Encountering An Yumin at the VR Training Ground (2)
The members of Aegis had come to the VR training ground.
Hero activities were scheduled for a few days from now, and midterms were not far off either. It was high time the members started coordinating their breathing in earnest.
Midterms matter.
The same held true for Song Sia. For freshmen, the two regular exams served as major benchmarks. Those scores determined whether they could apply for hunter guild internships over the break. The more internship experience they stacked, the stronger their hunter portfolios became.
Even if I'm already set for an internal placement, high scores are still necessary.
Naturally, a mega-guild on the level of Valhalla's Apostles graded its internships by tier. The highest tier let an intern slot into an elite team as a sub. Walking into a sub position with mediocre grades invited all sorts of talk.
In that moment, Song Sia absently thought of one particular cadet.
If Lee Junwoo entered the same elite-team internship as me...
During Hell Week she had offered him the internship. He had refused on the spot.
Turning down an internship at our guild...
For an ordinary cadet it was unthinkable. That single line of experience alone was enough to vault someone into the upper strata of society. And so Song Sia felt unsettled. The points of contact between her and Lee Junwoo seemed to be vanishing one by one.
She had attended the Crime Studies freshman welcome party, yet she had not managed even a single exchange with him. She had shifted seats naturally, trying to force even a few words, but Junwoo never once glanced her way. So she had done something she never once did during their Aegis days—she sent the first DM. There was no reply. Worse, not long ago she had witnessed Ha Yeeun trading DMs with him.
To Lee Junwoo... does that mean I'm worth less than Ha Yeeun?
It hurt. She wanted to hear his gentle voice again, yet right now she felt completely cut off from him.
Right. Aside from the guild's backing, I have no advantages at all.
Some people rated her looks highly, but as someone who felt no emotions, she had no idea how to cultivate feminine charm. At times like this she almost envied Ha Yeeun. Ha Yeeun commanded a legion of male fans; even now Song Sia could feel the male cadets' lingering stares stealing glances at her.
In her comeback stream the other day she wore something revealing, too.
In her own way, Ha Yeeun knew how to lure men. But Song Sia had zero confidence in the so-called fox-like coquetry. Beyond the simple fact that she liked Lee Junwoo, she still could not grasp any other human emotion. She had not the faintest clue how to earn even a scrap of his favor.
"Haa..."
She bit her lip hard again. The more she thought of Lee Junwoo, the hotter her body grew while her heart ached as if freezing. If only he had been a villain—she could have offered him the pure vampire blood every villain coveted. But that pure blood was not something an ordinary cadet could withstand.
Then there had been the Pure White Festival. That was when she learned of Junwoo's news.
They said he received a mission as a member of the disciplinary committee.
Lee Junwoo had not formally joined the disciplinary committee. After the villain intrusion during Hell Week, Student Council President Jo Arin had temporarily expanded the committee. Naturally, as a student-council affiliate, she selected only capable cadets rather than random fillers.
Choosing a cadet who is neither High Class nor even Middle Class means...
From High Class she had selected only An Yumin as a temporary disciplinary member. That meant the genius Jo Arin rated Lee Junwoo's potential on par with An Yumin's. Just as Song Sia had always thought—Aegis had been the shackle holding Junwoo back.
Song Sia had watched countless hunter prospects at Valhalla's Apostles, yet even she was astonished by how far Lee Junwoo was growing.
He caught the student council president's eye. In that case...
Jo Arin was a scholarship student of the Hunter Association. The odds that she would later become a direct Association hunter agent were extremely high. That was why Jo Arin and Song Sia could never mix. On the surface Valhalla's Apostles followed the Association's will, but the situation had changed. The massively swollen Valhalla's Apostles now sought independence as its own power, free of the Association's hand. The power struggle between those two forces was already rippling into the underworld.
So if Lee Junwoo becomes a direct Association hunter, he'll walk a path completely different from mine.
That could not happen. She no longer wanted any more distance from him.
This really is the last chance.
The midterm dungeon raid. The exam venue would not be Theia Academy itself but a dungeon zone specially managed by Valhalla's Apostles—where practical evaluation would be held. Using that backdrop, she might be able to create points of contact with Junwoo again.
I can influence both dungeon assignments and lodging assignments.
If it would make him conscious of her as a woman, if it would earn even a little of his favor, she would do anything.
While she was lost in those thoughts, Song Sia suddenly froze.
Why is Lee Junwoo...
He was walking straight toward the Aegis members. Her heart pounded. Just maybe, just possibly, he might have business with her.
Did he reconsider the internship offer I made before...
But Lee Junwoo's gaze was not on her. It was on An Yumin. At that realization Song Sia felt a pain as if her chest were being torn open again.
It hurts...
And at the words that followed, a vicious jealousy toward An Yumin flared inside her.
"An Yumin. Let's talk for a minute."
Even with the surrounding cadets watching, An Yumin nodded without the slightest hesitation.
Why her and not me...
That jealousy made her entire body tremble.
"Lee Junwoo-nim!"
He even nodded in response to Ha Yeeun's greeting, yet he did not so much as acknowledge Song Sia's existence. If the other cadets had not been present, Song Sia might have shed tears in a way completely unlike herself.
Soon the two of them left the training ground together.
I called An Yumin out for a moment.
In truth, because of the Avenger title I felt nothing toward the three members of Aegis. So whenever I chose to get involved with them again, it was only when I needed them for my own purposes.
Just like with Ha Yeeun.
To evolve the 4-star authority I was carefully corrupting her. And when I approached An Yumin, I felt Song Sia's gaze fixed on me. Through the Marionette threads already linking us, her emotions reached me—vicious jealousy. She should have known from the earlier explanation that things between An Yumin and me had completely collapsed, yet merely stepping away together for a short while was enough to dye Song Sia's black Marionette threads.
Not bad.
Demonic Power Points increased by 10.
The obsession she felt toward me had grown, and I gained Demonic Power from it.
Pushing the push-and-pull further from now on might not be a bad idea.
Just by stimulating her jealousy I had already gathered 40 Demonic Power. Demonic Power was a special force used to temporarily strengthen or evolve skills. Beyond that power, the pure blood Song Sia possessed might also prove highly useful to me as a villain.
There's content coming up soon where I'll need to spend that Demonic Power.
Exactly the first quest of original Chapter 2—an enormous event for An Yumin. Until now I had taken every quest she no longer needed. Chapter 1 had been the quest for the 2nd Awakening, so An Yumin, who had already finished that, had no use for it.
This quest, at least, won't be skipped.
Because it was the quest that directly involved An Yumin with Theia Academy's secret—the one tied to the Archmage Leticein. And it would come through the temporary disciplinary committee mission under the student council. In the original, An Yumin entered a special dungeon called the Hotel of Mirrors during that mission.
"...... What do you want?"
The two of us stepped outside the training ground for a moment, standing in front of a bench near the vending machines. An Yumin spoke.
"President Jo Arin sent me a DM. There's a night patrol for temporary disciplinary members this weekend. She asked me to pass the word to you as well."
That part was not a lie. Originally I was supposed to take the patrol with Choi Hana, but Choi Hana could not free up a weekend night. Her Naharing fans would go completely dark otherwise. Naturally.
"Wait. Choi Hana is your partner."
"Choi Hana has a schedule that day. When I told the president she was out, she suggested I partner with you instead—since we already did hero activities together."
"......"
An Yumin's expression flickered with surprise for an instant before settling back into blankness. Her reddish-brown long hair had grown even longer than when she had exiled me. She looked a little thinner, which only made the lines of her cadet uniform stand out more. An Yumin was still beautiful, yet I felt none of the flutter I had recently experienced with Choi Hana—or rather, with Naharing.
After a brief silence An Yumin said, "Fine. I already told the president I'd run patrol that day anyway. See you then."
With that she turned her back on me. My business was finished as well. I did not try to stop her.
So the trouble between us wasn't a major issue after all.
I had said some harsh things to her during Hell Week, yet An Yumin seemed calm. That was fine by me. For my sake she still needed to push the story forward diligently.
In the original, the student council president and An Yumin clear this quest together. So I...
Given that the quest map was named the Hotel of Mirrors, I—who possessed the special authority Throne of the Shadow Mirror—could never sit this one out. And since I would be alongside the strongest first- and second-years, there was a real chance I could obtain information on the Archmage Leticein, the biggest plot hook of the original.
Should I head back too?
I needed to start training with the party for the midterm dungeon practice. The lineup was solid—Jiyu and Choi Hana, plus Lim Jaeho and Jeong Siu had joined. If things went well we might score even higher than I expected. Through those scores I was aiming for a specific internship.
Direct agent of the Hunter Association.
For a villain like me to hide, the very heart of enemy territory would actually be ideal.
I returned to the training ground. When I did, I saw An Yumin and Song Sia talking.
Saturday evening arrived quickly.
An Yumin had waited desperately for Saturday alone. She had thought everything was over. Yet a few days ago Lee Junwoo himself had proposed the weekend disciplinary patrol to her. Of course the student council president's opinion had carried more weight than Junwoo's, so she tried not to harbor empty hopes. Still, from the day they spoke at the training ground, a voice that had fallen quiet for a while began whispering endlessly inside her heart.
— Do you want to try again with Lee Junwoo?
And at those words, Song Sia's face rose unbidden in her mind.