Chapter 109: Training with Ahyu
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 109: Training with Ahyu
Chapter 11 - The Alterz Spy
1
It was late October, the season when the autumn leaves were at their peak.
I was currently sprawled out on the ground.
The autumn sky was vast and high, without a cloud in sight.
“Oh? Slacking off, are we, Domi-oppa?”
Standing over me was Ahyu, in her half-Heavenly Demon, half-Ahyu form today.
As I had asked her before, Ahyu was overseeing my training, and for the past few weeks, she had been putting me through the wringer.
And I had come to a realization.
That bastard Baeksan’s training regimen had actually been designed with my well-being in mind.
Ahyu’s training, on the other hand, was genuine, living hell.
Perhaps because of all the dangerous situations I’d recently found myself in, she’d declared she didn’t want to see me get hurt and had been pushing me with everything she had.
Thanks to that, I had grown stronger over the past few weeks, far faster than I’d expected.
I was now at the point where I could casually catch a baseball flying at me from behind.
I’m also slowly getting the hang of maintaining my aura at all times.
My current average output was a solid three percent.
I had jumped from a mere F-rank hunter to a B-rank.
It was a truly miraculous figure.
Ahyu’s training, Baeksan’s aura control techniques, and the experience I’d gained during the incident with Hyeok-seo—all of it had led to my tremendous growth.
But despite that growth, I had absolutely no desire to get up from where I lay.
“Ahyu, there’s this thing called exhaustion.”
“Aha, is that so?”
The moment I spoke, Ahyu plopped down, sitting right on my stomach.
As I let out a yelp from the weight, she smiled, pressing down on my stomach with her bottom as she stared at me.
“What, am I heavy?”
“Not at all. You’re lighter than a feather. I feel like I have to hold on so you don’t fly away.”
“That’s right. My Domi-oppa is so smooth. Good boy, good boy.”
Watching Ahyu pinch my cheek, I felt a surge of annoyance.
She was really pushing it.
I immediately sat up, causing Ahyu’s body to slide down and land on my lap.
The instant her eyes widened in surprise, I stuck my hands into the space by her sides and began to tickle her mercilessly.
“Hee-hee! Hyaahahaha! St-stop, Domi-oppa, I’m sorry! Stop!”
“You think you can just work me to the bone and get away with an apology?”
When she tried to escape, I wrapped an arm around her waist to hold her in place and tickled her relentlessly, making her squirm like crazy.
Soon enough, she was letting out little gasps, her body going limp as if all her strength had drained away. Satisfied, I let her go.
Easy.
“Heeuuu, really, you tickled me too much.”
Once I released her, Ahyu looked up at me with a melted expression and giggled.
Seeing her flushed face, I was reminded that she had feelings for me, and I suddenly felt awkward and embarrassed.
I’d gotten so used to treating Ahyu casually that I’d slip into these moments with her without thinking.
And Ahyu, having engaged in this kind of banter with me for so long, had come to see it as natural, too.
Because of that, we sometimes forgot that our actions were a little too familiar.
“Let’s rest for a bit.”
As I thought this, Ahyu, who was sitting on my lap, leaned the back of her head against my chest.
The soft feeling from my legs and the sweet scent coming from her made my head spin again.
“Hey, Ahyu.”
“Hm? What is it?”
I was about to say something, but Ahyu just answered while playfully rubbing the back of her head against my chest.
Watching her become more and more uninhibited with her physical affection was worrying in many ways.
I still haven’t come up with any kind of answer.
I was still agonizing over my relationships.
Baeksan’s words: if you’re not going to date them all, then don’t date any of them.
Every time I recalled that advice, my mind became a tangled mess.
Baeksan had witnessed the end of the world with his own two eyes.
If he was the one to present those two options, he probably meant I should really do one or the other.
Either date them all or stay single forever.
As someone who had lived in modern society, it wasn’t easy for me to break the preconceived notion that a person should only have one partner.
I’d heard that sharing your feelings with even one person in a relationship leads to countless incidents and accidents. The thought of doing that with multiple people…
For a brief moment, I imagined myself dating all the people who had recently shown interest in me.
…Why do I have a feeling even a single meal together would end in a fight?
It was a terrifying thought.
The thought of a pleasant dinner turning into a knife fight in an instant…
“Ahyu.”
So, I decided to try and calm the situation down, at least a little, whatever it took.
“Yes? Yes? Yes? You wanted to call my name that badly?”
When I called her name again, Ahyu spun around, rested her chin on my chest, and looked up at me.
Facing her pretty face made me flinch for a second, but I decided to continue with what I was about to say.
“Why don’t you and Seol-hyang get along?”
I had already told Ahyu that Seol-hyang and I were childhood friends.
At the time, she had said, “...That cunning woman,” and had been openly angry.
Whenever Seol-hyang was involved, she would get angry first.
Hearing my question, Ahyu hummed through her nose, then turned back around and leaned against me again.
“Our personalities just don’t mesh, that’s all.”
“In what way?”
“She tries to handle everything with logic. I mean, I can be rational when I need to be, but at my core, I’m driven by emotion.”
That was true.
Even in her Heavenly Demon form, Ahyu often acted on her emotions.
It was certainly possible that Ahyu and Seol-hyang had very different personalities in that regard.
“There’s no reason to be friends with someone you don’t get along with, right? You could say it’s a business relationship.”
Did that mean the two of them could never coexist?
I could see just how absurd Baeksan’s suggestion to date everyone was.
“Still…”
Just then, Ahyu continued speaking.
“Since she’s your childhood friend, Domi-oppa, if you asked me to try and get along with her, it’s not like I couldn’t.”
“Really?”
That was good news.
It always made me uncomfortable that Ahyu and Seol-hyang fought every time they met.
“Mhm, but on one condition.”
Ahyu moved her hands up to grab both of my arms.
She then brought my arms around her neck and hugged them tightly.
“If you hug me tight like this every day and tell me you lo-love me… then! I guess I could manage it!”
I could see Ahyu’s ears were bright red.
At the same time, hearing her heart pound away made my own heart start to race.
Was it just my imagination, or was Ahyu becoming bolder and bolder, just like Seol-hyang and Si-ho?
In the past, I would have treated it as a joke, but now that I knew her true feelings, I couldn’t.
As I remained silent, unsure of what to say, Ahyu’s face became so red it looked like steam was about to rise from it.
If she keeps blushing like this, is she going to turn into the Heavenly Demon?
Just as I had that thought, Ahyu turned to look at me, her eyes slightly moist.
“...You’re not going to do it?”
Her question sent a shiver down my spine.
“...If you get along with Seol-hyang first, then I will.”
“R-Really? If you’re lying, I might just sneak into your house later and you don’t know what I’ll do, so it has to be the truth!”
“Yeah, I promise.”
Ahyu was so happy she expressed her joy with her whole body, even kicking her legs wildly.
Damn it, if this goes on any longer, I won’t be able to take it.
I had made a strange promise with Ahyu, but she did say she’d get along with Seol-hyang.
For now, I decided to let it go. I lifted Ahyu up and got to my feet.
Just like last time, she was light.
“Let’s get back to training. I’m suddenly feeling energized.”
“Alright! I’ll give you all the training you can handle!”
And so, Ahyu and I resumed our training.
And I don’t think it was my imagination that today’s session was even more intense than usual.
2
After finishing my training with Ahyu, I returned home, showered, and checked my phone.
There was a message from Kkotbi.
[ I’m definitely going next time. ]
What was she talking about, coming here when she was busy overseas with her idol work?
I let out a wry smile, remembering the trouble I’d had calming her down when she was pouting, and then logged into Lord of Academy.
I figured I’d get today’s daily quests out of the way before relaxing.
[ Jugeumbitgwa Simjangnimi: Offers a greeting. ]
[ Doremi Fasol: Juksim-nim, hey. ]
After that day, Juksim had saved Eva-noona and then coolly returned home right away.
Of course, it seemed she’d reached her limit for going alone, as she did leave with her face buried in Naek’s back.
Still, for such a major incident, the fact that there were zero civilian casualties was a huge contribution, all thanks to Juksim’s help.
It was such a big deal that for a while, YouTube was abuzz with videos titled, “Korean Returnees and Hunters Shock and Awe the World.”
In the public’s eyes, the returnees and hunters who saved people from the criminal organization Girasung must have looked like heroes.
Though the reality was far more desperate.
Still, I was relieved that was the perception.
The World Returnee Association was also actively pouring resources into restoring Jung-gu, so they said the repairs should be completed by next month.
However, one problem had arisen from all this.
The look in Seol-hyang’s eyes when I saw her recently was anything but ordinary.
Since this incident heavily involved returnees, Seol-hyang, as the chairperson of the World Returnee Association, had an overwhelming amount of work to deal with.
Even for someone as competent as her, from the destruction of an entire district of Seoul to uprooting Girasung so thoroughly that they could never recover…
Seol-hyang had been doing nothing but work, all day long.
We talked on the phone every day, but I felt so bad for her that I brought her some coffee and snacks the other day. The look in her eyes when she saw me was that of a predator.
It was as if she was waiting for only one thing: the “one hour” she claimed from me after Eva-noona’s incident was resolved.
Her eyes gleamed like a student waiting for lunchtime.
For some reason, I felt like something irreversible would happen when that day came, but since that promise was what was driving her now, I decided to just stay quiet.
Why does everyone want something from me?
I also needed to ask Seol-hyang about what Baeksan had said, about her being able to see worldlines.
So, I had no choice but to accept it.
She already looked so busy; I didn’t want to burden her further by bringing this up.
Come to think of it, the dimensional researchers did say they don’t know what kind of negative impact this incident will have on the dimension.
I recalled some articles I had skimmed in a research paper about the large-scale, rapid-formation portal.
The massive portal Girasung had created was so unprecedented that many believed it must have had some effect on the current dimension.
But since nothing had appeared yet, no one could be sure.
It seemed this was something we’d have to observe over the long term.
I’ll have to keep an eye on it, too.
[ Naneun-extra: Domi, heyyy. I'm craving a drink again, wanna go? ]
I seriously wondered how this girl was managing her university life.
As I smiled bitterly at Naek bringing up drinking again, another chat window popped up.
[ Eva has logged on. ]
Eva-noona was online.
[ Doremi Fasol: Eva-noona, hey. ]
[ Eva: Sorry. It's me. ]
The moment I saw the chat, my body froze.
Hyeok-seo was supposed to be locked up.
[ Eva: It's a bit embarrassing, but... I've decided to take on the job of hunting down the rest of those Girasung bastards. That Brain Dragon guy, the musclehead you took down, he'll probably be working with me. ]
Ah, so that’s how they decided to handle it.