Chapter 7
“Ah, no…! I-I was just a little nervous…!”
“……”
“I-I really can do better than this… U-ughhh….”
Perhaps it was because she had shown such an utterly pathetic side of herself in front of me. Cha Eun-joo hurriedly denied what she had just done and looked up at me pleadingly.
It was a little cruel to say this about her, but her ability as a Hunter was truly abysmal.
Regardless of how powerful her Awakening ability was, at this rate she would not even be capable of fighting a monster properly.
It was only fortunate that Cha Eun-joo had fought alone just now; if another teammate had been nearby, she might even have attacked an ally.
She had essentially knocked down that one goblin with a strike that was little more than a fluke.
‘Even so….’
One thing was certain: her ability to use dark magic itself was quite good.
They might have been fake monsters made of holograms, but the sight of one with its upper body almost blown apart was sufficient proof of its power.
She had bitten her tongue in fright midway through, but she had nevertheless created and used ten Shadow Balls in that short time, so her incantation speed was at the level of a reasonably active Hunter.
…There was really only one issue. If somehow that timid personality could be fixed, she would have more than enough ability to handle the work of at least two people.
“C-could I try just one more time…? N-next time, I really will do it properly….”
“That’s enough. You don’t need to show me any more.”
“Ah, aah…! I-I really can do it…! I-I won’t make a mistake this time…!!”
“It’s not that I don’t want to see it. I mean that we should start team training from here on out. If we’re going to fight in the same group in the practical exam, we need to get used to working together first, don’t we?”
“H-huh…?”
My calm answer only left Cha Eun-joo even more flustered as she quietly looked up at me.
Her expression seemed to ask whether I really still intended to party with her even after seeing her like that.
“I’ll buff you first, so let’s start again. I’ll train with you this time too, so don’t be too nervous.”
“I-is that okay…? I-I looked so pathetic just now….”
“I’m asking just in case, but you haven’t changed your mind about working with me, have you?”
“N-no! Th-that’s not it!”
“Then don’t say strange things and let’s move on to the next training exercise. I don’t know how you see yourself, but I think you, Eun-joo, could be quite a good partner.”
“H-huh?!”
After taking Cha Eun-joo, who reacted like a character in a comic, back into the hologram training area, I gently placed a hand on her head this time.
“From now on, I’m going to give you a mental buff that will give you courage. Since it’s a mental buff, it might not take properly if you resist it, so please keep that in mind.”
“U-uh-huh….”
Before using Suggestion, I also made sure to loosen Cha Eun-joo’s mental barrier.
‘In the original story, the Suggestion Cha Eun-joo received from Lee Seonho was probably called ‘Courage-Inducing Potion.’’
「Suggestion : Courage-Inducing Potion ※ Target : Cha Eun-joo」
Strictly speaking, it wasn’t a potion, but I had heard that using a concept that actually existed like this made the Suggestion effect work better.
Using ‘Runner’s High’ as my self-suggestion when running with Choi Mari, rather than something like ‘Running Addiction,’ worked on a similar principle.
“Did it work…?”
“For now. Want to test it?”
“……”
“Yeah.”
Judging by how much less her voice was trembling than before, the Suggestion itself seemed to have taken effect properly.
It probably felt to her as though she had received a buff called ‘Courage-Inducing Potion.’ She had no idea that the ability I used was actually Suggestion rather than a buff.
With Cha Eun-joo beside me in the training area, I generated holographic monsters once again with the same setup as before, then stuck close behind her and joined her in battle.
‘Keh-heek!’
‘Kerrrk, keh-heek!’
“Focus, Cha Eun-joo.”
“……”
Unlike before, Cha Eun-joo did not tremble the moment the monsters appeared; she stood firmly on both feet and faced the enemy head-on.
Holding her shoulder firmly from behind, I quietly waited for Cha Eun-joo to deal with the monsters using magic.
‘Keheheeeek!!’
“…Shadow Ball.”
-Boom!
Even with the monster approaching, she neither looked away nor ran. Instead, she calmly formed her magic and blew one goblin apart.
The other two goblins also fell one after another to the magic Cha Eun-joo created, so just as in the original story, the Suggestion effect had clearly worked.
“Good work, Eun-joo.”
“……”
“…Cha Eun-joo?”
Perhaps because she had defeated all three goblins so easily, Cha Eun-joo stood there with a dazed expression, blankly staring at the monsters’ corpses (holograms).
Half a beat later, after realizing what she had accomplished in battle, she suddenly sprang into the air with a loud cry.
-Boing.
“I-I killed them…!!”
“…Yeah, you did kill them, Eun-joo.”
“I-I really killed them…!! A-and all three of them…!!”
“Yeah, you did well. That’s why I told you—you seemed like you could be quite a good partner.”
Each time she hopped up and down excitedly, her large breasts bounced up and down a beat later.
They looked like they would be incredibly soft to touch. It was becoming quite difficult to suppress the urge to let my hand move on its own.
…At this point, she was so excited that she would probably even willingly let me touch her breasts if I asked for that as a reward.
‘Let’s not try anything pointless. I’ll have plenty of time to do lewd things to Cha Eun-joo later.’
Just letting her know that my Awakening ability was effective at offsetting her shortcomings had already brought her nearly 80 percent of the way over to my side, so why deliberately provoke Cha Eun-joo’s wariness here?
No matter how smoothly things were going, acting too hastily was out of the question. After all, Cha Eun-joo and I had known each other for less than six hours; in practical terms, we were still strangers.
When I had been working on winning over Choi Mari, I had once spent more than two weeks merely attracting her attention without even being able to speak to her, so surely I could invest that much time in Cha Eun-joo.
The easier she was to win over, the more thoroughly I intended to train her, eventually turning her into practically my pet.
…When that time came, I would be able to fully enjoy every act I wanted with that voluptuous body of hers.
“L-let’s do it one more time!”
“Huh?”
“I-I feel like I could kill even ten goblins in one go now! W-while the buff is still active, hurry!”
She was really excited now. Perhaps it was the thrill of finally being able to control the power she had never been able to properly use before.
Thinking that it might truly not be impossible to win her over within the week before the next practical exam if I leveraged this feeling, I began setting up the next training exercise.
“Starting with ten right away might be a bit much, so let’s start with five and increase the number gradually.”
“Ah, u-uh-huh….”
“I’ll apply the buff again too. Come over here and lower your head.”
“Ah, okay….”
In truth, there was no need to apply the buff again. Once Suggestion was applied, it continued until I deactivated it.
Even so, deliberately deactivating the Suggestion and applying it again was little more than an excuse to have physical contact with her.
-Stroke, stroke.
“……”
Until the day Cha Eun-joo, who was tensing up beneath me as if nervous, became so accustomed to physical contact with me that she would thrust her head forward of her own accord whenever I merely held out my hand.
One step at a time, slowly. I intended to gradually close the emotional distance between us.
⁎ ⁎ ⁎
-Fwooom!
“Haaah, ha, haaah….”
“Let’s stop here for today. Good work, Cha Eun-joo.”
Even after the mock battle in which I had first used Suggestion on her, Cha Eun-joo and I fought a total of six battles, gradually increasing the number of goblins.
The monsters in the final mock battle were ten goblins.
It was a somewhat difficult opponent for two prospective academy freshmen to face, but Cha Eun-joo, while under Suggestion, was capable of handling that level even by herself.
Her magic’s power and incantation speed had always been reliable, so she cleared even the final mock battle without a problem. After letting Cha Eun-joo fight to her heart’s content, as she had wanted, about an hour and a half had passed before we knew it.
“C-could we do it one more time…?”
She really was excited. The girl who had trembled at the sight of only three goblins had actually gone so far as to say this.
But today’s training with Cha Eun-joo ended here. We needed to end while she was still a little unsatisfied so that I would have another excuse to see her next time.
“We’ve already done plenty. And the training area rental period is almost over.”
“……”
“Let’s do it tomorrow instead. You used a lot of mana today, so it would be better to get plenty of rest and continue tomorrow.”
“…W-we’re doing it tomorrow too? Really?”
“We don’t know what kind of assignment will appear on the practical exam, so there’s no harm in practicing as many different things as possible. Ah, come to think of it, we haven’t exchanged numbers. Can I see your phone for a moment, Eun-joo?”
“Ah, okay…!”
It was a little late, but Cha Eun-joo and I naturally exchanged contact information, giving me a way to call her out even though she ordinarily never ventured outside her house.
In truth, I had decided that succeeding at just this one thing today would already be a major achievement.
On top of that, we promised to take the practical exam together, and I even got the chance to have some casual physical contact with Cha Eun-joo in the training area. It was an unparalleled triumph.
More astonishingly, all of this had happened on the very first day I met Cha Eun-joo. As expected, she was the heroine easiest to win over—for Lee Seonho, at least.
‘The training area rental time… There are roughly 20 minutes left.’
…Twenty minutes should be enough. Enough to try casting ‘hypnosis’ on Cha Eun-joo, as a test.
Since I still couldn’t be certain how powerful my 「Suggestion : Hypnosis」 ability was, Cha Eun-joo was the safest first test subject in several respects.
“Eun-joo, there’s one more thing I want to try before we leave.”
“Something you want to try…?”
“But it’s a somewhat powerful buff, so I feel like asking you to let me use it on you might be a little rude.”
“R-rude…?! H-how could you say that after everything Seonho has done for me…! I-I definitely won’t think it’s rude, so please, tell me anything!”
“…By using my ability, I might be able to fix one of your shortcomings, Eun-joo.”
“……Huh?”
First, I deliberately put on an apologetic expression to create an atmosphere in which it would be difficult for her to refuse, then I brought up the reward she wanted to pique her interest.
“If I use my ‘hypnosis’ buff, I can gradually fix the personality that makes you weak in actual combat.”
“H-hypnosis…?”
“Yeah. That’s why I was hesitating. No matter how I think about it, saying I’m going to hypnotize you under the pretext of giving you a buff sounds strange. And since we only met today, I felt a little uncomfortable asking you to accept a buff like this.”
“……”
A proposal offering to gradually correct her weakness—one she could hardly refuse.
But the catch was a highly suspicious buff called ‘hypnosis.’
An ordinary woman would treat a man she had known for less than a day as a pervert or a weirdo and look at him with contempt if he made such a proposal, but what about Cha Eun-joo?
…What about her, now that today had left her feeling both affection and indebtedness toward me?
“I-it’s okay.”
“Hmm?”
“I-I’ll try it. That ‘hypnosis’ thing….”….I knew that, as she was now, she wouldn’t be able to refuse my proposal.