Chapter 3
Instinctively, I checked the woman's status window. Fortunately, it turned out I could view others' status screens as well—hers materialized before me.
Insufficient understanding of the target.
"Holy shit."
Her specs were freakish for an ordinary woman working at a regular café.
In Heroine Possession, the maximum stat for someone in the Academy Dropout Holy Sword Hero—AcaNakSeong for short—was 50. Those numbers didn't belong on a normal person.
A man burst from the explosion, his arms transformed into tentacles tipped with blades. The moment the villain spotted Park Serin, he lashed out with both appendages.
She didn't parry—instead, she dove into his guard and thrust her sword. The blade tip flashed twice, blood sprayed, and two tentacles sailed through the air.
"Gaaahhh!"
With the villain shrieking in agony from his severed arms, Park Serin smashed the sword's hilt into his solar plexus, knocking him out cold.
The only sound in the ensuing silence was the crackle of flames from the blast.
Police arrived soon after, taking custody of the villain from the woman named Park Serin before hauling him away.
I'd hoped to approach her to unravel the mystery of this powerhouse absent from the original story, but she was tied up giving statements to the cops. Conversation would have to wait.
I watched the ability users extinguish the fire for a moment, then remembered I'd come out for a workout and turned to leave.
Now I knew I could view others' status windows too. All that remained was grinding my stats.
"Damn, this is fucking brutal."
Was it because my physical abilities were already way above my pre-possession body's? Buoyed by excitement, I kept pushing without stopping, sprinting full-tilt to the open lot at Tren Park—thirty straight minutes.
Honestly, I was already wiped. Part of me wanted to bail, head home, shower, and crash. But to survive, I had to get stronger somehow. No way thirty minutes of running would cut it for real gains, no matter how grueling it felt right now.
I pushed through sets of push-ups, sit-ups, squats mid-run, then finally paused to catch my breath. First day—maybe call it here? As that thought crossed my mind and I started to stand, my hand brushed a wooden bokken.
Staring at it brought back Park Serin's swordplay from earlier. Even with our massive spec gap, I hadn't properly tracked her swings. The fact that some stranger's blade had blurred past me left a bitter taste.
I gripped the bokken and rose, swinging wildly. I'd never trained kendo or even held a wooden sword before, so I just mimicked moves I'd seen somewhere.
Still, thanks to Swordsmanship Talent, my form started shaping up over time. Each swing sparked an intuition: This angle would hit harder. I repeated it dozens of times to match that feel.
Whenever a strike aligned perfectly with my hunch, an inexplicable pride swelled in my chest.
How long did I loop that? Snapping to, I saw the sky dyed red, the sun rising. My swings were still formless, but the progress felt indescribable.
Regaining my senses, I realized my body was drenched in sweat. Even across all my past lives, I'd never trained this hard.
"Time to head home and rest..."
Hyper-aware of the sweat soaking me, I craved a shower and bed. Retracing my steps home, I tossed the bokken aside and hit the bathroom. To avoid dozing off mid-wash, I rinsed quickly with cool water, collapsed, and passed out before feeling refreshed.
When I woke, the sun hung high noon. Every fiber screamed to sleep more, but I forced myself up. Overdoing it on day one had left my whole body aching with DOMS.
I pulled up my status window to check the changes from yesterday.
Stats rose easily at low levels, sure—but jacking stamina by 2 and strength by 1 overnight was a win. Still a long way to go.
To snag the hidden piece solving Mana Insensitivity, I'd need average stats of at least 8 excluding mana.
Back out for more training and swings.
As I grabbed the bokken to head out, my stomach growled.
...Food first.
Come to think of it, I hadn't eaten since possessing this body. Shoveling spicy stir-fried chicken into my mouth at a dakgalbi joint across from Park Serin's café—Coffee Is Life—I glared at the packed place. Decent food drew a full house.
Gotta chat her up sometime. If luck held, maybe pick up some sword tips... though she'd hardly demo for a stranger.
An A-rank hero near the academy? No way she skipped Heroine Possession. A-ranks were rare and powerful. Too young at 24 for retirement, no visible injuries. Villain? But why smash yesterday's baddie then?
Unknown identity made approaching risky.
Only one life.
Wait till I unlocked Swordsmanship Prodigy at least. Even then, if she was a real villain, I'd die—but a trait made all the difference.
For now, park her on the back burner. Time to train. I wolfed down the dakgalbi and jogged back to yesterday's spot.
Afternoons from 3 to 7: basic training. 7 to midnight: eat, jot notes on what I knew. Then midnight out swinging the bokken. Days blurred like that.
I didn't notice the distant gazes watching me.
As I said, the Heroine Possession I possessed into was a TS possession tale. It kicks off with protagonist Jo Han-gyeol possessing into the game The Academy's Failing Holy Sword Hero—AcaNakSeong.
Stia, the protagonist of AcaNakSeong, lives in a village near the warfront. Chosen as the next holy sword hero after the previous one's death, academy head Galowin deems sending a child to battle inhuman. He urges her to enroll secretly.
Blessed by the stars and wielding the holy sword, Stia joins the strong—but knows she's too weak against the demon king yet. She accepts.
At the academy, she grows through incidents, befriends allies. The possession target? Dina Polaris, a near-nonentity to Stia.
In AcaNakSeong, Dina hides under robes and a mask. Post-credits, her unmasked beauty hooked me—bam, possessed.
Heroine Possession stays light, but Dina's backstory darkens the AcaNakSeong world.
Born stunning, she drew stares. Her awakening? Demon king-level dark magic. People shunned her.
Then her brother Penheim Polaris, obsessed with abilities, experimented on her in secret.
'And Penheim ran countless tests on Dina without telling anyone.'
Traumas bred deep human distrust. That's why game-Dina cloaks up, rarely uses her power unless desperate.
But for possessor Jo Han-gyeol, past was irrelevant.
"No cloaking, flaunting powers freely without a care."
Academy folk swarm her beauty at first, hesitate on learning it's dark magic. But after she saves the school repeatedly...
"That insane story of her seducing women, men, heroes, demon army with her power and looks."
I hadn't read to the demon king arc—probably seduces him too.
"Tch... Shame the author wrapped part 1 and enlisted before part 2."
Full story would've eased things—unresolved plot threads too.
This was Heroine Possession's world, not pure AcaNakSeong, so no sudden apocalypse.
Just dodge monsters or villains on the street. Bonus: graduate elite Astel Academy for a future.
Academy gets raided by demon forces or villains, but with Stia and Dina there... probably safe.
...Probably.
Minimal self-defense for contingencies, and I'm golden. All I can do is thrash to survive.