Why Did I Have to Enroll - Chapter 38

Lesson 9. Learning Martial Arts - 3

Ban Yu-won continued to circulate his Mysterious qi even while washing up and changing clothes.

Each time it circulated through his body, it heated up and some Mysterious qi evaporated, but since it naturally recovered about that much anyway, he could keep circulating it indefinitely as long as he maintained proper focus.

'I could probably increase the amount of circulating Mysterious qi, but if I did that, I might run out of magic power when I really need it, so I'll stop.'

However, circulating Mysterious qi like this had several additional benefits besides consuming magic power to train the body.

Among them, the most notable advantage was that it strengthened the body to a much greater extent than simply activating magic power.

With both permanent training effects and excellent physical enhancement, he couldn't help but praise Teacher Dokgo Yeon.

'And... it seems my senses have become much keener.'

He had felt that his senses became sharper when magic power was activated before, but Mysterious qi was special.

No... he even wondered if this might be the main ability of Mysterious qi, rather than permanently training or temporarily enhancing the body.

Especially as part of the power called the Babylonian Code, the amplification effect on his already special All-Seeing Eyes and All-Hearing Ears was truly immense.

He could hear things that were inaudible before, and see things in minute detail that were previously invisible.

'Could it be that she taught me the Mysterious Body Technique anticipating even this...?'

If so, Ban Yu-won had truly received a favor from Dokgo Yeon that couldn't be repaid with any ordinary gift.

He looked at Dokgo Yeon with suspicious eyes, but all he got in return was an enigmatic smile.

Meanwhile, Light and Luciel, who had been swallowing hard while watching Ban Yu-won's training, tried to act nonchalant as they greeted him when he finished washing up and got dressed again.

"Are you going to upload this video?"

"Are you crazy?"

"I think it would get a lot of views..."

Why does Luciel's face look even more flushed when she didn't even fight?

Ban Yu-won had many things he wanted to say to Luciel, who spoke with a reddened face, but Dokgo Yeon stepped in on his behalf.

"Even though it's not something you can understand just by looking, you should keep it a secret that you received martial arts training. ...Why are you looking at me like that, beast?"

"It's nothing."

"I hope you get stronger, Ban."

Luciel was wary of Dokgo Yeon, intuitively sensing that the martial arts Ban Yu-won had received were far from ordinary, while Light, who didn't think much of martial arts in general, as evident from his slip-up during the entrance ceremony, just shrugged it off thinking, 'It's probably just a technique that's good for the body.'

Dokgo Yeon smirked at their contrasting attitudes and urged Ban Yu-won.

"Well then, let's start looking for the way to Room 6. Even though we decided to take this exploration leisurely, I don't like staying in Room 5 all day."

"Come to think of it, it seems like it's about time for lunch."

"Don't even dream about it until we move on to Room 6."

"Hey, this isn't the military. Why are we being regulated on meals like this?"

Urged by his companions, Ban Yu-won began searching in earnest for the final destination of this maze.

His improved eyesight immediately came into effect here.

Being able to take in more at a glance and distinguish things more minutely naturally sped up his ability to discover and analyze language concepts...

"Hmm...?"

Sure enough, just as Ban Yu-won found the path leading to Room 6 and was about to guide his companions there, he paused.

In contrast to the clear concept of the path leading from their current chamber to Room 6, he saw another concept faintly buried in the opposite wall.

Whether by chance or necessity, it was something he wouldn't have been able to find without the enhanced eyesight from Mysterious qi.

"Shortcut (捷路)...?"

Adding the character for "swift" (捷) before "path" creates the meaning of a shortcut.

As Ban Yu-won approached the wall to check, he found a tiny crack there, and within that gap, illusions were densely packed, disguising it as a normal wall.

He could assert with certainty that without his presence, no one would have been able to find this.

"Well then."

He absorbed all the character strings of the illusions.

At first, the concepts seemed to resist slightly, but the moment he exerted his strong will, they were instantly pulled out and absorbed.

[Absorbing 50 Illusions.]

"50?! Are you kidding me."

Of course, it was extracted from the entire massive wall, but still, to obtain 50 depths in one go.

This meant that the existence of the shortcut had been that tightly concealed.

Ban Yu-won was about to put it into his code core when he shrugged at Eve's gesture of biting his forearm.

"You want this too?"

"Hssss."

"Alright, eat up and grow big."

He tried to give all the concepts, but Eve could only absorb up to 20.

It seemed that the little one's level was still lacking, and the amount of concepts it could absorb was gradually reaching its limit.

'Well, it's not unreasonable. I fed Eve the concept of... Division that I got from the elite we caught last time too.'

Realizing that its ability was insufficient to devour all the illusion concepts, Eve let out hissing cries, all fired up.

As Ban Yu-won grimly smiled, anticipating that Eve's activity might surpass his own in the next room, Luciel tugged at the arm that Eve wasn't wrapped around.

"Ban, this...!"

What appeared when the illusions collapsed was a staircase leading upwards.

Since the tower originally didn't have clear distinctions between rooms, and progress could only be judged by the occurrence of shifts, it was difficult to find such an overt structure suggesting ascension.

However, it wasn't entirely non-existent.

The textbook also mentioned that it was possible to skip multiple rooms if certain conditions were met.

"It looks like a shortcut. I wonder if that's why the difficulty was so high?"

"I thought this last week too, but our exploration seems very different from typical ones."

"That's why the videos are popular among the academy students too."

Honestly, if they had recorded a normal exploration that any academy student would have experienced, only outsiders might find it interesting, but who among the academy would enjoy watching it?

It's because the videos show freshmen facing off against monsters and traps of a level unbelievable for the tower's entrance, and even elite monsters, that they're getting such good responses.

More than half of them are probably thinking, 'Wow, the video editing is amazing!' though.

"So, what are we going to do?"

Ban Yu-won turned to his companions regarding the stairs and asked an obvious question.

Of course, the answer that came back was just as obvious.

"We have to go, of course."

"It's not like increasing difficulty is anything new."

"Let's go."

It was unanimous.

Just in case, the group began climbing the stairs vigorously, with Eve transformed into a shield leading the way.

There were some minor attacks while climbing the stairs, but they were just bats clinging to the back of the stairs rushing at them.

"Ahhh!"

"Light, you're going to fall if you keep that up."

"You're really pathetic. You can't even react to that one thing?"

And Light, without his holy sword, finally got labeled as even worse than Ban Yu-won.

He seemed to have moved his body quite well without the holy sword yesterday, but once inside the tower, his movements were becoming more and more sluggish as they progressed!

"I've always fought with a sword until now. It's inevitable that I'm a bit tense!"

"A bit?"

"Ah, Room 6."

Just as Dokgo Yeon was about to respond to Light's excuse, Luciel suddenly muttered.

Before they knew it, their surroundings had darkened, and they couldn't visually confirm anything except the stairs they were climbing.

"It doesn't seem like a shift has occurred, though?"

"These stairs themselves might be the shift. What are you doing, Light? Aren't you going to walk faster?"

"I'm not scared!"

"Who said you were?"

Since the stairs were still continuing, the group kept moving without stopping.

Now even the bats had stopped appearing.

It felt as if they were crawling into the darkness.

"Room 7."

This time it was Light's voice.

Although they had wasted a lot of time in Room 5, to skip two rooms at once...

But more importantly, the stairs still hadn't ended.

"Skipping three rooms at once...?"

"It might not be just three."

In response to Light's astonished mutter, Dokgo Yeon lifted her head to look up at the continuing stairs and replied almost to herself.

Her smooth, deer-like neck was emphasized, and Ban Yu-won, who had been unconsciously staring at it, quickly managed his gaze.

"What kind of shortcut did you find, Ban Yu-won?"

"I didn't know it would be such an incredible shortcut either."

In fact, when the depth of the illusion hiding this shortcut was as high as 50, he had expected it to be an unusual path, but...

"Wasn't it in the textbook? Shortcuts are definitely incredible luck, but the difficulty of the next room increases proportionally to the number of rooms skipped."

"I think I also read that the rewards are likely to be higher as well."

"Our exploration difficulty is already high. And if the cost of skipping three rooms is added on top of that..."

"Then the rewards should be even better, right?"

Dokgo Yeon snorted in response to Light's indirect appeal to use the holy sword.

Ban Yu-won also smiled kindly and backed her up.

"It's okay, Light. As long as no irregulars are involved, it's not a big deal even if we die."

"Baaaan..."

"Don't cling to me, my friend."

Light's obsession with the holy sword was comparable to Gollum's craving for the One Ring.

By this point, not just Ban Yu-won, but the other members of Class 11 were also intuiting that there was some issue with his contract with the holy sword.

"Wouldn't it be better to just destroy it? It's clear that the basics haven't rotted yet."

"Don't say such nonsense...!"

Light, horrified at the suggestion of destroying it, covered his chest.

Ban Yu-won realized that this was a gesture to protect the necklace he was wearing.

'So the core really is that necklace, huh.'

Not yet, but someday soon, the day would come when all of his secrets would be revealed.

Deciding to deal with it decisively when that time comes, he turned his head, and suddenly realized that the number on the pendant had increased by one more.

"Room 8."

"As expected, it's still continuing."

"No way, we're skipping four rooms?!"

Light's body was trembling.

When he wasn't holding the holy sword, even his mental stats seemed to decrease overall!

Ban Yu-won was about to tease him, saying he was as cute as a newborn fawn, when suddenly Luciel gripped his arm tightly.

"Luciel, you don't have to use my arm as a communication device..."

"Right ahead, enemy."

Her voice had hardened.

Her hair, now nearly half-dyed black, hinted at her condition.

Above all, as she clung tightly to his body, it felt like heaven and hell were descending upon him simultaneously!

"Luciel, wait..."

"Enemy, irregular...! It's exactly like that time!"

"Calm down first, I understand!"

"Grr, grrr...!"

Trying to calm her down with words was futile.

In the end, Ban Yu-won resorted to a somewhat forceful method, wrapping Eve, who had transformed into chains, around Luciel's body as she clung to him, pulling at his arm as if trying to rip it off.

"Grr... hah, haaa."

Eventually, Luciel, her strength drained, slumped against Ban Yu-won's shoulder.

Ban Yu-won just shook his head as he faced Light and Dokgo Yeon, who were looking at him as if he were a criminal.

"No, it's not my fault. She really did pounce on me."

"You're mistaken, Ban Yu-won. I wasn't glaring at you, I was just disgusted by that beast's mating behavior."

"Me too... I know Ban isn't the kind of man who would initiate such rude behavior first."

The trust shown by his classmates almost brought tears to his eyes!

"By the way, this is Room 9, right? Well, I guess it's natural if you think about it."

"That's right."

Light nodded in agreement to Dokgo Yeon's words.

"Because Room 10 is the rest area."

"Right. It didn't seem likely we'd move straight to the rest area in one go."

There are several rules inside the tower.

If you had to choose the absolute rule among them, it would be that 'there is a rest area every 10 rooms.'

There are several patterns to these rest areas, including bad luck and jackpots, but the important point is that monsters never appear.

That's why parties of students challenging the tower often use these 10 rooms as a unit of difficulty.

"And they said elite monsters are more likely to appear in Room 9, right?"

"Based on what we've experienced so far, it's almost guaranteed."

"No, that's not it."

Luciel, who was leaning on Ban Yu-won and catching her breath, shook her head and said.

"Irregular. It's an irregular."

"If it's the same irregular as last time, could it be a constellation...?"

Again?

But it wasn't that surprising, as they had already heard something similar in Professor Xenon's class this Tuesday.

Didn't he say that humans who have been approached by a constellation once have a higher probability of being approached by other constellations?

In other words, from the moment Ban Yu-won's group encountered a constellation, they were destined to become entangled with other constellations in the future.

"Even so, being harassed by constellations every time we enter is a bit..."

"Sigh."

Dokgo Yeon let out a grand sigh and said.

"Shall we eat first?"

"Yeah, that would be better."

To react like that after learning that an urgent battle was waiting for them, Dokgo Yeon was indeed no ordinary person.

As Ban Yu-won opened his inventory with a bitter smile, he heard Dokgo Yeon turning to Light and saying,

"Light, hold your sword when we enter the room."

"Right...! You can leave everything to me now!"

"That sudden change in attitude is really unpleasant."

Ban Yu-won shared a similar sentiment with Dokgo Yeon, but seeing Light noticeably deflate, he decided not to deliver the finishing blow.