GHDDM 4

4
[ Episode 4 ]
“Turn in your performance evaluation assignment on my desk before we finish homeroom.”
The class representative, Kim Seung-yeon, spoke in an even tone. Neat, shoulder-length hair, not a wrinkle on her uniform. A model student of first-year class two.
Her gaze drifted toward the back seat by the window, as it always did.
A glance.
“He should’ve been here by now. It’s an attendance day.”
The owner of that empty seat was named Cheon Do-hyeon.
The only No-Ma in this entire school—and an outcast. But Kim Seung-yeon had never seen him as merely a victim. Despite the contempt and violence inflicted upon him for his inability to use magic, Cheon Do-hyeon had never once bowed to it. Instead, he fought back with every tool at his disposal.
She held deep respect for that.
When she learned recently of his grandfather’s passing, Kim Seung-yeon made a decision.
‘How much he must be struggling. I’ve been too distant as class rep. From now on, I’ll help him.’
When he returned, she would not let him fight alone anymore.
That was when the rear door swung open roughly.
Creak—
“Damn. What’s for lunch today?”
“Tonkatsu!”
The air seemed to foul in an instant. Kim Byeong-hak and his cronies had arrived—the biggest troublemakers in class, and the primary tormentors of Cheon Do-hyeon. There were rumors that Kim Byeong-hak had connections to someone important.
“So Cheon Do-hyeon still hasn’t shown?”
“Guess he’s taking his time mourning.”
“Tell him to buy us snacks as condolences when he gets here.”
They threw out crude, distasteful jokes and snickered among themselves.
‘Garbage.’
Seung-yeon bit her lip.
Then the rear door opened again.
Creak.
The classroom noise cut off sharply. A dark silhouette filled the doorway entirely. Taller than 180 centimeters, muscles rippling beneath a shirt stretched taut. It was Cheon Do-hyeon, returned after one week.
‘Cheon Do-hyeon…?’
Seung-yeon’s eyes widened.
The physical transformation was startling, but the real change lay elsewhere.
His eyes.
The sharp, vicious gleam that once dwelt there had vanished, replaced by eyes like an unfathomable abyss. Kim Seung-yeon found herself mesmerized, her gaze tracing his every movement.
“Hey, it’s been a while?”
Kim Byeong-hak smirked, pretending familiarity, but Do-hyeon treated them as invisible and took his seat.
Kim Byeong-hak’s brow twitched at that indifferent response.
###
‘Did that bastard lose his mind?’
Kim Byeong-hak was displeased. He’d never been particularly obedient, but today he was being completely ignored.
No—it wasn’t even ignoring him.
It was as if Do-hyeon were looking through a stray dog on the street, utterly indifferent.
“Ha, this bastard’s something else.”
“He’s dissing us? Seriously no respect?”
His hangers-on feigned outrage to curry favor, overdoing it.
Emboldened, Kim Byeong-hak stood and walked over to Do-hyeon’s desk.
“Hey, Empty. You should greet us when you get back.”
He picked a fight from a distance that couldn’t be ignored.
But Cheon Do-hyeon remained focused on writing something in his notebook, not even glancing up.
Silence.
In truth, Kim Byeong-hak was hesitating.
That small collision last semester in the back yard.
The eerie killing intent he’d felt then.
Though he’d deflected it with a Shield spell, that unsettling memory was running on instinct, holding him back.
But the moment he acknowledged that uneasiness, his pride crumbled.
Kim Byeong-hak clenched his fists.
‘You dare ignore me? A No-Ma bastard, no less. Just wait. I’ll make you tremble the moment our eyes meet.’
He was prepared to use offensive magic, to break Do-hyeon’s pride completely. School rules? He didn’t care anymore. As a first-class Magician, it was his duty to discipline an uncouth Non-Awakened. Even if things escalated, the school wouldn’t side with someone who was both No-Ma and Non-Awakened.
And even in the worst scenario, Kim Byeong-hak had a final refuge.
‘If it comes down to it, I can ask them for help.’
The lunch bell rang, and Kim Byeong-hak kicked over Do-hyeon’s desk.
“Hey, Empty. We need to talk.”
……
“Can’t you hear me? Get yourself to the incinerator out back. You’ve got ten minutes.”
Kim Byeong-hak gestured to his gang and left the classroom.
The other students watched Cheon Do-hyeon with worried expressions.
But Do-hyeon’s lips curved into a faint smile.
As though something he’d long waited for was finally happening.
###
When Kim Seung-yeon returned from the faculty office, she sensed something was wrong with the classroom atmosphere.
Sure enough—
Cheon Do-hyeon’s seat was empty. Kim Byeong-hak and his gang were nowhere to be seen.
One of the classmates approached her, speaking in an agitated rush.
“Seung-yeon! What do we do? Byeong-hak dragged him away.”
“He said something about the incinerator out back. That guy’s getting flattened for sure.”
At the whispers of the other students, Seung-yeon’s face went pale.
Why would they drag him to the incinerator of all places?
The incinerator. That place had no CCTV—it was a blind spot.
‘No. This can’t happen.’
This time she had to stop it.
Seung-yeon ran down the corridor. Her heart pounded as if it might burst.
Somewhere during her sprint, her indoor shoes came off—her feet were bare.
Please let her not be too late. Please let him not be badly hurt.
“Huff, huff…”
The entrance to the incinerator came into view.
But something felt wrong.
It was far too quiet. No sounds of blows, no cursing, no screams.
A sinister dread ran down her spine. Had the situation already ended?
Seung-yeon pushed the incinerator’s iron door open with desperate urgency.
Bang!
“Do-hyeon! Are you alri—”
Her voice cut short in the empty air.
The sight before her eyes made her pupils quiver as though an earthquake had struck.
Everything unfolding before her was the exact opposite of what she’d imagined.
“Wh…?”
The one sprawled on the floor wasn’t Do-hyeon.
One had foam on his lips and lay unconscious.
Another whimpered, his arm bent at an unnatural angle.
And…
“P-please… help me…”
Kim Byeong-hak, backing away in terror.
The arrogant expression he always wore had twisted into pure fear.
And standing before him was Cheon Do-hyeon.
Not a speck of dust on his uniform—immaculate.
“Class rep?”
Do-hyeon turned to look at Seung-yeon and spoke matter-of-factly.
As if a guest had arrived while he was cleaning.
“Don’t worry. We were just having a little ‘chat.’ Right, Byeong-hak?”
Do-hyeon’s gaze shifted back to Kim Byeong-hak.
Byeong-hak let out a weak whimper and crumpled to the ground.
Seung-yeon found herself unable to close her mouth.
“H-how…?”
Whatever had happened over the past week, he was no longer the bullied outcast he’d been.
Cheon Do-hyeon had come back as a monster.
###
“Can’t you hear me? Get yourself to the incinerator out back. You’ve got ten minutes.”
Do-hyeon watched Kim Byeong-hak walk ahead of him and let out a small laugh.
Simple creatures. One little push and they laid out the mat themselves.
“You’re done for today.”
“What gives you the nerve to mouth off? You’re finished.”
Do-hyeon didn’t respond. He simply quieted the hunger stirring in his Dantian.
The more he trained in the Xue Xing Da Fa, the more his Dantian craved life force. Perhaps that was why he could almost smell the faint Mana flowing from these thugs.
‘Hold on. I’ll feed you soon enough.’
The Incinerator sat at the back of the School, in the most secluded blind spot on campus—nowhere the security cameras reached, nowhere a teacher’s gaze would fall.
Perhaps that was why the moment the iron door swung shut, their demeanor shifted entirely.
“Do-hyeon, you bastard! You actually crawled here on your own two feet? Man, we’re grateful, seriously.”
“And you, you shit. I’ve been waiting for this ever since you started throwing your weight around.”
“Today we’re sending you to join your grandfather.”
Kim Byeong-hak and the other two spun their Circles in unison, preparing to cast. The air trembled with the resonant hum of Mana. Three Magicians radiating killing intent.
An ordinary person’s legs would have buckled at the sight, but Cheon Do-hyeon was different.
‘So they think they’ve really got me cornered.’
Yet waiting for this exact moment was something Do-hyeon had been doing all along.
“What are you going to do, you bastard? What could you possibly—”
Pop—
The words never finished.
“Huh?”
The instant Cheon Do-hyeon vanished from his sight, a stupefied sound escaped the man’s lips.
Combat between Magicians is ranged warfare. But Do-hyeon scorned that convention, closing five meters in a single explosive burst of leg strength.
Complete Physical Transformation synergized with inner force.
“W-wait, what—?”
The man panicked, trying to rush through an incantation. But his hands were faster than his tongue.
Crack—
Do-hyeon’s blunt hand clamped down over the man’s face.
[Xue Xing Da Fa – Forceful Extraction]
Through the skin beneath his palm, Do-hyeon tore the Mana flowing through the man’s body clean out by force.
“Guh—my, my Mana!”
It felt like a powerful vacuum had been jammed into his heart. The terrible sensation of Mana and life force itself being ripped out by the roots from the depths of his body—a pain he had never experienced before in his life.
His pupils rolled back in his head, and soon white foam bubbled from his lips as he collapsed.
Thud—
Only then did Do-hyeon release his hand from the man’s face.
It had all happened so quickly that the remaining two hadn’t even processed what was taking place.
“What—what did that bastard just do?”
The man beside them snapped to attention and cast immediately. His reaction speed was surprisingly sharp.
[Bind]
Invisible Mana coiled around Do-hyeon’s limbs like rope—a magical chain that couldn’t be broken by physical force alone.
Whoosh—
Do-hyeon glanced down at it for a moment, then thought he could break it. His reaction was instant. He reached out and grasped the magical chain.
“Ha! You ignorant bastard, you can’t break that with strength—”
Snap—
That was only conventional wisdom. In the hands of Do-hyeon channeling the Xue Xing Da Fa, magic was merely a mass of energy waiting to be consumed.
“Aaaagh!”
The caster shrieked. The spell had been forcibly unraveled, and the backlash slammed into his mind.
Blood streamed from his nose as he staggered.
A vast shadow fell across him.
“Hhgh!”
Whether from courage or desperation, the man drove a powerful left punch toward Do-hyeon.
Whack—Crack
Do-hyeon reflexively blocked the incoming fist with his left hand, then snapped the man’s arm with his right.
With just that casual deflection, the unpracticed arm shattered, hanging useless.
“Aaaaagh!”
Overwhelmed by pain beyond anything he’d ever known, the man thrashed across the floor, sobbing helplessly.
Two down in an instant. Only Kim Byeong-hak remained.
“Th-this is…”
Kim Byeong-hak couldn’t believe what was unfolding before his eyes.
What was happening here?
Was he dreaming?
Without thinking, his body began backing away. None of what he was seeing made sense.
But one thing was certain: magic wasn’t working on him. No—magic was being consumed by him.
‘A monster… that thing is a monster.’
Fear drowned out reason. He had to do something to survive.
A cornered rat would bite a cat.
Kim Byeong-hak gathered his remaining Mana and deployed a flame spell at maximum output—the most powerful magic he could muster.
“Don’t come near me! I’ll burn it all down!”
Red flames were rippling across his palm, threatening to ignite, when it happened.
Cheon Do-hyeon paid no heed to the threat and narrowed the distance between them slowly, deliberately.
Capillaries had burst from the excessive casting of the Life Force Absorption Technique, staining his eyes a sickly crimson—he looked like a demon crawling up from the depths of hell itself.
Cheon Do-hyeon drew in a deep breath. And then—
[Xue Xing Da Fa – Vacuum]
The air throughout the crematorium grew heavy, pressing down like a physical weight. Kim Byeong-hak’s breath caught in his throat.
Every trace of mana floating in the atmosphere vanished in an instant.
“Wh…what?”
Pssht…
The flames dancing across Kim Byeong-hak’s palm snuffed out as if they’d never been. Fire cannot exist without fuel to consume it.
“My…my magic, why—”
As his last weapon, the one thing he’d relied upon, dissolved into nothing, Kim Byeong-hak felt his legs buckle beneath him—helplessness and terror hollowing him out.
Thud.
The figure of Cheon Do-hyeon standing before him loomed impossibly large.
Pride? Dignity? Such things had been erased from his mind entirely.
Kim Byeong-hak looked up at Cheon Do-hyeon through trembling pupils and spoke.
“Pl…please… spare me…”