Training Never Ends (3)
The next day.
Training with Choi Jeong-hyeon began bright and early, just as scheduled.
"Thirty seconds left."
"Y-yes, ma'am!"
She was hanging from a high pull-up bar with one arm.
The right one — the one fitted with her mechanical prosthesis.
"The custom prosthesis being made for you will operate exactly the same way. So the sooner you can handle this one skillfully, the better."
"Uuugh… yes…!"
"And that's three minutes. Next."
"Hyaah!"
She tilted her hanging body slightly, until her torso was nearly parallel with the floor.
The angle between Choi Jeong-hyeon and the ground was now roughly 80 degrees.
And she would hold that for another three minutes.
"B-boss…!"
"That's twenty seconds ago."
"Hnnnngh!"
From 180 degrees to 0.
Over and over, she tilted her body forward and back in ten-degree increments.
And the entire position was anchored by the prosthetic arm alone.
This was Choi Jeong-hyeon's fourth set of it now.
"It's the most efficient training there is for building muscular endurance and fine control of the prosthesis at the same time."
"Yeees…!"
She answered Lee Jun's every remark with earnest diligence.
He was only explaining, though — she didn't really need to reply.
"Let's do four sets, then take a short break."
"Understoo… ood, sirrr…!"
Color bloomed across Choi Jeong-hyeon's face.
Except she still had eight more to go in this set alone.
Three minutes per position meant over twenty minutes.
But seeing an end in sight, however distant, gave her strength, and she gritted through it with a war cry.
Not that willpower alone carried anyone through anything.
Visibly exhausted, she seemed to be losing strength little by little.
"You're at almost 90 degrees right now, you know? If your form breaks, the clock keeps running."
"What?! No! This is still… fine…!"
Thud—
Choi Jeong-hyeon, utterly spent, dropped limply from the bar.
She lay sprawled on her back, staring frantically at nothing but the ceiling.
"Ah…."
Was she thinking she'd have to start over from the beginning?
Unable to manage any other words, she simply let out a long sigh.
"That hard, huh?"
"Yes…."
"All right, let's rest for a bit."
Lee Jun handed a water bottle to the prone Choi Jeong-hyeon and sat down beside her head.
"This is unfamiliar training, so you've been keeping up remarkably well just doing this much."
"But… you said even this much was something you used to do, boss…."
"I was in my prime gate-clearing days back then — I was in peak condition. Compared to that version of me, even now, nobody alive can touch me on pure stamina."
"Still…."
Choi Jeong-hyeon's voice trailed off.
There was impatience in it.
After a moment of silence, she asked about something else entirely.
"Boss… have you ever wanted something desperately?"
She asked without taking her eyes off the ceiling.
Even at a glance, her gaze was impossibly tangled.
Times when I wanted something desperately.
The answer to that is remarkably simple.
Always.
Every moment, every hour.
Lee Jun had always been desperate.
Walking the same path as everyone else meant being left behind.
His stride was fundamentally different from theirs.
No mana, no stats, no status window… nothing.
While every other awakened soul enjoyed the blessings bestowed upon them, he'd been thrown into the sole obligation of slaying monsters with none of the gifts.
But Lee Jun never complained about his circumstances.
He simply… hated being incompetent. The duty of a hunter itself, he never resented.
If your stride is different, how do you avoid falling behind?
You take two steps for everyone else's one.
If that's not enough, you take even more.
If even that falls short… you run flat-out.
Never stop hurrying your steps, never stop scrambling forward, whipping yourself onward.
Because he refused to be the dead weight dragging on someone's ankle.
He had always been desperate.
"There was a time I trained with my teeth clenched, too, you know."
"But you're an incredible hunter, boss…."
"Me? Now that's a fresh perspective."
"Still… you're S-Class, and you were Vice Chairman, too. And the other S-Class hunters seem to seek you out constantly…."
Choi Jeong-hyeon hadn't been in management all that long.
Five days, at most.
And in that time, three S-Class hunters had come looking.
Word had it that Yelena of Russia and Evrah of America had also dropped by the residence not long ago.
The Director of the Technology Bureau was a talent Lee Jun had recruited into the Association, and his persuading of Freya was famous, if nothing else.
"If a person like that isn't impressive, then who is?"
"W-well, objectively speaking, I suppose…."
But Lee Jun knew those words were a mirage.
The other S-Classes were… just high-achieving middle school classmates, nothing more.
They'd run together back when none of it amounted to anything, and now that they stood at the very summit of S-Class, they visited him out of the old friendship.
Silhouette had a point.
Lee Jun kept carving himself down.
So then — let's look a little more objectively, shall we?
He survived a gate catastrophe before he was even a legal adult.
Granted, Kyle had been there in that department store — but whatever the reason, he'd walked out of a disaster with a 98% death rate.
Afterward, he'd circled the globe clearing gate after high-grade gate.
Given the era, none of it left a paper trail, but he'd probably rank at the very top of the very top in total gates cleared, even stacked against everything since.
Having solved problem after problem as one of Arcana, he returned to Korea.
He settled Freya — likewise a drifter of the world — in Korea, and together with the Director of the Technology Bureau who'd come along, he rebuilt a nation on the brink of annihilation.
Lee Jun handled the institutional side; the Director and Freya handled the physical.
He also swept the monsters from Korean soil and somehow coaxed the leaders who'd fled overseas into coming home.
He dragged a broken, prostrate Korea back up to the point where it could function as a country, at least.
He had already accomplished so much.
Who cares about a little thing like mana, or combat power?
In every respect except those, Lee Jun had already proven himself.
If he'd only flaunted it a little, public opinion of him would have soared.
Compared to now, it would be overwhelming.
For someone as calculating as Lee Jun… not doing so was the act of an idiot.
I know.
Everything above was the objective view.
But the heart doesn't run on such a tidy sequence of logic.
Lee Jun kept reminding himself.
That he was a nobody, that measured against the other S-Classes he was worthless.
That he was no great existence, so he shouldn't put himself forward.
Lee Jun was always merciless with himself.
Were those achievements truly his own?
Could he really have earned every one of them alone?
Without Kyle in that department store, he wouldn't have survived the gate catastrophe at all.
Without Arcana, clearing those gates would have been an impossible dream.
Without his comrades, he'd never have reached the level he stood at now.
There was a saying Lee Jun lived by.
A person who stops advancing ends there.
It didn't only mean don't cling to the past.
It carried the charge to keep moving forward.
Whatever that forward might be.
Unless he had achieved something alone, Lee Jun set it down.
If, by his own strength alone, placed in the same situation again, he couldn't overcome it… then in the end, it meant nothing.
What's borrowed from another's strength is meaningless.
Comrades are….
precious people.
People I would give anything rather than lose again.
…Those idiots too, I suppose.
There's no right or wrong in it.
Silhouette spoke in a firm, unhesitating voice.
Her usual unpleasant, sticky tone was nowhere to be found.
Clear, and clean.
And woven into it was a gentleness that felt like… an adult gently guiding a child.
The area around his heart felt warm.
Warmth.
Unsettling, and yet somehow forlorn.
Like that warmth of Silhouette's he'd felt inside the gate, once.
So he tried to overcome it—
"……."
He'd let out too many old memories at once.
The words swirled through his skull.
A dizzying sensation.
Again… was it.
"Hoo…."
Lee Jun drew in a slow breath.
He tried to empty his mind, but it only grew more tangled.
Damn it. He'd thought he was improving… and he really hadn't changed at all, had he.
"Ms. Jeong-hyeon, shall we end the break here?"
"Yes? Oh — um… if something I said upset you…."
"No. You gave me something to think about. Thank you."
"Oh, um… I see… yes…."
Choi Jeong-hyeon rose looking somewhat downcast.
She seemed convinced her question had soured Lee Jun's mood.
It was best not to leave unnecessary misunderstandings standing, so he ought to explain a little more here — but.
For some reason, the words wouldn't come.
His thoughts were too tangled for his head to work properly.
Right now he wasn't even sure what he should say about any of it.
"……."
Thud—
Without a word, Lee Jun flopped down onto the floor himself this time.
The overhead lights stung his eyes.
"Boss…?"
"…What kind of person do I look like to you, Ms. Jeong-hyeon?"
"Yes? You mean… to me?"
She tilted her head at the out-of-nowhere question.
But give a chapel-goer three years and even the dog recites scripture — she'd been in management for five days now, after all.
Lee Jun barreling through his own thoughts mid-conversation and leaping to a brand-new topic was something she'd witnessed plenty of times already.
She already knew exactly how to handle moments like this.
Namely: don't panic, and simply roll with the new subject.
"Hmm… you're…."
She pondered deeply.
What kind of person was Lee Jun?
Several things came to mind, but none of them resolved into a single answer.
In the end, she voiced the one that struck her most strongly.
"I think you're a good person."
"A good person?"
"Yes. You have convictions, you do everything you set out to do, and thoroughly. And… you're cool, too. But of all those things, the one that hits me hardest is that."
A good person.
A good person….
"……."
"Ah, um, that is… please don't read too much into it or anything. I haven't known you very long, so…."
"No. Thank you. I feel a little lighter, actually."
Saying that, Lee Jun rose smoothly to his feet.
He definitely felt clearer than before.
And so, he spoke his heart honestly to Choi Jeong-hyeon.
"A 'good person' seems like it suits you better than it suits me."
"Yes— wha—? Ahahehe… y-you mean, me…?"
Choi Jeong-hyeon scratched the back of her head with an embarrassed laugh.
There was warmth in her answer.
Granted, she may well have said it without a second thought… but it had genuinely helped.
"All right then. Shall we resume training?"
"Yes, sir!"
Lee Jun said it with a smile.
Choi Jeong-hyeon answered with vigor.
Despite how brutal it clearly was, she kept pace beautifully.
That desperation she'd shown in the hospital room, it seemed, was nothing temporary.
His head was clear now — he could focus on the training alone.
Just as he was thinking that—
Screech—
The training room door slid open, and someone stepped inside.
Jeanne.
"Oppa? Is this a bad moment?"
"Hm? Ah, no, it's fine. Something wrong?"
"Nothing major. You two seemed to be having an important conversation, so I waited a bit."
She held out a device that looked like an ordinary smartphone.
But it was no ordinary phone.
A form Lee Jun knew well.
One of the communication terminals carried by the members of Arcana.
"What's this for?"
"Just hold it and wait a moment, please."
Lee Jun didn't understand, but he did as Jeanne asked.
Almost immediately, as if it had been waiting for exactly this, the terminal began to vibrate.
Bzzzt— bzzzt—
― Hélène, sœur.
― ligne d'urgence 1.
The words on the screen were in French — Jeanne's mother tongue.
The awakened had a common spoken language, but no common script, so there was nothing to be done about it.
"The sender is… Big Sister Yelena, is what it says?"
Regardless, hotline number one meant Yelena.
Looked like she'd turned up something.