005 - Persuading Unnie.
Lee Chang had chosen that word deliberately, purely as a spur-of-the-moment calculation after a brief moment of thought.
Right now, he looked like a girl who might not even have finished middle school, while Yoo Hayeon was a late-teen girl. So, if he were really a little girl, calling her "unnie" would feel perfectly natural.
'Can't exactly call her Pinkie, for fuck's sake.'
Fortunately, his sacrifice of dignity paid off.
Yoo Hayeon halted her advance and turned back toward him.
"What did you say...?"
Her shoe, poised to stomp forward with the ferocity of someone about to grab the chief researcher by the collar, froze mid-step on the floor.
Her face twisted in confusion, as if she'd heard something utterly incomprehensible. The murderous aura she'd been radiating vanished, replaced by a mix of surprise and bewilderment.
Lee Chang met her gaze head-on, screaming internally all the while.
'Oh, shit, this is fucking humiliating.'
His face burned hot. If he glanced in a mirror, his cheeks would probably be tomato-red. He couldn't tell if it was shame or this pint-sized body's weird temperature regulation.
But there was no turning back now.
He'd said it. Retreat was off the table. He had to see the act through to the end.
Forcing the corners of his mouth to quiver, he tried to maintain a teary expression. His facial muscles weren't cooperating at all, but the tears that had welled up from earlier embarrassment still lingered at the corners of his eyes, making it look convincing enough on the surface.
At least, that's what he told himself.
"It was all my choice... They didn't force me or anything."
Yoo Hayeon's intensity ebbed away.
A short silence stretched under the fluorescent lights of the corridor.
"You volunteered?"
"Yes."
"...You?"
"Yes."
A furrow creased Yoo Hayeon's brow. She clearly found it hard to believe.
The story he'd improvised on the spot wasn't entirely implausible as a starting point. The artificial trait awakening experiment wasn't some top-secret classified project, so even a young girl could volunteer for it if she wanted.
But it was too vague. To convince Yoo Hayeon, he needed more detailed backstory.
A girl who looked not even old enough for middle school volunteering for human experimentation was a tough sell at face value.
That's when the chief researcher chimed in.
"Hunter Yoo Hayeon, what she says is true."
Lee Chang flicked his eyes toward her.
The middle-aged woman's face still bore traces of intimidation from Yoo Hayeon's pressure, but her voice had regained some composure.
Their eyes met in a fleeting exchange.
The chief researcher's gaze conveyed a clear message.
'I'll back you up, so please just stick to the story consistently.'
Lee Chang replied with his own look.
'Handle it yourself.'
The chief researcher continued.
"She was originally a semi-awakener. She came to our institute of her own accord, requesting to participate in the experiment. We tried dissuading her multiple times, but she wouldn't budge..."
"A semi-awakener?"
Yoo Hayeon's eyes shifted back to Lee Chang.
She stepped closer and placed a hand on his slender shoulder.
Lee Chang felt her mana sweep through his body in a quick scan.
Unlike a visual inspection, this delved deeper—probing the mana circuits beyond the core.
And despite the physical changes, his original mana circuits remained intact within him.
His close-combat specialized reinforcement circuits, honed over decades just for him.
Yoo Hayeon's pink eyes widened slightly as she read them.
"...These circuits are pretty developed. Not just any semi-awakener—this is some seriously trained level."
Of course it was.
Twenty years ago—probably before Yoo Hayeon was even born, back when Korea and the whole world were in chaos.
Instead of entering middle school, he'd been drafted into something like a child soldier program and started his hunter life. He'd been refining those circuits ever since.
"How old are you?"
The question was predictable.
He had to tread carefully here. Lee Chang quickly reviewed the backstory he'd pieced together.
Whether semi- or true-awakener, all hunters used mana.
And that usage split them into two types: reinforcement circuiters and brain circuiters.
Setting aside the details, the key point was that he was the former, and she was the latter.
In other words, Yoo Hayeon couldn't fully grasp what his reinforcement circuits implied. It was outside her expertise.
She couldn't tell that they belonged to a hunter with at least a decade-plus of field experience.
At most, she'd think they were just well-trained reinforcement circuits.
That's what he was banking on.
"Seventeen."
"......"
Yoo Hayeon's gaze swept over him from head to toe once more.
The skepticism was obvious.
'Seventeen? With this body?'
Lee Chang ignored it and pressed on.
"The short stature... it's from overtraining since I was little. My growth got delayed. You know how awakeners age slower, right?"
"Hmm, but still..."
Slowed aging wasn't exclusive to magical girls. It was a minor perk most mana users enjoyed.
For magical girls, it was more extreme—one country's S-rank hunter magical girl supposedly looked like a student despite being in her forties.
The chief researcher picked up the thread.
"That's correct. Due to excessive mana training from a young age, her physical growth was stunted, and we suspect the post-awakening changes from the magical girl trait amplified it."
Half-truth, half-fabrication—but it flowed naturally. A perfect supplement to patch the holes in his logic.
His explanation alone couldn't account for why someone who'd trained so hard since childhood showed no signs of it outwardly.
No scars, no blemishes, not even the calluses on his palms that marked a warrior.
Blame it on the magical girl awakening erasing them. It even had a kernel of truth...
"Seventeen. Growth delay from training..."
Yoo Hayeon crossed her arms.
Click. The tip of her shoe tapped the floor once.
Lee Chang's heart raced inwardly, but he kept his face neutral. If she didn't buy it and started digging through institute records, it was over.
This face betrayed emotions too easily; Yoo Hayeon narrowed her eyes slightly.
"What's your name?"
"......"
A detail so basic he'd overlooked it.
A name. He sure as hell couldn't say Lee Chang.
After a split-second pause—before it got too awkward—he blurted out the first name that came to mind.
"Lee Jiyeon."
Improvised on the spot.
Lee from his surname, Jiyeon just popped into his head. No time for complexity.
"Lee Jiyeon..."
Yoo Hayeon murmured it once.
Then she stepped back, leaning against the wall.
Her arms still crossed, her expression toward Lee Chang—no, toward "Lee Jiyeon"—softened bit by bit.
Not fully convinced, but the rampage-ready fury had definitely dissipated.
"...A semi-awakener artificially becoming a true awakener? That's possible? I heard they were all failures."
Her question turned to the chief researcher.
"In truth, Miss Lee Jiyeon is our first success case."
"First?"
"Yes. At this point, it has to be classified, but..."
The chief researcher trailed off.
"...All previous experiments failed, and this is the first success?"
"...Yes."
"Did you explain to her how dangerous it was?"
"Of course. We obtained informed consent multiple times..."
Yoo Hayeon sighed. She seemed annoyed again, but not raging like before.
'She was ready to trash the place, and that's all it takes to calm her down?'
Lee Chang couldn't pinpoint why, but it stemmed from Yoo Hayeon's personal quirks.
She loved her country. To a borderline fanatical degree.
The reason was simple. Before becoming a true awakener, an A-rank hunter magical girl drawing everyone's eyes, the state had taken care of her—an orphan.
Fifteen years ago, at the tail end of the Cataclysm. Yoo Hayeon had lucked into a decent orphanage and had the judgment to know it wasn't bad.
Even with meager rations of rice porridge, kimchi, and soybean paste soup, she'd feel a twisted relief watching foreign refugees scavenge food waste on SNS.
Bullied by other orphanage kids? Compared to the lawless horrors abroad, it was nothing.
She knew that without a state-led system protecting orphans like her—however rundown—if not for that, she wouldn't have survived to awaken, let alone anything else.
That gratitude—or debt—to the nation, mixed with the typical notions of good and right she'd built as a magical girl, created an ambiguous moral boundary.
'Do I have the right—or the need—to blame this girl for what she went through and her choices?'
Even if it was a state institution, forcing an innocent child into a deadly experiment was unforgivable.
But if she wasn't as young as she looked, volunteered willingly, and miraculously succeeded...
It might irk her, but it wouldn't drive her to extremes.
Her fuzzy sense of justice.
That made Lee Jiyeon's persuasion effective.
Yoo Hayeon looked at her again. Complex emotions swirled in her pink eyes.
"Why volunteer for an experiment that could kill you? Seventeen's still so young."
Yoo Hayeon was currently nineteen. Two years older than the age Lee Jiyeon had claimed.
Two years might mean little to thirty-somethings, but it was huge for teens in their growth spurt.
Plus, Lee Jiyeon looked much younger.
That softened Yoo Hayeon's tone—like addressing a little sister.
Lee Chang's senses caught the shift precisely.
He couldn't believe this was the same woman he'd fought days ago.
Not that it was a bad thing. Time to play the emotional card.
"...I wanted to get stronger."
Lee Chang answered. No lie there.
"Semi-awakeners have limits. I heard awakening a trait would make me way stronger, no matter what."
Yoo Hayeon's eyebrows twitched faintly.
"...Why so desperate?"
"......"
Lee Chang didn't answer right away.
Instead, he parted his lips then closed them, glanced at the floor, then back at her—acting hesitant.
Finally, he spoke, his voice laced with a lonely tone that surprised even him.
"...Do I have to tell you?"
Spinning some cliché about parents killed by monsters, wanting revenge? Piling on improvised details would just create holes and raise suspicions.
Better to leave it vague.
Act like she had a hidden past, a tragic backstory.
That was his strategy.
If it flopped? Fuck it, flip the table.
Simple as that.
"......Hmm."
Thankfully, no need to wreck the meal.
During the brief silence, Yoo Hayeon seemed to interpret it her own way and didn't press further.
Up to here, it went exactly as planned.
But what Yoo Hayeon did next was completely unexpected.
—Squeeze.
Yoo Hayeon hugged her.
"?!"
Lee Chang's body went rigid.
Their height difference was about 20cm. Her head reached Yoo Hayeon's chin.
With that build gap, a hug like this had predictable results.
Yoo Hayeon's breasts were definitely not small.
That sudden softness smothered Lee Chang's face.
Unaware—or perhaps aware—of his stiffening, Yoo Hayeon murmured.
"Sorry. I didn't mean to bring up bad memories... It's okay now."
Okay my ass! I'm the one who's not okay!
Lee Chang wanted to scream it.
And there was a reason for his reaction.
Lee Chang, the 2m hyper-muscular A-rank hunter called a human weapon—a walking embodiment of "alpha male."
For all that, he'd lived 34 years with zero romantic ties to women.