Chapter 33: The Ogre Event

Jinhae

The side gate opened. The western post sat empty. I didn't want a farewell.

Ahyun came through behind me with both packs already settled on her shoulders. Seolhwa waited for us with both swords on her hip and her own pack slung light.

“No one came,” Ahyun whispered.

“That was the point.”

I eased the gate shut until the latch seated without a click.

The service road took us past the granary and the unused western paddies. Dew soaked the cuffs of my traveling robes before we cleared the last fence.

Seolhwa fell in on my right. Ahyun stayed half a pace behind on the left.

“You’re sure about the hour?” Seolhwa asked. “Your father—”

“Will hear we left after the fact.” I adjusted the pack strap. “He has a rescued wife and daughter, and a second son still out on the wrong mountain.”

I wouldn't have to look Kang Daewon in the eye again.

Three months from now Daewon would put a marriage plaque in front of Minji. She would refuse it. Six months from now he would try a second house. A better match. A longer ride. The ambush on that road was a fixed event. The patriarch of House Kang died in the mud with a letter of alliance still in his sleeve, and the Kang conquest route opened.

I would be at the Academy when it happened and would come back to a house without a father, a stepmother already carrying my child, and a sister who had refused every man who was not me.

“Baekryong Valley,” I said. “Five days on foot if we don’t rush.”

Seolhwa glanced at the empty lane behind us.

“We have horses.”

“The estate has horses. I left them.” I stepped over a rut still soft from last night’s dew. “A three-horse file with Kang tack and a Haeun crest draws eyes all the way to the capital road.”

The Ogre Event on the third day only fired on the walking route. Mounted parties skipped the trigger entirely.

Baekryong Valley sat near the capital, far enough that Orthodox and Unorthodox heirs could attend without calling it a royal stronghold.

Patrols had been finding tracks that belonged to nothing born in Jungwon.

Ahyun’s voice went smaller.

“When we arrive, I report to the healer division, don’t I?”

“Not immediately,” I said. “First comes the intake assessment. The invitation gets us through the gates, not into a division. Every candidate still has to pass the initial evaluation before anyone reports to the healer, support, or martial halls.”

Her fingers tightened around the straps of her pack.

“And you, Young Master?”

“Strategic support,” I said.

“The support halls sit close to the medical courts,” I added. “You won’t be far.”

Ahyun relaxed by a fraction.

“Yes, Young Master.”

To me it was nonsense. Alliance speeches. Ranking boards. A final war the game had been aiming at since the tutorial. None of it was why I had clawed a plaque out of my father’s hand.

The Academy was the one place every heroine lived.

Still, we had one last heroine to collect before the Academy. One that would find us two days before we even reached the gates.

We were on a stretch of old trade road cut between two shoulders of hill. We were still two days away from Baekryong.

Seolhwa stopped walking.

Both hands were on her hilts before I finished turning my head.

“What,” Ahyun whispered.

“Back,” I said. “Far side of that rock. Don't come in until I call. If someone is bleeding, you heal. If no one is bleeding, you stay put.”

“Young Master.”

“Now.”

The pines on the right shoulder shook.

An ogre came through the tree line. It was a hill that had decided to stand up and walk.

Three and a half meters of gray-green hide. Arms like temple pillars. A single horn jutted from the brow, thick as my calf, crusted black at the tip. The smell hit a second later. Rotten meat.

Demonic spawn. The kind the patrols were supposed to catch.

It saw us and roared.

Seolhwa moved.

Both swords cleared the sheaths in one clean whisper and she was already gone, low and fast and aimed at the thing’s lead knee.

The ogre swung. A tree to Seolhwa’s left ceased to be a tree. She was already on the other side of the knee, both blades biting.

A shallow white line, but no blood.

“Joints!” I shouted. “Behind the knee. Inside the elbow.”

The ogre led with the left.

Seolhwa was already moving before I finished the sentence. The left fist plowed a trench in the road where her head had been and she carved a second line into the inner elbow, deeper, and this time the hide split.

Black-red welled out.

The ogre noticed it was bleeding and decided that was a reason to stop playing.

Crude Qi detonated around its shoulders. The air went heavy and the dust on the road lifted in a ring. Seolhwa’s next step hit that ring and her boots slid. Only a fraction. Enough.

The backhand caught her across the ribs and sent her into the cutbank.

Seolhwa hit, rolled, came up on one knee with both swords still in her hands. She spat dirt and stood up.

Mind Evolution painted the ogre in cold blue. The Qi was a filthy river. No meridians worth the name. Just pressure and hunger and a single ugly knot behind the horn. The knot pulsed. Every pulse telegraphed the next swing by half a breath.

“Right knee, now. Then off-line left.”

She went.

I fired the needle.

The stagger hit. The ogre’s eyes emptied for one perfect second. The right fist froze mid-descent. Seolhwa’s blades took the back of the knee together, crossed, and ripped out the other side in a spray of black.

The leg buckled.

The ogre dropped to one knee.

Seolhwa was already climbing it. One foot on the collapsed thigh, both swords high. She drove both blades in at the base of the skull.

The ogre’s remaining hand closed on her ankle.

I dumped more Will into a second stagger. The grip loosened a fraction. Seolhwa tore free, lost a boot, landed on the road.

Seolhwa carved the inner elbow again. The arm sagged. She ducked the next attack by a finger-width. She was breathing hard now. The red on her ribs had reached her sash.

The ogre, down on one ruined knee, tried to raise his arm like a shield.

The spear arrived first. I didn't see the thrower. A silver streak out of the trees on the left.

It hit the ogre in the left eye and did not stop. It punched through bone. The back of the skull blew out.

The spear stood out of the ruined socket.

A woman came out of the tree line. Red hair was pulled into a knot at the back of her head. A second spear rode her back in a worn leather tube. She walked down the shale and put a boot on the ogre’s horn to free her weapon.

One pull. The spear came out.

She flicked the black off the point in a single hard snap and only then looked at us.

“Alive?” she asked.

Seolhwa didn't lower the swords.

“I had it.”

The woman set the butt of the spear on the road. “And I ended it. You can send a complaint to whoever taught you to climb a dying ogre instead of taking the neck from the ground.”

Color burned across Seolhwa’s cheekbones. The boyish mask held by pride alone.

“Say that again.”

“I just did.”

A second figure came out of the same trees.

Smaller. A dusty gray travel cloak. The hood was down.

Pink hair past her shoulders, loosely tied. Amber-gold eyes.

She picked her way down the shale with both hands holding the cloak closed and stopped a polite distance from the corpse.

“Unnie,” she said. “You said we would watch.”

“I said you would watch.”

The pink-haired girl looked at the ogre, at Seolhwa, at me, and at the rock where Ahyun was hiding.

She smiled.

“Thank you for keeping it busy,” she said. “That was very brave.”

Ahyun came out from behind the rock without being called.

She went straight to Seolhwa.

“Your ribs,” Ahyun said. “I need to check them.”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re bleeding through your sash.”

Seolhwa glanced down as if she had only just noticed the spreading red. Ahyun reached for the overlap of her robes.

Seolhwa caught her wrist.

“Not here.” Her gaze flicked toward the two strangers. “I am not removing my robes in the middle of the road.”

Ahyun lowered her voice.

“I can't tell whether the ribs are broken through three layers of cloth.”

I stepped close enough that neither stranger could hear me over the wind moving through the pines.

“Take her behind the rock,” I murmured to Ahyun. “Use Phoenix Flame. Keep the light covered.”

Ahyun’s eyes flickered with understanding.

“Yes, Young Master.”

Seolhwa’s grip tightened around her wrist.

“I said I’m fine.”

“And I said you’re bleeding.” Ahyun pulled once. “Come with me, Young Master Seol.”

Seolhwa looked ready to argue until she tried to straighten fully. Pain caught under her ribs. Her breath stopped for half a heartbeat.

“Quickly.”

Ahyun guided her toward the far side of the rock, keeping her own body between Seolhwa and the strangers.

The pink-haired girl watched them go. Then she looked back at me.

“We should introduce ourselves. We did interfere.”

She gestured first toward the red-haired spearwoman.

“She is Captain Na Yerin. I’m Lee Seorin. We’re traveling to Baekryong Academy.”

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LEE SEORIN

Traveling Scholar (Cover)

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Affection ............... 6 / 100

Lust .................... 8 / 100

Trust ................... 11 / 100

Submission .............. 3 / 100

Fear .................... 14 / 100

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Relationship Status: Stranger / Curious

*— Hidden Identity: Third Princess of Jungwon

*— Cover surname: Lee (false)

*— Royal Blood: Active

*— Incognito Integrity: Moderate (hair unhelpful)

*— Escort: Captain Na Yerin — Royal Guard

*— “They fought it. They did not run. The quiet one called the openings.”

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[EVENT COMPLETE]

Baekryong Road — Demonic Scout

*— Ogre slain (shared / last hit: Na Yerin)

*— Seorin Route: Unlocked

*— Hidden Flags: “Kept It Busy”, “Healer Revealed”, “Same Road”

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