Chapter 13
Click.
Click.
Click.
I attempted to open the door.
However, unlike the bookshelf that had slid aside with ease, the iron door did not budge an inch.
‘What is this?’
I had thought I’d discovered a secret room so quickly.
It seemed they weren’t going to hand over the antidote quite so easily.
‘Let’s think calmly.’
I slowly scanned my surroundings.
I circled the study, which was filled with bookshelves, and looked back at the door.
The bookshelf no longer moved.
And on the door...
‘Ah.’
There was no need to overthink it; there was a hole.
The thickness looked exactly like the spears that had flown at us the moment we entered the Long Spear Pavilion.
Now that I thought about it, those spears had been exceptionally large.
Was the mechanism designed to be opened by shoving one of those in?
There was no harm in testing it.
Since I had roughly tossed the spear I’d snatched earlier onto the floor, I went back out into the hallway to retrieve it.
Just in case it didn’t fit, I grabbed the other spears scattered across the hallway as well, just to be safe.
“Ugh, don’t come running like that!”
I had already triggered most of the traps in the hallway, so I moved my body lightly—but Myeong-seong, who was coming out after checking another room near the entrance, was startled.
“Why are you taking those?”
“I think I’ll need them.”
“Did you find a clue?”
“Yes. I found a door that looks suspicious.”
I revealed the truth to the two of them without holding anything back.
“Oh, that’s amazing!”
Namgung Min looked a bit displeased, but he obediently helped me pick up the spears.
The two of them remained on high alert with every step they took in the hallway, but not a single new spear flew out.
“It must be a door hiding a great secret!”
Myeong-seong said with interest, and Namgung Min nodded slightly.
I inserted the spear I had brought into the hole.
Click.
My prediction was correct.
The spear fit into the hole perfectly like a key.
When I applied pressure, the door slid open easily.
“Oh!”
The hidden room was a space that looked as if an expert had spent years in closed-door cultivation.
Hundreds of long spears were densely embedded in the left and right walls, but the deep, complex spear marks covering the walls, floor, and even the ceiling were far more striking.
And right in front, I saw a red pouch.
It was the exact same shape as the one Paeng Jung-geol had briefly shown us.
“As I thought, they didn’t hide the antidote in some bizarre place.”
“Thanks to Miss Seol, we found the antidote quickly!”
“...I suppose so.”
Myeong-seong smiled brightly, and Namgung Min added a word with a somewhat dissatisfied expression.
Well, regardless of the path taken, finding it was what mattered.
We stepped into the room to retrieve the pouch.
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
At the same time, the walls reacted.
How many seconds had passed?
Before long, the spears I had thought were merely decorative... no, the ones I had actually been somewhat wary of, flew toward us.
“...!”
“Dodge!”
I hurriedly shoved Namgung Min and Myeong-seong back into the study, and as the three of us tumbled in, the door slammed shut.
“Ugh...”
It was fortunate that the iron door was quite thick.
Even though the spears were sharply honed, they couldn’t pierce the iron, and no one was hurt.
However, the mechanism inside this hidden room was on a completely different level from the hallway outside.
“Sorry for pushing you so suddenly. Are you okay?”
“Ugh... No, thank you.”
Namgung Min, Myeong-seong, and I stood up, brushing off our clothes.
Even though they had been pushed suddenly, no one blamed me since it was thanks to that action that we had avoided the spears.
“You saw the antidote, right?”
“...Yes.”
“Is it possible to retrieve that?”
No one spoke.
Even though we had only taken one step toward the antidote, dozens of spears had shot out.
That was just from the first row of mechanisms activating.
Without exaggeration, one would have to face hundreds of spears to reach the spot where the antidote was kept.
“What about opening and closing the door like we just did to trigger them all?”
Namgung Min suggested, but Myeong-seong and I shook our heads.
Namgung Min must not have seen it while he was being pushed, but the moment the iron door closed, other spears had replenished the empty spots.
“Were they sharp?”
“...They were different from these spears.”
Unlike the ones that had popped out in the hallway, the spears inside that room were honed to a razor’s edge.
They possessed enough killing intent and speed to pierce through a person.
If one were to stand in the middle of that, they would be shredded by dozens, or even hundreds, of spears.
“It doesn’t seem like this was made for us to pass through.”
Myeong-seong said.
I agreed; it didn’t seem like this mechanism was intended for new students like us in the first place.
Perhaps it was installed so that an expert in spear techniques could practice fighting against hundreds of incoming spears?
“Hmm...”
Still, the study was safe.
I leaned against the wall and recalled the scene I had just witnessed over and over.
Having had plenty of experience training through mental imagery alone to avoid stimulating the Nine Yin Severed Meridians, I was quite good at running simulations.
“We might have to leave and find another antidote before it’s too late.”
Myeong-seong himself had said he wouldn’t take the crooked path, but now that the situation had turned out this way, he spoke up cautiously.
“It’s not that I necessarily want to take another student’s, but if we keep searching, we might happen to find one...”
After coming all this way?
No, that wasn’t it.
The answer clearly existed here as well.
And it was likely a problem that could be solved even with the brain of a fifteen-year-old.
Hadn’t the pattern of the spears in the hallway and the method of opening the door turned out to be simple once I figured them out?
I continued to review the scene I had seen in my head.
Could I deflect all hundred-plus spears?
That, at least, was absolutely impossible.
There had to be a special method to deal with them, perhaps a martial arts technique written in the spear manual displayed outside, but it was impossible to master that in a single day.
‘There is no need to deflect all of them.’
What about dodging?
Would there be space between the hundreds of spears?
No, the moment the first spear embedded itself in the floor, it would be over.
“Speed is the key.”
“Then. Before other students find it...”
I shook my head.
I wasn’t looking for the answer in another antidote.
A plausible method had occurred to me.
“We just need to run in a straight line and pass through before the spears shoot out.”
The Long Spear Pavilion was a mechanism formation designed to react when one stepped on the floor.
There was inevitably a delay before the mechanism moved, and I had been avoiding them by watching the movements or listening to the speed each time.
The number and sharpness of the spears were different, but this room was the same in that it took a few seconds for the spears to shoot out after taking the first step.
“What? This is on a completely different level from the spears that popped out one by one in the hallway!”
“But if the spears had truly flown out the moment we entered, we wouldn’t have been able to dodge back like this.”
I felt that I could do it.
“You’re going back in?”
Namgung Min was also horrified, but I inserted the spear to open the door once more.
“You two stay back in the hallway.”
They wouldn’t fly out past the iron door, but I made the others step back just in case.
“Are you really...”
“It’s possible.”
I opened the door with conviction.
And without a moment’s hesitation, I dashed in a straight line toward the pouch.
I could definitely run it.
I just had to run.
Kugugugung!
Immediately, the walls shook, and the mechanism activated.
Spears embedded themselves right behind me, and the next mechanism activated, but I didn’t have a shred of hesitation.
‘Got it!’
Ta-at!
I snatched the pouch and pressed myself against the wall.
Then, I drew my sword.
The spears in the first row I had observed earlier hadn’t been aimed at the wall, but I couldn’t be sure about the mechanisms behind them.
Swaek-! Shuaang!
Hundreds of spears descended with a bone-chilling sound of tearing air, but not a single one flew toward me.
“To think she could do that without even internal energy...?”
“Miss Seol! Are you hurt?”
See, I told you it was possible.
I held up the red pouch and shook it at the children who were worried about me.
“Success!”
As expected, it wasn’t that difficult once I found the answer.
It wasn’t that I hadn’t been scared, but by not acting foolishly and observing the first row accurately, I had been able to grasp the interval before the reaction.
Myeong-seong had a keen eye as well, so if he hadn’t been so scared, he might have figured it out too.
I even wondered if it was a test of courage.
Feeling proud, I opened the pouch.
“...”
The contents were different from what I had expected.
I didn’t mean the shape.
How would I know what an antidote for the Energy-Dispersing Poison looked like?
The problem was that there were only two pellets, which I assumed to be the antidote.
Sending three people to the Long Spear Pavilion only to find two antidotes.
They probably wanted the students to fight over this, right?
‘That’s too much, really.’
In the end, even if we cleared the Long Spear Pavilion, one person who didn’t get an antidote would have to live without internal energy or quickly steal from other students belonging to different groups.
If it was like this, there wouldn’t be enough antidotes for the number of people even if we went to the other locations written on the nameplates, and eventually, the students would have to fight each other.
‘Right, Paeng Jung-geol also said while showing the pouch earlier that we had to fight and win...’
Then, suddenly, I recalled the exact expression Paeng Jung-geol had used.
He hadn’t said that the students had to fight each other.
He had said that if we fought him and won, he would give us an antidote.
Moreover, he had actually been holding a red pouch in his hand.
‘Wasn’t he asking us to show him what it looked like?’
Only then did I realize that there were as many as three ways to obtain the antidote.
Obtain it from the place written on the nameplate.
If you can’t get it, fight and steal it from other students.
Or, challenge the martial arts instructor.
The other instructors besides Paeng Jung-geol also had pouches tied to their waists.
...Perhaps the amount missing from the total was something that could be obtained by challenging the instructors.
“Miss Seol! Why are you like that? Is the antidote not in there?”
As I stood there contemplating with the pouch in my hand, Myeong-seong asked in a loud voice.
Since the spears had been replenished just like before, spears would embed themselves again if the two of them tried to approach.
Even if they knew it was just a matter of running fast because I had demonstrated it, it would still be scary to jump in.
‘Hmm.’
First of all, distribution was the priority.
I had been the one to find the room and clear it in one go.
And I was the only one who had seen that there were only two pellets.
Naturally, what to do with this antidote.
It was up to me.
I calculated the model answer the instructors must have arranged.
Then, turning my back slightly, I hid one of the antidotes in my sleeve.
"It's not that there aren't any... but there's only one antidote?"
I said it nonchalantly.
For now, both of these are mine.
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