NOVEL NEXT Chapter 101
<101 - An Accidental Encounter>
After the grueling 5th period.
I want to hang around on a tree and snooze without worrying about becoming crab feed, but I’ve got too many assignments.
The most annoying is the Long-Distance Weapon Mastery lecture.
For the shooting training assignment, I need to hit a total score of 1000 on targets at distances of 50m, 100m, 150m, and 200m, which means I have to shoot at least 400 arrows just to hit the 10-point target.
Adding to the misery, due to bad weather, there are plenty of poor students soaking wet and shooting arrows at the outdoor shooting range even late at night.
‘No way over there.’
I can shoot arrows with the instructor standing guard for safety, but instructors insist on keeping the dormitory curfew.
It’s pointless to sneak out again, and the time wasted going back and forth is just too precious.
‘In times like this, I should use the secret training ground!’
Just looking at the Room of Double-sided Strips hints that the Gift Academy has a lot of thoughtful provisions by seniors for their juniors.
Killer assignments.
Inhuman professors.
The remaining time is physically EVA (a lost cause).
Sympathetic seniors from the Magic Department have created a special training ground for their unfortunate juniors.
‘A private secret training ground available 24/7!’
Since entry is only allowed from the building dedicated to the Magic Department, I brave the downpour heading towards the Magic Building, and late as it is, I catch sight of a first-year student.
‘Huh? That’s Kasia!’
Group A from the Border Region.
Group B from the Empire.
Group C for special cases.
If the proud bastards from the Empire and the pitiful rogues from the border are forming opposing factions, Group C is the group both sides are wary of.
Unknown identity.
Stateless individuals.
Pseudo-humans.
A group that doesn’t even get acknowledged as human, filled with beings treated worse than beastmen, or those with dangerously shady backgrounds.
Maybe I could’ve been one of them too.
A student from Group C has to be accompanied by an instructor wherever they go, so there’s an instructor standing nearby Kasia as well.
Sneaky sneaky.
Suddenly, I felt like playing a prank.
I hide my body from the window and sneak closer to the window sill.
Then, when I get right in front of the window… I suddenly jump up with both arms raised, ready to scare her!
“Moooaahhh!”
“…You idiot.”
“Huh? How did you know?”
Before I approached, she was sitting at the first window next to the entrance.
Despite my long detour attempt to surprise her, Kasia had moved to the second window near the entrance and was laughing at me popping out next to her.
“Just.”
Somehow, I feel this challenge rising inside me.
“Hyaah!”
“You idiot.”
As soon as I target the second window, she shifts to the third spot.
“Hyaah!”
“You moron.”
I sneakily pop up at the second window, but she’s still at the third.
“Just once, let me surprise you!”
“No way.”
Going to the third window then making my way back to the first results in her being at the second one again.
With my sleight of hand skills that can defeat Professor Bronze, am I 0 wins and all losses against this student from Group C?
I’m mad, but it does help me to endure it.
‘Kasia seems to have high performance this round?’
Kasia’s performance varies drastically each round, but this time she seems particularly strong.
From the player’s perspective, it’s just a matter of saying “luck’s on your side!” and moving on, but for the person involved, excessively strong abilities make daily life difficult.
“Did you sense me with bioelectricity?”
“…Are you an idiot?”
“The top of our group can’t be an idiot!”
Kasia is an Electric-type Ability User.
She can unleash electricity in a way more aligned with authority than magic.
A well-trained Kasia can grow to be an electric generator capable of replacing a city’s power supply.
If you need an electric-type ability user, it’s almost essential to seek out Kasia!
“Aren’t you going back to the dorm?”
“I can’t go back.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s dangerous.”
For an ordinary student, it means the Giant King Crab is dangerous, but that doesn’t apply to her.
When she talks of danger, it means everyone else except herself.
“You’ll die if you’re not careful.”
A being like a ticking time bomb that can’t fully control her own power due to being overly strong.
That’s the concept of Kasia as a playable character.
“Student Oknodie. There’s little time left until the curfew. Please prepare to return to the dormitory.”
As the instructor overseeing Kasia starts to lecture, I finish up my path.
“Well then, see ya~”
“…Hmph.”
Kasia turns away huffily.
A classmate I can’t socialize with until we advance a grade.
Her superiority reflects her as a late-game character and her prickliness is quite formidable too.
‘Well, as long as we’re on friendly terms.’
I head straight to the secret training ground without hesitation.
Kasia turned her head, but could vividly sense Oknodie’s departure.
“Did you like her? That girl.”
“Not at all.”
“She did spend quite a while playing with you.”
“She’s only better than you.”
“How disappointing! I, your instructor, am fully devoted to protecting the safety of Academy students, so I feel underappreciated when you treat me like this.”
The instructor was jesting, but Kasia’s eyes were much colder than when she faced Oknodie.
If the earlier coldness was to push someone away, the current coldness was to ward off an enemy.
“The student you’re protecting is not me but the others. There’s no reason for me to be grateful.”
“I’m making sure you don’t recklessly use your abilities or do anything dangerous that would turn your classmates into electrical BBQ, so in a sense, I’m helping you.”
“You’d have the intention to slit my throat if I really made a mistake.”
“I wouldn’t kill you immediately on the first mistake. I’d knock you out first to prevent causing further damage and then cut the tendons in your limbs.”
“You’re a piece of trash.”
“Even a piece of trash like me is better than the humans you lived with. You should always be grateful for that fact.”
Kasia is a fusion lifeform created in a research facility.
The element of a human’s soul has been implanted into an existence that is not human.
-If it’s a creature too difficult to control by human strength, why not just insert an easy-to-handle soul?
Life, mind, soul.
Kasia, the Electric Ability User born in a horrifying research facility that meticulously used all elements of humanity for experimentation.
She has no place to return to.
She’s just a product that was sold to the academy after fetching an exorbitant amount of money.
The moment she says she’ll leave the academy means she has to refund the money she received from the research facility.
The head of the research facility would never allow her to live.
Perhaps a future worse than death awaits her.
Becoming a student of Group C means just that.
Having no place to return to and never being allowed to go back.
A being that can’t survive outside the academy.
‘I thought you were certainly a human from this side.’
Normally, she wouldn’t be bothered to play childish pranks on such a person.
Because it’s too hard.
Dealing with students who live ordinary lives.
Making sure they don’t die.
Every motion and gesture is unnerving and challenging.
If she mistakenly lets a lightning bolt slip, it’s common for everyone to catch fire.
-Choose a self. Will you kill someone? Or will you kill yourself?
Higher intensity.
Longer output.
The things the research facility did to strengthen her abilities were utterly horrifying.
‘If I’m a child trained to kill people, I’d think we’re in the same situation.’
Oknodie was both the same and different.
She had an adult around who could guarantee her identity.
Just that one difference.
That single difference divided the groups.
Oknodie became part of Group A, not Group C.
And she made many friends and became popular among the upper class.
The rumors and reputation floating around were superb as well.
She doesn’t discriminate against lower classes, and there’s no fear for being from the Empire.
She mingles freely with imperial students, sharing meals, and when necessary, stands up to fight against injustice for her socially weaker friends.
‘Her skills were nothing to sneeze at either.’
Just a moment ago, Oknodie approached outside the window.
Kasia kept observing her figure.
Humans possess something called bioelectricity.
Ordinary people neither know nor feel it.
Even if they train, most can only tangibly perceive it when skin contacts or within the same space.
‘I am different. Half of me isn’t human.’
Her non-human side of her body detects it.
The flow of bioelectricity operating within others.
Even blocked by a window.
Even obstructed by magical barriers.
She can bypass physical and magical barriers, visually sensing subtle bioelectricity.
The first three times, she easily dodged.
It was a piece of cake to lose Oknodie.
‘The fourth time was different.’
As I headed to the right window, Oknodie followed suit.
As I moved to the left window, she also switched directions to follow.
Oknodie clearly read her own position.
I felt like testing something.
[Electrical Phenomena Manipulation]
Even as the instructor watching in the back urged me ominously to stop, I activated my ability.
I create a replica of myself identical in shape and set it in place.
Oknodie peeks out through the first window hesitantly.
“Hyaah!”
Perhaps uncertain, she leans out through the first window.
As I deactivated my ability, what remains is empty space, her moving to the adjacent window, and only the instructor emitting unspoken pressure to end this prank.
‘It wasn’t electricity. I sensed mana.’
Kasia realized.
This girl truly was special.
Perhaps next time I meet her, I might even say hello.
She was far more likable than those same Group C classmates who only gathered around to avoid being alone.