Chapter 99
The social care beneficiary cadet who had been carried to the starting point managed to survive, fortunately.
All cadets participating in the tactical evaluation were notified of the incident through their smartwatches, and the evaluation was temporarily suspended.
While the evaluation was halted, the combat instructors searched the area near the incident for roughly two hours.
They even rewound the drone footage, and interrogations were conducted with cadets who had been near the scene, but astonishingly, no suspect was identified.
Except for Gwon Chihun, who had beco the target of suspicion.
The tactical evaluation resud with Gwon Chihun placed under temporary detention at the starting point.
For Gwon Chihun, it was an unavoidable injustice.
Yet physically and circumstantially, he was the most plausible suspect.
Ironically, he was the only cadet near the scene who used a .43 caliber.
“You know he would never do sothing like that.”
“Yes.”
“And if we are going to talk about bullying, would it not be Gwon Chihun who should be the one getting shot?”
“I think so, too.”
“Then why did you accept the instructors’ decision so quietly? If nothing else, if you had pleaded with Instructor Yun Jeongseop, you would not have been detained.”
“……”
Do Minyeong’s emotions sharpened to a keen edge.
Rationally, Gwon Chihun was the most likely, but no matter how she thought about it, she knew too well that he would never make such a foolish choice.
I spoke as if calmly arranging my thoughts.
“The instructors probably understand how you feel. Not only you—those instructors are people who have also spent the sester with Gwon Chihun.”
“Then why…?”
“They detained him so they could continue the evaluation. The instructors are probably waiting for the evaluation to end quickly, too. If we look at it coldly, Gwon Chihun being detained is his own karma. The thing that created the suspicion was his usual conduct.”
“……”
Of course, he must have been devastated.
My own thoughts were just as tangled as his.
This situation had not been described in the original work—yet for an intervention rate under ten percent, things were becoming dangerously radical.
“Who could it be? Who would do sothing like this?” Do Minyeong murmured, lost in thought.
As she had just said, if anything, the resentnt from bullying lay with the social care beneficiaries.
So if soone was going to be shot, it should have been Gwon Chihun…
“……”
Could the cadet who had accused Gwon Chihun be connected to this?
No. It was a stretch to think that child held such a role.
Social care beneficiaries were an exclusionary group who could not mingle with other cadets and tended to huddle tightly among themselves.
Would they really drag Gwon Chihun down so far that they would sacrifice their own friend?
Absurd.
More than anything, if that had been their aim, they would have created far more evidence that Gwon Chihun was the culprit.
So that neither I, nor Do Minyeong, nor the instructors could even doubt it.
“Why did it have to be a social care beneficiary?” I muttered this ti.
Do Minyeong asked softly, “Could it not simply be coincidence?”
“It would be fortunate if it were, but…”
During the incident, I had used my Demonic Eye to scan the surroundings faster than anyone.
Yet I could not find the sniper’s mana.
Just as a shot leaves recoil traces in the wrist and shoulder, in this world, if you use mana-infused bullets, mana residue remains around the wrist and shoulder.
Normally it was impossible to distinguish, but it was impossible to hide from my eyes.
When I visited the starting point earlier because of Gwon Chihun’s detention, close to a hundred cadets had gathered there, but among them I could not find any mana with the sa characteristics as the bullet.
Which ant it might be an outsider—soone not affiliated with Hero Prep.
“No matter how I think about it, I cannot understand. There are hundreds of drones floating overhead, and yet sothing this stupid happens?” Do Minyeong asked, as if speaking to herself.
I replied in a flat tone, as if it was not even worth considering.
“Because they could conceal themselves completely. It is too perfect to call it stupid.”
“That is why it makes angrier. How is this even possible?”
It was possible.
Because there was already an outsider on this island.
More precisely, the villain originally scheduled in the original work.
The villain of this episode was the Demonic Being Allie and Callia, who supported her.
I had been thinking for a while that Callia might also be involved in this incident, but no matter how I reasoned through it, I could not find a clear motive.
Why? For what purpose? What reason would Callia have to target social care beneficiaries who had nothing to do with her?
Of course, it was impossible to understand a Demonic Being’s behavior with common sense.
But even they did not move without purpose.
If things followed the original work, Allie and Callia should have targeted Lee Eunho, Yu Hyeonjeong, and Cha Yeri—those who had been involved with District 27.
Excluding Yu Hyeonjeong, who was a third-year, what disadvantage did Lee Eunho and Cha Yeri suffer because a first-year social care beneficiary was shot?
I had been thinking hard about it, and perhaps the target was .
I had been involved with District 27, and I was also connected to the Chira incident at the garage.
Above all, if Choi Jaejin—now part of the mafia—was involved in this, he would be seeking revenge against .
If it was him, perhaps he harbored resentnt not only toward , but toward all first-year social care beneficiaries.
If that was true, then the question beca how the sniping had been carried out…
“……”
I silently shook my head.
The thod could be considered later.
Right now, what mattered was finishing the evaluation as quickly as possible.
If Choi Jaejin truly held a grudge against all social care beneficiaries, more victims would inevitably follow.
“Even for Gwon Chihun’s sake, we should end this evaluation quickly.”
“What? Only one day has passed. Are you planning to use your Demonic Eye?”
“No. If we search for clues one by one, it will take too long.”
“Then how?”
How else?
We had to find the treasure first.
The way to end the tactical evaluation was to find the treasure.
And the way to find the treasure was to gather as many clues as possible and infer the location.
But right now, we only had three clues.
It was far too few to exploit my knowledge of the original work.
That said, it was not as if there was no thod at all.
We simply had to eliminate the team that had more clues than anyone else.
In this case, that ant Lee Eunho’s team.
***
Intense southern sunlight glared down into the dense forest.
“The clues we have found so far are AAEIPRRS—eight in total.”
Under the thick shade cast by the harsh sun, Lee Eunho’s team spread out their clues and put their heads together.
“We do not know how many clues remain, but with this many, can we not at least make a rough guess?”
At Cha Yeri’s words, Gong Minwu nodded.
“Hmm. The easiest words to assemble seem to be SPEAR and AIR.”
“They do not seem related at all.”
“Is it possible that each letter has a hidden aning rather than forming a word?”
“If that were the case, they would not have given us duplicated letters.”
“Then it might not be English. It could be another language.”
“In Spanish, SIERRA ans a mountain range.”
“Then what about the remaining A and P?”
“That part bothers , but I think it might be Armor Piercer, aning an armor-piercing round, or an abbreviation for an Access Point, a wireless communications device.”
“AP rounds do not seem relevant, but access point sounds plausible… If we connect it to SIERRA, perhaps it ans so kind of communications fixture installed on high ground. But AP is English. SIERRA is Spanish.”
“…It seems we still need more clues. I thought this would be enough.”
Gong Minwu and Cha Yeri glanced toward Lee Eunho.
He stood a step away from them.
He seed to be inferring the clues while staring at his smartwatch in silence, but since he had not moved at all for so ti, he was clearly lost in his own thoughts again.
Gong Minwu spoke in a displeased tone.
“What does the leader think?”
“……”
Lee Eunho t Gong Minwu and Cha Yeri with a fairly composed face.
But he did not answer.
This ti, Cha Yeri spoke.
“If nothing cos to mind, it might not be a bad idea to look for a few more clues.”
“……”
It was a suggestion to move.
It seed Lee Eunho would remain silent again, but at last he opened his mouth.
“There is no need to search.”
“What?”
“That is already enough.”
It was an answer neither Gong Minwu nor Cha Yeri could understand.
But it did not take long for them to grasp the aning.
Because the LED on the clothing equipnt Gong Minwu and Cha Yeri wore began to glow red.
“You…”
“Cadet Lee Eunho!”
In an instant, Lee Eunho discharged electricity and eliminated both of them.
Gong Minwu grabbed Lee Eunho by the collar roughly.
When he shoved him against a massive nearby tree, the impact was so strong that the trunk caved in.
It looked as though the tree might even tilt.
“What are you thinking?”
Lee Eunho forced a mocking smile.
“The points given to the first-place team are ten thousand. There is no need to share them.”
“What?”
“If you are eliminated, then quietly move west. If I take first place, you are still first place, too, since you were on my team. Do not start pointless violence and get yourself docked points.”
“You bastard…”
Cha Yeri cut in.
“Do you believe you can find the treasure alone?”
“It is not impossible.”
“No. Cadet Lee Eunho will never manage it. Even if you find it, you will not be able to claim it in the end.”
“…Why?”
Cha Yeri offered a deliberately gentle smile.
So gentle that if Ji Seokhyeon had been nearby, he might have clicked his tongue and called it vicious.
“Because there is a cadet who is better than you.”
“……”
***
Do Minyeong and I moved to find Lee Eunho’s team.
Do Minyeong did not protest my proposal and accepted it.
In her own judgnt, it must have seed like the fastest way to end the evaluation.
Of course, she asked how we planned to deal with Lee Eunho’s team.
I said I had a thod, but in truth, I planned to strike their clothing equipnt with shadows the mont they let their guard down.
As for how to explain it, I would use the Demonic Eye as a pretext, or claim Lee Eunho had mishandled his lightning ability…
Was that excuse too crude?
In any case, we relied on the Demonic Eye and the senses granted by my agility of twenty to track Lee Eunho’s team.
Soon, familiar mana ca into view, and Do Minyeong and I climbed a large tree and waited for the footsteps approaching our direction.
As expected, Gong Minwu and Cha Yeri entered the path.
…
But Lee Eunho was nowhere to be seen.
Moreover, the clothing equipnt on Gong Minwu and Cha Yeri displayed a red LED.
In other words, they had been eliminated.
“Lee Eunho is not with them, is he?”
“Uh…”
It was an extrely unusual situation.
It was hard to call it rely the result of the intervention rate.
If the two of them were going west together, it ant that not one of them, but both, had been eliminated—and was there even a first-year cadet capable of doing that?
Not only among first-years, but across Hero Prep as a whole, only soone like Choi Suhyuk could do it.
No.
There was one more.
Lee Eunho himself.
Cha Yeri and Gong Minwu quickly spotted Do Minyeong and in the tree.
They paused for a mont, then hurried on without hesitation.
Regardless of what had happened, the rules dictated that eliminated cadets must not say anything to those still in the evaluation.
Still, the expression on Cha Yeri’s face in that brief instant left an impression.
Soone as skilled at controlling her expression as her, showing such blatant disbelief.
The mont I saw her face, I was certain Lee Eunho had done sothing.
“Where is Lee Eunho…?”
My head throbbed.
Why was Lee Eunho acting out again?
Was this really an episode with an intervention rate under ten percent?
As I let out a self-mocking, hollow laugh, the smartwatch on my wrist vibrated.
Do Minyeong’s smartwatch chid as well, so it seed to be a broadcast ssage to all cadets.
The ssage was simple.
Another incident involving live ammunition had occurred.
The victim, once again, was a social care beneficiary.
Therefore, the evaluation was being suspended again, and everyone was to gather at the starting point.
The problem was that the social care beneficiaries who had ford a team together had been hit all at once.
Judging by the victims’ nas, they were the teammates of the cadet who had been shot in the morning.
I had suspected sothing like this might happen, but as tension surged through , I swallowed repeatedly.
“Ji Seokhyeon…”
“Yes. I saw.”
Because now, I was the only social care beneficiary left.
User Comments
0 comments from readers