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Chapter 3: Enrollment (1)
Thump!
As the warrior collapsed, Baek Yu-Seol also fell to the ground.
“Gasp, huff…”
Baek Yu-Seol’s hands were trembling. This was partially due to the fear of death, but more so because he had never driven himself to such an extreme situation before.
First battle, first Flash, first kill.
The pain radiated from his broken shin, and the five corpses lying all over the place made him realize that he had become a different person.
This was reality, and he was Flash Mage Baek Yu-Seol.
And he killed them all to survive.
Baek Yu-Seol could not stand the thrashing pain from his shin, so he hurriedly rummaged through the warrior’s pockets before the vortex of emotions swept him away.
Fortunately, there were potions.
When it passed down his throat, a bitter taste set in and induced nausea. The taste of the potion he was drinking for the first time was bittersweet.
When he took out another bottle of potion and sprayed it on his shin, he felt the pain gradually fade away. It also seemed to have a painkiller effect. Since it was a cheap potion, he did not recover immediately, but this was enough.
“… I survived.”
Finally, a sense of relief washed over him like a tide, and his tense body instantly relaxed.
At that moment, Baek Yu-Seol realized that his legs were trembling a lot.
‘For now, I have to get out of here…’
Slowly standing up, he realized that all the corpses had pockets. He was poor and did not have much money, so he had to make a realistic decision.
Blood-stained money is said to be filthy, but it did not really matter to someone who was as poor as a beggar.
Baek Yu-Seol surfed through the pockets of the pursuers, grabbed a bunch of junk, and put them in his backpack. There was quite a bit of cash available—about twenty thousand credits. In Korea, it would equal about 2 million won.
The weapons included a spear, a crossbow, and a dagger used for self-defense. In the game, Baek Yu-Seol used a special long gun developed by magic engineering as auxiliary weapon. Since it was not yet available, he had to use the crossbow in the entrance examination.
Although he used a spear as his main weapon, he often used an axe or a sword in inconvenient situations. As he could not attack the enemy with flash anyway, heavy weapons were often quite useful.
There was a high possibility that these weapons would be useless if he met a real mage.
Using a dagger while teleporting to an opponent wearing armor and holding a rifle, he could win at once if he got lucky, but the moment the enemy realized the fact that the only thing Baek Yu-Seol could do was teleport, they would focus more on defense. So he, who sucked at offense, would lose the battle in a matter of seconds.
'But if I go to the city and take care of it, these things are all money.'
He would have to battle with such a crude weapon until he awakened by raising the level of the Mana Leakage Delay.
In this world, there was no such thing as sword qi, but the only one who could imitate it to a certain extent was him, who had Mana Leakage Disorder.
As long as he put mana on his weapon and released it explosively, he would have impressive attack power.
'Haa, how did my life end up like this?'
Baek Yu-Seol recovered for a while before getting up with his backpack on. Just then, someone shouted from across the cliff.
"Hey, is anyone there?"
It was a small group of mages. Perhaps if he had crossed the cliff normally, he would have encountered them at just the right time, but reality was cruel.
He stood up in a hurry and waved at them.
"There's someone here!!"
After crossing that cliff, Baek Yu-Seol did not know what would happen to him. This was because the screen disappeared after a simple message. If they left, there was a high chance of getting lost, so he could not afford to miss their wagon.
Murmur!
There was a commotion between them, but he could not tell because the distance was at least a hundred square meters.
Before long, a man presumed to be the leader shouted as if they had reached some kind of consensus.
“There are no bridges nearby! Can you come over?”
Baek Yu-Seol responded quickly.
“Yes! I’m coming now!”
Meanwhile, across the cliff.
"He says he's coming over."
The mages examined the boy on the other side with a telescope. The distance between the cliff and their location was quite long, so crossing seemed almost impossible without learning a knight’s Power Jump magic skill.
“A knight would have to be at least Class 3 to make it…”
“Will that little boy be able to?"
While the mages were drowned in their doubts, the boy standing far away suddenly appeared on top of a floating stone, leaving behind afterimages. He effortlessly glided through the path he formed.
“Huh?”
“What's that? It’s not jump-type magic!”
“Hmm, I don’t know. It’s my first time seeing that kind of magic…”
As the mages panicked, a certain mage in a gray robe sitting at the back answered.
“Flash.”
Her appearance was a mystery as her face was hidden, but the gray-robed mage was a girl.
“Flash?”
“Yeah. It’s flash."
"But..."
Flash was an uncontrollable magic skill. It was impossible to travel even half the distance in a chosen direction like the boy.
'What on earth is that?'
The boy was crossing the floating stones very slowly. It was unknown whether there was a cooldown between each activation or if it was to calculate the distance.
"We can wait a little. It’s not often you get to see such a unique mage, after all."
However, the option of waiting leisurely suddenly disappeared.
Two men appeared behind the boy and started casting a magic circle on the palm of their hands!
The leader hurriedly shouted.
“Hey! Watch out!”
However, the warning had come too late.
Whoosh!
Only when he saw a huge sphere of flames rushing toward him did he snap out of his trance.
Before he could curse inwardly, he jumped forward. The flame sphere collided with the floating stone he was standing on and shattered it.
[Flash]
“The hell…”
He, who barely managed to flash toward the upper floating stone and hang on the edge, looked back again.
‘Who are those…? Come to think of it, there were initially seven pursuers.’
Two of them fell behind and he ended up facing five. But since they had not been following him for a long time, he assumed they must have returned. Who would have thought that they would come this far?
Seeing them chanting magic spells while gritting their teeth, he realized they were outraged at the deaths of their comrades.
He felt a tingling sensation in his head and he could tell without looking.
Coordination magic skill: Thunderbolt.
‘One is a fire mage, and the other one is a rookie-level lightning mage. If the current me gets hit, my body would stiffen and I’d fall and die.'
Baek Yu-Seol hurriedly let go of the floating stone, but the three-second cooldown of flash had not yet passed.
“Damn it!”
Fortunately, some of the loot recovered by Baek Yu-Seol earlier turned out to be useful. As he rummaged through a backpack, he took out a wire that was used by the archer and threw it upwards on another floating stone.
Ping!!
The moment he managed to reach the floating stone transferring the recovery burden onto the wire, a sphere of flame flew overhead and hit the other floating stone in front of him.
Boom!
He was a mage with poor accuracy.
However, it was threatening enough.
Because the floating stone hit by the flame broke apart and fell down the cliff below.
Fssss...
Baek Yu-Seol looked down at the cliff where the dust and stone chunks fell, but it was so foggy that he could not see the bottom. If he fell, he would be deader than dead.
[Flash]
Realizing this, he became super focused and surrendered himself to his instincts.
As Baek Yu-Seol hung on a floating stone, he rotated his body and pretended to aim the wire at another floating stone. Then, activating Flash, he somehow avoided the attack that flew toward the decoy.
Yellow lightning bolts danced around the stones and wriggled their way through the thick layer of snow like snakes. The blazing flame arrows showered from the sky, and they came crashing down like meteors, bringing destruction wherever they pierced.
Since there was no defensive magic skill in his arsenal, he navigated between the floating stones as if he were in a circus.
Arrows of flame and chains of lightning brushed past his cheeks.
“Wow…”
The mages marveled while witnessing the exciting show before their eyes. They noticed that there was no sense of crisis in Baek Yu-Seol’s leisurely movements.
“It’s amazing… It’s the first time I’ve seen a mage using such magic skill.”
“His movements are no joke.”
But then...
“Why doesn’t he use a defensive skill?”
It was natural for such a question to arise in their hearts. A mage with that much control would be able to easily block the low-level magic of the novice mages.
But how could they know?
Baek Yu-Seol, the boy fleeing for his life through the floating stones, could not use any magic skill other than Flash.
‘Damn it!’
Baek Yu-Seol, who was gradually pushed to the limit, gritted his teeth. A single lightning bolt started to chase him.
Although its destructive power was low, a thunderbolt magic skill that was capable of hitting multiple enemies with a hundred percent accuracy could not be avoided.
'I'm going to get hit...!'
Flash’s cooldown was still a long second away, so he shot the wire in a hurry and hit another floating stone. However, even if he pushed his body in the air, it would definitely chase him and hunt him down.
'Is this how I go out?'
As Baek Yu-Seol bit his tongue in despair while waiting for his impending doom, the mage in gray robe, who had been observing the situation from the back, jumped out and activated a magic circle.
“Huh? What are you going to do…?”
“Get out of the way.”
The mages revealed absurd expressions.
Among them, the average level was only Class 2 or 3, so they could not learn long-distance magic skills to save the boy from those evil mages that were more than a hundred meters away.
As they guessed, that gray-robed girl was a Class 3 mage. At such a young age, that level of achievement was great, but it was still impossible.
“The distance is too far. There’s a possibility that the mana will disappear or the trajectory will deviate and the magic skill will result in failure….”
However, the leader quickly shut his mouth. An ice spear wrapped up in lightning formed at the fingertips of the gray-robed girl.
‘Two... Two attributes?!’
Paang!!
The surprise lasted for a short moment. The spear cleaved through the air and collided with the lightning. Sizzling sounds instantly erupted as the spells devoured each other and disappeared.
"She calculated the trajectory..."
That was shocking, but it paled in comparison to what unfolded next.
The girl bit her lip and swung her staff. Using the explosive recoil of lightning, she shot an ice spear at an incredible speed.
It brushed past Baek Yu-Seol’s cheeks with fearful accuracy.
Thwack!
It struck a mage’s chest and smashed him into a nearby rock.
An ice spear of terrifying power!
"W-What...!"
“What?! This is crazy….”
“Did you really attack across this distance with just an ice spear?"
“I can’t believe it…”
As soon as the other mage saw that his comrade was killed by a spear from a distance of more than a hundred meters, he was greatly shaken, and his mental defense began to crumble second by second. He immediately turned to run away and even canceled the magic skill he was about to cast.
Seeing the gray-robed girl sit down and breathe heavily, the mages looked at each other with pale expressions.
The person jumping on the floating stones was also a young boy, but that girl also looked young; how talented were they?
“Ha, ha…”
Eventually, Baek Yu-Seol was able to safely cross over the cliff and move in a wagon with the help of the group of mages.
“Hey, you did a good job. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen a mage with great moves like you.”
The leader approached first and offered him a handshake.
“Hmm, so by the way… Where did you come from?”
“Huh?”
Since it was a slightly random question, I answered in a bewildered voice.
“I came from over there.”
“No, not that…”
Baek Yu-Seol’s absurd answer quickly cleared the air and some mages burst into laughter. The girl, who had maintained a quiet atmosphere, was also a little shaken as if she was dumbfounded.
“It’s not that. I'm asking about your affiliation.”
“Ah… I have no affiliation.”
“Oh, are you a freelance knight? Then, how about joining our group?”
"No, it's not that... I'm actually still a mage apprentice."
“What?"
“Really?”
The mages who were listening to their conversation exclaimed in surprise. This was because the movements shown by Baek Yu-Seol were already at the level of a veteran. Not to mention, he had enough mobility to cross that rocky cliff.
“Heh, I thought you were already a professional mage because you were so talented. Excuse me for my misunderstanding."
Hearing Baek Yu-Seol’s words, the other mages began to talk. Why was he still an aspiring mage with such skills?
Baek Yu-Seol wondered what kind of sound they would make when they realized that the only skill he knew was flash.
He turned his head to find the gray-robed mage who had helped him. She was sitting in a dark corner of the carriage.
“Thank you for helping me. I’d have died without your help.”
The girl raised her head. That elegant jawline made it obvious to him that she was a woman and not a man.
“I didn’t do it for your thanks, so don’t worry about it.”
Somehow, her tone was quite sharp.
‘Her voice is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard in my life…’
Even her harsh tone sounded as melodious as a romantic song.
‘Does she have light-blue hair?’
A few strands of light-blue hair fell from within her gray robes.
A mage with light-blue hair along with lightning and ice attributes. The coincidence made Baek Yu-Seol think of a familiar face, but he did not delve into it any further.
She was covering her face, so it was not polite to stare at it.
"Haa..."
Following the guidance of other mages, he slumped into the corner of the carriage and looked helplessly into the air.
After completing an episode during the day, suddenly another episode popped up.
[Episode 2]
[Enroll in Stella Academy!]
The completion of the second episode would not be too difficult, but he was more worried about what would happen after that.
‘What am I going to do in school at my age?’