A Veteran Teaches Very Well

part 47

“Ugh!”

Baek Seolhwa was pushed back as she blocked the punch of the Permet Golem.

Its strength was much greater than before.

If it had been in a weakened state, it might have been manageable, but taking it on barehanded was no easy feat.

‘This is a pointless thought.’

Still, she had achieved her initial goal.

Thanks to Baek Seolhwa buying time, Team B had gained a moment to regroup, and now they could launch a coordinated attack to finish it off.

Just as Baek Seolhwa was about to retreat…

─工으후루꾸十卞丁下丁卞十꾸루후으工!

Once again, the golem emitted a strange sound.

Uncertain of its intentions, Team B hurriedly readied their formation.

Flash!

The color of the golem changed.

The once purple-hued permut golem transformed into a shade of pink.

Then, its entire body shimmered.

“Is it a laser pattern again?”

The permut golem flashes light from its body before firing lasers.

This had been the pattern that Team B had observed until now.

But this time, it was different.

The glowing permut golem did nothing but continue to shine.

Team B, puzzled, watched the golem intently.

“Huh?”

“What’s it doing?”

“Is the light some kind of physical enhancement?”

One team member stepped forward.

“I don’t care what it is! We just need to take it down… Ugh!”

The member staggered.

“What’s wrong? Why are you like this?”

They tried to walk toward the golem, but their body wouldn’t cooperate.

It wouldn’t move as they wished.

This filthy sensation.

A memory of a past experience resurfaced.

“Ugh…”

“Damn it!”

Soon, the same symptoms appeared in the other team members.

It was the state of confusion they had encountered in the Less Blue Monkey Forest.

“Damn, how do we…?”

“I’ll handle it.”

Once again, it was Baeksulhwa.

She had been the one to resolve the second stage in the Less Blue Monkey Forest as well.

Baeksulhwa possessed resistance to status ailments, allowing her to withstand confusion to some extent.

“Well then, ugh!”

Twist—

But this time, even Baeksulhwa couldn’t hold herself together.

Why?

Was the chaos of the Permet Golem stronger than the monsters encountered in the Monkey Forest?

Baeksulhwa quickly found the answer.

Ah, I see.

It’s not that the enemy has grown stronger; it’s that I have grown weaker.

Without an eruption, Baeksulhwa was fragile.

So weak that she couldn’t even withstand this minor state of abnormality, she was floundering.

Crack—

The sound of her grinding teeth echoed.

It was Baeksulhwa’s.

“Se, Seolhwa?”

The team members, sensing something was off, called out her name.

But it didn’t reach Baeksulhwa.

A chilling cold filled the swamp, and the temperature of the air shifted.

The team members, terrified, fell silent and huddled in a corner.

Baeksulhwa’s fury erupted.

* * *

“It’s over.”

As the time limit slowly approached its end, Team B’s strategy concluded.

It ended with Baeksulhwa’s one-woman show.

Even so, it probably wasn’t a satisfying result for those involved.

The final outcome saw Anseri’s Team C taking first place by an overwhelming margin.

Team C is strong.

In the last exam, they fell short due to mismatched strengths, ending up with an A, but if any team could finish the remaining exams with all A+s, it would be Team C.

With perfect balance and each member’s outstanding performance, they were the best team.

Next was Team D.

Though they were widely regarded as the weakest of the four teams, they had a certain tenacity in their organization.

No matter how special Team A was, they at least showed resilience that didn’t fall behind them.

—

Group A is in third place.

These kids reached a level comparable to others who had learned for two months in just under two weeks.

They were impressive in many ways.

Especially Park Seo-hu.

He proved the skills of the top freshman without reservation.

The bottom was Group B.

The results were devastating, but the process wasn’t bad.

It was a good idea to prepare a Plan B instead of being satisfied with one pattern.

Even though it failed.

However, Baek Seol-hwa looked greatly disappointed with the results.

She was crouched in a corner of the professor’s office, digging into the ground.

It seemed she had been like that for an hour.

“Professor, I must have looked pathetic, right?”

“I think it was a decent attempt.”

“Don’t lie. I know you were laughing at me. Empty consolation only hurts, so just treat me like last time. Eating alone in the empty bathroom, having no friends, a bad personality, and looking like a delinquent… you said a lot of harsh things.”

There were many things she wanted to argue about.

She knew Baek Seol-hwa had a vindictive personality, but she didn’t expect her to bring it up now.

Moreover, the content was quite distorted and unfair.

“I know. I know I’m pathetic. Thinking I could beat Park Seo-hu, the top student of the swordsmanship department, was arrogant, right? It was a ridiculous thought from the start. Isn’t that right? I shamelessly wasted your time without even realizing that, so I deserve to be scolded.”

She was digging so deep it seemed she might break through to the other side of the Earth.

Still, compared to the beginning, she had improved a lot.

At first, she had mumbled incomprehensible things like a madwoman, and he had worried about what to do with her.

“Let’s stop the self-deprecation and talk about what to do moving forward.”

“…Moving forward?”

“Yeah. You must have realized something during this practical class, right?”

“…I don’t know.”

Baek Seol-hwa hung her head low.

Though she said she didn’t know, she must have realized something.

What the problem was.

How to fix it moving forward.

“I need you to erupt. Am I wrong?”

A flinch—

Baek Seolhwa’s shoulders moved sharply.

Baek Seolhwa lowered her head even further.

“I’m not wrong. In the end, you used your eruption and won.”

Perhaps unwilling to accept reality, Baek Seolhwa shook her head vigorously.

She kept poking her side with her fingers as she continued to speak.

“I’m not wrong, I’m not wrong.”

“…….”

A chuckle—

“Admit it.”

A chuckle—

“Just admit it… cough!”

Thud!

Baek Seolhwa threw a cushion that was next to the sofa.

Caught off guard by the unexpected ambush, I couldn’t react in time.

It hit me like a brick, and it hurt.

“Seolhwa, you little….”

“I don’t want to.”

Baek Seolhwa said, covering her face with her arms.

“I can’t admit it. Park Seohoo did, so why can’t I? I can lead a party just like Park Seohoo.”

“Right. You can do it.”

“I knew you’d say that. But I… huh?”

Baek Seolhwa removed her arms from her face and looked at me.

Her round eyes seemed to question what I was saying.

For some reason, it felt like déjà vu.

“You can do it too.”

“…Just now, you said that without using an eruption, someone like me is nothing.”

“When did I say that?”

“You did.”

The white snow fairy distorted my words once again, as she pleased.

But that’s not what’s important.

“Then you can use both the eruption and support, right?”

“Pardon?”

“It’s not an easy task, but it’s not impossible either.”

In fact, there are cases among high-ranking heroes like that.

For instance, Edeline, the guild master of the Unicorn Guild, was one of them.

It’s different from controlling emotions.

It’s about instinctively making the right judgment even when reason is faint.

The white snow fairy possessed similar qualities.

Of course, she couldn’t be exactly like Edeline.

“Seolhwa has good instincts and quick judgment. Just because she’s in an eruption state doesn’t mean her function as a control tower is paralyzed.”

“But she couldn’t do it.”

“That’s not the issue. Think calmly and carefully. What was the problem?”

The white snow fairy followed my words.

She closed her eyes and fell into thought.

As if something suddenly struck her, the white snow fairy opened her eyes.

“Ah! I couldn’t see what the team members were doing or where they were. So that’s why you made us train like that.”

“Exactly.”

It’s easy to explain with words.

But conveying information and understanding it are completely different matters.

Only now did the white snow fairy realize the true meaning of the training we had done together.

“Do you understand now that you’ve experienced it firsthand?”

“Yes!”

The white snow fairy nodded vigorously.

It seemed she had regained some spirit.

“Now that you’ve identified the problem, can you find a solution?”

“…Focus my mind properly?”

“That’s what you tried to do, and it failed just now.”

“Right….”

Baeksulhwa sank back into gloom, her head bowed low.

Today, her emotional fluctuations felt more intense than ever.

It seemed to reveal the extent of her ambition regarding the control tower.

“When in a state of eruption, vision narrows, and hearing becomes sensitive to specific sounds, making communication with colleagues nearly impossible.”

“Yes.”

“But not all senses become dull. Try to feel the movement of objects.”

“…What?”

It might sound like a whimsical notion.

Yet, there was certainty. If anyone could do it now, it was Baeksulhwa.

“What have you learned so far?”

“Training not to step outside the circle for ten minutes?”

“Anything else?”

“Catching golems in the practical lecture…”

“Exactly. Seolhwa, you’ve already learned everything you need to do.”

Baeksulhwa still wore a look of confusion.

“Close your eyes.”

“Pardon?”

“Don’t get anxious. Calm your mind.”

Baeksulhwa gently closed her eyes.

Humans are the animals that rely most on sight.

If vision is blocked, other senses will become much more acute.

“Slowly. Extend your senses. In doing so, you will feel the movement. You will sense it.”

“Extend… my senses…”

Countless thoughts must be crossing Baeksulhwa’s mind.

Everything she had done up to now.

“Extend, extend.”

All the materials were in place.

All the advice I had given her.

The training sessions where we drew two circles.

Even the experience of facing the permut golem in today’s practical lecture.

—

The training I had undergone and the experiences I had accumulated erupted in a fusion.

Swoosh—

From Baeksulhwa’s body, mana began to rise slowly.

A radiant mana, shimmering in the color of aura, spread out.

Yes.

This is what I wanted.

It spread out explosively.

Swoosh!

The mana extended outward.

It possessed a nature similar to aura, yet it was different from it.

It had no predetermined name.

Both aura and magic were named out of necessity, but there were no fixed answers for the utilization of mana.

Mana is a free power that can become anything.

It’s done. I succeeded.

Ding!

───────────────

You have achieved a hidden achievement.

─Skill Creation (1/1)

───────────────

The system window chimed.

Achievement.

It was something that appeared when specific conditions were met in the game.

I had seen it before when I defeated the demon.

But this hidden achievement was something I had never encountered, even I.

After all, it was my first time using mana in this way.

I couldn’t tell if it was simply because I hadn’t discovered it before, or if it had emerged as the game became reality.

I spoke to Baeksulhwa.

“Try to move slowly.”

Baeksulhwa’s mana resembled a very long and slender aura.

It had no lethal capability, yet it moved far more freely than aura. It was akin to thin tendrils of thread.

It wandered around the professor’s office and then reached me.

The white snow flower, with her eyes closed, asked,

“Professor… is it you?”

“Yes.”

Swoosh—

Mana moved around my body.

It would feel as detailed as touching it with my hands, if not even more so.

The nature of mana is determined by the user’s will.

The white snow flower seemed amazed, as if she had created something wondrous.

“Wow….”

She said.

“If I connect this with my party members, I think I could visualize their positions in my mind even while immersed in battle!”

Excited, the white snow flower moved the mana.

It swept over my body.

Swoosh— swoosh—

Starting from my shoulders, it traveled down my back and twisted upward around my waist.

The mana circled back up to my abdomen, then spun around my arms as it moved forward.

“Ohh.”

The mana from the white snow flower reached my hand.

The threads of mana twisted and coiled together, forming a small mass.

The clump of mana filled about half of my hand.

“Hehe, it feels like I’m holding hands.”

Does she perceive that as a hand?

Curious about what would happen if I squeezed tightly, I did just that.

“Yikes! You startled me!”

The white snow flower screamed.

It seemed to be a more sensitive organ than it appeared.

Usually, her voice was low for a woman.