#35. Blind Date (3)

#35. Blind Date (3)

Having suddenly been contacted by my blind-date prospect about changing our appointment, I arrived at a restaurant in Cheongdam-dong.

From the interior design onward, everything was luxurious, and every table was in a private room.

Omakase? Fine dining? I’d seen them many times on NewTube, but this was my first time actually coming to one.

I could tell why just by looking at the menu.

The cheapest course cost a whopping 500,000 won, while the most expensive exceeded even one million won.

Given the neighborhood, it seemed to cater primarily to people with money overflowing from their wallets.

“The D course has shrimp as its main dish. Should I go with this?”

In the past, I would have ordered the cheapest thing with trembling hands, but there was no need for that anymore.

The inquiries on the job-seeking post I’d uploaded to the Hunter app before coming here numbered more than I could count.

A mage unaffiliated with a guild is up for hire?

And not a First-Circle mage, but a Second-Circle mage??

“Oh, the party leader is C+, and all the other party members are C-rank too.”

If I went to a C-rank Gate, tossed Fireballs from the rear, and landed one big hit on the boss, I could earn several million won a day, so there was no reason to tremble over a course meal costing hundreds of thousands or even millions of won.

Though Gates were dangerous, if I was in the rear of a party operating at the appropriate rank, I wasn’t likely to get seriously hurt.

For the time being, I figured I should earn money by going to Gates and focus on building my body while learning swordsmanship at the dojo.

Knock, knock—While I was making plans for the future, someone knocked on the door.

I hadn’t rung the bell, so it couldn’t be a server. If so, there was only one person who could be coming.

“I’m not too late, am I?”

Choi Hye-na, my blind-date prospect, entered after opening the door.

With her vivid red hair, purple eyes, and witch outfit steeped in tradition, she was far more beautiful than in the photo.

I realized that, far from being retouched, the photo hadn’t captured even half of her real-life appearance.

“No, I just got here too.”

Choi Hye-na smiled lightly and took her seat.

As she took off her outer garment, her figure shocked me once again.

‘...No, is someone secretly filming some kind of hidden-camera prank on me? Every woman I meet has an unbelievable figure.’

Even the wolf beastkin woman I’d met that afternoon was short, but her figure overall was so incredible that even most models couldn’t compare. Her perfectly trained physique was alluring.

And Choi Hye-na’s breasts were smaller than Iris’s and Cheon Yeo-hwa’s, but her overall proportions were absurd.

That... is a mage? Not a Pilates instructor?

I was newly impressed by Grandma Choi Yeong-ok for introducing me to a woman like that.

“Hmm...”

Just as Kang Hyeon-woo secretly stole glances at Choi Hye-na’s figure according to his male instincts, Choi Hye-na was observing Kang Hyeon-woo according to her instincts as a mage.

More precisely, she was looking at the tremendous amount of mana swirling around him.

Naturally, if a person did not breathe, they could not take in oxygen. The same was true of mana.

Unless a mage heightened their concentration through meditation to absorb mana, mana would not seek out the mage.

But he was different.

The mana circled endlessly around him, as though desperate to become one with him that very instant.

Perhaps because he had not given it permission, it merely lingered there, but the moment he granted permission, it would become his magical power. That meant even the process of making it his own could be shortened drastically.

Of course, possessing a great deal of magical power alone did not allow one to forcibly expand a mana circle.

Even so, no one could disagree that he would be able to perform vastly better than other mages at the same level.

“This is our first time meeting in person. It’s nice to meet you. I’m Choi Hye-na.”

“I’m Kang Hyeon-woo.”

They exchanged a light handshake and their first greetings.

“Shall we order first? I come here often, so I guarantee the food.”

I ordered the D course, whose main dish was pumpkin-flower shrimp from a Gate, while Choi Hye-na ordered the B course, which recreated classic French cuisine.

Once the server took our orders, closed the door, and left, a heavy silence descended between us.

‘What should I talk about?’

Aside from Iris and Cheon Yeo-hwa, I had never properly talked to a woman. Besides, this was my first-ever meeting in the form of a blind date.

To make matters worse, the person sitting across from me was an upper-class human I would never have had any chance of meeting in my old life.

In the end, the silence continued until our ordered dishes arrived.

Of course, the awkwardness and discomfort of that silence applied only to Kang Hyeon-woo.

Until the food arrived, Choi Hye-na continued observing Kang Hyeon-woo without end.

Not only had he reached the Second Circle at the same age as her, but he had supposedly done so in less than a week.

It was preposterous.

Even she, whose dazzling talent had earned her endless praise from everyone around her, had taken six years to build her mana circle.

That had only been possible because, with her family’s help, she had begun receiving lessons at a much younger age than others, who did not start until they turned eleven.

It took another six years to reach the Second Circle, while the Third Circle was a level she had reached partly through sheer luck.

Because of that, it was difficult to regard her as a true Third-Circle mage. She would improve as time passed, but that time was not now.

Of course, this had allowed her to obtain certification as a state-approved mage, but she felt inferior because she was not a true Third-Circle mage.

What had appeared before Choi Hye-na was perhaps a mage her own age who was breaking through the levels at the fastest rate in human history.

‘No matter how I look at him, he doesn’t seem like that kind of genius.’

At first, her suspicions had been strong. Could a monster like that really exist in this world?

She had been convinced that he was a fraud, not a mage, but after facing him directly like this, she could no longer simply deny it.

Kang Hyeon-woo did not notice, but a faint hostility lingered in Choi Hye-na’s eyes. It was a clinging emotion mixed with jealousy and self-loathing.

“It’s delicious.”

Unaware of even that, Kang Hyeon-woo enjoyed the food that had appeared before he knew it.

“...I’m glad.”

Choi Hye-na also continued eating in silence.

***

After the meal was more or less over, I cleansed my palate with the dessert served as the finale.

It was the first time in my life I had spent this much money on a single meal, but I could understand the satisfaction that made people spend money this way.

“Now that we’ve eaten, may I get straight to the point?”

Choi Hye-na wiped her mouth with a napkin and spoke first.

“I’m sorry, but I have no intention of getting married. No, it would be more accurate to say that I have no intention of dating a man in the first place.”

“...?”

Choi Hye-na’s calm statement denied the very purpose of this meeting.

“Then why did you come?”

If that was how she felt, she could have simply refused over the phone. I wondered why she had bothered to change the appointment to the day of and call me out here.

“I was curious. I wanted to know who the person was who had reached the Second Circle at the same age as me—and, moreover, accomplished all of it in less than a week.”

So she had arranged this meeting just to satisfy her own curiosity.

“So now that we’ve met, what do you think?”

Inside the narrow room, Choi Hye-na’s magical power began to writhe and surge.

“To be honest, I don’t like you. Why did that brilliant talent choose a human like you?”

Whether she had given up on pretending to be polite or not, she did not hesitate to reveal her magical power to someone she had just met or answer with open hostility.

“I’ll make you an offer.”

Where had that rude attitude, which looked ready to fire off a spell at any moment, gone? For some whim of hers, the atmosphere changed 180 degrees.

“What kind of offer?”

“It’s simple. Let me study you. Being loved by mana? That’s not something that can easily be dismissed as mere talent.”

Choi Hye-na was a mage.

She decided to put rational interests before emotional jealousy.

“I’ll make sure you’re compensated generously. From what I can tell, you’re quite the pauper. How about thirty million won every time you cooperate with my research?”

It seemed that Choi Hye-na had already completed a blueprint for obtaining what she wanted.

If she could only discover why that man was loved by mana, she would not only reach the complete Third Circle but might even glimpse the Fourth Circle in the near future.

She did not even entertain the possibility that he would refuse.

Since he had lived in poverty as a war orphan, she thought he had no choice but to accept her offer.

Becoming a mage did not mean one should immediately accept sponsorship from just any corporation; if he knew his own talent, he should raise his price and obtain sponsorship under better terms. Therefore, what he needed now would be funds to facilitate his magical research.

If thirty million won was too little, she was willing to offer fifty million. Of course, more than that was fine as well.

She had money to spare.

But Kang Hyeon-woo’s answer far surpassed Choi Hye-na’s expectations.

“What the hell are you talking about, you crazy bitch?”

His perpetually indifferent expression instantly transformed into a murderous one brimming with hostility.

“...What?”

“Hey, open your ears and listen carefully. Do you know what’s more important than being from the Seongbuk Choi clan or being a genius mage or any of that crap? It’s manners, you asshole. Manners. You’re not even a decent human being, and you’re talking about what? A mage? Research? For fuck’s sake.”

He drained the glass of cold water in one gulp.

“It’s bad enough that you changed the appointment to the same day, and that you came to a blind date only to say you had no intention of going on one, but you just casually reveal your magical power to someone you’ve never met? Did that fancy family of yours teach you that was proper etiquette?”

In truth, I could have let the changed appointment and her saying she had no intention of dating slide.

But I couldn’t let go of her calling me a pauper and revealing her magical power.

“From what I can see, Third Circle is your limit. Why? Because you’re not even a decent person. How could someone like that become a high-ranking mage?”

With that, I sprang to my feet.

I left the restaurant, leaving dazed Choi Hye-na behind.

“Phew...”

So this was what it felt like to crave a cigarette.

My first blind date, which had left a bitter aftertaste, had ended in disaster. Regardless of how excellent the meal had been, it had left me in a bad mood.

I figured it would be better to just go home, shower, and sleep, and was about to hail a taxi when—

“Hey!!”

Choi Hye-na, seemingly having rushed out of the restaurant, was glaring at me.

“What?”

“Y-you...!! How dare you say such vile things to me when you’re nothing but a pauper!!”

Choi Hye-na approached me with a face bright red with indignation and a murderous gaze, as if unable to contain her fury.

“You’d better prepare yourself. From now on, you can consider there to be nowhere in this country where you’ll be able to set foot as a mage...”

As Choi Hye-na poured out her anger in a voice full of venom, she suddenly sensed something unusual.

And Kang Hyeon-woo did as well.

What the two exceptionally talented mages sensed at the same time was an anomalous sign from mana whose source they could not identify.

The mana, trembling as though frightened by something, made the two hurriedly try to leave the area.

But in an instant, an enormous, mysterious Gate appeared as though tearing open the air and swallowed the two of them.