Pine Needles Flow Through My Body (2)
Pine Needles Flow Through My Body (2)
I parted ways with Alice.
After moping around for a while, it was time before I knew it.
It was time to take the test known as the entrance exam.
'It had been fifteen years since I'd done this too.'
It was no big deal of a test.
A ten-stage mock combat exercise against Phantom Bodies inside a special barrier.
Defeat even one Slime at Stage 1 and you passed.
It was the gentlest possible difficulty, since the test existed to weed out ordinary people who'd gotten in illegally.
The test was easy, but that did nothing to ease the tension.
Even so, most of the new students about to take the entrance exam were bundles of nerves.
—A low buzz of chatter.
"See that? The reporters are here."
"Look over there, headhunters showed up too!"
"Ha, I'm nervous...."
Awakeners were indispensable to society and, at the same time, something like idols.
You could call them heroes.
That was why reporters flocked in, hoping to dig up anything they could turn into an article.
Headhunters dispatched by the clans kept their eyes peeled too.
In other words, this was the moment rookie awakeners stood before the world for the first time.
Nerves were only natural.
I was a little nervous, too.
'Making a good first impression on Alice had been a bust... but maybe showing her how well I fought would change that.'
One of my wives from the First Round, Alice.
And... another one.
I had to look good in front of both of them.
Looking cool was a critical part of the mission.
So until my turn came, I just quietly stretched.
"Ahem. Now then, in the order your names are called...."
'One, two. One, two.'
While everyone else stood around, conscious of the cameras and dressed to impress, I was stretching alone in my workout clothes.
...A little pathetic, but I didn't have a choice.
My main stats were in the low 3s. Just a bit stronger than the average adult male.
Even among these rookies, I was probably in the lower-middle ranks.
'No, anyone with lower stats than mine wouldn't be a combat-type awakener. Was I basically last?'
Correction. I was dead last.
When you awakened, your relevant stats jumped quite a bit to match your Innate Talent.
Strength for melee types, Agility for ranged types, and Intelligence and Mana for magic types, that sort of thing.
But my Innate Talent was hypnosis.
The only stat that went up was Luck, the most useless one, pointlessly jumping like "Yahoo~ lucky~".
In short, in terms of stats alone, I was practically dead last here.
There I was, a grown man, surrounded by women in their twenties squealing around me.
'Once I enrolled, I was going to start pumping my stats immediately. This was too humiliating to live with.'
I put more energy into my stretching.
Still, I used to be the S-rank No. 1; there was no way I could get pushed around just because I was short on stats.
I was determined to reach Stage 10, no matter what.
—A low buzz of chatter.
"A male awakener is rare, and on top of that, absurdly handsome? Ha. Should've brought a bigger camera."
"President, there's one guy here whose face alone makes him useful... No, I mean it."
'The reporters... well, they didn't matter.'
By now, the reporters were probably talking behind my back about how one cadet was causing a whole commotion, but I didn't pay it any mind.
Show and prove. All I had to do was demonstrate it.
Anyway, as I kept stretching...
—A frantic dash.
"I-I'm sorry for being late!!"
'Oh. Her outfit looked nice this time.'
Scripted event. Late Alice had made her entrance.
Judging by her now put-together appearance, she really had been late because she'd rushed to change.
The criticism from those women must have really bothered her.
With those thoughts, I stared at her blankly.
Alice, who'd been looking around, met my eyes.
"Ah! Yujin!"
"......?"
Why was she happy to see me? Hadn't my first impression crashed and burned?
Just because I gave her one drink...
"Thank you for the drink. I'm so happy to meet a fellow Pine Bud fan!"
"Ah."
'Giving her that drink must have made me look like a fellow fan.'
...Yup, it was because of the drink.
I knew Alice's favorite drink, but she didn't know that I knew.
Someone had given her this notoriously divisive drink on their very first meeting?
Why would he...?
Ah! He must be a fellow Pine Caterpillar!
He had to be going around spreading the good word of this wonderful drink!
She must have thought something like that, no doubt.
Of course, I had no such taste.
Before the regression, Alice had gotten me to try it a few times, but even after I became middle-aged, it still didn't suit my palate.
Not like I couldn't drink it, but did I really have to?
'But... for the sake of getting close to Alice, I could put up with a little pine flavor.'
Forget 'did I have to.' Starting that day, I was a Pine Caterpillar.
Pine Bud Drink flowed through my veins...!!
"Oh, you like it too? Pine Bud Drink."
"Yes! I even had it shipped overseas to England!"
"Huh. That's kind of nice to hear. Usually when I offer it to people, they hate it."
"Exactly! Why don't they get it? This crisp, cold taste!"
The price of abandoning human dignity was sweet.
Because I hadn't just recovered the Affection I'd lost; I'd succeeded in getting close enough to talk like this.
Amid our back-and-forth, my nerves slowly unwound.
'She was shy, so I'd thought it would take at least a month to get close to her. I was lucky.'
Maybe it was because of the two weeks I'd spent practically wearing my body down to the bone.
It had been so long since I'd received such kindness or spent time with my beloved wife.
The feeling was unbearably sweet.
...Right. When had I ever gotten nervous before a fight?
My master used to say my best trait was that I enjoyed everything.
But here I was, all tense because I absolutely had to win.
That wasn't like me.
'I did not have to be great from the start. I was going to get stronger from then on.'
"Then... number 21, Cadet Seo Yujin. Step forward."
My name was called just as I was healing up in Pine Caterpillar mode.
I grinned and got to my feet.
I felt relaxed, free of the impatience that had secretly been eating away at me.
"It's my turn. I'll be back, Alice."
"Yes! Do your best!"
'Even Alice's literal-sounding Korean was cute.'
I walked forward slowly, step by step.
I headed to the center of the training hall, where a simulation barrier had been raised.
The instructor spoke.
"Cadet Seo Yujin, twenty years old. Correct?"
"Yes."
"The contents of the test...."
"I am aware of them."
"Good. Then pick one of these and begin."
Pick one of these.
She meant the weapons lined up on a nearby table.
I leisurely looked them over.
Longsword. Dagger. Rapier. Scimitar. Main-gauche. Hammer, and other melee weapons.
Longbow. Javelin. Throwing axes. Pistol...?
Wait, why did they have a gun?
I skipped the kind of garbage weapons only background extras used. Next.
Staves... just like last time, they still hadn't prepared many.
Mages really were rare.
"Still haven't decided? If you haven't chosen, I can recommend a weapon that suits...."
I spent so long looking around and thinking that this was what kids used these days that time slipped away.
The instructor must have thought I was undecided, because she held out a dagger.
I flatly refused.
'A dagger? That would look pathetic.'
"That's all right. I've already decided what I'll use."
"Is that so. What weapon?"
"This one."
With that, I picked up my chosen weapon.
Blatant sighs burst out all around me.
"A katana... haah. I won't stop you."
'This bad, huh? Katanas still had the worst reputation.'
The weapon I'd picked up was a katana.
...A weapon that, well, got treated pretty poorly in Korea.
It was the trademark of my master, who had held the undisputed No. 1 spot among the S-ranks since her awakening.
Naturally, the vast majority of awakeners who admired and copied her used one.
But the reality?
'Well, yeah. Master used to hate it too, saying every half-assed loser who carried one was just showing off.'
What kind of weapon was the katana, really?
Focused on cutting power, so it cut well, but that was all it did.
The thin blade, no matter how much you reinforced it with mana, would snap at the slightest provocation.
It was a two-handed weapon you couldn't even use with a shield, and its only attack style was slashing, wasn't it?
There was no way it could be well regarded.
Its relatively light weight also contributed to its low reputation.
Weight directly equaled attack power.
Even in games, swinging a greatsword dealt 100 damage, while a katana would get you 20.
It had merits to match...
Even so, it wasn't something a freshly awakened rookie should use.
That was what everyone in the industry said, unanimously.
Despite that, every year there was a whole crop of kids waving katanas around because they wanted to imitate the S-rank No. 1.
So the widespread katana hate was only the natural result, really.
'Put another way, all you had to do was wield it well.'
But I stubbornly stuck with the katana.
The current S-rank No. 1 who used a katana?
My master and my wife.
I was her direct disciple; of course I could handle a katana.
I wasn't as good as her, but I could hold my own anywhere.
'In any case, I was too short on stats to choose anything else.'
"My strength is still a bit lacking. The heavy stuff is a little...."
"So that's why a short dagger that's also easy to handle... haah. No, never mind."
When I smiled, holding the katana, the instructor's sigh grew even deeper.
She wasn't the only one with that reaction.
—Murmur murmur.
"A katana...?"
"Aika's ruined another one. Good grief."
"They sure do show up every year. The kids who pick the katana."
The headhunters and reporters were no different.
Everyone was looking my way with ambiguous little smiles.
That was how much of a despised weapon the katana was in Korea.
...Not like it was wrong, but getting stared at like that kind of pissed me off.
I didn't feel good at all.
I hated being looked down on while my beloved wives were watching.
As if in defiance, I abruptly yanked the sword from its scabbard.
It was a stylish draw.
'Still, no matter how flashy it looked, this was just empty swagger...'
—Ding!
[Proficiency gained through repeated experience! Passive Skill: Modified Jaha Sword Art Lv.4294967295....]
[Error. Skill level not designated.]
[Reassigning skill level based on user's experience....]
[Success! Passive Skill 'Modified Jaha Sword Art Lv.Max' acquired!]
『Modified Jaha Sword Art (S Rank) - A sword art improved by a master who has attained the Sword Principles for the sake of her disciple. Additional stat correction when using a Japanese sword.』
'...What the hell was this?'
The moment I drew the sword, a violet blaze burst brilliantly from the katana, then faded away.
It had been the symbol of the Jaha Sword Art my master had taught me.
...Now that I thought about it, my master had told me.
That what mattered wasn't parlor tricks like skills, but truly mastering the sword.
That if I did that, I would become strong even without any skills.
'She'd been serious...'
—A low buzz of chatter.
"What was that just now!?"
"An Innate Talent? Melee-type?"
"No, but then that instructor wouldn't have recommended a dagger. She only does that for supporter-type awakeners."
I was dumbfounded, and so were the people watching.
Only a single person was clapping.
"Wow, Yujin. That was so cool!"
"Alice?"
"I'll trust you to show me something amazing!"
Alice. The woman who used to be my wife.
The person I loved, whom I had sworn I would protect this time.
...Well, this worked out.
Thanks to her, I could show off a little.
"Yeah. Look forward to it, Alice. Not that I was planning to hide it, but...."
—I raised the sword with a flourish.
"Truth is, I'm kind of strong."