The Support Ate it All-Chapter 513: Raid Week 14–15 Strategy Battle (1)

“......”

Red eyes glanced up at this side, then quietly returned to where they’d been.

Hong Yeon-hwa, wiggling as if embarrassed but apparently not wanting to get up yet, kept her head on my lap.

From my perspective, whether someone clung to me to sleep or I lent them my lap, it was the same thing.

It was still the Kim Ho pillow.

So I let it be and spoke to Seo Ye-in and Song Cheon-hye.

“Same rules. No other stuff, only the squeaky hammer. Three minutes.”

“Yes.”

“Confirmed.”

“I’ll count to three and you start. One, two...... three!”

In stark contrast to Song Cheon-hye, who kicked off the ground immediately, Seo Ye-in just stood there blankly, watching her opponent approach.

The distance between them closed in an instant, and both squeaky hammers swung at the same time.

SQUEAK!

But only one person got hit.

Song Cheon-hye.

At the unexpected result, she lifted her eyes slightly—then burned her fighting spirit again and stepped in.

“......”

Seo Ye-in tilted and twisted her body, dodging the incoming attacks by hair-thin margins.

Then, the moment her opponent pulled the squeaky hammer back, she shoved her own hammer in like lightning.

SQUEAK!

Watching, Hong Yeon-hwa let out a low exclamation.

“Whoa......”

She’d seen Seo Ye-in fight plenty of times, but because their classes were different, it must’ve been hard to gauge her exact level.

But when you put the same weapon in their hands and made them fight under simple rules, it showed immediately.

SQUEAK! SQUEAK SQUEAK!

No matter who looked, Seo Ye-in had the advantage.

Her evasion wasn’t absolutely perfect—she took one or two hits—but she landed more than double that.

Song Cheon-hye’s face was openly flustered, like she hadn’t expected to be pushed back this hard.

Meanwhile, I’d expected this from the start.

‘Because the time invested isn’t even close.’

If I’d sparred with Song Cheon-hye for just a bit over a month, I’d been sparring with Seo Ye-in off and on since early in the first semester.

‘And if we’re being cold about it, the talent gap is pretty big too.’

If you put it in terms of there being someone above someone who’s already outstanding, Song Cheon-hye was the type who “flew” in her own right.

It’s just that the genius sloth was commuting by space shuttle.

For those reasons, at least in close combat, Seo Ye-in couldn’t lose even if she tried.

It seemed Song Cheon-hye realized that too as she got bonked for three straight minutes.

“......I lost. Good work.”

“Good match.”

After returning the ritual courtesy, Seo Ye-in trudged over this way.

Then she stared down at Hong Yeon-hwa.

“Return pillow.”

“.......”

Hong Yeon-hwa, reading the room, carefully slid away from my lap.

The Kim Ho pillow rental period had been a mere three minutes.

Seo Ye-in tried to reclaim the empty spot, but that attempt failed when I sprang to my feet.

I looked at the three of them and asked,

“Anyone want more? You can run it back.”

Song Cheon-hye and Hong Yeon-hwa exchanged a quick glance, then refused at the same time.

“I’m good.”

“Me too...... I’m fine.”

Well, to use sparring to improve, you at least needed to be on decent terms.

And if they fought Seo Ye-in, it was obvious they’d get crushed.

Soon, Hong Yeon-hwa spoke.

“Then...... I’m gonna go. I have to finish my research.”

As part of her hardship quest, she was developing a spell.

She hadn’t used it in duel battles yet since it wasn’t ready for practical use, but she said she was making steady progress—so I figured she’d complete it before long.

I nodded easily.

“Yeah. Work hard.”

“......Ah, and my sister said she got ‘that’.”

If it was Hong Ye-hwa’s “that,” then nine times out of ten it was the [Book of Chaos].

“She got it fast. It’s not urgent, though.”

“She said no one was using it right now, so.......”

“Good, then. I’ll message you later.”

“Yeah......!”

I waved to Hong Yeon-hwa as she left the training room.

Watching that, Song Cheon-hye asked with a deeply suspicious expression.

“What is ‘that’?”

“There’s a thing like that.”

The [Book of Chaos] was, strictly speaking, a banned item.

If it got out that they had it, the disciplinary committee club might storm the Ruby Magic Tower.

And saying we were going to use it for an unauthorized raid would be even worse.

When I kept dodging the question, Song Cheon-hye grumbled.

“What is it, seriously? You two always talk like you’re the only ones who know.”

“Everyone can have one or two secrets. We’ve got stuff only we know too. For example—”

“Ah—no! Why are you giving an example? She can hear us!”

Song Cheon-hye hurriedly cut me off.

It wouldn’t help anything for Seo Ye-in to learn about the Wish Ticket.

Not that she looked interested—she was sprawled out on the floor—but still.

I shrugged.

“See? You want to keep secrets too.”

“......Fine. I just won’t ask.”

Only then did Song Cheon-hye back off, though her face said she hadn’t dropped her suspicion completely.

To change the subject, I lifted the squeaky hammer.

“Let’s finish training.”

“......Sure.”

Song Cheon-hye returned to a serious attitude and took her place across from me. 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝔀𝓮𝒃𝙣𝓸𝒗𝒆𝒍.𝙘𝒐𝒎

Soon the training room filled with the sound of squeaky hammers coming down, current sizzling, and lightning striking.

*****

As a result of investing the rest of the weekend entirely into sparring, not only Song Cheon-hye but I too gained the results we’d aimed for.

[‘Wind Force’ has increased in grade. (B+→A+)]

[‘★Blink★’ has increased in rank. (C→B)]

▷ Cooldown: 2 minutes → 1 minute 20 seconds

Wind Force had always been one of my core skills, so that made sense.

But ★Blink★ was showing a shockingly steep growth curve.

It was probably because it was magic heavily affected by proficiency.

I planned to steadily raise the ranks of my other skills and ❖ Nоvеl𝚒ght ❖ (Exclusive on Nоvеl𝚒ght) traits as well.

And then the weekend ended, and Monday came.

While I was eating breakfast with Seo Ye-in, a message came in from the academy.

Stripping out the pointless fluff, it could be summarized in one line:

This week’s strategy-battle class will be conducted at a separate location.

Location information was displayed at the bottom.

Seo Ye-in seemed to have received the same message.

She read it, tilted her head, then asked with her eyes what it meant.

“......?”

“You know we’ve stacked up a lot of points.”

Every strategy-battle week, we’d cleared dungeons at a high completion level, and we’d recorded top-tier results in both midterms and finals.

Thanks to that, our cumulative points were now looking toward 25,000.

Seo Ye-in had gone with me for everything except weeks with [Random Matching], so her score was similar.

A lot of the upper-tier students had probably passed 20,000 by now too.

I pointed at the announcement.

“They’re calling us separately for a special class.”

“Special class?”

“You’ll see when we get there.”

They’d explain everything there, and there was no need for me to make my mouth sore talking in advance.

Seo Ye-in was still staring at the message with a puzzled look when, from somewhere, a frivolous voice came drifting over.

“Oh ho! Mornin’, mornin’! Good morning to you fine folks!”

It was Shin Byeong-cheol—future teahouse owner.

Noticing we were checking messages, he raised an eyebrow.

“What’d you get?”

“Looks like you didn’t get one.”

“I didn’t...... get one?”

He checked his messages just in case, but of course.

If my guess was right, he was somewhere in the low-to-mid 10,000s, so there was no way he’d received it.

With a heavy sigh, I put on a grave expression.

“It seems Shin Byeong-cheol is unable to join us. A truly regrettable outcome.”

“No, at least tell me what it is.”

“Perhaps we shall meet again next time.”

Seo Ye-in added a short line.

“Failed.”

*****

After coldly cutting off the failed teahouse owner, we headed to the “separate location” listed in the notice.

When we arrived, it turned out to be a classroom that wasn’t used often.

Several students were already seated inside, and as expected, they were all upper-tier talents.

Jo Byeok and Geum Johan from the disciplinary committee club.

Song Cheon-hye.

And I also spotted Lee Seul-bi, who’d been an opponent in duel battles not long ago.

Lee Seong-hyeon, seated off to one side, greeted us with a light nod.

And as always, Park Nari was currently being beaten up by Beomi and Chaemi.

After exchanging greetings with the familiar faces, I found a suitable seat and sat down.

After a short wait, Go Hyeon-woo, Han So-mi, Hong Yeon-hwa, and others arrived and filled the remaining seats.

— ♩♪♬♩♩—

A melody flowed from the speakers, signaling class time.

Right on cue, Seo Cheong-yong entered the classroom and, wearing his usual friendly smile, began to speak.

“You probably guessed it from the notice. The reason you’re all gathered here today is—”

A single term appeared on the board.

[20,000 points]

“Because your strategy-battle points have passed 20,000! I heard from other teachers that this is also a new record.”

Normally, students passed 20,000 around early second year—fastest, around first-year finals.

This year’s first-years kept smashing records nonstop, so teaching was actually fun, Seo Cheong-yong said, smiling brightly.

“Then what can you do from 20,000 points? Just like the E-rank restriction was lifted at 10,000 points, at 20,000 points the D-rank restriction is lifted. Starting next year, you’ll even be able to take D-rank external requests.”

For that reason, the higher the authority, the better.

For the underground floors, you could sneak down one way or another, but for external requests, that was basically impossible.

But then the board was erased and a new term appeared.

[Promotion Examination]

“However, from D-rank onward, you have to pass an examination.”

F- and E-rank dungeons were relatively low-risk.

Even if things went wrong, most cases ended in minor injuries.

So they’d granted authority just by piling up experience—cumulative points.

But from D-rank and above, there were countless dungeons where failing the raid meant death.

And the defensive power of the standard-issued uniform was D-rank, meaning monster attacks became far more lethal as well.

So when deciding entry qualification, they needed criteria beyond experience alone.

“You’re probably curious how the examination works, but it’s not complicated. You clear a dungeon, and we watch the replay.”

It was a surface-floor artificial dungeon.

Naturally, the difficulty was tuned to D-rank.

Seo Cheong-yong added with a grin,

“It’s a dungeon designed with a focus on evaluating skill, so it might feel harder than a normal D-rank. But you need to be able to handle this much for us teachers to worry less, right?”

The students nodded in agreement.

If you could only barely scrape through an artificial dungeon, then in the real field, there was a high chance you’d end up in danger.

So to pass the promotion examination, your completion level had to exceed the academy’s threshold.

“Just in case, I’ll say it again: you can challenge whenever you want. If you think you need more experience, or you’re not mentally ready yet, don’t force it. Aim for the next one.”

Physically and time-wise, the number of dungeons you could raid was limited.

If it felt like you wouldn’t pass, wouldn’t it be more productive to farm rewards at E-rank instead?

A brief silence fell.

A few students seemed to think it over, then raised their hands.

“I...... I’ll do it next time.......”

“Me too.”

Seo Cheong-yong nodded readily, then gestured lightly toward the door.

“You can go back to your classroom. Once you’re confident, challenge it then. Anyone else?”

“......”

“No? Then let’s talk about the dungeon you’ll be raiding now.”