The S-Classes That I Raised

Chapter 643: Practice Game (2)

The identical panels suddenly switched colors. My side turned a dull, matte black, while Seong Hyunjae’s stayed white but went glossy. I floated the black panels in the air, tracking Yuhyun’s movements. An S–class Hunter’s speed was, of course, fast. Each panel was only big enough to fit both feet, with almost no margin for error.

Whoosh–

A panel sliced through the air and spread flat. Almost the instant it locked into place, the tips of Yuhyun’s toes brushed the surface. Then leap, leap, leap again, and the panel movement lagged just the tiniest bit. I quickly spun the panel. His body, wrapped in a black formal coat, sprang upward, barely pushing off a sharply protruding corner. The decorative cord with blue feathers dangling from it trailed behind him like a tail.

I was used to Yuhyun’s movements. I could sense his actions just the tiniest bit ahead of time. Even so, it wasn’t easy to control the panels perfectly. It felt like I was tugging five strings to manipulate a marionette. And there were five marionettes, each with its own different, complicated motions.

Tap tap tap–!

By contrast, Seong Hyunjae was much more skillful. White panels snapped into a neat row, and Song Taewon ran across them as if they were solid, level ground. The white panels moved in perfect sequence to match his speed, like industrial machinery.

‘…That Seong Hyunjae probably knows Chief Song even better.’

Up until Chief Song died, he would have butted heads with him more often and more intensely than in this life. He’d already seen right through him before; by now he probably knew every little habit by heart.

The white panels and black panels closed the distance in an instant. Thud, the sound of a foot landing on the last white panel was heavier than anything so far.

‘Careful!’

I shouted at my little brother in my head. He’d definitely cranked his body weight up to the max. Even normally, Song Taewon was heavier and taller than Yuhyun. My brother had caught up a lot in height, but still, with a skill added on top, he’d be pushed back if they collided head–on.

Swinging terrifying speed and pressure like a weapon, Song Taewon hurled himself toward the black panels. Yuhyun also sprang up, twirling lightly in midair. Higher than Song Taewon, his body tilted downward at a sharp angle, like he was diving. At that moment, I slid a black panel under his feet at the same angle, fast.

Thunk!

Angled like an arrow aimed straight at Song Taewon, Yuhyun’s body stomped down on the perfectly placed panel and fired forward. Song Taewon came to a halt, and a white panel slotted into place under his feet, matching the distance between his legs. The perfect stance to brace and hold. As his rod was held across his body, another rod came down on it like a thunderbolt.

Crack!

Song Taewon’s legs bent just enough to naturally absorb the shock completely. At the same time, Yuhyun’s body rebounded, flipping over Song Taewon’s head like a swallow. Without giving him a chance to breathe, I tilted another white panel diagonally in the air. Thunk again, as Yuhyun’s rod shot forward like a spear, only to meet Song Taewon’s rod, which shifted with smooth, dancing footwork to turn his direction.

Three clashes followed in rapid–fire succession.

Flutter–

Blue willow leaves whirled around Song Taewon, obscuring his field of vision. If he stepped on the willow leaves we’d lose, but using them for their original purpose was fine. They blocked his eyes as we rushed him again, but—

Smack!

He blocked it like nothing. Damned combat precognition. On top of that, he was also seeing everything through Seong Hyunjae’s eyes, so it didn’t do much.

“Shouldn’t we have to blindfold them for this to be fair?!”

I couldn’t even see properly with my own eyes! I had no choice but to rely on Yuhyun’s vision. Meanwhile, those bastards effectively had two sets of eyes!

Right after the last clash, using the recoil, Yuhyun jumped high. Pure close combat wasn’t going to cut it. We couldn’t open our inventories, so using items was off the table, and he was trying to pull back and reset. I moved a white panel to match his landing—

“Gah!”

A black panel slid in almost flush right over the panel I’d just placed. Hey, you! Right before he would’ve stepped on the black panel, Yuhyun twisted his body hard. With nothing to push off from, he changed his landing direction using sheer physical strength. I hurried to move another panel, but that bastard Seong Hyunjae clung to me like a shadow. Even though Yuhyun twisted again, you can’t stay in the air long without a foothold!

“You cheap bastard!”

The spot where he’d been, so far up, dropped in an instant to about half that height. Seong Hyunjae answered my shout with a smile. I am absolutely going to get that collar. But at this rate, he was either going to hit the ground or step on a black panel. Avoiding combat precognition was hard enough, and I didn’t have the leeway to mess with Song Taewon the same way. Yuhyun changed direction once more, and now the floor was right in front of his nose.

Damn it, there was no way to change the panel size… Wait. Maybe.

I slid a white panel beneath his feet. The black panel overlapped it from above like it had been waiting for that.

Crack!

I yanked all the mana out of the other four panels and crammed it into that one, shattering it in an instant. Shards exploded outward. Using those tiny fragments as footholds, Yuhyun sprang upward again.

Crash!

He broke another panel, then another, and his body kept climbing. When he finally reached a stable spot, I let out the breath that had been stuck in my throat. My neck felt clammy with cold sweat.

“Are we allowed to break them?”

“There’s only a restriction on the total size. You just can’t cover the whole floor in panels.”

Myungwoo explained calmly. In that case, breaking them up and using more pieces might actually be more advantageous.

‘…Stupid shards.’

Even handling five whole panels was hard; broken into pieces, it was way, way worse. And to put them back together, I had to drag every little fragment over and fuse them. Yuhyun was used to running on small, moving willow leaves, but for other people – for Chief Song – it wouldn’t be so familiar.

So moving five intact panels was more stable.

The white and black panels tangled together again. Yuhyun and Song Taewon ran through the air. With his attacks blocked, pure back–grabbing would favor the faster Yuhyun. But Chief Song had tons of experience in close combat with S–classes, and he also had Seong Hyunjae’s combat precognition backing him. Even when Yuhyun tried to exploit openings with overwhelming speed, every attack was blocked and parried one by one, like a solid fortress.

Thunk!

As soon as his attack was shut down and he stepped back—

‘It’s not like I can’t do that too.’

I quickly moved a white panel right on top of the black panel Song Taewon was about to step on—

Crunch!

“What the hell!”

The black panel, which should’ve stayed flat, suddenly stood on edge and skewered the white panel with its sharp corner. Using that protruding black edge as a foothold, Song Taewon sprang up.

“Teacher Myungwoo!”

“All the panels have identical durability. So if you concentrate the force on a corner, it’ll pierce the flat surface. Even with the same system mana, you get different results depending on the structure.”

So basically, with the same amount of mana, the same panel, I was supposed to go beyond just moving them around and start getting creative.

“Of course, an Awakened can’t break the system itself, or the panels, with their own strength. You’re just moving around on top of them.”

Inside a pre–designed board. And right now, even if only temporarily, we were directly laying our hands on that board. Seong Hyunjae moved the black panels. I spun my white panels upright as well. Standing them up could block interference. But the surface area shrank drastically, which meant I needed even more precise control.

Right before Yuhyun and Song Taewon clashed again—

‘If the panel has the highest durability…’

I slid a white panel directly in front of Song Taewon’s rod, intending to block its swing path.

Whoosh–

Song Taewon’s rod passed straight through the panel and knocked aside Yuhyun’s rod. Huh?

“Even though the panels are tougher than the rods, you can’t use them for defense. If you try to use them as shields, the opponent’s rod will pass through. Same goes for any body part except your feet. Your teammate’s body and rod won’t pass through, so you should be careful.”

“I feel like that’s the kind of thing you should explain ahead of time!”

“You’re supposed to figure out the basic system structure yourself.”

Are you sure you’re really a teacher? He clearly had no intention of telling us anything beyond the bare–bones win conditions. Strict much.

The motion of the black and white panels grew faster and more precise. They stitched the air with a messy black–and–white pattern. S–class speed was impressive, no doubt. But compared to mana that moved almost at teleportation levels, it was gradually starting to feel slow. Not just Seong Hyunjae – even I had no trouble tracking and matching Yuhyun’s movements.

At the same time, the collisions between panels grew more violent. Crunch, bang, they rammed and shoved at each other, fighting for position. Two white panels slid into place side by side. As if he’d gotten some kind of signal, Song Taewon suddenly crouched down. One of his hands gripped the corner of the panel under his feet. What now?

“Yuhyun!”

A thought flashed through my head, and I hurriedly passed it to him. At the same moment, he jumped straight up.

Swoosh!

The white panel carrying Song Taewon shot toward the spot where Yuhyun had been with terrifying speed. Holy crap, Song Taewon was slower than Yuhyun. And he covered that weakness like this? On top of that, the panels had far greater mobility than any human. Perfect emergency stops, and then rockets forward. Even with the pressure that should come from that kind of speed, Song Taewon rose from his crouch without the slightest wobble and swung his rod.

The tip of his rod passed behind Yuhyun’s back by a margin thin as a sheet of paper. Barely twisting his body to dodge, Yuhyun retreated. But immediately, backed by combat precognition, Song Taewon and the white panel carrying him tried to run him down again.

“Damn it!”

But it wasn’t like there was no way out! Clatter! I stood all four white panels upright, leaving only the one under Yuhyun’s feet flat. Sharp corners stuck out in every direction.

Whoosh–!

I spun them hard. The white panels crashed into Song Taewon’s foothold panel. Seong Hyunjae tried to block with black panels as well, but since he had to use two panels just to keep stable footing, he was outnumbered. In the end, Song Taewon’s foothold shattered.

He jumped off the breaking panel, and Yuhyun pounced, not missing the opening. Without relying on panels, Yuhyun was definitely faster. He ran like a swallow, tapping along the panels, and once again a black panel slid in under his feet. Just as I shattered the white panel—

Crack!

The black panel broke as well. Black and white fragments mixed together, or so I thought—

“Hey!”

The black fragments turned white. Okay, sure, so you can change the color too, you shameless jerk! I hurriedly tried to change my colors as well—

“It’s fine, hyung.”

Yuhyun murmured softly. Then tap, tap, tap– he lightly stepped across the shards. No declaration of defeat came. Wow, seriously.

‘He memorized all the fragment positions in that time?!’

How is that even possible! My little brother’s definitely a genius. If dungeons hadn’t exploded, he would’ve gone to med school!

But if same–colored fragments kept getting mixed together in more and more hectic patterns, even Yuhyun would eventually lose track. His speed had already slowed a little. In the meantime, Song Taewon had withdrawn to solid footing again.

Scattering the panels into shards had become a disadvantage. Yuhyun had high speed and mobility. But they could keep up with him by moving the footholds. I needed something that was hard to interfere with, relatively easy for me to control, and would let us make full use of his mobility and speed.

Ping–!

The shape of the white panels changed. As long as the total size – the overall volume – stayed the same, I could transform their shape. The white plates became white rods, then thinned until they were almost like threads. I stretched four of the five panels out long, white lines crisscrossing the air like a spiderweb.

“Interesting.”

Seong Hyunjae’s eyes curved faintly. Yuhyun landed on one of the slender lines. A white panel orbited around him, circling as if to guard him.

Now, Song Taewon couldn’t recklessly step off the black panels. He might accidentally step on the white threads. It was hard for Seong Hyunjae to use the same tactic as me. Chief Song could probably run along the threads at speed, too, but he’d be clumsier and slower than Yuhyun. It was better for them to chop through the threads and treat the black panels as mounts.

Yuhyun sprinted along the threads. At a glance, it looked like he was running on empty air. Black panels flew in, snapping the threads one by one. Threads that snapped in an instant were reconnected again just as fast.

I drew a deep breath. Even if the threads were cut, as long as he held his position there, it didn’t interfere with his movement. So I could afford to take my eyes off controlling the panels – the threads – for a moment.

‘Support skills are allowed.’

And nobody had said I couldn’t use them on the opponent. I dismissed Grace. I reshaped one small piece of panel into a sharp shard and held it lightly in my hand. As Yuhyun and Song Taewon drew close, I clenched my fist tight and used the Teacher skill, targeting Song Taewon.

‘…Urgh!’

My vision spun. The backlash made my consciousness blur, but the pain in my hand whipped it back into focus. Song Taewon, in the middle of using combat precognition. His vision and Seong Hyunjae’s vision poured in at the same time. Gritting my teeth, I tightened my fist and filtered everything down safely before relaying it to Yuhyun.

His body darted up and down between the threads like a swallow. Reading Song Taewon’s movements a step ahead, he planted his feet precisely and quickly on the threads, moving in a three–dimensional way you’d never see on the ground, and in a blink he was at the broad back behind him.

He couldn’t dodge. Right before Yuhyun could take his back, Song Taewon threw his rod upward. A black panel slid into place exactly where the rod was headed.

Thump–!

Like a rubber plate, it bounced the rod back at a perfect angle. At the same time, Yuhyun’s arm swung. The rod that was launched at incredible speed stabbed into Song Taewon’s back. The difference was so razor–thin that even S–class eyesight would have had trouble telling who got hit first.

“Han Yujin wins.”

Myungwoo declared. I’d won.

‘…So changing the material is possible too.’

That annoying jerk, Seong Hyunjae.

“Hyung!”

Yuhyun dropped down in a single jump and caught me.

“Open your hand, quick!”

My body wouldn’t move properly. Since I’d been sharing senses with Seong Hyunjae as well, it was basically like using the Teacher skill on two S–classes at once. It was a relief we knew each other – the backlash would’ve been worse otherwise. Yuhyun pried my hand open and pulled out the shard embedded in my palm. Panicking over whether he should use a potion, he froze as disinfectant, ointment, and bandages appeared out of nowhere in front of him.

“You don’t need to turn off your poison resistance.”

…Myungwoo’s voice was chilly. After Yuhyun treated my hand, the pounding in my head also more or less subsided. Okay then.

“Gimme your collar.”

With a helpless little shrug, Seong Hyunjae bent forward slightly and offered me his upper body.