It Seemed to Be Working
The effect seemed to be good.
The atmosphere had gone awkward.
Im Hana and Lamia kept sneaking glances at each other and staying quiet, and I—who was supposed to know nothing about any of this—had no choice but to do the same, like someone who’d noticed the tension and was tactfully pretending not to.
But when I thought about it more, I had to wonder why I was the one being so careful in the first place.
There was nothing that could link my real self to my dream self. If I’d slipped up with my words in the dream, that would have been one thing, but from the start those two could not even speak there—only breathe.
It made me realize, once again, just how thoroughly she had thought things through. I had only moved as she’d set things up, but she’d sealed off the possibility of me making some careless mistake and having my identity exposed with a single rule.
As for Im Hana, I could understand it. The Dark Elf skill had already improved her once-clumsy body and brightened her expression, so that was fine. But in Lamia’s case, someone might decide she was suffering from some kind of succubus possession and look for a way to exorcise it.
In truth, that danger had existed from the beginning. There were countless Awakened in the world, and surely some of them had skills like exorcism hiding somewhere out there.
Still, Hana’s personality made it hard to imagine her voluntarily announcing to the world that she was having erotic dreams every single night. If the side effects got so severe that they started ruining her real life, maybe she’d search for a way to deal with them out of sheer desperation. But in her case, the advantages of the skill outweighed the drawbacks, so that wasn’t likely to happen.
Lamia was a little harder to judge.
There was certainly a chance she’d try to find an exorcism method to free herself from the dream as well. But the problem was that her actual job was being an idol.
An idol who had obscene dreams so filthy she woke up drenched in semen every night? If that ever got out, she’d have no choice but to quit being an idol. Even if she wasn’t selling some pure and fragile image, the moment that kind of story reached the public, her idol persona would be finished.
That was the logical conclusion. But the world was full of different kinds of people, and I didn’t know enough about Lamia’s situation to assume she’d automatically think that way.
So for now, I needed to emphasize the good points of the Dark Elf skill.
Watching both of their reactions, I said, “I thought that was supposed to be a really rare skill. That’s amazing. I can’t believe I know two people who have the same one.”
“Th-that’s right. What are the odds of that?”
“Yeah. It’s really amazing.”
Their responses were so empty that even an elementary school kid reading a high school Korean textbook would have sounded more natural.
“It seems like a pretty good skill. I’m jealous. Did you get your skill all of a sudden too, Ms. Lamia?”
“Yes. Well. That’s right. All of a sudden.”
Lamia answered like that, then asked cautiously, “But you said it was a good skill?”
“You know growth-type skills are rare to begin with, right?”
“Yes.”
“And from what I can see, it looks like the higher the level goes, the more it raises assassin and mage talent, and it seems to unlock other skills too.”
I looked over at Im Hana, who had gone red in the face and was hanging her head so low she was practically staring at the floor, and went on. “Hana Unni was clumsy and gloomy when she first started her internship, so I worried about her a lot just watching her. But at some point her movements got sharper, and her whole vibe brightened up a lot. I’ve been convinced it’s thanks to that skill.”
“W-when did I—”
“See? Before, you couldn’t even push back like this; you just kept your head down and said nothing. That’s a big improvement.”
“...”
Im Hana couldn’t argue and only mouthed a few words in silence. Lamia glanced at her, then answered in a small voice, “I do feel like my body’s gotten a little better since I got the skill.”
“You can already tell that much?”
“It could just be in my head.”
That was enough talk about skills, so I changed the subject. If I kept dragging this out, it would only backfire.
“What did the company say? Since you Awakened, I figured they’d have something to say about it.”
“Nothing much.”
Ah. It seemed like she didn’t really want to talk about it. I supposed it made sense; you couldn’t exactly ramble about industry matters to someone you weren’t even close to yet.
So what else could I talk about?
Ah, this would work.
“The Instructor praised you yesterday. He said you were learning how to handle energy really fast.”
“Really?”
“From what I saw, you’ve definitely got talent. To be honest, even while I was teaching you yesterday, I didn’t expect you to get the hang of it that quickly.”
“Thank you for saying so.”
Honestly, I had no idea how many landmines there could be in such a simple conversation. The worst part was that none of it could show on my face, which made it even more exhausting.
Anyway, once work hours started again, I spent the rest of the day working hard in the office, then went down to the basement in the afternoon to help with training.
“Huh? She left already?”
“Apparently it was because of her agency schedule. Nothing can be done about that. She has her main job, after all.”
“I see.”
“Please help me with someone else today. Would that be all right?”
“I don’t mind, but as you know, because of my dual-class issue, I’m not sure I can help the close-range people much.”
“Just look at whatever you can. The physical side is being handled by the Instructor separately, so if you could just take a look at the energy work, that would be great.”
“Understood. I’ll do that.”
It seemed like yesterday’s lesson with Lamia had created some strange expectations.
But honestly, that had been Lamia’s talent at work, not me teaching especially well.
Even when I was asked to do it, I didn’t have much confidence in myself.
“Wow! So that’s how you do it! Thank you so much!”
“Ahaha... not at all.”
What the hell? Why was this actually working?
This time, unlike yesterday, the Instructor paired me with someone who wanted to be a tank. To be honest, in my case, I’d gotten everything for free—from aggro management to taking hits—so I honestly had no idea what I was even supposed to teach.
But after thinking it over, I decided the most important thing for a tank was still aggro management, so I tried coming up with a way to use energy to focus attention from the surrounding area.
“So what you’re saying is that image matters.”
“That’s right. You want to plant the image in the monsters’ heads that there’s something delicious here.”
“I’ll try it!”
I gave that half-baked explanation to the broad-shouldered man who’d apparently once been a ssireum wrestler, then told him to imagine his favorite food and try handling his energy that way.
“What kind of food monsters like? What that tastes like? I don’t know that either. But I do know the food I love most. The feeling of eating it, the smell that rises from it—what matters isn’t perfectly reproducing those sensations. It’s understanding the emotion I feel when I face them.”
It sounded convincing enough, but in the end it was just nonsense that spilled out of my head in a random stream of consciousness.
I’d never actually tried to draw aggro on purpose, so what was I supposed to do about that?
The Instructor wasn’t expecting anything amazing from me anyway, and as for drawing aggro without a skill, the only thing I could really suggest was making a scene.
If it worked, great. If it didn’t, there was nothing to be done. That was all I’d really told him.
And then that absurdly huge man groaned and struggled with it for half a day, only to turn the whole thing into a skill.
Mental Projection, F-rank.
The rank was ridiculously low, but what mattered was that he’d turned the few words I’d given him into an actual skill in just half a day. Besides, rank was something that could rise with use.
“As expected. This is better than I hoped, Seha.”
“It was just his talent. I really didn’t do anything.”
“I’m not so sure about that. In any case, this has been an enormous help. It really does feel like bringing you into the Association was the right call.”
“Ahaha...”
For some reason, I felt mentally exhausted all the way through.
When the afternoon work hours were over, I, as usual, got myself stuck in the training room.
I was tired, sure, but now that I had one more thrall, I needed to check how much better my condition had become.
“Hm?”
As I was summoning and moving the butterflies like usual, I felt something shift.
It was hard to put into words, but it felt like something was about to happen.
I called out several butterflies, then did what I’d just told the tank to do and imagined an image in my head.
The first thing that came to mind was a single, razor-sharp sword.
Then, to my shock, the butterflies gathered together, and a sword that looked exactly like the one I’d imagined appeared before my eyes.
“Huh?”
Had my vessel already been filled?
I immediately started testing the basic techniques I’d kept sealed away until now.
It wasn’t perfect. It really wasn’t perfect. But it worked. There was a slight stutter to it, but I was now able to distinguish between the basic techniques of the Kunoichi and Succubus classes to a certain degree, using them more or less as I intended.
There was still some awkwardness, so it would be hard to use in real combat just yet, but if I improved only a little more, I was certain I could break through the wall of dual-class limitations.
It hadn’t been like this yesterday. Which meant bringing Lamia in as a thrall had produced this kind of huge effect.
“She really was no ordinary talent.”
Compared to the tank I’d taught today, Lamia’s talent was clearly on another level. Maybe because I’d made her my thrall, my vessel had expanded by as much as hers had.
There’s room for growth.
That wasn’t bad at all. It wasn’t like I was the only one benefiting; it was a good thing for both of us. Of course, the part where I had to establish a relationship with her changed the story a bit, but that was happening in a dream anyway.
With that self-justification in place, I left the training room and found Im Hana riding an indoor bicycle with all her might.
“How’s it feel? Manageable?”
“Yeah. I think this is easier than running.”
Come to think of it, I’d heard that when athletes start rehab after an injury, the first thing they do is usually ride an indoor bike. True or not, I didn’t know.
While I was talking with Im Hana, the door to the Basement Training Center opened and someone came in, panting hard.
“Oh? Ms. Lamia?”
When I called out to her, she looked startled for a moment, then brightened and came over quickly.
“Hello, Instructor. You haven’t left work yet?”
“No. I was doing a bit of personal training.”
“Ah.”
Lamia noticed Im Hana, who had been pedaling hard on the bike beside me, and after hesitating for a second, she gave an awkward greeting.
“H-hello...”
“Hello...”
And that was it. It seemed like the barrier between them was far too high for them to get friendly right away.
“What brings you here at this hour?”
“I skipped the afternoon practice session. My schedule’s finished, so I came to make it up.”
“Ah.”
While we were talking, the bald Instructor over there recognized Lamia and started walking toward us.
“Then I’ll be going now.”
“Yes. Don’t push yourself too hard.”
After leaving work and going home, I took a can of beer out of the fridge and drank it.
There was a time when one can of beer was just enough to make me feel pleasantly buzzed, but now that I was an Awakened, it was barely more than a soft drink. That part was a little disappointing.
After grumbling to myself for a while and watching a sports game on TV, I took a shower and went to sleep.