[557] The Steel Gate Once More (2)
Shirone had returned.
For some it was exhilaration, for others despair.
Most of those who had fought fierce competition during the first half felt the pressure of being pushed out of the system just from seeing Shirone pass through the iron gate.
"Shirone!"
Neid ran up with tears in his eyes and hugged Shirone tight.
"What happened? Do you know how worried we were? Seriously, I—!"
His voice choked off and he couldn't finish.
After all, Shirone had left a farewell letter and then vanished.
"Sorry. I'll tell you everything soon."
"'Soon' won't do! Tell us now! What happened?"
Iruki grabbed Neid's shoulder to hold him back.
"Calm down. Look behind you."
Neid turned and realized everyone was staring at him in a daze, cleared his throat, and stepped back.
"All right, we'll talk later for now."
Shirone patted Neid lightly on the back and walked over to Colli.
He glanced back at Amy and gave a small smile, but she turned away coldly.
'Right, that's something I should explain slowly.'
Even he would have felt betrayed in Amy's place, so he couldn't blame her.
Approaching Colli, Shirone bowed his head.
"I've returned. I'm sorry for the trouble."
"Hmm…"
Colli didn't know why Shirone had refused the evaluation.
But from the grim mood that had spread through the school and Etella and Shiina's sudden business trips, he suspected it wasn't just a personal matter.
More speculatively, it might also be connected to the Day of Judgement of the Twenty from when Shirone had been a young instructor.
"Good. I'm glad you came back safely. Will you take the evaluations again in the second half?"
The competitors' gazes turned to Shirone.
If Shirone joined an already brutal contest, it would be like another predator entering the arena of the strong devouring the weak.
"No. I will refuse the evaluation in the second half as well."
A ripple ran through the crowd.
If this was welcome news for the competitors, it was an unexpected resolve from Shirone.
Amy watched Shirone for the first time while Neid asked, "Shirone, are you really going to skip the graduation exam like this?"
—Once I get back to the Magic Academy…
Instead of answering, Shirone recalled Miro's advice.
"Go to Teacher Colli and say you'll continue to refuse the evaluation. Going to Heaven already created a blank of over a hundred points. Even if you catch up as much as possible in the remaining time, overturning that gap is impossible. That's how it works."
Aside from specialty reinforcement and group evaluations, most points were small and had to be accumulated day by day, so a few weeks' absence was a serious loss.
"But is it okay? If you refuse the evaluation, you can't even enter the exam hall."
"You have friends. Even if they're competitors, they'll help. Factions form during the graduation exam whether you like it or not, so don't throw away connections."
Denying friendships sounded harsh, but Shirone felt reassured that mutual give-and-take would ease things.
"And most importantly—you. It's far more efficient not to reveal your abilities than to try to size up the others."
Shirone couldn't deny that.
"If the exam were held normally, you could easily place in the top ten. But to survive, that won't be enough. Remember this—starting now, it's politics."
'From now on, it's politics.'
Shirone shook the thought off and said, "I'll try going it alone. It's too hard to catch up on points anyway."
Colli respected Shirone's decision.
"All right. Then Shirone, go back to the dormitory and the rest of you… huh?"
Colli lifted his eyes and the students followed suit.
A slim, dark-skinned woman was passing through the iron gate.
With her hair tied back and a crescent-shaped forehead revealed, she was so striking the students watched in stunned silence. Then someone blurted out a name.
"Maya?"
At that, everyone began murmuring, and Shirone stared at Maya with a dazed expression.
She was from the Mystic tribe and majored in sound magic but had been the graduating class's usual last-place student. Pretty by nature, she now looked completely different—noticeably thin where she had once been fuller.
"Is that really Maya? Crybaby Maya?"
Those who only knew Maya's former, heavier appearance couldn't believe what they saw.
They say a woman's beauty is power.
They'd been at odds—shouting at each other in strategy evaluations and clashing at hill captures—but faced with her changed appearance, they couldn't treat her carelessly like before.
"Um… excuse me, could you move? The path's blocked…"
Maya's voice trembled as if she still had a timid streak.
"Oh? Ah, sorry."
The students hurriedly made way. Maya walked up to Colli and stood beside Shirone, bowing her head.
"Teacher, I've arrived."
"Yes. You've lost a lot of weight while we didn't see you."
"I no longer need to build vocal power."
Iruki had advised her to give up some vocal technique and look for a different method, but that couldn't have been the only reason.
Colli remembered Maya showing up in the pouring rain one night, crying that she couldn't forget Shirone. She had been so heartbroken she'd lost her appetite.
'Has she settled her feelings?'
Colli, who had personally scouted this student, looked at her with pity, then regained his composure.
"All right, you're refusing the evaluation still, right?"
"Yes…"
"Understood. Go inside and rest."
Maya hesitated on her way to the dormitory, then mustered her courage and looked back.
Among countless male gazes she found Shirone exactly and gave a small smile as a long-overdue greeting.
Neid, who had come up beside him, jabbed Shirone's ribs.
"Hey, hey! She looks ridiculously beautiful now. Still into you, aren't she? Man, I'm jealous."
"What's there to be jealous of?"
Shirone asked flatly, but Amy had already slipped away with the others out of sight.
"Time's running out. Let's head to the classroom."
Everyone in the graduating class had arrived except Aider, who was in the hospital.
"Shirone, don't go anywhere—stick to the research group. I'll beat you until you cry."
"Haha! Got it. I'll be waiting."
Watching the graduating class surge off, Shirone left through the iron gate and headed to the magic storeroom Istas.
As expected, without a nagging presence, more dust had gathered than before.
Familiar sights, familiar smells.
But now he knew what Istas actually was.
"It finally feels real that I came back from Heaven."
Although Ikael hadn't given a definitive answer, Shirone had achieved some results.
He recalled the time he'd spent with Miro the day before descending.
'That meat was really delicious.'
Following the first delicious smell rising from the cabin, Shirone had gone out and found Miro grilling meat he'd bought in town.
Maybe to liven the mood, there was even strong liquor prepared.
"What's all this?"
"A descent celebration. Of course it won't taste as good as my porridge."
"Ah, of course."
Shirone answered immediately in case the plan changed, sat at the table, and Miro set the grilled meat down and uncorked a bottle.
"Here, drink. You old enough to drink now, right?"
"Yes, I am, but…"
As Shirone hesitated with his cup raised, Miro aggressively toasted.
"Come on! Drink, drink! We're going all out tonight!"
An hour later.
They had emptied every bottle and sat on the hill looking out over the mountain scenery.
After that hellish schedule, the peace felt like it was melting his whole body.
"Shirone, do you regret going to Heaven?"
Miro asked out of the blue, knowing Shirone had something on his mind, so the answer came easily.
"No. How could I? I came back alive."
Miro smiled sadly.
"You wanted to ask Ikael something, right?"
When the silence stretched, Miro asked again, "Do you think she's your mother?"
"Yes. I didn't get an answer though."
"Then you probably have some idea about your father too?"
Shirone didn't know whom Ikael had fallen in love with, so Miro's question was harder, but he felt the presence of someone inside him.
"Why do you ask that?"
"Aren't you resentful? Your biological parents abandoned you."
Before he could be asked, Shirone felt he should answer.
"My parents live in Creas. I have no other parents."
He looked up at the night sky.
"I just felt I should know—who they were, and why."
Miro thought for a long while, then slowly spoke.
"Shirone, perhaps I…"
When his voice grew heavy, Shirone turned, but Miro suddenly changed expression and leaned playfully on his shoulder.
"Pfft."
"Wh-what are you doing?"
Shirone flinched, but Miro wrapped an arm around him without shame.
"Stay still. Why? Embarrassed?"
"Don't dodge the question. Didn't you have something to say?"
Miro shook his head slowly while leaning there.
"It's nothing. I just felt like I had to say something. But if you truly consider your current parents your real parents, it's not my place to say it."
Staring at Miro, Shirone reached a conclusion and looked forward again.
"Yes. I only have those two as my parents."
Some things shouldn't be heard through someone else.
"Sigh, anyway this is nice. Leaning on a young man's shoulder like this—so this is what dating feels like?"
"The association president really seems to think about Miro a lot."
Miro laughed like a girl.
"We'll be busy from now on. You and me both. We have to live hard for the youth we wasted for twenty years."
"Thank you. You gave me new hope."
"Don't thank me. This is all old-age planning. Someday my students will help me out."
Miro looked up at the full moon above the mountain.
"...Keep in touch."
Shirone shrugged and smiled.
"Yes."
A gentle smile lingered at the corner of Shirone's mouth as he snapped out of the recollection.
'Thanks to that I met a lot of good people.'
But that, too, was now in the past.
Even Istas, once the center of the world's attention, was just an ordinary research club.
'No more secrets. From today it's training again.'
As if wary of the relief of being free from the competition's yoke, Shirone straightened his posture and began the rank training.
The gap in difficulty between advancing from eok to jo and from jo to gyeong was like night and day.
So he couldn't even estimate how long it would take to reach the next stage, the realm of Hae.
'I believe in the power of a day. Build it day by day.'
As the sequence sped up and he entered Radiant Angel mode, the avatar of light seeped into Shirone's body.
He didn't notice any major change, but it was certain he perceived three seconds in the span of one.
'This is how you break through the wall of time…'
At that moment Shirone's face suddenly hardened.
'What is this? What's going on?'
An unintelligible voice brushed his ear like an auditory hallucination.
"Who's there!"
Sensing something pass behind him, he turned and shouted—and a ripping scream came from outside the door.
"Aaaaaah!"
"Chase them! Don't you dare lose them!"
Those battlefield-like cries were enough to tell him something was happening in the corridor.
"What's going on?"
Shirone pushed the door open in a panic and rushed out of the research room.
"..."
But the corridor he saw was as quiet as ever.
'There's nobody. Then what did I hear?'
Realizing his Radiant Angel mode had waned, Shirone returned to oneness.
"Sibulsang Pokmae."
As the avatar seeped in again, the sound of people pounding and running from the ceiling returned.
"Don't be careless! The opponent is the strongest Banya!"
"Reporting! Squad 1 annihilated! Squad 1 annihilated!"
Listening to the hallucination with a stunned expression, one thought suddenly flashed through Shirone's mind.
"Maybe…."
Perhaps something else still remained here.