The Worst Timing (2)
"Okay, I'll take point, so I'll somehow draw the monster's attention by myself! While I do that, Sora, you snipe it and take the monster down! If it's you, you can definitely do—"
"……."
"……."
"……."
"Wh-what…? Why are you all looking at me like that…?"
Three people staring at him with icy eyes amid an awkward silence.
Seo Woojin simply couldn't understand why, after forcing down his terror and coming back, this was the reception waiting for him.
Uh, huh…?
Something was different from the atmosphere he'd imagined.
Granted, fleeing in a panic and abandoning the others deserved blame—but still, he'd overcome that fear and come back. Why was he being met with such cold stares? For a moment, he couldn't make sense of it at all.
Come to think of it, where did the Owlbear go…?
Only then realizing why he'd come back in the first place, Woojin hurriedly scanned his surroundings.
What entered his field of vision was a massive monster already felled with an arrow through its skull, and the Support Department man lying sprawled on the ground, clearly at death's door.
"Wh-what…. You already caught it…"
"…Hey, Seo Woojin."
"…Yeah?"
SMACK!!!
The sound of a huge slap rang through the dungeon. It was loud enough to reach Kim Isabel's ears even as she healed the fallen Lee Seonho far away.
To Woojin, who'd taken the hit, it was a blow so absurd he could hardly process it, but not a single person nearby—not even the priestess Kim Isabel—found the strike the least bit strange.
Because he had left his post alone, the rest had been forced to take down the Owlbear by themselves, and the reason Lee Seonho had been hurt this badly lay partly with the man standing before them.
…And Woojin's attitude—showing up only after the monster was dead and announcing he'd join the fight—looked like nothing but mockery to anyone watching.
"Are you kidding me right now?"
"N-no, I—"
"You crawl out the second the monster dies and say you'll 'take point' and draw its attention? Do you even know how we killed that thing without you?"
"……."
"With you gone, it was just Seonho and Eunju—a Support Department kid and a Magic Department kid—holding the monster's aggro together, and Seonho took a hit from the Owlbear and is lying there like that right now. And after the monster's dead, you crawl out and that's the first thing out of your mouth?"
"B-but how could the Support Department even…"
"……What?"
Thwip!
Even in a situation like this, Woojin was reflexively spewing excuses—and Han Sora's furious fist shot out and seized him by the collar.
"And what about you?"
"Wh-what about me…"
"You're in the Swordsmanship Department—so how come you got to throw every rearguard to the wolves and run alone? Recovery, Magic, Archery, even Support—everyone here but you is a rearguard, and you should've been the last one to flee. So why were you the first to bolt and vanish?"
"……."
"It's not 'how could the Support Department do it'—it's 'they managed it even though they're the Support Department.' Thanks to some bastard who was our only vanguard fleeing to save his own skin, there was no one but Seonho who could hold the front line."
Woojin had always been all talk—that the Support Department was the problem, that Support hunters couldn't pull their weight—and yet when it came time to do his own job, he'd dumped it on the Support Department and run. The longer Han Sora had watched him from beside him, the hotter her rage burned.
Lee Seonho, the actual Support Department student, had taken on work that was never his department's responsibility and sacrificed himself for it, while the one who should have been standing in that position had shown up after the battle to crack jokes.
If Seonho died, more than half of that would be this bastard's responsibility—every single person on the scene was thinking it.
"Y-you coward…"
"……."
"I-if, if something happens to Seonho…. Th-then I'll never let it go, never…"
Han Sora's smoldering glare burning with fury, Cha Eunju's tear-streaked eyes glaring at him with hatred.
And the gaze of the Recovery Department girl, hidden behind her veil but unmistakably fixed on him with loathing—every single one of those stares drove into Seo Woojin's heart like nails.
…And it just felt so unfair. He'd finally worked up the courage to face the giant monster, and what greeted him was this frozen hostility.
"…Then what do you want me to do about it."
"……What?"
"I—I was scared too, so what do you want from me!! I'm the vanguard, so I'm supposed to face a monster like that alone?! You guys can talk so easily because you're all rearguards—that monster was huge and I was terrified too!! I still came back to try and deal with it somehow, so why is everyone acting like it's all my fault!!"
"Hey, Seo Woojin. Do you even hear what you're saying right now—"
"I-I was never as strong as you in the first place! Does it make sense that I have to fight monsters unconditionally just because I'm in the Swordsmanship Department?! If—if that's such a good reason, then you could've taken point, Han Sora!! Why does it have to be me…"
"Hrk, khh, kehhk…!!"
"……?!"
"……."
Woojin was venting everything he'd been holding back, but even that didn't last long.
It happened at the exact moment everyone's attention was pulled away by the sound of Lee Seonho, just regaining consciousness, coughing as he came to.
"Se-Seonho!!"
"Hrk, khh…. Hoo, hoo, hoo…."
"Y-you shouldn't…. y-you shouldn't, get up…."
At the sound of Seonho's voice, Cha Eunju dashed over like a puppy greeting its master, while Kim Isabel hovered at his side nursing him, her trembling stammering words gently pressing him back down.
And Han Sora, too, judged that going to him—the one who'd suffered the most in this Owlbear fight—was the right call rather than wasting her breath on a pointless argument in a place like this, and she turned to walk away.
"Hey, Seo Woojin."
"……What."
"If you do pass the Academy entrance exam… don't pretend to know me at school."
"……."
"If word gets out that I was childhood friends with a bastard like you, I'll die of embarrassment."
Thud, thud….
The women all gathering around one Support Department man, and Seo Woojin left standing alone.
Staring blankly at the scene, unable to force out a single word, he simply kept his silence and watched.
When I came to, the first thing to greet me was a horrific pain, like an axe being buried into every inch of my body.
Since fainting had worn off the Suggestion I'd placed on myself, it seemed the Adrenaline Explosion I'd been running had been released along with it.
Thanks to that, all the pain I'd been forcibly suppressing with Suggestion crashed into me at once—of course it was agony.
"Hrk, khh, kehhk…!!"
It hurt far too much to brush off with a tough-guy what's a little pain attitude.
Still… the most important thing was that I was alive, one way or another.
What would be the point if, after all that work grinding the heroines' affection, I died to the tutorial boss?
Above all, what mattered was that I'd escaped a crisis that nearly had me meeting an end uglier than the original Seonho's. I couldn't die in a mere entrance exam—I hadn't even had my way with Cha Eunju yet.
"Se-Seonho!!"
"Hoo, hoo, hoo…."
"Y-you shouldn't…. y-you shouldn't, get up…."
…Kim Isabel?
Hearing her voice ring out suddenly, I looked around and only then took in the blue sky and open field above me.
I'd assumed the Academy staff would carry me out and I'd wake up in the church or a hospital. I fully expected that Kim Isabel, with her androphobia, wouldn't be able to treat me once the Suggestion wore off.
But contrary to expectations, she was sitting beside me, diligently pouring holy power into my body. Trembling like a leaf, unable to meet my eyes directly—it was clear her androphobia wasn't cured.
Seems all the affection I'd stacked up really did come in handy.
Or maybe the Succubus's Heart I'd temporarily placed on her earlier was doing its work.
I couldn't know exactly what was in Kim Isabel's heart, so I couldn't tell which of my actions had moved her, or by how much. All I could do was make a rough guess.
Besides, it hadn't even been that long since I'd come to—my head wasn't exactly firing on all cylinders.
"Seonho! Are you okay?! You're alive, right?!"
"You're really gonna overreact over getting hit once by an Owlbear. As you can see, I'm alive, so stop worrying."
"Waaahhh…!! Thank god…. I—I really thought something terrible had happened to you, sob, sniff…."
"Come on, I only took one hit. How badly could I possibly be hurt?"
Head shake, head shake.
"Huh?"
"Y-you could have…. you could have been in real danger…. r-really…."
"Hrk, kehhk… seriously?"
Nod, nod.
"……."
Well, if Kim Isabel was going this far, I must genuinely have been in danger. I'll have to be more careful next time.
Thankfully, once this entrance exam event wrapped up, there weren't going to be any events dangerous enough to leave me wrecked for a while.
I had some time before the entrance ceremony, so in the meantime I'd have to turn Cha Eunju into my personal mage, one way or another.
Once I formally enrolled at the Academy, most of my practical scores would be determined by her skill, after all.
"Glad you're alive. Everyone got really grim when it looked like you might actually be done for."
"Ah, Han Sora…."
"Still, thanks to you we managed to take down the Owlbear. If it weren't for you, we'd all have been wiped out right here."
"…Just good luck, that's all. The plan only worked because you and Kim Isabel happened to be there. And Eunju bravely drew the Owlbear's attention with her magic too."
"Then why are you leaving out everything you did when you're the one who suffered the most?"
"What I did is something anyone would've done in my place. Even without me, you guys could've brought it down on your own."
"No…! If it weren't for you, we wouldn't even have thought about catching it ourselves…. r-really…."
"M-me too… I-I think s-so, too…."
"Being that humble when your ability doesn't match it isn't a great look either."
Cha Eunju always listened to me anyway, but hearing it from the other two as well—putting my life on the line had definitely been worth it.
By the way, if I'd been out long enough to wake up, it should've been plenty of time for Seo Woojin to come back too… ah.
"……."
Standing a good distance away, quietly just watching me and the other women—Seo Woojin.
Judging by the way his fist was clenched tight, something must have happened while I was unconscious. There was no way Han Sora would have let him off quietly after he ran away and only returned once everything was over.
"Why is Seo Woojin over there?"
"…Don't worry about him."
"Did you guys get into a fight while I was out?"
"…You don't really need to know."
"……."
"That's right…. Don't waste your thoughts on a coward like that, Seonho…."
Seeing everyone's awkward reactions, it seemed there'd been quite a blowup. If Woojin hadn't left his post, I probably wouldn't have ended up injured this badly. And since he'd only shown himself after the battle ended, he probably looked like a bastard who only crawls out when it's safe.
Granted, I had orchestrated this whole situation—but there was no way any of them knew that.
Shame I couldn't watch Woojin's face crumble in real time.
If he'd summoned his courage to come back, only to find everything already over and every heroine tearing into him one after another, his expression would have been an absolute treat. Well, his face right now already looked plenty bitter, to be fair.
Either way, given how hard I'd worked to the point of passing out, my sacrifice was surely seared into all three of their minds far more vividly—which, in the end, worked out better for me. What mattered to me was never how much I could torment Seo Woojin. It was how to claim every heroine from the original story as my own.
"Hoo, let's harvest the Owlbear materials first, and quickly. A monster of this caliber should be worth a huge amount of points. Sora landed the killing blow, so she takes the heart, and the brain—Isabel or Eunju, one of you should…"
"Aah, y-you shouldn't get up…!!"
"I'll do it! Y-you rest, Seonho…!"
"It's honestly infuriating how you try to get up to harvest materials in that state, you…"
I forced myself halfway upright on pure act alone, and the heroines moved as one, pressing me right back down.
If they could all get along this harmoniously even after becoming my lovers… I couldn't ask for anything more.