Archery Training (4)
Day two of training with Han Sora.
Just like yesterday, I arrived at the Archery Department training grounds in the morning and found Han Sora there, running through shooting drills all by herself.
Practicing through the entire weekend, huh. She's way more diligent than she looks.
"I'm here, Sora."
"Seonho, hi hi~."
A noticeably warmer greeting than yesterday's. Thanks to what happened yesterday, the psychological distance between us had probably shrunk quite a bit in her mind.
I'd be supervising her full training schedule, morning and afternoon, same as yesterday — which meant today I planned to push things forward a little more aggressively.
I intended to let her know that something called hypnosis training existed. And if things went smoothly, I might even give her a small taste of it.
"You're looking sharp. Want to train like we did yesterday?"
"Yeah. Doing it that way really does feel like my sense improved somehow. My arrows even seem to land better."
"Glad to hear it."
If it were up to me, I'd rather she grew a little slower. If she stops needing my help too fast, I can't keep conditioning her, can I?
Of course, if results were too thin, Han Sora would have no excuse to keep training with me, so it was a genuinely delicate balance.
She wasn't the kind of target you could conquer by blurting out a confession the way Cha Eunju did. To win her over, I'd have to condition her within the bounds of reasonable, sensible behavior — or at least, every step past that boundary would have to feel worth the price to her.
"I'll put the buff on. Give me your head."
"Oh, okay."
Same as when I trained with Cha Eunju — the hesitation about leaning her head toward me had all but melted away.
It reminded me of a dog shoving its head up at you, begging to be petted, and with that impression in mind, I let mana-laced Suggestion flow into her.
Suggestion: Artemis's Soul — Target: Han Sora
"You've had plenty of practice against five Goblin Spearmen, so let's scale it up today and start with ten."
"Okay~! Today I'm really going to hit every single one without missing!"
"You haven't even fully conquered five yet. That's a bit greedy, Sora."
"Th-that's why you're supposed to aim high, okay?!"
Yes, work hard. It's not me doing the suffering, after all.
Once she'd exhausted herself completely, it would be that much easier to slip Suggestion: Hypnosis over her in the afternoon. So the morning session was devoted purely to draining Han Sora's energy.
I let her loose shooting arrows to her heart's content with the buff active, then had her repeat the same drill with it removed.
Only this time I'd doubled the volume compared to yesterday, so naturally she tired at nearly twice the speed as well.
"Haaah, hoo, hooo…."
"Worn out? Should we stop here for the morning?"
"N-no…! It's finally clicking this time, so just a little more…!"
Honestly, I hadn't planned on giving her much of a break anyway. I was only asking for form's sake.
Knowing Han Sora's personality, she'd never cut a session short on her own — I'd have to force her to stop.
So I simply watched in silence as she drove her body closer and closer to its limits, in anticipation of an afternoon session that was about to get a little special.
Twang!
"I-I hit it! I just hit two in a row!"
"You're getting better. You remembered the form, right?"
"Yeah! When moving from a hundred meters at twelve o'clock to the fifty-meter point at one thirty, you raise the arm angle thirty degrees off the floor and…."
…Memorizing every single trajectory and brute-forcing her way through, exactly like in the original story.
It struck me as a brainless method, but I didn't bother pointing it out. I already knew that this was Han Sora's own way of overcoming things.
Morning training concluded with Han Sora drained to about eighty percent, we headed to the student cafeteria.
Same as yesterday, Han Sora and I sat across from each other, our cafeteria trays set down in front of us.
The standard of Cheonmu Academy's cafeteria was actually pretty decent. Comparable, maybe, to the menus that circulate online in photos from big corporations' employee dining halls.
From the faculty down to the training grounds, Cheonmu Academy had solved nearly everything solvable with money, so of course the student cafeteria menu was included in that.
Though Han Sora, worn out from hours of doing nothing but loosing arrows since early morning, showed little appetite for the spread in front of her.
"Uuugh, no appetite…."
They say hunger is the best sauce, but that only applies when you've actually been starving. Right after sweating buckets and wearing yourself out, food is supposed to lose its appeal.
"Eat it anyway. If you don't fill up now, you can't do the afternoon session."
"Mm, right…."
Apparently the prospect of missing training outweighed her lack of appetite, because Han Sora somehow managed to pick up her chopsticks and start eating anyway.
I was quietly watching her eat when an unexpected voice suddenly hit my ears.
"Ohhh! Lee Seonho!! Long time no see, buddy!!"
…Ah, damn it.
Why does it have to be this guy, with his total lack of awareness?
Yesterday it was Seo Woojin, today it's Park Cheonho. Why is it that every single one of these bastards only ever interrupts when I'm trying to be alone with Han Sora….
"Oh, it really is you! And Han Sora's here too."
"Oh, Hana! Cheonho, long time no see!"
"Right!! Great to see you, Han Sora!!"
…I'll let it slide, since he brought Park Hana along.
He was, after all, the most useful bridge I currently had for connecting with Park Hana.
They carried their trays over to our table and settled in — Park Cheonho beside me, Park Hana next to Han Sora.
"Long time no see, Park Cheonho, Park Hana."
"How've you been, Lee Seonho!!"
"Agh, Park Cheonho! I told you to do something about that voice of yours!"
"Me? Getting by, more or less. Busy with all sorts of things getting ready for the Academy."
"Same here. Prep's been keeping me busy. The major textbooks cost a fortune, though."
"Oh, right! What's with these books costing tens of thousands of won apiece? And I don't even get why Understanding of Weapons is a required course for the Combat Department!"
…Well, that's because monsters use weapons and villains use weapons. Hence, required.
She'd supposedly ranked inside the top hundred on the entrance exam, so I'd wondered if she was smarter than she looked. I'm revising that assessment — she just got lucky once.
"By the way, what's with those clothes? Were you two training too?"
"Huh? Training?"
"What do you mean, training, Han Sora!! Don't tell me there's a secret training ground at the Academy that only you know about!!"
"…What are you even saying? A secret training ground?"
…Maybe I should remove this thick-skulled idiot from the equation first.
With him around, holding a proper conversation with either Han Sora or Park Hana was impossible. He'd derail the flow of talk on a whim, and his volume was insufferably loud.
"Cheonmu Academy lets incoming freshmen use the training grounds for free. Open all the time — nights, weekends, everything. Han Sora and I were just training at the Archery Department grounds until a minute ago, and now we're here to eat."
"Wh-what!! Is that true, Lee Seonho!!"
"Yeah."
"Th-then why didn't you tell me sooner!! If I'd known that was possible, I'd have been using it ages ago!!"
"You could've just asked."
"Gnh!! …That is, undeniably, a fair point, Lee Seonho!!!"
With that, he suddenly bowed his head as if about to face-plant into his tray and began shoveling the food in front of him down at a monstrous pace.
He crammed the food into his mouth so sloppily that I genuinely doubted he was chewing at all, then at the end downed his soup bowl in one decisive gulp, sprang to his feet, and—
"Now that I know this, I can't sit still!! Which way to the Combat Department training grounds, Lee Seonho!!!"
"Take the road from the Combat Department dorms toward the martial arts hall. The dome gymnasium on the way is the training grounds."
"WOOOOOOOH, THANK YOU!!! I will NEVER forget this debt!!!"
"Sure."
"YEAHHHHH!!! It's been itching at me for a whole week!!!"
CRASH!
He flung his scraped-clean tray at the return rack like a discus and bolted for the exit.
Yes, thank you for getting lost so quickly. He left Park Hana behind and vanished by himself — I'll count that as the debt repaid.
"Haah, that blockhead, seriously…."
"Ch-Cheonho sure is, uh, full of energy…. Last time he was really lou— ah, n-no, he just really seemed bursting with spirit, haha…."
Park Cheonho had bolted out the door as though his sister's embarrassment was none of his concern, and now Park Hana was cupping her flushed face in both hands.
The noise pollution at the next seat over had left my ears ringing, but I'd gotten to see that reaction from Park Hana in exchange, so all in all, it wasn't a bad trade.
"Sorry you've got a guy like that for a brother."
"What's wrong with it? He's a prospective hunter — high energy is a good thing."
"R-right! He'll fight with that much raw power in real combat someday too!"
"…Thanks, you guys."
She's been carrying a lot of grief over this, huh, Hana.
If that guy were my brother, I'd want to punch him in the mouth a few dozen times a day myself.
Hang in there a little longer — I'll take care of all the stress he's putting you through later.
"By the way, was that true, what you just said? That Academy training grounds are open to incoming students too?"
"Yeah. Academy facilities are open to enrolled students across the board, and incoming freshmen count as enrolled, so I got permission to use them."
"…I should go check it out after I eat, then. I've been bored out of my mind with nothing to do at the Academy."
Park Hana was quiet compared to her brother, sure — but she was a training maniac all the same.
Sometime soon, if I dropped by the Combat Department grounds, I'd probably get to see Park Hana unleashing a flashy kick, black panties flashing through the air.
"Then why were you wearing a dobok if you weren't even training?"
"This is a dobok? It's just Academy activewear. I wear it because it's comfortable."
"You call that activewear? Isn't Academy activewear supposed to fit a bit tighter? And the bottoms weren't this short, were they…?"
"That's because the activewear design is different for each department."
"Huh?"
"Really?"
Cheonmu Academy had a good dozen-plus departments, one per major.
Being a hunter academy, most of those departments were tied to physical enhancement types, and since the way you moved your body differed depending on your weapon and techniques, it stood to reason that activewear designs differed too.
The simplest example was the Combat Department, where both men and women wore short bottoms. Moving your body in pants or a skirt that flapped around in live combat was just inefficient.
The Archery Department wore sleeveless tops to prevent arrows or bowstrings from catching on the arm, and the Spear Department wore cropped tops so a spear shaft wouldn't snag at the waist — leaving the navel exposed.
"Oh, I see. I just assumed all the activewear was the same design."
"Wow, how do you even know all that? That's impressive."
"Just a hunch. I looked into all sorts of things before enrolling at the Academy."
That it just so happened each department's activewear exposed a different part of the body — and that this somehow appealed to me — was, of course, purely coincidental.