Chapter 106: Change of Heart (2)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 106: Change of Heart (2)
As midterms approached, we started meeting more often.
It was probably the same at any university, but at Korea University, your grades were directly linked to your future.
Every March, major guilds were flooded with countless applications.
The numbers ranged from the thousands to the tens of thousands.
No matter how much they wanted to recruit talented individuals, it was impossible to meet every single one.
Ultimately, the first thing they looked at was the resume.
What was their Trait, what were their basic stats, what was their dungeon conquest history, and so on.
For Korea University students, there was one more item on that list.
Their grades.
Korea University was a gathering place for the most renowned talents.
To have overcome countless competitors and achieved high grades there was a badge of honor in itself.
Some of the major guilds even had a separate recruitment track that guaranteed a position to any student who ranked in the top 20% of their class.
Among all the exams, the dungeon practical had one of the heaviest weights on our final grade.
If you screwed this up, it was almost impossible to recover elsewhere.
That’s why we were in this situation.
We went from meeting a couple of times a week to gathering almost every weekday to train and enter dungeons.
“Elena! Your cover was a little late.”
“I’m sorry!”
The person showing the most enthusiasm was none other than Shin Yu-jeong.
The more time passed, the more I could tell she was truly serious about being a Hunter.
She seemed to be studying tactics on her own, too. If I noticed ten things that were off, she would spot three or four of them herself, advising our team members and making corrections.
“Seo-yeon Sunbae, magic would have been better than your sword from that position.”
“Ah… really?”
“……”
The more time I spent with them, the more time I spent with Seo-yeon.
At first, I was worried because meeting and talking to her was so awkward and uncomfortable, but it’s fine now.
How should I put it… she’s still on my mind, and my eyes are still drawn to her, but it doesn’t feel as overwhelming as it did when I was Son Si-woo.
Lately, something else has been bothering me more than my feelings.
“Tsk… that’s not how you’re supposed to do that.”
The swordsmanship Seo-yeon had picked up on her own kept catching my eye.
She managed to capture the essence of it and seemed to use it effectively, but it was lacking in so many ways.
My guess was that she had a natural talent for learning by sight.
She probably developed that swordsmanship by watching me.
The problem was, the current Son Si-woo wasn't me.
In other words, she would no longer be able to watch the swordsmanship of Son Si-woo, which had been the source of her inspiration.
Of course, if our Fake Si-woo could perfectly handle my body, it might be possible, but…
“Like that’s ever going to happen.”
I really hate to say this, but that guy is a hopeless case.
A lazy, slothful, and incorrigible human being who only ever insists on taking the easy way out.
Well… just as everyone has their own personality, I do my best to respect that kind of lifestyle.
But he shouldn’t be like that in my body.
My body was meant for a thorny path, not an easy one; it demanded diligence, not laziness.
In short, his personality and my body were polar opposites.
I recently read an article about him online.
He’d said he was taking a sabbatical, using the excuse that he was exhausted.
Thanks to all the achievements Son Si-woo had made up to this point, public opinion wasn’t too bad.
“A year of running away isn’t going to solve anything.”
There was a high probability that his terrible personality had manifested in the worst possible way.
He likely played the sabbatical card as a way to just run away from it all.
Meanwhile, time would keep passing, and he wouldn't even use the time he’d bought himself productively.
“I wonder if he’s thinking about switching back.”
He might be waiting for the three years of the non-aggression pact he so arbitrarily proposed to end.
He must have realized that his marriage to his beloved Han Ju-hee was just for show, and that my life wasn't as happy as he thought.
He’ll probably try to endure it somehow and then attempt to switch bodies with me again.
But what can he do?
“I don’t want to.”
Unlike him, I’m quite satisfied with this body.
It’s handsome, and its height is gradually catching up to my original body.
Wealth? Fame? That kind of stuff will naturally fall into my hands with time.
The talent this body possesses is just that incredible.
I think by the time the three years are up and we can face each other again, I’ll have reached a level where I can easily put him in his place.
“I’m looking forward to it.”
I had to force myself to hold back a laugh.
I’m curious, and I can’t wait.
When he finally realizes that the body he cast aside as useless and pathetic holds a priceless value that cannot be compared to anything else in the world.
I wonder what kind of expression he’ll make.
“Hey, Kim Do-jin! Why aren’t you casting any mag—!”
BOOM—!
“Hm? What’s up?”
“…Nothing. Good job.”
How anticlimactic.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Our schedule for the day was finally over.
The dungeon conquest went off without a hitch, Elena was happy to have earned some money, and our teamwork had become even more solid.
After changing, I was about to head home with Shin Yu-jeong when a familiar face suddenly popped up and blocked our path.
“Is there something you want to say?”
“Yeah, there is.”
It was Seo-yeon.
Her gaze was fixed on me, not Shin Yu-jeong.
It seemed her business was with me.
“I heard you earlier.”
“…Heard what?”
“When I was using my sword, you said it. That’s not how you’re supposed to do it…”
For a moment, I almost got goosebumps.
It was a whisper so quiet that even Im Na-eun, who was closest to me, couldn’t have heard it. But she did?
Is she the Bionic Woman or something?
“Saying that means you know a better way.”
“……”
“So tell me. Everything you felt while watching my swordsmanship. Tell me all of it.”
Her eyes, which had always seemed to be gazing at some distant place, were now reflecting me, the person right in front of her.
And they were burning with an intense passion.
* * *
Seo Jeong-hee woke up much later than usual that morning.
The first reason was that she was on vacation, so there was no need to get up early. The second was the hangover from the wine she’d repeatedly downed last night while lost in deep thought.
“Ugh, my head…”
Even the throbbing headache didn’t feel all that bad to her.
It had been so long since she’d drunk this much that even this felt good.
After washing up, putting on makeup, and finishing breakfast, she gazed at the scenery outside the hotel with a look full of regret.
“What a shame. It was so nice…”
Originally, she had wanted to extend her trip and visit more places, but she realized she couldn’t just enjoy herself indefinitely.
After checking out, Seo Jeong-hee immediately booked a bus ticket.
Her destination was Haenam.
The place where her husband worked.
‘Let’s just go and see him first.’
Honestly, she didn’t know anything.
The last time she saw her husband was on New Year’s Day this year.
She had no idea what she would feel when she finally faced the husband she hadn’t seen in over half a year.
Or what kind of expression he would make upon seeing her show up unannounced.
Until now, she had left it unknown, but now she wanted to know. She had to know.
After waiting for about an hour, she took a three-hour bus ride and arrived in Haenam.
The southernmost tip of the Korean peninsula.
Her husband’s workplace was an observatory at the very edge of it.
It wasn’t an observatory for tourists, but a special one built to monitor the sea.
Dungeons didn’t only appear on land.
Rifts could also appear in the air above the sea.
In the past, when this fact was unknown, coastal cities had suffered immense damage.
Since then, special observatories had been built in cities adjacent to the sea.
They served as bases for the Maritime Rift Surveillance Team, which monitored the waters.
Her husband was a member of that team.
A surveillance team member, treated on par with a 7th-grade civil servant.
“He’s probably still working…”
Her husband had told her.
That due to a recent decrease in the number of surveillance team members, his work hours had increased significantly.
Thanks to that, he was staring out at the sea day and night until his eyes were about to fall out.
As she approached the observatory, an armed soldier standing guard in front of a chain-link fence signaled for her to stop.
“This is a restricted area. What is your business here?”
“Ah… I’m here to see my husband.”
“May I have your husband’s name, please?”
“It’s Shin Hyo-seop.”
The soldier, who had been typing something into a small device on his belt, showed a troubled expression.
“Mr. Shin Hyo-seop is listed as having already left for the day. Did you perhaps come without contacting him?”
“Oh… he already left?”
“Yes, he was on day shift today. The records show he clocked out an hour ago.”
For a moment, her pupils trembled violently.
What the soldier said was completely different from what her husband always told her.
‘He said he was too busy to even breathe…’
He’d said he was so busy there wasn’t a single day he could leave on time.
He’d complained that he was going to die because he was called in to work every single weekend.
A soldier standing a short distance away recognized her and approached.
“Are you Hyo-seop’s wife?”
“Ah, yes…”
“Wow… I had no idea Hyo-seop had such a beautiful wife.”
Seo Jeong-hee’s ears perked up slightly.
From the way he spoke, he seemed to be quite friendly with her husband.
“Haha, thank you. Since he’s already left, I should probably head to his quarters.”
As she gave a light bow and turned to leave, the man stopped her.
“Oh, Hyo-seop is probably at the bar right now.”
“A bar… you say?”
“Yes. There’s a bar nearby we all frequent. Hyo-seop is our number one regular.”
Seo Jeong-hee bit her lower lip without realizing it.
Forcing a calm expression, she asked the man.
“Could you… tell me where that bar is?”
“Sure, just go straight down this road and then to the right…”
After thanking the man for the detailed directions, Seo Jeong-hee started walking.
Her heart was pounding.
As the man had said, the bar wasn’t far.
It seemed to have been opened with the surveillance team members from the observatory as its main clientele.
She slowly opened the door and stepped inside.
Faint light bulbs glowed in the thick, dark atmosphere.
Seo Jeong-hee found her husband without difficulty.
He was at a nearby table, clinking glasses with two men who appeared to be his colleagues.
Rage boiled up inside her.
‘He told me he was busy as hell…!’
She was about to rush over and confront him but stopped in her tracks.
A sudden curiosity arose.
What was her husband’s real life like?
Rather than confront him, she changed her mind. Today, she needed to find out more.