Off-limits area, the old teachers building.
As if he had been running in a hurry, Jun-yeoul’s hair was windswept.
“I can call you mentor, right?”
“Yeah, I’ll be your mentor. That first pitch was flawless.”
“Thank you, mentor! I do think the first pitch was just a bonus, though. If I was told in advance, I would’ve prepared for the attack and aimed for the position of the greatest contributor of clearing the other-world.”
The biggest contributors to Children’s Day’s Jamsil Baseball Stadium other-world clearing were Bang-yeoul Yeom, Blue Dragon, and Yong Je-gun, respectively.
It won’t be easy to aim for the biggest contributor position by achieving more than these three.
As expected, Yeom Joon-yeol has a different sense of ambition.
“Mentor, I summarized my thoughts on why you asked for these conditions. May I speak my mind?”
I haven’t taught anything yet.
The title of mentor had me in goosebumps, but I nodded.
“You had three conditions. You first asked me to throw the first pitch to call the Red Lion team and the Dragon clan. If I throw the first pitch, they can’t help but come.”
“You’re right.”
When I nodded, Jun-yeoul continued with a smile.
“The second request was to stay put until the end. This is because the Dragon clan usually leave before the 5th inning starts, even though they came to throw the first pitch. The other-world came out after the 5th inning. You needed to hold them until that time.”
Jun-yeoul’s words continued.
“Third was to keep it a secret until the day I throw the first pitch. This condition was probably the most important. Right?”
I didn’t answer and waited for Jun-yeoul to say the rest of his inference.
He noticed my gaze and must have caught the meaning of it, because he continued talking right away.
“If you simply knew that an other-world would happen, you wouldn’t have to hide it. You could have called the Players Association to prepare for it. But you didn’t do that.”
It would’ve been better to owe Kyu-bin Hong than to use the name ‘Phantom of the Red Wall.’
Leaving me and my complicated mood, Jun-yeoul pulled out a hologram to show some statistics.
It was a comparison of the number of other-world incidents that occurred on May 5th, in Seoul’s downtown for the past 5 years, and the number of other-world incidents that occurred on this year’s children’s day.
“On that day, the number of other-worlds in downtown Seoul has increased by more than 500 percent compared to the average on the same day over the past five years. With the best hit rate among the world’s satellites, the Player SAT-K, who has recently been checked on a number of occasions, has missed three SR++ class other-worlds. It’s weird to think it’s a coincidence.”
The hologram went on to the next slide.
The excerpts from an article that reported on what happened at Jamsil Baseball Stadium that day were summarized.
The sold-out tickets for Jamsil Baseball Stadium and a picture of the next president’s family of Zuo Group and TC Group came up.
“Believe it or not, the other-worlders created an other-world using a way that could not be caught by satellites. Small other-worlds were created throughout Seoul to disrupt the Players Association. The three other-worlds that appeared that day without any foreshadowing were terror attacks targeting about 26,000 citizens and the family members of Zuo Group and TC Group that filled Jamsil Baseball Stadium.”
He was good.
It was all correct.
Unlike me, who knows the answer through the game, Jun-yeol deduced it to this point even though he had very limited information.
‘It is impressive that he thought of the ability to create an other-world and summoning an other-world. In this world, it’s a concept that goes beyond stereotypes.’
‘Summoning other-worlds’ is yet an impossible thing here in this world.
In the world I was before, it would be treated as a similar level of nonsense as claiming that “a meteor can be artificially summoned and dropped on Earth.”
If the Blue Dragon or Bang-yeoul Yeom had been here, they would’ve so proud of Jun-yeoul.
“Like mentor, like student. You’re correct.”
“Thank you……!”
I’m now his mentor, I should be proud of him, too.
Jun-yeoul smiled broadly as if he liked the sound of “student.”
“Yeah. I know what the crime suspect will do next, but I don’t know who that person is. Help me.”
“Of course, mentor! If you allow it, I can tell my father and uncle Blue Dragon for help, too!”
Nope. Not that far.
If they knew, They’ll half kill me for putting Jun-yeoul in potential danger.
Plus, they’d kill my other half for me, a guy from who knows where, being his mentor.
“…… Yeah, when I need their help, I’ll tell you. Not now.”
“Okay……! I trust you. You’re the hero who saved young children and citizens who visited Jamsil Baseball Stadium AND the people who suffered from the dream auction!”
He managed to make things cringy without using “Phantom of the Red Wall” ……!
It was more cringy because Jun-yeoul isn’t the type to say what he didn’t mean.
I had to change the subject.
“So, you’re not going to ask who I am? Aren’t I suspicious? There has to be lots of people trying to use you. I might be one of them.”
“How can a student even think of suspecting his teacher! A hero who saved thousands of lives.”
Jun-yeoul got all serious at my question.
Again, I didn’t teach him anything yet, but my achievements must’ve made a deep impression.
Jun-yeoul looked at me with admiration and added a word.
“I trust you to tell me all one day. When I live up to your expectations and grow strong enough to handle the truth about who you really are.”
“…… Yeah.”
So, he is curious about me.
I couldn’t say no to that face.
“Shall we start our first lesson?”
“Yes!”
An hour later.
A fiery, reptilian-like pupil was glaring at the flame I’ve created.
Jun-yeoul was changing closer to a dragon than a human, so his eyes were turning into a crimson color.
His concentration seemed to be at its limits.
“Here I go!”
Pshaw-!
With his battle cry, dozens of fireballs showered down at me.
He attacked with his most intense fires at the flame on my palm, but my flame didn’t even flicker.
“Ugh……!”
Perhaps he overdid his strength.
His Red Dragon was beginning to disappear.
“Maybe we should call it a day.”
“No, I can do more!”
The red dragon reappeared.
Jun-yeoul inhaled, and this time, he prepared to launch a psychic wave.
‘This is going to take longer than I thought.’
The skill I ordered him to do was ‘psychic swallow’.
In the case of natural psychic abilities like fire, water, electricity, wind, and earth, people of the same ability could take the initiative away from the other person.
‘Even if he swallows, it isn’t taking control of all the opponent’s power. Only as much as the opponent is using at the moment.’
For example, let’s say Jun-yeoul made a fireball and attacked me now.
Since I am using the Player’s Trajectory, I have the same fire ability as him, so I can attempt to do psychic swallow.
‘To do psychic swallow, one has to oppress the opponent’s skill using the same skill or launch a psychic wave. Both need a strong mentality.’
If I were to succeed in psychic swallow, I could control the fireball Jun-yeoul made.
Failing usually doesn’t cause damage, but if the psychic wave were to backfire, a mental damage would be inevitable.
‘For talented and experienced Players like Jun-yeoul, training methods with this level of risk are effective.’
I asked Jun-yeol to try the psychic swallow and take the initiative of the flame I invoked.
As a result, he didn’t succeed for an hour or so.
‘I know my level of mental strength is superior, but it’s only a flame that’s the size of my palm. He can’t swallow at all. Bang-yeoul Yeom…… How did you raise your son?’
The training method I’m using can be used by Bang-yeoul Yeom and the Dragon clan also.
‘Maybe it’s because Jun-yeoul’s mentality could be damaged.’
Jun-yeoul had the blessing of the King Dragon god, so his body was flame resistant, but his mentality was different.
His mentality could be harmed by fire ability’s psychic wave backfiring.
Bang-yeoul and the Dragon clan must’ve been worried about that.
They also would have steered clear of all dangerous training.
‘Jun-yeoul didn’t like that. That’s why he wanted me as a mentor.’
Jun-yeoul was smiling even at this moment as if he enjoyed the harsh training.
His eyes like the red dragon, he unleashed a psychic wave at the flame.
Whoosh!
The flame on my hand, interfered by his ability, turned black and was trying to move toward him.
In other words, a sign of psychic wave backfire.
“Stop!”
I clenched my fist to put out the flame and ran to him.
As I locked my ability away, Jun-yeoul collapsed on the classroom floor.
The red dragon surrounding him became transparent, then disappeared.
“You had enough today. Your waves are duller than it was at the beginning.”
His eyes didn’t seem like he received any big mental damages, but there was a trickle of blood coming out from the corner of his mouth.
He was really overdoing himself.
‘…… if Bang-yeoul or the Dragon clan sees this, I am dead meat.’
Jun-yeoul sensed his physical limits and made a frustrated face.
“I wanted you to create your own ‘dragon’, but I couldn’t even swallow a tiny flame.”
Jun-yeoul must be concerned about the wall of fire that appeared during the dream auction and the traces of the red dragon left in the invitation.
I handed him a recovery item card.
He had some too, but if Bang-yeoul and the Dragons knew the numbers of recovery item cards have changed, they’d go all “Karen” and come to Eun-gwang high to beat me up.
“Rest for now. Just in case, be careful not to use recovery items again within 3 days. Taking a rest is also studying. Make a clear image of swallowing my flame by meditating.”
“…… You’re not abandoning me just because I’m a useless student, are you?”
He seemed so heartbroken.
I haven’t seen that kind of face even in the game.
He must have felt defeated by the fact that he didn’t make any progress at all today.
But there was no way I would abandon my playable character.
“I told you, you are my student. See you next time.”
“What? Wait……!”
Jae-gun Yong might come to fetch Jun-yeoul if I kept him for too long.
<Character’s Kwanglim, use ‘Shadowless Time’.>
Just like when I had arrived at the Off-limits area, I used the sneakiest character in the game, ‘Colorless’ Mu-young Jeon’s Kwanglim.
Jun-yeoul looked surprised at the sight of my disappearance.
I heard Jun-yeoul, who was still half a dragon, say something before leaving the classroom.
“That’s my mentor, all right……! He can disappear just like that. I can’t believe I get to learn from the Phantom of the Red Wall, it’s like a dream!”
That twisted name made me cringe again.
…… I decided to let that go just this once since he didn’t know I was there.
Night, dormitory room.
It was quite late after I finished my personal training and came back to my room.
I turned on my device to find a bunch of unread messages.
I received them from numerous people, but the most relevant were Sang-hoon’s and Jiho’s.
‘Let’s see.’
Group chat with me, Nam-wook, and Sang-hoon.
Nam-wook explained everything about how he met me on Children’s Day and what happened.
In addition to that, he was nagging to me and Sang-hoon.
Sang-hoon didn’t react that much message-wise, but it felt like he was a bit disappointed.
[Sang-hoon Yoo] Really
[Sang-hoon Yoo] Call me next time —
[Sang-hoon Yoo] You guys busy this weekend?
‘It’s been so long since the three of us met. Maybe we should hang out.’
It wasn’t intended, but we left out Sang-hoon, hung out, and defeated Enemies, so he could be feeling left out and disappointed.
I replied, ‘not busy’.
Nam-wook will plan out what to do this weekend once he sees my message.
‘Next is Jiho…… The middle part looks useless so I’ll just check the last part.’
[Jiho Hwang] Hey, come to my house after school tomorrow.
Club activities aren’t in session tomorrow, so I could go.
I also wanted to ask some things about Wol-kung-gye-do.
And, I need to see Olmu.
[Jiho Hwang] Shin-lok Kim found a clue.
Clue?
[Jiho Hwang] Do you know what ‘humble being’ is?
…… I had absolutely no idea that thing would come out so early.
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