Sweeping the Academy with a Wooden Sword

Second day at the academy.

I opened the door of Combat Division Class 1.

I decided to start my daily routine by waking up around 6 AM, leaving the dormitory, and meditating in the training ground.

Today, thanks to Ryu Jia, I was able to have quite a fulfilling start.

For some reason, I stood in front of Ryu Jia, who was turning her head towards the window.

“How’s your toe? Is it okay?”

Ryu Jia, as always, nodded with her eyes gently closed.

“Yes. Yes. It’s fine. The health teacher said I just need to avoid overexertion for today.”

“That’s good.”

Though they’re called health teachers, they’re medical professionals who have awakened trait-type healing abilities.

Currently, there are few people who can make more definitive medical judgments than them.

“Yeah, don’t overdo it. Your assigned instructor will understand too.”

“Yes, thank you… thanks for worrying.”

“Mm, be careful.”

I turned and walked towards the front. As soon as I sat down, Baek Hwayeon in front of me suddenly turned her head.

Blue eyes stared at me.

“Dojin, Dojin! Who do you want to be your dedicated instructor?”

“Well…”

I don’t even know who’s available in detail.

A moment later, Class 1 homeroom teacher Park Cheol-woong opened the door and entered.

“In a moment, you’ll receive a contact from your assigned dedicated instructor on your Iroaz Watch. I hope everyone will focus on that contact.”

It was literally a smartwatch provided by Iroaz Academy.

It was used to provide various guidance to individual students.

Ding!

[Student: Lee Dojin]

[Assigned Instructor: Special Advisor Yoo Seol-ah]

I had expected it to some extent.
That perhaps the Sword Empress would choose me.

“Oh, it’s Master! She’s always just been on the instructor list in name, but she’s never actually been a dedicated instructor!”

Baek Hwayeon said that and then thrust her face towards me. She probably meant for me to quickly tell her who was assigned to me.

“I got the Sword Empress too.”

“I thought so! We can go together then!”

She didn’t seem to question why Yoo Seol-ah had chosen me as her dedicated student.

A notification that seemed to be from Yoo Seol-ah arrived on the Iroaz Watch.

[Location: The place Hwayeon knows… ☆]

“…”

Has this Sword Empress gone crazy?
What’s with the star mark?

My brow furrowed involuntarily at the state of the message sent assuming I would go together with Baek Hwayeon.

I subtly held out my Iroaz Watch to Baek Hwayeon.

“Do you have any idea where it might be?”

“Yeah! We only trained there when not in the mountains.”

Baek Hwayeon firmly grabbed Lee Dojin’s hand and left Combat Division Class 1. Then she casually went to the parking lot and took out a car key.

It was an SUV.

Beep beep-!

Baek Hwayeon casually grabbed the steering wheel from the driver’s seat.

“You know how to drive, huh.”

And quite well at that. The snap of her turning the steering wheel was not ordinary.
Baek Hwayeon grinned as she turned the steering wheel.

“I used to go for drives whenever I felt stuck during training!”

Unlike her obsession with swords, she uses quite a realistic stress relief method.

I should get a license too. Maybe during summer vacation.

The driving was quite stable.

“You’re a real best driver.”

“Best… what? Dojin, you sound like an old man. An old man! Heheh.”

Fortunately, it was something I’d heard often since I was young.
I decided to ask something I’d been wanting to ask on this opportunity.

“How did you become the Sword Empress’s disciple? Don’t answer if it’s troublesome.”

Baek Hwayeon made a “hmm~” sound and then began to speak.

“I was an orphan. Abandoned in front of an orphanage when I was very young. I don’t even know if the people who abandoned me were my parents or not.”

It seems she had quite a dark past. But Baek Hwayeon didn’t stop talking.

“I ended up living in the orphanage. Until I was 12, I lived more or less okay. Suddenly, from one day, the older kids over 15 started disappearing one by one. They were all older brothers and sisters I was close to.”

Unlike usual, Baek Hwayeon’s temperature wasn’t hot. She continued speaking in a calm tone.

I listened attentively to the words reaching my ears.

“At that time, I… 12-year-old me didn’t know much, but I knew that if I stayed there like that, I might die too. So I decided on a date and tried to escape as a group.”

Baek Hwayeon raised the corners of her mouth.

“I barely managed to persuade the children, and we were about to escape together. But the situation went wrong. So I left behind even the two close friends who had worked hard with me. I escaped from that hell alone. Alone.”

Alone.
Baek Hwayeon kept repeating that word as if it was weighing her down.

“And by chance, I was picked up by Master who had just dealt with a nearby gate. I told Master everything I knew. Master fully believed my words and dealt with the orphanage people.”

Only now did I vaguely recall the name of the orphanage where Baek Hwayeon had been.

It had become quite a famous case worldwide.

“The Saeun Orphanage Mutant Incident…”

Baek Hwayeon slowly nodded at my words.

“That’s right.”

The Saeun Orphanage Mutant Incident.
It was a case where the orphanage made deals with groups conducting mutant modifications and awakened experiments.

All the orphanage officials were arrested and are still serving time in prison, but I heard that even after 8 years, the whereabouts of the groups they dealt with are still unknown.

“So that was the case where the Sword Empress exerted her influence.”

“Yeah, if Master hadn’t stepped in, there wouldn’t have even been an investigation into the orphanage.”

There wouldn’t have been many people who would have believed the words of a 12-year-old child at face value.

“There were two kids I was really close with. But it seems they were sold just before the investigation started. A week before?”

Always bright.
Baek Hwayeon, who seemed to know nothing but swordsmanship, had a darkness that I could hardly imagine.

Deep regret and lamentation could be felt in her calm words. Self-blame too.

“The orphanage’s trading partners… someday I’ll find them and, well, crush them all.”

I felt it.
It wasn’t just something said casually. Not empty words, but Baek Hwayeon really meant it and was determined to do so.

“Thank you. For telling me your story.”

Baek Hwayeon smiled gently at my words.

“It’s the first time. Telling my old story. Ah, since Master knows, it’s the second time. Oh, we’re here!”

The car arrived at the place designated by the Sword Empress.
The SUV stopped at a villa.
To be precise, it was a luxury villa.

“Let’s go! Dojin.”

Baek Hwayeon smiled broadly, returning to her energetic self.

Baek Hwayeon took my hand and opened the door of the villa.

“She’ll be downstairs.”

Then she went down the stairs and placed her right hand on the access detection device next to the door.

After scanning Baek Hwayeon’s palm print, the huge door slowly opened.

Ziiing-

Underground training room.
A huge training area unfolded before Lee Dojin’s eyes.

It looked like a miniature version of the academy’s training room.

Baek Hwayeon ran quickly towards Yoo Seol-ah, who was meditating in the center of the training room.

“Master! Dojin and I are here!”

The Sword Empress, Yoo Seol-ah, opened her eyes.
She smiled and stroked Baek Hwayeon’s pink hair.

“Hwayeon, go upstairs for a moment. I have something to talk about with Student Lee Dojin.”

“Ah, yes!”

Baek Hwayeon immediately went up to the ground floor as her master said.

Only I and the Sword Empress remained in the underground training room.

“You came, Student Lee Dojin.”

“I couldn’t not come, could I? You’re my dedicated instructor.”

“Pfft!”

Yoo Seol-ah laughed at something funny about my words.

“Originally, I just had my name on the instructor list but never personally mentored anyone. I brought Hwayeon because she’s my disciple. Student Lee Dojin’s case is special.”

Yoo Seol-ah smiled with her eyes.

“No matter how I think about it, there’s no instructor who can handle Student Lee Dojin except me. Among the first-year dedicated instructors.”

Yoo Seol-ah raised her ‘aura’.
A red current engulfed the training room.

A feeling of pressure wrapped around my body. I also raised my aura.
A colorless current began to push back the red.

Yoo Seol-ah smiled.
The red flush on her face felt like madness, crazy to fight.

“Student Lee Dojin. How many stars?”

“…2 stars.”

“I’m 7 stars. I don’t know how many stars the pinnacle of Student Lee Dojin’s divine technique is, but. Since the gap in internal energy is too big, let’s fight later. Later.”

Later.
As if suppressing her desire to fight me, Yoo Seol-ah repeated the word ‘later’.

“3 stars. When I reach 3 stars, let’s fight right then.”

The position of one of the 4 superhumans is high.
So I decided to show at least minimal courtesy.

“I think I can win then. I’m not sure about now.”

At my words, Yoo Seol-ah suddenly extinguished the aura that had filled the training room.

So I also withdrew my aura.

“…You’re not sure about now. But you can beat me when you reach 3 stars?”

“Yes.”

Yoo Seol-ah suddenly embraced my body.

“S-Student Lee Dojin is really…!! An innovative student!”

I felt her ample bosom and body heat.
I quickly stepped back.

“Oh my, I got too excited. How careless of me.”

“…It seems so.”

Yoo Seol-ah burst into laughter again at my words.

“Today will be the time to prove that confidence of yours, Student Lee Dojin.”

“Prove?”
“Please defeat Hwayeon. Miserably, to the point where she fully accepts her defeat.”

For a moment, I thought I glimpsed Yoo Seol-ah as a ‘master’.

“She’s never lost to a peer before, you know. Hwayeon. She’s also hitting a wall right now. To break through that wall, she needs quite an intense moment.”

Is that what a miserable defeat is meant to be?

“I’m not sure.”

But.

“I’ll spar with her. I want to see Hwayeon’s sword again too.”

I wanted to see Baek Hwayeon’s sword once more.