Chapter 13: The “Ice Warrior” Melts

At that same hour, following Kim Seong-ho’s advice to file a formal complaint, Se-hyeon headed straight for the Seoul Awakened Academy.

The Academy was essentially a boarding school. Students were required to live in dorms to minimize outside distractions and potential safety risks before graduation. While leave was granted for family emergencies, commuting was strictly forbidden. Se-hyeon had come to deliver the equipment he had scavenged and earned during yesterday’s hunt.

“Halt! State your business,” a guard commanded at the entrance. The Academy was a high-security zone, constantly wary of individuals with ulterior motives.

“I’m here to see my sister.” “Is she a student here?” “Yes. Jang Se-hee, a third-year.”

The name clearly rang a bell. Se-hee was a celebrity within the Seoul Academy. The guard’s posture softened slightly. “You’re Se-hee’s brother? May I see some identification?”

Se-hyeon pulled out his Awakened Registration Card. It carried far more legal weight than a standard ID.

“Ah! You’re an Awakened yourself. One moment.” After verifying the data, the guard handed back the card. “Confirmed. That building over there is for third-years. Classes aren’t over yet, so you’ll have to wait. However, you must leave the weapon here.”

The guard gestured toward the iron mace in Se-hyeon’s hand.

“Oh, this? It’s a gift for my sister. Can’t I just bring it in?” “No weapons allowed on campus grounds, regardless of the reason. Leave it with us. When you come back out with Student Jang Se-hee, we will hand it directly to her.”

Reluctantly, Se-hyeon handed over the Berserker’s Mace.

Entering the campus, Se-hyeon navigated toward the third-year block. Having visited several times before, he was familiar with the layout. He watched students training in the open courtyards.

First-years, yet to awaken, were focused on physical conditioning and meditation. Second-years, freshly awakened, were practicing skill activation and class-specific combat drills. To Se-hyeon, who had been forced into a regular high school after his “failure” verdict, these sights always felt like scenes from a fantasy movie.

At the entrance of the third-year building, another guard stopped him. “Jang Se-hyeon, here to see Jang Se-hee.” “One moment… Student Jang Se-hee is currently in Training Room 3 for a Party Combat class. It ends in about ten minutes. Please wait in the lounge.”

The first floor was a high-tech lobby featuring a cafeteria, convenience store, and various leisure facilities—a perk of the Association’s massive investment into top-tier talent.

Slide—

As Se-hyeon sat in a corner of the lounge, he overheard a group of students nearby huddled around a smartphone.

“Hey, did you see this video?” “The one from the F-rank dungeon? Yeah, I saw it. It’s gotta be fake. How can a D-rank Mage crush a wave solo?” “Exactly. Even a full D-rank party would struggle. Unless he’s actually a B-rank in disguise.” “If it’s real, isn’t he an Irregular? No normal D-rank Mage moves like that.” “I’m betting on CGI. Total clickbait.”

Se-hyeon blinked. Are they talking about me? There weren’t many D-rank Mages soloing waves in F-rank dungeons lately. His suspicion was confirmed when one of the students glanced over at him, then back at the phone.

“Wait… doesn’t that guy over there look exactly like the guy in the video?” “Huh? Let me see… Whoa, he actually does.” “Nah, probably just a lookalike.”

The students whispered, stealing glances but too shy to approach. Someone must have been filming during the chaos, Se-hyeon realized. Porters and hunters often filmed raids for social media views; a video of a wave being obliterated would have gone viral instantly.

Just then, the lounge doors swung open.

“Oppa!”

Se-hee came running in, still slightly flushed from her training session.

“Hey, Se-hee.”

As Se-hyeon stood up, Se-hee rushed to his side, her eyes scanning him with frantic concern. “What are you doing here?! I told you to stay glued to your bed for at least a few days! Are you okay? Should you even be walking around?”

“Haha, I’m fine. Look, I’m perfectly healthy.”

In fact, he felt better than ever. Awakening had boosted his physical stats far beyond his previous “normal” human limits.

The students in the lounge froze, their jaws dropping. “Wait, isn’t that Jang Se-hee?” “The ‘Ice Warrior’… I’ve never seen her talk that much.” “Look at her face. I didn’t even know she could make expressions like that.”

In school, Se-hee was known for being cold, silent, and fiercely driven—a byproduct of her desperation to succeed and support her brother. But now, she was just a worried younger sister.

“Are you sure? Why did you come all the way here?” “I had some news. And I brought you a gift.”

Se-hee’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “A gift? Did you spend your hard-earned savings on an artifact again? I told you not to do that!”

“Well, I did bring artifacts, but I didn’t buy them with money…”

Before he could explain, one of the students from the group approached them timidly. “Um… excuse me?”

Se-hyeon turned. “Yes?” “I’m sorry to bother you, but… are you the person in this video?”

The student held up the phone. Se-hyeon gave a sheepish smile. “Haha, yeah. That’s me.”

The student gasped. “I knew it! Hey guys, it really is him!” A crowd formed instantly. “No way! Is it real? Did you actually do that?”

Se-hee looked back and forth, bewildered. “Oppa? What video? Give me that!” She snatched the phone and pressed play.

“Well, Se-hee, you see…” “This is really you?! Oppa, what happened? Did you… did you awaken?”

“Yeah. The day I collapsed, I woke up and realized I had awakened. I registered yesterday and went into a dungeon just to check things out, but things got a bit out of hand.”

Se-hee stood frozen. “I wanted to tell you,” Se-hyeon continued, “but I wasn’t sure if it was real at first. You know my history with the evaluation. I wanted to be certain before I said anything.”

Without warning, Se-hee lunged forward and threw her arms around him in a crushing hug. “That’s wonderful. It’s so, so wonderful.”

She knew how much it had hurt him to be labeled a “failure.” She had seen him give up on his own dreams to work menial jobs just to put her through the Academy. Seeing him finally achieve the dream he thought was lost made her happier than her own S-rank potential ever had.

Se-hyeon patted her back. “Yeah, it is. So you can relax a bit now. Stop pushing yourself so hard. Make some friends, have some fun, okay?”

Se-hee pulled back, her eyes shining with new determination. “No way. I’m going to work even harder now. I’ll become an unbreakable iron wall. Once I graduate, let’s raid together. I’ll block everything in front, and you just blast them from the back!”

Se-hyeon smiled. While he didn’t strictly need a tanker with his level of control, the idea of raiding with his sister was the best reward he could imagine. “Deal.”

Back at the Association HQ, the atmosphere was much grimmer. The President and the department heads were staring at the video of Se-hyeon in total silence.

“My god…” “Is this… is this actual raw footage?”

President Choi and Manager Min looked like they’d seen a ghost. Even Kim Seong-ho, who had seen the test, was stunned.

“In the test, he only manifested five orbs. I thought that was his limit,” Kim muttered. “Thirty? He spawned thirty of them at once?”

“That’s not the most important part,” the President interjected, his voice trembling. “You said his Mana stat was 180. That means his total pool is 1,800. How low is the mana consumption of that Shadow Orb skill if he can fire sixty of them in a single fight? Standard Fireballs consume 100 mana—he would have been empty after 18 shots.”

A spell more powerful than a Fireball, with manual steering, and negligible mana cost. It defied the fundamental laws of magic.

“With this level of power,” Kim Seong-ho added, driving the nail in, “he is undoubtedly an Irregular. If we let a man like this slip through our fingers because of a clerical error, we will be the laughingstock of the world. Manager Min, do you still think Japan’s mistake was ‘different’ from ours?”

Kim Seong-ho pushed the advantage, making sure Min Jeong-su felt the full weight of the looming disaster.