Shieldbearer Choi Mari (1)

Choi Mari. At the entrance ceremony where the original novel begins, she is a second-year student at Cheonmu Hunter Academy.

She is the second heroine of 『Surviving at Hunter Academy』, naturally growing close to the protagonist while teaching him, who has terrible stamina, how to exercise.

The first is Han Sora, the protagonist’s childhood friend, but we’ll set her aside for now.

Choi Mari’s role is that of a shieldbearer, so naturally she belongs to the Defense Department.

Her one drawback is…when she decides that her teammates are inferior to her, she gives up on defense and tries to switch her role to offense.

In the original, the protagonist stimulates Choi Mari’s protective instincts and makes her overcome her habit of charging ahead, but I have no intention of using that method.

For one thing, I, Lee Seonho, don’t have a handsome enough face to move a woman’s heart, and pretending to be pathetic on purpose to provoke her protective instincts didn’t appeal to me at all.

I might use it as a way to meet Choi Mari for the first time, but if possible, my main goal was to make her see me as someone she could trust and rely on.

That way, she’d obediently let me cast the suggestion on her. There was no need to provoke her wariness by showing her that I was unreliable.

「Suggestion : Runner’s High ※ Target : Lee Seonho」

“Phew, phew, phew….”

So the operation I began was to keep hanging around within Choi Mari’s field of vision whenever she exercised.

This did not mean obstructing her running or deliberately competing with her as if I were conscious of her. Since she was a heroine from the original and had a striking appearance, showing her romantic interest for no reason would only make her wary of me.

Here, I planned to use the strategy from when the original protagonist first met Choi Mari.

‘To begin with, in the original, the protagonist got involved with Choi Mari at the academy gym.’

The catalyst for their meeting was that he found her inability to use the exercise equipment properly frustrating and began teaching her.

If Choi Mari had not spoken to the protagonist simply because she was attracted to his face, then perhaps I could draw her in using a similar method.

With that in mind, I deliberately ran with bad form in the park where Choi Mari came to exercise. Before long, a woman with a pink ponytail appeared behind me and brushed past me into the lead.

-Tap, tap-tap.

“…….”

Choi Mari kicked off against the asphalt and surged ahead as if she wasn’t paying any particular attention to me.

For some reason, the moment she passed me, I felt as though I caught a fresh, invigorating scent.

I did not deliberately adjust my pace just because Choi Mari was nearby. After all, if I ran a few more laps, there would inevitably be a moment when she overtook me again.

First, I had to make it look completely natural. I absolutely could not let her realize that I was conscious of her.

‘Still, she really is hot….’

Choi Mari’s bottom swayed in front of me with every step she took.

Looking at the pink leggings that perfectly matched the color of her hair, I felt a surging desire to smack that soft-looking rear with my palm.

…Of course, I couldn’t actually do that, so I only imagined it in my head. Keeping my gaze where it was, I maintained the same running form and pace as before.

‘Just hold out a little longer. Once I get my hands on her properly, I’ll be able to fondle her butt and breasts to my heart’s content later anyway.’

That ponytail I wanted to grab while taking her from behind, and that slim waist that looked as though it had not an ounce of unnecessary fat—I would make all of it mine someday.

Until then, I had to suppress my desires and focus solely on creating some kind of point of contact.

⁎ ⁎ ⁎

Cheonmu Hunter Academy, Defense Department, Choi Mari.

Recently, she had begun paying a little attention to the suspicious man who had appeared on her running route.

“Huff, huff, huff….”

“…….”

“Haaah, ha, haaah…. Just a little farther….”

“…….”

Twice a day, every morning and evening. She kept running into the strange man whenever she passed along her usual route.

His body was as thin as a dried anchovy, as if he had no muscles at all…yet after watching him run for several days, she found that he seemed to have a surprising amount of grit.

Despite looking the way he did, he wore an expression suggesting that he genuinely enjoyed running itself. Choi Mari, who observed all sorts of people while running on the course morning and evening, found him a little strange.

She occasionally encountered people with physiques that looked completely unsuited to exercise, but this was the first time someone like that had remained in her field of vision for nearly two straight weeks, so she couldn’t help but take notice.

‘He’s a little bothersome. Since I see him almost every day, he keeps getting on my nerves.’

It wasn’t that the sight of the skinny man itself displeased her. Rather, she found his running posture extremely irritating.

He ran with an expression suggesting that he enjoyed exercising, but his running form was so hopelessly sloppy that he clearly had not established any proper technique at all.

People like that usually disappeared from her view within three or four days, even if she happened to encounter them occasionally, so she had tried not to pay attention. But for Choi Mari, ignoring him when he kept showing up before her every day for two whole weeks proved rather difficult.

‘Did he start exercising after not working out at all, then unexpectedly take to it as a hobby? Or is there some reason he has to exercise, even if he has to force himself….’

There were men like that from time to time—men who pretended to like exercise to attract her attention and tried to start a conversation, even if only for a few more words.

But at least she had no need to worry about that with this man. If he’d been doing this for her, he would have spoken to her at least once during those two weeks. If anything, she was the one who had started paying attention, while he did not seem to care about her at all.

As a result, Choi Mari’s wariness toward the man who kept catching her eye naturally weakened. Now, the suspicious man merely looked like a freshman trying to learn how to exercise properly.

‘Still, if he’s going to exercise anyway, he’d be better off learning the proper form before running. I wonder if he’s doing strength training alongside his cardio.

Would it be all right to tell him that he should adjust his diet as well? I wonder if he drinks protein separately. I think the supplement I ordered by mistake last time is supposed to be effective for gaining weight. But if I suddenly gave it to him and told him to drink it, he’d probably be wary…?

Running alone is boring anyway, and if he exercises every day, it wouldn’t be bad to get a little closer to him. Would it be all right to just screw up my courage and talk to him?’

Unless she had to go to the academy, Choi Mari spent nearly half of each day exercising.

The moment she thought that she wanted to teach him, it felt as though his every action began catching her eye.

She thought it would be best to become acquainted first, since he might feel uncomfortable if she suddenly spoke to him, and cautiously made up her mind.

‘If he comes out to exercise at this time tomorrow, I should at least say hello. I can’t stand watching him run around with that sloppy form every day.’

Having a running buddy to talk with while jogging wouldn’t be a bad thing.

Lee Seonho, preparing for the Cheonmu Academy entrance exam. Without meaning to, Choi Mari had committed him to memory.

⁎ ⁎ ⁎

「Suggestion Ended : Runner’s High」

“Huff, huff, huff, hack….”

It had been two weeks since I began deliberately trying to catch Choi Mari’s eye on her exercise route.

As soon as I got home after finishing my evening workout, I barely managed to catch my breath, which had climbed all the way up my throat.

It was a sensation I experienced every morning and evening, but I still couldn’t get used to it. It felt like jumping straight from a heightened state where running felt pleasurable into a body left with nothing but physical fatigue.

Feeling as though a ghost who had died from lack of exercise had possessed my body for about two hours before handing it back, I entered the bathroom, thinking that I had somehow managed to finish my schedule again today.

“Have I gained any weight…? Compared to the first day, I think I’ve put on a little muscle.”

If results appeared after only two weeks, everyone and their dog would be exercising, but the current me was receiving a willpower boost through suggestion magic.

The fastest way to make the body grow was to push it to its limits, so in that respect, there was no doubt that suggestion magic was an efficient means of providing a buff.

…Of course, that was only insofar as I could cast it on someone else.

‘Being able to place suggestions on myself is definitely an advantage. The problem is that unless I set proper conditions, it pushes me without limit….’

The ‘Cleaning Addict’ suggestion was also limited to the space known as ‘inside my house.’ If I went outside while under that suggestion, I would peel every label off every piece of trash on the ground and every PET bottle in the recycling bin and sort them all out. That was what happened in the original when Lee Seonho placed the Cleaning Addict suggestion on Cha Eun-joo, so the same thing would probably happen to me.

I was also using the ‘Runner’s High’ I currently had active by keeping it on for fifty minutes and turning it off for ten. That way, the ten minutes when it was deactivated naturally became a rest period, allowing me to recognize when my body had reached its limit and stop the suggestion at an appropriate time.

It was important to get myself into a normal physique as quickly as possible, but if I ruined my health by making a careless mistake, all my efforts would be for nothing.

‘By the way, Choi Mari… she’s harder to hook than I expected.’

I thought that if I kept running within her field of vision with a somewhat awkward form, she would speak to me at least once. But with nearly two weeks having passed and her not speaking to me even once, perhaps my method of approaching her was wrong.

‘Is she more wary because this is outside the academy?’

Or perhaps she had taught the original protagonist because the exercise equipment was something she herself had to use, while running offered no such reason, so she simply left me alone.

Or maybe it was simply because I wasn’t the protagonist. Choi Mari wasn’t exactly a girl who was crazy about handsome faces, but objectively speaking, it was true that Lee Seonho’s looks were inferior to Seo Woojin’s.

‘I thought it would be nice to build at least a little familiarity before entering the academy. As expected, it isn’t easy.’

In case she ever spoke to me, I had kept my diet as similar to Choi Mari’s as possible. If even a small excuse to start a conversation arose, we could probably become close much more quickly.

Of course, just because things weren’t going according to plan, I had no intention of stopping the exercise and diet I had already begun.

I was merely hanging around Choi Mari with the attitude that it would be nice if she took the bait, but it wouldn’t matter if she didn’t. For now, she was not my top priority.

The bigger goal was to return this skeletal body to something even remotely close to a normal weight before entering the academy, and to build up the minimum basic stamina necessary so I wouldn’t hold other people back because of my poor endurance.

In any case, having an appearance that looked even slightly more human than this undead-like face would make it easier to approach the heroines.

…As for Cha Eun-joo, my top priority, the original Lee Seonho managed to win her over, so she wasn’t really a concern.

‘For now, I should focus on the real priority rather than the bait.’

Becoming close to Choi Mari was merely an extra benefit.

First and foremost, I must not forget that the academy entrance exam was the most important thing right now.

⁎ ⁎ ⁎

Then, the next morning.

“I feel like I’ve been seeing you around here quite often lately. Have you only recently started exercising?”

…Choi Mari had taken the bait.