I got into school for nothing - 356
I got into school for nothing (356)
Lesson 70. No Intention of Giving an Opening - 2
Like a scene from a horror movie, she appeared.
A black-haired woman materialized in the center of the dark space.
Her hair, stretching long and web-like in every direction, restrained the True Dragons attempting to unleash mana all around. Surprisingly, in the process, she could be seen drawing mana not towards the Tower, but towards herself.
The True Dragons, who had been vehemently agitated at the sight of Ban Yuwon, now merely pressed their bodies low and cowered like frightened puppies before the advent of the Observer of All Things.
“My dearest child, you must retreat today. Your entry here was not foreseen.”
“You don't seriously believe I'd meekly turn back after hearing that, do you?”
“It is for your own good, too. Do you know what would happen if you succeeded in bringing eternal death upon them here?”
As Ban Yuwon quietly pondered, he met the glittering eyes amidst the black-haired face, and a strange feeling came over him, as if he had seen those eyes somewhere before.
Was it The Mirror?
“Unless you wish to meet your demise with a collapsing Tower, without ever seeing the end you desire, without properly proving your qualifications.”
The conceptual flow of the area began to destabilize.
Like blooming flowers, eyes opened all around, impeding Ban Yuwon from wielding his Authority.
“For now, I recommend you withdraw. You will not regret it. Your encounter with them must never happen in this manner.”
Ban Yuwon, feeling the power that precisely severed the flow of his Giwon Sword, became certain of the Observer of All Things' ability.
“Is that the Eye of the Progenitor?”
“Indeed... Do you know Janus? Our creator believed there was a need for an eye to guard the inside of the Tower and an eye to guard the outside. As a result, I now stand here, protecting the Tower's interior.”
Finishing her words, the Observer of All Things gathered the mana of the entire area and clapped her hands.
A force, the very Authority of the Tower itself, enveloped him instantly, seeking to expel him from this space.
The eyes that had bloomed all around caught him, then held him in a relentless, terrifying gaze.
He felt as if he were suffocating, wondering if this was how it felt to confront one's own Authority.
“Your impulsive actions today were quite dangerous. But precisely because of that, I believe you are the most suitable to succeed me.”
“Hah.”
“Next time, let us meet within the Tower. I shall prepare the final stage for you.”
Ban Yuwon knew he could resist if he wished, but for now, he chose to docilely leave the Tower.
To be honest, his intention to fight the True Dragons was half because those who had recognized him abruptly escalated their might, leaving him no choice but to stand his ground.
‘Perhaps the Tower is being sustained on a more precarious balance than I imagined. Seeing how they intervened the moment I resolved to confront and fight the True Dragons...’
Hadn't the Observer of All Things herself stated that she was the eye guarding the Tower?
Of course, he'd admit that trying to kill a True Dragon today was premature, but eventually, he would have to kill them, and when that time came, he would inevitably confront the Observer of All Things.
‘So, that woman intends to kill me inside the Tower beforehand and turn me into a Constellation, and the Chancellor, knowing my negative view of the Tower, still doesn't want me dead for now, and tried to stop the Observer of All Things... Is that how it lines up?’
And there was one more fact he couldn't forget: the Tower was also connected to Earth.
It felt like everything would be perfectly complete if he could just find that last piece... Could he discover it if he went to Earth?
As he organized his thoughts, Ban Yuwon found himself standing idly outside the Tower. He looked around, wondering if the Observer of All Things or the Chancellor might be secretly watching him.
“Are you alright? You, too, withdrew your power at the last moment. It was a wise retreat.”
At that moment, Dokgo Yeon's calm voice gently touched Ban Yuwon's ears.
It was thanks to Ban Yuwon successfully deciphering the monument's energy flow, which had loosened all kinds of restrictions placed upon Dokgo Yeon, strengthening her existence.
At her voice, which clearly and simply proved that she had achieved some kind of result, Ban Yuwon's lips, which had been tightly drawn in a frown just moments before, relaxed.
“I love you, Yeon. Ah, I can even call you by your name directly now.”
“Let's pretend I didn't hear that. I'd like you to say it directly to my face.”
In the past, she might have scoffed, "What nonsense are you spouting?" and given him an earful, but now, perhaps because it wasn't an unwelcome remark, her replying voice was bright and light.
“More importantly, the Tower is paramount right now. Remember that it affects many dimensions. We must certainly kill those dragon heads someday, but that should only happen when we can mitigate the side effects of the Tower's collapse as much as possible.”
“Yes, that's right. Unexpectedly, things have been going so smoothly that I briefly felt the impulse to take a shortcut.”
He couldn't stand idly here forever.
Ban Yuwon simply wielded his Authority and teleported to Team Rebellion's training room.
After confirming no one was present, Ban Yuwon immediately sat in a comfortable position, closed his eyes, and began to concentrate. Dokgo Yeon, accustomed to his eccentric actions, immediately understood.
“Oh my, it seems you've gained something more than just being able to hear my voice directly, haven't you?”
“Of course, being able to converse with you like this, Yeon, is the greatest reward... but seeing you become so certain of my feelings, it makes me happy and yet, it feels a bit new, doesn't it?”
She, who had so adamantly believed she lacked charm as a woman, was now quite naturally accepting the affection he offered.
He said so, feeling a bit embarrassed, and Dokgo Yeon replied in her usual, cool voice.
“I know the efforts you've made to meet me over the past two years. Now, I have no intention of misunderstanding your feelings or suffering in silence alone. ...Of course, I still think you have far too many women.”
Indeed, she never hesitated to hit Ban Yuwon where it hurt.
What's more, some of his recently added women had grown close to him right under Dokgo Yeon's nose, so she must have had quite a bit to feel!
As Ban Yuwon writhed in discomfort, Dokgo Yeon added another jab.
“As expected, I cannot condone the idea of uniting all worlds. Just imagine all your many women gathered into one world. A great war would surely erupt at some point.”
“Let's stop with these realistically terrifying hypotheticals. I have no intention of doing that either...”
At any rate, besides Dokgo Yeon's power as a Constellation increasing, allowing for free conversation and addressing between them, what Ban Yuwon gained this time was this:
It was the experience he had gained by directly observing the Tower's core and encountering the True Dragons within.
He dared to assert that Ban Yuwon had grown faster than anyone could have imagined, including the Chancellor and the Observer of All Things.
This was true not only for his martial arts, including swordsmanship and internal energy, and his magical abilities, such as sorcery and Starlight Magic, but also for his Authority.
The Observer of All Things likely still had no idea what it meant for him to have scoured the Tower's core.
‘I'm starting to feel like I've seen the very depths of the Progenitor's legacy.’
He had learned that the ancestors of the Ten Great Families were directly created by the Tower Lord as his subordinates.
He observed the artifacts given to them and understood how they were made.
He had even directly inherited and used the Codeword that the Tower Lord wielded.
He came to know how the Chancellor and the Observer of All Things came to be.
He had thoroughly grasped the concept of the Tower's most heavily guarded core—a space so secret that merely entering it caused the Observer of All Things to appear and personally expel him.
He starkly examined the internal concepts of the True Dragons who had resisted the mighty Tower Lord to the very end, and he witnessed their immortality and their high-tier mana with his own eyes.
“You approach the ultimate enlightenment that is the source of all flows. The profundity of Yugi increases by 100.”
Concepts he hadn't known, concepts he knew but hadn't dared to wield, and the harmony of all those concepts.
Ban Yuwon realized that the martial art he had created, learned from Dokgo Yeon but still not fully perfected, was finally advancing into a new realm.
“It was good that I went and saw, wasn't it?”
“Honestly, you haven't changed in that annoying ability to perfectly extract the essence just from seeing something once.”
Dokgo Yeon snorted at Ban Yuwon, who was achieving enormous real-time advancements while utilizing Yugi, but inwardly, she smiled with satisfaction.
She felt relieved that Ban Yuwon couldn't see her face, yet a faint sadness lingered.
* * *
Having redefined his objectives, Ban Yuwon no longer hesitated to explore the Tower from that point on.
Team Rebellion broke through nearly ten rooms a week, setting new records daily.
This was possible because as the Observer of All Things began to target Ban Yuwon more overtly, a single room could no longer contain the resources she invested, inevitably leading to multiple shifts.
Subscribers to the Rebellion channel, who now witnessed rapid explorations reminiscent of the time when Ban Yuwon had just entered Union Academy and all Constellations reacted violently due to his excessive anomalous nature, instinctively sensed that something would certainly happen this year, and very soon.
“The Observer of All Things has removed her limiter.”
“It makes sense to remove it. Have you forgotten what happened before? He has already transcended the realm of a mere climber. He's even threatening our very existence!”
“There was someone like that in the past. Though, of course, they ended up in the same predicament as us.”
“Then, we shall simply make it happen again.”
Other Constellations, agitated by the Observer of All Things' rampage, also joined in.
Should it be called a good thing, that as the Constellations' power focused on the Tower, the likelihood of disasters in other dimensions decreased?
Before the midterm exam season arrived, Ban Yuwon's team finally broke through the 600th room in four more consecutive explorations.
Just then, from a treasure chest that appeared in Eden, the 600th room—a top-tier treasure chest made of platinum with a platinum rim—they even obtained an absurd item.
The problem was that this treasure was something Ban Yuwon already recognized.
“So...”
Ban Yuwon narrowed his eyes, raising the pristine white shield he had 'previously' held in his hands once before.
“Why is the shield that is said to have been passed down through generations of the Fridwen family, created by the previous Tower Lord, in my hands?”
“Perhaps the Tower copied that item?”
“It's genuine. The traces of my touch are still perfectly preserved.”
Ban Yuwon mumbled, quietly examining the shield.
He had a bad feeling.
When he learned the purpose for which the Tower was built...
And when he heard that Juventa, the dimension where Yumina was born, had disappeared.
It was as if his vague intuition from that time—that the Tower should never be allowed to persist—had now manifested as concrete evidence.
“Let's get out of here first. I need to contact the Fridwen Family Head right away. Perhaps—something far more serious than I imagine might be happening.”
However, to cut to the chase, he didn't need to contact the Fridwen side first.
Because the refugee ship, carrying the Fridwen Family Head himself, arrived at Union Academy even sooner.
“The destruction... destruction is happening again!”
On Sunday night, the Fridwen Family Head, having lost one arm and disembarked from a massive space galleon, grabbed the urgently approaching Ban Yuwon and cried out.
“The destruction that swallowed Juventa is rampant once more! Not just S-rank dimensions, but A-rank and B-rank dimensions too, without discrimination! Please, help us, Successor! If things continue like this, every dimension except Union Academy will truly vanish...!”
At those words, Ban Yuwon subconsciously looked up at the Tower he had just exited today.
The most terrifying thing was this:
That perhaps this was not destruction or disaster, but a preordained harmony.
“Yes, I'll take care of it.”
Ban Yuwon quietly said, placing the shield he had acquired from the Tower into the Fridwen Family Head's arms.
He could no longer delay.
It felt as though he needed to go to Earth.
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