Chapter 22

Chapter 22: Group Project (4)

Late at night, one brightly lit room stood out among the dark dormitory buildings.

A plain dorm room with only the standard-issue furniture. The only personal item besides bare necessities was a single sword.

This room belonged to Baek Seolhwa.

"Haah...... I don't get it."

She'd devoted the late hours to the assignment from Cha Eunwoo, but made no progress.

She knew her report had problems.

She just had no idea where or how.

"I hate this......"

Her head throbbed and her body ached.

At this rate, frustration would drive her insane. She had no choice─just one more time.

Baek Seolhwa stood and picked up her sword.

"A little bit should be fine, right?"

Swish─!

With practiced form, she brought the blade down, and the sound of parting air rang out.

The cluttered thoughts filling her head scattered─a refreshing feeling.

People really should do what suited them.

Sitting in a chair was not for Baek Seolhwa.

Bwoong─!

With every swing, her mind cleared.

Yes, this was it.

It was the middle of the night, but a seasoned warrior's footsteps made not a sound.

Only the swish of air being split echoed.

It was a completed movement incomparably more refined than Cha Eunwoo's.

After finishing all ten basic forms and twenty-one advanced forms in an instant, Baek Seolhwa finally lowered her sword.

And regretted it.

"Ah, I shouldn't have done this."

A glance at the clock showed an hour had vanished in a flash.

On top of that, her body was heated up─there was no way she could focus on the assignment in this state.

With no other choice, Baek Seolhwa stepped into the bathroom and washed with cold water.

"Whew......"

As Baek Seolhwa undressed, a toned yet graceful musculature was revealed.

Despite harsh training, her skin was smooth. She'd never done anything special to maintain it.

Others envied her, calling it a blessed body, but Baek Seolhwa had never thought of it that way.

She actually found scarred, roughened bodies cooler. The reason: they looked stronger.

Shhhhh─

The stream from the showerhead traced down Baek Seolhwa's body.

Cold.

Even a conditioned superhuman's body felt cold when it was cold.

She wouldn't fall ill as easily as a normal person, but her senses were no different from anyone else's. If anything, heightened senses made it feel even colder.

After sufficiently cooling the heat from her body, Baek Seolhwa stepped out of the bathroom.

Her heart, which had been hammering nonstop, had calmed a little.

She put on her pajamas and sat back at the desk.

That's when Cha Eunwoo's words began echoing in her head.

─Remember that I said you could cooperate with your group members.

Cooperate with group members?

She didn't want that.

No─the others would hate it.

This was an assignment given to the team leader, so the team leader should handle it. What group member would be happy having the workload dumped on them?

Besides...... no one would want to do anything with Baek Seolhwa.

"This should be enough."

Right, that's that.

All she had to do was try a little harder on her own.

That should've been the end of it......

The next day, things took a strange turn.

Baek Seolhwa, who'd been dozing while continuing the assignment, had fallen asleep at her desk.

I must be losing it.

She barely managed to wake up to her alarm.

Reaching for her phone to turn it off, she found it full of messages she'd never seen.

"What...... is this?"

It was the group chat for the Dungeon Research and Practicum team.

She opened it to see what had been said.

─Sa Suhyeok: Group D's apparently busy with some assignment. What about us?

─Gong Hana: What assignment?

─Kim Daehan: There was an assignment?? lol

─Sa Suhyeok: Yeah. They're watching other groups' vids and writing feedback.

Baek Seolhwa smiled bitterly.

Of course this is normal, right? The professor himself recommended cooperating with group members.

Reading further, the members had reached a simple conclusion.

─Gong Hana: The team leader probably knows something, right? When Seolhwa tells us, we'll do it then.

─Sa Suhyeok: K

─Kim Seoil: Noted.

Baek Seolhwa tapped her phone with her thumb.

The atmosphere called for her to say something, but she couldn't bring herself to decide.

Agonizing alone didn't seem likely to improve things.

But working with others on the assignment was also something she didn't want.

She hated the way people looked at her with fear.

She hated being seen as the weird one.

She hated the fact that she couldn't belong in any "we."

She hated being different from everyone else.

"......Running from this would be selfish, wouldn't it?"

She hated it, but she was used to it.

She'd always killed her feelings. Today was no different.

If I just endure it like always, it'll be fine.

She organized her thoughts and quickly typed out messages.

─Baek Seolhwa: To be precise, it's a team leader assignment.

─Baek Seolhwa: Task is to watch other groups' training footage and find issues to give feedback on.

─Baek Seolhwa: Anyone who can participate. Today at 5.

***

"Here's our group chat. I did everything you told me to."

"Good work."

Behind a building. An Seri, Seo Dayun, and Sa Suhyeok had gathered.

Not a natural combination at all.

The worst possible one, in fact.

Sa Suhyeok's major was Combat Magic─same as Seo Dayun.

He'd been one of the lackeys who'd clung to Song Seokhwan and bullied Seo Dayun during the first week.

Since that day, Seo Dayun and Song Seokhwan had treated each other as if the other didn't exist.

Of course, even without that, there'd been no reason for them to cross paths.

Song Seokhwan's lackeys had all apologized to Seo Dayun.

Seo Dayun hadn't forgiven them, but she knew they hadn't done it willingly.

So she hadn't asked for anything in return.

But today, for the first time, Seo Dayun had made a request of Sa Suhyeok.

The request: create an atmosphere in Baek Seolhwa's group where they'd work on the assignment together.

Sa Suhyeok didn't understand the intent, but he could only guess it was about gaining an advantage in the course.

"What's the reason you had me do this? I'm not saying I mind, but...... in an Absolute Evaluation course, what's the point of sabotaging our group?"

"We're not sabotaging you. We're helping you."

An Seri answered curtly.

Sa Suhyeok had felt guilty, like he was betraying his group, but hearing that visibly relieved him.

"Oh, really? But why would you help us─"

"You know the saying curiosity killed the cat?"

"S-Sorry. I'll get going."

An Seri's roundabout way of telling him to scram sent Sa Suhyeok scurrying off.

In truth, An Seri didn't know the reason either.

She'd simply been told by Cha Eunwoo.

Watching Sa Suhyeok's retreating figure, Seo Dayun wore a refreshed smile.

"Ahh! That felt great! We're done now, right? What should we ask the Professor for?"

An Seri was secretly worried.

Sa Suhyeok must still make her uncomfortable─was she forcing herself?

She wanted to ask if she was okay, but feared reopening a wound that was still healing.

So An Seri put on a bright face instead.

"Let's go get something good to eat. On the Professor."

"Huh? Seems like a waste to use our favor on that."

"He'd do this much as a freebie. Let's go."

An Seri grabbed Seo Dayun's hand and pulled her toward the office.

By the way, why had the Professor asked them to do this?

The primary objective seemed to be getting Baek Seolhwa's group to gather in one place and work on a shared assignment.

But she couldn't understand why.

Was there a reason to create a space for building teamwork?

Or was it to help Baek Seolhwa, who couldn't get along with others, integrate?

Neither made sense.

Teamwork would resolve itself with time, regardless of method.

Baek Seolhwa was famously unable to get along with anyone except Park Seohu. If simply arranging a gathering could fix that, she'd have changed long ago.

What that group actually needed was effective command.

That was the team leader's─Baek Seolhwa's─responsibility.

And her being bad with people wasn't the problem. Her command ability itself was lacking.

"Well, it's not our group's problem anyway."

An Seri figured the Professor surely knew what he was doing, and decided to stop thinking about it.

After all, it was the Professor who'd set this in motion.

She had faith that things would work out as he intended.

***

"Thanks for your effort, gathering here for my sake."

A small seminar room in the Florian library.

After the initial group formation and the weekend training ground meeting, this was the third gathering of Baek Seolhwa's group.

Everyone was secretly reluctant, but the thought of falling behind the others got them moving.

"First, I'd like you to look at these."

Baek Seolhwa laid out everything she'd received from Cha Eunwoo.

Cha Eunwoo's feedback, the other groups' training footage, and the report Baek Seolhwa had submitted.

The feedback was dismissible with a "so the professor had something in mind." But the other groups' training footage was a shock.

They'd thought their group was reasonably balanced, but they hadn't expected this much of a gap.

Finding the cause wasn't difficult.

The presence of leaders like Song Seokhwan and An Seri.

Once that clicked, everyone also understood why Baek Seolhwa had been given this assignment.

"What do you think?"

Baek Seolhwa asked, but no one answered readily.

The difference in command. The answer was obvious.

But meeting Baek Seolhwa's piercing gaze robbed them of courage.

Sa Suhyeok especially had already learned firsthand from watching Song Seokhwan that you shouldn't get on a powerful person's bad side.

"I-I think the problem is that we as individuals didn't try hard enough. Baek Seolhwa took out more training dummies than Song Seokhwan or An Seri, but the rest of us couldn't keep up."

"Yeah."

"Same......"

When Sa Suhyeok broke the ice, the rest followed suit.

Here we go again.

Baek Seolhwa wasn't the kind of person who could voice a dissenting opinion in a crowd like this.

"Right."

With Baek Seolhwa last, every member agreed with Sa Suhyeok's take.

With the premise wrong from the start, the discussion naturally went nowhere productive.

"In Group A's footage at the 5-minute-9-second mark, what do you think the problem is?"

"Hmm......"

"Seolhwa's report doesn't seem that bad either, does it?"

Everyone tiptoed around Baek Seolhwa, unable to offer real opinions, and the discussion fizzled out.

As the stifling atmosphere dragged on, Baek Seolhwa finally spoke up first.

"Let's take a break. I need a macho."

"O-Okay."

Macho. Official name: Mana Herb.

A luxury consumable made by grinding a small amount of Mana Stones and applying special processing.

Once Baek Seolhwa left, the group members whispered among themselves.

"Did you see her eyes? She was glaring like she wanted to kill someone."

"Baek Seolhwa smokes macho too?"

"She's got a tongue piercing─macho's not a stretch."

"Damn. First time I've seen anyone smoke macho."

Macho was a product that had completely replaced the cigarettes that once dominated the world.

Unlike cigarettes, which were made of addictive harmful substances, macho contained turbid mana.

It wasn't harmful to the body, but it was even more addictive than cigarettes, and since it was a cigarette substitute, all the negative stigma attached to smoking had transferred directly to macho.

But Baek Seolhwa had no friends to tell her any of this.

So, unaware that her reputation had taken another hit, she headed for the smoking booth behind the library.

Baek Seolhwa took a drag of the macho.

Foreign mana invaded her body.

Some claimed smoking macho improved mana adaptability, but Baek Seolhwa had never felt anything like that. She simply enjoyed it as a consumable.

"Whew."

As she exhaled, turbid mana poured from her mouth.

Around the time the macho's wick had burned down sufficiently, Baek Seolhwa sensed a presence behind her.

It was Cha Eunwoo─the man who'd given her the assignment.

"Meeting you in a place like this. What a coincidence."