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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: JayM
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Whether I tossed and turned all night, tormented by the glimpse of my past memories sealed in the abyss, time marched on, and the second day of the ranking match arrived.
It was originally a more leisurely event, but due to yesterday’s incident that interrupted the matches, today’s ranking match was scheduled to proceed at a rather tight pace.
“Haha, our Kang So-hyun looks tired. Did you stay up late because you were nervous?”
Professor Park Ah-ram, the little witch who was in charge of my match this time, smiled sweetly at me.
Smiling when someone looks tired, as expected, the personality of the traitor in the original story hasn’t really changed.
“Yes, well, I didn’t stay up because of that, but I am a bit tired.”
“Oh my, as a professor who cares for her students, I can’t help but offer you a helping hand. If you promise to become my assistant, I can give you a good score for the ranking match…”
“Don’t cross the line.”
Why does this person keep trying to lure me in?
“Seeing you dislike it so much makes me want you even more. If you’re not going to become my assistant willingly, how about experiencing some pain and then becoming my assistant?”
Golden sparks crackled around her hand.
“Professor. You know this is the ranking match, right?”
“Of course, Kang So-hyun. Don’t worry. I’m a mana studies professor, so I’m quite confident in formulas that maximize power with minimal mana cost. I’ll hit you with the maximum firepower you can handle at your level, so if you don’t want to get hurt, just say you’ll start a fun graduate school life with me!”
A psychopath, no, a devil without a human heart was here.
“Since just sparring is boring, shall we have a simple lesson?”
She said so and started creating arrows in the air.
“This is a basic attack magic called Mana Arrow. As the name suggests, it’s a technique that creates arrows with mana. Now, Kang So-hyun, here’s a question. How many spells are used to construct this magic?”
“‘Condense,’ ‘sharpen,’ ‘fly,’ and ‘direction,’ so four.”
That’s what it said in the settings book, anyway.
“Haha, as expected of an honor student. Your learning attitude is different. That’s right. Excluding ‘condense,’ which is the basis of most magic, even a basic magic like this requires perfect calculation of three conditions. But most mages don’t go through this process. Why is that?”
“Because they memorize the already completed formulas…?”
“Oh, that’s right! Correct, Kang So-hyun! Most mages, instead of calculating the formulas, memorize the completed formulas and results, and only use a few magics that suit them. Honestly, it’s not easy to draw magic circles, calculate mana circuits, and chant spells during battle.”
She smiled with a regretful look and started rotating the Mana Arrows.
“But you can never surpass C-rank with that method. It’s simply impossible. This is a Mana Arrow with the added spell ‘rotate.’ Since I added one more spell, the mana consumption naturally increases, right? And the power increases as it rotates. Then, does using many spells automatically make a magic stronger?”
“No. There are spells that contradict each other.”
“Haha, that’s right. This is fun to teach. For example, what would happen if I added ‘slow’ to the Mana Arrow spell that I’ve already added ‘rotate’ to?”
She added the spell to the Mana Arrow to demonstrate, and the momentum of the fiercely rotating Mana Arrow instantly weakened.
“Yes, the Mana Arrow we’ve prepared has become useless. The flying speed will also decrease.”
Uh, hmm.
I understood that it was fun to watch and was a useful lesson, but why do this during the ranking match?
“Ah, you’re wondering why I’m doing this lesson during the ranking match, right? I know everything you’re curious about.”
She took out a new Mana Arrow as if she had no intention of waiting for my answer.
“I said it before, right? I’ll help you. I’m also the type who handles mana dangerously, like Kang So-hyun. But the way you handle mana is almost like being right-handed or left-handed. You do it instinctively, so it’s very difficult to change. So first, to reduce the waste, I’m going to teach you how to get the maximum efficiency with the minimum cost.”
Oh, you remembered that? I’m a little touched.
“If the mana used in a Mana Arrow is 1, how can we increase its power without increasing this cost?”
“…We should remove unnecessary parts and add necessary ones?”
“That’s right. I’ll show you an example. Since this is a friendly match, there’s no need to kill the opponent. Let’s remove the sharpness.”
The Mana Arrow lost its sharp form and became a blunt, ball-like shape.
“And let’s add ‘accelerate’ to the empty space.”
The nature of the condensed mana changed, and the arrow that pierced the enemy transformed into a blunt weapon that struck them instead.
And the blunt weapon flew towards me in an instant.
“…Ugh!?”
“Oh, Kang So-hyun is faster than I thought. I was going to end it with that. Ah, you’re not going to say it’s cowardly to attack during a lesson, are you? We’re in the middle of a match, after all.”
I was a bit touched. She was a professor with an amazing personality.
“Now, I’m only going to use this slightly modified basic magic, so come at me.”
I took a stance while holding Ruyi that was transformed into a knife.
“Yes, then I’ll go all out.”
“Of course. It’s the ranking match.”
She nodded and grinned.
“Try your best to run away.”
“…Huh?”
And exactly 10 minutes later.
“I surrender…! I surrender…! I surrender! I surrender! Surrenderrrrrrr!!!!”
“Haha, Kang So-hyun! Are you just going to run away!? You said you’d be serious…!”
I had to run away as I was toyed with by her elegant magic techniques.
She said she would only use basic spells, but she never said she would use them one at a time, and the vicious witch bombarded me with spells while looking like a psychopath.
I was genuinely scared when she even prevented me from escaping out of bounds.
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After that, I lost to Professor Cathy and won against Kim Min-soo.
There was no way that I could even touch Professor Cathy in the first place, but she came strangely close to me and corrected my posture during our match.
Kim Min-soo, meanwhile, said that he would show me the difference between a professor and a cadet and yielded to me the first move, so I just pushed him out of bounds with Ruyi.
The schedule was tight today, so I couldn’t watch the other matches, but since this was my last match, I should go ask about the results once this was over.
“Ah, hello.”
She seemed to have finished her match earlier than me and was already waiting in the arena.
Chae Yoo-jin.
She, who appeared once in a blue moon, was apparently evaluated as even weaker than me, who was almost the weakest according to the academy’s registration information.
“You really appear once in a blue moon.”
“…What? You make it sound like I’m an extra.”
Well, she didn’t even appear in the original story, let alone have any settings in the settings book, so I couldn’t predict how she would fight.
Maybe she was a berserker who charged in with a gentle appearance. Or perhaps, contrary to her appearance, she was a mage or a debuffer.
“Anyway, it seems like this is our last match. I look forward to it.”
“Yeah, sure. I look for…”
Click.
Huh…?
The moment I was about to say I looked forward to it, she pointed something at me.
It was an object too refined and elegant to be a weapon of a resident of a fantasy world.
A well-extended barrel, a structure with aesthetic beauty, a grip that looked comfortable to hold, and a trigger that seemed easy to pull.
Simply put, it was a gun.
The extra who almost died in the prologue was now using a gun as her weapon.
…Is she actually the protagonist?
“The match has already started, right…?”
She said so and pulled the trigger without hesitation.
Bang…!
I almost died. No, I wouldn’t have died because of the academy’s barrier and shock-absorbing device, but because of the realistic design, it was honestly much scarier than most magic.
“Ah, don’t dodge!”
“…Are you a crazy psychopath too?”
“Why are you saying that? There’s a reason I told you not to dodge. Since my weapon is a gun, I have to use a magic bullet for each shot.”
“Really?”
“Yes, so unlike other people, my attack method uses consumables, and each shot costs money.”
“I see. I understand. So?”
“Please just die in one hit like my previous opponents. So I can save money.”
“Ah, that’s right. You were originally a terrible person, weren’t you? I forgot about that.”
Calm down. As long as her weapon was a handgun, it didn’t seem impossible to win if I was prepared.
If I used Ruyi as a shield to approach her and endured one shot, I could make her surrender.
The moment I transformed Ruyi into a shield and was about to charge at her, the weapon in her hand started to change shape.
Click-
And at the heavy reloading sound, quite different from when it was a handgun, I opened my mouth without realizing it.
“Is that your talent?”
“Ah, yes. I can transform firearms to some extent.”
“…Yeah, that’s cool.”
A shotgun with fancy decorations.
Ah, lol, I can’t do anything about a shotgun. People die when they’re hit by a shotgun.
I was blown out of bounds along with the shield I had created by the impact of the fired buckshot.
…I should have made it into a pillar and blocked it.
After the final match, my record was 2 wins and 3 losses out of 5 matches, which wasn’t a very good result.
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“Ah, damn it. A draw? How is that even possible?”
On the way back to the dormitory, Ha-ni grumbled, seemingly dissatisfied with the results.
For the record, Lilac, Kang Ha-ni, and Cheon Yoo-hak all had the same record.
1 win, 4 draws, 0 losses.
The matches against each other were declared draws under the professor’s mediation, and they each had a record of 1 win and 2 draws against the professors.
Even with restrictions, the fact that they managed to draw against Professor Park Ah-ram and Professor Cathy meant that they were definitely crazy.
“Ugh, damn it, I could have won if I had done a little better.”
How was it in the original story?
-I… lost…?
-You’re pretty good. You’re good enough to be on my team.
-I’ve seen enough of your swordsmanship…!
-You lost again…?
She despaired against Cheon Yoo-hak, who mocked her arrogantly, and crumbled against Lilac, who claimed he had already figured out her swordsmanship at the beginning of the semester.
Now, she probably wouldn’t despair and crumble.
No matter how I thought about it, her current smile suited her much better than the smile she had when she was breaking down in the original story.
“Hey, why are you smiling like that? Do you think I’m lying? I could have won both matches if I had done a little better.”
“Sure.”
“Geez. Are you looking down on me because of my items? Even a famous sword needs a skilled wielder to reveal its true nature.”
That was true. There was also a certain idiot who lost to a shotgun while wielding Ruyi Jingu Bang.
“I’m not looking down on you. It’s really amazing how you managed to draw against Lilac and Cheon Yoo-hak.”
“…That’s a bit strange. Well, as long as you’re not looking down on me, it’s fine. I’m going to take first place now, so look forward to it.”
“Huh? No, you won’t.”
“What? Why? I said I can win.”
“Well, even if you win in practicals, your grades in general subjects aren’t very good, Han-hee.”
Although the practicals had a much higher weighting, general subjects couldn’t be completely ignored.
“…Huh?”
That was right.
Lilac may look like an idiot, but he was a genius, and Cheon Yoo-hak openly never stopped striving in both academics and martial arts.
“Do general subjects count towards the ranking…?”
They did count.
Although not very much.
“…Why do we take midterms and finals if they don’t count?”
Kang Ha-ni’s entrance exam scores in general subjects weren’t terrible, but they were far too low to aim for the top spot.
There was only one thing I could do for Ha-ni, who looked genuinely devastated as if she really didn’t know about it.
“…Should we get some chicken?”
“Are you treating…?”
“Just give me six thousand won.”
Ha-ni chuckled for a moment and then nodded.
“Yeah, that’s almost like treating me.”
Today, we ordered half garlic and half cheese while saying we should try something new once in a while.
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And while Ha-ni was asleep, I secretly snuck out.
-Are you going to recruit with that villain persona again?
‘It’s not exactly playing villain, but yeah, something like that.’
I took out the mask and wrapped myself in Ruyi that was transformed into a jet-black tailcoat.
‘I should make the offer while getting my revenge for our earlier match, too.’
-You’re targeting that little witch from this morning?
‘Yes, she’ll be helpful if she becomes a comrade.’
-I don’t think it’ll be easy to persuade her.
‘I can persuade her.’
Because I was going to use the same method the person who originally persuaded her to become a villain used.
And what I wanted from her was much less significant than what the original villain had demanded, so she would accept it for sure.
‘I know what our little witch wants most in the world, and I also know how to grant it.’
Those guys from the Twelve Zodiac were fine even while spouting lies, so what problem would I have?
Thinking that, the moment I lifted the mask to put it on.
Thump. My heart started pounding.
Huh, what was this impulse rising from deep within my chest…?
As I looked at the mask in my hand, something started tickling inside my heart.
…This mask didn’t have any effect that corrupted the user, did it?
As I carefully put on the mask, the impulse in my heart began to take a clear form.
Just in case, I modulated my voice and spoke the impulse aloud.
[Now, can you truly become our comrade?]
The naturally flowing voice had a tone that no one would think was acting.
…No, I was just trying to get into character.
I’m telling you the truth, you know…?
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T/N – Lol, Professor Kim Min-soo can’t catch a break, huh? For those who don’t remember, this was the professor who blocked the MC from escaping the blast zone in the beginning of the novel. He also got beat up by Ki-san recently.
Also, quite funny how the MC got beaten by a shotgun. Why did he even charge in? Couldn’t he have pushed his opponent out of bounds like Professor Min-soo?
Also, awww how sweet. I’m telling you Ha-ni is the best girl, bar none.
Lastly, the last scene. The MC is awakening his chunibyo personality. It’s funny how he slips into the role so easily.
If you find any mistakes, feel free to point them out in the comments.
