The Heroine Stole My Regression

34 – Midterm Exam (4)

A few more days passed in that manner.

The students were abuzz with a recently announced matter: the highlight of the midterm exam, the inter-personal battles.

For the selection of opponents began today.

Basically, there will be a total of three battles, conducted under a system of individual designation.

If you designate someone, a 1:1 duel is established,

and students who were neither designated nor designated others are assigned a random opponent. Fairly, so.

Because of that, I didn’t worry much. There wasn’t anyone to be singled out, nor anyone I particularly needed to single out.

So, the immediate task demanding my attention was simple: boosting the stats of my characters.

And preparing for the assault of the Demons.

First, boosting stats. The key members for this round were two:

Yu Hana, and Cheon Yeoul.

As it stood, Kang Arin was strong enough already.

She didn’t need my intervention right now. In fact, meddling unnecessarily could ruin the flow of things.

Seong Siwoo was still on hold.

I was conducting daily swordsmanship training with Yu Hana, and her progress was rapidly accelerating.

And now, I was…

“I can’t do it! No, I *can’t.*”

“Come on, just read it again slowly, please.”

It was 11 PM, and I was bickering with Cheon Yeoul at a café. I’d made my apologies to Yu Hana.

It all started after class today, when I saw her wrestling with a problem.

She hadn’t left her seat even after the lesson ended, head bowed, practically burying her face in the question.

Usually, she’d have vanished somewhere by now.

‘Ah…it’s difficult.’

Cheon Yeoul was like that even in the original story.

She grasped other things quickly, but she was hopelessly clueless when it came to theoretical matters.

Still, I was touched by her earnest efforts to squeeze out an answer, so I solved a few for her, and then she begged me for help.

That’s how I ended up dragged to this café today.

The problem she was grumbling about was designing a low-level Holy magic circle.

It was definitely more difficult compared to creating other magic circles. Holy magic, fundamentally, required setting up circuits not just for mana, but also for divine power separately.

“Look, there are two circuits, so there need to be two power sources. If you try to cram them into one, they’ll interfere with each other.”

I explained, sketching a simple diagram in my notebook.

However, Cheon Yeoul only frowned at the problem.

That’s not going to solve it.

Then, suddenly, her eyes widened and she exclaimed,

“Ah!”

She seemed to have understood it at last.

The problem was, it had taken two hours to even get this across.

‘What to do…’

Having barely finished explaining the problem, Chun Yeoul sighed heavily.

“Seriously… why do I need to know *how* to draw a sacred art that just works when I reach out my hand…?”

I looked at her with a touch of exasperation.

Because you’re a prodigy.

Chun Yeoul could instinctively, almost innately, unleash sacred arts without the process of designing a separate matrix.

But by precisely controlling the flow of divine power through design, the effect became far more potent.

That’s why I was making her study.

“But… how do *you* know all this so well, Hae-in?”

Chun Yeoul looked at me with a meaningful expression.

Her eyes narrowed slightly, her gaze half-lifted.

“Did you study sacred arts, too?”

Her voice held a subtle playfulness.

I was momentarily at a loss for words.

*I studied so I could teach you.*

Wasn’t exactly something I could say.

Instead, I reached out and flicked her forehead.

-Thwack!

“Ow!”

With a clear sound, Chun Yeoul’s head snapped back slightly.

“What would you do with that knowledge, anyway.”

Chun Yeoul clutched at her forehead. Slightly flushed cheeks and glittering eyes.

Something about her reaction made me want to tease her relentlessly.

“Please, just hurry up and solve this so we can go home.”

I absentmindedly flipped through the pages, scanning the problems.

But then.

“…?”

I felt a sharp gaze from somewhere.

Instinctively, I lifted my head and looked forward.

And then, soon after, I caught sight of a man bursting through the café doors, breathless.

Yohan.

He glared at us, panting for air.

His gaze held a sharp displeasure, an edge.

I shifted my eyes a touch to the side.

The end of the café, a window seat.

*Well, look at that.*

One of Yohan’s cronies was giving us sidelong glances, sneaking peeks.

But as if his gaze landed there by accident, he stirred his coffee with a feigned nonchalance.

Probably the one who ratted us out.

*’The Saint is out late with a strange man.’*

Something like that, maybe.

“Haa…”

A deep sigh escaped from beside me.

It was Cheon Yeoul.

She exhaled a short breath, then pressed herself even closer to my side.

We weren’t facing each other to begin with. Cheon Yeoul had come over to my seat first, sitting beside me on the same sofa.

Now, we were practically glued together.

And seeing this, Yohan’s expression grew even more menacing, his breathing turning ragged.

“Are you two dating?”

I asked casually.

Cheon Yeoul finally looked at Yohan.

Her face hardened.

No, more than that.

Like someone trying to swallow spoiled food and failing, as if she’d bitten into a bug.

And she replied, with unwavering firmness.

“Are you insane?”

“Then, a stalker?”

“That’s closer to the truth.”

Cheon Yeoul’s voice was icy.

She glared at Johan, her face an ice sculpture. Johan’s expression flickered, just a twitch.

“So, why can’t *he* come over here and has to stay way over there?”

“Restraining order.”

“Ah… Is that so?”

Already, he had a restraining order filed against him by the Order. Normally, such a thing would be dismissed as ludicrous, but it was a testament to Cheon Yeoul’s growing influence.

The Saintess and the Hero.

Their relationship was… complicated.

In the past, from a young age, the Hero and Saintess were educated in a very specific way.

‘The Hero protects the world, and the Saintess supports and obeys the Hero.’

That was the ‘doctrine’ passed down to them for ages.

But times had changed.

Even within the Order, factions were forming. Those who wanted to maintain the old ways, and those who desired a new revolution.

And Johan was still, sadly, stuck in that old thinking. He still believed that he was the Hero, and the Saintess was his. A being who shouldn’t leave his side.

I watched Johan with an indifferent gaze.

He was glaring daggers.

Clearly displeased that the Saintess, who he believed should be his, was with another man.

In the original story, that man would’ve been Seong Siwoo, but now, it seemed I was the target.

Johan, in the end, stood there for a few seconds, doing nothing, only suppressing his anger before turning away.

‘If this keeps up…’

Johan’s obsession with Cheon Yeoul had erupted sooner than expected, and that meant the choices he would make had widened as well.

I had a feeling, a premonition.

*

I finished my one-on-one tutoring session with Cheon Yeoul and returned to the dorm.

My index finger ached a little. I had no idea how many flicks to the forehead I had given her.

‘It’s like she’s intentionally getting it wrong.’

I sighed and lay down on the bed, pondering.

Earlier, I had mentioned the two problems at hand.

First, the growth of the characters.

This part was progressing much more smoothly than expected.

Then second, preparation for the demon attack.

“I’ve done what I could.”

For the moment, I felt a certain ease.

I’d acquired a fragment far faster than the original storyline dictated.

Ordinarily, this boon wouldn’t appear until the latter half of the story, only after overcoming countless trials.

Of course, the fact *I* was the one who absorbed it was a variable… but that water had already spilled.

Yoo Hana wielded the Camellia Sword, and Chun Yeo-ul now possessed a crucifix.

Furthermore, this mid-term exam also included the Vanguisher members. Even if the first assault on Gaon did occur, we stood a good chance of repelling it with unexpected ease.

I’d prepared as much as I could, and a favorable variable had emerged.

And above all—

This assault was, at best, akin to a tutorial.

‘The Fiends.’

They were less a single race, and more entities with wildly varying degrees of danger.

Among those branded ‘Fiends,’ many were, in truth, mere foot soldiers.

And those about to assault Gaon fell into that category as well.

Merely a show, designed to illustrate that Gaon was by no means a safe haven.

No Fiend executives would directly participate in this attack.

It wasn’t yet the stage where they would overextend themselves to the point of waging a full-scale war against the forces stationed at Gaon.

The problem, however, was that they would employ a ‘Demon’ they had been holding captive, in order to create a more substantial chaos.

And stopping *that* was, in effect, the crux of the matter.

I opened the auction app on my smartwatch.

The ordered stone sickle, no, the Harpe, would arrive tomorrow.

With that, preparations against the Demon would also be complete.

I turned off the watch and lay back comfortably.

– *Ding-a-ling*

Just then, an alert tone I’d never heard before chimed from the watch.

‘What’s this?’

I swiped to open the notification window.

And immediately, a dry laugh escaped me.

“Heh.”

[Individual Combat Designation Alert]

[Ranking 2nd, Johann] -＞ [Unknown Jeong Hae-in]

[Alert: Interpersonal Combat Nomination]

[Ranking 42nd, Seong Si-woo] -＞ [Unknown Jeong Hae-in]

It seemed my prediction that I wouldn’t be nominated.

Had missed the mark, quite spectacularly.