episode_0070

Sometimes in life, there comes a day when you experience immense betrayal and shock from the most unexpected places.

It’s a situation that can arise from any problem, but…

“……”

At least at this moment, for the Archmage Seol Hayeon, known by the epithet “Ice Empress,” to put it simply:

It was just a matter of men and women.

With mysterious silver hair and clear blue eyes that evoked a pristine feeling, she now possessed the appearance of a twenty-five-year-old, unlike before. She stood by the river at Cheongsong Academy.

The gurgling river was barely a stream, but it was enough for her to stare blankly into it.

She recollected her memories.

Memories of when?

They weren’t old memories. Just about an hour ago? Perhaps two hours had passed, but that wasn’t very important.

The core was that a few hours ago, the match between two second-year students of the academy had given Seol Hayeon an enormous shock.

Was it because her disciple, Lee Hyunjin, almost lost to Cheon Soyul? Was it because she almost showed a humiliating sight to her rival, Manroe Cheon Sehee…?

Of course not. In fact, such penalties held little meaning for Seol Hayon.

Her beloved disciple, whom she had brought home and taught every day for five years, losing “of all people” to a lightning mage would sting, yes.

But at the very least, that wasn’t the reason she was having a mental breakdown right now.

“Sniffle.”

Seol Hayeon suddenly felt her eyes grow moist. Tears? Surprised, she swept her cheek, and indeed, moisture came off.

Due to the nature of her ‘Frozen Core,’ even her tears were incredibly cold.

Under normal circumstances, it would have been a minor issue she wouldn’t have given a second thought. But to the emotional Seol Hayeon of now, even that was excessively sorrowful.

Thus, Seol Hayeon pulled her knees to her chest, buried her head, and sobbed quietly.

The small, whimpering sounds that escaped her truly felt pitiable. It was enough to make even a passing person unconsciously turn their head and offer a sympathetic gaze.

“Hmph… huhuhuu…”

Muttering strange sounds, she rubbed her eyes with her sleeves and thought.

What had gone wrong? Was it a mistake to send her disciple to Cheongsong Academy under the pretext of new experiences and faster growth?

Had such a terrible thing happened without her knowing because he had gone to a place where her eyes and hands couldn’t reach…?

“M-My disciple-nim, sniffle.”

Unable to hold back her voice, she called out to her disciple, Lee Hyunjin, and tilted her head back.

Looking at the sky, the sunset of the evening, as the sun began to set, came into view.

At this point, it’s worth noting that Seol Hayeon, an Archmage also known as the Ice Empress and rumored to possess the greatest talent in Korea,

was the sole person privy to Lee Hyunjin’s most secret ability, one even his parents didn’t know.

“……”

No, she *was* the sole person… Seol Hayeon inwardly corrected herself, enduring and suppressing the tearing pain in her chest.

She clutched her chest and swallowed her tears with a quiet gasp, but the sky unfeelingly continued to swallow the sun.

The sky soon grew dark.

Evening had arrived.

Even so, Seol Hayeon’s thoughts showed no sign of ending. How could they?

The affection she had harbored for five years, a one-sided love she secretly believed was mutual, had crumbled.

This was heartbreak. Seol Hayeon even had the foolish thought that perhaps Ryu Jinseong had felt this way when she had so coldly rejected his proposal.

She shouldn’t have compared herself to someone like Ryu Jinseong, who had lost his emotions (?).

‘……Disciple-nim, I think I’m going crazy. It’s because of you, so please come quickly and comfort me.’

Seol Hayeon wiped away the last of her tears and suppressed a groan.

Even amidst her thoughts, the topic of conversation among people passing by her side and behind her remained the same.

“Did you hear? The relationship between Cheon Senior-nim’s youngest daughter and the Ice Empress’s disciple is actually…”

“Oh, right. How bold. To think they’d leak a unique magic to an outsider so cleverly.”

“……”

To put it simply, this was the source of Seol Hayeon’s mental turmoil. Not only for her, but the incident at the arena today was spreading quite widely.

Seol Hayeon couldn’t bring herself to utter a word and curled her toes tightly.

Others, including Manroe Cheon Sehee, and all the spectators seemed to have concluded the series of events as ‘Cheon Soyul’s unique magic leakage’.

However, that wasn’t the case for Seol Hayeon.

She knew the true cause and effect. Even if she hadn’t heard it directly from the parties involved, there were circumstances that made it impossible not to know.

Just half a year ago, she was the only person who knew about her disciple, Lee Hyunjin’s, unique trait…

Seol Hayeon had perhaps felt a strange mix of pride and smugness about that fact.

Now, even that pride had been shattered, utterly and completely.

The man she had liked for five years had, without her knowing, grown close to another woman. What could be more heartbreaking than that?

She hadn’t confessed her feelings, nor had Seol Hayeon particularly entered into a romantic relationship with her disciple, but still, emotions were emotions. A whirlwind of complicated feelings swept through Seol Hayeon’s mind.

Such sorrow that she couldn’t even praise her disciple for completing a splendid fusion magic.

“……Ahaha……”

Feeling self-deprecating, she rose from her spot. She had always prided herself on being the closest to her disciple, but with things turning out this way, there was nothing more ridiculous.

Her stumbling footsteps led her to the academy’s convenience store.

She craved it. She craved alcohol and intoxication. She wasn’t one to enjoy drinking much, but today, she wanted to make an exception…

Jingle.

And so, she bought a can of beer.

Trudging along, she returned to her original spot.

With blurry eyes, Seol Hayeon simply slumped onto the grass by the riverside and fumbled to open the black plastic bag, pulling out the canned beer.

Let me reiterate. She craved alcohol! She wanted to get completely drunk and lose her mind, just for today.

“Ah, excuse me!”

But to others, it seemed to appear in a different form.

Seol Hayeon turned her head at the sudden, frivolous voice.

Three men. All of them had flushed faces, watching Seol Hayeon and rattling their drinks, their intentions so transparent they were utterly obvious.

Seol Hayeon’s expression naturally darkened.

“We were just about to have a drink ourselves. Would you perhaps like to join us? Oh, and of course, we’ll buy the snacks…”

“No, thank you.”

Seol Hayeon easily dismissed the words of the man who had stepped forward and stood up.

She didn’t want to waste her emotions on such trivial matters right now.

Perhaps such incidents occurred because she had adjusted her appearance to ‘twenty-five years old’. After all, the Ice Empress’s usual appearance was ‘eighteen years old’…

Sighing inwardly that it couldn’t be helped, Seol Hayeon tried to leave, but—

“No, haha, don’t be like that.”

The men were more persistent than she had expected. Their eyes, filled with desire, were fixated on Seol Hayeon’s ample chest.

One man approached and grabbed her wrist without a word. Truly impolitely.

“If you open a can of beer by yourself, it looks too pathetic. Why don’t you just come with us?”

“……”

Seol Hayeon’s gaze had turned so icy, it couldn’t possibly get colder.

The constant chill surrounding her evoked absolute zero…

It was the moment the men, failing to recognize Seol Hayeon’s face, were about to cross the line.

Instead, a hand appeared and twisted the arm of the man who had grabbed her wrist.

Snap!

“Ugh…?!”

The man’s eyes widened. The pain that pierced his body must have been so clear it probably sobered him up a little.

He instinctively stumbled back, clutching his wrist urgently.

“I didn’t even break it, but you’re quite the crybaby.”

In contrast, the young man who had pushed away his arm spoke with an utterly nonchalant tone. An indolent voice, as if he had done nothing wrong.

Lee Hyunjin moved his foot and lightly dragged it across the ground. Crackle! An ice wall naturally formed.

And with a cold, hostile gaze, he glared at the three men in front of him and said,

“Do you have some business with my Master-nim?”

It was formal language, but it was by no means respectful.

And even though the men hadn’t recognized Seol Hayeon, whose appearance was arbitrarily altered, they quickly recognized the face of the protagonist of today’s academy.

They belatedly looked back at Seol Hayeon, their jaws dropped, and immediately, they turned pale and left the spot, hastily.

“……”

Seol Hayeon had a blank expression.

She looked up at Lee Hyunjin.

Lee Hyunjin, too, scoffed at the three men before turning his head towards her.

His gaze was distinctly different from the expression he had worn just moments before; it was warm.

“Master-nim.”

He parted his lips.

“Yes? Oh, yes, yes, uh…?”

Seol Hayeon was so flustered that her voice, utterly different from usual, was filled with palpable tension.

Thump, thump. The owner of the trembling heartbeat was, needless to say, her.

Even for a mage whose everything was frozen, the heart was alive. It was Seol Hayeon’s personal theory, but she never expected it to be proven true at a time like this.

With a noticeably reddened face, she fixed her gaze upon her disciple.

And then.

Splash!

Lee Hyunjin splashed warm water on her.

“……?!”

Seol Hayeon’s eyes bulged, but it was already too late.

“Ah, hot…?!”

She leaped up once, yelped, and raised her guard, tearing up slightly.

Though it was already too late.

Whoosh…

Her considerable height, excellent figure, mature and beautiful appearance—all of it began to vanish before the warm water.

Her height shrank, her chest became modest, and her mature appearance turned youthful. Only her graceful beauty remained.

“Ahhh…?!”

Her inherent ‘ability to adjust her appearance age,’ combined with the ‘Frozen Core’ trait acquired from the dungeon, had now become a troublesome quirk that could be undone just by getting splashed with warm water.

Regardless of her owner’s horrified cries, Seol Hayeon’s body steadily began to shrink…