I Left a Jealous Bad Review and Got Mistaken for a Genius
The word "found" echoed down the corridor like a gunshot, and in that instant I knew.
My entire life had been demolished.
Yoo Arin took one more step forward. The click of her heels rang through the empty hallway. Beneath the dim lights, only her red eyes shone.
Stay calm. Stay calm. She has no reason to hate me. If anything, she owes me for setting a new record. She’ll thank me. She’ll thank me. Please, let her thank me.
"I searched all day."
"......"
"The cafeteria, the library, the training ground, the dorm lounge. Everywhere."
No normal person would spend an entire day hunting for someone just to apologize.
My heart was pounding hard enough to crack ribs, but I forced my face into the solemn mask of a funeral.
To anyone watching, it would look like I was handling this with mountain-like composure. I just needed them to buy that lie for now.
Yoo Arin stopped exactly three paces in front of me and stood ramrod straight. Then, without a trace of hesitation, she asked straight to my face.
"Next."
"......What?"
"Next flaw. You fixed the heels already. What’s next?"
I paused, genuinely suspicious.
Next? Next flaw?
Hey, I didn’t even know there was a next one! How was I supposed to know? It only shows up when I’m so jealous I could explode.
What I saw right now was just an empty corridor with no escape route.
"You can see it."
Yoo Arin said it without a single ounce of doubt.
"At the end of the training ground. From that distance, too. So from here it should be even clearer."
It’s not there! Right now everything’s blurry because I’m terrified!
While my mind screamed, her hand came down and rested on the rapier sheath at her hip.
"If you need it, I’ll swing the blade right here and now. Every single one. From start to finish."
"Don’t."
The words flew out on pure reflex. I couldn’t let a B-rank cadet draw her weapon in an empty hallway at nine o’clock at night.
But instead of listening, Yoo Arin simply released the sheath, looked me straight in the eyes, and said.
"Then tell me. What’s lacking in my sword."
She stared at me the way a test-taker waits for the answer key.
And the moment I met her gaze, I had to admit I was envious.
Envious that she could ask that question with such arrogant certainty.
I’m the kind of person who could fill an entire scroll listing every flaw, yet she spent all day chasing down “the last one.”
And if she found it, she’d reach A-rank at eighteen.
I was still F-rank at eighteen, with only eight mana and eight points left.
That was when it appeared.
Nitpicking quietly kicked in. The perfectly straight posture, the hand that had rested on the sheath and then lifted away, the exact angle she was looking down at me.
Everything layered with a faint sense of unease.
This girl is way too familiar with receiving answers.
Ten years of teachers spoon-feeding her praise. And now she’s come here to collect the flaws others have fed her.
The content didn’t matter. It was the eyes themselves that were outward-looking. And I could see that.
……And the calculator started spinning on top.
Target: present. Subject: herself. Not a public setting, but face-to-face anyway. The jealousy was the real deal.
She’d spent all day following me. And now I had to roast her in front of her again. If I hit her with the blade here, there’d be no witnesses.
But in two years my life was on the line.
I swallowed the tension in my throat and spoke in the lowest, most indifferent voice I could manage.
"You’re asking the wrong question to begin with."
Yoo Arin’s eyebrows twitched once.
"You fixed one flaw someone else gave you, and now you want me to point out the next with my own mouth? Is that really your sword?"
"......"
"You fixed the heels yourself in one go, right? But even if you fixed a hundred like that, it would still be the same. Your sword is still far behind. A long way behind."
Skill ‘Face-to-Face Harsh Criticism’ activated! I roasted the genius who had been hunted all day right in front of her!
Jealousy Points +5
Jealousy Points: 13
It landed!
Yoo Arin froze. Her red eyes widened. The hand that had been halfway toward the sheath went rigid mid-air.
Now.
I walked past her with the most indifferent expression possible, as if I was the only one who didn’t care.
I kept walking until the corner. Then I sprinted the rest of the way.
Sorry! But I have to survive too!
I didn’t look back even once until I reached the back door of the dorm.
***
Yoo Arin stood in place for a long time.
Even when the corridor lights dimmed into low-power mode and everything grew darker, she didn’t move a muscle.
“Is that really your sword?”
The first emotion was anger. Genuine anger. At me, the direct heir of the Yoo family. For saying she was still far behind. Far, far behind.
Yet even as the anger boiled up to her throat, the most honest part of her stayed quiet and nodded.
It was true.
The heels hadn’t been her own. Ten years of searching and someone else had spotted it in one glance.
And what had she done today? She had simply reached out to that person and asked for the next flaw.
Exactly the same thing she had done to her teachers for ten years.
Her face burned. This kind of shame was new to her.
Not the shame of defeat, but the shame of having her bottom exposed.
“You’re asking the wrong question to begin with.”
Yoo Arin slowly exhaled. The tremor in her fingertips vanished. She gripped the rapier sheath tighter.
This time not to draw the blade, but to feel the weight of the sheath from the very first time in her life.
No one had ever said anything like this to her since she was six.
She had heard “you’re perfect” hundreds of times, but never “you’re still far behind.”
And she never imagined those words would make her blood boil so hot.
“I’ll find it.”
By myself. With my own eyes. Inside my own sword.
I’ll find it and prove in front of that person that it isn’t the sword handed to me.
That same night, the lights in the third training ground stayed on until four in the morning.
***
The next morning, basic swordsmanship class.
I sat in the back corner, exactly beneath the pillar shadow as instructed by yesterday’s lesson. I had to hide perfectly.
By the way, last night I had immediately pulled the blanket over my head the moment I escaped and dumped ten jealousy points into my mana.
Spent 10 Jealousy Points to raise mana by 1.
Mana: 8 → 9
Jealousy Points: 3
Still nine mana. The E-rank cutoff is twelve. Three steps left.
This was the first stat increase since transmigrating. A warm, weak but unmistakable feeling, as if I had filled a cup with lukewarm water inside me.
With just that feeling, I could sleep peacefully by turning yesterday’s horrible shame into self-justification.
"Yoo Arin. Demonstration."
Instructor Han Jiwon called, and Yoo Arin stepped forward.
And the moment she drew her sword, the air in the training ground changed.
The jab combination began. Not a single twitch in her heels even through the first three strikes. It was faster and heavier than yesterday. The transition from fourth to fifth strike was so fast I could barely track it with my eyes.
"She’s insane......"
"It’s even better than yesterday. In just one day?"
The cadets whispered among themselves.
They had every right to. The faint shadows under her eyes suggested she hadn’t slept much, yet somehow she looked like this after one night?
Stomach twisted.
That really is a genius. Eating harsh criticism and digesting it into blood and flesh in a single day. Me, lying in my blanket feeling sorry for the last three points and falling asleep.
But then, after finishing the combination, Yoo Arin sheathed her sword and turned her head.
Exactly toward me.
Her red eyes found me with zero error, even as I perfectly blended into the pillar shadow.
How did she find me?! I’m completely one with the background right now!
Our gazes met, but she said nothing. She simply stared for a moment, then turned back and repeated the combination from the start.
And every time a set ended, she looked at me again.
As if she remembered every word I had spoken yesterday, she glared at me fiercely.
The other cadets’ eyes slowly shifted toward me, following Yoo Arin’s gaze.
"Hey, why is Arin looking over there."
"Is there someone there? ......Wait, no way."
Don’t look. Please don’t look. I’m not here. I’m just a pillar.
Even though sweat poured down my back, the more sets she completed, the more flawless her swordsmanship became.
And through the rising jealousy, Nitpicking pulled out one new flaw.
Breathing.
While jabbing five times in a row, she had held her breath the entire time.
She had kept the first breath she took all the way through the fifth strike.
That was why the fourth strike exploded with power, but the fifth strike ended with the sword tip dulled to the thickness of a single hair.
She herself probably didn’t realize. It was an unconscious habit she had hardened since childhood.
Don’t say anything. If I do, I’ll just be noticed again. Yesterday’s humiliation isn’t even healed yet.
But this was her face-to-face and a public setting.
I was still raging with jealousy, and my points were only three left.
......Seriously.
Had I really promised to keep doing this hundreds of times?
Just then, after finishing another set, Yoo Arin looked this way again. Half the training ground followed her gaze to me.
I forced my face into perfect blankness and muttered just loud enough for her to hear.
"When are you going to take a breath?"
Instant silence fell over the entire training ground.
"She took the first breath and held it through all five strikes. That’s why the fifth strike ends with a dull tip. She claims she fixed the heels overnight, but it seems she only worked on that. Her habit of holding her breath only got stronger."
Skill ‘Face-to-Face Harsh Criticism’ activated! I roasted the results of all-night training right in front of every student watching!
Public scale multiplied!
Jealousy Points +8
Jealousy Points: 11
The training ground froze.
"Her, her again......"
"How did you know she trained all night? Did you see that too?"
I didn’t know! I only saw the shadows under her eyes!
But before I could even think of an excuse, Yoo Arin moved.
She didn’t hesitate. Didn’t question. She simply raised her sword, exhaled, and struck again. With every continuation strike, she filled it with her breath.
And on the fifth strike.
Whoosh! The sound of tearing air was completely different from before. The sword tip was alive. Anyone could tell in an instant.
Yoo Arin didn’t sheath her blade. She moved straight into the next set.
This time she didn’t even glance at me. Like the entire world had been erased, she was completely lost in her own breathing and the sword tip.
Watching that terrifying focus, I felt sick to my stomach.
Yeah. You’re going to get stronger again in just one day. I’ll be happy after tonight’s mana raise with these eleven points.
......Still.
If I threw another ten points in here, mana would reach ten. Every little thing adds up, and one day it will reach somewhere.
I hid in the pillar shadow and quietly checked my balance while silently enduring.
***
On the platform, Instructor Han Jiwon had watched every single scene from beginning to end.
Yoo Arin appearing with traces of all-night training.
Every set, her eyes checking the back corner.
And from that corner, the two words that caused the Yoo family’s genius to change her breathing method without a single objection.
“Breathing.”
She had known. She knew the fifth strike in Yoo Arin’s jab combination was slightly dulled.
But even she needed three demonstrations before she could specifically attribute it to breathing.
Heels yesterday, breathing today.
The same student in the exact same spot for two consecutive days. Pointed out a flaw faster than or as fast as an A-rank hunter’s eyes.
Coincidence once. Twice was skill.
Han Jiwon pulled out her communicator from her pocket. The roster from last night was still there.
Lee Siheon / 1st year / Mana rank: F
Special notes: None
Last night she had not stopped there. Using her instructor authority, she had requested records for middle-school curriculum and awakening evaluation as well.
And the results had arrived before dawn.
Middle-school grades: average in every subject. Attendance: perfect. Awakening evaluation: standard procedure, standard stats, F-rank. Homeroom report: quiet and diligent. Peer relations: none. Rewards/punishments: none. Health: none.
None. None. None.
Han Jiwon’s fingers tapped the screen slowly.
Fifteen years on the front lines. She had learned how to read human records. Real normal humans’ files always had stains.
A few latenesses, one fight with a friend, a subject with abnormally high grades, a trivial complaint from the homeroom teacher. That’s what normalcy looked like—messy.
But this file had no mess. It was too uniform. Every single item pointed toward one conclusion: “unremarkable.”
She had seen records like this only once before. From an agent who had undergone perfect identity laundering and been sent to the front lines.
Han Jiwon lifted her gaze. The training ground corner, the student half-buried in the pillar shadow with a bored face.
The Yoo family genius had been torn apart twice in two days, yet the person himself looked at the world with nothing but indifference.
Her eyes narrowed.
It wasn’t hiding. It was erasing. Completely. Even at that young age.