Practical Exam Prep (2)
"N-no, that was…! I-I just got a little nervous back there…!"
"……."
"I-I really can do better than that…. Ugh, ugh…."
Perhaps because she'd just put on such a pathetic display in front of me, Cha Eunju hurriedly denied everything she'd just shown and looked up at me as if pleading for mercy.
It felt a little cruel to say, but her actual competence as a hunter was rock bottom.
Regardless of how powerful her awakened ability might be, in this state a proper battle against monsters was simply impossible.
Worse, she'd fought that encounter alone, which was the only saving grace — if any other teammate had been standing nearby, she was dangerous enough that she might have attacked an ally instead.
Even the single goblin she'd taken down had been less a kill than a lucky strike.
'Still….'
One thing was certain: the dark magic ability itself was good.
Sure, they were holographic dummies, but with her upper body nearly blowing a monster apart, her raw power had been proven beyond doubt.
She'd bitten her tongue halfway through out of sheer terror, but she'd still conjured and cast ten Shadow Balls in that short span of time — her casting speed was on par with an active-duty hunter's.
…Really, just one single thing. If only she could fix that timid personality of hers, she'd be more than capable of carrying at least two people's share of the work.
"C-could we try one more time…? N-next time I'll really do it properly…."
"That's enough. You don't need to show me any more."
"Ah, aaah…! I-I really can do it…! I-I won't mess up this time, I promise…!!"
"It's not that I don't want to watch — from here on out, I'm suggesting we train as a team. If we're going to fight on the same team in the practical exam, we need to get our coordination down first."
"Uh, uhh…?"
At my calm reply, Cha Eunju just stared up at me in bewilderment.
Her expression seemed to say: after seeing that, you still want to party with me?
"Let's start over. I'll put a buff on you first, and this time I'll be training right there with you, so don't be too nervous."
"A-are you sure…? I-I looked absolutely pathetic just now…."
"Let me ask you something, just to be sure. You haven't changed your mind about working with me, have you?"
"N-no! Th-that's not it at all!"
"Then let's skip the strange talk and move straight into the next drill. I can't tell what you think of yourself, but I think you'd make a pretty good partner, Eunju."
"Uh, uhh?!"
After walking the manga-style flustered girl back to the hologram training room, I brought my hand gently down onto her head.
"From now on, Eunju, I'm going to give you a mental-type buff that generates courage. Since it's a mental buff, it might not take properly if you resist it, so keep that in mind."
"O-okay…."
Before applying the Suggestion, I made sure to loosen her mental defenses thoroughly. Couldn't forget that step.
'In the original story, the suggestion Cha Eunju received from Lee Seonho was called, if I remember right, the "Potion of Courage."'
Suggestion: Potion of Courage
※ Target: Cha Eunju
Strictly speaking it wasn't a potion at all, but apparently using a concept that actually existed in the world made the Suggestion take hold more easily.
It was the same principle as me using "Runner's High" instead of something like "running addiction" as my self-suggestion while jogging with Choi Marie.
"Did it work…?"
"For now. Want to test it?"
"……Yeah."
Compared to a moment ago, the tremor in her voice had faded — the Suggestion seemed to have taken hold just fine.
Right now she must be feeling as though a buff called the "Potion of Courage" had been applied to her, completely unaware that what I'd actually used wasn't a buff at all, but a Suggestion.
With Cha Eunju and me standing together in the training room, I generated hologram monsters under the same settings as before, and this time I glued myself right behind her as we entered combat together.
'Keheak!'
'Keruk, kehek!'
"Focus, Cha Eunju."
"……Yeah."
Unlike before, she didn't tremble the instant the monsters appeared. She stood on both legs and faced the enemy head-on.
With my hands gripping her shoulders firmly from behind, I quietly waited as she mowed the monsters down with her magic.
'Keheeeak!!'
"…Shadow Ball."
-BOOM!
Even as a monster bore down on her, she neither averted her eyes nor ran. She calmly conjured her spell and blew a goblin to pieces.
The other two goblins fell one by one to her magic as well — just as in the original story, the Suggestion had worked exactly as intended.
"Good work, Eunju."
"……."
"…Cha Eunju?"
Unlike a moment ago, she stood rooted in place with a dazed expression, staring blankly at the monsters' (holographic) corpses — perhaps because killing three goblins had come far too easily this time.
Half a beat late, she registered the results of the battle she herself had produced, and suddenly leapt into the air with a shout.
-Boing.
"I-I killed them…!!"
"…Yes, you killed them."
"I-I really killed them…!! A-and all three of them…!!"
"Yes, you did great. That's what I told you, remember? I said you'd make a pretty good partner."
Every time she bounced up and down in excitement, those enormous breasts swayed up and down a beat behind her.
They'd probably feel incredibly soft if I actually touched them. It was taking considerable effort to hold down the urge that kept making my hand drift toward them on its own.
…Knowing her state right now, if I asked to cop a feel as a reward for her excitement, she'd more than likely agree.
'Let's not try anything stupid. There'll be plenty of time to get handsy with Cha Eunju later.'
Simply showing her that my awakened ability could compensate for her weaknesses had already won her over about eighty percent of the way. Deliberately provoking her wariness now?
No matter how well things were going, rushing was forbidden. After all, Cha Eunju and I had known each other for less than six hours — we were practically strangers.
When I was working on Choi Marie, there was a stretch of over two weeks where I couldn't even get a word in and could only catch her eye. Surely I could invest that much time in Cha Eunju.
The easier the conquest, the more thoroughly I intended to train her — until, eventually, she was reduced to something like my personal pet.
…And when that time came, I'd be able to savor every act I desired with that voluptuous body of hers to my heart's content.
"L-let's go one more round!"
"Hm?"
"I-I bet I could kill ten goblins in one go now! A-while the buff's still active, hurry!"
She was properly worked up. Probably the thrill of controlling, for the first time, a power she'd never been able to wield properly.
If I leveraged this feeling, I thought, conquering her within the week before the practical exam wasn't out of the question — and with that, I began setting up the next drill.
"Jumping straight to ten is a bit much. Let's start with five and work our way up gradually."
"O-okay…."
"I'll renew the buff too. Come over here and stick your head out."
"O-okay…."
The truth was, there was no need to reapply the buff. Once a Suggestion was in place, it stayed active continuously until I released it myself.
The only reason I deliberately lifted it and cast it again was, frankly, little more than a pretext for skinship with her.
-Pat, pat.
"……."
I would keep this up, one step at a time, until the day came when Cha Eunju — who hunched her body nervously beneath my hand now — would be so accustomed to physical contact with me that she'd lean her head in unbidden at the mere sight of my outstretched palm.
Slowly, step by step. That was how I planned to close the distance between her heart and mine.
-BOOM!
"Haah, h-haaah…."
"Let's stop here for today. Good work, Cha Eunju."
After that first mock battle with the Suggestion, she and I fought six more engagements in total, increasing the goblin count step by step.
The final mock battle had pitted us against ten goblins.
It was a slightly challenging enemy for two prospective freshmen to face, honestly speaking — but for Cha Eunju under the Suggestion, it was a level she could have handled alone.
Her spell power and casting speed had always been reliable, so she cleared the final battle without a hitch, and by the time she'd gotten her fill of combat the way she wanted, an hour and a half had slipped by unnoticed.
"C-couldn't we do one more…?"
She was genuinely hooked. To think the girl who'd shaken like a leaf at the sight of just three goblins was now saying this.
But today's training with Cha Eunju ended precisely here. Ending on a slightly unsatisfied note like this was what would give me an excuse to see her again next time.
"We've already done plenty. And our rental time on the training room is almost up, too."
"……."
"Don't be like that — let's do it tomorrow. You've burned through a lot of mana today, so resting well and picking it up tomorrow is the better call anyway."
"…Y-you mean it? We'll really train tomorrow?"
"We have no idea what the practical exam will throw at us, so there's nothing to lose from practicing as many scenarios as we can. Oh, come to think of it — we never exchanged numbers. Let me see your phone for a second, Eunju."
"Ah, yeah…!"
A little late, but Cha Eunju and I exchanged contact information smoothly and naturally. Which meant I now had a means of summoning a girl who, generally speaking, refused to set foot outside her own home.
Frankly, I'd judged that getting this single thing accomplished today would already count as a major win.
On top of that, I'd secured a promise to take the practical exam together, and even the chance for some light skinship here in the training room — an unqualified triumph, really.
What made it all the more remarkable was that every bit of this had been accomplished on the very first day I'd met Cha Eunju. As expected of the heroine classified as the easiest conquest in the entire story, for Lee Seonho specifically.
'Time left on the rental is… roughly twenty minutes.'
…Twenty minutes should be plenty. For testing out "Hypnosis" on Cha Eunju.
Since I still couldn't be certain of the full extent of my Suggestion: Hypnosis ability, Cha Eunju was the safest possible candidate for its first trial run — in more ways than one.
"Eunju, before we head out, there's one more thing I'd like to try."
"Something you want to try…?"
"But this one's a rather intense buff, so even asking to use it on you might come off as a bit rude."
"R-rude…?! W-with everything you've done for me so far, what are you even saying…! I-I would never think of it as rude, so just say whatever it is!"
"…With my ability, there's a chance I could fix one of your weaknesses, Eunju."
"………Huh?"
First, I wore a deliberately apologetic expression to create an atmosphere that was hard to refuse. Then I dangled the reward she craved most to hook her interest.
"If I use this buff of mine called 'Hypnosis,' I can gradually fix that combat anxiety of yours."
"H-hypnosis…?"
"Yeah. That's what I was hesitating about. Hypnotizing someone under the pretense of a buff is strange no matter how you slice it. Especially since we only met today — asking you to accept a buff like this from me felt a little off."
"……."
An offer she could hardly refuse: the promise of slowly mending her own weaknesses.
But the price was a buff with a name suspicious beyond all measure — "Hypnosis."
Any ordinary woman, when a man she'd known for less than a day broached a proposal like this, would brand him a pervert or a creep and despise him on the spot. But what about Cha Eunju?
…A girl who, as of today, felt both affection toward me and a heavy weight of indebtedness.
"I-it's fine."
"Hm?"
"I-I'll try it. That… 'hypnosis' thing."
…With her in her current state, I'd known full well she wouldn't be able to turn me down.