29. Item Presentation (3)
It had already been a week since Baek Yuseol and Flame had officially started dating.
The issue of the romance between the two commoners, which everyone had thought would die down quickly, showed no sign of fading quite as expected, and because of that, the two of them had no choice but to be careful about their usual behavior.
During that time, they had thought over places to go for their dates—or rather, places to pretend to go for dates—and had even asked people around them for advice, but in truth, the best place for a teenage couple to go on a date was the library.
The library in Stella's Fourth Main Tower was so grand in scale that ordinary national libraries didn't even compare, and because even grimoires written by actual great mages were preserved there, it looked almost like a museum of magical books.
This place was open not only to students of the main department of Stella Academy, the Department of Magical Combat, but also to students from numerous other departments such as alchemy, economics, politics, practical magic, and magical sociology, and because the reference materials were extremely abundant, the library was crowded every day to the point where there was barely room to set foot.
Baek Yuseol and Flame took seats in the farthest corner of the library in order to avoid drawing attention somehow, but there was no preventing students passing by from glancing over and secretly staring at them.
The two were sitting face to face, whispering to each other so softly that only the other person could hear, and by pure chance, Hae Wonryang ended up witnessing the scene.
He looked at Flame, who was smiling softly at Baek Yuseol with a faintly gloomy expression on his face.
He knew.
He knew she had a crush on Baek Yuseol, that it had been serious enough for her to agonize over it for days on end, that she had always depended on him, and that she had always opened up her heart to him more than to others.
He definitely knew all of that, and yet…
Seeing her like that made his chest ache all the more.
It even felt as though he had lost his heart entirely.
Just what kind of conversation were they having that she was showing him such a bright, innocent face?
'Why do you look so damn miserable first thing in the morning?'
'There's one son of a bitch I want to bury in the back mountain.'
'Group project?'
How good did it have to be for her to smile at him so fresh and lovingly like that?
'Do you think it's okay to separate humans for recycling?'
'Of course.'
'Should I really do it?'
'Go ahead. I'm not the one getting arrested.'
…As luck would have it, Hae Wonryang was watching from quite a distance away, so he couldn't hear the conversation between the two and ended up misunderstanding completely.
Of course, the two were whispering so quietly that everyone else also assumed it was just a fresh first-year couple having a study date, so it wasn't as if he was especially strange.
Hae Wonryang quietly left the library.
He did not suddenly feel jealousy or inferiority.
After the incident from before, his mental fortitude had grown another step, and he had come to think that negative emotions belonged to losers.
Even so, the slight ache and bitterness in his chest…
Well, that was probably unavoidable.
On the other hand, it was also a relief.
He had always thought that while growing close to Flame.
'Someday, won't she look back at me?'
'Doesn't she have at least a little feeling for me too?'
'If we keep getting closer like this, won't I be able to win her heart someday?'
But empty hope only ended up becoming a disease that ate away at the heart.
So if Flame had now completely gone away from him…
then maybe he could finally cast off all lingering attachment.
The exclusive S-Class training grounds.
'Personal Magic Control Practice Room.'
This small place, around twenty pyeong in size, was Stella's latest practice facility where one could freely test magic.
Hae Wonryang sat on the floor, placed his staff across his knees, and took a deep breath.
Each time he exhaled, that tiny amount of mana seeped into the empty air.
Mana control so precise that it was hard to believe he was a Class 3 mage, with not even the slightest waste.
Soon, when his hand pointed into the air, magic began to bloom here and there like flowers opening.
It was such quiet and delicate casting that there was no sign at all that mana was even moving.
Hae Wonryang lost himself in magic.
Before, when he had been corroded by dark magic, he had burned away his sense of loss through negative emotions like jealousy and inferiority.
But the current Hae Wonryang blew away all of those emotions by focusing entirely on magic.
When he was focused on magic, no other thoughts came to mind.
Wasn't it thrilling?
The five elements that made up this world were moving according to his will.
What could possibly be more exciting than that?
Whenever he sank into the world of mana, he forgot every worry and concern in the world.
Magic was the meaning of life, the driving force, the reason to keep living.
'A little more, just a little more…'
His desperate struggle to forget the painful, stinging emotions became a surprisingly powerful driving force, and at last it threw Hae Wonryang's consciousness into the sea of mana.
'Ugh…!'
A strange sensation, as though another thread of mana had connected itself to the heart that formed the source of his mana.
Hae Wonryang shut his eyes tightly.
It wasn't unfamiliar.
He had experienced it several times before.
That was…
the 'path of mana' leading toward Class 4.
The reason I had been deliberately going in and out of the library these past few days wasn't anything all that special.
It was for the presentation.
'Item Presentation.'
The experts on Alterisha's side would take care of consulting on it properly anyway, but Alterisha had still come to me once more and asked, 'What do you think?'
I was grateful that she asked for my opinion on every little detail like this, but honestly, I didn't really know much about this part either.
No matter how capable the Bulbul Glasses were, they weren't going to write or revise the presentation script for me.
So this time, I really had to act purely based on my own experience.
I'd had presentation experience in both my previous life and this one, but to be honest, I never thought my presentation skills were particularly excellent.
Still, there were a few famous people I remembered in relation to presentations.
One especially memorable person was the CEO of the 'Half-Eaten Apple' company.
His presentations weren't flashy, but they had explosive impact.
He drew in the audience's interest, approached them in a friendly and comfortable way, and delivered the key points so clearly that they stayed unforgettable.
Of course, this style of presentation might feel a little unfamiliar in Aether World.
That was because whenever someone developed new magic or a new technique there, they would usually throw up an enormous, elaborate, dazzling magic circle and present it while spouting all kinds of technical terms.
That wasn't wrong.
If anything, in Aether World it was known to be the most orthodox presentation method of all, said to have begun with Eltman Eltwin himself.
Alchemy was a little different, though.
While magic was familiar to everyone, alchemy and magitech were not, and even when you tried to explain something, most people couldn't understand it anyway.
So rather than showing off the technological power, I thought it would be better to express, 'This is how amazing and revolutionary this is.'
If we present it like this, the relevant officials are going to nod off in their seats! They may find it boring and simply leave. No matter how I look at it, this is wrong.
Of course, the experts in Alterisha's academic society objected quite strongly, but what could I do?
I think your idea is a good one. I'll speak to Dr. Halsekoden about it too.
Alterisha fully respected my opinion.
If they were salty about it, they could become co-authors.
Naturally, since I was the one who had proposed we do it this way, I couldn't just dump the responsibility on them with a vague, 'Just make it simple and cool.'
So I was looking through related books and setting up the presentation plan systematically.
That too had entered the final stages of completion, and now all that remained was to wait for the presentation date.
[Alchemy City: Golden Alchemic Show]
[Alterisha School to fully unveil 'Items']
The media everywhere was already in an uproar over Alterisha's presentation.
Right now, since I was living only within the school, it didn't feel real to me, but thinking about how all sorts of big shots like royalty and grand nobles had attended when Alterisha copied dark mage technology in the original game and unveiled new technology to the world, the reaction was probably going to be explosive.
It might be similar to the feelings of gamers who screamed in excitement when the sequel to a game they had been waiting for finally came out.
"Ugh… I'm tired."
Once I had roughly finished organizing things and stretched, I saw that it was dark outside the window.
Evening had already deepened.
I had sent Flame back long ago, and whether the students had finished studying and returned to the dorms as well, the library was empty and hollow.
2:48 a.m., the time when even the librarian was nodding off.
As I was about to return to the dormitory, I noticed someone who was still sitting there.
'What the… It's Hong Biyeon.'
She had tied up hair that closely resembled the soft moonlight streaming in through the library windows into a tight ponytail, and she was busily writing something down.
Studying on one's own could be done well enough in the dormitory or the reading room.
So for someone to come all the way to the library and study until this hour meant they needed such a vast amount of material that even their major textbooks couldn't cover it…
'Does Hong Biyeon have any reason for that?'
As far as I knew, she studied solely for her grades.
It wasn't exactly common in reality either, but you did occasionally see that type.
The kind who gets disgustingly good grades and goes to a top university, but looks stupid because they severely lack common sense.
So it felt pretty awkward to see someone like her in the library looking like she was ready to pull an all-nighter.
I quietly approached her.
"Hey."
Apparently she hadn't expected anyone to speak to her, because Hong Biyeon shrank her shoulders like a startled cat and opened her eyes wide.
Then she made eye contact with me and cleared her throat.
"…What is it, commoner?"
"Nothing. I just saw you studying this late and wondered what you were doing."
I glanced at the notebook she had been writing in.
Some complicated magic circles were tangled here and there, and related explanatory notes were scribbled all over the place.
It wasn't organized at all, and I couldn't even tell what the purpose was, but the moment I saw it, I understood instinctively.
'This, no way…'
During the Aslan Seminar episode, there had been a very occasional route where the player did absolutely nothing, and yet 'Villainess Hong Biyeon' self-destructed.
I didn't know the cause, but I had once heard that if 'Hong Si-hwa Adolevit,' known to be hostile to 'Villainess Hong Biyeon,' happened to run into the player by chance, there was a very low probability that the episode would occur.
From the perspective of players who experienced that episode, it was practically like winning the lottery, since they got to remove one villain for free.
But reality was different.
The real Hong Biyeon was not a villainess.
Even though I knew nothing at all about the 'Villainess Hong Biyeon self-destruction episode,' I instinctively realized why she had self-destructed at the Aslan Seminar.
Why else would Hong Biyeon be clinging to a terrible paper at this hour?
"I'm just… trying to sort out a paper…"
The expression Hong Biyeon made as she said that looked almost like that of a dying person, and it didn't exactly make me feel good as the one watching.
No matter how you looked at it, things were seriously tangled up.
Her life, her relationships, and her paper.
All of it.
"So, is there something you're stuck on? Want help?"
I also didn't want to see her go wrong, so I said that, but Hong Biyeon stared into my eyes for a long while, hesitated, then slightly averted her gaze and shook her head.
"…No. This is something I have to resolve myself. Thank you, but I'll decline."
Hmm.
Once she said it like that, it became awkward to just barge in and help anyway.
It would also have been weird if I started giving advice like, 'Hey, this part is this, so you should fix it like this,' when she had said she didn't need help.
Of course, if I really wanted to help, I probably could have, the same way I helped Alterisha.
But I also had to think about the difference in their personalities and situations.
At the time, Alterisha had absolutely no ability to solve the 'Cross Formula of Alchemic Random Sequences' on her own, so I had no choice but to force my help on her.
Fortunately, Alterisha's self-respect and self-esteem had both already sunk completely to rock bottom, so she had a strong tendency to rely on anyone at all, and I had been able to slip into that crack in her heart without earning resentment.
But Hong Biyeon was different.
Even if her self-esteem was low, her pride was quite high, and if a few offhand pieces of advice from me turned out far better than all the results Hong Biyeon herself had produced so far…
then her mentality might completely collapse.
'What a pain. Should I wait for the right opportunity and come back later?'
I casually read over her paper.
Maybe sensing my gaze on it, Hong Biyeon quietly asked,
"…Why are you making that face? Is it bad, even to you?"
"Huh? No, just…"
To be honest,
since I wasn't wearing the Bulbul Glasses, I couldn't understand a single word of what was written there.
I thought it was some kind of alien language.
But it was awkward to suddenly put on the glasses and start reading carefully after the fact, so I answered vaguely to gloss it over.
"I don't know what it means, but it looks really complicated. Isn't this not your style?"
"…This is my style."
"Really? Didn't know that. I just figured you were more the type to use hotter, more explosive magic, you know? The kind that goes boom boom."
"Don't be ridiculous. Even behind that hot, explosive magic, there are still complicated calculation processes and countless combinations of magic circles all tangled and intertwined, and…"
She was about to say something as though my words were absurd, but then suddenly stopped and stared blankly at her notebook.
Then she lifted her head again, looked into my eyes, and blinked her ruby-like eyes.
And then, out of nowhere—
Riiip! Fwoosh!
She tore up the notebook she had spent several sleepless nights writing and burned it.
"W-What kind of insane thing are you doing?!"
I recoiled in shock, but she spoke with an expression that looked almost refreshed.
"Thank you, commoner."
"No, for what?"
But Hong Biyeon didn't answer.
She packed her bag, then immediately ran out of the library.
Left alone there, I could only stand there dumbfounded.
Was that old rumor among Korean high school students really true—that if you study too much, your brain can actually break…?
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