The Support Ate it All

Chapter 160: The Swordsmanship Club (3)

The second-year senior introduced himself as Mak Dae-wong as he led the way.

I had already guessed this when Dang Gyu-young hinted at it, but it seemed Mak Dae-wong had other business other than taking me to the club room.

Considering we ended up in a secluded alley that is.

I pretended to be naive and looked around as I asked,

“This isn’t the swordsmanship club?”

“Of course not. Taking you to the vice president comes later.”

“Then what about now?”

Following those words, Mak Dae-wong began to exude a menacing aura and a chilling smile was playing on his lips.

“You have to pay the price for coveting something that isn’t yours. Did the swordsmanship club look easy to you?”

“It doesn’t look easy, but… shouldn’t we talk about it first before deciding on the price? It seems like that’s what the other side wants too.”

“Not all of us think the same.”

“Still, I believe the vice president’s opinion should come first.”

“Not for me.”

The discipline in this neighborhood was quite loose.

How could they so lightly disregard the orders given by the vice president?

It somehow made sense why the vice president was setting the stage like this.

They probably wanted to use this opportunity to bring down the faction Mak Dae-wong was part of.

For me, it wasn’t a bad situation overall.

Getting a private replay of the Black Death dungeon in exchange for one battle was a good deal.

“So, are you planning to get involved directly?”

However, it was against school rules for an upperclassman to lay a hand on a lowerclassman.

Even though he knew this, Mak Dae-wong’s smile grew wider.

“Of course, other guys will take care of it.”

Then he motioned behind me with a nod.

At some point, two first-year students started slowly approaching me from both sides.

I looked at them one by one but their faces didn’t ring a bell.

So I asked,

“Friends, how about we introduce ourselves first?”

“Cheol-soo.”

“Min-soo.”

Cheol-soo and Min-soo each gave a brief reply.

It was better than not responding at all but they smelled like aliases. So it was all pointless.

Just as I was about to ask something else, Mak Dae-wong’s order interrupted the conversation.

“Let’s get started.”

“…”

“…”

The blades slid out of Cheol-soo and Min-soo’s scabbards as if gliding.

A perfectly silent draw.

I looked at Cheol-soo and gave him a compliment.

“You have good posture.”

“Thanks.”

Cheol-soo accepted the compliment calmly, then walked slowly with his sword hanging down.

As the distance between us narrowed, Cheol-soo’s hand blurred for a moment, giving the illusion of a flash splitting my vision in half.

It was an incredibly fast slash that was difficult for most people to react to.

Of course, I had predicted his move before he even drew his sword so I could sidestep and avoid it by half a step.

I immediately turned my body because Min-soo’s attack came from behind.

As soon as their first attacks failed, they both retrieved their swords and thrust them again.

One aimed to pierce my heart from the front and the other aimed to split my spine from the back.

Do they really need to be this ruthless?

Each attack targeted a vital point in the body.

If they hit, it wouldn’t just sting but would send me straight to the afterlife.

Since I still had much to do for world peace, I used Thief’s Step and took careful steps to dodge.

The sword strikes narrowly missed me.

After repeatedly stabbing and slashing from both front and back without success, Mak Dae-wong who was watching the battle muttered to himself.

“He’s definitely good at dodging… Increase the speed.”

“……”

At his command, Cheol-soo and Min-soo briefly retreated and exchanged glances.

Soon, I felt their momentum change slightly and they launched another attack.

Swish, swish, swish, swish!

They continued to surround and attack me from the front and back, but their speed kept increasing.

I could guess what the person behind them was aiming for.

So, they intend to overwhelm me with speed.

In reality, it was becoming harder to dodge, so their strategy wasn’t wrong.

Of course, this was based on the assumption that I wasn’t using Overheat, so if I wanted to, I could crush them with even more overwhelming speed.

However,

There’s no need to show everything just yet.

There was no way my connection with them would end today.

So, I chose the next best option.

Pop!

A storm cloud rose in the air.

I wrapped the storm cloud around Root and lightly brought it to Cheol-soo’s sword tip that was rushing in.

As the sword touched the storm cloud, the blade bounced off, and the trajectory of the strike veered to the side.

“……!”

Cheol-soo immediately retrieved his sword.

It was a swift reaction as if he had anticipated my move, but there was no avoiding a brief pause in his attack.

At that moment, I turned my attention to Min-soo who was thrusting a sword from behind.

Boom, boom!

Compressed mana exploded twice.

Using the memorize ability embedded in Root, I had stored two One Point Explosions and released them instantly.

Min-soo’s body stiffened momentarily from the unexpected counterattack.

Before he could even react,

Boom!

A burst of compressed air blew him away.

Got rid of that one for now.

As I turned my body back to the front and quickly twisted my head,

Swish!

A streak of light grazed my cheek.

Even though it was now one-on-one, Cheol-soo’s momentum hadn’t weakened at all; if anything, it had become fiercer.

Impressive.

I shifted my strategy from dodging Cheol-soo’s attacks to subtly pushing them away with storm clouds.

I also didn’t forget to mix in the occasional One Point Explosion.

Boom, boom!

Cheol-soo’s reactions were excellent this time as well.

As soon as he sensed a gathering of magical power, he dodged and continued his relentless attacks.

However, One Point Explosions occasionally erupted from unexpected places and gradually accumulated damage on him.

“…Annoying.”

“Thanks.”

Dozens of exchanges happened between us in a short time.

And as I thought,

No matter how much I think about it, I’ve seen this somewhere before.

I had felt a sense of déjà vu when we first met, but I wasn’t sure.

But as I continued to face him, the sense of déjà vu became increasingly clear.

An ordinary alias, an ordinary appearance, an ordinary weapon,

Yet, a swordsmanship thick with killing intent…

I couldn’t hold back my curiosity and spoke up.

“Can I ask you something?”

“What is it?”

“By any chance, is your last name Jang? Jang Cheol-soo?”

“……!?”

Cheol-soo flinched and he paused in the middle of a thrust.

Seeing that, my certainty grew stronger.

“Are you Jang Sam??”

“…No.”

“It is Jang Sam, isn’t it?”

“I said no.”

“Then is Min-soo Wang Pil?”

“I told you no.”

However, seeing his visibly shaken composure, it seemed I had guessed correctly.

Jang Sam and Wang Pil who had been our opponents in a two-on-two match before.

Back then, they had posed as Jang Sam (Waiter) and Wang Pil (Doorman), but today they had returned as Cheol-soo and Min-soo.

“Hey, good to see you. What a coincidence running into you again like this.”

“……”

Jang Sam who was flustered stopped his attack.

Wang Pil who was approaching from the back did the same.

Then Mak Dae-wong gave another order with an annoyed expression on his face.

“What are you standing around for? Fight.”

“…”

For Cheol-soo and Min-soo, or rather for Jang Sam and Wang Pil, Mak Dae-wong was an upperclassman and a senior in their club.

They were in no position to defy him.

So they took their stances again and were about to resume the battle,

Rumbleee,

When suddenly, a wooden door shot up.

In this Dragon Slayer Academy, a wooden door meant only one thing. It was Kwak Seung-jae’s unique magic.

Mak Dae-wong scowled and bluntly addressed Kwak Seung-jae who walked out.

“You never miss a chance to butt in, do you?”

“If you have nothing to hide, why does it matter where I am?”

“…”

Mak Dae-wong who had nothing to say stayed silent for a moment.

Kwak Seung-jae calmly surveyed the scene.

“Three from the swordsmanship club and one unaffiliated first-year… I have a rough idea, but I’ll give you a chance to explain yourself.”

Mak Dae-wong was briefly taken aback when the wooden door suddenly appeared, but he quickly regained his composure and began to make excuses.

“Our juniors wanted to test their skills, so I was just supervising as their senior.”

“Testing their skills… in a two-on-one fight?”

“Is there any reason why it shouldn’t be two-on-one?”

“There’s no reason it can’t be, but the location matters, doesn’t it?”

“And what’s wrong with this place?”

Kwak Seung-jae spoke in a blunt tone.

“You know the rules, yet you keep dodging. Let me remind the freshmen of the school regulations. Any duel outside the Training Center and Arena is a violation of the rules.”

“Oh, right, I forgot about that.”

Mak Dae-wong grinned slyly.

Although he had been caught, he hadn’t directly broken any rules. He only bore the ethical responsibility of not stopping the first-year students from fighting outside the arena as their senior.

Kwak Seung-jae looked at each first-year and said,

“Disperse. Next time, you’ll get penalty points.”

“Yes, senior-nim.”

After Jang Sam and Wang Pil bowed their heads and stepped back, Mak Dae-wong also glared at me briefly before turning away.

As the trio from the swordsmanship club left, Kwak Seung-jae’s gaze naturally returned to me.

He seemed to ask with his eyes, “Why aren’t you leaving?” so I began packing away my storm cloud and Root while asking,

“How did you know to come here?”

“I received a report.”

That makes sense.

Kwak Seung-jae’s appearance was too timely to be a coincidence.

Even though his detection skills were acknowledged by the third-year students, they wouldn’t reach such a remote place.

This meant that someone observing the situation had reported it.

And that person was likely someone from the swordsmanship club vice president’s side.

The timing was perfect.

If Kwak Seung-jae had arrived right after the fight began, Mak Dae-wong’s side would have been more suspicious, but the other side waited until I had held my ground for a while and then reported it just in time.

As a result, none of the first-year students who fought were injured and Mak Dae-wong and the ones behind him didn’t achieve their goal.

Moreover, the vice president’s side now had a pretext to question Mak Dae-wong on why he disobeyed orders, making it a win-win situation.

As expected, being a vice president is no easy task.

I was quite impressed with the clean handling of the situation. Just when I was about to leave, Kwak Seung-jae called me back for a moment.

“Kim Ho.”

“Yes, senior-nim.”

“How is Ji-cheol doing?”

Another question about his younger brother.

Perhaps Kwak Seung-jae’s only interests were the disciplinary committee club and his brother.

Since it was a reasonable question, I briefly summarized the events from the past few days of mentoring.

I slightly embellished the part about how I kicked him around until he could properly deflect the ogre’s attacks though.

“—So now he’s improved quite a bit.”

“I see.”

“He’ll probably score well tomorrow. You can expect good results.”

If he practiced like we did, I expected he would achieve a decent score even if it wasn’t exceptionally high.

Kwak Seung-jae looked at me for a moment before speaking.

“Honestly, I thought it was nearly impossible, but it seems he can do it. Thank you for your help.”

“We all help each other.”

“As I said before, I can’t promise much, but I won’t forget this debt.”

“That’s enough for me.”

“I’ll be going now.”

After saying that, Kwak Seung-jae disappeared beyond the wooden door.

Rumble…

The wooden door sank into the ground, and I moved towards my original destination: the training center.

However, not long after,

The training center feels farther than usual today.

I had to stop again.

Up ahead, Jang Sam and Wang Pil were waiting for me.

Since I had no reason to avoid them, I walked straight up and asked,

“Why again? It’s against the school rules.”

How long had it been since a member of the disciplinary committee had come, and they were causing trouble again?

However, Jang Sam slowly shook his head.

“We didn’t come to fight.”

“Then?”

“…We have something to ask you.”

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TN: Cheol-soo and Min-soo are common names in martial arts novels. Maybe in most novels, not just martial arts ones.