After the field trip ended, the Hero Academy quickly returned to its usual rhythm. The cadets attended their classes diligently, gaining the knowledge and experience they needed to beco heroes. But that wasn’t the case for . Because of the incident during the field trip, Professor Kane had slapped with a two-week suspension.
I lay sprawled on my dorm bed, writhing like a bored worm. “I’m suspended again.”
Not even a year had passed since I regressed to this life, and I was already on my fourth suspension. Honestly, at this point, it felt like the universe itself had sothing against .
There wasn’t much else to do while stuck inside, so I muttered, “Haah! Maybe I’ll go train or sothing.”
However, just as I was about to head to the training grounds to practice with the Cataclysmic Fla, my Hero Watch chid. It was a ssage from Laneige.
Laneige: Dale, can you help train today?
“Huh?”
Why does she want training all of a sudden? I thought.
Dale: What about your classes?
Laneige: Ah! I-it’s fine. Today’s self-study ti.
Dale: Really?
Laneige: Yeah.
Dale: Then, when do you want to et?
Laneige: R-right now!
She was unusually fired up today. I tilted my head and replied to her ssage.
Dale: All right. Then let’s et in thirty minutes.
Laneige: Okay!
After ending the chat, I quickly washed up, changed into my training clothes, and headed to the eting spot. When I arrived, Laneige was already there, energetically waving at in her training uniform.
“Ah!D-Dale!”
The way she dashed toward like a happy puppy made chuckle.
She grabbed my wrist, tugging forward. “Sa place as last ti, right? Let’s go to the back mountain!”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “What’s with the sudden passion for training?”
Her expression dimd for a mont. “Ah, t-that’s...”
But she quickly forced a smile and shook her head. “Hehe. It’s nothing. I just, um, wanted to get better at controlling my Blessing.”
“Yeah?”
Clenching her fists, she declared with fiery determination, “Mhm! That way I can be even more helpful to you, Dale!”
I nodded and followed her into the forested hills behind the academy. Soon, we reached the open clearing where we usually trained. It was a wide, barren patch of earth, stripped clean of grass.
We had probably trained here too much. This area was in the middle of the lush forest, yet it looked like a bald patch on the earth’s head. I couldn’t help but let out a dry laugh.
Still, it was better to train here than burn down the academy again. Last ti, my failure to control my power had nearly turned a school building to ash, so the remote location was safer for everyone.
I turned to Laneige. “All right, shall we begin?”
Laneige nodded, stepping into the clearing. “Y-yeah.”
Just as I was about to follow her, she turned around. “T-today, I’ll do it alone.”
“Huh? Alone?”
“Y-yeah. I have to be able to control my power even when you’re not beside .”
“Well, that’s true.”
She was definitely better at it than before, but handling the power of her Blessing of the Frost alone was still risky.
She said, “Dale, you can train nearby. Just... If things get dangerous, you can step in, okay?”
“Hmmm. Got it.”
While I was worried, if that was what she wanted, I didn’t have a reason to stop her. Sooner or later, she would have to learn to control her Blessing on her own.
“O-okay! I’ll go over there to practice!”
She sprinted off to the far end of the clearing.
Now, I couldn’t just sit around either. I took a slow breath, awakening the Primordial Fla that slumbered deep within my heart. Unlike before, when it had roared like a wild beast out of control, the fla burned calmly, obediently following my will.
I could definitely feel it. Ever since absorbing that ember, I could draw out much more of the Primordial Fla. Back when I had first regressed, the most I could handle was a fla the size of a candle. Now, it had surged high enough to envelop my body and beyond.
Of course, I was still nowhere near mastering it. A portion of the fire raged out of control in the distance, refusing to obey my command. I wondered what kind of being I would beco if I could bring even that into perfect harmony soday. It was hard to even imagine.
I could beco soone even more absurd than the Demon God. If the source of the Demon God’s power truly was the Primordial Fla, then inside lay sothing else, a second, unknown power: the power to extinguish fire.
I still didn’t know what it was or why it existed within . But one thing was certain. The day I could command both of those powers, I would be able to change that blindingly white future.
I exhaled softly. “Huff.”
As I drew the fire upward again, ashen flas licked up my arms, wrapping around . Gray smoke seeped from my pores, spreading like mist.
Let’s start small. Ten ters, I thought.
I invoked Cataclysmic Fla, and a ring of fire circled outward from my feet. However, mana drained from my body at an alarming rate, pouring out like water from a broken dam.
“Ugh!”
It ate up mana way faster than I thought. I had expected the technique to be mana costly. After all, I was altering the physical laws of the surrounding space itself, but this was beyond anything I had imagined. I was consuming mana faster than I could replenish it, even with Ignition running. If I used Blazing Fire here to increase my mana reserves, I could probably maintain Cataclysmic Fla a bit longer, but in the end, that would only be a temporary fix.
“Yeah. It really is different. Using it for real feels nothing like doing it inside the mindscape,” I muttered.
The power and effects of Cataclysmic Fla were just as overwhelming as they had been in the mindscape. But the problem lay elsewhere: My control was still lacking. When I actually used this technique, I realized how much mana I was wasting unnecessarily. It was like trying to drink from a bowl full of holes. The skill consud more mana than I had expected, sure, but much of that mana was simply lost, bled out from inefficiency.
I decided to reduce the technique’s range to about one ter. Calling sothing that small an area expansion was a bit pretentious, but it was better to start small than to spread too wide and have the whole thing fizzle out monts later.
“All right then, let’s go again.”
As if answering my call, the ashen-gray flas surged up once more, wild and alive.
***
Hours passed as I got lost in the rhythm of training. Suddenly, I thought of Laneige, wondering how she was doing. When I finally turned toward the direction she had gone, I found her there, drenched in sweat, struggling to control the power of her Blessing of the Frost.
“Laneige, how’s the training going?” I asked.
She forced a weak smile and nodded. “Ah, y-yeah. It’s fine.”
I picked up a towel and gently wiped the sweat from her forehead. “Take a break. You’ve done enough for now.”
“N-no! I can still keep going!”
“Maybe so, but you should at least eat sothing first.”
“Um.”
I took her hand. “Co on.”
I led her to a tree stump nearby. “Let’s see. What’s for lunch today?”
She rummaged through her bag and pulled out a few wrapped buns. “I, um, I bought so bread from the campus store.”
I blinked in surprise. “Bread? Not your usual bento?”
Until now, every ti we trained together, she always packed a homade lunch for us. She was probably busy today. Then again, making a lunchbox every single ti couldn’t be easy.
“Sorry. I couldn’t make one this ti,” she said.
I wasn’t heartless enough to complain about sothing like that. “Don’t be. You’ve fed plenty already. Honestly, this bread’s not bad. It’s kinda nostalgic.”
Laneige nodded weakly, nibbling on her bread without much energy. “Yeah.”
For a while now, I had noticed a shadow hanging over her face, a heaviness she couldn’t quite hide. So, I asked, “Laneige.”
“Y-yeah? What is it?”
“N-no, it’s nothing. I’m just tired, that’s all.”
I said, “Hmm. Then maybe we should stop here for today?”
In a trembling voice, she said, practically shouting, “N-no! I want to keep training! No, I need to keep going!”
I frowned and placed a hand on her shoulder. “I told you before. Overdoing it will only make things worse in the long run.”
Laneige lowered her head, lips pressed tightly together. “You do the sa too.”
“What?”
“You always push yourself.”
“That’s...”
“You keep doing it because you can’t die, right?”
“No, that’s not...”
“But you still feel pain, don’t you? It still hurts when you’re injured. It still makes you suffer.”
Her voice trembled, and she looked fragile, as if she would shatter if I touched her the wrong way.
She gripped my hand tightly with both of hers, biting her lip hard. “You keep pushing yourself even when it hurts. Even when it’s unbearable. You keep trying anyway.”
“Laneige.”
“So can’t I just try a little harder too?”
Sothing in my gut scread that letting her go on like this wasn’t right. So, I said, “Let’s go back.”
“Dale...”
“We’ll train again tomorrow, okay? That’s fine, isn’t it?”
Since I was suspended anyway, I had no classes for the ti being. I could make ti to help her train again tomorrow.
She nodded faintly, smiling as she stood. “Okay.”
Her hands gently released mine. “You really are kind, Dale.”
“What’s that supposed to an all of a sudden?” I asked.
“Hehe. Nothing.”
Just like that, after a simple lunch, we made our way back to the academy.
“I’ll ssage you tomorrow,” I said.
“Mmhmm. See you then, Dale.” She waved lightly.
***
As Dale headed toward his room, he was unaware that Laneige just stood there, silently watching his back. Laneige finally moved after Dale had disappeared from her view, but she didn’t go back to her dorm. Instead, she turned toward the wooden hills behind the academy, the sa place where they had trained together.
As she stood there, certain words replayed in her mind, echoing again and again. No, “replayed” wasn’t the right word. Since that day, those words hadn’t stopped replaying; they were all she could think about.
The previous day, she had asked, “Dale. In my past life, what happened to ?”
Dale had said, “Laneige, you were...”
“P-please, tell the truth!”
She shouldn’t have asked. She should have left it alone.
“The Witch of the Night.”
That was what Dale had called her. He had told her not to worry, that the future had changed, that she would never beco a witch. And she knew that. She knew the future had changed and that she no longer had to tremble in the cold. But still, it wasn’t good enough.
She thought, Look at now.
Laneige slowly summoned the power of her Blessing. A swirl of snow and frost surrounded her as sweat trickled down her temple. Even as she bit her lip hard enough to draw blood, the power of the Blessing of the Frost refused to obey her.
“Ah!Ugh.”
A tear welled up in her eye and fell, mixing with the sweat that rolled down her face.
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