The Binding Skill's Secret
Seeing Jiyu looking at me with such a tense expression made me tense up too.
“So, I have this skill.”
It would be more accurate to say it’s my only skill rather than one of many. When I awakened as a hunter, the single skill I received was Binding.
“It’s called Binding.”
“Binding?”
“Yeah. It’s a skill that links me to someone based on our mutual affection. When I use it, the target grows stronger in proportion to how deep that bond is.”
I spoke like it was no big deal, but when I thought about how it had taken Yu Hyejeong from D-class all the way to S-class, it really was an incredible skill.
“But yesterday, a Binding notification appeared. It said I could form a bond with you, Jiyu.”
“With me?”
“Yeah. There are two reasons I’m explaining this…”
To explain the reasons, I had to bring up Yu Hyejeong. In the past I would have avoided it, but things were different now.
“First, that ex-girlfriend I mentioned earlier. She used this skill to get stronger, then dumped me. So when the notification came yesterday, it triggered some trauma. That’s why I ran off like that, and I wanted to apologize.”
No matter what, leaving so abruptly in the middle of a good atmosphere must have made Jiyu think all sorts of bad things.
“She used the skill to get stronger and then abandoned you?”
“Yeah. Looking back, it seems like she was planning to use it from the very beginning. Still, I’m the one who let her.”
The words left a bitter taste in my mouth.
“And the second reason is…”
“…Jiyu?”
I lifted my head after leaning down to explain the second reason, only to find Jiyu standing there with an incredibly furious expression.
“…Seriously, is that woman out of her mind?! How could anyone use a person like that?!”
I’d been wondering who she was angry at. It turned out her fury was aimed squarely at my ex.
“It’s so ridiculous! Who does she think she is, using someone and then throwing them away?!”
“Well, I was pretty clingy back then too.”
“Even so! If I ever meet her, just watch! I’ll rip every hair from her head and make her go bald!”
Hmm. No matter how you looked at it, Yu Hyejeong was S-class. I wasn’t sure that was even possible. Then again, if time passed and my feelings for Jiyu grew stronger than what I once felt for Yu Hyejeong, the whole situation could flip. Yu Hyejeong had been D-class, while Jiyu was currently a high C-class bordering on B. The growth potential would be on a completely different level. An S-class hunter who surpassed the limits. Maybe she’d be the first in the country.
“Thanks for getting angry on my behalf. But I’m really okay now. Even if that woman never loved me at all, I think I can accept it.”
“How can that possibly be okay!”
I couldn’t hold back my smile as I watched Jiyu still fuming and huffing with indignation.
“Because now I have someone completely on my side.”
I carefully took her hand.
“…! Hee… you’re holding my hand…!”
I’d noticed it before, but every little thing made me feel just how much this person liked me. I loved that reaction. It was something I had never experienced even once before, and I loved it.
“Thank you for coming to someone as lacking as me.”
“I’m the one who’s more thankful…”
Her face flushed as she smiled shyly. I gently stroked her hair.
“Anyway, I wanted to check something and I also want to give you power. So the second reason I told you about the skill is that I’d like to use Binding on you. Is that okay?”
I wasn’t foolish enough to blindly offer the skill again after being sucked dry and abandoned by the first woman I dated. Of course I trusted Jiyu. I knew she was nothing like Yu Hyejeong. That was part of why I told her.
“Hmm…”
She seemed to be thinking hard for a moment, then looked at me with a resolute expression.
“Acting like that ex-girlfriend of yours is trash, but honestly, who wouldn’t feel greedy at the thought of getting stronger?”
She was right. We lived in an era where a single letter determining your rank was power itself.
“But still, if using that skill would trigger trauma for you, Oppa, then I’d rather not.”
Her words were different from what I expected.
“Just seeing the notification affected you. Actually using it might hurt you even more.”
There wasn’t the slightest hesitation on her face as she said it. It might have been a slight exaggeration, but that determined look seemed to say she would throw away power, authority, everything if it was for me.
“Seriously, you’re too good a person.”
Honestly, I was a little. No, I was very happy.
“Isn’t that normal?”
“It’s not normal at all.”
“Hmm, but I hate the idea of you getting hurt.”
It wasn’t that I hadn’t considered how I would feel when using the Binding skill. Like Jiyu said, even the notification had hurt me. If my suspicions were correct and I actually used it, the pain I would feel then would be immeasurable. But even so.
“It’s fine. Even if I get hurt, as long as I’m with you I’ll get better right away.”
“Can’t we go in a direction where you don’t get hurt at all?”
“Hmm, then I won’t get hurt.”
“No! I don’t mean just saying it!”
The way she puffed out her cheeks and scolded me like she was angry was adorable.
“It’s really okay. And there’s something I really want to confirm too.”
There was a mix of wanting to confirm whether my theory was true and not wanting to know, but the desire to confirm was slightly stronger.
“Are you really, really sure it’s okay?”
“I’m telling you it is.”
She kept checking until the end, thought for a little longer, then finally nodded.
“I guess there’s no helping it. If you’re saying that much, Oppa.”
After finally getting her consent, I pulled up the Binding skill notification I had left pending.
Binding conditions with target 'Shin Jiyu' have been fulfilled.
Would you like to activate Binding?
I expressed my positive intent in my mind without accepting or rejecting it.
“Heh, so the notification comes like this.”
It seemed the message had been delivered to Jiyu’s side as well. Binding wasn’t something I could do alone. Once I accepted, another notification would be sent to the other party asking if they wanted to form the bond. And if they accepted too…
Binding with target 'Shin Jiyu' has been completed.
Receiving the effects of Binding.
But something felt… off.
“Whoa, what is this? I feel power overflowing inside me all of a sudden. At this level… B-class? No, maybe even A-class?”
It looked like the Binding effect had definitely reached Jiyu too. She was marveling at it. But that wasn’t what was important right now.
“Oppa, why is your expression like that?”
“Uh, it’s just… weird.”
“Huh? Did something go wrong?”
I didn’t know how to explain it to Jiyu, who was staring at me with her eyes wide like a rabbit.
“So… um… I think I got stronger too.”
“Eh?”
Her surprised voice rang out, but the most surprised person was me. Something that had never happened before had occurred. Before, only Yu Hyejeong had received power.
“…So, um, yeah. Just a second.”
I decided I needed to check and opened my skill window. Then I looked at the information for my only skill, Binding.
Skill:BindingLv.1
Effect:The higher the mutual affection, the stronger the bonded individual becomes.
Target:Shin Jiyu
Bond Level:60%
It was an intuitive and simple skill window. And inside it, the 60% that was displayed. During the three years I spent with Yu Hyejeong, the bond level displayed had been exactly 50%. It had never moved from 50%. The fact that it had reached 60% meant… the other person’s feelings were also being applied.
Yeah, I had always thought it was strange that it wouldn’t rise when there was clearly more than 50%. Moreover, what had proven that Yu Hyejeong didn’t have even 1% love for me wasn’t the percentage, but the color. There was a bar that displayed the bond percentage. Before, it had shown 50% entirely in black. But now, black took up 20%. And white took up 40%. The black was surely my heart. The white was obviously Jiyu’s heart. Considering that my heart had been 50% before, 40% was an incredibly large number.
“My head’s spinning.”
Just by forming the bond, all my questions had been answered. I learned everything I didn’t know in an instant. So the Binding skill applied each person’s affection separately. The maximum any one person’s heart could contribute was probably 50%. And it wasn’t just the bonded partner who grew stronger.
“Oppa, are you okay?”
“Ah, yeah. I just learned several things I didn’t know all at once, so I felt a bit dizzy.”
I told Jiyu, who had been watching me with a worried expression the whole time, about the new facts I had learned.
“So the stronger my feelings become, the stronger you get too, Oppa?”
“Yeah. No matter how I think about it, the power I feel now is completely different from when I was E-class.”
It was the kind of strength that could reach all the way to B-class if I was lucky. When I thought about how Yu Hyejeong had gone from D-class to S-class with my 50% affection, maybe it wasn’t B-class. Maybe it could be A-class?
“Because of that, I have one favor to ask.”
“Yeah, tell me anything!”
“Could I possibly enter a gate with you?”
I didn’t have any combat skills, but the power of a high-rank hunter above B-class was on another level. I’d heard that even a B-class support hunter could act as a dealer in a C-class gate using only their fists. At that level, it seemed possible for me to go into a gate and throw a few punches too.
“A gate? Oh, to test how strong you’ve gotten?”
“Yeah. And if it really feels okay afterward, I want to get my rank remeasured too.”
“We can go together! I think I can get B-class, or maybe even A-class!”
Considering Jiyu’s original strength, it wouldn’t be strange at all if she got A-class. I didn’t know exactly how much 20% would apply, but it was still close to half.
“Then the gate we reserved for tomorrow is D-class. Let’s go in together.”
A D-class gate definitely wouldn’t be too much for our current strength. Since it was my first time experiencing it, I had hoped it wouldn’t be too high a rank, and the timing worked out perfectly.
“I might need to find a new miner team leader.”
Well, I wouldn’t be able to do both monster hunting and miner team leader at the same time.
“I don’t know, I might not be suited for monster hunting either.”
“That’s true, it could happen.”
I started feeling nervous for no reason. I had never once entered a gate to clear it myself. I had touched corpses while working as a miner, but turning living monsters into corpses with my own hands… Would I be able to do it?
The worry began to creep in.
“Well, honestly I’m not worried about you at all, Oppa.”
“Even though I’ve never even seen a living monster before?”
“Yeah. You just give off the impression that you’d be good at anything, so I’m not worried at all. And what are you worried about? I’ll be right beside you!”
She was right. A C-class hunter close to B-class—no, possibly A-class now—an attack specialist hunter would be by my side. And not just Jiyu; the others would definitely save me if danger came. Except maybe Kim Pilseok.
“Oh, now that I think about it… Was Kim Pilseok with the party from the beginning?”
“Pilseok? No, he joined later when we had an opening.”
Hmm, that made sense. I had thought his vibe was completely different from the other party members. That guy needed to be put in his place too. If he kept behaving that way toward Jiyu in the future, I wouldn’t let it slide.