The Heretic of Cleric Academy-Chapter 39

"You all know there’s a practical this morning, right? Work hard, and have a good day today! Oh, In-ah, please come to the faculty office for a moment."

When Ha Ye-jin’s morning assembly ended, Jeong In-ah pushed her chair back with a rolling sound and got up from her seat. Then she left the classroom.

Several students, including me and Gu Jun-hyeok, glanced at Jeong In-ah. Perhaps because she had been noticeably in a low mood all day, everyone seemed scared.

"So why did you fight?"

Gu Jun-hyeok approached and asked casually.

"Said something wrong."

"What did you say? This is the first time I’ve seen Jeong In-ah this pissed off. It’s legendary."

"Don’t know. Get lost..."

I was tired and had no energy, but more than anything, I wasn’t in the mood to talk. I didn’t answer and just laid my head down on the desk. Even so, Gu Jun-hyeok didn’t get tired and kept talking to me.

Why did we fight, what did I say, if you touch her today you’ll die immediately, and so on. They were all meaningless words.

"You’re not talking to the end. I’ll just go ask Jeong In-ah then?"

When I didn’t answer while lying down, Gu Jun-hyeok finally gave up and got up from his seat. Then he left the classroom.

A few minutes later, there was a clattering sound from the hallway. Gu Jun-hyeok, who had gone out, came back in. He was limping. It seemed he had been hit by Jeong In-ah.

"You said you’d go ask. Why did you come back beaten up?"

"She wouldn’t answer, so I kept asking, and then she suddenly hit me. Why is she acting like that?"

Gu Jun-hyeok grumbled while touching his shin.

Right after that, Jeong In-ah, who had been out, entered the classroom. Looking at her face, she seemed really angry.

Would her anger subside within today? No, maybe not just today, but she might continue to ignore me from now on.

Thinking this way made me feel somewhat depressed, and my heart was complicated in various ways.

"Look at that expression. She looks ready to kill someone. What are you going to do? You’re in big trouble."

Gu Jun-hyeok looked back and forth between Jeong In-ah and me while giggling. He showed no sign of worry and just seemed to find this situation amusing.

* * *

There was a practical this morning. The location was the Sacred Training Ground. I went with Gu Jun-hyeok, and Jeong In-ah went with her friends. Jeong In-ah had plenty of friends besides me and Gu Jun-hyeok.

She had many people to hang out with even without me, and even if I disappeared, she would be fine.

"Who are you to say?"

Suddenly, Jeong In-ah’s voice echoed in my ears.

I was truly nothing to her. I was just someone who could be there or not, it didn’t matter.

While walking, Legba cleared his throat with a "ahem."

[There’s no need to think so pessimistically.]

Legba continued.

[All human relationships are like that. If you try to hold on, they run away, and if you try to let go, then they come to you. Don’t worry about it and just do what you need to do.]

My heavy heart felt a little lighter. That didn’t mean my mood improved much though.

Eventually we arrived at the Sacred Training Ground. There were incredibly many people bustling about. It seemed there were students from other classes besides the Charity class.

When the time came, Ha Ye-jin opened her mouth with a beaming smile.

"Nice to see you~ Today’s practical is a joint practical between the Purity class and Charity class. Recently, many faculty members have gone on dispatch, so there are many joint practicals."

Ha Ye-jin went on with various small talk.

Demon races and magical beasts were occurring simultaneously nationwide, so several teachers had gone on dispatch duty to provide personnel support. Because of this, the school was short on teachers, and naturally there were many joint practicals. Those were roughly the stories.

"Why do Satan worshippers always only release magical beasts and demon races? Don’t they have anything else to do?"

Gu Jun-hyeok, who was listening, muttered to himself. It didn’t seem like he expected an answer, so I just stayed quiet.

Ha Ye-jin, who had been going on with small talk, looked at her watch and made a surprised expression with an "Oh!"

"Oh my, this can’t be delayed. Sorry! I’ll start with the practical explanation right away. The reason you’ve all gathered here today is to create fusion blessing circles."

Ha Ye-jin explained while drawing four blessing circles in the air. Soon, the strokes of each blessing circle began to intertwine and merge with other blessing circles. Thus, the four blessing circles became one.

The light of blessing emanating from there was so bright and brilliant it was dazzling.

It was a fusion blessing.

While fusion sorcery could only be used by me as the cult leader, fusion blessings could be used by even archbishop-level priests.

[Because the difficulty of spell circles is far higher than blessing circles.]

Legba said quietly.

Sorcery has high difficulty and is not easy to master, making it difficult to disseminate to ordinary believers. On the other hand, blessings have low difficulty, making it possible to disseminate advanced techniques like fusion blessings to ordinary believers.

This was also one of the reasons why Voodoo was defeated in the Holy War.

"Roughly like this. I trust you all know what it is, so let’s move on! Oh right, this practical is done in groups. Four people per group. You’ll cooperate with your team members to deploy fusion blessing circles, then give a presentation about the blessing circles you deployed! Then let me form the groups first!"

Ha Ye-jin was panting just from announcing the practical content to all the students. She seemed unusually frantic today.

After catching her breath briefly, she hurriedly took something out of her pocket.

At first glance, it looked like a laser pointer, but it was too big to be called that. It was also too small to be called a beam projector.

Ha Ye-jin emitted divine power and injected it into that unidentified object.

Whoosh!

Light shot out from the object and became a hologram floating in the air.

Group 1

Seong Ha-yeon, Gu Jun-hyeok, Han Jun-seo, Yu Chan

Group 2

Ha Yu-ri, Heo Jun-gang, Go Jang-su, Im Dan-myeong

Group 3

Seo Yo-han...

...

...

The hologram showed group assignments from Group 1 to Group 50 organized in a table.

"Wow~ How fascinating. Technology has really advanced. In the old days, they were all combat holy items, but these days..."

The object Ha Ye-jin used seemed to be a holy item.

Ha Ye-jin kept exclaiming in admiration and gave a speech about technological advancement.

I didn’t listen to Ha Ye-jin’s words and just stared blankly at the floating hologram window.

Group 46

Ha Dae-su, Yoon Wu-jin, Jeong In-ah, Do Seon-woo

I happened to be in the same group as Jeong In-ah, who I had just fought with. Gu Jun-hyeok, who was looking at it with me, tapped my shoulder. He grinned and opened his mouth.

"May you rest in peace! Good luck!"

Then he walked away toward where his group was like he was running away. I was left alone, looking around. Jeong In-ah was standing with her arms crossed, looking displeased. Her gaze was so sharp it seemed like it could cut.

I was reluctant to approach first, but it was also awkward not to approach.

"Are you Do Seon-woo?"

While I was hesitating, two students from the Purity class approached and spoke to me. They had name tags saying ’Ha Dae-su’ and ’Yoon Wu-jin’ on their chests. Both were in Group 46, the same group as me.

Ha Dae-su had long hair and a very fierce impression, while Yoon Wu-jin had short hair and a neat impression. They didn’t resemble each other at all, so it was easy to distinguish them.

"Everyone! The time limit is 150 minutes! You can decide the presenter and group leader yourselves! Then start!"

While I was exchanging simple greetings with Ha Dae-su and Yoon Wu-jin, Ha Ye-jin added explanations. Unlike Kim Bok-dong, her voice was small, so several students couldn’t properly hear Ha Ye-jin’s words and tilted their heads.

Ha Ye-jin shouted like that for a while and then finally seemed exhausted, hanging her head and panting.

Wouldn’t it be better to just use a microphone?

"She’s an interesting person. Is she your homeroom teacher?"

Yoon Wu-jin asked with a laugh. His way of speaking somehow felt like he was mocking the other person, but it seemed to be just a habit, not intentional.

When I nodded, Yoon Wu-jin raised just one corner of his mouth and smiled with a "heh."

"But where’s Jeong In-ah? Isn’t she from your class?"

Ha Dae-su asked with a puzzled face, looking around. His unkempt long hair swayed left and right. His way of speaking had somewhat rough aspects.

Yoon Wu-jin and Ha Dae-su were complete opposites in every aspect from appearance to speech and habits.

Then, someone walked up behind Ha Dae-su with heavy steps.

"I’m here, why?"

An ice-cold tone. The atmosphere that had been harmonious, if not cheerful, instantly froze cold.

Jeong In-ah crossed her arms and stood with one leg cocked, looking over the three of us one by one. Especially, the gaze that reached me was extremely cold and chilly.

"We don’t have time for small talk, so let’s start right away."

Jeong In-ah said. We hurriedly finished our greetings and prepared to draw fusion blessing circles.

* * *

"I’ll be the group leader and presenter. Is that okay?"

Before starting to draw fusion blessing circles in earnest, at the group meeting, Jeong In-ah spoke confidently.

Naturally, the higher one’s understanding of general blessings, the better they handle fusion blessings too. And among us, Jeong In-ah definitely had the highest understanding of blessings.

Therefore, none of us could object to Jeong In-ah’s words.

"The keywords are ’wide-area,’ ’recovery,’ ’mental.’ We’ll proceed focusing on practicality, and the general framework is..."

She continued explaining. Development diagrams this, blessing circles that, junction parts this. They were words I couldn’t understand.

I listened quietly from the side, occasionally nodding to pretend I understood.

"Then, Ha Dae-su. You draw the development diagram simply and briefly as I said. Yoon Wu-jin, you remember all the blessings I mentioned earlier, right? Help from the side. And Do Seon-woo."

Jeong In-ah, who was systematically dividing roles, suddenly stopped speaking after saying my name. Her eyes that had been burning with enthusiasm briefly cooled coldly.

"...You find something to do yourself."

Then she awkwardly turned her head away. The tone itself wasn’t that cold, but the content of the words was cold. It seemed her anger had definitely subsided compared to earlier, but it didn’t seem like her anger had completely disappeared yet.

Thus, the role assigned to me was ’finding something to do yourself.’ However, the team members continued making fusion blessing circles efficiently without me, and there was nothing for me to do.

"Wait. But what about writing the presentation outline? Don’t we need to do that?"

Ha Dae-su, who was drawing the development diagram, asked puzzledly.

"We don’t need it. I’m the presenter anyway."

In other words, ’It’s all in my head already, so there’s no need for an outline.’

Since it was Jeong In-ah saying this, no one raised any questions. She had such outstanding understanding of blessings that all the team members knew this fact.

"Yoon Wu-jin. Draw one more low-grade blessing additionally."

"Ha Dae-su? Cross-verify the blessing circles and development diagram. Brief me if there are any mistakes."

"Ah, this is wrong here. Yoon Wu-jin, help with the correction."

All instructions came from Jeong In-ah.

She not only gave instructions but also took on all the important parts of drawing fusion blessing circles.

Our Group 46 was essentially a one-man team led by Jeong In-ah. The angry Jeong In-ah was unusually charismatic and sharp without any sloppy behavior.

Since I felt uncomfortable just watching from the side without doing anything, I decided to help Yoon Wu-jin draw blessing circles.

However, it didn’t seem to help much, and rather, the more I intervened, the more the blessing circles seemed to become distorted.

"Do Seon-woo, don’t touch that part."

Yoon Wu-jin, who couldn’t stand it anymore, cautioned me. His lips still had that mocking smile.

"Ah, sorry."

I quietly stepped back.

Thinking about it, it was natural. There was no way I, who couldn’t even properly handle ordinary blessings, could handle fusion blessings.

With Yoon Wu-jin’s warning deflating my spirits, I just blankly watched the team members busily drawing blessing circles.

Group 46 continued drawing blessing circles smoothly without me. No, perhaps they could draw blessing circles even more smoothly because I wasn’t there.

I was like a ’radish kimchi’ existence. There or not, it didn’t matter.

Rather than standing around doing nothing like this, it seemed better to get out of the way.

"I’ll go to the bathroom for a moment."

Everyone was focused on drawing fusion blessing circles and didn’t answer me, so I tactfully got up from my seat and headed to the bathroom.

Gu Jun-hyeok was there. He was standing in front of the sink mirror, turning his head this way and that while grooming his hair.

"What are you doing?"

Gu Jun-hyeok was startled and turned to look this way.

"What. Why are you here too... Ah, don’t tell me. Did you also get ’left out’?"

"Left out? What are you talking about?"

"When doing group practicals, students are usually divided into three types."

Gu Jun-hyeok held up three fingers.

"1. Leaders who lead the group while dividing roles."

Then he folded his fingers one by one while continuing the explanation.

"2. Workers who perform given tasks according to their roles. And."

Gu Jun-hyeok folded his last finger.

"3. Useless outcasts. You and I belong here."

It was definitely correct, but it made me feel bad. At the same time, I was puzzled.

"You can use blessings somewhat. But why are you an outcast?"

While it’s natural for me to become an outcast since I can’t properly handle blessings, Gu Jun-hyeok handles blessings quite well. Within just the Charity class, it wouldn’t be wrong to say he’s right below Jeong In-ah.

Gu Jun-hyeok smiled awkwardly and opened his mouth.

"There’s someone on another level in our group. That all-white kid. Seong, Seong... Seong Myeong-jun?"

"Seong Ha-yeon."

"Right, her. Anyway, she said she’d do it all by herself, so the rest of us shouldn’t do anything."

I don’t know how Seong Ha-yeon becomes Seong Myeong-jun. Gu Jun-hyeok seemed to have a way of remembering names that was a bit different from others.

"Then she said something like ’You are all stupid and won’t be able to understand what I’m saying.’ It was kind of annoying. I don’t know why she uses formal speech either~"

Gu Jun-hyeok imitated Seong Ha-yeon’s tone and expression. It was professional-level acting.

"She’s been like that since middle school."

"Ah, you went to the same middle school? That must have been tough."

Gu Jun-hyeok shook his head.

Seong Ha-yeon was always consistently arrogant. However, her skills were as solid as her arrogance.

She could probably deploy fusion blessing circles by herself. At that level, she had the right to be arrogant.

Of course, I still dislike Seong Ha-yeon. Just looking at her gives me a physiological aversion.

"You look awkward too. In-ah didn’t give you anything to do, so you came here. I can see it all."

Gu Jun-hyeok’s following words were accurate without missing anything. I wondered if he had bugging devices or surveillance cameras attached to my body.

I smiled bitterly and was about to finish my business and leave the bathroom immediately.

"Hey, just stay. You won’t be helpful even if you go back anyway."

Gu Jun-hyeok kept fiddling with his hair. He was repeating the process of messing up his carefully groomed hair and then grooming it again. It seemed he had been spending time like this throughout the practical.

"Nobody welcomes us anyway, right? Let’s just chat here and kill time."

It was true. Even if I went back, I wouldn’t be helpful, and the team members wouldn’t welcome me either. However, I couldn’t just stay crouched in the bathroom.

"I don’t like freeloading."

"This isn’t freeloading, it’s that we don’t have licenses. If someone without a license tries to drive, there’ll be an accident. Just staying still is helping."

"Still, just staying still is a bit..."

"Ah, you’ll have nothing to do if you go back anyway."

Gu Jun-hyeok pouted as if disappointed. I left him behind and exited the bathroom, going to where the team members were.

The team members were still focused on drawing fusion blessing circles. They didn’t seem to care whether I came or not.

"Ah, Do Seon-woo. Help connect this part. Something keeps getting strangely tangled."

Occasionally Yoon Wu-jin would ask for my help. Each time, I helped them with all my might.

However, those times were really ’occasional.’ Except for those ’occasional’ times, no one needed me.

Time passed like that. The time that passed was only about 2 hours, but to me it felt like eons.

* * *

"Time’s up! Group leaders from each group, please come out. I’ll decide the presentation order~"

Finally, after 150 minutes passed, it was presentation time.

At Ha Ye-jin’s call, the group leaders from each group slowly came forward. The presentation order was decided by drawing lots. It was a classic but fair method.

The lot Jeong In-ah drew had ’24’ written on it. It meant the 24th turn.

"Good draw."

"Right. It’s right in the middle."

Yoon Wu-jin and Ha Dae-su praised Jeong In-ah’s drawing skills. 24th was just right, neither too early nor too late.

Nevertheless, there was no joyful expression on Jeong In-ah’s face. She stared intently at the ’24’ written on the lot and muttered quietly.

"What matters is who goes before us."

Before I could understand what she meant, Ha Ye-jin’s voice was heard from behind.

"Presentation time is 1 minute per group. And after the presentation ends, you’ll take questions for 1 minute. Bonus points may be awarded or deductions may be made depending on how well you answer your classmates’ questions! And responses to questions can be given by other team members, not just the presenter!"

She had brought a microphone from somewhere and spoke. She looked much more comfortable than before. Ha Ye-jin added "I should have used a microphone from the start~" with a bright smile.

"Then the first turn is... Group 49! Where is the Group 49 presenter?"

Ha Ye-jin looked around and asked. The Group 49 presenter reluctantly raised their hand. Ha Ye-jin approached them and handed over the microphone.

The face of the presenter holding the microphone was pale white with nervousness. They sighed deeply, cleared their throat, and finally began the presentation.

"Group 49’s pre-, presenter. I’m Jeong Chan-hui. The fusion blessing circle we made, first..."

The presentation time was very short at 1 minute. At first, I thought short would be comfortable and good, but after seeing Group 49’s presentation, my thoughts changed.

Because the presentation time was short, presenters had to present only the key points. Students without speaking skills all exceeded the time limit and received deductions.

Of course, there were groups that finished their presentations within 1 minute by speaking quickly or omitting some content. Group 3 was representative of this.

However, they also didn’t receive perfect scores.

"There’s a low-grade blessing circle drawn in the lower left, but why is it there? Was there an intention in drawing it?"

"Ah, that was accidentally made during the process..."

"The junctions between blessing circles seem somewhat loose. Was this intentional?"

"It wasn’t intentional.This was also from a minor mistake, but looking at the whole..."

"Then this fusion blessing circle is a product of mistakes from start to finish? Is there anything intentional?"

The Group 3 presenter, who had successfully finished their presentation and was breathing a sigh of relief, fell into panic due to the barrage of questions that followed.

All the questions were thrown by Seong Ha-yeon. Seong Ha-yeon cornered the presenters with precise and sharp criticisms.

"You’ll probably get some deductions for not being able to answer the questions. The Q&A was disappointing, but the presentation was good! Good work~"

"Yes... Thank you..."

In the end, the Group 3 presenter couldn’t answer any of Seong Ha-yeon’s questions. After finishing the Q&A, the Group 3 presenter stared blankly for a while with a dazed face, then finally shed tears. Seong Ha-yeon looked at her and sneered as if she found her pathetic.

22 groups had presented like that, but not a single group received perfect scores. Either points were deducted for exceeding time, or points were deducted for not answering Seong Ha-yeon’s questions. It was one or the other.

"Then who’s next?"

After the 22nd presentation ended, then the 23rd. Next would be our turn. Jeong In-ah was calming her nerves while catching her breath.

In response to Ha Ye-jin’s question about the next turn, someone raised their hand and spoke.

"It’s our group."

The tone was calm and the voice was small. Nevertheless, that voice was extremely certain and clear. Everyone in the Sacred Training Ground was looking at her.

"Ah..."

Jeong In-ah, who had been preparing for the presentation, let out a vague sigh looking at her.

Jeong In-ah’s words about who goes before us being important briefly echoed in my ears.