“Front row, go!”
The morning jog arrived without fail.
“Now, shall we run again~?”
A delightful weekend.
Of course, he started off in high spirits, teasing the trainees.
“Pathetically slow!”
“Ah, come on!”
“Catch that mister!”
The trainees were burning with spite, running desperately, but it was no use.
“Not a chance! Ha!”
Bu Sinhyeok, who naturally came in first, noticed Baek Arin running unusually slowly today.
“What’s she muttering about?”
Baek Arin looked at Bu Sinhyeok with a vacant gaze and muttered,
“My mister wouldn’t be like that. That’s a fake.”
She was running toward him, eyes hazy and unfocused.
“Why’s she like that?”
Lee Chan looked back, gazing at her, who seemed especially out of it today.
“Who knows. Whatever it is, it’s probably because of you, Hyung.”
“Nah.”
He tried to deny it, but it was definitely because of Sinhyeok.
Her gaze was vacant, yet fixed on Sinhyeok the entire time.
“No. The mister in my memories isn’t like that. That’s a fake.”
At the remark denying his very existence right in front of him, Sinhyeok felt a mischievous urge come over him.
“No, it’s me.”
“No! Argh! I said no!”
And she darted off. Sinhyeok burst out laughing and shouted,
“Why are you acting like this?!”
“Go away! Why is this mister so ugly?!”
At the sudden insult to his looks, Sinhyeok felt deeply wronged.
“Hey! That’s not fair! Take it back!”
“Ebebebe! I don’t want to!”
With that, Baek Arin zipped away.
Sinhyeok looked at Lee Chan with an aggrieved expression.
“Am I the problem?”
“Keuheup, I don’t know either. Hyung, you should try to do something.”
Having no clue what was going on, Sinhyeok just headed to his room.
When he got to his room, the blue, squishy puppy he’d received yesterday was sprawled out on the bed.
“This thing is excessively squishy.”
He held the creature—sprawled out in a big X, sleeping soundly, impossible to tell if it was a puppy or a slime.
“I wonder if Baek Arin is throwing a fit, saying the mister in her memories didn’t look like this.”
He lay on the bed, legs crossed, and tried to recall the memory of being dispatched to Hannam-dong in the past.
‘What did I do back then?’
It was when he was serving at Hongik.
‘I did do a lot of things.’
“What was it. I can’t really remember.”
He thought a bit more carefully.
‘The first time she showed a strange reaction was…’
When she was forcibly dragged into a Gate. When he’d forcefully hugged her to hide his presence.
‘There’s no way my mister aged this much.’
“No way.”
Suddenly, one thing came to mind. He had once protected a kid in Hannam-dong.
‘She grew up quite a bit, though.’
Thinking about it now, she must have been around second or third year of middle school.
“Hey! Hey, hey! Tsk! Bu Sinhyeok, don’t think that!”
He scolded himself. Lee Chan entered the room belatedly.
“Hyung, that puppy is sleeping well. But is it really a puppy?”
“Dunno. But did Baek Arin used to live in Hannam-dong?”
“I don’t know. But she’s rich, so probably not?”
“Hmm.”
Sinhyeok scratched his chin and stood up.
“This won’t do. I have to go ask.”
He set the soundly sleeping puppy down with a tap.
“Hey, watch this thing for a bit.”
“Hmm? Hyung! Where are you going?”
“To fact-check.”
He left the quarters and headed to where Baek Arin might be.
“Is she in her room?”
For the first time, he headed to her room.
Naturally, it was off-limits.
“Trainee, back.”
“Yes sir.”
He turned around and went somewhere else she might be instead.
The PX.
As expected, his instinct was right.
There, she was putting on a crazy eating display.
Munch, munch.
With a vacant gaze, she was eating nonstop while cursing someone.
“Die, Bu Sinhyeok.”
“Hey, why kill a perfectly fine person?”
Sinhyeok sat in front of her, making her flinch, and picked up a piece of warm, thawed seasoned chicken and ate it.
“Delicious.”
She glared at Sinhyeok, watching the stolen chicken.
“Enemy.”
“Isn’t it overboard to be called an enemy over one piece of chicken?”
“Ah… yes, why are you here?”
To the sullen her, Sinhyeok tried to recall the past as best he could.
“A yellow dress with lace…… and a really childish butterfly hairpin.”
“Aaaaaaaah!”
She hurriedly got up and shoved the seasoned chicken into Sinhyeok’s mouth.
“Mister, eat a lot! You need more, don’t you?! More, more! Eat!”
“Mmph mmph mmph!”
Sinhyeok smirked, finished eating, and said,
“It was you?”
“Haaaaaa.”
She thunked her head against the table.
“Why did it have to be you, mister. I really liked that person.”
Her words somehow separated the current Sinhyeok from the past Sinhyeok.
“Why are you treating me like a different person….”
She sprang up and pointed at spots on his face with her finger.
“Four wrinkles, deeper nasolabial folds, tons of age spots and freckles everywhere, neck wrinkles, and thick stubble.”
She dealt the final blow with the blatant traces of aging.
“Want me to say more?”
A sharp dagger of time stabbed Sinhyeok in the heart.
“Ah, no. Stop talking.”
“How does this look anything like that person. *Sigh.*”
Baek Arin popped open a cola with a wistful expression.
“Ugh, give me back my first love.”
“He’s clearly right in front of you.”
“That’s why I’m telling you to give him back! No, at least go get some maintenance done!”
Sinhyeok shook his head violently at her outburst.
“Just give up.”
“*Sigh*, I will. So this is why they say first love hurts.”
For some reason, Sinhyeok was hurting quite a bit too.
“Why do I feel like I’m going to cry?”
“I feel like I am too. Shall we cry together?”
At Baek Arin’s suggestion, Sinhyeok’s tears immediately retreated.
“No, that’s way too pathetic.”
She giggled and held out the cola.
“Thanks.”
Baek Arin, having offered the cola, looked at Sinhyeok—who had grown serious before she knew it—and asked,
“Why did you discharge? Back then you told me to come anytime and you’d protect me again. You said you’d be at Hongik forever.”
Sinhyeok fell silent as his past story was blatantly exposed.
“Th-that’s enough.”
Baek Arin seized her chance. She smirked wickedly and continued,
“You talked like you were some epic hero, and now you’ve become a total old man.”
“…….”
Sinhyeok’s mouth locked shut like a padlock.
“What did you do to end up like this?”
“Something just happened. To the point where the beliefs I trusted in crumbled.”
She gave a fairly big nod.
“If it was that bad, I’ll give you that.”
To him leisurely sipping his cola, Arin asked offhandedly,
“Are you going back?”
At the question of whether he would go back, Sinhyeok felt dizzy.
“I don’t know. I want to run away somewhere. Maybe I’ve run too much. It feels like the road’s been cut off, I guess.”
At his low, matter-of-fact words, Arin recalled those days and spoke.
“I decided on my dream after seeing you, mister.”
Sinhyeok looked at her as she talked, sipping her cola.
Her eyes sparkled like stars, beautiful and twinkling.
“I knew you hadn’t Awakened. That you were ordinary, yet you came to a place more dangerous than anyone else’s and saved people.”
She slammed her cola down roughly and glared at Sinhyeok.
“That was so cool back then! Ha, my fantasy is completely shattered.”
“Keukeup, hey, how is that my fault?”
“It’s all your fault. A girl’s dreams aren’t meant to be broken.”
“Good grief. That’s hilarious! I was never broken.”
“You were. And completely, at that!”
She slid the remaining snacks toward him and said,
“A word from someone who used to have a one-sided crush on you in the past?”
“No.”
To the refusing him, Arin spoke, her voice filled with memories.
“I wish you’d shine like you did back then. Back then, how should I say it, you were really like a hero.”
“Keukeup, this is dark history for you.”
She shook her head and stood up, taking her cola.
“If I really could, I’d bury this forever, haah.”
Baek Arin held back her countless rising murderous urges.
“This completely kills my vibe. To think my reunited first love is *this.*”
“Hey, ‘this.’”
“I’m going. I should rest and do nothing this weekend. Don’t look for me.”
She walked away, sipping her cola like the tragic heroine of a drama.
“You’ll get demerits if you walk while eating.”
“Ah!”
Baek Arin immediately turned around and set her cola down with a tap.
“Clean this up!”
She scurried away.
Sinhyeok, left holding the trash, let out a hollow laugh and cleaned up.
“A newbie with no time in service making a senior dispose of trash—the army’s totally ass-backwards~”
He gathered the trash in one place, tidied up, and headed back to his room.
‘To think she’d want me to shine like I did back then…….’
“I can’t shine anymore.”
Because the flame that once emitted light had died down.
* * *
“Did my puppy behave~”
He entered the room and dove onto the bed.
“This thing is really docile.”
Lee Chan said, showing the blue, squishy puppy stretched out limply.
“Right?”
The puppy grinned widely and wagged its tail with loud thumps.
Sinhyeok looked at the single clotted drop of blood in his pocket and fell into thought.
‘What should I do with this?’
He had gone and gathered all the ingredients, but it was annoying, so to speak.
No, he didn’t want to move forward.
“Lee Chan, do you want this?”
“No, if an elf eats something like that carelessly, they get sick.”
“You’re really frail.”
“You eat it, Hyung.”
Sinhyeok sprang up.
And he summoned the book from his inventory and opened a page.
“Then I’ll put it all in a canteen.”
“Hyung, are you going to use that canteen again?”
Lee Chan watched with a disgusted expression.
“Why? This thing is really good.”
He put it all in right away and shook it clack, clack, clack.
Lee Chan shook his head violently.
“That’s blasphemy against alchemy. If it’s made in that rusty canteen, I’ll give my entire salary to you, Hyung.”
[A new potion has been crafted.]
[Under the influence of traits, the Chimera Potion transcends its grade.]
[The Draconian Potion has been completed.]
When Sinhyeok stopped his hand and opened the canteen lid, a violent storm of mana poured out.
“Oh!”
“Uing?!”
He immediately closed the lid.
Hong Ichan looked at Sinhyeok with a bewildered face.
“Hey, bring me your salary.”
“Aaaaah! No, no! I misspoke! Who are you? I don’t know who you are!?”
At the fierce denial, Sinhyeok laughed wickedly.
“Hmm, hmm, your debt is quite substantial.”
Ichan knelt and pleaded.
“Please, at least spare this lowly one’s straw-like blood.”
“Heoheo, shall we try snatching a tenant farmer’s straw~”
Grinning ominously, he approached right up to Ichan’s trembling face.
“I’ll let you off because you’re pitiful. Give me a bottle or something.”
“Yes sir! Here it is, Hyungnim!”
He immediately rummaged through the locker and handed over a water bottle.
Sinhyeok poured the potion in with a gurgle.
“Man, the color is incredible.”
The dark red hue was vivid.
“For some reason, I feel like drinking this would send you straight to your grave?”
“I think so too. We probably shouldn’t drink it unless absolutely necessary.”
Sinhyeok put the crafted Draconian Potion in his inventory and lay down on the bed.
“Auuuugh~ what are we doing from the day after tomorrow?”
“What else, field training. We’re going into the Gates. That’s why they’re letting us rest now.”
At the mention of “Gates,” Sinhyeok made an annoyed face.
“*Sigh*, annoying. I wonder when the Gates will disappear.”
“Annoying? I’m nervous.”
“You came from a Gate and you’re nervous?”
“I’m still nervous.”
Bang.
Baek Arin opened the door and came in, glaring at Sinhyeok with sharp eyes.
“What now? I didn’t do anything wrong.”
“I know. We need to talk about training the day after tomorrow. From now on, it’s real combat!”
Unable to hide her excitement, she bounced around.
“Ugh~ annoying. I hate Gates.”
“It’s a Gate, mister! Ah, I’m looking forward to it. How dangerous will it be? How thrilling?”
Sinhyeok waved his feet dismissively at the excited her.
“If you’re that excited, go alone.”
“Ugh! Come on. Sit down quickly so we can talk seriously.”
“Let’s do it later. We should rest on the weekend.”
“No! We need to plan more thoroughly!”
As the nagging poured out, Sinhyeok quickly turned on the TV beside him.
“Ebebebe, I can’t hear you.”
And he pretended to listen to the TV.
“This is a breaking news report. It is said that two A-rank Gates in Gunsan City are on the verge of a Break. We will deliver more details as they are confirmed.”
Everyone’s attention was focused.
“If it’s Gunsan, it’s close by….”
“Ah, but I’m sure it’ll be fine. There are so many units in the area.”