The Prospective Saintess
Jung Hoyoung arrived at the Hunter Department lecture hall of Korea University and dropped into his seat.
Theory class again today.
Korea University's Hunter Department was the finest hunter-training institution in the country, turning out more than five A-class hunters every year. Plus over twenty B-class hunters on top of that. The C-class count ran well past a hundred. With a total enrollment of around a hundred and sixty, that meant virtually every graduate—save a vanishing handful—walked out as a C-class hunter or better.
Those numbers put them among the top five hunter academies on the planet. Korea University's Hunter Department was a world-class name among world-class names, and a steady stream of international students enrolled or transferred in because of it.
And the reason those graduates were so damn good? The practicals. They're as close to real combat as you can get without dying.
Even so, they didn't throw freshmen into live-fire drills on day one. Theory only, for a while yet. Practical training probably wouldn't start until around week three.
I need to claim Seong Hayan before then. Everything after that would go a lot smoother. First things first. Make contact.
Hoyoung stood and walked over to Kim Woobin and Seong Hayan.
"Hey."
Both of them jumped at the greeting.
Kim Woobin and Seong Hayan. Classic timid loners.
Kim Woobin, in particular, would grow stronger over time. His looks would transform. Beautiful heroines would shower him with affection, and that timid streak would vanish completely. He'd become a confident, handsome social butterfly—a eunuch, sure, but a popular one.
But that was later. This was now.
"Uh, hey. What's up?"
Woobin returned the greeting, but his eyes were wary. He edged forward, putting himself between Hoyoung and Hayan.
He thinks I came over because of her.
It had probably happened plenty of times before. But Hoyoung's target right now wasn't Seong Hayan. It was Kim Woobin.
"We're in the same White Class. Figured we should get to know each other. Not exactly a lot of guys in our class, right?"
The Hunter Department held a hundred and sixty students, split into four classes of forty: White Class, Black Class, Blue Class, Red Class. The names didn't mean much. They were just administrative groupings to keep the lectures manageable.
Korea University's Hunter Department existed to produce high-rank hunters, which meant the students here felt less like ordinary undergrads and more like cadets at a military academy. The class structure existed so they could be deployed into actual combat at a moment's notice.
Supposedly they represent the four colors of the Korean flag. Pretty lame, honestly. It was lame now, but originally they'd been called White Squad, Black Squad, Blue Squad, and Red Squad. By that standard, the current names were an upgrade.
Later they'll break us into teams of five to ten based on combat roles.
That rigid, un-collegiate structure had been a huge help to the original protagonist when he was conquering heroines. And of course—most of the heroines ended up in Kim Woobin's White Class. The protagonist's class had an overwhelming majority of female students.
"Uh, yeah."
Woobin answered with a blank look on his face.
"Mind if I sit next to you for lectures?"
Hoyoung sat down beside him as he said it. And then, without missing a beat, he launched into easy, natural conversation.
"Yesterday's first day was packed so tight I thought I was gonna die of boredom."
Woobin offered timid little replies—"Uh, yeah," "Right"—while Seong Hayan glared at Hoyoung like a hissing cat, clearly convinced he'd crashed her private time with Woobin.
Getting close to Kim Woobin is easy.
The original protagonist was fundamentally a kind, innocent guy. To the point of being a bit of an idiot, honestly. He was also completely oblivious, which meant he had no idea Hayan's mood was tanking by the second. If anything, the opposite happened.
"Yeah, I hope today's class takes it a little easier. I'm more of a practical guy than a theory guy."
He'd started out timid, but once Hoyoung approached him so warmly, Woobin turned his back on Hayan entirely and chatted away with bright-eyed innocence. He looked genuinely thrilled.
Fair enough. Kim Woobin had been dying to make friends at university.
True to his timid loner nature, he didn't have a single person he could call a friend besides Seong Hayan. His New Year's resolution was to throw off that timid streak and make as many friends as possible here.
In the original novel, that resolution would have been a roaring success. Of course, those "friends" would all have been girls.
If things had gone according to the novel, Kim Woobin, Seong Hayan, and Seo Surin would've banded together to stand against me. That's how he would have become friends with Seo Surin.
But that was a cliché that had already been erased. Nothing had happened yesterday, and so Seo Surin hadn't so much as glanced in Kim Woobin's direction. Which, frankly, was only natural.
The cliché is gone. There's no reason a beauty like Seo Surin would give a four-eyed, acne-faced pig like Kim Woobin the time of day.
Hoyoung and Woobin kept talking, the conversation flowing easily. Woobin looked like he was having the time of his life. Hoyoung didn't interrupt. He listened. He didn't look down on him or give him any weird looks. He just nodded along at the right moments, treating Woobin like any ordinary classmate.
Easy. Too easy.
The guy's head was so empty and pure that befriending him took almost no effort at all.
"Alright, today's lecture will cover..."
Class began. Hoyoung sat through it beside Kim Woobin, and even after it ended, the two of them kept chatting happily. Seong Hayan's face soured further and further, convinced her private time with Woobin had been stolen—and Kim Woobin, who'd turned his back on her completely, didn't notice a thing.
"It's getting stuffy in here. I'm gonna step out for some air."
Hayan stood as she said it.
"Sure, go ahead, Hayan."
Woobin didn't even look at her. Just tossed the words over his shoulder.
Hayan shot Hoyoung a venomous glare, then stomped out of the lecture hall, making no secret of how pissed she was. Kim Woobin, oblivious as ever, was too busy talking to Hoyoung to notice.
Hoyoung spent the entire morning with the two of them and even joined them for lunch at the campus cafeteria.
She's about to blow.
Aside from a brief moment that morning, Seong Hayan hadn't had a single real conversation with Kim Woobin all day. No wonder she was furious.
Time to throw her a bone.
Hoyoung smiled, looking between the two of them.
"So are you two dating? You were glued together yesterday too."
The sour look that had been plastered on Hayan's face all day melted into a giddy, goofy smile.
And then—
"No. We're just friends. Childhood friends. We've been like brother and sister since we were kids."
Kim Woobin drew the line, firm and final. The smile slid right off Hayan's face. She wilted like a kicked puppy.
Called it.
Kim Woobin knew his place. A long-torsoed, short-legged, four-eyed, acne-faced pig of an F-class hunter. And then there was Hayan. A little short, but slim with great proportions and an innocent face—set against a massive, lush F-cup chest. Plus the talent to hit D-class as a healer within months of awakening.
Woobin thinks a girl like that is completely out of his league. That someone as ugly and talentless as him has no right to even look at her.
And he was convinced that the reason she was so good to him was simply because they were old childhood friends, and she saw him as a little brother.
On top of that, Kim Woobin was in love with Seong Hayan. Which meant he was terrified of her getting hurt or catching ugly rumors just by being associated with him. And the real kicker—he's terrified that some stupid rumor will make her pull away from him. Afraid the childhood-friend relationship they'd managed to hold onto would shatter. Afraid she'd start finding him uncomfortable and keep her distance. He was scared.
A textbook youth rom-com.
All either of them had to do was confess and they'd be together. But they were both too scared of getting rejected, too scared of losing the friendship, to say a word.
In the original timeline, it wouldn't have been long. Seong Hayan would masturbate in the men's restroom moaning Kim Woobin's name. He'd overhear her, freeze, and call out her name in shock. After a few twists and turns, they'd confirm their feelings and slip naturally into being a couple.
That's not happening this time. Not a chance. Because?
The one who finds Seong Hayan masturbating in the men's restroom won't be Kim Woobin. It'll be me.
The moment he pictured it, his cock surged to a full, throbbing erection.
Fuck. This is getting hard to deal with.
He'd drained himself yesterday, but the second it kicked in, the urge to grab Seong Hayan and force himself on her right then and there came roaring up. Lust flooded through him. He wanted to rip her clothes off right there in the lecture hall and bury his cock in her virgin pussy. He wanted to crush those huge tits in his fists while she sobbed and writhed in pain, slam his cock into her bleeding virgin cunt, and pound her with everything he had.
"Ah, just friends. Makes sense you'd be close, being childhood friends."
Hoyoung forced the smile to stay on his face.
"I'm gonna hit the bathroom real quick."
He stood up.
"Sure, go ahead."