I Caught You
Crack!
The instant the yellow sparks flared in my pupils, I muttered under my breath.
…Did I get it?
Whirr…
The fly hovered in the air for a moment, then slipped straight between the capsules.
Fucking hell!!!!
This made three.
Yesterday morning’s class, the afternoon face-to-face with Cho Seohyun, and now today…
Three times already I’d run into that little shit of a bug in this VR training room and used magic on it.
All three times the spell had landed dead-on.
Never in my wildest dreams had I imagined I’d meet a fly that magic simply didn’t work on.
Why the hell!! Fuck!!
It’s only a spark anyway…. Ugh….
Never thought I’d get toyed with like this by such a worthless little creature.
Hah… Once I’m done here, I’m finding that thing and killing it for sure.
I swallowed the rage boiling inside me and climbed into the capsule.
Today marked the fourth day since VR classes had begun, and the cadets’ first group training was underway.
The lesson had every cadet of Martial Arts Class 5 fighting a giant monster so they could learn how to take it down.
And what was my job?
Actually having nothing to do is pretty boring….
As an assistant instructor, for any class with no safety issues, my role was basically to zone out and watch.
On top of that, the VR cameras ran nonstop and grading came out instantly, so I had even less to do.
Not that I could just sit down somewhere and take it easy.
If I parked myself on a tree stump or something simply because I had nothing to do, there was a solid chance I’d get chewed out.
That’s temp work for you….
And so the class period began with my grumbling and ended with my grumbling.
“….”
“….”
“….”
The suffocating lunch hour rolled around again.
Seong Sua, Cho Seohyun, and I ate the food on our trays without exchanging a single word.
Even so, with the stubborn determination that I might choke but I would not starve, I kept shoveling rice into my mouth.
In the end the three of us finished the meal without any real conversation and split up for our respective classes.
As Seong Sua and I headed toward the Magic Department, Cho Seohyun glared at us from far away hard enough that her eyes seemed to gleam even in broad daylight.
She’s a cat. Just a cat….
Still, it was a lot better than the wildcat days.
Once I confirmed Seohyun had vanished from sight, I lowered my head and apologized.
“I’m sorry. Because of me, the meal…”
“Please don’t say that. If anything, I feel like I made the table more awkward by staying so quiet.”
I could laugh off that kind of behavior from Seohyun without much trouble.
The real problem was Seong Sua.
Honestly, unless we were inside a game or some sealed-off space, she never readily showed what she was feeling.
Still, going off what I’d seen in yesterday’s dream, I could sense she held decent feelings toward me.
Playing sleepy again today would be a bit much….
I wanted another taste of that lap pillow, but two days in a row felt like pushing it.
More than anything, that kind of offer had to come from Seong Sua’s mouth first.
Right as I was thinking that, Sua glanced at me, fidgeted, and whispered in a small voice.
“Would you… like to rest your eyes for a bit again today?”
“….”
It had come from her mouth first.
I turned down Seong Sua’s suggestion.
And yet the two of us were alone in an empty classroom.
Even though I’d refused, the reason we were alone like this was that I’d offered something else instead.
The spot where I’d been lying yesterday now had Seong Sua lying face-down.
I sat beside her and massaged her, and…
“How does it feel?”
“Haaah…. Good…. How do you… Nngh! Y-you’re really good at this….”
“Thank you for the compliment. Honestly… I’m just winging it….”
“Nngh!”
I answered gently while working every weak point I could find on Seong Sua’s body.
Honestly, I hadn’t expected her to agree so readily.
I’d only said it as a joke.
(No matter how I think about it, sleeping like yesterday feels like an imposition. How about I give you a massage instead?)
It had clearly been a joke.
Since this wasn’t VR, massaging her adult form should have felt off-putting no matter how you looked at it.
And yet Seong Sua…
(…Then I’ll take you up on that.)
…accepted my massage with a smile.
Yesterday’s Dream Intrusion seems to have worked pretty well, huh?
But Sua’s a tricky case….
I was massaging her right now, but she wasn’t the type who napped much under ordinary circumstances.
Diligent and responsible—she simply didn’t leave openings.
It was only thanks to VR as a medium that we’d gotten this far at all.
Without VR, there was a high chance my relationship with Seong Sua would still be stuck at ordinary workplace colleagues.
“Nngh! Haaah! Sung Suho! Instructor! Mmph! You’re… r-really good at this! Haaah!”
“…Thank you.”
Actually doing the massage like this made me curious.
Hand Massage Level 98…. Armonia had called it Valedictorian Level.
A hand-massage protagonist, huh….
Well, setting that part aside, I was genuinely curious.
The truth was, when it came to sex I never used my full hand techniques.
After taking Sonya’s advice, I’d been holding back as much as possible.
But did the same rule apply to a hand massage?
Until now I’d been regulating it roughly, for the same reason I regulated my hand techniques.
Damn… touching her for real like this is no joke….
VR and reality really were worlds apart.
I checked Seong Sua’s condition first.
“Nngh! Haaang… Khh! Hah!”
Even a sideways glance was enough to tell she was feeling good.
Alright. Let’s begin.
I began slowly raising the level of the hand massage.
And as I climbed, the shape of Seong Sua’s voice started to change.
“Nngh! Haaang! Mmph!!”
What had been moans a moment ago were now closer to screams.
Fortunately, nothing came out of her mouth except those sounds—no request to stop.
Still, I had to ask out of courtesy.
I paused the massage and carefully checked with her.
“Does it hurt? Should I stop?”
“Haaah… I-it’s fine… I’ve never… received anything like this before… Keep going….”
“Then I’ll go a little gentler.”
“Haa… N-no… At the intensity just now….”
“Understood.”
So the conclusion was that Seong Sua’s screams weren’t real screams—they were moans.
“Khh!”
I went back to massaging her back and waist.
Feeling her bare skin through the shirt, I could feel the leash on my self-control starting to slip.
The urge to push things to the next stage, the way I had in yesterday’s dream, began to overflow.
Yeah… better not.
I briefly considered at least brushing her hips, but I couldn’t afford to pick a high-risk option in a relationship like this.
Even if that choice turned out to be the branching point that let me form a real relationship with Seong Sua…
Still, if she’ll accept a direct massage like this, we’ve gotten a lot closer.
“Nngh! Haaang! Haaah!”
I kept massaging hard, using Seong Sua’s moans as background music.
After Magic Department class ended and we ate, I headed straight for the VR training facility.
Cho Seohyun and I went into the capsules for archery training, then climbed back out.
We exchanged greetings as we left the capsules.
“Good work today.”
“You too.”
Seohyun had been laughing and joking inside the VR just moments earlier, but the second she stepped out she treated me with a composed expression, as if none of that had happened.
That didn’t mean her face had flipped completely, though.
Her composed expression still had a smile mixed into it.
Once she was fully out of the capsule, she looked at me and spoke.
“How about we try something different tomorrow?”
“Huh? Like what?”
Seohyun crossed her arms, the corner of her mouth lifting into a smile.
“I’d like to see it at a real shooting range.”
She’d shown solid archery skill inside the VR.
Her confidence was rising, and she wanted to try shooting in reality as well.
Apparently excited by the thought of training together tomorrow, Seohyun started happily talking through tomorrow’s plans on her own, a smile on her face.
“Tomorrow’s Friday, so there won’t be many people at the training grounds. So…”
But I already had plans tomorrow. And not ordinary plans—plans with Seong Sua.
“Um… I’m sorry. I have plans tomorrow…”
“Y-you… plans?”
“Yes. A prior engagement…”
“R-right…. Th-that’s right… It’s Friday… Of course you’d have plans…”
The Seohyun who’d been smiling to herself a second ago started panicking, her eyes shaking as she babbled.
Judging by the pattern so far, she’d clearly assumed I would agree without question.
Faced with something she hadn’t expected, she began panicking in a completely different way from before and looked ready to cry.
Fixing that temperament is going to take forever.
My goal was to bring Seohyun over to my side first and then fix that temperament of hers.
But for her to panic this hard just because the situation got a little tangled…
A woman who’d never shown so much as a speck of interest in men until now…
I calmed Seohyun down again.
“Tomorrow’s difficult, but… after we eat together on Saturday and come back, there should be plenty of time.”
“…Th-that’s a relief. I-I happen to be free then too! Look at my archery that day.”
“Understood.”
When I smiled and agreed, Seohyun shook off the gloom from a moment ago and started smiling again.
“Alright, then to the dorms…”
I cut her off, my expression hardening as I spoke.
“Would you mind going first?”
“Huh? Is something wrong?”
“I have some important business for a moment.”
“R-right. The training room locks once everyone leaves anyway, so… be careful heading in.”
“Yes. See you tomorrow.”
Seohyun left the VR training room still looking puzzled.
I took the quietest deep breath I could manage.
I couldn’t see it in my field of view.
But it was definitely there.
I was certain.
It was there!
In the empty VR training room, I shouted with pure killing intent in my voice.
“DIIIIIE!!!!”
Crack!
In the corner of the VR training room, a small yellow light flared and smoke rose with it.
I stood with my arm outstretched toward that spot, looking for all the world like Harry Potter facing the final boss.
…
A tense silence hung over the line.
I slowly lowered my arm and walked toward the place where smoke was rising the way it does from funeral incense.
The smoke didn’t stop until I arrived.
And there…
“GOT YOU!!!!!!!!!!”
…was a fly with its entire body burning like a bean struck by lightning.
“AAAAAARGH!”
A man tumbled and collapsed in a dark space.
After thrashing violently, he finally opened his mouth and began vomiting up everything in his stomach.
“Bleeeegh!”
Only when there was nothing left to come out did he manage to stop the retching.
Soaked in cold sweat, he started trembling all over as if he were standing in the middle of the Arctic.
“Wh-what the hell is that bastard…. D-don’t tell me… h-he recognized m-me…”
His lips were shaking so hard he couldn’t get a proper line out.
As he crouched there trembling, someone entered the dark room.
“Oppa, are you done with work? Wh-what’s wrong!?”
The woman who came in ran to him with a startled face and began checking his condition.
Then she immediately started wiping the sweat streaming down his face with her own clothes.
“What on earth is going on!?”
“S-some son of a bitch… recognized me… and killed me…”
“That’s impossible! Oppa’s ability isn’t something just anyone can find out about!”
The woman shook her head and emphasized it again.
“Who would know about an ability to control flies…”
The man’s ability was a magic called Fly Spirit Possession—a skill that let him swap his soul into a fly as the target.
And that absurd ability had been a tremendous help in getting him into the Church, said to be the best in the world.
His talent for secretly observing whoever he wanted from long range and extracting information was highly valued even inside the Church.
And until now, he had never been caught by anyone.
Only after calming down somewhat did the man relax enough to speak.
“…Thinking about it, that guy was muttering about hating flies.”
“See… you just got unlucky and ran into someone like that.”
“That bastard… I’ll remember his face clearly.”
“Huuu… Still, it’s a relief. A relief nothing major happened.”
“Khh… If I’d been even one second later, I really would’ve died…”
The moment Sung Suho activated his magic, the man had managed to cancel the skill.
But in that brief instant he had still been hit by the spell, felt the pain of his brain burning through his entire body, and only then returned to his original flesh.
The woman supported him as she spoke.
“Oppa, you haven’t eaten a single meal today. I prepared food. It’s late, but let’s at least eat that.”
“Damn… In this state I don’t think I’ll be able to get proper information before the mission starts.”
“Health comes first. Chungshin oppa… Let’s eat first and think.”
“Thanks… Jia.”
Yoon Jia supported Go Chungshin as they left the pitch-dark room.