NOVEL NEXT Chapter 38
Blanca up front was definitely not okay.
Her eyes were glazed over, totally lost, and her hands were covered in blood.
Plus, she was in such a shaky stance, it was like she would collapse if someone gave her a little nudge.
Still, she kept running. Even after getting knocked to the ground by a clone’s punch, she instantly pulled herself together to clear a path for us.
There was nothing I could do to help her.
Even with her injured body, she was doing everything for us, and I felt completely useless.
Out of frustration, I threw ice and shot lightning.
But no matter how many times I tossed my abilities at the clones, sometimes I hit, and sometimes I missed.
Even if I did hit, it didn’t stop the attacks aimed at Blanca, and the clones that got hit disappeared in no time, so I wasn’t helping her at all.
It felt like a completely pointless struggle. I had never felt so powerless before.
I felt such shame. It was just like that day, like back then.
Everyone was fighting hard, but I was doing nothing.
I was frustrated. I felt disgusted. I was angry. I needed to control my emotions, but my heart was in turmoil.
This shouldn’t be happening. This shouldn’t be happening.
It was the first time I felt this cornered since that day, and my heart felt like it was being squeezed.
“…Just a little more, just a bit further…”
“Blanca!”
In the end, she couldn’t hold on and collapsed. Yeonhwa told me to go help Blanca, saying she’d be fine.
“Blanca needs me more than I do… Hurry!”
“Sorry, Yeonhwa!”
Yeonhwa was in rough shape too. However, it was true that Blanca needed help more urgently.
If someone were to ask which was the more righteous act, helping Blanca was definitely the answer.
“Blanca, can you hear me?! Blanca!!”
I supported her and shook her a bit to check if she was still conscious.
But Blanca didn’t respond at all. Her eyes were vacant, nearly closing.
Her chest was rising and falling, so thankfully she was still breathing properly, but she didn’t look like she would wake up anytime soon.
She had done so much for us, and I was…
“…Changwon!! Drop the barrier!!! I brought Blanca!!!”
I shouted with all my might at Changwon, who was maintaining the barrier. As a result, part of the barrier dropped, allowing our homeroom teacher, Ageha, and a few other students to follow out.
They were all people who could actually attack the clones unlike me.
But their pace was slow. The speed at which the clones were pouring in was faster than their ability to deal with them.
If things kept going like this, instead of being rescued, they would be in danger too. Plus, Yeonhwa looked to be struggling to hold back the Suicide creatures.
Blanca was depending on me, and the clones were approaching us with aggressive grins.
Blanca was in danger.
I had to do something, anything.
Lightning, wind, ice – none of it worked. So, it was clear what I had to pull out.
No matter how scared I was, no matter how unprepared I felt, regardless of the wounds I carried.
Right now, I had to channel the flames.
My heart felt like it was going to burst in my chest. The heavens and earth were shaking. I was terrified. What if everyone burned up again like before?
What if I couldn’t control it? What if I messed up?
All sorts of bad futures danced before my eyes. I was too scared for the fire to even come out properly. It was terrifying. I should be angry, yet here I was, scared even now.
“What kind of hero am I if I’m like this…?!”
But losing Blanca, or having Yeonhwa get hurt, was even worse.
So I turned that fear into self-loathing and anger.
What I needed to etch into my heart was only anger, nothing else. Just as Blanca said, this was no time for hesitation.
I couldn’t hope for a hero to come like last time. I needed to become one myself.
I summoned vivid, clear flames. Flames hot enough to burn the vague phantoms, whether real or not, hellfire.
A punishment that should be justly dealt to the wicked.
While burning my magic, I blasted intense flames towards the phantoms.
At the same time, I precisely adjusted it to only burn those phantoms.
“Didn’t work… Oh?”
The phantoms, as if trying to mock me, poked themselves, but once they came to their senses, they gawked at their own charred bodies that were burning away and got extinguished in silence.
The flames consumed all the phantoms surrounding us and those desperately trying to help us.
For a moment, a path opened toward the bunker.
“…Jinhyeon.”
As soon as I confirmed the path was open, my body felt like it was about to freeze from the cold. Was it because I used too much magic, or was the fear I had been trying to ignore creeping back?
I couldn’t move. It was like I was frozen; there was no way I could budge.
But I had to move.
Doing something like just now again would be impossible.
Grimacing, I forced my body to move and shouted towards Yeonhwa.
I told Yeonhwa, who had seen me handling the flames, to hold on and asked her to move toward the bunker with Blanca.
Yeonhwa, seeing the incoming clones and Suicide creatures, quickly snapped back to reality and ran while supporting Blanca toward the bunker.
“What was that just now?! Is Yeonhwa awakening or something?!”
Our homeroom teacher rushed us into the bunker while asking what that fire was about.
“That wasn’t me!”
“Then, was it Jinhyeon?! Why… no way, whatever it was, it was a tremendous strike!”
“Thanks… a lot…”
As I laid Blanca on a makeshift bed, exhaustion hit me alongside the fear.
Was this the price of my reckless actions all at once? I just couldn’t stay conscious.
Our homeroom teacher and Yeonhwa were asking me if I was okay, but I didn’t have the strength to answer and collapsed.
– – – –
That evening of the attack.
I stood guard outside the surgery room Blanca entered, unsure if I was awake or dozing off while looking over reports.
Civilian fatalities: 7. Cause of death: crush and excessive bleeding due to injuries.
Thanks to a Healing Ability User from the student side, even the severely injured would likely recover after about two weeks of rest.
Suicide creature fatalities: estimated over 300. Exact identification isn’t possible, so just an estimate, don’t trust it too much.
Severely injured Suicide creatures are scheduled to be treated before heading to the law’s judgment.
Executor fatalities: 0.
One was seriously wounded but managed to escape using their powers. There was also a person with a steel body and a clone user who fled together.
2 captured. A vibration ability user and an ice manipulation ability user.
They are scheduled to be interrogated by the Heros Police before going to the law’s judgment.
That was about all that was noted in the report.
But there were things not written here. The condition of the students.
Fatalities: 0. Minor injuries: 13. Serious injury: 1.
It could be miraculous, considering we faced a villain typically encountered in the second year, but…
It wasn’t much of a comfort.
That seriously injured person was Blanca.
So it didn’t sit well with me. The contrast of her smiling and telling me she believed in me and the sight of her after everything was over was stark.
I wasn’t worried she might not wake up, but…
Her bones were broken, and she was internally bleeding, but when I asked Justitia, she told me they were bringing in Regeneration Recovery Medicine and famous Healing Ability Users from Heros Company for treatment.
If that’s the lineup, then assuming everything goes right, they could save even someone split in half.
So why was I uneasy?
Maybe because I couldn’t help but question someone who threw themselves out for others.
I had so many things to ask her.
How did she know Wang Tai-lun’s ability? Why did she sacrifice herself like that? What on earth happened in her past?
I needed to find out. Rationally, that was the right thing to do.
But I couldn’t say for sure that it was right emotionally.
“…Minho, how about you take a little break too?”
“I’m fine, really.”
“I just really hope… that Blanca is okay…”
“Me too. I’m worried about Blanca.”
“She will be… okay. She has to be, she’s my rival…”
“She will be okay. She’s not that weak of a girl.”
“Y-yeah, I guess so, Yamaguchi-kun…?”
Everyone connected to her was waiting anxiously for her to come out safe, comforting one another.
Only Jinhyeon was silently staring at the ground.
She has to be okay.
As the night deepened, the anxious hearts grew ever more intense.
– – – –
“Yeah, this is how it should have been. Isn’t it nice to see?”
A man buried under a pile of old clothes in a warehouse on the outskirts was smirking while flipping through news articles.
Most were related to the Suicide creatures.
Unrooted unknown forces that attacked Heros Academy twice, the Suicide creatures.
Who are the Suicide creatures? Who leads them? What’s their goal?
Each and every one of those titles tickled the man’s fancy.
“Good stuff is good, but… hmm. Maybe it’s because they’re too focused on visually shocking content; there are a lot of evaluations saying their power isn’t much…”
The man grinned maniacally, but then wiped the smile off his face as if putting on a mask, slowly reading through the evaluations of the Suicide creatures.
“Next time, should I create something a bit stronger to send out?”
The man began to mold a flesh-like mass as he envisioned his wicked ambitions on the canvas of the future.
This time, he intended to create something a little more brutal and solid, filled with pure malice.