Chapter 15
Running up and down the steep mid-mountain slope had continued for over 30 minutes.
Simon and the Class A students were dashing after Hongpeng without a moment to think, when all of a sudden, the path came to an end.
In Simon’s line of sight ahead, two cliffs came into view, with a valley stream rushing between them, churning white foam as it flowed.
“You’ll need to use Darkness to leap across that valley up ahead.”
At Hongpeng’s words, a few students were visibly frightened.
“Y-You want us to jump over that?”
“It’s fine. You just need a bit of technique. Like when you summon Darkness beneath your palms, this time you blast it from the soles of your feet.”
She jumped into the air to demonstrate.
With a pop! sound, black smoke burst beneath her feet, and she performed double and even triple jumps in midair. Sounds of awe burst out from here and there.
“You don’t even need to jump in the air like that.”
She tumbled as she landed and spoke again.
“Just at the instant you push off with your stepping foot, release the Darkness you’ve gathered in your feet, as if blasting it downward. It’s the feeling of stepping on Darkness and launching yourself.”
Standing at the front, Hongpeng sprinted ahead, kicked off the ground, and leapt.
Boom!
With that sound, she soared several meters through the air and landed lightly on the opposite side of the valley.
“Like this!”
She waved her arms and laughed.
The students behind her were now caught in their own tangled thoughts.
The valley wasn’t very deep, but no one wanted to be the laughingstock who fell in on the first week of the semester.
Some of the more hesitant students subtly slowed down, while the more confident ones shouted and surged forward.
“Hyaaahhh!”
Voooom!
They jumped.
A faint trail of black smoke could be seen beneath each of their feet.
Three of the five landed cleanly, one tumbled upon hitting the ground, and another, lacking in leap strength, barely managed to cling to the edge of the cliff.
“Well done!”
Hongpeng stepped in and grabbed his hand, helping him up. The male student climbed up with an embarrassed smile.
“Your timing on releasing Darkness was a little late. Next time, try it faster!”
“Thank you, Professor!”
One after another, the other students also leapt from the ground. Maybe it was no coincidence that they were Keyzen enrollees, every single one of the twenty students succeeded. Watching from behind, Simon started to feel a bit anxious.
‘The feeling of stepping on Darkness, stepping on Darkness…’
“You look like you’re overthinking it, Simon.”
Dick waved his fingers lazily.
“I’m going first!”
He turned his back and ran. Then, pushing off the ground, he tucked both knees to his chest and soared confidently into the air.
“Waaah!”
The girls cheered, and a grin tugged at Dick’s lips. But the cheer wasn’t directed at him.
As he looked up, Dick saw Hector mid-spin, a whole meter higher than himself.
Shraaaaak!
Hector slid down with both feet pressed to the earth.
Even the landing was perfect.
“Well done!”
Hongpeng smiled brightly and gave him a thumbs-up.
Hector returned the gesture with a thumbs-up of his own, then concluded with a polite bow.
“Nice, Hector!”
“As expected!”
He then high-fived the faction already waiting on the other side.
“…Tch, I just can’t warm up to that guy.”
Muttering with his face half-buried in the dirt after a failed landing, Dick grumbled.
“Ooooooh!”
Just then, a second cheer burst from behind.
Dick and Hector both turned around in surprise.
‘What the…!’
He flew.
Simon was midair, his feet pointed skyward. Then his waist bent, his legs came down, and he slid backwards along the ground.
Shraaaaaaaaaak!
His body came to a stop right in front of a rock, passing Dick and Hector along the way.
“Very well done!”
Hongpeng clapped her hands in delight.
‘That bastard…’
Hector’s facial muscles twisted into a grimace. Simon bowed politely to Hongpeng and returned to the group.
Leaning casually against a tree, Dick held up a hand. With a grin, Simon slapped it hard.
Smack!
‘Finally showing the flair of Special Admission No. 1.’
‘Wasn’t he a Magical Combat major?’
The students began murmuring about Simon, while Hector’s expression hardened. He could see his plans falling apart.
“Alright! The jest of you, jump across too!”
From that point, things progressed quickly.
Unlike their earlier hesitation, most of the students succeeded. Only two from the class failed. Fortunately, the assistants waiting secretly down in the valley caught them, so no one fell into the water.
“Hmm.”
Dick opened his notebook and began jotting something down. Curious, Simon asked,
“What are you doing?”
“Drafting a recruitment list for the group projects. They’ll probably start next week, so I need to be ready.”
The notebook was packed with the names of Class A students to watch out for, along with their best subjects and personality traits.
To Simon, Dick seemed a bit different from the other students.
While most struggled just to keep up with class, Dick was constantly observing the people around him.
“How does the research look so far?”
“Our class has a high overall level. Everyone’s pretty good, but…”
Dick closed his notebook and shrugged.
“That one’s kind of lackluster. I feel like she’ll flunk out soon after the protection period ends.”
Simon turned to look where Dick’s gaze was directed. It was the girl who’d managed to mount the hippo thanks to Simon earlier, now being helped up by an assistant.
“Is everyone up? Then let’s head to the next area!”
As soon as the last student climbed up, Hongpeng took off running again without even a moment to rest. The students yelped and chased after her.
‘Haha! What is this?’
This was nothing like the usual classroom lessons. It truly felt like a dynamic class.
After running another twenty minutes and breaking through the forest, they emerged onto an open hill. It had a gentle slope, making it easy to pick up speed.
Just as everyone was following Hongpeng—
Dudududududu!
The exact same situation from just a few hours ago was repeating itself.
The same herd of hippos that had carried the students earlier was now climbing the mountain slope from the opposite direction.
“Uh, uh-oh?”
“A-Aren’t they coming this way? P-Professor?!”
But, before anyone noticed, Hongpeng had disappeared. The other assistants were gone as well.
The students stopped in confusion, but the approaching herd of hippos showed no signs of slowing down.
‘Danger!’
Simon also stopped in place and focused his vision. One hippo was charging straight at him.
‘The feeling of stepping on Darkness!’
Thump!
Simon soared into the sky, and the herd of hippos passed beneath him, kicking up clouds of dust. A few other students around him were also airborne like Simon.
‘I’m falling!’
Simon angled his body, trying to land in a direction where there were no hippos.
As soon as he landed, he had to roll frantically along the ground to dodge them.
“Kh!”
Two more were coming from the front.
Simon stomped hard on the ground and leapt just in time, narrowly avoiding the charge.
‘I-I almost died.’
The fear of death made every hair on his body stand on end and jolted his senses wide awake.
Dripping with cold sweat, Simon looked behind him.
‘Surely, this can’t be part of the class too? If this keeps up, someone’s going to get hurt…!’
Simon’s eyes widened as he looked back. He had fully expected chaos, but what he saw was completely different from what he imagined.
A female student had used a fatigue curse to collapse a group of hippos in front of her, building a wall of their bodies.
A male student had burrowed into the ground using dark magic and was now lying underground.
Elsewhere, students were riding atop the hippos and cheering, while others had turned Darkness into ropes and escaped into the trees.
Everyone was escaping the danger in their own way.
“Kyaahahahaha!”
Cindy Vivace was floating in the sky with necromancy. Only then did Simon realize—
‘I’m really in no position to be worrying about others.’
It had truly been a pointless concern. And Simon had to compete with 1,000 students like these.
“You alright, Simon?”
Dick, who had climbed up using a staff made of Darkness, said “hup” as he landed back down.
“Don’t worry too much. All those hippos are under Professor Hongpeng’s control. A few students did fall, but the hippos avoided them on their own.”
“…Oh, so that’s how it is?”
Everyone who knew anything knew that Hongpeng wasn’t just a Magical Combat professor, she also had the blood of a druid.
At that moment, assistants descended from the sky, clapping their hands and shouting.
“Alright, alright, no time to sit around! Get up!”
“In a little while, the hippos will turn around and come back down! Everyone, up on your feet!”
Hearing the word “hippos”, the students scrambled to stand. One assistant pointed downhill and said,
“The professor is already waiting at the bottom! We’re heading out right away!”
Another full-speed sprint began.
After passing through a densely wooded area, a picturesque hill blanketed with colorful flowers came into view. At the flat terrain beneath the hill, Hongpeng was waving her hand.
“There are no more obstacles now! Let’s run full speed to the professor!”
“Wooooo!”
The students let out cheers as they ran down the flower-covered hill. Simon and Dick, also excited, dashed down the slope.
The headwind blowing from the opposite direction whisked away the sweat from their faces. Dandelion seeds danced in the wind across the field, and tree leaves fluttered down like dancers. As Simon ran down the hill, he felt an inexplicable sense of freedom.
“Well done! Break time!”
Hongpeng shouted.
The students dropped to the ground as if they’d been waiting for it. The assistants, already prepared somehow, handed out drinks.
As the tension lifted, cheerful laughter erupted from all sides. Excited students couldn’t stop sharing tales of their recent heroic feats.
“Oh? Look over there!”
“Food!”
While they rested, Keyzen’s aides arrived, pulling food carts. Everyone’s eyes sparkled wide.
“Originally, you were supposed to eat after everything was over, but I thought our dear students might be running out of energy, so I contacted Keyzen in advance. Is that okay?”
“Kyaaaa!”
“You’re the best, Professor!”
Then came mealtime.
The menu centered on meat, a high-protein diet.
Keyzen’s food was already famous for its taste, and the portions were generous. Even plant-based meat was available for vegetarians.
Everyone took their trays and sat on the scenic grassy field, enjoying their meals while gazing at the mountains and the lake.
Simon and Dick found a spot under the shade of a tree. Perhaps it was because they’d been exercising, but the food tasted like heaven.
“Phew, seriously, there’s no professor like her.”
Before anyone noticed, even Dick had joined the other students in gushing over the charm of the Magical Combat class.
“She’s using her class time to feed us, you know? That’s something you’d never see at strict old Keyzen.”
Simon nodded in agreement with a smile.
“But this is a little different from what I heard.”
“What is?”
“I heard Professor Hongpeng is actually a very typical Keyzen professor.”
Dick gave him a look that said, “Are you serious?”
“That nature-loving, pure-water-in-human-form Professor Hongpeng? Nah, wherever you got that info from, it’s bogus. Total nonsense.”
Simon blinked. He’d heard it directly from Loraine.
Clap, clap.
Hongpeng clapped her hands, drawing the students’ attention.
“Students! Time to wrap it up. We’ll head out again in 10 minutes.”
At her words, the assistants jumped up and shouted.
“We’re leaving in 10 minutes!”
“Finish your meal and get ready!”
The assistants went around spreading her message. The students, who had been lounging comfortably, finally began cleaning up their trays and stretching their bodies.
“We’re going again?”
“I thought we’d just ride the hippos back after resting.”
The students murmured as they gathered up. Watching the assistants moving busily, Simon thought to himself,
‘Now it feels like the real thing is about to start.’
Superb.