Chapter 219
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 219
Chapter Title: A Perfect Score
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Seojun, Aiden, and An Daho headed to the main building’s measurement room.
Oh.
An Daho and Seojun’s eyes lit up at the sight of the incredible machines, the kind you’d only expect to see in a hospital or a pro athlete's training center. Aiden explained.
“Stuntmen sometimes get injured while filming movies. We use the data from the precision measurement room to determine the extent of their injuries and which areas to focus on for rehabilitation.”
The action training center was a place that supplied stuntmen, the backbone of Hollywood blockbusters with their many spectacular action scenes.
Not only were the training facilities excellent, but they also had a well-established rehabilitation program for stuntmen injured during filming. The precision measurement room was a part of that, providing direction for rehabilitation by comparing past and present data.
“Alright, let’s start the measurements from the beginning.”
“Okay!”
With the help of the measurement room staff, Seojun went through each test one by one. Watching from beyond the glass window, An Daho asked.
“How are the results measured?”
“They’re scored from 1 to 20. Twenty is a perfect score. Since the stuntmen are adults, the standard is for adults… Seojun is 14, right? So a perfect score for him would be around 13 or 14.”
Aiden smiled.
“Being an actor, it’ll be tough for him to get a perfect score, of course. Even among stuntmen, a perfect 20 is rare.”
“I see.”
But An Daho, who knew of Seojun’s athletic abilities, thought a perfect score might be easily within his reach.
“What if he does get a perfect score?”
“Well. Based on the test in A3, agility and flexibility are strong possibilities… But even if he gets a perfect score, it’s useless if it’s only in one area. Balance is crucial in athletics. Even if you’re agile, if your endurance is terrible, you’re no good.”
After finishing the lung capacity test, Seojun began the dynamic visual acuity test.
A camera sensor tracked Seojun’s gaze as he followed the dots on the monitor. The dots, which had been moving slowly, began to speed up. Seojun’s pupils moved swiftly to match them.
[Success]
[Success]
[Success]
The staff member in the measurement room widened his eyes at the results appearing on the monitor.
An Daho asked again in response to Aiden’s answer.
“What if he gets a perfect score in everything?”
Aiden laughed as if he’d just heard an amusing joke.
“We’d have to get him into sports immediately. Baseball, football, basketball, you name it. His physique would have to catch up, but at 14, he’s still growing. If we started training him now, he’d be a guaranteed superstar.”
Then, time passed, and the results came out.
The staff who printed the results, the trainer Aiden, and even An Daho, who had been quite expectant, were all at a loss for words.
Seojun took the paper and beamed. The tests were fascinating, so he’d tried his best, and the results were great.
“Daho Hyung! I got a perfect score!”
It was a perfect score. And not just any perfect score,
‘…Not 14 points, but 20?’
It was a 20, a perfect score by adult standards. In every single test.
While everyone else was stunned into silence by a record never before seen at the action training center, only Seojun was delighted, looking at the graph that reached the ceiling.
“I have to tell Mom and Dad!”
Even An Daho, who had a rough idea of Seojun’s athletic prowess, couldn’t help but rub his eyes when he saw it laid out in numbers. Aiden pressed a hand to his forehead, looking at the test results. The hand holding the paper was trembling.
‘This is the athletic ability of a 14-year-old? Maybe if he were an athlete who’s been training since he was a kid… but he’s an actor? A Hollywood actor? No, but are these numbers even achievable through training? At 14…!’
Aiden looked up at Seojun, who was taking a break, then back down at the results, and muttered to himself.
“…Isn’t this going to cause an uproar if it gets out?”
The story about him being offered a spot on the national team no longer sounded like a joke to Aiden.
***
The test, which was supposed to be short, had dragged on. Seojun and An Daho, having spent the entire morning on testing, went out for lunch.
“Did you have a good lunch?”
“Yes! What about you, Aiden?”
“I had a quick bite, too.”
Aiden, who had skipped lunch to formulate a three-week plan while staring at the test results, looked somewhat haggard yet relieved.
Seojun’s eyes sparkled as he waited for the verdict. He and An Daho thought Difficulty 3 was a given, but they knew Aiden might think differently.
“I think you’ll be able to film everything up to Difficulty 3.”
“Yes! I’ll work hard!”
Aiden gave a wry smile as he watched the overjoyed Seojun.
Difficulty 3 was nothing.
If an adult had this kind of physique, he would have trained them up to Difficulty 5. Aiden, who had been debating whether to include a few scenes from Difficulty 4, sighed and stuck to the original plan.
“Your basic physical abilities are solid, and Level 2 is an application of Level 1, and Level 3 is an application of Level 2. You should be able to learn it all in three weeks.”
If he memorized and repeated the storyboard scenes, he would be able to master them perfectly before filming.
“Okay!”
Seeing Seojun’s sheer excitement, Aiden nodded.
“Alright. Today is Difficulty 1. I’ll show you a demonstration first.”
Difficulty 1 consisted of lightly swinging a weapon and dodging attacks.
“In the case of a villain, it’s an attack when facing an ordinary person. There’s no way they’d be hit by a clumsy civilian’s attack, so they dodge it lightly. It looks cooler that way.”
Seojun burst out laughing at Aiden’s demonstration, where he casually dodged by tilting his head left and right.
“Action scenes are only intense when the opponents are evenly matched. We’ll learn that later.”
“Yes.”
“The setting that the Natras’ weapons are shadows is a bit tricky. They expand and contract, so their length and shape vary—staff, spear, sword. It would be difficult with real weapons, but they’re props, so they’re light. It should be fine.”
Besides, his physique could handle it.
Shaking his head inwardly, Aiden brought over two staffs he had prepared. He handed one to Seojun. The staff was lighter than expected.
“First, swinging.”
From top to bottom.
Aiden cut through the air with the staff. A *swoosh* sound echoed from the speed. Next was a diagonal swing from the upper right to the lower left. Then the reverse, from the upper left to the lower right.
Oh, Seojun’s eyes sparkled.
Aiden rested the staff on the floor and spoke.
“Seojun. I heard you learned Kendo?”
“Yes. Though I don’t practice it anymore.”
“It’s a bit long, but you can basically think of it as a wooden sword. Difficulty 1 is about swinging a staff, spear, and sword. It might get a bit boring doing it for a week, but you need to master stopping at the right spot so you don’t hurt your partner. Even if it’s a prop, it hurts to get hit.”
“Okay!”
After that, Aiden demonstrated the scenes from the storyboard, switching between the staff, spear, and sword.
“You have to act too, Seojun. There will be CG here.”
Seojun listened intently as Aiden explained each storyboard panel.
“Here, the police officer fires a gun.”
Aiden even called over Kim Jaeyeon, who had been training alone, and personally reenacted the scenes, sometimes as Jin Natra, sometimes as a civilian. Seojun nodded as he compared it to the storyboard.
Staff, sword, spear.
Jin Natra’s weapon changed with every panel. The scenes where CG would be added looked a bit awkward to An Daho, but Seojun’s eyes gleamed as he pictured the final scene in his head.
“Alright. That’s it for Difficulty 1. How does it look?”
“I think it’ll be fine. Timing is the issue, though.”
“Right. Whether it’s Difficulty 1 or 5, timing is always the issue. That’s why we all practice together, to get the timing right. The plan is to first get you comfortable with the weapons, then practice the storyboard with Jaeyeon.”
“Okay!”
Aiden grinned at Seojun’s energetic reply.
“Let’s just do some simple swings today.”
“Yes! Please take care of me!”
And less than two hours later, Aiden was scratching his head vigorously.
“…Am I doing something wrong right now?”
Was he letting an incredible athletic prodigy go to waste?
Just two hours.
Seojun, swinging the staff, was practically becoming a master of the weapon. Kim Jaeyeon and the other stuntmen were giving him a fervent round of applause.
Maybe it wouldn’t even take a week to learn Difficulty 1.
***
On the way home after the first day of training.
An Daho, at the wheel, spoke up. Pitch-black security vehicles followed in front and behind them.
“How was it?”
“It was so much fun. Aiden said I did great. So tomorrow, I’m going to learn both the sword and the spear.”
“You looked great to me, too. That move at the end where you spun the staff, threw it, and caught it was insane. Where did you see that?”
All he had been taught was how to spin the staff with two hands and with one, but Seojun had already moved on to applications. An Daho recalled Aiden’s stunned face as he watched Seojun throw the spinning staff into the air and catch it, and he burst out laughing.
“I saw it in a movie. A Chinese movie.”
“Chinese movies do have a lot of martial arts.”
Seojun, who still felt the sensation in his hands, made a few swinging motions in the air before leaning back deeply into his seat and speaking.
“But Daho Hyung. Why didn’t Director Ryan send me the storyboard?”
An Daho chuckled softly at Seojun’s slightly complaining tone.
“He probably figured you’d practice beforehand. If you had received the storyboard, you would have immediately gone to the CEO and asked to be sent to an action school, wouldn’t you?”
“Well… that’s true.”
Hmm. That probably would have happened.
“And if he didn’t send you to action school because you might get hurt, you would have practiced alone in the practice room.”
“Haha.”
“Getting hurt then would have been a huge problem. Director Ryan made a good call.”
“Hahahaha.”
It would have been hard to stop him, knowing how disappointed Seojun would be if they told him not to practice out of concern. Well, they would have tried to stop him anyway. An Daho was very grateful for Director Ryan’s decision.
Unable to say he was confident he wouldn’t get hurt, nor that he would heal quickly even if he did, Seojun could only laugh awkwardly at An Daho’s words.
***
After finishing his school homework and emailing his teacher, Seojun went to bed. As his head hit the fluffy pillow, [Winter Hibernation of the Summer Bear] engraved on the back of his head activated automatically. Seo Eunhye chuckled as she tucked in her son, who had fallen asleep in less than ten seconds.
Seojun opened his eyes.
In front of him was the Library of Good. Behind him, the Library of Evil.
Seojun, standing in the center, took a step. It was toward the Library of Evil.
“I hope I can find it today.”
The repercussions of evil abilities were so strong that even though he could open the library doors up to the intermediate level, he hadn’t been using them. Fortunately, [Temporary Skill Degradation], which became available after opening the intermediate doors, also worked on the evil abilities.
Seojun looked through the books in the Library of Evil.
“It would be nice if there was something like the Bell Dokkaebi…”
The ability he had used when filming ‘The Specter’.
[(Good) Bell Dokkaebi’s Teasing of Mr. Kim - Low-Grade -]
Emits the energy of the Bell Dokkaebi.
The form of the energy can be changed.
With the power of the shaman’s bell, you can, on very rare occasions, predict Mr. Kim’s future.
Activation: Mr. Kim, let’s play
Deactivation: Done teasing Mr. Kim
He wanted an energy that was visible to the eye, like the divine, golden will-o'-the-wisp that Director Choi Daeman, Lee Jiseok, and a few staff members had seen back then.
“As if Jin Natra were really moving shadows.”
Seojun’s eyes shone.
Wanting to give Jin Natra’s final story a spectacular conclusion, Seojun did some light stretching and then buried himself in the piles of books again.
***
“Huh? That’s strange.”
The center’s security guard slightly lifted his cap as he watched a man pass through the main gate.
“Kim? Why are you so late today?”
“The bus broke down. I walked all the way from over there.”
“Oh, man. That must’ve been rough.”
Kim Jaeyeon thanked the guard for his sympathy and hurried toward the A3 training ground.
A week had already passed since the Hollywood actor Lee Seojun began his training. In that time, Seojun and Kim Jaeyeon had become quite close.
‘I was even invited to Seojun’s house today. Is it okay to be this happy?’
Ever since becoming Jin Natra’s stuntman, only good things had been happening. He had enough money, and he enjoyed the daily training.
‘The bus incident today, well. You need to ward off bad luck sometimes.’
Unable to hold back his smile, Kim Jaeyeon was grinning foolishly when he noticed something.
“Huh?”
Unlike usual, when few people came and went, the A3 training ground was bustling. Everyone from center staff to stuntmen had gathered, forming a circle around the center of the training area.
Kim Jaeyeon quietly entered the training ground and spotted the stuntmen from the Shadowman team standing in a corner, watching the center of the area. Seojun’s manager, An Daho, was there too.
“What’s going on?”
Kevin, with whom he’d grown close while practicing as Shadowman and Jin Natra, answered.
“Ah. Jaeyeon, you’re here? Richel and Evan came.”
“I guess their schedules are all done.”
“They said they’re free from today until the crank-in.”
“But what’s everyone gathered around for?”
Kevin smiled.
“A little while ago, Evan and Seojun practiced a sequence together, and it was so incredible that everyone came to watch.”
“What?”
Everyone gathered just to watch two actors practice a sequence?
Seeing the bewildered look on Kim Jaeyeon’s face, Kevin sighed and said.
“Never mind me… Jaeyeon. I think you’re going to have to work really hard too.”
Kim Jaeyeon tilted his head at Kevin’s concerned words.
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