Contract Dating Failed, But the Fake Engagement Remains
The contract dating had fallen through, but the fake engagement lingered on. Dawn was breaking before we knew it.
Our all-night sparring session finally wrapped up when Kang Seo-ah, unable to stand it any longer, dragged the family head away by force.
Left alone in the training grounds, I lightly swung the practice wooden sword to check my condition.
"Worth embedding the word Kangmu into sorcery. The combat endurance is solid."
Kangmu Gisword.
A rigid blade forged from joryeok, excelling only at basic swordsmanship—a sturdy sword.
The improvements were obvious.
Either abandon the sword for a blunt weapon like a mace as the main armament, or overhaul the embedded sword techniques from the ground up without ditching the blade.
The family head couldn't accept my suggestions and flew into a rage, demanding a spar.
A duel using only Kangmu Gisword.
He insisted I didn't grasp its true value and charged at me, heedless of his own dignity against an opponent he couldn't beat.
But in the end, regrettably, he hadn't so much as grazed the hem of my clothes.
The sword scars gouging the training ground floor seemed to embody his desperate flailing.
"I wonder if that brother of mine realizes you can't hide the fragments of secret arts, no matter how much you stick to just Kangmu Gisword."
Kangmu Gisword was a downgraded, mass-distributed version of the Kangmu Dang secret arts, unique to the clan and shared widely among its sorcerers.
The habits of the higher secret arts inevitably seeped through subtly.
Having crossed swords with the Association Chairman, the differences were easy to spot.
—Ziiing.
I lightly drew up my joryeok, letting it infuse the practice wooden sword and form a red blade aura.
The formless sword the Chairman had shown.
A perfected energy blade, reverse-engineered from the family head's movements and filled in with the missing pieces.
Even if I couldn't unleash its full power without the bloodline, this was prime material to further refine my swordsmanship.
"Why do you think I stuck around with you to the bitter end?"
I'd spent this time with my so-called sworn brother—who I had no affection for—not for bonding, but solely to uncover Kangmu Dang's secret arts.
To fully leverage my one talent I could truly rely on: my genius for sorcery.
Red threads sprouted from the wooden sword like tentacles, wrapped in a faint crimson glow.
My unique swordsmanship that had even severed the Chairman's arm in a surprise strike.
Life and Death Seizure.
Its essence lay in applying bindings.
The red threads at the sword tip restricted the path of the slash.
As long as those threads existed, no other sorcery could be used.
Restrictions piled on solely to amplify the slash's power.
Shiiing.
The moment five crimson lines stretched from the training ground entrance to its far end.
I swung down once.
Chwaaak!
The red blade of Kangmu Gisword, forcibly integrated into Life and Death Seizure, blanketed the entire grounds along those five threads.
A single downward stroke delivering simultaneous slashes.
Fierce blade winds followed, sharply raking the empty training ground.
"...Better gains than expected."
Even unfinished, it surpassed the spatial severing of Void Resonance Art, the most powerful sorcery I'd wielded to date.
Since it combined pure joryeok with physical force, its efficiency in terms of fuel consumption was on another level.
I tossed aside the now-shredded wooden sword with satisfaction after that one test.
That's when I heard a gasp from behind me.
"...What the hell was that? Was that really Kangmu Gisword...?"
The one approaching with an incredulous look was Kang Seo-ah, who had dragged the blubbering family head inside.
Light workout clothes, a single wooden sword in hand.
Here for morning training, maybe?
"How did you master our clan's sorcery in less than a day?!"
She glared at me for a moment before thrusting her wooden sword toward me like a threat.
"Kang Siwoo, spar with me too. I'll check just how impressive your sword really is."
Her tone sounded oddly like she was my superior.
Almost like she was deliberately provoking me.
Blood will out, huh.
The Association Chairman who'd tried to snag me for the clan, the family head who'd greedily craved my improvements despite not acknowledging them.
Kang Seo-ah, who'd even schemed a contract date to personally advance the clan's sword arts.
Each stained by their greed, acting with arrogant entitlement.
But unlike the Chairman or family head, she was just an academy professor and Association affiliate—with nothing substantial to offer.
No point wasting time on her.
"Niece."
"...What?"
"Fuck off. I'm your uncle now, so use formal speech, you age-mismatched niece."
"I'm your professor...!"
Click.
I ignored Kang Seo-ah fuming over the family tree's absurdity and activated spatial transfer.
***
The dorm, trashed when some professor burst through the door, had already been neatly restored.
A bit relieved to have a proper bed, I started stripping off my sweat-soaked clothes from the repeated spars.
Figured I'd take a quick shower and catch a short nap.
Even for me, moving all night was a tad exhausting.
Already past three days of suspension, a full day wasted on Void Resonance Art lectures, another at the Association.
Self-auditing or not, I couldn't skip classes forever.
Nearly a week since enrollment, and I hadn't done a single student-like thing. Ridiculous.
A day without sleep was fine, but when learning—not combat or survival—took center stage, it was different.
Today felt like a forced march.
"...What are you doing?"
"Hm?"
As I steeled myself and stripped off my shirt.
Someone quietly seated at the table spoke up.
She'd laid concealment sorcery arrays so thoroughly even I hadn't noticed at first.
Ren Tsuchimikado had been lying in wait inside my dorm.
Chin propped on her hand, she stared at me with dark eyes.
Like a daughter-in-law waiting up for a husband who never called before coming home.
"The first condition we agreed on was to answer calls as much as possible. ...Was that so hard?"
I opened my phone quietly. 99+ missed calls and messages.
She dissected my faults one by one in a chilling voice.
"If you'd been taken away like that, shouldn't a person worry? Did I have to send people to track your whereabouts myself? How thrilled I was to hear you'd been released.... So why ignore my calls all night? Fake engagement or not, we're supposed to be dating, aren't we? Do you even grasp how I can't sleep soundly because of guys like you?"
"Uh.... Sorry? I was busy too."
"You think 'busy' will cut it...!"
When a woman's mad, admit fault first.
That ancient wisdom was useless here.
Ren shot piercing glares from eyes ringed with deep dark circles, endlessly venting her grievances.
"You were the one who accepted the fake engagement in the first place? Even if I clung desperately, ignoring me like this goes against decency, doesn't it? You should've refused from the start! Brag about it anywhere. You're the first man to treat Ren Tsuchimikado, direct line of the Tsuchimikado, like this...!"
My ears were ringing bloody.
Were Japanese women not supposed to be venomous? That was a lie.
Her pinning me down with words alone exuded an ominous aura like a special-grade yokai had appeared.
Not real lovers or fiancés—what do you even do in a mess like this?
My history with ex-fiancée Gong Seoyul offered zero help.
She never cared much what I did.
She wouldn't have noticed if I'd gone to the otherworld and lost contact briefly—our future-bound engagement was that dry.
"...So what do you want me to do?"
"Eep...!"
In the end, my response to her nonstop barbs was forceful.
I clamped her mouth shut physically with my palm, still sticky from dried sweat after endless wooden sword swings.
If we were lovers, I'd soothe her—but we're not, right?
Ren Tsuchimikado's wish and our deal: a fake engagement to experience faux dating.
I lightly pinned her soft, yielding body everywhere and waited for her to calm.
She thrashed wildly at first but gradually quieted.
Yet unlike her settling movements, her dark eyes deepened, brewing something more terrifying than killing intent—like emotions thickening intensely. Looked like it'd evolve weirdly if left alone.
Before that, I focused on the act I'd been avoiding eyeing till now.
"Then how about I make up for it with some proper fiancé stuff?"
"Mmph?!"
Didn't she say a little touching was fine?
Hand over her mouth stayed put; the other moved.
Even pressing her lean shoulder felt plush and soft.
Spreading my hand wider, four fingers encircled her nape.
My thumb trailed lower, brushing her sharply defined collarbone.
Her dulled golden irises seemed to brighten.
Right before disaster, she summoned triple her strength in resistance.
Thwack!
I let her shove my chest away without resisting.
"Ah, that's still a bit too soon.... I need to mentally prepare too.... More importantly, could you put some clothes on...? Shamelessly stripped like that...."
Only then did I realize I was shirtless.
Women can read all the stares heading for a guy's chest, huh.
I got the sentiment a little.
Ren's gaze, pretending otherwise, cautiously swept my abs and pecs.
Just as it slyly dipped lower, I turned my back.
"I'll do a date or whatever later, so let's call it today. Gotta attend lectures. Haven't been to a single one yet."
Seemed like the shock therapy worked somehow.
Resigned to skipping the nap, I headed for the bathroom.
That's when I heard something unbelievable from her.
"...It's the weekend today? No lectures."
"What?"
Day 6 of academy enrollment.
Glancing at the wall calendar: March 7th.
Opening ceremony was Tuesday, so today was Sunday.
"Last holiday of the week—wanna go on that date? Looks like you've cleaned up Hwaseong Group's lackeys too. We can go pretty far?"
Facing her, mood lifted and plotting Korean sightseeing, I couldn't spit out that I wanted to crash in bed all day.