Chapter 91

Chapter 91: The Paper (1)

"...You haven't finished it? The presentation's right around the corner."

"Hehe, things kind of got away from me."

No matter how well written it was, a paper with the back half completely empty couldn't be called a paper. It was a worthless scrap of paper.

I couldn't say I didn't understand.

The paper Lee Yeeun was originally supposed to be writing right now was one of simple difficulty but fairly useful—the kind that would make outstanding paper at best.

What Lee Yeeun was currently writing was the hardest-difficulty paper, one that wasn't completed until much later in the game.

At Lee Yeeun's current level, struggling was expected.

"Can't be helped. Let's push it to the next quarter's presentation."

"C-can't we make this quarter work somehow?"

"After subtracting review time, we've got less than two weeks left."

Lee Yeeun's ultimate goal was to earn her doctoral degree and enter the NIS to uncover the truth behind her father's disappearance.

So she'd naturally want to finish the paper as fast as possible and get her degree.

Degrees were conferred twice a year—summer and winter ceremonies.

If Lee Yeeun presented her paper this summer, she could receive her bachelor's degree this summer. But if she missed this window, it'd be pushed to winter.

That would mean her doctoral degree couldn't be obtained until at least next summer at the earliest.

On top of that, the NIS only recruited new personnel in February each year—so if she got her doctorate next year, her employment would be delayed by that much too.

In short, missing this summer's presentation meant Lee Yeeun would have to wait at least another year to enter the NIS.

"I still want to try."

"Is there a reason you want to finish quickly?"

Lee Yeeun hesitated for a moment, then forced the words out.

"I have a goal."

"A goal?"

"I want to join the NIS."

I was fairly surprised.

I already knew, but I'd never imagined hearing it directly from her.

In the game, Lee Yeeun had never told the player about her circumstances.

It was always through the natural progression of the story, hearing things secondhand from people around her—Lee Yeeun had never said it herself.

But the Lee Yeeun before me was sharing her inner feelings like it was nothing.

The trust we'd built over time had changed the game once again. It wasn't a bad feeling.

"My dad is an NIS agent. So I could never talk about him in front of others, but I've always been proud of him."

The life that filled Lee Yeeun's expression as she recalled her father said everything about how much she loved him.

"But one day, Dad stopped coming home. Nobody knows where he went. All anyone says is that he went missing... so I want to become an NIS Hero and find out what happened to him."

Lee Yeeun's story always ended in tragedy.

Her father had been a capable agent touted as the next Director, but his political standing within the organization was extremely precarious.

The current Director exploited that, had Lee Yeeun's father killed, and ascended to the directorship.

After joining the NIS, Lee Yeeun would learn the whole truth.

She'd face danger of being killed by the current Director but would narrowly escape.

But even knowing the truth, there'd be nobody anywhere willing to listen to her or help.

In the end, Lee Yeeun would turn her back on humanity and join the Awakened criminals.

What happened to Lee Yeeun couldn't be prevented no matter what the player did.

Around the midpoint of the story, a chance to turn Lee Yeeun's heart back would arise.

If you seized that chance, you could make her a companion—but if you didn't, she'd become your enemy.

But now was different.

There was an ally that hadn't existed in the game—me.

"I'll look into your father's case."

"R-really?"

"Yeah. Let's finish the paper first. It won't be too late to talk about it after."

"Yes!"

After sending Lee Yeeun off to the lab, I went to find the person most likely to have connections to the Korean government.

The Chancellor's office.

Academy Chancellor Ryu Jeonga had various ties to the Korean government.

Ryu Jeonga had the power to flip the board.

I knocked on the Chancellor's office door, and a voice invited me in.

The scene inside was chaotic. Countless stacks of paper were scattered about haphazardly.

"Young Cha?"

Ryu Jeonga, eyes hollow with exhaustion.

Her voice was so laden with fatigue it made even the listener feel tired.

"You don't look well."

"As you can see, the Academy is in this state... there's been far too much work lately."

Between Kultung's attack, the Academy's situation was far from good.

People's lives had been saved, but more than half the buildings had been reduced to rubble.

There were only a few months until the new semester. The Academy had to be restored to normal within that time.

Ryu Jeonga was personally handling the workload to ensure the new semester wouldn't be disrupted.

I felt guilty about bothering someone so busy, but I had no one else to turn to and had no choice but to ask Ryu Jeonga.

"I'm sorry to bother you when you're this busy, but could you spare a moment?"

"For young Cha, I am always available. Without you, these wretched piles of paperwork would have multiplied severalfold."

Fortunately, Ryu Jeonga greeted me with a warm smile.

"It's a personal matter, but you're the only one I can turn to for help."

"I hear you did good work in Brazil. Is it about that?"

I shook my head.

So the rumor had reached Ryu Jeonga too.

Then again, with the news and papers talking about me all day, it'd be stranger if she didn't know.

"It's about the NIS."

"My, you've gotten entangled with a troublesome outfit. What's the connection?"

"My student Yeeun wants to join the NIS. Her father was NIS, and he went missing—she wants to find out what happened."

"Hmm, understood. I shall look into what happened. If I invoke young Cha's name, the government cannot simply clam up and cry classified."

"Thank you."

As I was exchanging parting pleasantries and about to leave, Ryu Jeonga clapped her palm as if something had just occurred to her.

Her expression seemed to say she'd been wanting to clear away a nuisance and this was perfect timing.

"Ah, let us discuss what I mentioned about the Magical Research Department. The profile shoot and lecture establishment need to happen soon."

I'd already given that matter some thought.

Honestly, at this point, the experience points from Academy greenhorns wouldn't even register—it seemed more beneficial to take on a lecture that I actually needed.

"I have someone to recommend for that position."

"Oh?"

I laid out the idea I'd been mulling over.

It must have been unexpected, because Ryu Jeonga reacted intensely.

"Are you serious?"

"Yes."

"If it works out as you say, I see no reason to refuse... but it will not be easy."

"I'm confident."

"Very well. Young Cha's words have never been wrong."

Ryu Jeonga set a few conditions and then accepted the proposal.

The Academy would gain a clean new Top Professor, and I'd have less on my plate—if it worked out, it was a win-win.

***

The lights in Professor Cha Eunwoo's lab shone through the windows even in the dead of night.

All the other researchers had gone home, but Lee Yeeun stayed behind alone, continuing to write her paper.

"Ah, I don't know anymore."

Lee Yeeun's research, which had started on the subject of elemental Enchant, had undergone several shifts in direction with Cha Eunwoo's help.

The conclusion that she'd modify Magic Circles and incantations as a way to break free from reliance on Composite Magic meant the research had effectively become a study of Magic Circles themselves.

The only theory currently recognized by the academic community was that Magic Circles were shapes formed randomly—complete figures that couldn't be modified or improved in any direction.

If you tampered with a Magic Circle, the spell wouldn't activate. Therefore, to create any new spell, an entirely new Magic Circle had to be made from scratch.

"But that's wrong."

Lee Yeeun rejected that theory.

Scholars claimed it was impossible because no one had ever succeeded in improving or altering a Magic Circle, but Lee Yeeun had completed the proof that it was possible.

"It definitely works... but how do I... haah."

She'd even found several counterexamples to the existing theory.

By dissecting the Magic Circle of the most basic spell, Magic Missile, she'd tried countless variations.

Most ended in misfires, but on rare occasions, changing the Magic Circle produced variations in range, power, and even elemental attribute.

But the underlying rule governing those changes remained invisible.

To claim that Magic Circle shapes followed a pattern, she had to find that pattern.

She'd been stuck on this step for a full month with no progress.

She'd drawn so many that if she closed her eyes, the shape of Magic Missile's Magic Circle appeared.

"The professor would've figured it out in no time, right?"

Comparing herself to others was meaningless.

Especially when the comparison was to the most brilliant person in the world.

"I hate this......"

Her troubled mind made her miss her father's warmth today more than ever.

The strongest person she knew. A man like a great tree she could always lean on.

She used to pour out her troubles to her father whenever things got hard.

It always made her feel at ease.

She hadn't been able to feel that since her father went missing, but recently she'd been feeling something close to it.

"Professor."

A man as strong and warm as her father.

Lee Yeeun saw her father's warmth in Cha Eunwoo.

Sometimes she felt so comfortable around him that she almost forgot—almost mistook it for her father being by her side.

That was why she wanted to stay at the Academy forever.

But she couldn't.

She'd promised herself she'd see with her own two eyes what had happened to her father.

Until then, she had to stay strong.

And for that, she couldn't let herself grow accustomed to this warmth.

"Phew."

Lee Yeeun resumed her research.

She called it research in grand terms, but it was simple grunt work—making random changes and checking whether the spell activated.

"Hmm......"

The total number of samples she'd discovered so far was around fifteen.

She'd thought this many would be enough to analyze and find meaningful results, but there'd been absolutely no progress.

So she had no choice but to search for more samples.

"Mmmm......"

Drip— drip—

An irritating sound in her ear broke her concentration.

Lee Yeeun frowned her fine brow and tracked the sound to its source.

A red circle spreading on the paper.

Blood from Lee Yeeun.

"Oh, a nosebleed again."

Probably from pulling all-nighters these past several days—nosebleeds had been coming periodically.

She wanted to ignore it and keep going out of urgency, but her head suddenly swam.

"Ah......"

She was dizzy.

She knew that continuing research in her current state wouldn't yield any progress.

But Lee Yeeun kept pushing her body regardless.

She had absolutely no intention of stopping here.

'...Ah.'

If she just held on a little longer, she could achieve what she wanted.

A happy future formed in her mind.

Finish the paper, get the master's degree, then earn the doctorate in the second semester.

After graduating, join the NIS and find out about Dad.

Maybe he's alive somewhere and just can't come home because of a mission?

Ask them to send me there. I'll finish the mission with Dad and come home together.

And after we come home, what then? Quit the agent life and come to the Academy as a professor?

Reuniting with the professor not as a student but as a colleague sounded quite nice.

'...eun.'

Thinking about the professor, she felt as though she could hear his voice.

If she opened her eyes right now, wouldn't the professor be right there?

"Yeeun."

"......!"

A voice that was strong yet warm—the kind that calmed your heart just by hearing it—nestled into her ear.

This familiar voice was the professor's.

Her heavy eyes snapped open.

Before Lee Yeeun's eyes was Cha Eunwoo.

"Pro......"

She wanted to call out to him, but the words wouldn't come.

Something was blocking her throat, choking off her voice.

"You collapsed in the lab."

"......"

"You're not feeling well, so rest."

She had no time to lie around.

Time was running out. She wanted to get up right now and write the paper.

But strangely, her heart wasn't rushing. If anything, she felt more settled than during all that time she'd been chasing deadlines.

Just somehow.

Having someone beside her was enough to feel at ease.

"Get a good rest. We'll start the paper again tomorrow."

The warm voice made her consciousness haze over.

She'd failed today, but maybe tomorrow she could write better.

Lee Yeeun drifted into a peaceful sleep.