"...What the hell is this."
"Si, Si...? No way..."
[A-ah, not too late! Phew, that was close!]
Hah, thank goodness.
That really could’ve been bad.
If I’d been any slower, Yu Siwoo would’ve been split in half.
Did I waste too much time clearing those boulders?
Well, but what else could I do?
I spent so long debating whether I could use more thread.
"...You’re alive?"
"Haha, seems that way. Sorry to disappoint you, Lady Laira."
Laira really doesn’t like me.
It made me a little sad.
...Though I guess I *did* have it coming.
Maybe she was still mad about me pretending not to know anything just to test her talent?
I can’t think of any other reason.
But no matter how I look at it, it *was* my fault, and that just makes it worse.
Still, what choice did I have?
That was the easiest way to confirm it.
"...How?"
"Hmm?"
"You should’ve been crushed by that falling rock..."
"Ah, that? Yeah, getting flattened would’ve hurt."
In my rush to use my ability, I’d loosened way too much thread, so I decided to show off a little.
Twisting, unfolding—beyond triangles and squares, I even made an Eiffel Tower, then a perfect circle.
I tried out all kinds of shapes.
So? That’s thread art without hands.
Pretty cool, right?
"Luckily, my ability works like this. If I wrap it around my body, it softens the impact."
"...Tch."
That’s not fair.
That was my ultimate secret technique...
I practiced so hard after getting this ability, just to show it off to people one day!
I said I was a little hurt earlier? Scratch that.
I’m *really* hurt.
"Whatever. It’s a little surprising you’re alive, but it doesn’t change anything."
"Doesn’t it?"
"Like hunting two exhausted rabbits would be hard."
Laira smirked, scratching her head.
...Wait?
Did I just see fangs?
[Ah, here we go. Side effects.]
"...Side effects, started?"
Now that I think about it, Laira took some shady pill to gain power.
The elixir from the Übermensch—knew there’d be side effects, but...
...Now? All of a sudden?
"W-what the?! Ears on my head?!"
"What? Ears? ...What the hell?!"
Where Laira had been scratching, ears sprouted.
[Well, it’s both a pro and a con, hehe. The setting is that it’s a drug that injects animal traits into humans!]
Animal traits?
...Ah, so that’s why they’re called Übermensch.
Because they’ve gone beyond human.
That’s quite the double meaning.
Was Lyra scratching her head this whole time because it was a precursor to her ears sprouting?
[As time passes, the animal traits grow stronger. They become incredibly powerful, but the animal characteristics start manifesting more and more. Eventually, they end up half-human, half-beast…]
Wait.
Did I just hear something insane?
"…Half-beast?"
[Yes. Like a minotaur.]
Furry?!
Are you serious right now?!
"Change it."
[…Huh? But the setting is that they receive animal genes, so they inevitably end up like that… And changing the setting is really hard, you know.]
My head spun.
I’d severely underestimated the author’s hipster tendencies.
No matter how much of an enemy they were, furries?!
Have you lost your mind?
Why waste a pretty girl spy like that?
Even if it’s just a side character, shoving in such a divisive theme is asking for trouble.
The novel would explode!
The line for beastkin is ears, tail, and eyes—that’s it!
"Block it. Change the setting, rewrite it, do it now!"
[Wha—wha…?! O-okay, I will!]
Did they really not expect me to get this angry?
The flustered author hastily revised the setting.
[I-I added a new setting! Lyra is actually a descendant of a child born between a werewolf and a human hundreds of years ago! S-so the genes don’t drastically transform her body!]
"Huuu…"
Normally, I’d be thinking about whether that setting would convince the readers.
But I didn’t have the mental space for that.
All I could think about was dragging my exhausted body out of here as fast as possible.
I’d scold them later.
I already had the footage the author needed to see, so I could do that while watching the video.
"The surveillance camera setting—done, right?"
[Y-yes… As you said, the setting is that they broke down during a sudden blackout three hours ago.]
Good.
I fiddled with the USB tucked inside my white hoodie.
Now all I had to do was take this, relax, and enjoy it with the author.
There was nothing left for me to do here.
How did I get the footage, you ask?
It wasn’t that hard.
I just added a setting for the guards on duty.
[They sometimes slack off and go play billiards. For at least five hours at a time.]
…Then I set it so that happened three hours ago. No need for any real infiltration.
And after copying all the footage from the empty security room’s computer onto the USB, I added a setting that the perfectly fine CCTV had actually broken down three hours ago.
And just like that—the creation of footage that should never exist was complete.
Finally, I retrieved the thread wrapped around the USB.
Easy, right?
Even the Academy couldn’t have all its teachers present at once.
With so many students to supervise, what teacher has the time to check CCTV?
They’d just outsource it to a reliable security company.
High-quality personnel are always in short supply.
…And accidents tend to happen when you let your guard down like that.
Wow, the moment the guards left, a blackout happened out of nowhere.
And in those three hours, a traitor appeared? That’s one hell of a coincidence.
"W-What the…?!"
"Sorry to disturb you in the chaos. Laira."
I pointlessly hugged my white hoodie tighter. Even though I knew no one was looking, I still hesitated.
It just made me more conscious of their gazes.
They didn’t notice, right?
Yu Siwoo had fled in such a panic that I’d undone the threads of my school uniform before my leotard, so now all I had on under the hoodie was the leotard.
If it had just been a little loose, it would’ve been fine, but I’d used most of the threads to block falling rocks and clear debris.
I forced a casual smile, but I could feel my face burning red.
I was so embarrassed.
"Please just die?"
It was an ambush.
Caught off guard by the sudden turn of events, Laira didn’t react to Arte’s attack from afar.
And that was the end.
"D-Did she… die?!"
"Yes, she’s dead."
The threads binding the dagger surged forward, and Laira, distracted by her own transformation, never noticed the blade flying toward her back.
…That was all it took.
After effortlessly taking down the Minotaur, this was the end of Laira, who had been threatening my life.
A pathetic death.
"Well then. I’ll be going."
"…I won’t kill you."
"…Hmm? What reason would I have to kill Siwoo?"
Yu Siwoo felt relief when he realized Arte had no intention of killing him.
He’d just seen Arte, her face flushed red, kill someone.
She’d taken a life with that expression, and yet here he was, alive.
Yu Siwoo was ashamed.
He’d come to the Academy to become a hero, but he’d just witnessed someone die right in front of him.
Laira had been after my life.
He knew that. It’d be strange if he didn’t.
But… but… The hero Yu Siwoo aspired to be wasn’t the kind who dwelled on such things.
A hero wasn’t someone who said villains had to die unconditionally.
The hero in Yu Siwoo’s heart was someone who shattered any hardship head-on.
Someone who upheld their own sense of justice, no matter how much the world hated them for it.
So how could he, aiming to be that kind of hero, feel relief just because he’d survived while someone else died?
It was ridiculous.
"Yu Siwoo! Arte! If you’re there, answer me! Are you alive?!"
"Oh dear, the teacher’s here."
Should I go back first? You look tired.
I stared intently at Arte as she asked that.
"W-What... is going on?"
"Right now, I’m weak. Mentally immature. I nearly died because I couldn’t handle a single traitorous villain."
"Huh?"
"...Someday, I’ll become stronger than you."
Yu Siwoo stood up on his own and started walking toward where the teacher’s voice had come from.
I’m still... still immature.
I couldn’t even handle one traitorous Lyra, and yet I’m talking about becoming stronger than her.
To Arte, this must sound no different from a chick chirping.
But she’s letting her guard down.
For some reason, she has some kind of interest in me.
Amelia was right. I don’t know why, but she won’t kill me.
That reaction she showed me in a situation where killing me would’ve been perfectly reasonable.
At the very least, I won’t die for a while.
I am immature.
...But being immature means I can still grow.
Isn’t that why I came to the Academy?
Keep letting your guard down.
Someday, I’ll be stronger than you.
"Hyaaah... That scared me. I-I thought you’d noticed. C-Cold... brrr..."
Maybe it was because I’d been so tense that I’d sweated a lot.
The cool breeze instantly chilled my sweat, and my body temperature plummeted, making the cold bite sharply.
I pulled my hoodie up to cover myself, but it couldn’t stop the chilly wind from seeping through.
Spring didn’t mean it wasn’t cold.
Plus, my school uniform was gone.
"Still, it’s a relief, Author-nim. I almost lost faith in the protagonist. Is he the growth-type?"
[...D-Don’t bring that up. Of course the protagonist is Yu Siwoo! It’s fine if he’s a little weak in the beginning!]
"There you go again. You were crying, ‘The protagonist ran away from the heroine! Waaaaah!’"
[Kyaaaaaah! Kyaaaah! Kyaaaaaaaaaaaah!]
Wait, but I’m not even the heroine.
...Eh, whatever.
In that timing, that place, that situation—if you’re standing behind the protagonist facing off against a villain, anyone would assume you’re the heroine.
That’s probably what she meant.
"Anyway, what now?"
[W-Well, I said we should kill her! Hyeonjeonsa!]
"Ack, even so, that’s way too harsh. And heroine? I already told everyone she’s dead, remember?"
Even if she wasn’t human, I still felt bad.
If you destroy a wild animal’s home and then it’s freezing to death in the cold, you’d feel guilty, right?
After going this far, killing her would just leave a bad taste in my mouth.
"She even has a tail."
It’s amazing.
...Should I touch it a little?
I’ve always wanted to touch a beastkin’s tail.