Hero Academy (3-35)
Yoon Jia’s face crumpled into a miserable pout as Go Chungshin’s furious whisper blasted into her ear. She started flinging skills wildly into empty air.
She was making the kind of boneheaded mistakes she would never commit even in a casual Normal match, and inside she was already on the verge of tears.
What is this…
At first she had tried to hold back her skills just enough that no one would notice. When that failed, she began deliberately spamming them into the void. Yet Sung Suho covered every single one of those mistakes and continued to butcher Go Chungshin with perfect efficiency.
Plunderer showed not the slightest sign of being pressured—even in what was effectively a two-on-one, or closer to three-on-one.
The moment Go Chungshin’s character crumpled under Suho’s skills and hit the ground, an earsplitting shriek exploded inside Yoon Jia’s head.
She had known for a long time that Go Chungshin was obsessed with winning. They had not been together for only a year or two. In fact, that very competitive fire had once drawn her to him.
His pure combat ability might have been mediocre, but he was the type who leveraged every scrap of power he possessed into real social results. The intelligence-gathering talent that others might dismiss as trivial was fully recognized even inside the Church.
Yoon Jia had been attracted precisely because he possessed the self-love, the hunger to win, and the obsessive streak she herself lacked. And he had never once shown her anything ugly.
Today, for the first time, she was seeing his true nature.
At some point tears had welled in her eyes and she clamped her hands over her ears. Even that did nothing. Go Chungshin’s whispers kept ringing inside her skull, tormenting her without pause.
The raw nature pouring out of him was nothing like the excitement she had seen before. The man she had always believed she could keep under control was thrashing around like someone with a complete impulse-control disorder.
Just… please just let this end already…
The crushing sense that there was nothing she could do made her tremble. She prayed desperately for the match to finish. Go Chungshin was not actually angry at her, yet his screaming still shrank her into a corner and made clear judgment impossible. She no longer cared if everything fell apart—she only wanted the game to be over.
While tears still trembled on her lashes, Plunderer stepped up beside her and spoke.
“Are you feeling all right?”
“I-I… um…”
Her mistakes had been so blatantly clumsy that anyone watching would have found them strange. The fear that someone of Plunderer’s skill might have noticed the deliberate sabotage began to wrap around her. After already enduring Go Chungshin’s abuse, the thought of being cursed out by Plunderer as well terrified her. When he laid a hand on her shoulder she flinched hard.
What do I do… if this person gets angry at me too…
Plunderer spoke calmly.
“Don’t be so tense. There’s no need to shrink just because you make a few mistakes.”
“B-but I keep…”
“We’re just playing a game, right?”
“…Huh?”
“We’re supposed to enjoy it.”
“Ah…”
Even though his avatar was an archer, the smile on the character’s face reached Yoon Jia clearly. Go Chungshin’s curses still hissed in her ear, yet for a moment she managed to close that channel and feel her heart settle.
I always thought people who play games only know how to get angry… but this person is different.
A faint smile finally touched her lips.
“Thank you.”
Having clawed back a little composure, she was able to focus on the game again.
“I had fun today. See you tomorrow.”
“Yes, take care~”
Yoon Jia said goodbye to Plunderer and watched him log out. Only after confirming he was gone did she let out a huge sigh and collapse onto the floor.
They had only played two matches, yet she felt as though her soul had been sucked out. The sole silver lining was that Go Chungshin had quit the game the instant he started swearing.
“Haa… please just give up already.”
She said the words aloud, but she already knew he would never quit. He was not the type to lose and walk away. And then Plunderer’s face rose in her mind again—the complete opposite of Go Chungshin.
“I’m glad he’s a kind person.”
Plunderer had shown almost no interest in winning or losing. Whenever a problem appeared he had tried to communicate with her and work through it together. That very kindness, however, was planting guilt deep inside her chest.
“…I hate this.”
In a drained voice she muttered the words and shut down War of Religions.
Go Chungshin ripped off the VR headgear and screamed.
“Fuck!!!”
Keep it down already!!
He ground his teeth at the complaint from the next room and tried to swallow the curses. His lungs and throat, however, ignored his will and spat them out anyway.
“Fuck… fuck… that piece-of-shit bastard…”
In a low, venomous mutter he replayed every single death he had suffered at Plunderer’s hands. He was not choosing to remember them. The memories forced themselves on him—swimming freely through his brain, branding every humiliating frame into his cells like a slave’s mark.
Losing a game was nothing new. He had played countless matches and always vented the shame of defeat onto his own teammates. This time, however, he had been ground into paste by an overwhelming skill gap. Even while his allies sneered at him he had kept playing, enduring the mockery for the chance—just once—to kill that bastard himself.
That single chance never came. He finished the night as a perfect loser.
“I’ll kill him… fucker…”
Without a single thought of Yoon Jia, his mind filled only with Plunderer, he crawled into bed.
I logged out of War of Religions humming with pure delight.
That was fucking fun.
I always enjoyed playing with Yoon Jia, but nothing had ever been this entertaining. Knowing exactly who the opponent was, and being able to picture the face he made every time he died, skyrocketed the pleasure.
The only pity was that Yoon Jia had been caught in the middle.
Judging by the deliberately obvious mistakes she kept making, it is certain Go Chungshin ordered her to sabotage.
She was straight-up crying earlier.
She must have thought her avatar hid her face, because she didn’t even try to hide the tears from me. The more she cried, the clearer a picture I got of Go Chungshin’s current mental state—which was convenient.
He gives her ridiculous orders that put her in a corner, and I step in to comfort her. Perfect setup for catching someone’s heart. I never expected a little kindness in a game to be enough to steal her, but nothing builds easy rapport faster than gaming together. And inside VR that feels almost real, the effect is even stronger…
A girl like Yoon Jia needs to be approached gently first. Once the distance closes, you grab the reins hard. The fact that she was dating Go Chungshin at all was probably just a lucky personality match. Dependent women always end up snagged by the worst kind of men…
She’ll probably log in on the weekend too. I should drop in now and then to check.
Still humming, I connected to Animal Village.
Being an administrator had one real downside.
Having to show up on weekends is a pain in the ass…
Most departments at the Hero Academy ran seven days a week—security and the cafeteria being the prime examples. That meant I had to keep rotating weekend and weekday offs on the duty roster. Staff who wanted specific days off came to me with requests, and I swapped them around based on attitude and current manpower.
I could have just jammed every request into whatever day I felt like, but then the guards would start hating my guts. Outside of Go Chungshin I needed the rest of the staff to see me in a good light. That way, even if he filed a formal complaint, it would get buried. Organizations always follow the majority. No matter what title I held, the smart way to keep leading was to make sure more than half the people actually listened to me.
Best to grant whatever I can.
I finished drafting two weeks of schedules based on the requests that had come in, then headed to the cafeteria. Even on a weekend the lunch crowd was thick. And the person who caught my eye…
I filled my tray, sat carefully beside him, and opened my mouth.
“Side dishes any good today?”
“Khup! Kuhack! Cough, cough!”
The instant he heard my voice, Go Chungshin choked so hard he started hacking. I gave a dry little laugh and patted his back.
“Eat slower.”
“Khup… cough, cough!”
He finally managed to clear his throat.
“Y-you came for lunch, sir…”
“Yeah. Saw you sitting here.”
His face twisted so violently it looked ready to start leaking oil. One glance at that expression told me exactly what kind of day he was having.
Don’t expect a single comfortable day while you’re stuck here.
Breakfast with Seong Sua, dinner with Cho Seohyun, and lunch with Go Chungshin. I kept chatting at him while he ate, needling his stomach the whole time.
“Afternoon shift today?”
“Y-yes, sir…”
“Weather’s nice this weekend, so the cadets and instructors will be laughing it up. Don’t go soft on me.”
“U-understood…”
“Oh, right—looking forward to your help during the field trip~”
“Khup… yes…”
I had to keep the pressure on. That way he would dump the stress right back onto Yoon Jia.
As he scrambled to finish and escape, I smiled and called after him.
“I’ll swing by later while I’m making my rounds, so stay sharp on duty~”
“…Yes.”
Wearing a face like rotting garbage, Go Chungshin fled.
All match long, Go Chungshin kept screaming the same word.
“Fuck!!”
The second his shift ended he didn’t even wash—he just jacked straight into War of Religions. Through Yoon Jia he found Plunderer again and forced the games to continue. Victory was a fantasy; he never even managed a single kill. The skill gap was absolute.
“Fuck! Die!! Just die already!! Fuck!!!”
A couple of times a gank actually created a kill angle, yet he only ended up feeding gold to Plunderer along with the jungler. Then the allies’ voices started rolling in.
He tried to ignore them, but the comments only got worse.
“You fucking bastards!!”
He finally snapped and started screaming back.
“Fuck! The jungler’s the problem! The jungler!!”
It looked like internal collapse, yet flaming the jungler was basically basic manners in this game, so the team was actually bonding by roasting Go Chungshin instead.
The second he respawned he ground his teeth and marched straight toward Plunderer’s lane.
This isn’t working… if I keep going like this I’ll just get my ass destroyed again like yesterday…
The moment he arrived he locked eyes on Yoon Jia standing next to Plunderer. Her head was down; she clearly wasn’t focusing on the game.
I can lose everything else, but I can’t fall behind in gear…
Plunderer had completely possessed his mind like a ghost. He opened a whisper to Yoon Jia.
The decision he reached was simple.