Facing the Body's Owner - Part 4
For two straight days inside the mindscape, Jeonghye and I had been tangling our bodies together.
Saying we "tangled our bodies" might sound rather suggestive, but reality couldn't have been further from romance. Quite literally, our limbs were locked in vicious, unrelenting combat. Actually, calling it a fight was generous—it was more accurate to say I spent forty-eight hours getting beaten half to death. It felt as though I had run headfirst into an insurmountable wall, towering and unyielding as Mount Tai.
In a weird way, it brought back memories of boxing with my father back when I was a kid. The man had once drilled a clean, vicious body blow into his eight-year-old son, grinning from ear to ear until Mom smacked him hard enough across the back to rattle his teeth. Even so, standing here right now, I couldn't be more grateful to him.
｢Hey. Are you positive you've never learned martial arts before?｣
"Swordsmanship, cultivation arts—never touched any of it in my life. You can tell just by looking at me, can't you?"
｢Well, yeah, that's true, but...｣
Trailing off, Jeonghye offered her blunt assessment of my current state.
｢Your control over qi is worse than a mangy monkey's, but when you're actually throwing hands, your form is surprisingly decent...｣
She eyed me with deep suspicion as she muttered the words.
"Thanks for the compliment. Hey, if it works, it works."
I brushed it off with a shrug and let my thoughts drift back to the past.
It happened when I was about six years old.
Out of nowhere, my father called me into his room.
"Jungwoo, come over here and take a seat."
"Okay!"
After sitting me down in front of his desk, Father crossed his arms and spoke with grave solemnity.
"Your father has harbored a dream ever since his youth..."
He proceeded to make a solemn confession to me about that dream. Normally, "dreams" were the sort of thing we talked about constantly in kindergarten, so hearing my own father bring it up ignited my six-year-old curiosity.
"Whoa! What kind of dream?"
"That dream, my son..." Father looked deep into my wide, innocent eyes before dropping the bombshell. "...is to forge you into a human weapon."
"...Huh?"
Years later, when I grew older and asked my mother about it, she revealed the true story behind that fateful day.
"Honey, once we have kids, I'm definitely going to teach them martial arts from the cradle."
To be fair, it wasn't completely out of left field. Father was, after all, a certified Taekwondo master. And so, back when Mother was heavily pregnant, he had extracted a solemn vow.
Mother had blown her lid, demanding to know what kind of lunatic calls his own child a "human weapon," but Father had refused to budge an inch. When my older sister was born, Father dutifully kept his word, treating her like the most precious princess in the universe. But when I came along, it was time to fulfill the other half of that promise.
On top of that, Father had placed immense expectations on my physical potential.
"You know how tall your mother is, right? A boy's height usually takes after his mother's side. You've already got the blueprint of a champion!"
From that day forward... my daily life became a living hell. I genuinely doubted there was another six-year-old on planet Earth undergoing training as punishing as mine. When I turned seven, he even tried to put me on protein powder and bodybuilding supplements, only to get thoroughly chewed out by Mom for trying to shove workout shakes down an elementary schooler's throat.
In truth, neither back then nor now did I ever resent him. Exercising constantly from such a young age meant my physique and health were top-notch. Nobody ever picked fights with me at school, and when it came to long study sessions, raw stamina was half the battle. Setting aside whether it was appropriate for a little kid, the training had undeniably helped me.
And now, tossed into this bizarre fantasy world, that grueling childhood had turned out to be an absolute godsend.
Unfortunately, the girl standing across from me held standards that were absurdly high.
｢Hey! Why didn't you dodge that?! You can see the fist coming, so just get out of the way!｣
"It's not that I chose not to dodge, it's that my body physically couldn't!"
That was an exchange that cropped up every few minutes during our spars. Seriously, "just see it and dodge," "just see it and counter"—talk was cheap! If not for Father's hellish training back home, I wouldn't have survived even five seconds under this psycho's regimen.
｢What are you zoning out for?｣
Seeing me sitting quietly on the floor without a word, Jeonghye called out, looking puzzled.
I couldn't very well dump the truth on her, though. My ultimate objective was to crush the Azure Heaven Cult, which meant I would eventually have to confess a great deal to Jeonghye... but having known her for only three days, it was far too soon. With enough time, things would sort themselves out somehow, wouldn't they?
Pushing down on my knees, I dragged myself back to my feet.
"Nothing. Just thinking."
｢Hmm... really?｣
She squinted at me with lingering suspicion for a moment, but quickly brushed it off as if it didn't matter.
｢Then get back into your stance. The goal for today... is keeping at it until you can infuse qi into your fist the exact instant you strike.｣
"Got it."
And with that, our grueling sparring resumed once more.
Inside the mindscape, keeping track of how much time had passed in the outside world was nearly impossible. There was no sun, no moon, and certainly no clock on the wall.
A full three days had elapsed while we threw ourselves into relentless training. Once the seventy-two hours were up, control over the body reverted to me, exactly as Jeonghye had promised.
The instant I returned to reality and cracked my eyelids open, the very first sensation that hit me was...
"...I'm starving!"
A ferocious, hollow hunger tore through my guts. When I thought about it, having neither eaten a scrap of food nor drank a drop of water for three whole days made it entirely expected.
"Wait, weren't you hungry at all while you were in control?"
｢Not particularly,｣ Jeonghye replied, her tone entirely nonchalant. ｢I'm used to starving.｣
Her blunt answer instantly brought back what I had learned when investigating her background. The parent section of her academy profile had been completely blank, and there wasn't a single copper coin left in her dorm room. It didn't take a genius to realize that Jeonghye's life had been an uphill battle from day one.
And here I was, whining about hunger to a girl who had known starvation as a daily routine...
It felt like walking straight into one of those instant-regret, foot-in-mouth internet memes.
"...Ahem. Right. Well, I'm starving, so let's hit the cafeteria first."
I smoothly steered the conversation away from the awkward topic and hurried toward the dining hall.
"Hey, Jeonghye. When I eat food out here in the real world, can you taste it too?"
｢No. And stop talking to yourself out loud—use your mind! If anyone hears you, they're going to think you're some crazy bitch.｣
While pulling my meal ticket and waiting in line, I engaged in idle banter with her. I couldn't be entirely certain, but surprisingly enough, she seemed to tolerate me reasonably well. If we were going to share a skull and get along moving forward, constant communication was an absolute necessity.
We continued chatting silently until my number came up, and I went over to retrieve my tray. Every time I set foot in this cafeteria, I couldn't help marveling at just how lavish the meals were. Glistening, tender cuts of roasted meat paired with freshly baked, steaming bread. If you tried to buy a spread like this back in Korea, how much would it even cost?
Tray in hand, I found an empty table and sat down. Just as I pinched a piece of meat with my chopsticks and prepared to shovel it into my mouth—
"Excuse me."
A voice called out from behind me.
Wondering who could be interrupting my feast, I turned my head, only to be greeted by a mane of fiery crimson hair.
"Could we talk for a moment?"
It was Bella—the half-dragon who had pounded me into the dirt during our last spar.
What did she want? Was she here to teabag me over her victory? Or was she feeling guilty because I hadn't stepped foot outside my dorm room for three whole days? Whatever her reasoning, it was none of my concern right now.
"Let me finish eating first. Go wait on the bench outside."
Dismissing Bella without further ceremony, I polished off my meal in peace before making my way out.
I really just wanted to enjoy my lunch without any drama.
｢Then you should've just ignored her entirely,｣ Jeonghye chimed in.
...Jeonghye, basic communication between people is a vital life skill.
Stepping through the dining hall doors, I spotted Bella sitting quietly on the wooden bench beside the entrance.
"So, what did you want to talk about?"
I cut straight to the chase. With my duel against Henry scheduled in three days, I had zero time to squander on small talk. Yet despite being the one who sought me out, Bella kept her mouth firmly shut.
｢She's the one who dragged you out here, so why the hell is she clamping her beak shut? What's her problem?｣
Search me.
While I exchanged annoyed thoughts with Jeonghye in the heavy silence, Bella finally parted her lips.
"Are you... by any chance, a Dragonia?"
An utterly bizarre, out-of-nowhere question tumbled from her mouth.
What kind of bullshit is she babbling?
｢It's probably because you swallowed that Dragon Pearl,｣ Jeonghye noted casually.
What does that have to do with anything?
｢She's dragonkin, remember? Not a pureblood, just someone with draconic blood mixed in. She must've picked up on the dragon essence radiating off your body.｣
Jeonghye figured Bella's inquiry was sparked by the remnant aura of the Dragon Pearl I had absorbed. In truth, Bella really did carry dragon heritage. While she wasn't a pureblooded dragon, the lineage ran thick enough that she remained one of the few academy students capable of pulling her weight during the dangerous late-game arcs of the original novel.
Still, the real issue here was...
Wait, how the hell do you know that?
The fact that Jeonghye knew about Bella's bloodline blew my mind. I only knew because I had read the novel. But how could she possibly tell?
｢You can tell just by looking at her, idiot. Her physical skeletal structure is completely different from a normal human's.｣
Jeonghye answered as nonchalantly as if stating that the sky was blue.
...Sometimes, standing next to this girl made me feel like an unevolved ape. She wasn't just a prodigy; she was an absolute monster.
Regardless, that was a matter for later. Right now, I had to figure out how to navigate Bella's probing question.
｢Just play dumb and act shameless,｣ Jeonghye advised.
...Act shameless?
｢I'm not dragonkin to begin with, and we have zero obligation to tell her about the Dragon Pearl either.｣
It sounded aggressive, but she was right. If word got out that I had swallowed a millennium dragon's core, the rumors wouldn't just tear through the academy—they'd sweep across the entire Empire. Putting on my best look of complete bewilderment, I shook my head.
"No? What kind of crazy talk is that? If I were a Dragonia, do you really think I would've been beaten like a dog by you back then?"
To lend maximum credibility to my denial, I deliberately brought up our humiliating sparring match.
My choice of words, however, did not sit well with my inner passenger.
｢You were the one who got your ass kicked! Why the hell are you dragging my body into it?!｣
To her, there's no difference between you and me anyway.
Bella didn't offer a single word of rebuttal to my response. She simply stared at me for a beat, turned on her heel, and walked away.
｢Look at that rude little lizard bitch! She's the one who called us out here, and now she just walks off—｣
Give it a rest.
Reining in Jeonghye's foul-mouthed grumbling, I turned around and headed back toward the dormitory.
Just like that, another three days slipped by.
Today was the scheduled practical combat class. That meant my duel against Henry was finally upon us.
"Honestly speaking, do you think I can win?"
At my nervous question, Jeonghye paused for a brief moment before answering.
｢Truth be told, I was planning on teaching you some basic footwork and forms from scratch. But your fundamental stance was surprisingly solid. Wherever you picked it up, messing with it prematurely might've done more harm than good, so I left it alone.｣
Having delivered her appraisal, Jeonghye spoke with unshakeable conviction.
｢You're going to win. Guaranteed.｣
Then, as if trying to soothe my frayed nerves, she followed up with a cocky smirk:
｢Think about who's been beating the crap out of you for the past week. If you can't even take down a chump like that after training with me, you'd deserve to get tossed off a cliff.｣
Her arrogant swagger actually worked, and the tight knot in my chest loosened considerably.
And right on cue—
"Ninth match! Jeonghye versus Henry! Both fighters, step into the arena!"
The hour of battle had arrived.