Chapter 143: Race (2)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 143: Race (2)
After Sion's training ended.
My own training began again.
I sat cross-legged in the center of the training ground, my eyes closed.
Focusing all my senses inward.
Shatter Evil, Reveal Justice, by its nature, is mana that annihilates evil.
But it hadn't fully merged with my original mana.
It was like adding a drop of ink to my own mana, changing its properties.
If I could just break down this barrier and completely transform all of my mana to match the nature of the Fragment...
The level of my output and its precision would become incomparably different.
Of course, this was all just speculation.
I wouldn't know until I tried. It was just one avenue of research.
There was no other way.
With an Expanded Authority, you had to learn by trial and error.
The original story might have had a guide, but there was nothing like that here.
I had to find the path myself. I just had to keep trying until it worked.
Just then, I felt a persistent gaze on my back.
I didn't need to open my eyes to know who it was.
“What are you doing right now?”
A voice full of curiosity.
I slowly opened my eyes.
Sion, dressed in her training clothes, was crouching beside me, watching.
“Tuning my mana.”
At my answer, she tilted her head slightly.
Seeing me do something out of the ordinary must have piqued her curiosity, as she kept asking questions.
“Yeah… it does look like it needs some tuning.”
For a moment, I doubted my ears.
“How can you tell?”
“I can see it.”
She can see it?
This was something most heroes would have trouble sensing, but Sion could?
“You can really see it?”
She shrugged at my question and answered as if it were obvious.
“Yep, I can see it clearly. I guess my eyes are pretty good since I'm an archer.”
“What does it look like?”
As I asked blankly, she grinned and came to sit beside me.
I could see her pale thigh through a tear in her training clothes, but now wasn't the time to be distracted by that.
“I just see it. Something really big and hot… and something warm… all jumbled together.”
She said, poking me with her finger.
I nodded blankly. Her description was abstract, but it wasn't entirely wrong.
Then, looking at me, she said with a very serious expression.
“It looks like it'll be hard to do on your own.”
Then she calmly made a suggestion.
“Want me to help?”
“Can you?”
“Yeah, Grandpa taught me.”
The Old Man was not only an exceptional hero but also a genius at training them.
It seemed he had taught Sion all sorts of things.
I hesitated for a moment but eventually nodded.
Sion wouldn't do anything strange, and if the information came from the Old Man, it was definitely reliable.
“How do you do it?”
When I asked, she stood up quietly instead of answering.
Then she silently approached me from behind as I sat cross-legged.
Unsure of what she was about to do, I waited quietly for her next move.
– Rustle.
I heard the sound of her sitting down behind me, also cross-legged.
A moment later.
– Squeeze.
A soft, warm sensation enveloped my entire back.
Ha Sion was hugging me from behind.
“…!”
My body froze instantly.
Slender arms wrapped gently around my chest, and her soft curves pressed flush against my back.
Sion rested her chin on my shoulder.
I could feel her hot breath by my ear.
The faint scent of shampoo tickling my nose was a bonus.
“Relax… Hae-in.”
Sion whispered softly.
Then, from the palms of her hands, a clear, warm energy of a kind I had never felt before flowed into my body.
But, while the energy should have felt foreign, it was strangely familiar.
‘What is this?’
As if it had found its way home, Sion's energy seeped into me naturally, circulating through every corner of my body.
And that energy began to gently soothe me from within.
I don't know how much time passed.
The two types of mana, which had been moving separately, began to calm down.
It wasn't a perfect union, but it became much easier to manage. It felt like I'd found a lead.
“Hoo…”
I let out a breath.
I'd been skeptical, but Sion's tuning was the real deal.
“Thanks. That was a huge help.”
Now that the tuning was over, I naturally expected her to let go.
But the sensation on my back didn't disappear.
Instead, I felt her arms tighten around me, ever so slightly.
She didn't seem to have any intention of letting go.
“…Sion?”
– Slide.
One of Sion's hands left my body and slowly moved toward my chin.
Her soft fingers cupped my chin, and before I could resist, she gently turned my face to the side.
Now I was face-to-face with her, her chin still resting on my shoulder.
So close I could feel her breath.
There was no trace of playfulness in her eyes.
Something unreadable flickered within them.
Sion's red lips parted slowly, so close to my ear I thought they might touch.
“But, Hae-in.”
A low whisper.
“Do I still… seem like just a little sister to you?”
She wasn't entirely wrong.
From the moment I first met Sion when I was ten.
I had only ever been able to think of her as a little sister.
Someone to protect and look after.
But to be honest, the sensation on my back, which I was trying so hard to ignore, was impossible to dismiss.
I could feel Sion's body pressing even closer.
Her hot breath lingered by my ear.
The past ten years stood as a barrier between us, but it felt like Sion was pushing me forward.
‘One more step,’ she seemed to say.
Finally, I swallowed dryly and opened my mouth very slowly.
My voice was hoarse.
“…No.”
I denied it curtly.
And added.
“Not anymore.”
“Heehee.”
At my words, I heard a satisfied laugh from behind me.
Sion's arms, which had been binding me, slowly loosened.
I slowly turned around.
Sion was smiling at me as if nothing had happened, her face slightly flushed.
“Then, that's all I needed.”
With that, she walked toward the training ground exit with light steps.
“……”
Now, it was certain.
Sion was no longer the good little sister I once knew.
*
– Splash, splash.
In the empty washroom, Jung Hae-in frantically splashed his face with cold, running water.
He had to cool his head. He couldn't think straight while he was so worked up.
He needed to get a grip.
Ha Sion, who to him had always been just a child to protect.
Had, before he knew it, grown up so much in a different sense.
Lifting his face, dripping with cold water, Jung Hae-in met his own eyes in the mirror.
Over his water-beaded reflection, the faces of other women began to appear.
Cheon Yeo-wool's eyes, full of heat in that Vatican hotel room as she whispered about ‘what comes next.’
And the look in Ha Sion's eyes just now in the training ground—it was ultimately the same kind of look.
That wasn't all. There was also the way Kang A-rin had looked at me throughout the auction.
He realized they all had the same eyes.
He'd thought Yu Hana and Yoon Chae-ha were different, at least.
But now, he couldn't even be sure of that.
Considering what had happened between him and Cheon Yeo-wool…
‘…Fuck.’
It was painfully obvious what would happen with the others.
– Splash!
Jung Hae-in scrubbed at his face again, plunging it back into the cold water.
Meanwhile, Ha Sion.
Having returned to her room, she collapsed face-first onto her bed.
Her face was flushed as if it would burst, and her heart was pounding wildly, threatening to leap from her chest.
It was the first time.
The first time she had been so bold, so provocative.
At first, she had only acted out of a desire to help with his Expanded Authority.
The tuning had been done with pure intentions.
But in the end, she'd lost control.
‘What have I done….’
Ever since the day Cheon Yeo-wool and Jung Hae-in had returned together, she hadn't been able to sleep, plagued by impatience and… well, a sense of defeat.
That was why she had done it without thinking.
But as a result of her bold actions, Ha Sion saw a glimmer of hope.
Ha Sion replayed the moment in her mind.
The usual Jung Hae-in, if she had asked such a question, would have undoubtedly smiled leisurely and patted her on the head.
‘Of course.’
He would have said that, drawing a clear line between them.
But he couldn't.
When she hugged him from behind, the muscles in his back had tensed ever so slightly.
His flustered expression.
It was proof that his psychological barrier had crumbled.
'Cheon Yeo-wool was right.'
Truly, there was only one thing left.
If she could just pass that final gate, nothing would stand in her way.
