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Isabel Luna.

She was someone who fit the description of a sunflower perfectly, always smiling brightly.

Her energy was so bright that it even made those watching her smile warmly.

However, recently, her laughter had diminished rapidly.

It was due to the death of her childhood friend, Lucas.

Sunflowers seek nourishment from the sunlight.

Now that the sun was gone,

there was nothing left for her.

Isabel always recalled that day as she drifted off to sleep.

First-years typically don’t attend Magung,

but Isabel and Lucas were from a special first-year class.

The special class was different from the regular first-years; it allowed students with better skills to participate in Magung earlier.

As such, Isabel should have been part of Magung as well.

However, the day before attending Magung,

Isabel had a petty argument with Lucas.

The reason was that Isabel had caught a dreadful cold at that time.

Despite her cold, Isabel insisted they go together, but Lucas firmly warned her not to.

In the end, Lucas promised to buy her some hot tea good for colds on his way back and left with a newly formed team.

And Lucas never returned.

Without a body, just the news that Lucas had been killed by a Saint was all that came back.

He was a childhood friend she had grown up with.

The last memory she had of her childhood friend was their quarrel.

Isabel felt completely empty.

A sunflower without sunlight begins to wilt.

She didn’t eat, didn’t drink, and didn’t sleep.

Isabel was dying like that.

Then one day,

a person appeared before her.

A boy who had insulted her childhood friend Lucas in front of everyone.

He was a boy who had committed an unforgivable act against Isabel.

Hanon Irey.

Driven by rage, Isabel changed.

Even if it meant her own death,

she vowed to make him retract the insult to Lucas before anything else.

She became desperate.

She ate, drank, and slept, dedicating her entire day to training.

To defeat him and show how remarkable Lucas had been.

She began to live.

Hanon was a peculiar boy.

Perhaps it was because he had his first button done up wrong, but he often sneered at her whenever he saw her.

Many in the class disdained him, some even making blind accusations.

But Hanon didn’t flinch.

Instead, he seemed to provoke them further, inviting more scorn.

Yet, like proving his beliefs,

Hanon casually did astonishing things that left everyone in awe.

The lazy genius, even when the martial arts team put their all into it, left them astonished that they couldn’t break him.

‘What exactly is he trying to do?’

He was utterly unpredictable.

Isabel had been thinking about nothing but Hanon lately.

“Isabel, are you okay? Are you tired?”

“Ah, sorry. Don’t worry. I’m fine.”

At that moment, Isabel was startled into answering by the voice calling out in front of her.

This was Magung.

How could she be lost in thought here? She must have been out of her mind.

“Ugh, I’m sorry. I’m putting everyone through trouble because of me.”

Then a Holy Studies student, being supported from behind, spoke up.

He was Gaisun, ranked third in Holy Studies.

At that moment, he was suffering under the curse of a Saint, rendering his body powerless.

Normally, they would purify it with Holy Arts,

but unfortunately, he had just exhausted all his Holy Arts in a fierce battle against the Saint and was cursed afterward.

Because of this, his recovery of the power to activate Holy Arts was delayed.

So instead of pushing themselves, Isabel’s team decided to go back to the ground to recover Gaisun and were heading back up to Magung.

“It’s okay; it was a tough opponent. It’s a relief it ended like this.”

One boy from Isabel’s team, a Magic Arts student, comforted Gaisun.

As he said, the Saint they faced on the third floor had been much stronger than usual.

It was clear that the Saint had been staying in Magung far longer than most.

Had their team not entered together,

they might not have won against the Saint.

Boom!

“Why has it been so noisy up there for a while?”

The martial arts student and Isabel’s friend, Mina, scrunched her eyes.

They were now climbing the stairs back to the first floor.

For some reason, something felt off as today, the upstairs was incredibly loud.

“Is someone fighting against a Saint?”

“Didn’t our seniors and we just walk past? Could there still be a Saint left? Nothing but trash, surely.”

The students whispered among themselves.

Isabel too looked up at the stairs, expressing her doubts.

At that moment, Ban suddenly raised his head.

His eyes glinted ominously.

“Everyone, prepare yourselves.”

Just as his brief warning was shared,

Kaboom!

An explosion shook the entire staircase.

All the students ducked in surprise at the massive tremor.

If it could be felt all the way to the first-floor stairs,

some serious trouble was certainly occurring above.

“Let’s hurry up!”

As Ban urged, they all hurriedly rushed up the stairs in unison.

As they reached the surface, a thick cloud of smoke was visible ahead.

“What in the world happened?”

Mina waved her hand in disbelief.

Moments later, the smoke began to clear slowly, revealing the gray forest.

And the stark gray forest showed signs of battle everywhere.

A giant root cut off at the top,

A trampled area that had turned gray after being stomped on,

And bits of what seemed like the bodies of Saints scattered here and there.

It was a sight that couldn’t possibly remind them of the gray forest they’d just passed through.

“How strange. This is different from the old gray forest. The aura of the Saints is terrifyingly filling this place.”

Gaisun shrank back, showing discomfort.

As someone who achieved the third rank in Holy Studies, even he felt dread from the overwhelming presence of Saints in this area.

“Isabel.”

At that moment, Ban called Isabel.

He was pointing somewhere.

There, a woman was running hard while carrying someone.

Isabel recognized that green-haired woman’s face.

She was definitely Aisha Bizbel, a first-year student.

Soon Isabel’s eyes widened.

The one in Aisha’s arms was none other than Hanon.

“H-Hanon?”

As Isabel stammered out his name in shock, everyone reacted.

“That trash is Hanon?”

Mina squinted, shocked.

“Oh, he’s the famous transfer student, isn’t he?”

A Magic Arts student expressed interest.

“Mina, you shouldn’t speak about fellow academy friends like that.”

Gaisun scolded Mina.

At the very least, everyone knew Hanon’s name.

That was how outstanding had been his legwork in such a short time.

“Let’s go.”

Calmly leading the way, Ban was the only one who remained composed.

So, everyone followed Ban toward Hanon.

Gradually, they started to see the team from the first floor.

Among them, the most shocked was Gaisun.

“Saint SirMiel?!”

The Saint, SirMiel of the Eden Church.

It was because someone with such a high status—almost equal to the princess—was present there.

The other students quickly expressed their shock as well.

The name of a Saint carried significant weight even among students.

However, SirMiel didn’t look this way.

She simply used her Holy Arts to heal Hanon lying before her.

Soon everyone took a deep breath at the sight of Hanon.

Hanon looked a wreck.

His skin was scorched and burned in places, and his left arm was completely twisted.

It was a serious injury that anyone could see.

“……Seron, what happened?”

Ban asked the dumbfounded Seron.

Seron turned back to Ban with a blank face and flinched.

“Uh, uh, Ban? When did Isabel and Mina get here?”

He seemed to have been so out of it that he hadn’t even noticed Isabel and her group arrived.

“Seron, can you tell us what happened?”

When Isabel asked again, Seron scratched the back of his head.

“Well, you see, a Saint appeared on the first floor? What was it? I think they said when the ninety-ninth-type terrain occurred in Magung, a hundredth-type terrain brings out a dangerous Saint.”

Seron babbled.

However, Isabel’s team was composed of smart and skilled individuals.

Even as Seron rambled, they understood perfectly.

The bottom line was that the gray forest had welcomed the hundredth occurrence, bringing a far more dangerous Saint than before.

Apparently, Hanon had known this and led everyone to confront the Saint and win.

That was the conclusion.

“Is that idiot serious? If he knew such a thing, he should have told us earlier and gathered people to fight!”

Mina expressed her disbelief after hearing the story.

But Gaisun refuted her words.

“No. The gray forest remained unchanged until we went down to the second floor. It could have its own activation condition unique to the gray forest.”

A condition where Saints don’t appear until a certain number of people dwindle down.

In fact, there had been consistent examples of such conditions in previous Magung strategies.

Hanon had known this and waited until all the teams had gone to the second floor.

“Moreover, it’s the gray forest. The battle becomes more difficult with more people.”

Gaisun pointed to the gray ground.

As he said, having more people made battles harder in the gray forest.

Regardless of preference, they had to fight the Saints with a small team.

“W-What about the seniors?”

At that moment, Poara, who had kept her lips sealed, spoke up.

“They intended to remain until something unusual happened in the gray forest.”

Even if the hundredth gray forest showed no abnormalities,

There was at least some chance that the condition for a Saint’s appearance required everyone to vacate the area.

In that case, it wouldn’t matter.

“To prevent everyone from being unable to return because of the Saint, they were willing to stay until the very end.”

By holding this position, it would ensure the safe return of those students who had gone down to Magung.

For that, Hanon willingly stayed behind in the gray forest.

This was the Jerion Academy.

What happened in Magung would become the achievements and benefits for the students.

Separate from the mission of protecting the world from Saints,

this was a place where those who wanted to make their name known gathered.

However, Hanon willingly gave up all of it, staying on the first floor.

Only so that everyone could return safely.

The Saints that appeared were so dangerous that without Hanon’s orders, the team could have faced complete annihilation.

If any other teams had remained, they would not only have failed to stop the Saints but would have been slaughtered afterward,

while exhausted students returning from battles on the lower floors would have been massacred as well.

Therefore, Hanon threw himself in front of the Saints, fought, and defeated them at the cost of his own injuries.

“It wasn’t really supposed to turn out like some burnt sweet potato……”

Seron muttered with a gloomy face.

Everyone wore solemn expressions.

Among them, Isabel was staring blankly at Hanon.

In her mind, the day Hanon first came to the academy replayed over and over again.

“I came here to ensure that such a disgrace wouldn’t arise from the prestigious Jerion Academy.”

She realized now.

It also meant that no student would die and they would all return safely.

As if no death like Lucas’s would ever happen again.

‘That’s the meaning behind it.’

Isabel’s fists clenched tightly, trembling.

Isabel had just wasted away completely, crumbling under the thought of Lucas’ death.

But Hanon had trained and stood firm so that such a thing wouldn’t happen again.

That realization made Isabel feel a sense of being pulled down into the depths of despair.

‘I lost.’

In many ways, she had lost to him.

Isabel looked at Hanon and reflected on her own failure.