Ten Days to Wield a Sword Again
Curious gazes poured in from every direction at the small commotion that had broken out in the café.
Startled by Cheon Seo-hui’s unexpected appearance, I finally pulled myself together a beat later and pointed to the seat across from me.
“W-want to sit down for now?”
“…….”
She sat without a word.
I settled into the chair after her, letting out a short breath to quiet my startled heart. A faint tension prickled through me.
Is this the first time I’ve seen her this close?
It hadn’t been intentional, but we were sitting near enough that a slight stretch of the arm would have closed the distance. Thanks to that, I could finally take in Cheon Seo-hui’s face properly—something I had never managed before.
…She’s ridiculously pretty.
Curly black hair swaying near her chin. A face no larger than a fist, yet radiating an intense beauty even without a trace of makeup. And not to be outdone, the violently eye-catching chest that seized attention through her thin short-sleeved T-shirt.
Even I—who had seen countless beauties of every race and barely blinked at ordinary good looks—couldn’t help pouring out admiration. She was that beautiful. On par with Kim Yubin in her prime. Or better.
“……?”
“Ah.”
I snapped out of my mindless admiration at Cheon Seo-hui’s puzzled stare. I had almost called her here only to sit and gawk at her face.
“Sorry. I was just thinking about something for a second…. Uh, want something to drink?”
I added that the place required one order per person and fumbled for my wallet. Then she opened her mouth for the first time, answering carefully.
“…Anything is fine.”
Anything.
Normally I would have told her no such menu existed and made her choose again.
Hmm. So our Seo-hui isn’t a picky eater.
For some reason, even that was gladly accepted today. It seemed the love filter had already settled over my eyes.
Back in the other world, Kim Yubin had a habit of saying the same thing over and over.
Someday, when she returned to her original world, she wanted to drink something called a Java Chip Frappuccino from a famous café franchise. It had been a luxury she could never dream of ordinarily, but she had once received a coupon at a school event and tried it just once. She never forgot that taste, she said, and insisted that when they went back they would buy one together without fail.
In the end, she never got to taste it again.
Anyway.
One day while I was living in a blur of raising Nakyeong, I happened to try the drink my wife had spoken of. It was far too sweet for my palate. Nakyeong, though, loved it—finely crushed ice, a sweetness that made the tongue tingle, and the crunch of chocolate chips she found irresistible.
Remembering that, I ordered the same menu for Cheon Seo-hui.
“Girls seem to like this one. How is it?”
After tasting the drink, Cheon Seo-hui faintly furrowed the corners of her eyes and answered in a low voice.
“…It’s good.”
Unfortunately, her taste buds had not followed her soul.
So Kim Yubin and Cheon Seo-hui really are completely different people…
I swallowed the bitter feeling along with my coffee and carefully broached the real subject. Now it was time to persuade her in earnest.
“First of all…. Thank you for coming out like this.”
“…….”
“Honestly, if you hadn’t shown up by the weekend, I was going to give up entirely.”
Cheon Seo-hui kept her lips tightly shut, staring quietly at her drink while she listened. I tried to lighten the stiff atmosphere with a joke, but the complete lack of reaction was almost embarrassing. It was the same coldness Kim Yubin had shown right after being summoned.
Dragging this out won’t do any good.
Compromising with the familiar iron wall, I cut straight to the point.
“Is the reason you decided to drop out because of your injured arm?”
At that, she suddenly slipped her hand under the table. Looking back, she had never properly shown her left arm. From the outside it looked fine—was there a scar on the inside?
“…Not exactly, but close.”
Cheon Seo-hui carefully opened her mouth and answered that the reason for dropping out was not entirely about the arm. Somehow I felt I already knew what the other reason was.
“If you don’t mind, could you tell me briefly what it is?”
“…I don’t have money.”
As expected, it was her family circumstances.
Across every era and place, the arts and physical disciplines cost a great deal of money—especially fields that required equipment. Even the Academy, which received national support and offered considerable aid of its own, was not enough in reality. For Cheon Seo-hui, now alone, attending the Academy must have been an unbearable burden.
“…Because of your family situation?”
“…….”
“I heard roughly from Teacher Kim. I’m a teacher too, after all—I needed to know the basic background. Sorry for finding out on my own.”
“…Yes.”
“So…. You’re living alone now?”
I crossed my arms and looked at her with a serious face. She gave a small nod in place of an answer.
“No close relatives? A grandmother or….”
“…No.”
“Then living expenses….”
“…The government gives me a little.”
My words stuck in my throat. It was far more bleak than I had imagined. At least there was some national support—without it, something terrible could easily have happened already.
Money…. Money, huh…
After turning it over in my head for a moment, I first asked how she had planned to solve the problem. Once she had decided to drop out, she must have had some special plan.
“What were you going to do after dropping out?”
“…Make money, of course.”
“How?”
“Become an Explorer or something….”
“…With that arm?”
“…….”
At my light rebuttal she bit her lip hard, showing clear frustration. I had vaguely expected it, but she didn’t seem to have any clear plan. Suddenly the thought struck me that she might not have decided to drop out purely because of the injured left arm and the money.
…Is she the type with an enormous amount of pride?
Looking back, that fit. Cheon Seo-hui never gave the impression of mixing freely with the other kids. Most of them had already formed groups after a full semester, yet she alone had remained by herself the entire time. The way she insisted on swinging a sword with her injured left arm was the same. She wasn’t completely without talent for swordsmanship—if she had wanted, she could have found any number of other methods. Change the sword. Change the style. But she hadn’t. She stubbornly lifted the sword with her injured left arm and swung it the way she was used to. It wasn’t that she couldn’t change; she simply refused to, and forced the issue.
Why?
The question rose, but I didn’t bother asking. That was just how prideful people usually were—from the outside, their stubbornness looked almost bizarre. Fortunately, I knew exactly how to handle this type.
…Her personality is exactly the same.
Kim Yubin in her past life had been precisely that sort of person.
“Seo-hui. You know why I came looking for you, right?”
“…….”
“I came to catch you. After seeing your skill. You’ve got real talent. I mean it.”
“…….”
Even the blatant praise didn’t make Cheon Seo-hui so much as blink.
“But here’s the thing…. If you drop out like this, you’re finished. Guaranteed.”
“……!”
Instead, she reacted sensitively to the negative words. I was beginning to get a sense of just how high her pride and self-esteem ran.
“Just asking—you’ve never learned swordsmanship or anything like that before, have you?”
“…No.”
“Right. It looked like you hadn’t. If you’d even gone to a private academy, you wouldn’t have been doing it that way.”
“…What did you just say?”
Cheon Seo-hui flared up at the mocking tone, unable to hold it in. It was the biggest reaction she had shown so far.
“Seo-hui.”
At last I met her eyes straight on and spoke with complete sincerity.
“If I may be so bold, I think dropping out is the stupidest choice you could possibly make.”
“…!”
The Academy was a field of opportunity. There was a reason the nation poured support into it and more than ten thousand applicants flooded in every year. No matter how poor your grades, the moment you graduated from the Academy you were recognized as talent. She couldn’t be unaware of that fact. No—she would know it better than anyone. She must have dreamed of becoming the so-called “dragon from a stream” herself.
“You need to learn. You have no idea how to handle your own talent. If you drop out now, it’s over forever.”
“…I can just go to a private academy.”
Cheon Seo-hui shot back immediately, eyes narrowed.
“No.”
She still hadn’t realized it—how enormous her talent truly was.
“A private academy doesn’t have me.”
“…What?”
I spoke confidently to the girl staring at me as if I were strange.
“A genius has to learn from a genius.”
She let out a hollow laugh, as if she couldn’t believe what she was hearing.
“I look like a crazy bastard right now, don’t I? But look.”
I dug through my wallet and confidently pulled out my Explorer registration card.
“I’ve only been an Explorer for two months.”
“……?”
“I never planned on becoming one, but I scrambled to start so I could become a teacher.”
An Explorer registration card listed the date it was first issued and the dates of any promotions. Cheon Seo-hui, pretending not to care as she glanced at the card, showed a faintly surprised expression.
“There’s no one in this country who uses a sword better than me.”
The sword, being the most popular weapon, drew more talent than any other field. Even at the Academy, the Swordsmanship Department had the most students, didn’t it?
“You said you needed money, right?”
“…….”
“I looked into it—starting from the top ten in the department, scholarships are available.”
Ironically, the Academy as an educational institution was famous for its biased administration. It deliberately fostered fierce competition among students so that the successful ones could be pushed even harder. The most representative example was the academic excellence scholarship. Normally it simply waived tuition, but at the Academy it worked a little differently. Based on each semester’s grades, the top ten students in the department received differential payments—from a few million won at the low end to tens of millions at the high end.
“Let’s try for first place.”
I was confident I could raise Cheon Seo-hui to first place.
“…Me?”
She furrowed her brow instead, looking thoroughly skeptical. First place while carrying a fatal penalty, when even having all four limbs intact would barely be enough. In her eyes I must have looked like a swindler sweet-talking her with honeyed words.
So I decided to prove my ability to her.
“Just ten days.”
“……?”
“Not counting today. Until the cooling-off period ends, learn from me.”
If even then she still felt it wasn’t right, I wouldn’t try to stop her.
“In ten days I’ll have you swinging a sword again.”
After all, once the cooling-off period passed and she declared her withdrawal, it would be over.
“How about it?”
From Cheon Seo-hui’s perspective, it was a gamble with no real reason to refuse.
“…….”
She wore an unconvinced look, yet she didn’t immediately voice a refusal. She was probably thrashing about inside.
There’s no way she can refuse.
Which way her heart would tip was already obvious.