Former Ranker's Newbie Life

Chapter 113

Sion Grace truly was a shining example of just how powerful an Archmage could be. She had left behind countless spells as she vanished, some of them lighting up the skies to mark certain locations, and others that effectively killed the dungeon boss before the Rift had even finished stabilizing. Furthermore, she had countered the backlash that should’ve torn the place apart when she broke the barrier.

The cherry on top was teleporting Do-Jin straight to the base. One second he was looking at the Elthomagia emblem, the next a dark-blue veil surged around him and whisked him away.

Sure, I didn’t have to climb back down the mountain, but would it kill her to give me a little heads-up first?

“Multiple light markers in the sky! It looks like Lady Sion tagged the location herself!”

“Rescue squads, move out! Move out!”

“Wait! There are bound to be those who are injured. What the hell are you going to do running off on your own? We’re coming too!” a medic called out while rushing after them.

Do-Jin, the one who’d just been dropped off, wasn’t even on their radar. Nobody gave him so much as a glance. Squads from the Academy, the Adventurers’ Guild, the Holy Temple, and every organization that could spare the manpower had been mobilized. They all charged up the mountain in a rush.

“Where is Lady Sion right now?!”

“What do you mean you didn’t see her? The Tower Master was here and none of you noticed?!”

The mages from the Imperial Magic Tower were making a scene off to the side. They must have just arrived, because the moment they heard the name “Sion,” they started losing their minds.

I fucking knew it. Not a single one of them is sane.

Adding another notch to his “mages are lunatics” tally, Do-Jin shook his head and found a decent-sized boulder to sit on.

“Finally... I can catch my breath.”

Rescue was well under way now, and he could leave the rest to them. Do-Jin sat quietly and watched the various teams at work. Soon enough, the students who had been hiding in the cave were being led down the mountain one by one. Priests from the Holy Temple patched up the lightly injured on the spot, while those in critical condition were rushed away for treatment.

They’ve managed to hold on. Tough kids.

His eyes fell on the girl who had survived with an arm torn off and her femoral artery severed. She had survived through sheer grit. Do-Jin nodded to her in silent acknowledgment.

Suddenly, it became noticeably more boisterous. Xenia, who had been carried down unconscious from the spreading poison, had been revived by a priest. The moment she woke, she went wild.

“Go back up! He’s still there, that bastard is still up there!”

“The poison hasn’t been fully neutralized yet! You must not move!”

The priests and the retainers of the Bondrei family scrambled to hold her down. Her escort guardian Anna was nearly begging.

“My lady, I will go. Please, I beg you, stay here—”

“I’ll never forgive this... You think you can just slap the price of a life on me? You dare make me feel like I owe you something, you bastard?!”

She was not the only one causing a scene.

“I was not injured, so I will assist in the search.” Huey was ready to climb back up.

“M-me too! I want to go back up!” Bill, of all people, had stepped forward as well.

The Academy staff were already trying to calm them down. They explained that the search teams were already deployed and urged them to stay back. But the students pushed back stubbornly.

“The more hands we have, the faster it will go, won’t it?” one protested.

No one could shut them down. Watching it all from a distance, Do-Jin let out a long sigh. As far as he could tell, the cause for all that commotion was probably him.

How the hell am I supposed to step in here?

All Do-Jin had really felt until now was a bit of pride that every student he had rescued had made it down alive. Then the brat who had been unconscious this whole time bolted upright and kicked off a ridiculous melodrama all on her own. Having been teleported down with barely a scratch, he felt that barging into the middle of it now would be incredibly awkward, no matter how he timed it.

“I don’t even know his name!” the brat screamed with rage, and then the tears started falling.

God, I just want to get out of here...

Do-Jin dragged a hand down his face and sighed in despair. Still, he knew he had to step in. If he let it go on, the scene would only spiral further out of control.

As he stared at the group, still unsure of how to interrupt them, one of the students pointed straight at him. Their eyes went wide, their mouth hanging open for a second before the shout tore free.

“Th-there! Over there!”

Naturally, several people turned their heads toward Do-Jin.

Fantastic. Here we go, he thought, sighing and tipping his head back. He already knew where this was heading.

[Achievement Unlocked: Possibility Blooming from Despair]

[Achievement Reward: Bonus Points +5]

[You have achieved the unthinkable in the face of overwhelming adversity!]

[Your accomplishments during the quest will be reflected in your quest rewards.]

[Quest rewards are now being calculated...]

He had just finished reading when Xenia spotted him. She charged like a boar. And the other students followed right after.

“Hey, wait—” Do-Jin barely had time to open his mouth before Xenia closed the gap in an instant. The rest of the students threw themselves at him.

Seriously...

Xenia swung a fist at him the moment she arrived, but he dodged with ease. A mage’s punch was child’s play. The full-body tackle of a trained swordsman, on the other hand, was a slightly bigger problem.

“Do-Jin!” Huey barreled toward him with arms wide.

Although he despised the petty brat’s wild punch, a teary-eyed boy charging in for a hug was almost worse somehow.

Damn it, it’s too late to dodge. I’ll block him, then.

Now that he stood in the ranks of a Tier 5 mage, his spells came together faster, sharper, and smoother.

Unfortunately, Huey slammed face-first into the Rock Shield that appeared out of nowhere. Do-Jin used the moment to pull away from the rest of the overly emotional mob and shook his head as he spoke.

“I get that you’re happy. I get that you’re glad I’m alive. But please... everyone calm the hell down.”

The Rock Shield crumbled away as he dispelled it, and the teary-eyed students came into view again.

“You held out well. I know it must’ve been terrifying.” Do-Jin gave the one compliment, which was enough to set them all crying.

The fear they’d bottled up in the mountains, the panic when he disappeared, the guilt, the gratitude, the sheer relief of being alive, all of it spilled out in tears. Most of them were nobles, brimming with talent, academy prodigies in their own right. But at the end of the day, they were still kids.

Do-Jin watched them for a moment, then pointed at Bill. “You explain it.”

“Explain what?” Bill blinked, completely lost.

Do-Jin gestured at the crowd gathering nearby, all of them clearly dying to know what the hell had just happened.

“They all want to know what happened. I’m too fucking tired, so you handle it.”

Where Do-Jin pointed, dozens of people had gathered. They still had no idea what had gone down.

***

The students gave their accounts of what had happened in the mountains and what Do-Jin had done. Because of that, he found himself being healed by a priest while simultaneously being flooded with handshake requests.

“I’m Eric Kendra, professor in the Academy’s Magic Division. I’ve heard how you saved our students. I don’t know how to express my gratitude to you. The Academy will, of course, offer a reward, but I want to repay you personally as well.”

Even the faculty deployed for the rescue came forward.

“As a retainer of the Bondrei family... no, as a knight, I must thank you from the bottom of my heart. My life is no longer my own to give, but if there is any request you make of me, I swear I will fulfill it with everything I have.”

That was Anna, the knight who served as Xenia Bondrei’s personal guard.

“We are from the Adventurers’ Guild! You must be the adventurer who was dispatched here...!”

Even the Guild staff had shown up.

If Elthomagia’s people had not been busy shouting Sion’s name like a bunch of cultist lunatics, he probably would not have gotten even a single breath of peace.

If they find out I ran into Sion, they’ll be all over me like maggots.

He decided right then that he would play dumb. He needed this bit of breathing room.

The priest who was healing him noticed the thickening crowd and announced with mild irritation, “He has only been treated for surface wounds. He is still a patient in need of rest.”

Do-Jin had just closed his eyes, focusing on the warmth of healing spreading through him. If anyone had something to give him, they could bring it later, and he would take it then.

“S-sorry,” said someone nearby.

That apologetic voice sounded familiar, prompting Do-Jin to open his eyes.

“Huh? Is that you, Sisala?”

***

After his treatment was more or less finished, Do-Jin found somewhere to sit down with Sisala.

She looked at him with conflicted eyes. What have you been doing all this time...?

She had imagined their reunion a hundred different ways, but none of those scenarios had looked anything like this. From the survivors’ frantic accounts, Sisala had already decided Do-Jin wasn’t human anymore.

You rescued Academy students at the Rift site? Weren’t you a Tier 1 mage not too long ago?!

It was so absurd she almost laughed. How the fuck was anyone with average talent supposed to live in a world like this? That was when her thoughts were cut off.

“Congratulations,” Do-Jin said as he gestured toward her shoulder.

“What... oh.”

At first she didn’t get it, then she realized what he meant. With a sheepish expression, Sisala brushed her fingers over the green insignia pinned to her black cape.

“It’s pretty impressive. When I saw you last time, you were still Yellow. Now you’re already Green.”

Sisala gave a small, proud smile. “Thanks to you. Like you said, once I turned my focus to another field, things started to take a turn for the better.”

Advancing as a mage from Tier 4 to Tier 5 was an objectively huge achievement.

It should’ve been, anyway... Thinking about how far Do-Jin had come, Sisala suddenly felt that all her own progress was nothing special. No... don’t go down that road.

This wasn’t something she should be lingering on. Soon, she’d be pulled into the Rift investigation work.

“You’ve done well too, Do-Jin. You don’t even feel like the same person I met before.”

“I’ve been living pretty damn hard.”

“More like too hard, don’t you think?”

“Maybe,” Do-Jin answered with a faint smile.

Sisala drew in a long breath, trying to sort through what to say next. Her eyes lit up as if she had just remembered something.

“Oh, right. A girl came by with a letter you wrote. Her name was Diana.”

His eyes widened. “Diana?”

It seemed like today was going to be packed with reunions he hadn’t seen coming, both face-to-face and through other people.

***

Seeing the Elthomagia mages getting ready to make a scene, Sisala gave Do-Jin a regretful smile as she said, “I should get going.”

“We’ll see each other again, right?”

“Of course.”

With that, Do-Jin and Sisala shook hands just as they had when parting ways back on the mountain. As he watched her walk toward the Elthomagia mages, his thoughts turned to Diana and the news Sisala had just given him.

So Diana actually got into the Academy... It wasn’t even admission season, yet somehow she had gotten in.

The whole thing sounded like the plot of a corny web novel. She’d taken the so-called “letter of recommendation” he wrote to Elthomagia. With Sisala’s help, the runaway girl got into a swordsmanship dojo. Her insane talent spread by word of mouth, caught the eye of an Academy professor, and before long, she’d been admitted on a special track.

Do-Jin let out a short laugh, shaking his head at the absurdity, and turned his eyes toward the group of students. It looked like they were just about done on that side as well. He could tell because Xenia Bondrei was stomping her way over. She had looked like a wild boar earlier, but now, she seemed more like an elephant.

“You!”

“What?” he responded flatly.

“You’d better not think you can just brush this off. I’ll let it go for now because of the situation, but I’ll make damn sure to settle this later. So you’d better come find me yourself or come to the Bondrei estate. Got it? Absolutely no excuses!” After screeching in his face, Xenia spun on her heel and stormed off, each step pounding the ground.

[Relationship established!]

[Lady Xenia Bondrei of the Bondrei Ducal House has shown interest in you.]

[Xenia Bondrei’s Favorability has increased by 44 points.]

[Current Favorability: 44]

Do-Jin wondered if that was her way of saying she wanted to repay him. Whatever the case, Xenia started a chain reaction. The other students who had finished their treatment came pouring in to thank him, one after the other.

“You’re grateful, right?” Do-Jin asked the group of kids.

“Of course!” one replied.

“There’s a girl named Diana at the Academy. Make sure you look out for her, got it?” he requested while clapping their shoulders.

“Uh... y-yes!”

[Quest reward tally complete!]

[You have obtained an S-Rank Random Item Box.]

It was the highest-grade reward available from this quest. It was not on the level of a Fate Rank quest, but still, the haul had been good.

The rewards are nice, but the bigger prize is that I’ve basically racked up a list of debts across the Academy and beyond.

Do-Jin stretched his arms wide and groaned. “Getting up to Rank 7 as an adventurer is such a fucking grind...”

He couldn’t believe this whole farce had happened because of a simple promotion quest.