saying the flame “rose,” it was more fitting to say it burst forth.
This was the result of taking the idea that had flashed through her mind two weeks earlier—right after Baek Yuseol had told her, “That’s not like you”—and turning it directly into a thesis.
‘It worked…’
Until now, she had always tried somehow to control magic, and that would not change going forward.
But… the essence of fire magic was, in the end, explosive firepower.
Having remembered that, Hong Biyeon completely abandoned the “control” of flame and focused solely on firepower.
And then, purely by chance…
Just as dwarves of long ago had discovered gunpowder and developed the wondrous object known as the bomb, Hong Biyeon had managed to develop an elemental transformation that could truly be called “gunpowder for the magical world.”
Though it lacked control, it could produce a terrifyingly powerful flame with only a minute amount of mana.
In every sense—
More than any other magic, it was an originality magic that could truly be called perfectly Hong Biyeon-like.
A magic she had solved on her own, without anyone’s help.
Hong Biyeon slowly lifted the corners of her lips, hugged the precious thesis tightly to her chest, and stood.
Now all that remained was to present it properly at the Aslan Seminar.
She gathered up her writing tools and started to leave the library, when in one corner she noticed something strangely familiar.
Aizel, face planted on the desk like a corpse, utterly motionless.
Hong Biyeon almost passed by without a thought, but then her gaze slid over to the thesis lying in front of Aizel.
It seemed she still had not properly finished the thesis she was supposed to present at the Aslan Seminar.
Feeling an oddly pleasant sense of victory, Hong Biyeon found herself in even better spirits, and despite the exhaustion weighing down every inch of her body, she was able to return to the dormitory with light steps.
After finishing breakfast, Hong Biyeon headed toward the faculty building of the First Main Tower. The desire to submit her thesis as quickly as possible was too strong.
“In such a short time…”
When she handed it in to the poor staff member working even on the weekend, the employee’s eyes widened in apparent disbelief at the fact that she had written an entirely new thesis in just two weeks.
Feeling a surge of superiority once more, Hong Biyeon brushed her hair back over her shoulder and lifted her chin slightly.
“Make sure you review it properly.”
“Ah, y-yes…! I’ll report it to the professor right away.”
Having cleanly finished even the submission, Hong Biyeon stepped out of the faculty building and, after confirming that no one was around, stretched.
“Mm.”
She felt refreshed.
Normally, she had no hobbies, did not enjoy leisure, and could not even fully appreciate taste, so it would not be an exaggeration to say she had little joy in life—
but today, it felt as though all her stress had been washed clean away.
So she was about to head back in a good mood when—
“Oh my, fancy meeting you in a place like this.”
As she passed in front of the faculty building, she ran into Hong Si-hwa Adolevit.
Beside her walked one of the members of Hong Si-hwa’s faction, a third-year senior named Sayeran Orkan.
The heir of the Orkan family, a house that stood shoulder to shoulder with the ducal House of Atalek, one of the two great powers of the Kingdom of Adolevit.
Sayeran’s inorganic gaze made her look almost like a corpse, and combined with her already pale skin and that expression, she was sometimes called a “living doll.”
“…What brings you here, this far in?”
“I’ve been busy lately because of the Aslan Seminar~ Did you know? I’m one of the observers too! Ah, that means I’ll get to watch my little sister’s presentation up close, right? I’m so excited! Our Biyeon, you’ve been working hard on your seminar prep, haven’t you?”
Shameless. Revolting.
Considering she was the one who had created this whole situation, it was honestly astonishing that she could say such things so casually with that brazen face.
But…
It did not matter anymore.
If anything, a smile spread across Hong Biyeon’s face.
If she had failed to complete the thesis, maybe she would have been eaten alive by a crushing sense of defeat and rage. But in the end, was it not thanks to Hong Si-hwa ruining her old thesis that she had developed an original magic of her own?
“Yes. I worked very hard. You can look forward to it.”
“…Hm? Really? You worked hard?”
When Hong Biyeon answered with an actual smile, Hong Si-hwa blinked blankly.
‘This isn’t how this was supposed to go?’
By now, Hong Biyeon ought to have been burying her face in bed and sobbing helplessly, so why did she look so confident?
Since this was not at all the reaction she had wanted, a slight unease stirred in Hong Si-hwa’s mind, but in the end, Hong Biyeon was still just Hong Biyeon.
With that dim-witted head of hers, there was no way she could have written a new thesis in two weeks. Even for Hong Si-hwa herself, that would have been difficult.
“Still, our cute little sister~ If you don’t have talent, then you should at least work hard, right? Fighting~!”
Humming to herself, Hong Si-hwa led Sayeran toward the main tower.
‘And that thing is supposed to be a princess…’
She was pitiful beyond words.
Still… thanks to that, Hong Biyeon’s mood improved even more.
She had said she would be attending Aslan, right? Just imagining Hong Si-hwa’s face twisting when she saw Hong Biyeon presenting an even better thesis after all the underhanded tricks she had pulled made her happy already.
That said, her eyelids were growing heavy now. Maybe because she had stayed up for several nights, it felt as though all her fatigue was crashing down on her at once.
She was not particularly fond of sleeping in, but unless she at least took a nap, she felt like she really might collapse, so she quickened her pace back toward the dormitory.
And in the middle of that, she happened to see a certain scene.
“Hey, that’s not it. Why do you keep applying the theory so sloppily when it’s your own magic?”
“Ugh! This is so annoying! Who the hell invented a magic this ridiculous?!”
“You did…”
Baek Yuseol and Aizel were sitting on a bench in the park, heads bent close together as they busily wrote something.
He was looking over her thesis with quite a serious expression.
“The seminar’s next week. What are you going to do if you still can’t finish this?”
“Haah, damn it. Stop saying things that make me feel pathetic. I didn’t know I was this weak on theory.”
“Study more.”
“…I’m actually top-tier when it comes to theory, you know?”
“Yeah. I’m first in the class. Shut up and study.”
“Gah! So annoying! It’s even more annoying hearing it from the first-ranked student…!”
Hong Biyeon stared silently at the scene for a while, then turned away. She simply did not want to pass between them.
‘…Pathetic.’
To think she could not solve her thesis herself and had to go ask for help. Hong Biyeon herself had solved it all the way to the end almost entirely on her own, without relying on Baek Yuseol.
It was proof that she was superior to Aizel.
…That was what she thought.
And yet.
Her good mood vanished somewhere, and an odd irritation began to boil up inside her.
—Continue reading only on MugenCodex.—
Ever since we went to the dungeon together, I’d ended up doing things with Hae Wonryang a lot more often.
That absolutely, absolutely did not mean the two of us had suddenly become close.
Things had just… somehow ended up that way.
“You idiot. That’s not how you handle that instrument.”
“…Ah, is that so.”
I sighed while fiddling with a magic device that looked like a modern microscope.
Through the Jikbakguri Glasses, I was solid enough in theory, but when it came to actually handling real magic devices, I couldn’t help being pretty lacking.
Fortunately, the excuse that I was clumsy because I was a commoner who had never had the chance to touch magic devices worked fairly well, but it seemed Hae Wonryang found it utterly unsatisfactory.
“Again.”
“Ah, damn it. Then you do it!”
“Didn’t we agree we would divide the roles and not interfere in each other’s domains?”
“I said I’d handle the theory.”
“Looking at that pathetic state of yours, I don’t see any reason to think you’d do it better than me.”
“Ugh.”
In the end, I had no choice but to manipulate the magic device again as diligently as I could, but Hae Wonryang’s expression remained icy. Looking at his face, it seemed to be saying, ‘I can’t believe I’m doing a group project with this bastard.’
A group project.
Yes. A group project.
Hae Wonryang had very few friends.
And the same was true for me.
So whenever group assignments came up, we always got randomly matched with someone, and thanks to our schedules overlapping in the lecture called History and Understanding of Magic Tools, I ended up getting stuck doing the group project with him.
Still, somehow we got through class, and the magic device actually worked properly, so I was barely able to breathe in relief. Though Hae Wonryang kept endlessly nagging me because he clearly was not satisfied.
Anyway, in order to stop seeing that beggar-like face of his for even a second sooner, I sprang from my seat and hurried out, only to run into Flame in the hallway.
She was wearing short-sleeved PE clothes and shorts, tucking a basketball under her arm. She had been chatting with a group of male students, but when she saw me, she waved.
“Oh, Ahjussi—ah, right. What are you doing right now?”
“Busy.”
“Going to take a nap?”
How did she know?
“Wanna play a game of basketball?”
“What a pain…”
“Come on. The basketball club guys are being all cocky—I need to knock them down a peg.”
“What club are you in, then?”
“Healing Camp.”
A basketball match between the Healing Camp club and the basketball club…
Now that was interesting.
“So, are you doing it or not?”
Flame stood there blankly smiling at me.
How many days had passed since her contract relationship ended?
Flame had told everyone else, “We’ve gone back to being just friends like before,” and treated me the same as usual.
Honestly, it wasn’t awkward for me either, so I just let it be.
It wasn’t as if we had been really dating in the first place, and we had already agreed that after some time passed, things would go back to this.
Still, seeing the people around us acting way more awkward than we were just made me want to laugh.
“Yeah, fine… maybe for a little while.”
“Nice! We won.”
As I watched Flame clench her fist in triumph, a chilly voice came from behind me.
“…Baek Yuseol. Instead of thinking about playing around, learn how to use that magic device properly before next class.”
“Oh, uh… right. S-sure.”
After saying that, Hae Wonryang walked away down the opposite side of the corridor. I got chills all over my body, as if I had just felt an aura of killing intent even worse than a Dark Mage’s.
“Anyway, hurry up and change.”
Pushed along by Flame’s pressure, I ended up changing into my PE uniform.
“Ugh, what a pain…”
The last time I thought I’d ever touch a ball game again in my life was when I played old-man soccer with the officers during my active military service.
To think I’d end up doing it here of all places.
‘Life is impermanent.’
Wearing my PE clothes, I strolled lazily toward the gymnasium…
and somehow, the atmosphere was strange.
“What do you mean we can’t use it right now?”
Nine first-year Stella cadets in PE uniforms… and a group of heavily built men standing in confrontation around them.
The men were all neatly dressed in white activity uniforms marked Stella Knights Cadet Academy, and the pressure they gave off was far from ordinary.
‘Cadet Academy…’
Come to think of it, there was something like that. It would show up later as an episode, so I knew about it well enough.
Unlike the ordinary Stella mage-warrior cadets, they were the sort who, after graduating from the academy, underwent one more course of education in order to join the Stella Knights—in other words, something rather like graduate students.
Since they had been admitted to the Stella Knights Cadet Academy, they were surely elites who had already shown considerable performance during their academy days.
But more important than that was the fact that they had chosen to become knights directly under Stella, rather than going elsewhere.
Whereas most students, after graduating, scattered back to their respective kingdoms or entered various magic towers, those people were practically Stella’s own, which meant they received treatment that was, if only slightly, better than that of ordinary cadets.
For example—
“We’re holding a small-scale athletic event at the academy today, so go back. Use another gym.”
“No, this is the first-year-only gym.”
“That doesn’t matter. We decided to use it.”
In situations like this.
“Ha, what the hell…”
Flame glared at them with blazing eyes.
If she really kicked up a violent fuss and pushed back head-on here, they could probably reclaim the gym somehow, but the other cadets did not seem to want that.
Whether it was the basketball club or the Healing Camp club, they were both essentially clubs formed by commoners, so they did not want to provoke cadets from the ultra-elite among elites.
Well, I did feel a little sorry for them…
but for me, someone who had found basketball a pain in the first place, this was actually a win.
“Oh, Ahjussi.”
Having spotted me only then, Flame pulled a long face and sent me a look asking me to do something about it, but unfortunately I had absolutely no intention of doing anything.
If the honored cadets of the academy say they’re using it, what can we do?
Shouldn’t I just go take a nap?
