One Round at the Attraction
After stopping by the cafeteria I picked up a boxed dinner. It came with a sandwich, fruit salad, yogurt, and a few other things. The portions were pretty small, but I went with it because I hated drawing stares. Ever since turning into this body, this much really was enough for a meal. Still, even if a meal like this was enough…
This won’t cut it. The thought hit me while I was back in my room changing clothes.
My specs had tanked worse than I expected. I couldn’t afford to coast along like the original Kang Jae-hee. At this rate my scores would probably land me in the lower-middle ranks, and if I wanted any shot at deploying alongside Lee Hyun-woo or Han Seo-ah I needed to stay in the upper tier. I’m not exactly the type who enjoys grinding, but right now grinding was mandatory.
The temporary test was already scheduled for this weekend, and with no days off until then I couldn’t even exploit my novel knowledge. Still, the environment here was so perfect that anyone could turn into a genius of effort. The body felt light thanks to the ability, the campus was packed with facilities that could make you stronger, and nobody was around to get in my way…
I flung the door open and stepped out.
And immediately locked eyes with a painfully familiar face.
Goddamn it, he’s here. Fuck…
I had no idea why I kept running into this guy. Did we seriously have the same daily rhythm?
While I stood there awkwardly, Lee Hyun-woo spoke first.
“Heading out to train?”
“…Yeah.”
Looked like he was on his way too. He was dressed lightly. I was in the purple tracksuit I’d received as a supply item; he was wearing casual athletic clothes. Either way, we were both in training gear.
Then he said something unexpected.
“…I’m going too. Want to head over together?”
Considering our less-than-stellar relationship, the offer caught me off guard. Since we were both going to the same place it was probably just small talk, but the more I thought about it the more I realized going with him would be advantageous in multiple ways.
Anyway, I need to raise this guy’s growth too.
Plus he was literally set up as the strongest character in the story. Training with him couldn’t possibly hurt me; if anything I’d come out ahead. At the very least some scraps of benefit would fall my way. The math checked out, so I answered immediately.
“Sure, why not.”
And that’s how I ended up heading to the training center with Lee Hyun-woo.
Lee Hyun-woo was secretly a little flustered by Kang Jae-hee’s ready agreement. Of course he felt grateful that Jae-hee had saved him. He even felt a sense of responsibility for the way she had changed. But human emotions don’t flip completely in a single moment.
Kang Jae-hee and Lee Hyun-woo had never been on good terms. Even though the person in front of him now looked nothing like the old Kang Jae-hee…
Hyun-woo had been about to call someone on his smartwatch but stopped. On the other side of the elevator he could see a head of golden hair. The petite blonde girl who only came up to his chest stood with both hands stuffed in her tracksuit pockets, leaning against the wall with her eyes closed.
He quietly canceled the call he’d been about to make to Han Seo-ah.
Seo-ah already gave me an earful earlier today. If I tell her I’m heading out with Kang Jae-hee now it’ll just sound… weird.
For some reason he didn’t want Seo-ah to see him with the current Kang Jae-hee.
The Central Training Center had existed long before this place was converted into a pilot academy. It was large enough to accommodate not only the academy cadets but every soldier and military family on the base, so its scale was enormous. The building site alone covered fifty thousand square meters—roughly the size of a theme park just a little smaller than Lotte World. Excluding the Giganoid training grounds it was the largest single facility on campus.
There were several smaller training halls as well, so you could technically do basic physical conditioning from the dormitory, but nothing compared to this place. It was packed with every kind of simulator, gravity rooms, ultra-high-speed railguns, and training equipment that felt closer to attractions than actual drills. Being able to use all of it for free was one of the greatest privileges academy cadets enjoyed.
Similar training centers existed elsewhere in Korea, but none matched this one in size. And among its many popular features, one of the most beloved was the attraction called Giganoid Dual Dual.
Well, not exactly an attraction… more like a training device. Up to four people could play at once. You chose one of twenty-four Giganoids and piloted it in a simulator. The machine had been popular for a long time. It was deliberately designed for easy access so anyone could enjoy it, which meant the controls felt nothing like the real thing. It was basically a game.
The gap between it and actual Giganoid operation was so large that the academy had considered removing the unit, but its overwhelming popularity kept it around. That was the behind-the-scenes story. Still, even if the piloting feel was completely different, the specs of both the units and the monsters were reproduced quite accurately. The biggest reason it lasted, of course, was that it was genuinely fun.
I picked the Fire Boar, the Giganoid that boasted the highest raw power. It had been retired from active duty long ago, but its strength was still top-class.
“That one’s hard to handle. Its Brave is mediocre and the hit detection is trash.”
“Heh, don’t worry. Today I’m gonna show you a whole new world.”
Lee Hyun-woo chose the safest… well, the balanced-type Flying Tiger. It was basically the active-duty White Tiger class with a different name. In this machine it counted as a top-tier, almost overpowered pick.
“Wow, what a coward. If you pick that the other side’s gonna curse you out.”
“No, I’m just picking it because it’s the one I actually use in real combat, okay?”
When he put it that way he had a point… but the fact that he was a coward was still undeniable. The moment he selected it, quiet jeers rose from the spectators.
For the record, I wasn’t fighting him one-on-one. We were teamed up for a 2v2 tag match. One-on-one was possible, but since the machine was so popular it was a good way to get flamed, so we avoided it.
The opposing team picked the next-most-popular machines after Flying Tiger: Heavenly Horse and Black Panther. Looked like they were cowards too. Then again, since Hyun-woo had first picked a character that was basically forbidden, we couldn’t exactly complain. At least I’d chosen one of the weaker ones, so we’d probably catch a little less heat.
“Hey, the red one’s circling around back. It’s definitely going for energy. Don’t let it eat.”
The Fire Boar I was controlling was also red, but I said it anyway. Someone might point out that there’s no such thing as energy in real combat, but that’s because this is a game. Although the way reserve combatants rotate in does feel a bit like energy management.
“Got it. How much do you have left?”
“Still at eighty. I don’t need any. Just smash everything!”
The surprising thing was how good I was at this game. Come to think of it I keep calling it a game… but yeah, let’s be honest, it’s straight-up a game.
I’d once seriously considered going pro, so I was naturally strong at games. On top of that, the current Kang Jae-hee’s piloting skill was decent if you ignored the sync rate. So even though the Fire Boar was considered difficult, its overwhelming power let me shred the opponents. Its armor wasn’t bad either; if I used perfect guards to nullify incoming attacks, the damage was zero. Suddenly the so-called weakest character became borderline broken.
My partner Lee Hyun-woo was already skilled, and now he was openly using the strongest character, so there was nothing more to say. Our coordination was also freakishly good. As a result we kept winning, match after match. Eventually no challengers remained, so we cleared story mode too. If more people had kept queuing we could have played longer.
After a long session of “thanks for playing, please come again,” my wrists and shoulders were stiff. Even Hyun-woo, who had looked sullen on the way here, had relaxed a little.
“You really are good.”
“What did I tell you? I said I’d show you a new world.”
We stepped away from the machine and I grabbed an ion drink from the vending machine. Winning a bunch felt good, but we hadn’t done any actual training. It didn’t seem right to call it a day, so I asked him.
“What now? What do you usually do?”
“Hmm. Now that you mention it, I do have a reservation.”
Popular equipment at the training center usually needed to be booked in advance. Something like the Giganoid Dual Dual we’d just played had fast turnover so reservations weren’t necessary, but still. We’d only taken so long because we kept winning streak after winning streak. Normally matches ended in two or three minutes.
If he’d bothered to reserve it, it had to be a popular training device. The guy really was prepared. Hanging out with the original protagonist really was pure profit.
“What is it? Must be pretty good if you reserved it.”
“It’s… the sync simulator.”
“Huh? That thing?”
The unit here in the training center was a different model from the one we’d used in class today. It was an older generation, but in some ways it was actually closer to real combat. Mainly because it was designed for a male and female pair to use together.
Now that I thought about it, I really did need to do sync training… and that was currently my biggest problem. But it was the kind that a man and woman had to use together.