The Backseat Kibitzer
"Hey, over there. Keep swinging like that, and you'll blow out your shoulder."
A dead silence settled over the training ground.
The girl turned around slowly. She looked to be about twenty years old, her hair tied back short, the pale nape of her neck glistening with sweat. She wore a pair of faded training sweats frayed at the knees, and her eyes—they were ferociously sharp.
"…Who are you?"
Her voice was hoarse and cracked, the kind that came from staying alone in isolation for hours without uttering a single word.
Yuhan, slouched on the bench, merely waved a dismissive hand.
"Don't mind me. I'm just someone who sleeps here."
"Someone who sleeps here?"
"Yeah. The temperature down here is nice."
"...This is an official training facility."
"Exactly. That's why nobody ever comes down."
The girl's brow twitched. "I'm here."
"Oh, right. So you are." Yuhan conceded the point without a fuss and lay back down. "Ignore me. Carry on."
About three seconds ticked by. Her wooden sword began to lift into motion once more—then froze mid-air.
"Excuse me."
"Yeah?"
"What did you just say?"
"About what?"
"About blowing out my shoulder."
"Yeah. It's gonna tear."
The girl lowered the tip of the practice sword with a dull thud and turned squarely toward him. "…Based on what, exactly?"
With his forearm draped lazily over his eyes, Yuhan answered without looking at her.
"Your right shoulder. Every time you swing, it lags half a beat behind. You shouldn't be driving the cut with your arm; you're supposed to strike from your back, but your lats aren't engaged at all."
"...What?"
"And your wrist. You squeeze the hilt white-knuckled at the very end of the stroke, don't you? Don't do that. A blade has to be released through the finish."
"......"
"Keep that up for another thousand swings, and your rotator cuff is going to snap. You'll be laid up for at least a couple of months."
The girl fell utterly silent.
Only then did Yuhan nudge his forearm aside to sneak a glance. She stood motionless, fingers pressed tenderly against her right shoulder.
...Ah, so it already hurts.
The joint had already started breaking down.
Yuhan covered his eyes again, letting out a faint sigh. Haah. I should've just kept my mouth shut.
"…Mister."
"Yeah."
"Are you a hunter?"
"Nope."
"Then how do you know things like that?"
"I don't."
"…Excuse me?"
"I don't know a damn thing. Just talking nonsense. Forget I said anything." Yuhan flapped a hand dismissively in the air. "I'm just an unemployed bum. You shouldn't listen to bums."
Silence hung heavy in the air.
And then—
Thud.
The tip of the wooden sword planted firmly into the floor right beside his bench.
Yuhan opened his eyes. The girl stood directly in front of him, leaning in close. Up close, the deep, dark shadows beneath her eyes were unmistakable—the hollow face of someone who hadn't slept a proper night in months.
"Cha Seorin."
"…Huh?"
"My name. Cha Seorin. I'm twenty, E-rank, never made it as an active hunter, and I've been training down here alone for three years." Seorin drew in a ragged breath, her chest heaving. "What you just said, mister..."
"...Yeah."
"In three whole years, no one has ever said that to me."
Yuhan's expression stiffened ever so faintly. "…No one?"
"No one."
Seorin offered a smile, but the expression was painfully fractured.
"Nobody ever bothers to teach me things like that. Do you know why?"
"...."
"Because I have no talent."
No talent.
The words swept through the cold, stagnant air of the basement facility. Yuhan slowly pushed himself up into a sitting position on the bench.
"…Says who?"
"Everyone."
"Everyone?"
"The evaluation officers at the Bureau. The instructors at the academy. My uncle. My older cousin. My dad." Seorin folded her fingers down one by one, counting them off. "I've been hearing it ever since I was twelve. That I'm a lost cause. That my total mana capacity is in the bottom five percent, so no matter what I do, I'll never climb above E-rank."
"......"
"That's why nobody teaches me. Because teaching someone like me is a complete waste of time." Seorin lifted her chin, staring straight at him. "So, please, mister."
"...Yeah."
"Just say one more thing."
Yuhan offered no reply. His gaze had drifted down toward her hands.
Her right hand—the one that had held the practice sword.
The calluses formed across her skin.
...The placement is strange.
Normally, gripping a blade formed calluses along the base of the fingers. But on her hand, the thick callous sat directly in the center of her palm.
That wasn't a mark earned simply by gripping a hilt. It was the distinct imprint left behind when something powerful flowed directly through the blade.
Across twelve brutal years, Yuhan had seen that mark exactly once.
...A very long time ago.
A little girl peeling potatoes in the imperial palace kitchen had held out a chipped kitchen knife and asked him a question.
"Could someone like me learn to wield a sword, too?"
On that girl's palm, in the exact same spot, had been that very same callous.
"…Mister?"
Yuhan blinked, breaking the spell.
It was just an underground training hall. Two dead fluorescent fixtures buzzing overhead, and the low, mechanical drone of an old vending machine. He turned his eyes away.
"…Never mind. Forget it."
"What?"
"I just came here to sleep. My bad. I was babbling."
Yuhan laid himself flat back down onto the bench. Seorin stood frozen above him for a long time before speaking in a quiet, fragile voice.
"…I guess that's how it is."
"...."
"There's no reason to waste your time on someone like me."
Yuhan offered no defense.
"It's fine. I'm used to it." Seorin pulled the wooden sword free from the floor. "Just... answer me one thing."
"...."
"If I really am hopeless... please, just tell me straight." The tip of her wooden sword trembled slightly. "For three years, nobody has ever told me that I can't do it, nor that I can. Everyone just looks right through me, like I don't even exist."
"......"
"If you just tell me to give up, then I can finally quit."
Yuhan kept his eyes closed. For a long, suffocating moment, he said nothing at all.
Don't do it.
Keep your mouth shut.
Say one word, and you'll end up saying two. Say two words, and you'll end up teaching. And if you start teaching—
A vision of burning castle gates flashed vividly across his mind.
He could still hear the desperate, ragged cries of someone screaming his name into the ash.
And by the time he had finally broken through to arrive, there had been no one left alive.
Yuhan opened his eyes.
"…One bout."
"…Pardon?"
"Come at me. For real."
Seorin's eyes widened in disbelief. "…Right now?"
"Yeah."
"Mister, you're an F-rank—"
"Yeah, F-rank."
Yuhan rose from the bench. He was surprisingly tall. Slouched on the wood, his presence had been negligible, but standing at full height, his silhouette cast a heavy shadow over her.
"If I win, you pack up, go home, and sleep today."
"...."
"And if you win..." Yuhan scratched lazily at the back of his neck. "…I'll give you one more word of advice."
Seorin's gaze wavered with shock. "…Are you serious?"
"Yeah."
"Can I really go all out?"
"Yeah."
"Even if I'm only an E-rank, I might not beat a trained hunter, but I can still hurt a normal person pretty badly—"
"Yeah, yeah."
Yuhan smothered a yawn behind his fist.
"Though it looks like I don't have a weapon."
He casually surveyed their surroundings. The weapon rack with the practice swords stood all the way on the opposite wall; walking over there felt like far too much effort. Vending machine. Bench. And then—the decorative planter box.
Yuhan's gaze came to a halt. A single potted indoor tree, surviving on nothing but the dim glow of fluorescent light, had a slender branch protruding awkwardly toward the bench.
He reached out his hand.
Snap.
The twig snapped cleanly off. It was roughly forty centimeters long, no thicker than a man's index finger, with two lonely green leaves still clinging to the tip. Yuhan held it in his right hand and casually rolled his wrist once.
Seorin's face instantly hardened into cold outrage.
"…Mister."
"Yeah?"
"Are you mocking me right now?"
Yuhan met those fierce, burning eyes with an unbothered stare. And then, his lips curled into an infuriatingly easygoing, brazen smirk.
"Nope."
"This is more than enough."