Hero Academy (3-10)
“Um… Instructor Seong Su-ho… please take good care of me with the archery instruction….”
“….”
“I-I just! Th-the atmosphere was like that, okay! S-so….”
Cho Seo-hyun started babbling in a fluster even after the words had left her own mouth. Immediately, she began to regret it.
'I shouldn’t have said that…. Just because I wished he could be an instructor like the one I saw in my dream….'
After seeing the Seong Su-ho who had appeared in the dream she had just woken from, she had begun hoping for it without even realizing.
Even for a moment would have been fine.
Even if it was a lie would have been fine.
She had spoken purely from the desire to experience, if only briefly, the school life she had always longed for.
She had believed that if it was Seong Su-ho, he would somehow naturally play along with her wish.
But Seong Su-ho only stared at Cho Seo-hyun with a blank expression, saying nothing.
At that look, Cho Seo-hyun’s shoulders slumped and a dejected expression settled over her face.
'…Well, how old am I, anyway.'
Cho Seo-hyun hated being called young more than anything.
Most people took the word “young” as a compliment, but for her it was the opposite.
That particular expression ranked number one among the things that must never touch her temper.
Yet right now, in this very moment, the fact that Seong Su-ho was treating her according to her social position only felt cold and unkind.
“Um… never mind. I was just joking.”
Cho Seo-hyun stuck out her lower lip, turned her upper body, intending to leave the shooting range.
She didn't want to stay in this place for another second.
But right behind her, Seong Su-ho voice arrived at once.
“Cadet Cho Seo-hyun?”
“…Yes?”
Without meaning to, her head dipped as she turned back around.
There stood Seong Su-ho looking down at her with a gentle smile.
“You asked me to teach you archery and now you’re just going to walk off?”
“Th-that….”
Seong Su-ho placed a hand on Cho Seo-hyun’s shoulder and spoke.
“Take your stance. Within the limits of my skill, I’ll teach you as thoroughly as I can.”
“….”
A joy she had never shown before bloomed across Cho Seo-hyun’s face.
Concept play is the right call.
'That’s what I think'.
'At times like this, just roughly read my mind for me'.
I felt like I could somehow read the thoughts of the currently silent Armonia.
She seems incredibly annoyed. I should be careful....
Leaving the presumably irritated Armonia aside for the moment, I focused on Cho Seo-hyun.
She had raised her bow and was concentrating hard on her stance.
In truth Lena was the one handling the posture corrections; all I was doing was sharing my impressions and feelings from when I used a bow.
“Don’t overthink your field of vision. You have to trust what you see in a single glance—only then will the bow in your hands start trusting you too.”
“Yes….”
The bold demeanor she usually displayed had vanished without a trace; she listened to my words with the earnest attitude of a cadet receiving instruction.
How should I put… if I had to describe the feeling… she was being quite girlish.
'Looking at her like this, I kind of wish Cho Seo-hyun would grow her hair out.'
There was no question that short hair suited her extremely well, but women who look that good with short hair always become even more beautiful once they grow it long.
My personal opinion was that no woman could ever look prettier with a bob than with long hair.
Same principle as how even a guy who looks handsome bald becomes far more handsome once he has a full head of hair.
'Oh… is that why you keep a bob too, Armonia?'
Armonia basically had silver, short-cropped hair.
Honestly, because my first impression of her had been with short hair, I found it hard to picture her with long hair.
Imagining her naked, on the other hand, came easily….
'Hmm…'.
I'll make her grow it out via an order later. No, should I do it once before making her grow it?
Though it was a distant future, I focused back on the mission while anticipating the various "plays" I could try with Armonia.
To do my best in the mission, I gave various instructions while looking at Cho Seo-hyun in her cadet uniform.
However, Cho Seo-hyun, who had been receiving instructions verbally, glanced at me and whispered softly.
“Um… Instructor Seong Su-ho.”
“Hm?”
“M-my stance feels unstable, so… could I ask you to correct it… directly?”
“…Sure.”
I stepped up behind Cho Seo-hyun, placed my hands on her shoulders, and carefully adjusted her angle.
Forearms, elbows… I even ventured skinship near her armpits.
The one thing I felt while making that contact was…
'Holy shit… it’s on a completely different level from the headgear'.
The tactile feedback I’d gotten when correcting Cho Seo-hyun’s posture in the game yesterday couldn’t compare.
Even though she was wearing a cadet uniform that covered her entire upper body with fabric, her body heat passed straight through the cloth and into my hands
And just as much of my own heat seemed to transfer to her; she began to flinch.
“Hnn….”
“How is it? Uncomfortable?”
“N-no…. Please continue. I’m sorry.”
Cho Seo-hyun was doing her utmost to maintain a cadet’s demeanor as she accepted my touch.
I was certain I could push further, but I deliberately avoided groping any part of her body that wasn’t necessary for archery.
Instead, the places I was already touching I treated as having received silent permission, and I handled them without hesitation.
I swept my palm down her back under the pretense of correcting her posture and touched her waist, then cupped that waist with both hands and slowly slid them upward.
“Hnnngh….”
Unease and excitement began to cross paths.
Was Cho Seo-hyun purely hoping I would approach her in the role of an instructor, or was she hoping for a situation exactly like this…?
All of that could only be confirmed later by the results, not by whatever she claimed was her true heart right now.
Even if she found my touch burdensome today, she might come to crave it later or she might want the touch now only to reject it in the future.
What I had to do was walk the razor-thin line between her pleasure and her discomfort, steadily expanding the boundary of that line.
And I decided to refrain from using "hand techniques" for the time being.
Someone like Cho Seo-hyun, who had lived without knowing men, might have sudden excitement flip straight into revulsion.
'I’ll raise it little by little, day by day'.
Avoiding her eyes, I wore a sly smile and continued to freely caress the body of Cho Seo-hyun, who kept letting out tiny moans.
After climbing out of the VR capsule, Cho Seo-hyun couldn’t couldn't look me in the eye and stammered her thanks.
“Um… thank you.”
“Not at all. I didn’t really do anything.”
Roleplay is roleplay. Unless you're a couple, it's only natural for things to feel awkward between a man and a woman who have a bit of mutual interest after engaging in such a scenario.
Yet Cho Seo-hyun opened her eyes wide, clenched her fists tightly, and made a request.
“Could I… ask for a little more?”
“Of course. I’ll do it again tomorrow. As long as I don’t have any special appointments, I’ll keep doing it for you.”
“Hehe… th-thank you. Then I’ll be going!”
Expressing her gratitude, Cho Seo-hyun began to dash out of the VR training room.
But as she was running away, she suddenly dashed back.
“…?”
"Um... l-let's play the game together today too."
“Haha… yes, understood.”
After hearing my answer, Cho Seo-hyun’s lips twitched, and then she bolted out of the training room once more.
Cho Seo-hyun entered the dormitory at an incredible speed and jumped onto her bed.
Whump!
The bed that caught her quickly steadied its shaking and began to hold her as if she were sinking into it.
It was the very definition of coziness.
But her mind was utterly turbulent.
“…I’m insane.”
After saying goodbye to Seong Su-ho and running back, she began to realize just how bold her actions today had been.
The more she ran, the more her breath came short, the redder her cheeks burned as if they would burst, and the faster she ran to hide that fact.
Only after arriving and diving onto the bed could she fully process it.
“I’m not a kid… I’m not even at the age where I should be asking for the kind of things kids ask for….”
Cho Seo-hyun, who always exploded with rage whenever anyone called her childish, had herself wanted to build a connection with Seong Su-ho through childish behavior.
It had clearly succeeded.
For a little while she had been able to feel what it was like to meet a good instructor during her academy days.
It had been enjoyable.
If she had had an instructor like that—even just an assistant instructor—beside her, she believed she could have endured Hong Mi-seon’s abuse all the way to the end.
And… she had been aroused.
“I’m seriously… insane… haah… how am I supposed to look him in the face….”
Cho Seo-hyun recalled the moans that had slipped from her lips now and then.
She had never felt anything like that in her entire life.
At first even she had been confused by the emotion and simply stayed still, but as time passed she had instinctively understood.
And on the way back to the dormitory she had fully realized it—the true nature of those moans.
“You crazy bitch… making sounds like that in front of the person helping you….”
It wasn’t as if she had been having weird fantasies in her head, but she had confirmed that the feeling itself was rising.
Cho Seo-hyun kept berating herself.
No one else knew.
She was certain Seong Su-ho didn’t know either
As long as she never told a soul for the rest of her life, it would remain a secret buried in the deepest part of herself alone.
Yet the mere existence of that secret made her writhe with guilt.
“Haah… what kind of face am I supposed to show him tomorrow….”
Still feeling that guilt, Cho Seo-hyun lay on the bed and gradually felt her eyes grow heavy.
“…Why isn’t she coming?”
Roughly two hours had passed since I parted with Cho Seo-hyun and logged into VR.
Yet the gray name of Cho Seo-hyun in the friends window never turned green.
“There’s no way she logged in with some hidden mode…. Did I mess up earlier after all?”
Just as an anxiety I myself didn’t fully understand began to bloom in my chest, Armonia reassured me.
“Well… if that’s the case, good….”
If that was true, it was fortunate. But it wasn’t fortunate for me.
“So what do I do now…. Should I just sleep today?”
“…It’s not fun alone.”
Honestly, the fun came from Cho Seo-hyun sitting beside me going “Whoa! Amazing! You’re the best!” and getting all excited….
If I did it alone, not only would the fun be cut in half, but I questioned if there would be any fun at all.
Games like this had male players as their main customer base, so even if I got praised by teammates it probably wouldn’t make me particularly happy.
'I think Cho Seo-hyun will probably ask me to do some kind of rank match. I should probably figure out the skill level....'
'…Fine! Let’s do it! Then I’ll log in…'.
Practicing ahead of time for future enjoyment wasn’t a bad idea either.
So I logged in as Plunderer, entered the lobby, and began trying to figure out how to start a match.
“Ah… when Cho Seo-hyun did it, it looked so easy, but I have no idea what’s what….”
All sorts of settings were crammed in every which way; to me it felt like a top engineering freshman seeing a scientific calculator for the first time.
No matter how good you were at a game, if you couldn’t even start it, the game itself never began.
“What do I do….”
I was staring holes through the settings window when it happened.
“Hello~”
“Hm?”
It was a woman’s voice.
At first I wondered if Cho Seo-hyun had arrived, but it was clearly a voice I was hearing for the first time.
Not the clear, ringing voice Cho Seo-hyun had, but a soft, gentle voice that brushed the ear like a flute.
“Who is this?”
“Aww… that’s a little harsh, don’t you think? I’m SaintBlue—we played together yesterday.”
“Ah! Hello.”
SaintBlue listened to my hurried greeting and chuckled softly as she spoke.
“Did work run late today?”
“Haha… my boss at work asked me to help with some overtime.”
When Cadet Cho Seo-hyun’s workplace superior personally summons you, how could I possibly refuse?
SaintBlue began apologizing in a low, soft voice.
“Oh my… I’m sorry. I was only teasing.”
“It’s fine. It wasn’t anything major, and I helped because I wanted to.”
“Are you… a workaholic, by any chance?”
SaintBlue tickled my ears with that gentle voice and made the conversation pleasant.
'Wow, her voice is nice. She could probably do voice acting or something.'
I wasn’t just being polite.
Her voice brushed softly, yet every single word that came out of it arrived in my ear with clean edges, like waves.
I was starting to understand why a person’s voice mattered so much.
“Were you about to play a game right now?”
“Yes, but my usual partner seems busy and isn’t logging in today.”
“Ah! Then would you like to play with me?”
“…Don’t you have a boyfriend?”
“He said he’ll be busy for a while and can’t come.”
…Lucky!
Even if a floating skull would bob around next to me the whole game chatting, having someone to talk to was a hundred times better.
Especially for a support role—playing with someone you got along with put the mind at ease.
I didn’t bother playing coy and accepted her offer on the spot.
“I’d love to! But… how do I actually start a game?”
“Aha! You said last time it was your first, right? I’ll show you. Just wait a moment!”
“Okay.”
While I waited, the air around me suddenly turned into holograms and began to coalesce.
In an instant a person took shape and spoke to me.
“Looking forward to playing with you today.”
“….”
A woman who looked about 170 centimeters tall, wearing a black cloak, was smiling at me with gentle eyes.