52. Field Training (4)
The first-year Class A and Class S field deployments were carried out with the assistance of teaching aides.
Teaching aides were made up of mages of at least 4-Class who had either graduated from Stella Academy or were enrolled in Stella’s graduate program, as well as second- and third-year upperclassmen. The upperclassman aides would accompany the first-year students on their missions.
“Ryuderik. This is the list of students you’ll be in charge of.”
Second-year Class A, Ryuderik.
An honor student who shone with the rank of 39th in the year.
As someone from a distinguished magical house of the Pung Empire, he had steadily walked the elite course, and even within the nation he was treated as an exceptionally precious talent.
‘Talent? I’m on a different level.’
There were countless talented people in the kingdom, yes.
But Ryuderik was a current student of Stella Academy.
At Stella Academy, whether one was a lowborn peasant or royalty, everyone entered on equal footing.
No matter what kind of advance education one had received or how much early training one had been given before admission, Stella accepted students based purely on magical talent and ability. To be admitted here at all was enough to earn the title of “genius.”
That was also why, in the Pung Empire—a country currently split into several factions and desperate for even a single capable talent—Stella graduates could not help but be given extraordinary treatment.
His dream had not yet been fully achieved.
Not simply graduating from Stella, but reaching Class A……
No, reaching Class S.
‘Even this troublesome assistant work is nothing more than a stepping stone toward that.’
As someone with few personal connections, Ryuderik had no choice but to endure this irritating work in order to make himself look good to the professors, receive a set reward, and earn points.
‘And while I’m this desperate…….’
Pretending to read over the students’ list, Ryuderik quietly darted a sideways glance.
Second-year Class S, Dok Cheolgwang.
A lunatic who, from the moment he entered school, had turned the academy upside down with his brutish style of magical martial arts.
Unlike other magic warriors, he fought by wrapping magic circles around his fists and literally beating his targets down, and because ordinary students could not cope with that style, Dok Cheolgwang always ended up winning in one-on-one duels.
A genius among geniuses.
Granted, Dok Cheolgwang came from nothing more than the streets of the Pung Empire, not even a proper backwater noble house, but the moment Stella stamped him with the label of S-Class, his entire fate changed.
That was what Stella’s S-Class was:
a status great enough to earn treatment surpassing that of ordinary nobles.
‘And he’s lowborn trash to boot…….’
It was deeply unpleasant to see him standing proudly in the very S-Class Ryuderik had set as his goal—on the same level as him, no, above the place he had been striving for—even though Ryuderik himself had been educated in a great house of mages.
S-Class students received special care not only from Stella’s faculty, but also from the world’s Magic Towers and academic societies, so of course they had no need to waste time doing bothersome assistant work like this.
If there had been some profound reason for it, then maybe Ryuderik could have found something to learn from him, telling himself, As expected, geniuses really are different……
but—
“Hm, this looks fun!”
Fun.
Just hearing Dok Cheolgwang say that he had volunteered to be an assistant simply because it looked fun was enough to make his blood boil.
“What the hell do you mean fun, you maniac?”
Someone smacked Dok Cheolgwang sharply across the back with a loud thwack as he grinned foolishly while reading the mission applications.
It was Ban Diyeon of second-year Class S.
“This is field work, so make sure you take good care of the kids. But don’t go causing trouble and interfering with their mission either. Got it? This isn’t your mission. It’s the first-years’ mission.”
“That sounds boring.”
As she spoke with her expression twisted harshly, Dok Cheolgwang visibly deflated a little.
The only woman who could control the violent and headstrong Dok Cheolgwang.
‘……Why in the world is she hanging around with that idiotic lowborn bastard? I cannot understand it at all.’
Ryuderik frowned deeply.
Ban Diyeon came from a very special house in the Pung Empire. Though not a noble, she was a woman whose world was entirely different from that of Dok Cheolgwang, who had once been a filthy street beggar.
She had an excellent family, a talent for magic so extraordinary that “genius” hardly seemed enough to describe it, and her beauty, too, was exceptional enough that she could easily be called the brightest among the second-years.
So what could possibly be lacking in her life that she would stick so close to Dok Cheolgwang of all people?
‘Rather than that bastard……’
As Ryuderik glared at Dok Cheolgwang, it became an unavoidable fate that his eyes would meet Ban Diyeon’s, since she was right beside him.
She relaxed the fierce expression she had been directing at Dok Cheolgwang just slightly and waved a hand at him in a rough sort of greeting.
“Oh, so you’re the one they said would be going with me as the assistant for the Persona Gate this time?”
“……I’m not ‘the one.’ My name is Ryuderik.”
“Right, right. Anyway, looking forward to working with you. Hm? Wait, had we met before?”
There was no way they had not.
As members of one of the Seven Houses of Wind in the Pung Empire, Ryuderik and Ban Diyeon inevitably crossed paths once a year at the elders’ council.
He had remembered her from the very moment he first saw her at the age of ten.
Was he not the same for her?
They had already been attending the same school for an entire year, and yet she did not even properly remember his name.
Granted, the student body numbered close to a thousand, and unless one’s classes overlapped there was little reason to cross paths……
but still.
It felt a little too much.
“Hoo…… We’ve met before. Ryuderik of the Pung Empire. You don’t remember?”
“Uh…… Ah! Oh, right. Nice to see you. You were tiny back then, but you’ve grown a lot?”
“I was taller than you even back then.”
“Ahh~ well, anyway, let’s do our best together on this mission, yeah? We ended up with the most annoying one possible—the Persona Gate.”
She let out a long sigh as she said that.
It might have been bad luck for her,
but for Ryuderik, it was fortune.
It seemed Ban Diyeon had wanted to take on a mission alongside Dok Cheolgwang, but the professors had split them apart, and she ended up fully assigned to the Persona Gate mission with Ryuderik instead.
A mission rated only 3-Risk, adjusted to the level of first-years.
For Ryuderik, who had already fully mastered 3-Class and had abundant field experience besides, it was hardly difficult at all.
“Wow, though, your luck really is something. The mission site just happens to be the Pung Empire. The Pung Empire. Looks like you’ll be going home for the first time in a while? Hmm……”
Looking over the student roster for the mission she had been assigned, Ban Diyeon licked her lips with interest.
[First-year Class S, Baek Yuseol]
Though her mood was a little foul from being separated from Dok Cheolgwang, perhaps it was still a stroke of luck that she would get to carry out a mission with the boy she had been watching with interest.
A faint smile, something rare for her, touched Ban Diyeon’s lips.
“Then shall we go see our little babies?”
The first-year Class A and Class S cadets each received different orientations depending on which mission they had been assigned.
Since it was the place where not only the basic mission briefing but also the manner in which they would launch the operation was decided, absence was not permitted.
To carry out the Persona Gate mission, Ryuderik headed for the classroom where the first-year students would be gathered.
Creeeak! Bang!
Ban Diyeon threw the classroom door open with theatrical force and stepped in, sweeping her gaze casually over the inside.
Ryuderik, who followed her in a moment later, also checked the members—and his expression stiffened slightly.
Even among the roughly ten students gathered there, two stood out especially.
He had seen their names beforehand on the list, but the fact that first-year heavyweights like Hong Biyeon and Baek Yuseol would be on the same mission put a fair amount of pressure even on Ryuderik.
‘……So that one is Baek Yuseol.’
The grounds of the academy were so vast that although they attended the same Stella, this was almost the first time he had seen him in person.
There had been a few occasions when he had glimpsed him from far away during matches, but actually standing here face-to-face made the whole thing feel even more ridiculous.
‘That’s the one who’s been running wild, hunting Black Mages whenever he pleases?’
It was impressive, certainly.
Even Ryuderik himself had not properly fought a Black Mage back when he was a first-year.
Still, honestly speaking, if the Ryuderik of that time had really wanted to, he too could have easily taken care of a few Black Mages.
The only reason he had not done so was because first year was still the period in which one was supposed to be passionate about learning, and because he had intended to remain within the framework laid out by the professors.
‘It’s not that others are incapable and therefore sit quietly, brat.’
After fixing Baek Yuseol firmly in his memory, Ryuderik turned his eyes to Hong Biyeon.
Contrary to the rumors that painted her as a willful princess, she was sitting properly upright, staring straight in this direction.
Compared to the other arrogant first-year Class S new students—who sprawled out asleep on their desks or were late altogether and thus impossible to control—she could at least be called comparatively well-behaved.
“Nice to meet you. I’m Ban Diyeon of second-year Class S, and this time I’ll be accompanying you all on the Persona Gate mission. And this over here is second-year…… uh, what class was it again?”
“Class A.”
“Right, right. Class A’s Yuderik.”
“My name is Ryuderik.”
“Anyway, that’s not what matters.”
It mattered.
“You’ve all practiced with Persona Gates before, but the real thing is completely different.”
Ban Diyeon’s expression hardened as she spoke.
“In practice, the direction is laid out clearly for you so that you can solve things as easily as possible. But a real Persona will scramble the very direction itself to make you lose your way.”
No one knew why Persona Gates had suddenly begun appearing in this world.
The descent of something from a completely different world—something beyond.
Why did the Black Mages keep summoning Persona Gates into this world?
What secret was hidden in that world?
And why did they keep trying to assimilate mages into their world?
“One thing is certain: Persona Gates are not friendly to you. The sky there, the ground, the water, even the air—every single thing in that place will treat you as an enemy and try to devour you.”
Several first-year students swallowed audibly, clearly tense.
‘Cute little things.’
Ryuderik had already cleared Persona Gates twice, so to him, the new students about to enter one for the first time looked nothing but young and adorable.
“Persona Gates require extremely long preparation times if you want to clear them, and the time spent inside can also be incredibly long. This is only a 3-Risk, the lowest grade among Gates, but even so, you may have to prepare for a duration of up to a full week. You all knew that when you signed up, right?”
While all the students nodded, Baek Yuseol alone could not.
‘Damn it, a whole week……’
At this point, he honestly just wanted to go back to the days of sitting quietly at a school desk, dozing off with a textbook flat on his face.
No—he would rather study.
Why had he never realized back then that studying was such a comfortable and pleasant thing?
At this rate, he felt like he could devour every textbook whole and still take first place.
Actually, maybe not.
“We depart tomorrow at 6 a.m. A graduate teaching aide will accompany us, but they will not enter the Persona Gate with us.”
For other missions, like monster hunting or dungeon exploration, veteran magic warrior aides accompanied the students quietly from hidden positions.
But Persona Gates were different.
To begin with, some Persona Gates restricted the number of people who could enter from the outset, and the moment one stepped inside, everyone was assigned a “role.”
Even an aide could be consumed by the Persona if they failed to carry out that role.
Yet if the aide tried too hard, there were frequent cases where they ended up clearing the entire mission by themselves, so there was no helping it.
“Even if we’re upperclassmen with field experience, unlike dungeons or monster hunts, we won’t always be able to respond to every crisis. Inside, we may all get separated. Or we may even become hostile to one another. But there is one thing I can say for sure.”
Ban Diyeon smiled with brimming confidence.
“As mages of Stella, we have never once failed—and this time will be no exception.”
Only then did the tense expressions of the first-years brighten ever so slightly.
It was Ban Diyeon’s way of speaking: deliberately create tension first, then instill confidence and reassurance, raising the group’s mission performance to one hundred percent.
After that, Ban Diyeon explained in detail the supplies and plans required to clear a Persona Gate, and all the while Ryuderik quietly observed Baek Yuseol.
“Yaaawn……”
He seemed to be listening, yes, but the way he yawned so broadly, as though he found the whole thing unbearably boring, came off as terribly insolent.
‘Tch. Kids these days.’
Back when Ryuderik had been a first-year, he had not even dared lift his head in front of upperclassmen.
This one had clearly been badly raised.
Come to think of it, had there not been some incident early in the semester where he picked a fight with an idiot from second-year Class C?
To begin with, a first-year going at a second-year was already wrong enough—and on top of that, had Baek Yuseol not failed to win that time?
In the end, that meant that was Baek Yuseol’s true level.
‘I’ll be watching to see how you act this time.’
If Baek Yuseol behaved in any way unbecoming of a Stella student, Ryuderik, as his second-year senior, was fully prepared to set him straight.
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