55. This Isn't the Character I Knew!
55. This Isn't the Character I Knew!
55. This Isn't the Character I Knew!
"Let's be secret friends with your big sister."
Secret friends.
Lee Seol-ha said it, her deep blue eyes hazy.
Come to think of it, was there any real risk in being secret friends?
As long as Lee Seol-ha didn't suddenly lose her mind and tell Yu Ha-yeon, we wouldn't get caught.
And since the deal was that this would only last until my body returned to normal,
the opportunity was basically being handed to me on a silver platter.
I asked Lee Seol-ha out of curiosity.
"What exactly do secret friends do, big sister?"
"W-Well... I'll teach you little by little."
Lee Seol-ha's face flushed as she spoke.
Suddenly, she hugged me from behind,
sniffed my scent, and started rubbing her cheek against mine.
"Haa... This is the best..."
"..."
I decided to just watch Lee Seol-ha's actions without saying anything.
She sniffed at me like I was a doll she was hugging close, as if trying to fill the emptiness inside her.
It pricked my pride a little, being handled so shamelessly, but I didn't feel too bad about it.
'Am I really just a hopeless womanizer?'
A bastard crazy about women.
I didn't want to admit it, but maybe thanks to my fates,
I was getting used to women touching my body without any hesitation.
If anything, it was actually starting to feel good.
Feeling myself slowly growing accustomed to two-timing,
I decided to just savor Lee Seol-ha's behavior.
Lee Seol-ha breathed in my scent, as if my younger body gave off some kind of fragrance.
Then she held my hand and giggled, muttering "so small... so small...".
In the middle of all that perverted behavior,
she made a single request.
"Han Si-jun, can you stand in front of me for a moment?"
"...All of a sudden?"
"Yes. Pretty please? Will you do it for me...?"
Lee Seol-ha asked me out of the blue to stand up.
It was easy enough to just get up,
so I rose to my feet without a second thought.
Rustle.
Standing up let me look down at Lee Seol-ha, who was still seated on the floor.
From this angle, I could see it clearly.
Her eyes were dreamy, but deep within them burned pure instinct.
"Sniff... Haa... This is way too good... What do I do...? B-But still, the lips are off limits, right...? That feels too much like a crime..."
Lee Seol-ha wiped the drool from her mouth and kept gazing at me.
Her eyes darted everywhere, as if she were observing me.
'So this is what it feels like to be devoured by someone's gaze...?'
Lee Seol-ha's instinct-driven stare was way too perverted.
Eyes that blatantly swept up and down my body.
I had no choice but to give her a look of contempt.
"That expression is the best too..."
"..."
Instead, Lee Seol-ha looked enraptured.
People naturally have a desire to favor younger individuals.
But it seemed Lee Seol-ha's range for that was far wider than most.
She kept staring at me with those hazy, dark blue eyes.
"Do you like your big sister, or Yu Ha-yeon?"
"Obviously Yu Ha-yeon."
The two weren't even comparable in the first place.
Once I grew back up, Lee Seol-ha would return to her cold demeanor anyway.
But Yu Ha-yeon?
She would like me no matter what I looked like. Unless she caught me cheating, that is.
Lee Seol-ha puffed out her cheeks, apparently unhappy with my resolute answer.
"...You're not supposed to talk back to your big sister. I didn't give you permission for that."
"Big sister...?"
Maybe I should have just laughed it off.
I hadn't expected her jealousy of Yu Ha-yeon to extend this far.
Lee Seol-ha glared at me, clearly jealous of my firm response.
And then,
she started muttering quietly.
"This won't do... Looks like you need to be scolded by your big sister..."
With those words, I spent the rest of the room café time unable to escape from Lee Seol-ha's embrace.
"Hmph... You can't be saying things like that to your big sister, you know...?"
The Lee Seol-ha I knew was dead.
The innocent, pitiful Lee Seol-ha who used to rank high in popularity polls in V. AGE was dead.
The Lee Seol-ha drooling and giving in to her instincts was practically a criminal.
'How is she going to handle this once she comes to her senses...?'
Watching Lee Seol-ha's insane behavior,
I was more worried about the Lee Seol-ha who would come to her senses once her rationality returned.
'She's not going to try to kill me, right...?'
Half-joking, half-worrying, I imagined the future Lee Seol-ha who would regain her sanity.
A Lee Seol-ha who would spend the whole day kicking her blanket in regret over her own actions.
With that many kicks, the blanket might actually tear.
Just thinking about it was truly sad.
***
I spent my days living with Ban Ha-na, talking with Yu Ha-yeon at the training ground, and occasionally meeting Lee Seol-ha as a secret friend.
Ban Ha-na kept seeing my younger self and shouting, "Si-jun! Call me big sis!"
But I had absolutely no intention of ever calling her that, so I ignored it.
Sometimes, while sleeping, Ban Ha-na would hug me so tightly that I'd wake up.
And at the training ground, Yu Ha-yeon would guide my training.
"Focus! Your hands stopped moving!"
Yu Ha-yeon was helping me with my shooting practice.
She gave me a demonstration and scored far higher than me, probably due to the difference in talent.
Yu Ha-yeon proved that her future S-rank title wasn't just for show.
After continuously taking supplements and training hard, changes started to appear in my body.
Strength 4.
Now I had enough strength to hold a pistol without straining my wrist.
The thought "Should I give up firearms and try a sword?" crossed my mind, but my Stamina stat was 2.
Unfortunately, with such low stamina, close-quarters combat wasn't my style.
My secret friend arrangement with Lee Seol-ha went relatively smoothly.
"Do you like your big sister, or Yu Ha-yeon?"
She occasionally flustered me with questions like that,
but I would just laugh it off with Lee Seol-ha.
To be honest, Lee Seol-ha would probably kiss me right away if I asked.
During our secret friend arrangement, Lee Seol-ha wanted to make the first move,
but she kept shaking her head as if to say "this isn't right," so she was hesitating.
'...This much should be about enough.'
A fair amount of time had passed, and Lee Seol-ha's rationality was slowly coming back,
so I steeled my resolve: I would claim Lee Seol-ha's lips soon.
And today.
As someone who cleared the gate incident, I was heading to the academy chairwoman's office together with Yu Ha-yeon and Lee Seol-ha.
Yu Ha-yeon asked me, sounding slightly anxious.
"Han Si-jun. Nothing's going to happen, right?"
"Probably. They might even give us a reward. Don't worry."
Yu Ha-yeon held my younger hand as we walked together.
Academy staff nearby mistook us for an older sister and younger brother and shouted "how cute," which didn't put me in a very good mood.
In what universe is Yu Ha-yeon the big sister?
No matter how big the physical difference is, that's just not right.
Yu Ha-yeon is my childhood friend.
I could never call her big sister.
I already had one person I had to call big sister. That was enough.
"Lee Seol-ha."
"...Hi."
In front of the chairwoman's office at the academy, we ran into Lee Seol-ha.
She had a regretful look in her eyes because I was forced to use casual speech with her.
"Something feels weird..."
"What does?"
"...Never mind."
Yu Ha-yeon picked up on the atmosphere between me and Lee Seol-ha, and her suspicion deepened.
I looked at Yu Ha-yeon and broke into a cold sweat.
'It couldn't be... right?'
Suspicion bordering on certainty.
But she had no evidence, so she was stuck.
Yu Ha-yeon had a gut feeling but no concrete proof, so she just glared at the two of us.
What would happen if Yu Ha-yeon found out that Lee Seol-ha and I were secret friends?
A future I didn't even want to imagine.
I decided to put those thoughts aside.
"We'll be late. Let's go in."
The appointed meeting time was 12 o'clock.
Right now, it was 11:58.
Arriving with barely any time to spare, we opened the door,
and beheld the chairwoman of Hero Academy.
"Yu Ha-yeon, Lee Seol-ha, Han Si-jun. That is correct, yes?"
"Yes, that's right."
She looked like a kindly grandmother in her 70s, with hair that had turned pure white.
However, despite her appearance, she was a former S-rank hero,
and she still possessed enough power to remain active even now.
Beside me, Lee Seol-ha saw the chairwoman and yelled out with confidence.
"Ah... Hello!! Chairwoman Shin Hae-young...!! It's an honor to meet you...!!"
Lee Seol-ha bowed at a perfect 90-degree angle as she greeted her.
It was rare to see someone as prideful as Lee Seol-ha acting like this.
She must have admired Shin Hae-young for being a former S-rank hero.
A faint smile spread across Shin Hae-young's face at Lee Seol-ha's reaction.
"Rather, it is I who feels more honored. After all, you protected the other students and cleared an A-rank Gate yourselves. I can only say how truly admirable it is."
Shin Hae-young spoke with the gentle tone of a grandmother.
She looked at me, and our eyes met.
'...'
Her gaze held a trace of apology and gratitude.
I understood why Shin Hae-young was reacting this way.
'Probably because of Black Dawn.'
She felt sorry toward me because Shin Hae-il, her own blood relative, had kidnapped me.
She was the younger sister of Shin Hae-il from the villain group Black Dawn.
The older brother was the leader of a villain group called the worst of the worst.
The younger sister was the chairwoman of Hero Academy.
The family relationship I knew was as tangled as a ball of thread.
But that wasn't my fault. It was Shin Hae-il's fault.
And the fault of the Hero Association that had commissioned the job.
Shin Hae-young had absolutely no reason to feel sorry toward me.
I gave her a slight nod, as if to say I understood.
Shin Hae-young began to explain why she had called us.
"The reason I called you here is regarding your reward for clearing the gate."
"A r-reward...!?"
Lee Seol-ha's eyes went wide as if she were possessed at the word "reward."
She still wasn't in her right mind.
"Heroes receive a reward every time they clear a high-rank gate. However..."
The chairwoman trailed off.
"Since students are not treated as full-fledged heroes, the Hero Association regrettably cannot provide you with a proper reward."
"Ah..."
Lee Seol-ha's voice was full of disappointment.
She must have been expecting a reward.
I, too, who had recently started running low on funds, felt disappointed by Shin Hae-young's words.
'Ha-na. We're going to have to survive on bread for a while.'
If I had money, I could buy her chicken,
but I was just a powerless student. There was nothing I could do about the Hero Association's reward regulations.
Shin Hae-young told us not to be too disappointed, then continued.
"So the academy would like to give you students a small gift instead. Is there anything you might want?"
At Shin Hae-young's words, the still-not-in-her-right-mind Lee Seol-ha boldly yelled out "money,"
while Yu Ha-yeon, perhaps wanting to keep her reward a secret, whispered into her ear.
"I would like you to give me ---."
"Oh my? You two are absolutely in full spring, aren't you...?"
After hearing Yu Ha-yeon's words, the chairwoman smiled and began glancing back and forth between her and me.
What on earth did Yu Ha-yeon say to get that kind of response?
Curiosity, along with a hint of unease, wrapped around my heart.
The remaining reward was about me.
I decided to ask for what I needed most right now.
"I want a weapon. A firearm that's easy to carry and can hold magic power."
"You're asking for something quite expensive, aren't you...? A-Ah... I understand... A promise is a promise..."
Shin Hae-young looked a little troubled but promised to give me what I wanted.
After all the effort I'd put into clearing an A-rank Gate,
I figured that much of a reward was only natural.
After discussing the rewards,
Shin Hae-young expressed her concern for us and gave us some cautionary words about gates.
Just like I'd seen in V. AGE, she seemed to have the demeanor of an excellent educator.
We talked like that for about thirty minutes, and once the topics ran out, we realized it was time to go.
As we stood up to leave, Shin Hae-young called out to us.
More precisely, to me.
"Well, I'll see you next time. Before that, Han Si-jun, do you have a moment?"
"Huh? Me?"
Why was she calling me when Yu Ha-yeon, who was demonstrating S-rank qualities, was right here?
As I wore a puzzled expression, Shin Hae-young spoke.
"Could I speak with you for a moment? It's important."
Shin Hae-young wanted to discuss something important.
I wasn't stupid enough to refuse that offer.
Reform or destruction of the Hero Association.
The episode connected to Shin Hae-young was exactly that.
I sensed that the time had come to deal with the Hero Association that had tried to take my life.