Chapter 26
“Since I’m the vanguard, I’ll somehow draw the monster’s attention by myself! While I do that, Sora, you snipe it and kill it! You can definitely do it….”
“…….”
“…….”
“…….”
“…W-what is it…? Why are you looking at me like that…?”
The three of them stared at him coldly through the awkward silence.
Seo Woojin could not understand how this was what greeted him after he had forced himself to overcome his fear and return.
‘Uh, huh…?’
Something was different from the atmosphere he had imagined.
Although he certainly deserved to be criticized for panicking, abandoning the others, and running away, he had somehow overcome that fear and returned.
For a moment, Seo Woojin could not understand why such cold looks were being directed at him.
‘Come to think of it, where did the Owlbear go…?’
Only then did Seo Woojin realize why he had returned, and he hurriedly looked around.
What entered his view was a massive monster collapsed with an arrow through its head, along with the male Support student lying on the ground in clearly critical condition.
“W-what…? You already killed it….”
“…Hey, Seo Woojin.”
“…Yeah?”
-SLAAAP!!!
A loud slap echoed through the dungeon. It was loud enough to reach Kim Isabel’s ears even though she was treating the fallen Lee Seonho in the distance.
For Seo Woojin, the slap was an utterly bewildering blow, but not a single person around him—not even Kim Isabel, the priestess—found it particularly strange.
Because he had abandoned the others, they had been forced to defeat the Owlbear among themselves, and the man standing before them was partly responsible for Lee Seonho being injured this badly.
…After all, Seo Woojin had only appeared after the monster was dead and announced that he would participate in the battle, an attitude anyone would have taken as nothing but mockery.
“Are you kidding me?”
“N-no….”
“You crawl out the moment the monster dies and say that, as the vanguard, you’ll draw its attention? Do you even know how we killed that thing without you?”
“…….”
“With you gone, Seonho from Support and Eun-joo from Magic had to draw the monster’s attention between them. Seonho’s lying there after being hit by the Owlbear, and you only show up after it dies to say that?”
“H-how could someone from Support….”
“…What?”
-Grab!
Seo Woojin was still reflexively making excuses even in a situation like this, so Han Sora, furious, grabbed him by the collar.
“And you.”
“M-me what….”
“How can someone from Swordsmanship abandon all the backline positions and run off alone? The Recovery, Magic, Archery, and Support students are all backline roles except you, so why did you run off and disappear first when you should have been the last one to flee?”
“……”
“It’s not about how a Support student could do it. He somehow managed it despite being in Support. Because some bastard who was the only vanguard among us ran away to save his own skin, there was no one but Seonho who could hold the front.”
Seo Woojin had always done nothing but run his mouth about how Support students were a problem and how they were Hunters who could not do their jobs, yet he had dumped the work he was supposed to do on a Support student and run away. Having watched him for so long, Han Sora could not help but feel even more furious.
The real Support student, Lee Seonho, had taken on and sacrificed himself for tasks that were not even his responsibility, while the man who should have been standing in that position was busy mocking him after the battle was over.
If Seonho died, everyone present thought that more than half the blame would belong to this guy.
“Y-you coward….”
“…….”
“I-if anything happens to Seonho… I-I’ll never let you off.”
Han Sora’s blazing eyes, filled with fury as she glared at him, and Cha Eun-joo’s tearful eyes, staring at him with hatred—
Even the eyes of the Recovery girl, hidden behind her veil but clearly glaring at him—all those gazes stabbed into Seo Woojin’s heart one after another.
…And after finally summoning the courage to prepare himself to face the massive monster, he found it so unfair that this was what had greeted him upon his return.
“…So what was I supposed to do?”
“……What?”
“I-I was scared too, so what was I supposed to do!! Because I’m the vanguard, I’m supposed to face a monster like that by myself?! You can talk so comfortably because you’re backline, but a monster that huge scared me too!! I still came back to try to fight it somehow, so why are you all acting like everything was my fault?!”
“Hey, Seo Woojin. Do you even realize what you’re saying right now….”
“I-I wasn’t even as strong as you to begin with! Does it make sense to force me to fight monsters just because I’m from Swordsmanship?! I-if that’s your reasoning, you could have taken the vanguard position yourself, Han Sora!! Why is it always me….”
“Khh, cough, khehk…!!”
“……?!”
“……”
Seo Woojin poured out the words he had been holding back as though venting all his pent-up emotions, but even that did not last very long.
At that very moment, Lee Seonho regained consciousness and got up, drawing everyone’s attention with his cough.
“Se-Seonho…!!”
“Khh, cough…. Hoo, hoo, hoo….”
“P-please don’t get up yet…. Y-you mustn’t….”
The moment Cha Eun-joo heard Lee Seonho’s voice, she rushed over to him like a puppy greeting its owner, while Kim Isabel tended to him and stammeringly urged him to lie back down.
Han Sora also decided that it was better to go to the person who had suffered the most during the Owlbear battle than waste time arguing pointlessly here, and she started walking over.
“Hey, Seo Woojin.”
“……Why.”
“Even if you pass the academy later, don’t act like you know me at school.”
“……”
“If people find out I was childhood friends with a bastard like you, I think I’d die of embarrassment.”
-Step, step….
The women gathered around the lone male student from Support, while Seo Woojin was left standing by himself.
Staring blankly at the scene, he could not utter a word and could do nothing but watch in silence.
⁎ ⁎ ⁎
When I regained consciousness, the first thing that greeted me was excruciating pain, as if someone were chopping into my entire body with an axe.
It seemed that the Suggestion I had placed while passing out had worn off, which had also deactivated the Adrenaline Explosion cast on me.
As a result, all the pain I had forcibly concealed with Suggestion came rushing in at once, so naturally, I was suffering terribly.
“Khh, cough, khehk…!!”
It was far too intense to dismiss by saying that pain was no big deal.
Still… the most important thing was that I was alive.
I had worked so hard to build up the heroines’ favorability, so what would it all mean if I got beaten to death by an early boss?
The important thing was that I had escaped the crisis of suffering a more humiliating death than the original Lee Seonho. I had not even slept with Cha Eun-joo yet, so I could not die during an entrance exam.
“Se-Seonho…!!”
“Hoo, hoo, hoo….”
“P-please don’t get up yet…. Y-you mustn’t….”
…Kim Isabel?
Hearing her voice suddenly, I looked around and only then noticed the blue sky and the open field.
Naturally, I had expected the academy staff to carry me out and for me to wake up in a church or hospital. Since Kim Isabel had androphobia, I had assumed she would be unable to treat me once the Suggestion wore off.
But contrary to my expectations, she was sitting beside me and diligently pouring holy power into my body. Her androphobia clearly had not been resolved, judging by how she trembled and could not look me directly in the eye.
‘It looks like all the favorability I built up really did help.’
Or perhaps it was the effect of the Succubus’s Heart I had temporarily used earlier.
I did not know exactly what Kim Isabel was thinking, so I could not tell how much each of my actions had moved her. All I could do was make a rough guess.
Besides, I had only just regained consciousness, so my mind was not working particularly well yet.
“Seonho! Are you okay?! You’re really alive, right?!”
“You’re overreacting just because I got hit by the Owlbear once. I’m alive, so don’t worry.”
“Waaaaah…!! Thank goodness…. I-I really thought something had happened to you, sniff, sob….”
“Come on, even so, I was only hit once. How badly could I have been hurt….”
-Shake, shake.
“Hm?”
“Y-you almost died…. You really did….”
“R-really…?”
-Nod, nod.
“……”
Judging by the fact that Kim Isabel was saying this, it must really have been dangerous. I would have to be more careful next time.
Fortunately, after this entrance-exam event ended, there would be no dangerous events for a while that would require me to put my body on the line.
I had some time before the entrance ceremony, so I would have to somehow turn Cha Eun-joo into my exclusive mage by then.
Once I officially entered the academy, my practical-exam scores would depend largely on Cha Eun-joo’s abilities.
“I’m glad you’re alive. We thought something had really happened to you, so the mood was incredibly serious.”
“Ah, Han Sora….”
“Still, thanks to you, we somehow managed to defeat the Owlbear. If you hadn’t been here, all of us would have been wiped out by that thing.”
“…I just got lucky. It was a strategy that only worked because you and Kim Isabel happened to be here, Sora. Eun-joo also bravely drew the Owlbear’s attention while continuously casting magic.”
“Why are you leaving out what you did when you suffered the most?”
“Anyone could have done what I did. I don’t think you guys would have had any trouble defeating it even if I hadn’t been here.”
“No…! If you hadn’t been here, we wouldn’t even have thought we could defeat it among ourselves…. Really….”
“I-I think so too….”
“Being too humble for your abilities isn’t very nice to see.”
Cha Eun-joo had always listened to me well enough, but the fact that even the other two were saying things like this proved that risking my life had definitely been worth it.
Come to think of it, if I had been unconscious long enough to wake up, there had probably been enough time for Seo Woojin to return as well… Ah.
“……”
Seo Woojin was standing quite a distance away, silently watching me and the other women.
The fact that he was clenching his fists suggested that something had happened while I was unconscious. There was no way Han Sora would have stayed quiet after seeing Seo Woojin return only once everything was over, having fled once already.
“Why is Seo Woojin over there?”
“…Don’t worry about him.”
“Did you two fight while I was unconscious?”
“…You don’t need to know.”
“……”
“Y-yeah…. Don’t worry about a coward like him, Seonho….”
Judging by everyone’s awkward reactions, they must have made quite a scene.
If Seo Woojin had not abandoned his position, I probably would not have been injured this badly. Since he had appeared only after the battle was over, he might also have looked like the kind of coward who only showed up once he knew he was safe.
Of course, I had deliberately guided things toward this situation, but there was no way they knew what I had been planning.
‘It’s a little unfortunate that I didn’t get to see Seo Woojin’s expression twist in real time.’
After finally summoning the courage to return, only to find that the situation was already over and every heroine was blaming him, he must have had quite a look on his face. Well, his current expression already looked plenty full of displeasure.
Still, since my sacrifice had left such a powerful impression on the three of them after I had suffered enough to pass out, the result was ultimately more beneficial to me. What mattered to me was not how much I could torment Seo Woojin, but how I could make every heroine from the original story mine.
“Phew, let’s harvest the Owlbear’s materials quickly. A monster of this level should give us a pretty high score, too. Since Sora dealt the final blow, she should take the heart, and the brain can go to either Isabel or Eun-joo….”
“Ahh, y-you mustn’t get up…!!”
“I’ll do it! Se-Seonho, you rest…!”
“You’re unbelievable, getting up to harvest materials in that condition.”
Pretending to force myself up, I was immediately laid back down by the heroines, who had all joined forces.
It would be perfect if they all continued getting along this well even after they became my lovers.