The Heroine Stole My Regression-Chapter 34

A few more days passed like that.

The students were buzzing with excitement over the latest announcement—midterm’s main event: the one-on-one duels.

The selection process began today.

There would be three matches total, each done through challenger designation.

If someone named an opponent, a 1:1 duel would be set.

Anyone who wasn’t chosen or didn’t choose someone would be matched with a random opponent. Fairly.

Which meant I had no reason to worry. There was no one I wanted to challenge, and no one who would bother challenging me.

So my priorities were simple: boost the main characters’ specs.

And prepare for the demon ambush.

First, increasing their specs. There were two core members I planned to focus on this time.

Yu Hana, and Cheon Yeoul.

Kang Arin was already plenty powerful as she was.

I didn’t need to intervene with her just yet. If anything, getting involved carelessly could throw things off track.

Sung Siwoo was still on hold.

I was already training with Yu Hana daily, and her progress had been rapid.

And right now—

“I’m not doing it! No, I can’t do this!”

“Hey, come on. Just read it again, slower this time. Please.”

It was 11 p.m., and I was bickering with Cheon Yeoul at a café. I had already cleared things with Yu Hana in advance.

This all started after I caught Cheon Yeoul struggling with a problem after class.

Even after everyone else left, she stayed at her desk, hunched over with her head down.

Normally, she’d have vanished the moment class ended.

This is hard...

Just like in the original, Cheon Yeoul understood most things quickly—but when it came to theory, she was hopeless.

Still, she looked so earnest trying to work it out that I ended up helping her with a few questions.

Then she begged me to properly teach her.

Which was how I got dragged all the way here.

The problem she was groaning about was designing a low-grade divine spell formation.

Compared to basic magic circles, this was definitely more complex. Divine spells required configuring both mana and a separate holy power circuit.

“Look, there are two circuits. So you need two power sources. If you jam them [N O V E L I G H T] into one, they’ll interfere.”

I started sketching a simple diagram in her notebook as I explained.

But Cheon Yeoul just furrowed her brow, glaring at the problem like it had personally insulted her.

That glare wasn’t going to solve anything.

Then suddenly, her eyes lit up.

“Ah!”

Looked like she finally got it.

The only problem was that it had taken two whole hours to get her there.

What am I supposed to do with her...

After finally solving the problem, Cheon Yeoul let out a long sigh.

“I mean... why do I even need to learn how to draw these damn things when I can just cast them by waving my hand...?”

I gave her a deadpan look.

Because you’re a genius, that’s why.

Cheon Yeoul could deploy divine formations instinctively, without ever designing them.

But if she did learn how to control the flow of holy power more precisely, the effects would multiply dramatically.

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That’s why I was making her study it.

“...But seriously, how do you know all this?”

Cheon Yeoul narrowed her eyes at me suspiciously, her gaze tilted upward with mischief.

“You studied divine spells too?”

There was a teasing lilt in her voice.

I hesitated.

I studied it for you.

Yeah, like hell I could say that out loud.

Instead, I reached out and flicked her forehead.

Smack!

“Ah!”

With a clean little sound, her head jerked slightly from the flick.

“Why do you want to know?”

Cheon Yeoul clutched her forehead. Her cheeks were faintly flushed, and her eyes sparkled.

Honestly, the way she reacted made me want to keep messing with her.

“Please let’s just finish these and go home already.”

I flipped the page and skimmed through the next problem without much thought.

But then—

“...?”

A sharp stare.

I felt it immediately and instinctively looked up.

And there, at the entrance of the café, a guy burst in, panting and glaring straight at us.

Johan.

He was out of breath, eyes locked onto us with a gaze sharp enough to cut.

His expression was full of resentment and hostility.

I shifted my gaze slightly to the far end of the café, near the windows.

Well, look at that.

One of Johan’s cronies was there, throwing glances in our direction.

But he played it off, swirling his coffee cup like he hadn’t just been spying.

He probably tipped Johan off.

Something like, "The Saint is out late at night with some guy."

“Haah...”

A heavy sigh came from beside me.

It was Cheon Yeoul.

She let out a short breath, then pressed herself closer to my side.

We weren’t facing each other to begin with—Cheon Yeoul had already crossed over to my side of the booth, sitting beside me on the same couch.

Now we were practically glued together.

This translation is the intellectual property of Novelight.

And when Johan saw that, his expression twisted even further, his breathing growing rough.

“Are you two dating?”

I asked offhandedly.

Only then did Cheon Yeoul finally look at him.

Her face turned cold.

No—more than that. Her expression was something beyond disgust.

Like someone who’d tried to swallow rotten food and failed. Like she was chewing on a bug.

Then she answered, firmly.

“Are you insane?”

“Then... are you a stalker?”

“That’s much more accurate.”

Her voice was icy.

Cheon Yeoul glared at Johan with the chill of solid ice, and his face visibly twitched.

“Then why’s he just sitting over there and not coming over?”

“I filed a restraining order.”

“Oh... really?”

So she’d already filed a restraining order with the Church. A few months ago, that would’ve seemed outrageous, but at this point, it just meant her influence was growing rapidly.

The Saint and the Hero.

Their relationship was complicated.

From a young age, both had been raised under a very specific kind of doctrine.

“The Hero protects the world. The Saint assists and obeys the Hero.”

That was the dogma passed down through generations.

But times had changed.

Even within the Order, power was split—those who clung to the old ways, and those who demanded reform.

Johan was still trapped in that outdated belief system. He still thought he was the Hero, and the Saint belonged to him. That she shouldn’t ever leave his side.

I looked at him with detached indifference.

He was glaring like he wanted to kill me.

It probably infuriated him to see the Saint sitting next to another man like this.

In the original story, that man would’ve been Sung Siwoo. But now, it seemed I’d taken that spot.

Johan eventually turned and stormed out, jaw clenched, fury suppressed just beneath the surface.

That means...

With Johan’s obsession over Cheon Yeoul surfacing earlier than it should have, the number of routes he might take from here had increased dramatically.

I could already see what was coming.

***

After wrapping up my one-on-one tutoring session with Cheon Yeoul, I returned to the dorms.

My index finger was starting to ache. I’d lost count of how many times I’d flicked her forehead.

It’s like she was getting things wrong on purpose...

I sighed, lying on my bed as I began to reflect.

Earlier, I mentioned I had two main tasks.

First: leveling up the main characters.

That part was going more smoothly than expected.

Second: preparing for the demon ambush.

I’ve done what I needed.

At this point, I was in a pretty relaxed position.

I’d already acquired the Fragment far earlier than the original storyline intended.

In the original, it was supposed to be a rare miracle the protagonist obtained only after countless hardships, well into the second half of the story.

Of course, the fact that I was the one who absorbed it was a big deviation...

But that was already done.

Yu Hana had the Dongbaek Sword. Cheon Yeoul had the Cross.

On top of that, this midterm would also involve members of Vanquisher. Even if a demon attack occurred, the chances of it being easily repelled were high.

I’d made the necessary preparations, and luck had brought some good variables into play.

And most importantly—

This ambush? It was practically a tutorial.

Demons.

They weren’t so much a species as a category of entities, with wildly varying danger levels depending on the individual.

Even among those labeled as demons, many were just disposable trash.

The ones attacking Gaon this time were exactly that sort.

It was just a show, meant to prove that Gaon wasn’t truly a safe zone.

None of the higher-ups in the demon hierarchy would be moving this time.

They weren’t ready to gamble on a full-blown war with the forces stationed in Gaon.

The real threat?

Was the “magical creature” they’d been secretly keeping locked up—something they’d unleash to create undeniable chaos.

Stopping that thing would be the real point of the event.

I opened the Hero Auction app on my smart watch.

The item I’d ordered—the Stone Sickle, a.k.a. Harpe—was set to arrive tomorrow.

Which meant I was now fully prepped for the magical creature.

I closed the watch and lay back comfortably.

Ding!

Just then, a notification sound I’d never heard before came from my watch.

What the...?

I moved my finger and pulled up the alert.

Then laughed under my breath.

“Heh...”

[1v1 Duel Challenge Notification]

[Rank #2 Johan] → [Unknown: Jeong Haein]

[1v1 Duel Challenge Notification]

[Rank #42 Sung Siwoo] → [Unknown: Jeong Haein]

So much for thinking no one would challenge me.

Looks like I was very wrong.