Loner Cha Eunju (2)

"E-Excuse me... C-Could you wait a moment..."

"Move it! Check your room and keep going!"

"......"

A purple-haired girl stood helplessly in the crowd packed in front of the bulletin board, glancing around with no idea what to do.

Even from a distance, it was painful to watch—her small stature meant she was getting shoved and elbowed by everyone, regardless of gender.

You'd think at least one person might help her, but everyone was anxious about the exam time, and not a single one of them noticed Cha Eunju floundering nearby. They simply continued to crowd the board.

It wasn't as though she needed my help—she'd inevitably find her exam room and make it in on her own eventually. Still, it was a decent event for raising favorability.

"Ah, ugh, aauugh..."

"Want me to help?"

"Y-Yes?!"

"You looked a little lost. You're trying to check your exam room, right?"

"......"

Perhaps it was a fear of strangers—she hesitated for a moment before carefully nodding her head.

Watching her gaze up at me with trembling eyes, wary as a skittish squirrel, made me want to forget all about the exam and just carry her off home with me.

"What's your name? I'll look it up for you."

"...Cha Eunju."

"And your department?"

"M-Magic Department..."

"Magic Department, Cha Eunju? Hold on just a second."

I pulled her out of the crowd for a moment, then shouldered my way through the throng toward the bulletin board. I already knew her exam room, of course, but I had to at least pretend to go check.

Once I'd shoved roughly halfway through the crowd and the board came into view, I turned back and told her the exam room I'd confirmed long before she even arrived.

"Magic Department, Cha Eunju—it says Hyeseong Hall, Room 305."

"Ah... Th-Thank you..."

"I happen to be heading to 305 myself. Want to walk together?"

"Y-Yes...?"

"I'm a Cheonmu Academy applicant too. Combat Support Department, though."

"Ah, y-you're an applicant... I-I thought you were a senior here at the school..."

...I'd thought that once the flesh settled onto his face, Lee Seonho wouldn't look that old anymore. Maybe it was just the original face itself that looked a bit older than it should.

Or maybe it was simply that my height overwhelmed her.

In the original setting, Cha Eunju was barely 150 centimeters tall, which put her a good thirty centimeters below Lee Seonho. So perhaps, from her perspective, it was only natural to assume he was an upperclassman.

"So, want to walk together?"

"Mm... yes."

"I saw the map earlier—Hyeseong Hall is up that hill over there."

"Mmhm... I saw that too..."

"Follow me closely so you don't get lost. It's crowded, so stay behind me if you can."

"O-Okay..."

There was still a trace of wariness in her, but she seemed grateful enough that I'd checked her exam room for her, carefully leaning on me as we walked.

Doing my best not to glance at those enormous breasts that swayed with her ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠every step, I headed toward Hyeseong Hall.

"Ah, there's my name..."

"You found it okay, right?"

"Mmhm. Th-Thank you... thank you..."

Cha Eunju found her name on the list posted outside Room 305 and thanked me once again.

Apparently she'd been worried the whole way here about what she'd do if I'd given her the wrong classroom. Unlike me, who had checked the bulletin board directly, she had essentially walked all this way trusting nothing but my word.

The exam room had no assigned seats. To prevent cheating, students from the Magic Department, the Recovery Department, and the Combat Support Department were mixed together in alternating rows, so it didn't matter where you sat as long as it matched your intended department.

I found an open pair of seats where a Magic Department student could sit beside a Combat Support student, settled Cha Eunju into one naturally, and finally got around to the introduction I'd been putting off.

"Sorry for the late introduction. I'm Lee Seonho. Combat Support Department applicant."

"Ah, I'm... I'm Cha Eunju. Magic Department applicant..."

"I know—you told me earlier. What kind of magic do you specialize in?"

"D-Dark magic..."

"Ooh, that's impressive. I heard dark magic is one of the hardest schools of magic out there."

"I-It's not really like that... I-I'm not even that good at handling it in the first place..."

It was knowledge I already had, every bit of it. That Cha Eunju's specialty was dark magic. That she couldn't properly control it.

...And that Lee Seonho's Suggestion worked remarkably well in helping her master that very dark magic she couldn't handle.

"S-Seonho, what's your ability...?"

"It's hard to explain in one word, but if you had to put a label on it, you could think of it as something like a buff."

"A buff...? Like making someone stronger, or boosting the power of their spells?"

"Ah, my buffs lean more toward the mental side than that. A little different."

"Oh...?"

"For example, calming an excited heart, or helping a scattered mind focus. Things like that."

"Ahh, so buffs like that exist too... That's amazing..."

"Or, well, you could also use it to instill courage in a hunter who lacks it, so they don't freeze up in the field."

"......!"

There it is.

Perhaps because she'd realized in an instant that the power I possessed was exactly the power she needed most, something in the way Cha Eunju looked at me had shifted.

A chance helping hand in front of the exam room. A coincidence—same exam room. And on top of that, an awakened ability that happened to be precisely what she needed most.

Knowing Cha Eunju and her slightly otaku-ish sensibilities, she was probably already thinking of this meeting as something like fate.

If that's what she believed, it couldn't have gone better. Cha Eunju was the kind of person who, once she started trusting someone, found it very hard to cast them aside.

...Which was exactly why, in the original story, she had silently obeyed even when Lee Seonho treated her like his ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠personal lackey and dumped every dirty job imaginable on her.

'I have absolutely no intention of doing what the original Lee Seonho did, though.'

There would be moments when I needed Cha Eunju's help, sure, but I didn't plan on exploiting her one-sidedly like that bastard from the original. I wasn't going to pawn off chores like cleaning my room on her, either.

And if the day ever came that I truly had no choice but to ask her for something, then naturally, I intended to give her the 'reward' she actually wanted in return.

...Even if I'd be grooming and guiding things carefully so that the reward Cha Eunju desired drifted in a slightly more... indecent direction.

"We will now begin the exam. Please turn off all mobile phones and electronic devices and place them in your bags. With the exception of your pen and correction tape, any item left on your desk may be considered cheating, so please be mindful of this."

"Ah, p-pen... C-Correction tape..."

Clatter!

"Ahh, ah...!"

Startled by the proctor's announcement in the middle of our conversation, she fumbled with her pencil case and spilled its entire contents across the floor.

Her nerves had gotten the better of her, and thanks to it, another favorability event had sprung up. Smiling to myself, I gathered up the scattered stationery and handed it back to her.

"Here you go."

"Thank you..."

"Good luck on your exam."

"Ah, y-you too..."

...At this point, I'd have to say I'd made a reasonably good impression.

All that was left now was to pray in my heart that she made it through the written exam safely.

As if to prove it hadn't earned the title of Korea's number one hunter academy for nothing, the Cheonmu Hunter Academy written exam was punishingly difficult.

Even I, who had memorized a handful of predicted questions in preparation, found myself stalling on a few that came out of left field.

These weren't simple multiple-choice questions where you just picked the 'correct' answer—they were essay questions that demanded genuine reasoning and concrete countermeasures.

The one saving grace was that most of the questions were ones whose 'solutions' had appeared in the original novel.

'In the original, when Kim Isabel's healing magic got disabled, Han Sora shifted the battle plan to a defense-and-evasion focus. After that, she made use of the resources they had on hand while figuring out the cause of the healing restriction...'

For the parts I didn't know, I just had to wring my brain dry and stuff in whatever I could, but I figured this much would be enough to pass a written exam.

Besides, if the original Lee Seonho passed this test and I didn't, that would be the real absurdity.

Above all, a hunter academy's written exam existed purely to filter out the bare minimum of idiots who lacked even the qualifications to become hunters. Considering that, there was no real need to pour my everything into each question like this—but I wanted a good score anyway, since it couldn't hurt, and so I ended up taking a little too long on each one.

...Long enough that I briefly forgot my original plan of finishing before Cha Eunju and waiting for her outside.

Scrape.

I was in the middle of the seventh question out of ten when I suddenly heard the scrape of a chair being pushed back in the seat beside me. Glancing over out of reflex, what met my eyes was Cha Eunju—who had already finished her exam—tidying up her spot.

'...I screwed up.'

I should have just skipped past the hard questions and gotten out ahead of her no matter what.

At the very least, I'd intended to have lunch with her today and, ideally, exchange contact information. But my pointless pride in one area had cost me the chance to spend that time with Cha Eunju.

As long as I passed the written exam, any score beyond that mattered less to me than a single extra word exchanged with her.

I was staring blankly at Cha Eunju as she rose from her seat, nursing my regret, when she suddenly locked eyes with mine—and began blinking at me, rapidly, several times.

Blink blink, blink blink blink.

"......?"

Blink blink blink blink blink.

"......??"

Without a word of explanation for her strange behavior, she handed in her exam paper and walked out of the room.

My bewilderment at her incomprehensible signal lasted only a moment. Since things had turned out this way, I decided to focus on knocking out the remaining three questions.

The time I'd been given was far too precious to waste lamenting an opportunity already lost.

"Good work in there, student."

"...Thank you."

I bowed my head to the proctor—who looked like a teaching assistant—and left the exam room. About twenty minutes after Cha Eunju had walked out ahead of me.

All that effort to finish the remaining questions, and tragically, all three of them turned out to be ones I didn't know. To be precise, ones whose solutions never appeared in the 'original' novel.

I did manage to cobble together passable answers by stringing together plausible-sounding terms from the knowledge in my head... but honestly? It probably wouldn't have made a bit of difference if I'd just left them blank and walked out with Cha Eunju earlier.

'I'll have to be more careful next time. What am I doing, fumbling a golden opportunity like this?'

If I let today slip by, there'd be almost no reason to cross paths with Cha Eunju again until the practical exam.

I should have at least gotten her number before the exam started. Then I'd at least have had an ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠excuse to meet up—something like studying for the practical together.

Of course, it wouldn't really be a problem even without that. Cha Eunju was easy mode by Lee Seonho's standards, practically an automatic capture. Still, a missed opportunity was a missed opportunity.

Choi Marie, the one heroine whose rational favorability event hadn't triggered yet, was the only one I was seeing morning and night these days—and honestly, what I really wanted was to meet Cha Eunju a little at a time during moments like this, and heal my heart.

...And if I could make her definitively 'mine' before enrolling at the academy—well, that wouldn't be bad either.

'Though that ship has already sailed, plan-wise.'

Oh well. I pushed my regret aside, hoping I'd at least done well on the written exam, and the moment I stepped outside Hyeseong Hall—

"D-Did your exam go okay...?"

"...Cha Eunju?"

...Cha Eunju, whom I'd fully expected to have gone home already, was standing in front of Hyeseong Hall, speaking to me.