Chapter 137: ㄴㅇㄱ (4)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 137: ㄴㅇㄱ (4)
The more time we spent together, the more the team members began to change, little by little.
Shin Yu-jeong… became a bit more mellow.
By about 0.1%, give or take.
Elena, having recently started to open up to us, began studying Korean more diligently, something she had been putting off.
Was that why?
“Oh, for God’s sake. Do-jin, with a body like that, is that all you can lift? That’s an insult to your physique!”
“Sorry…”
Whenever we worked out together, her skill at nagging me grew by the day.
I was starting to think that in about six more months, she’d be a true native speaker.
Her trait had also improved significantly.
In my case, I’d reached a point where I was almost unaffected by it, and the other team members only slowed down by about 30% of the original effect.
I figured this, too, would soon be a thing of the past.
“Wow, it worked!”
“Oh…”
Na-eun’s magical aptitude had grown immensely.
She’s been working incredibly hard lately.
Before, we used to part ways after class, but these days, she seems to stay behind almost every day for extra study sessions.
Thanks to that, she was hot on the heels of Kim Yun-sik, who had been pushed to second place by the appearance of a monster like me and was grinding his teeth in frustration.
Poor Yun-sik… getting crushed from above and chased from below, a complete nervous wreck.
“Hello…”
“…Hello, Sunbae.”
Seo-yeon, who had put it off until she turned twenty-one, had started to work on her communication skills.
Not in a broad sense, but… she was trying to get closer to the team members.
She’d try to make her sentences longer, or if there was a quiet moment, she’d bring up something she’d prepared to liven up the mood…
Perhaps because she herself felt she was gradually getting closer to them, her stiff expression was also softening little by little.
Of course, all these changes were limited to the team members, excluding me.
With me… things hadn’t changed much from the beginning.
Seo-yeon kept trying to approach me, but I felt so uneasy about it that I kept putting up a wall.
It takes two to clap, but when one side is building a wall, how can you possibly get closer?
“We’re just starting to get in sync, too…”
Right now, our team’s teamwork was top-notch by the standards of a university group project. By my standards, however, we were barely at the toddler stage, just starting to coordinate.
There were still so many things we needed to work on, but the time for us to disband was already approaching.
The team was set to officially disband after the final exams.
And when the new semester of our second year began, we would have to form new teams.
“Hmm…”
If I had my way, I’d keep this team as it is.
Seo-yeon was a bit of a concern, but… if I could just maintain our current relationship, it probably wouldn’t be a problem.
But could I make that happen just by wanting it?
Even Elena, who had been the one with a flaw, had now revealed her usefulness.
When it came time to form new teams, she would undoubtedly be bombarded with scouting offers from countless people.
I believed she was unlikely to leave my team, but…
“You never know what the world will throw at you…”
Starting from the second year, second and third-year students could form teams together, excluding the fourth-years on practical training and the first-year freshmen.
In other words, the pool of talent for team formation would double.
Who knew if one of those teams would make an offer to my members that would make their eyes light up?
My default stance was to maintain the team, but maybe it wouldn’t be a bad idea to scout for a spare or two, just in case.
“Break’s over.”
And with that, my thoughts about next year ended.
Right now, I had a much more urgent and massive problem right in front of me.
“I feel like something’s missing…”
To construct the mana array and final form with the utmost delicacy.
Every time I made a little progress with what I called Detail Magic—a unique magic that only I could manifest—two conflicting emotions would surface in my mind.
One was the conviction that this was the right path.
Since I was just starting, there was a mountain of things to fix.
Even so, the magic’s power was immense.
Compared to existing magic, it was on par with high-difficulty intermediate or even advanced magic.
Considering that students only began learning the basics of intermediate magic in their second year, I could feel how many steps ahead of them I was.
If it was this powerful in the early stages, I couldn’t even fathom—not even as a former S-rank Hunter—what level of power it would reach once I solved the piled-up problems.
It was a satisfying situation.
But at the same time, the thought that I shouldn’t continue down this path would intermittently put the brakes on my actions.
“Why do I keep feeling like something is missing?”
The utility of Detail Magic, which recreated weapons from myths, wasn’t limited to simply throwing them.
Since I had replicated the form of a weapon, and since I, unlike other mages, was exceptionally skilled at handling them, it would be absolutely perfect if I could also hold and wield it.
“But I can’t even hold it…”
The problem was, as I had experienced before, that I couldn’t grip it.
It wasn’t just with Snow Bringer, the legendary weapon of the Russian hero; it was the same with the others.
Fire, wind, earth, lightning, and so on.
It was one thing for fire, wind, and lightning, which had no tangible form to begin with, but I couldn't even hold a weapon made from the earth attribute, which had a clear shape.
When I tried to grip a spear made from earth-attribute mana, my palm was shredded and bloody, as if I’d scraped it with coarse sandpaper.
“Thanks to that, I got a hell of an earful.”
I went to the infirmary with a bloody palm, and of course, Ju-yeon was there again.
I got my back slapped and a generous scolding, so I ended up skipping dinner that day.
After messing up my palm twice like that, I began to have a vague idea of what the problem was.
The problem was probably…
“The excessively compressed mana, I think.”
That was it.
Excessively compressed mana.
I suspected that the compression process, which I had perfected to raise the magic’s power and durability beyond a certain level, had made it too much for a human hand to handle.
After all, hadn’t I held ice daggers in both hands while fighting that spider to get the Hundred-Year Moonflower?
Back then, I didn’t even feel the cold in my hands, despite gripping the ice tightly.
“It would be nice to have some kind of medium…”
Then, my eyes suddenly fell on a practice sword hanging on the wall of the private practice room.
If I couldn’t grip the handle, couldn’t I just use a different handle?
“…Will I have to pay for it if I break that?”
The calculator in my head produced an answer.
It was a practice sword, at best a bottom-tier D-rank weapon, meant for nothing more than swinging.
The price would be less than a million won.
“Okay.”
That was a worthy price to pay for an experiment.
I immediately took the sword from the wall, placed it on the floor, and offered a brief apology.
“Sorry about this…!”
Then I mercilessly stomped on it, breaking the joint between the blade and the hilt.
Crack!
I tossed the blade lying on the floor far away and picked up just the flimsy hilt.
“Not sure if this will work.”
Even as I did it, I was half-doubting.
Well… if it works, great. If not, I’ll just have to search for another way.
I condensed mana converted into cold energy, then overlaid the image I had perfectly memorized after hundreds of practice runs.
Ah, excluding the handle.
A thin sword materialized at a speed incomparable to my first attempts.
「Snow Bringer.」
A biting cold that could tear through flesh swirled from the shabby hilt.
Just as a feeling of elation began to seep in as I looked at the transparent blade gleaming with light…
Crack!
An ominous sound crept in.
At the same time, something strange happened.
Crrrack!
The cold radiating from the blade instantly froze the hilt I was holding solid.
And what happened to my hand holding it?
It’s obvious, isn’t it?
“…Looks like I’m in for another slap on the back.”
*
“This is really strange.”
He just couldn’t understand it.
It wasn’t like there was only one healer at Korea University, so why was she the only one there every time he went?
And why was she always the one on duty on days like this?
“Oww, that hurts.”
Thanks to her, his back was stinging again after just a few days.
“Did she put all her stats into strength instead of mana…?”
Even for an A-rank Hunter, her slaps were ridiculously stinging and strong for a healer.
If I looked in the mirror, I felt like I’d see a perfect handprint on my back.
His steps halted as he was leaving the school gate, massaging the hand that had just regained feeling.
“Ah, right.”
He had belatedly realized he’d left his bag in the private practice room.
Should I just go, or should I get it?
After a moment of hesitation, he turned back.
“If only I had my wallet…”
Because even his wallet, which he needed to get home, was in the bag.
As Kim Do-jin walked back dejectedly, a familiar face came into view.
He was about to call her name cheerfully but stopped himself.
Something was strange about the way she was hurrying along.
“…What’s with her?”
Like someone being chased, she kept glancing around every few steps to see if anyone was there.
‘Is some sleazy upperclassman hitting on her?’
Feeling puzzled, he quietly followed her.
Just in case she was in danger, so he could appear at the right moment to help.
With an anxious expression and hurried steps, she arrived at a lecture building where all the lights were off.
The questions in his mind grew larger as he watched.
‘Why is she going in there?’
As far as he knew, that place had nothing to do with her class schedule.
‘I’ll just follow for a bit longer.’
Once inside the lecture building, Kim Do-jin saw where her steps were headed and let out a sigh of relief.
He had wondered where she was rushing off to, but it was just the restroom.
“Phew… did she just really have to go?”
It was a relief that nothing bad was happening, but… I felt the tension drain out of me.
Having reached the vicinity of the restroom, he turned to leave.
Now that he’d confirmed there was no problem, it would be polite to slip away.
He was about to turn back with quiet steps, so as not to startle her while she was alone in the dark restroom.
Click-
A familiar noise caught by his sharp senses stopped him in his tracks.
“That sound is…”
Again.
Click-
The sound he just heard was definitely the shutter of a camera app.
The source of the noise was the women’s restroom she had just entered.
That made it all the more puzzling.
‘Is she taking selfies in the restroom…?’
Click- click-
“……”
For that, the shutter was going off way too often.
The sound of clothes coming off, a wet squelching noise, and then the camera clicks—it was a combination that could stir any man's curiosity. Kim Do-jin cautiously approached the women’s restroom.
‘Just a little peek.’
I couldn’t stand not knowing what on earth she was taking pictures of.
The image of her standing in front of the restroom mirror taking selfies was amusing just to imagine.
He very stealthily peeked his head out to get a view, making sure she wouldn’t notice him.
And what his eyes saw was a scene that far surpassed his expectations.
“L-Like this…”
Click
Bubbly, cheerful, innocent.
The girl who made countless male students' hearts flutter with her curvy body, a stark contrast to her youthful face.
“A little more like this…?”
Click!
She was standing in front of the restroom mirror, baring her chest, sticking out her tongue suggestively, and taking selfies.
It was a vulgar display, completely different from her usual self.
So shocked that he yanked back the head he’d been peeking with, Kim Do-jin took a step back and clutched his pounding heart.
‘Fuck, what did I just see…?’
Kim Do-jin has fallen into a state of confusion.