Body on the Line
"Yoon Jia! Get your body in there already!"
"Haa…."
Hearing Go Chungshin's shout, Yoon Jia let out a long sigh and stepped into the enemy skill range.
The game they were playing was War of Religions. They had queued as a duo and landed in a bot match.
But the way Chungshin treated Jia went far beyond what a teammate should do — beyond even what a boyfriend had any right to say.
"Yes… yes!!"
"Ugh…."
With Chungshin's cry, one of the enemy players went down.
Jia knew exactly who it was.
Plunderer.
Even if it was only a game character, someone she was friendly with was dying because of her.
Haa… Just attack me already.
While Jia drew Plunderer's attention, Chungshin finished him off. No matter how many times the pattern repeated, Plunderer never turned his skills on Jia. And every single time, Chungshin would scream at her again — not with a shred of guilt, but with the feverish pleasure of a maniac.
"Yoon Jia! Body bait again!"
"…."
There was no affection left in Jia's expression when she looked at Chungshin. Still, she obeyed. And every time she did, the guilt she felt toward Plunderer only grew heavier.
They kept grinding like that until, at some point, Plunderer simply stopped appearing.
"Kwahaha~ Jia! This is all thanks to you! We won because you put your body on the line!"
"Haa… Oppa, please…."
To Jia's ears, Chungshin's words sounded nothing like praise. Even someone who truly loved their partner would have felt whatever affection they had left evaporate into molten rage at a line like that. That Jia was still holding it in at all said everything about the kind of person she was.
…I hate this.
She repeated it silently to herself as she stared, empty-eyed, at Plunderer's grayed-out ID in her friends list.
That guilt never faded. Time simply dragged on until a full week had passed.
Jia cooked with a gloomy face, Chungshin's lines still circling endlessly through her head. Over and over, his shout rose up again.
—Body bait!—
"Haa…."
She finished setting out the food with another sigh — and then the front door slammed open hard enough to rattle the house, Chungshin's voice exploding through the entryway.
"Fuck!"
"O-Oppa?"
Jia hurried to the door to meet him. Chungshin came in breathing hard, practically vibrating with rage.
"Oppa, what's wrong?"
"Fuck!"
"Oppa! Stop swearing and just… answer me…."
Even with her pleading, it took him a long time to settle enough to speak.
"I-I think I got caught…."
"Huh? Caught doing what?"
"My undercover infiltration! I think that admin bastard found out…."
"Ah…."
Only then did Jia understand why he was so worked up. She didn't know the full details, but she had been told it was critical — that if he were exposed, his standing would hit the ground that very day.
They sat in the living room and held the silence for a long while. Jia could only feel the frustration of having nothing useful to offer from her position.
Then something seemed to occur to Chungshin. He looked at her.
"Jia."
"Yeah?"
"You're… close with that administrator, right?"
"Uh… we talk a little, I guess?"
She understood immediately. He wanted to use that acquaintance to somehow paper the situation over.
We're not that close…. But considering Oppa's situation, if even I can do something….
Whatever resentment she had stacked up against him, she decided she would try to help.
"Then I'll go and ask him to—"
"No! He's not the kind of bastard who listens just because you ask nicely!"
"What? But shouldn't we at least try that much?"
"…."
Chungshin held a short silence, then spoke as if he had made up his mind.
"Jia…."
"Yeah?"
"I need you to put your body on the line for me."
"…What?"
Jia narrowed her eyes, certain she had misheard.
"Oppa… what did you just say?"
"That bastard was clearly interested in you. If you seduce him, he'll jump right—"
"Oppa! Is that something you say right now!?"
"Then what the hell am I supposed to do!!"
After the shout, Chungshin clung to her and started begging.
"Jia… just once, just once — can't you close your eyes and do it for me?"
"Haa… what even is this…."
"I-If things stay like this… I might actually die…."
He turned on the waterworks, trying to shake her resolve. Jia watched tears she had never seen from him in her entire life — and felt not a single drop of pity.
The one who wants to cry right now is me.
Anger burned through her, and still, faced with that absurd request, she had no choice but to accept. That was the kind of woman Yoon Jia was.
"I'll go… and do whatever I can."
"Haa, thank you so much, Jia."
Chungshin suddenly sprawled across the sofa, a filthy smile spreading as he opened his mouth with vulgar cheer.
"Still, good thing."
"…What is?"
"Jia, you're still a virgin. Don't you think that bastard will lose his mind and throw himself at you?"
The moment Jia opened her eyes, she wiped cold sweat from her face and exhaled in a drained, broken rhythm.
"Haa… haa…."
"Are you all right?"
"Where…?"
She looked around, struggling to piece the situation together. More than her own scrambled mind, it was Sung Suho's voice that let her grasp where she was.
"Are you all right? What kind of dream were you having to sweat like this…."
"Ah…."
Jia let out a long breath and pressed a hand to her chest.
Right… it was a dream. Oppa would never do that.
She steadied her breathing, collected herself, and apologized to Suho.
"I'm sorry. Falling asleep in a situation like this…."
"It's fine."
Suho smiled and glanced around.
"Rest for now. If you keep going in that state, you'll only hurt yourself."
"Ugh… okay."
Jia wiped her sweat and watched him carefully. Suho stood alone, alert, scanning their surroundings. Gratitude and guilt washed over her at the same time — and with them came the words Chungshin had spoken to her in the dream.
(Jia, I need you to put your body on the line for me.)
It had clearly been an unreal line from inside a dream. But as she thought about Chungshin's recent attitude and constant complaints, reality and the dream began forcibly knitting themselves together.
Haa… no. Oppa isn't that kind of person.
Her reason fought not to connect the two scenes, but her heart was already in control, and her mind kept blending the two men into one. Reality's Chungshin and the dream's Chungshin began to fuse. When Jia finally came back to herself, a single line settled in her chest.
…I really hate this.
Even she didn't fully understand what that meant.
After Jia woke, I kept watch on the area while she collected herself. As I scanned our surroundings, Armonia spoke over the comms.
"Unexpected. I assumed you would use Dream Intrusion for something more aggressively stimulating…."
That was plenty stimulating on its own.
I had entered Yoon Jia's dream wearing Go Chungshin's face and kept cutting open her heart. I had said things a lover should never say, without hesitation. And above all, the timing had been perfect.
Chungshin had already made her do something similar before. First he laid the groundwork in the game environment; then, in the real world, he reeled in the Jia who had taken the bait. I had simply released her from that state and cast again.
We'll keep going like this for now. Working inside dreams? Fine by me. But I guess I'm the type who prefers a slow occupation.
I didn't want to devour Jia and throw her away. I wanted a woman who would still thrash herself onto my hook no matter how many times I reeled her in — a woman who would keep looking only at me even with the barb already through her mouth. And Chungshin? He was becoming the fishing rod and the bait that helped me catch her.
I was still laying out the plan step by step when Jia finished gathering herself, stood, and spoke.
"Sorry for making you wait."
"Shall we go, then."
Jia and I resumed the dungeon.
"Everyone worked hard today~"
"Yes… thank you for your hard work…."
On the first day of the dungeon run, the cadets only made it back outside after the sun had fully set. Cadets and guards alike sagged as if drunk on miasma. Even with Jia treating the toxin, accumulated fatigue was another matter entirely.
"You all did well. Still, seeing the ones carefully selected among the cadets step up so actively was good to watch."
"Right. Adapting to miasma takes more than a day or two. You at least get a trial run to acclimate early — other cadets have to jump straight into society without even that."
Oh Jin-ho and Park Huiyeon comforted the cadets with composed faces. Once the lecture wrapped, Sung Suho directed everyone toward the vehicles.
"All right, get in the cars and rest a bit."
"Yes…."
Even Song Ara, who had still looked relatively fine when the gimmick scattered them, dragged herself toward a vehicle with a limp, exhausted voice.
Suho stood with Jia and offered his greetings to Oh Jin-ho and Park Huiyeon.
"You both worked hard today."
"…You too."
"Thank you for your hard work."
"Then I'll take my leave…. Instructor Yoon Jia, shall we?"
"Ah, yes~"
Jia followed Suho toward the vehicles. Watching the two of them leave, Park Huiyeon narrowed her eyes and stared hard at Suho's back.
"This isn't the situation we had in mind."
"It's not as if convenient situations are the only ones that ever show up."
Oh Jin-ho watched Suho just as quietly. Not long after entering the dungeon, the party had split into three groups. Park Huiyeon's and Oh Jin-ho's group had only reunited with the other two after far more time than expected. If they had wanted to, they could have swept the dungeon in short order and found the cadets quickly. Instead, they had taken their time.
"The other two groups met up way too fast."
"Tell me about it… I figured an assistant instructor would be about on par with the guards next to him, so I didn't think much of it."
The two of them had deliberately progressed slowly, intending to put the cadets through something unpleasant. The first reason was to make the still-green cadets understand just how much of a nuisance miasma could be. And the second, more important reason—
"They need to get thoroughly soaked in miasma before they'll realize how precious healers are and start scrambling to join the Church."
Neither Oh Jin-ho nor Park Huiyeon was a recovery specialist. But both of them knew perfectly well where the Church's prestige came from.
Healers.
They had meant to let the cadets feel, in their own bodies, the difference between other guilds starving for recovery mages and a Church overflowing with them. Suho's quick handling had let the day pass without any real incident.
"If it stays like this, once the tour ends the cadets might go back and tell the ones who didn't come that it was no big deal."
"Hmm… we can't afford to be as loose as last year."
"Right. Let's head back and revise the schedule."
"Aigoo… I was planning to knock him down a peg with a few digs if the assistant instructor turned out useless…."
"Don't make it too obvious. Even if something goes wrong, the important line is that it never becomes the Church's responsibility."
"Yeees~ yeeees~"
With Park Huiyeon's last drawl, the two of them climbed into the vehicle waiting for them.
The moment Jia entered her room, she let out a huge breath and spoke.
"I'm exhausted…."
A hero's life was always tiring, but today felt like an extra weight had been stacked onto the load she already carried. She had hit a gimmick mid-dungeon, and the timing had been awful — she had already been hungry. Suho had handed over every snack he had on him, while Chungshin, in her dream, had treated her like nothing. And above all, the texts Chungshin sent on the way back only soured her mood further.
The rooms the Church had provided were mixed guest rooms with no separate male and female wings. Since everyone had been sent from the Hero Academy, cadets and instructors alike had been given adjoining rooms. And Suho's room was directly next to Jia's.
Jia barely managed to talk Chungshin down and told him to keep the messages to a minimum. The truth was, she didn't want to see him less out of worry for his situation and more because of how she herself felt.
…I don't want to meet him in this mood.
She went to bed like that — and because she dreamed the same dream all over again, by the next morning her desire to avoid Chungshin had only grown stronger.