Written as Healing, Read as Killing
Written as healing but read as killing. It seemed the time had finally come for Oh Seeun to pay me back. Even as we headed down to the first floor, she kept teasing me from the side the entire time.
“Ah, stop teasing me already…”
I was starting to get tired of it, so raising the white flag was pretty much my only option.
“You really are just too cute.”
“Ah, seriously…”
“…Okay, okay. I’ll stop teasing you now. How about we walk for a bit and have a proper conversation after so long?”
Only after I shot her a glare as a sort of warning did she finally stop.
“…So, has the sponsor contract been finalized?”
Oh Seeun smiled with satisfaction at the question and answered in a confident tone.
“Of course. Starting next year, STD’s team name will change from the ground up to Stardust Crescent—SC for short.”
They’re even changing the name completely…?
“Aha… That’s pretty bold, isn’t it?”
When I thought about how STD had remained STD until the very end of my career in my previous life, it really hit me that I was directly influencing this world.
“…You’ve been glued to games day in and day out, so you wouldn’t know, but quite a lot has been happening outside, you know?”
“But… Weren’t you the one who told me to become a pro gamer…?”
“Hmm? Surely you don’t think stomping noobs as a mid priest and enjoying it counts as pro preparation, do you…?”
Damn… She really knows me too well…
“Ahem… Anyway, I did raise my tier, didn’t I?”
“…Yeah, well, that part is true.”
After trading all sorts of random conversation while wandering the first floor, we eventually arrived in front of the elevator.
“So, where do you want to go now?”
Oh Seeun ruled out the PC bang and told me to pick among a bar, a bathhouse, or the garage.
“The bar feels a bit awkward since it’s still broad daylight… The bathhouse… hmm, I’ll pass. The garage—you mean using that circuit you mentioned last time?”
Oh Seeun nodded.
“You remembered? We’ll do some proper driving there and test out the cars.”
“Oh… Not bad… Wait, hold on a second.”
If this were my first life I might not have known, but right now I was pretty sure I didn’t have a driver’s license. I wondered if it was really okay for me to drive.
“Don’t I not have a license right now?”
“Ah…? Um… Just wait a moment?”
She disappeared somewhere briefly, then soon returned as if nothing had happened, holding a license with my photo on it.
“…Is this even legal?”
“Then shall we go driving? The Ferrari and Porsche—aren’t you excited?”
Oh Seeun lightly ignored my suspicious question and simply pointed with a slightly trembling hand.
…Is this really okay?
The license dispute that wrapped up successfully concluded that since it was private property anyway, there wouldn’t be any major problems.
“Still, you can’t just suddenly whip up a license like this next time. That would be troublesome.”
“Got it~”
At this point I was starting to wonder what kind of emotional shift had happened inside all those lost memories of hers.
“But when you’re with the viewers you don’t act like me… Alright, I’ll stay quiet.”
Honestly… This is exactly why I dislike people with sharp senses.
“…Let’s just go driving.”
“Excellent decision. We’re allies to each other—probably not enemies, right?”
“What’s with that ambiguous answer?”
Oh Seeun simply handed me the keys without another word.
“Here, pick whichever one you want.”
The keys Oh Seeun handed over featured a wide variety of logos—some familiar, others I’d seen somewhere but whose names I couldn’t recall.
“Let’s try this one first.”
My first choice was, of course, every guy’s dream car—the Ferrari.
“Then I’ll take this one.”
Oh Seeun grabbed the Porsche key and climbed into the black Porsche on the left.
When I pressed the button on my Ferrari key, the red Ferrari on the right roared to life.
“What was the model name again…”
In my first life it had definitely been a limited-edition Ferrari worth billions, famous for having the best design among all Ferraris, so I used to know it by heart, but.
My memory’s a bit hazy.
Since the name might be different here anyway, I simply got into my old dream car and followed after Oh Seeun, who had already gone outside first.
We had only just reached the circuit when my phone vibrated.
Oh Seeun: For the first lap let’s treat it as practice to learn the course. Then for the next lap, how about a proper 1v1 race?
Me: Sounds like it’ll be fun after so long.
Oh Seeun: Then just follow me for now.
The moment the message ended, Oh Seeun began circling the circuit at low speed. I followed behind her, taking in the course and the surrounding scenery, and a fresh wave of emotion washed over me.
“It really is… peaceful.”
The view outside no longer showed the crude houses and castles of a fantasy world—only a forest of buildings that blended beautifully with nature. The disgusting people who had once worshipped me as a saint, then cursed me as a witch, and finally bowed their heads like insects after the revolution succeeded were nowhere to be found.
And that quiet, peaceful silence was shattered by another vibration.
Me: I’ll be back soon.
Oh Seeun: Okay.
Oh Seeun: I’ll wait for you at the starting line.
I sent a quick reply and tried to focus more on the course this time.
“It’s harder than I thought.”
Driving a hypercar on an unfamiliar course without my reliable guide was genuinely difficult. I kept losing balance, correcting, losing it again, and only just managed to stop beside Oh Seeun.
Oh Seeun: Want me to go easy on you? lol
Haha… Of course she’d throw out a provocation. She knew exactly what my personality was like, yet she still chose those words to rile me up. It was practically a declaration of war.
Oh Seeun: OK lol
Oh Seeun: We’ll start exactly at 2:10. Set a timer.
2:10… It was currently 2:07, so the race would begin in exactly three minutes.
“Ha… Why am I shaking like this over a silly race?”
Apparently this counted as a contest too—my competitive spirit was burning just as fiercely as it did when I played games. Now that it had come to this, I absolutely had to win.
As time slowly ticked by, the peaceful atmosphere from earlier completely vanished. Only a heavy silence remained. The clock passed eight minutes, then nine. Only thirty seconds remained until ten.
Then the alarm rang.
-VROOOOOOM!!!
With a monstrous exhaust note, both cars shot forward at the same instant.
“Damn it…”
I had definitely taken the early lead with a faster reaction at the start, but the moment we entered the actual course the difference in experience became obvious. I was completely outclassed in the corners and got overtaken. I managed to close some of the gap on the following straight, but every new corner widened the distance again.
“Ha…”
The race that followed that pattern ended in Oh Seeun’s overwhelming victory.
Me: One more time.
Oh Seeun: Hehe. Okay.
But no matter how many “one more times” we played, the gap only narrowed slightly. Beating her remained impossible.
Oh Seeun: Should we call it here?
Me: Just one last time.
Oh Seeun: Last chance, then?
Me: Start at 2:25.
Soon another alarm rang. By now somewhat used to the roar, I launched the car forward with the engine’s growl. As always, I got a slightly faster start, so I held a small lead until the first corner. I even managed to block the inside line and keep the lead through that corner, but—
“Ah.”
Oh Seeun exploited the moment I focused too much on defense. She accelerated a fraction earlier right as the corner ended and slipped past me. On the following corner she drove flawlessly again and pulled ahead.
Oh Seeun: Next time you might actually beat me.
After suffering a complete defeat in our contest, even while riding the elevator back up, the embers of my competitive spirit still refused to die. As if she had expected exactly that, Oh Seeun smiled softly and said,
“Yeah. That’s the expression I wanted to see.”
“…What did you just say?”
Was she trying to pick a fight right now?
“Ah, no, that’s not what I meant. Lately you’ve been winning so much that I thought you might have forgotten what it feels like to desperately need a victory… or the mindset you need after a loss. When you debut, you’ll probably win for a while, but there will definitely come a time when you slip up, so…”
She seemed a little flustered by my unexpectedly sharp reaction and started rambling, words spilling out like machine-gun fire. Still, I roughly understood what she meant.
“So this whole contest was a kind of preventive shot—to reignite my dulled competitive spirit and train my mindset and mentality for when I lose. Is that what you’re saying?”
Oh Seeun nodded vigorously.
“Yes! Exactly that!”
“…So you deliberately lured me to the garage just to make me lose?”
“Eh…? Um… Well… It’s not entirely wrong, but…”
Come to think of it, when she gave me the choices earlier she had mentioned the bar and bathhouse—places that would obviously be restricted—while conveniently forgetting to mention the study or the theater, both of which I would have picked first. That had felt a little suspicious.
“Um… Aren’t you getting hungry? Should we order dinner?”
And seeing her reaction now, it was clear she had guided me here on purpose.
“You do remember telling me that all my bodily functions disappeared because of the black magic side effects, right?”
“Ah…”
Really… She could be so meticulous yet had these subtly sloppy parts. I suppose you could call her consistent.