Infiltrating the Superhuman Training Girls’ School of the Republic of China!

The Soviet woman on the unicycle took the lead, even ahead of the major. Zhou Lizhi stretched out her hand as if to stop her, then bowed her head and sighed.

“Well, that girl might be able to break through the barrier. Seems like the commies cherish her quite a bit as an agent. I really don’t understand what they’re thinking.”

“Um, Instructor. There’s one thing I’d like to ask.”

I spoke quietly towards Zhou. I was afraid of provoking Zhou, who didn’t seem to be in a good mood, but if she liked my face as Jefferson had said, I also expected that she wouldn’t treat me harshly right away.

“What is it, student Shin Eun-young?”

“How can someone from the Soviet Union, and a Red Army officer at that, enter this school, or rather, China? I really don’t…”

“I don’t know either. This is not a lie. I really don’t know.”

Zhou made a grumbling sound and frowned. Though it was dark, I could easily guess from the small flashlight in the instructor’s hand that she was making a dissatisfied face.

“It’s a decision that came from above me. It seems the Generalissimo is having some strange thoughts that a low-ranking officer like me can’t understand. Or there might be some exchange between the Kremlin and Nanjing. I won’t tell you to keep it a secret, but don’t spread this information too much.”

“Ah, I understand.”

Should I keep my mouth shut for now? But honestly, I had one more thing I was curious about, so I had to open my mouth to ask another question.

“Um, the barrier you mentioned, is it a concealment barrier? Or a protective barrier?”

“Both. After all, this is China’s unique superhuman training academy. Don’t you think they would have employed at least one or two barrier ability users?”

So that’s how it is? Among natural ability users, ‘concealment-type’ ability users appear quite rarely. Any country would especially favor these concealment-type ability users, and if it’s confirmed that one has emerged, they try to bring them into public service faster than anyone else before other countries can snatch them away.

I heard that in some countries, the government has even kidnapped its own citizens to secure barrier ability users. This is because barrier ability users are the only ones who can hide military important facilities and security facilities from artificial satellites, the crystallization of aerospace technology flying in the atmosphere.

“But… um, you say she can break through it?”

“It would be impossible for you, so don’t try. But occasionally there are crazy ones who can break through even the barriers of the best barrier ability users that the Republic of China could employ.”

“I see…”

“Barriers are usually very strong against physical impacts. Impacts that can’t break the barrier in one go only make it stronger. But there are barriers that are ridiculously weak against attacks from other superhumans. Just yesterday, one girl broke through the barrier and came in without our permission, and I had to write an incident report on her behalf.”

“Why did you…”

“It means I failed to manage my assigned student properly. But even for someone like me, how am I supposed to manage a student I haven’t even had a chance to talk to yet?”

Seeing her grumble like this, I felt the impression of the fearsome female instructor who allegedly abuses her power to target female students’ chastity soften a bit. Or is she perhaps deliberately showing a weaker side in front of me?

“You’ll have to… educate her later, I guess…”

“It’s difficult. With my position. Harshly discipline Briar Churchill? Ha, I’d have to write another incident report for worsening diplomatic relations with the British government.”

“Ah… um, I, um…”

“Don’t expect the same special status. Churchill is the biggest shot among this year’s new students. They won’t give the same privileges to others.”

It seems the student who broke through the barrier on her own was the British exchange student, the so-called ‘Maestro’ Briar Churchill. It makes sense. There are widespread rumors about some personality issues with that duke’s second daughter. Breaking through a foreign country’s security facility barrier at will is clearly a violation of manners, but it seems the lady from England, the country of manners, didn’t care about such things.

But even if one decides to do so, whether it’s actually possible is a completely different matter…

Just as Zhou and I were passing through the forest path and entering a winding mountain path, we heard a woman’s voice in Chinese from up ahead.

“Hey… I can’t go any further from here… It feels like the path is repeating… It’s like if I go in here, I’ll be transported back to the center of the forest, something like that?”

“Hmph.”

Zhou snorted upon hearing that voice.

“If you’ve discovered the existence of the barrier, you should be able to break it.”

“But this seems to have been broken today… It feels like it was reinforced today, how should I put it, I feel like I’d get scolded by someone who put a lot of effort into it if I break it again. And it seems like they reinforced it so strongly that it wouldn’t be easy to break even if I really tried…”

My ability is related to fixing things, not really to breaking them in the first place. My duct tape could be used to repair barriers but would be difficult to use for breaking them.

Come to think of it, I didn’t find out what Barbara Tikhonov’s ability was. Maybe I was so distracted by the strange unicycle she kept riding with both hands off that my mind momentarily went blank.

“Then don’t break it, Colonel.”

Zhou said, drawing a gleaming military sword from her waist.

“There’s a key here, so there’s no need to go around breaking things.”

“Ah, I see. Yes, that’s right. Of course, the instructor would have a key. Is that, exclusively for the Major? Is that how it works?”

Zhou shook her head at Tikhonov’s question.

“No, it’s a basic supply item that anyone who enters this school can receive.”

Instructor Zhou then thrust her sword forcefully into thin air. With a swish, the blade cut through the air, and a cracking sound that shouldn’t be audible when cutting air harshly pierced my ears.

It seemed as if the sound of the wind coldly brushing against metal filled the entire thicket. As the buzzing friction sound somewhat subsided, Zhou lightly twisted her wrist as if turning a doorknob key.

And, the barrier opened.

In my five years as an operative, I had never seen anything like it. In the middle of the thicket where there was clearly nothing just 5 seconds ago, a large Chinese-style entrance gate appeared. It was no smaller than the main gate of the Forbidden City I had seen in Beiping, and it gave the strange feeling as if the Zhonghuamen with the Generalissimo’s portrait had suddenly been transported right in front of my eyes.

As the barrier opened, the heavy wooden doors of the main gate creaked open. Zhou pointed inside the slowly opening door and said to the two of us,

“Once you go inside, you’ll easily find the dormitory building. Use two-person rooms. Check who you’ll be sharing a room with and enter accordingly. Since you two came late, your early-arriving colleagues might already be asleep. I hope there won’t be any reason to get red-faced with each other on the first day.”

It’s certainly a time when people who sleep early would have been asleep for a while now.

Huangpu’s main gate, comparable to Zhonghuamen, was now fully open, revealing what was inside. Although I couldn’t see clearly because the lights or lamps weren’t properly lit inside the school beyond the gate, judging by the size of the school, it didn’t look any smaller compared to Gyeongbokgung Palace from the Joseon Dynasty.

I could make a clear comparison because it hadn’t been long since I had experienced a thorough Gyeongbokgung tour, being dragged along on a ‘memory-making’ trip by the NIS agents.

“Such a huge school in such a huge barrier…”

“I’m thinking, wouldn’t it be better to reduce the size of the barrier…”

Zhou shrugged at Tikhonov’s comment.

“Is that the Kremlin’s method, Colonel? Barrier techniques that reveal unimportant parts and only hide important parts?”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t hear well? My Chinese is still clumsy…”

It’s common sense that the smaller the size of the barrier, the stronger it becomes. If this school had hidden only important facilities with barriers, leaving the main gate and non-critical facilities exposed, perhaps even a genius operative lady couldn’t have broken through at will.

“Excuse me, could I know who my roommate is before we go in? Just in case I need to greet them.”

“Of course I can tell you. I remember it.”

Zhou readily answered my question.

“Your roommate is Briar Spencer-Churchill. I can answer with certainty because I remember her frowning when she heard she had to share a room with a college girl from Korea of unknown origin.”