Ch.185185 – Natural Strength

<185 – Natural Strength>

[Many classmates have abandoned or deserted training. Skill experience efficiency has been greatly reduced.]

[Education experience +5]

[Bad kid experience +1]

Tsk.

Where were they when they were begging me to train them?

Everyone’s just so awful.

Since it’s not my grades or my scores at stake, I didn’t stop them from leaving, but I can’t help feeling annoyed.

I went out of my way to make time and supervise training for everyone’s benefit, but only three people followed through to the end: Dorothy, Rozini, and Sandcooker.

“Sigh.”

As I clean up, I can’t help sighing when I think about the future of those weaklings.

“Need help?”

Dorothy approaches cautiously, watching my reaction.

I don’t know who’s worrying about whom when her arms and legs are trembling from the exhausting workout.

“It’s fine. You all must be tired, so go back, do some mana breathing and get some rest. Rest is important for building muscle too.”

Sorry, Isabelle.

It’s easier to handle the counter-competition alone.

I promised Isabelle and everyone that I’d rely on others instead of doing everything by myself, but what can I do if they can’t keep up despite trying?

* *

Oknodie couldn’t hide her gloomy face.

Dorothy felt guilty.

“I’m sorry, Oknodie. Since it’s the counter-competition, I thought it would be good if everyone improved their grades, so I accepted everyone, but I didn’t know they’d all be so weak-willed.”

“It’s not your fault, Dorothy. I probably just made the training too difficult.”

Oknodie was blaming herself.

But Dorothy remembered.

Throughout the running and jumping through flaming rings, Oknodie had encouraged them, saying:

That this was just the most basic of basics.

That even Morb, another lower-class student, had endured this training.

That they shouldn’t give up here.

She genuinely considered this training easy.

And she ran and jumped through flaming rings as if it were completely familiar to her.

She even increased the number of mid-air spins to two or three rotations while passing through the rings, saying it was more efficient for agility improvement.

‘Did Oknodie go through all this training…?’

The Wiheomhae Foundation.

Oknodie’s rumored backing at the academy.

At the foundation, this level of training must have been considered basic.

She grew up believing this was normal.

That’s how she must have entered the academy.

But she discovered it wasn’t true.

Most couldn’t keep up with her training.

The foundation had deceived her.

They had set an excessively high standard.

How must Oknodie feel now that she knows this?

Did she feel betrayed by the foundation?

Did she feel disappointed in us?

Or perhaps both?

“Oknodie looked really upset, didn’t she?”

It seems Dorothy wasn’t the only one worried.

Rozini also looked sympathetically at Oknodie’s retreating figure.

“Need help?”

“It’s fine. You all must be tired, so go back, do some mana breathing and get some rest. Rest is important for building muscle too.”

Oknodie was extinguishing fires with sand and dejectedly pulling rings out of the ground with her hands.

When Dorothy offered help, Oknodie said it was fine, but her voice had no energy at all.

“…Should we at least work hard?”

When Sandcooker extended his hand, Rozini and Dorothy placed their hands on top of his.

“The Red Tower’s competitive spirit burns hotter than anyone’s. I don’t want to disappoint her after asking for help first.”

“Let’s overcome the share of all 96 people who disappointed Oknodie!”

“Idiot. Including us three, that’s 33 people per person. How much of a strength monster do you think you need to be to defeat 33 Imperial students by yourself?”

“What’s with that tone? You’re the one who suggested we work hard.”

“Only a geomancer from the Yellow Tower could have that kind of tenacity. Don’t get cocky, Red Tower student who burns bright and fizzles out quickly.”

“Hmph. When it comes to perseverance, forest keepers don’t fall behind anyone. Just watch.”

The three were filled with determination and spite.

Whether their bodies could keep up with their ambition to handle 99 people’s worth of training between them remained to be seen.

* *

“Oknodie. I heard you were helping your friends prepare for midterms, but why do you look so down?”

“It’s nothing. Sigh. I’m just wondering if I was wrong.”

“The food wasn’t bad, was it?”

“Not at all! The meat, grilled eggplant, inari sushi, everything in the lunchbox was delicious! …Except the bell peppers.”

“You shouldn’t be picky if you want to grow tall. Didn’t you say you’d reach 230cm?”

Oknodie smiled briefly at the joke, but her expression quickly darkened again.

Just seeing her hunched shoulders made one feel sorry for her.

“Giselle. Could you find out some information for me?”

“Information gathering is my specialty.”

“Oknodie has been noticeably down since she came back from helping her friends prepare for exams. Could you find out why?”

Giselle readily agreed.

After all, wasn’t it curiosity and sympathy for Oknodie that had led him to enroll at the academy in the first place?

Matters concerning Oknodie were his top priority, even without Isabelle’s request.

‘Is it fear of the professor? Strangely, I don’t recall seeing anyone asking the professor questions during my information gathering.’

Giselle first sought out Professor Warerd, who taught the class in question.

“Excuse me, Professor. I’ve come to ask about the first-year ‘Basics and Understanding of Mana Usage’ class.”

“It’s not my fault. I properly blocked mana exposure so it wouldn’t affect first-years, so don’t even mention compensation.”

“…I came to ask about what you know regarding the voluntary special training of students participating in the counter-competition against students taking ‘Basics and Understanding of Imperial Magic.'”

Professor Warerd, who had been avoiding eye contact and pretending to be busy, threw the book he was holding behind the sofa and sank deeply into it.

“You should have said so from the start. You made me nervous for nothing. First year?”

“I’m Giselle, aspiring to join the Adventure Department.”

“If you’re asking me to help with special training, I refuse. The essence of nature magic comes from daily practice. When trials and hardships come, students who should be weeded out will be weeded out, and those who should reproduce will reproduce.”

“…Excuse me? Reproduce?”

“It’s my philosophy. That sounded a bit like a dryad just now, didn’t it? I read in a book that our ancestors often said things like this when they didn’t want to do troublesome things.”

Go extinct or die, damn dryads.

What on earth was he doing to cause mana exposure and neglect first-year education?

Giselle came to hear about Oknodie’s special training but only ended up getting irritated.

“I’ve disturbed a busy person. Excuse me.”

“You’re Oknodie’s friend. Right?”

“…You knew? Even though I don’t take your class.”

“I heard. From Professor Minerva, one of the examiners who supervised the entrance exam. She said there was a very suspicious child I should know about.”

“…!”

“Don’t be so tense. A dryad is half-human, half-tree nymph. Half human, but half fairy. I memorize everything that happens in my domain and the relationships of those around me.”

Professor Warerd, who had seemed like a completely incompetent professor, was surprisingly keeping an eye on Oknodie.

To the extent of memorizing her relationships outside his classroom.

If only he would invest half that dedication in special training for the first-years taking his class.

Those students were truly unfortunate.

“Don’t make such a face. It’s not like I’m completely neglecting them. I’m just not intervening because their training direction is well-established.”

“I heard they’re doing physical conditioning and acrobatic training instead of magic training. Do you think that’s right?”

“Do you know? If your body is good, you don’t need magic. Magic is essentially no different from martial arts developed for the weak to defeat the strong.”

Martial arts focus on defeating the strong with weak power, while magic can replace various evolutionary elements with magical power.

The goal they aim for is the same.

“In that sense, Oknodie’s direction is extremely close to the correct answer. She’s not wrong. She’s just walked too far a path at too young an age.”

Professor Warerd revealed the information Giselle wanted to know—why Oknodie was feeling down.

“She’s just feeling lonely. Loneliness from realizing how different she is from other children. It’s strange that she’s experiencing at such a young age the kind of regret usually felt by masters of a field looking back on their lives after decades of expertise.”

“Could you possibly help Oknodie…”

“I refuse.”

“Why? Aren’t you concerned about Oknodie?”

“I need to correct your misunderstanding.”

Professor Warerd spoke lazily from the sofa.

“A lazy animal starves to death, but a lazy plant thrives anywhere.”

“…”

“And that child’s issues will resolve themselves if she associates with friends at her level. There’s no need for adults to step in.”

“Friends at her level…?”

“Until now, she’s probably felt alienated, feeling that her life has progressed too far ahead on its own, drawing a line between herself and normalcy.”

Someone who makes her extraordinary strength seem unconscious.

She needs a friend with natural strength.

Preferably someone her own age.

Professor Warerd, despite acting reluctant and annoyed, ended up saying everything that needed to be said.

…Thanks to him, Giselle thought of one person.

Not exactly a peer, but someone relatively close in age at the academy.

A fellow professional whose strength couldn’t easily be dismissed as weaker than Oknodie’s, someone whose limits were unfathomable.

* *

“So that’s why you came to find me?”

“Please take good care of our little miss.”

As Zhang reached for a throwing weapon embedded in a wooden post, a powerful magnetic force pulled the metal weapon.

The weapon clung to her glove with a metallic sound.

She casually detached it from her glove with a diagonal swipe.

She collected weapons from all over her body.

She swept diamond-shaped throwing stars into a pouch, placed needles into compartments in her gloves, attached daggers to thigh holsters, and tucked various weapons into her wrist guards, waistband, inner pockets, and clothing lining…

‘Is she a person or a walking arsenal?’

Zhang, who had efficiently collected an alarming number of weapons from all over her body, gave a crooked, wicked smile.

“So… you want me to teach those despicable people who made Oknodie depressed a painful lesson, right?”

“Absolutely not.”

I seriously denied it, genuinely concerned that if left to her own devices, she might actually kill those kids.