The Academy’s Deceased Ate It All

Thwack. The dart buried itself into the board.

Choi Hyun-woo stared at it with a vague, unsatisfied look, like things weren't going the way he'd pictured.

"Man, this is way harder to get a feel for than I thought. Maybe 'cause it's my first time?"

"Hmm… plus these are Hunter darts, right? Maybe that's it. You were doing great earlier with the regular ones."

Lee Yu-na soothed him, saying it was only natural when your usual weapon changed, then picked up a dart with a practiced grip.

She let out a soft, halfhearted "Eii—" as she threw, but the dart shot forward with terrifying force and lodged dead center.

"Yes…!"

"…If I'd known, I'd have practiced my throwing too."

Lee Yu-na pumped a small fist in delight while Choi Hyun-woo shook his head with a complicated expression beside her.

We were at a dart café inside the Academy.

The whole thing was billed as a party to celebrate my recovery.

When the question of where to go first came up, all sorts of places got tossed around—karaoke, a pool hall, a bowling alley—but I politely turned down karaoke, the pool hall got cut because nobody besides Choi Hyun-woo and me knew how to play, and the bowling alley got dropped when someone pointed out it might be too hard on my body.

In the end, the place we landed on was this dart café.

From what I'd heard, Choi Hyun-woo and Han Su-yeong came here pretty often with their other friends.

When Jin Ye-seul, Lee Yu-na, and I said we'd never thrown a dart in our lives, Choi Hyun-woo had flashed a strangely confident smile, told us not to worry because he'd teach us, and brought us here.

And then….

"No—what the hell! Jin Ye-seul!"

"You scared me. Why are you yelling?"

"You said you'd never thrown darts, that was a lie, right? Hey, that's cheating!"

"What is?"

Choi Hyun-woo looked at Jin Ye-seul like he'd been wronged, his face full of disbelief, and Jin Ye-seul looked back like she had no idea what his problem was.

A dart sat dead center of Jin Ye-seul's board, and behind it a line of darts dangled one after another, like the cars of a train.

Five of them, no less.

And she'd sunk them like that throwing one after another without a single pause.

"I'm telling you, this really is my first time throwing darts."

Jin Ye-seul bounced a dart in the air with one hand and toyed with it between her fingers as she spoke.

"I've thrown plenty of other things, though."

The moment she finished, she hurled the whole handful of darts at once, and like some kind of lie they sank into the very center of the board as if sucked in.

Lee Yu-na, standing beside the dumbfounded Choi Hyun-woo, was also planting every single one of her own darts dead center, not one out of place.

Choi Hyun-woo threw well enough, but compared to Jin Ye-seul, who handled concealed weapons, and Lee Yu-na, who wielded countless weapons with ease, his scores couldn't help but look pathetic.

He swung a sword, after all—throwing wasn't his thing.

"You're in last place."

"Wow, this is my first time and darts are fun."

At Jin Ye-seul's scoffing remark and Lee Yu-na's pure delight, something snapped in Choi Hyun-woo's face for a second. He yanked all the darts out of the board and said in a quiet voice,

"It's 'cause these are Hunter darts and it's my first time. I've got the feel for it now. Let's do one more round."

"Mm, that sounds like a pain."

"Haah…."

With a sigh, Choi Hyun-woo went over to Jin Ye-seul and started whispering something close to her ear.

Jin Ye-seul, who'd been wearing a sour look, suddenly flinched and asked back,

"R-really? You're serious? You promised, okay? If you're lying I really won't let it go!"

"I don't lie."

For some reason Choi Hyun-woo shot a glance this way as he said it, and Jin Ye-seul nodded with a solemn expression.

"Good… then."

As I watched Jin Ye-seul pick up a dart with that solemn face, something was suddenly thrust out in front of my eyes.

"Ji-hyeok, look at this."

It was Han Su-yeong.

She tapped at the phone in her hand and showed me a news article.

"Hm?"

The article had a photo of someone really familiar.

It was a picture of the holy knight Laura Hartmann.

[Holy Knight in Despair… Stopped the Dragon, but Couldn't Stop the Falcons' 11-Game Losing Streak….]

The woman in the photo was wearing a baseball cap and a T-shirt, even sporting a goofy headband.

She was holding a cheer stick too, and the picture had perfectly captured the moment she slumped down into her seat, completely dazed.

Under the headline poking fun at her outfit was a brief blurb explaining that the baseball team she always rooted for had given up a comeback home run on their home field and was now on an eleven-game skid.

"Funny, right? And there's more where that came from."

Han Su-yeong dragged her chair over beside me and adjusted the phone so it was easier to see.

Every time her slim, slender fingers tapped the screen, funny pictures, articles, and videos appeared one after another.

A video of Anastasia Lukyanenko—someone who could freeze a tidal wave with her cold—clutching her head from an ice-cream brain freeze; a photo of Lee Myung-jun getting smacked on the back by his little sister, like he'd said something wrong while out shopping; a clip of Ahn Ju-hyeok nodding off and mumbling some bizarre sleep-talk….

Most of them had to do with the Ten Powerhouses.

"See?"

Han Su-yeong asked me with a smiling face.

Before I knew it, I realized I was smiling right along with her.

"Good."

Han Su-yeong murmured that and stole a glance at my bag.

"…That thing had you looking really down, you know."

"…Well, yeah. It did."

What Han Su-yeong meant was none other than the nameless book.

The thing I'd gotten at the library—though I had no idea when I'd actually gotten it.

And no matter how I opened it, there was nothing written inside; the only reaction it had ever given was a single notification window that read 'You are not qualified,' and nothing more.

Yet Han Su-yeong had clearly read the sentence 'You are qualified.'

"More importantly, what even is that thing?"

…At her question, I'd shown it to all the others too and asked if maybe they could see anything written in it.

But Choi Hyun-woo, Jin Ye-seul, and Lee Yu-na had all just said it looked like a plain notebook.

Han Su-yeong had apparently caught on right then that there was something off about the book.

"I don't know either."

That, pathetically, was the only answer I could give her.

It was the truth.

A nameless book—I swear it was something I was seeing for the first time.

I could say with confidence it was an item that had never once appeared, never been mentioned, never even hinted at in the original.

And at that answer of mine, Han Su-yeong nodded like she understood.

"I see…."

She thought it over for a moment, then asked me back,

"Is there anything you do know, Ji-hyeok?"

"Just that I'm not qualified, and that at some point it ended up in my hands. That's about it."

"Qualified, qualified, huh…."

She started murmuring quietly with a serious look on her face.

She didn't seem to think for even a second that I'd lied or was playing a joke.

And maybe she'd shrewdly picked up on the fact that I'd noticed, because she nodded at me and spoke.

"What's wrong?"

"Hm?"

"You've got this stunned look, like you can't believe I just took your word for it."

Han Su-yeong said that and gave a small giggle.

"Well, there's no way you'd mess with me over something like this. Same goes for the others. Now, if the book had some kind of magic worked into it and you'd pulled some elaborate prank to fool me, then maybe…."

She carefully ran her hand over the book's cover and murmured,

"But when I look at it closely now, it's really strange. I can't feel even a trace of magic, which is uncanny. No trace, no lingering echo. Even a pebble lying by the road is bound to have some trace or echo of magic left in it somehow."

After fiddling with the book a few times, she covered her mouth with her fingers like she was thinking.

It was a habit of hers that showed up whenever she sank into deep thought.

"Qualified—what kind of qualification could it be talking about… You and I felt it, Ji-hyeok, but the others couldn't even feel a thing. It means only you and I met some condition the others didn't. And on top of that, you're not qualified, but I am…."

Han Su-yeong said that and skimmed quickly through the book.

But before long she pursed her lips a little, like she hadn't found what she'd hoped for.

"There's nothing besides that first sentence. Does that mean we met the qualification but it still wasn't enough?"

"I don't even really know what the conditions for that qualification are in the first place. And more than anything, I don't know what this thing is supposed to mean."

"Yeah…."

Han Su-yeong glanced around and spoke in a near whisper.

"I wondered if it had something to do with the Seven Calamities, but if that were it, then you'd be the one who's qualified, not me."

After that, the two of us glared at the book in silence for a while.

Then a strangely noisy commotion reached my ears, and when I turned my head, there sat Choi Hyun-woo slumped weakly in a chair, and Jin Ye-seul throwing darts without hesitation even with a cloth over her eyes.

"Yu-na, how about it? Did it hit?"

"Uh, yeah. But Ye-seul, it's dangerous, so I think you should stop blindfolding yourself…."

"Mm, if you say so, Yu-na, maybe I will. But just one more before that…."

Jin Ye-seul said that and, still blindfolded, started bouncing a dart off the top of her foot like she was playing jegi¹.

Then with a light flick of her foot she kicked the dart flying and sank it into the center of the board yet again.

Watching this, Lee Yu-na quietly gauged Choi Hyun-woo's reaction, and Choi Hyun-woo only smiled weakly, like he'd given up.

In the middle of it all, Jin Ye-seul, even with her eyes covered, looked over here precisely and burst into a clear, untainted laugh.

"Ji-hyeok, did you see?"

"Yeah, you're amazing, as expected."

"Right? Right?"

She walked straight up to me as if she could see ahead just fine even with the cloth over her eyes.

"You should try too, Ji-hyeok. Yeah?"

"Ah, well, shall I?"

As I got up from my seat, I quietly nudged it over toward Han Su-yeong.

When our eyes met, I nodded as if to ask her the favor.

At that, Han Su-yeong picked up the book and tucked it into her own bag.

…One way or another, it seemed like that book would be better off with her than with me.

It wasn't as if some bright idea would come to me from keeping it, and if she figured something out or some change appeared, she'd let me know right away.

"Here, Ji-hyeok. Come over here."

Jin Ye-seul, who had slipped the cloth off her eyes, took my hand and slowly pulled me along.

Choi Hyun-woo, who'd been staring at the cloth Jin Ye-seul had cast aside, picked it up and pressed it over his own eyes. Before long I heard him mutter in disbelief.

"I really can't see a thing… and here I thought she was pulling some trick."

In the middle of all that, I caught sight of Lee Yu-na, who'd met my eyes, wearing a strangely grave expression.

"…Hm? What is it, what's wrong, Yu-na? Did something bad happen?"

But she immediately shrank back like she'd been startled, then waved her hand with that giggly smile of hers, like it was nothing.

"U-uh-huh. It's nothing. I was just zoning out a little."

Then she clamped her mouth shut, as if telling me not to ask any more, and took a step back.

Meanwhile Jin Ye-seul had already brought me right up in front of the board and even pressed a dart into my hand.

"Ji-hyeok, do you know how to throw darts?"

"No, I don't. That's why Hyun-woo said he'd teach me."

"I'll teach you instead."

Jin Ye-seul said, grinning.

"You saw how good I am earlier. I'm better than him."

At that I glanced over at Choi Hyun-woo, who only stood there with the cloth Jin Ye-seul had used in one hand, head bowed, gripped by a sense of defeat.

From the look of him, his pride had taken quite a wound.

"Mm, okay. So. Spread your legs about this far, and your arm…."

It was just as Jin Ye-seul was naturally touching my body to set my posture.

The jingle of the doorbell rang out unusually loud.

"Sorry, I'm really late."

With an easy, amiable smile, Ivan stepped into the café.

At that, Choi Hyun-woo burst out laughing as if he'd never been crushed at all, got up from his seat, and welcomed him.

"What kept you so long? You go meet some secret girlfriend or something?"

"Girlfriend, yeah right… You all know our class always lets out really late."

As he said this, he kept holding the door open.

It looked like he was waiting for someone to come in.

"And part of it's that I came with a guest."

The moment he finished speaking, as if right on cue, someone walked in with confident strides.

And the instant I saw that person, I couldn't hide my surprise.

"…Huh?"

"Heheh."

And the person in question, seeing my startled face, gave a small, satisfied smile.

Green hair so vivid it could never come from dye, carrying the lushness of nature itself.

In contrast, golden eyes so vibrant they looked like color cast from melted gold.

And above all, the sight of her in a school uniform, which now looked more out of place than anything.

"To think you'd be this surprised—keeping it a secret was worth it."

It was none other than Lee Ye-eun.

"…More than that, I'm really glad you've recovered, Ji-hyeok."

At the sight of her murmuring it with a wistful look, I found myself nodding along in spite of myself, and yet for a moment I had a thought that was rude to her.

'Ah.'

Come to think of it, she was still a student.

It was the moment a misconception—born from how grown-up she looked and acted—got set straight.

And whether or not she knew what I was thinking, she stood there in her uniform, worn for the first time in a while, giving me a wonderful smile.

In my inner pocket, the USB she'd secretly handed me before, along with the scarf, rustled softly.

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