182 – Traces and Scars
“Today’s date was fun.”
“Yes, me too.”
Haley’s sweet and bloody determination before the date didn’t work for Lee Seok-hyun in the end.
Quick-witted Lee Seok-hyun drew a perfect line for Haley with appropriate speech and response.
Sometimes inadvertently protruding compliments, delicately paying attention to things, etc.
Haley caught the role of the ideal man exactly.
‘It’s not like Juran and Meiri stopped talking once in a while.’
Ambiguous faces to be called a girl in love.
That was the face that perfectly grasped Lee Seok-hyun’s unspoken refusal.
Throughout the entire date, Lee Seok-hyun never talked about himself.
It was good to listen to the story, listen carefully, and let the conversation continue with appropriate reactions.
Haley herself was the subject of all conversations, and Lee Seok-hyun just kept talking.
As if separating the audience seats from the stage seats.
Lee Seok-hyun strictly separated and managed the relationship.
Haley, who grew up as the heir to the family by meeting many people, figured this out faster than anyone else.
Lee Seok-hyun seemed to have a scar on something, but he tried to hide even the traces of the wound.
Even so, I couldn’t help but notice the scars from the past.
‘It’s like asking.’
If Lee Seok-hyun hadn’t been the one he protected or had great powers, things might have been different for him.
However, he was the one who defeated Named Mine and stood tall above Mirinae Academy.
A position where it is impossible to see or look down on an equal footing.
That’s why I couldn’t even guess what kind of wound he had, so I couldn’t ask.
Within a few months after breaking up in the North, Seok-Hyun Lee had really changed to a different position.
“…I’ll go first.”
How many times have we been staring at each other without saying anything?
Lee Seok-hyun bid farewell as the sunset hid under the ground.
Hearing that, Haley could only answer two things.
“Ah, uh, sorry, I was holding on to it for nothing.”
Apologizing and letting go.
As soon as Lee Seok-hyun heard that, he turned his back and moved on, even though he gestured no.
Like Mi Joo-ran and Meiri did, silently without looking back even once.
‘I want to hug you.’
In my mind, I held onto the back that was moving away from me and didn’t want to let go.
Why does the back of the being who saved him look so small?
It was too painful to have to watch the wounded beast leave.
On the other hand, Lee Seok-hyun really had no thoughts about dating.
He moved like a factory worker doing the same repetitive labor as always.
A day where we eat rice, eat dessert, play for a while, then talk and then break up.
That was Lee Seok-hyun’s definition of a date.
‘This definitely has a sense of disparity.’
Lee Seok-hyun’s feeling of liking the characters in the game was not about dating.
Just the feeling of being cute and lovable, just like looking at a cat or a puppy.
It was difficult to go beyond that.
Since he entered the game after yielding 100 times, even if he was at eye level, his past was holding him back tightly.
Lee Seok-hyun didn’t come here to do that in the first place.
Accidentally meeting eyes and getting a good impression and continuing good feelings was a long way from his goal.
‘Now is the time to focus on the strategy.’
It was time to whip myself like crazy like a racehorse running forward.
You can eat carrots after crossing the finish line, and you don’t have to.
Rather than thinking about the future, it was more important to do our best in the present.
‘I think after seeing the ending.’
Because I’m the type who values epilogues.
Lee Seok-hyun entered the basement of the destroyed Mirinae Academy Library with that thought in mind.
It was time to explore forbidden books.
+++++++++
‘…No.’
There were more books than expected in the basement of the library, which was humid enough to smell of musty mold.
Among them, there were hidden histories and hidden pieces that would have been nice to have discovered in the past.
However, there was no information about the fate of despair anywhere.
You don’t know the existence at the top while emphasizing that you have to catch the demon?
I didn’t even understand if this made sense.
Come to think of it, even when I was playing the game, there was not a single mention of the fate of despair.
It was the same even when I entered the game now.
Come to think of it, that itself was a strange thing.
Although Final Destiny is dominated by academies, it was largely a game in which the hero captured the demon king.
A game in which one main character grows up to defeat the fate of despair.
Even Woo Do-hyun could wield a holy sword because he was the lead role.
There are cults and demons.
But why is the final boss not the devil, but the fate of despair?
As the thought reached that far, there was even a hypothesis that the fate of despair was not on the side of the devil in the first place.
‘What if it’s a completely outside existence? Really… Like a foreign press.’
If the setting was similar to the beings in the Cthulhu Mythos, there were plenty of possibilities.
In the first place, the fate of despair never appeared when demons were in danger.
Beyond the level of lack of camaraderie, like when you treat others completely.
Then, it was like a kind of reset system that suddenly appeared and presented disaster.
‘Forcing the game to restart, so it’s kind of like a Deus Ex Machina.’
An entity that is forcibly killed because the game judges that it cannot provide more content to the player.
The reason this hypothesis feels credible is rather that there is no data on the fate of despair.
Maybe there is no information because they are not in the game in the first place.
‘Then it makes sense that I haven’t caught it yet.’
No, then I can’t catch him for the rest of my life?
Then how is it going?
‘Then let’s think about the point of view differently.’
Since I entered the game, it was a nonsense story.
Then, it was necessary to consider the main skill that made it possible, Ding Dong Dang.
First of all, the reason the main skill was sealed was because it was always active.
In other words, it is a story that only when I enter the game can I attack the fate of despair.
That means that now, of course, you can kill the fate of despair.
I’ve never been given such special privileges after entering the game.
What do you want to do with the knowledge of the deceased?
I have never received any special privileges on my own.
‘Maybe we just need to meet?’
Meet and find it. Will everything be resolved if I activate Ding Dong Dang one more time?
That was too futile and absurd.
‘I can’t tell anyone.’
It was a more lonely situation than traveling alone.
I was actually outside the game and if I believed you guys were in the game, who would believe it?
Even if I believed it, it was a problem, so I couldn’t even speak in the first place.
Because of this, whenever I faced difficulties like this, I felt terribly lonely.
Except for this part, this is a really nice place to live.
In the first place, it was also a problem that would naturally be solved if only a happy ending was seen.
So, before falling into negative emotions, I sneaked out of the basement of the library.
If you don’t know how the enemy will turn out, there are two ways.
Setting up a base or waiting passively.
However, the current situation is not good, so the choice was the latter.
‘I’ll just have to make the contrast that much.’
I will definitely watch the ending and enjoy the happy epilogue.
I made a promise as I entered the dormitory.
++++++++++
Time flies by quickly. After two months have passed.
Mirinae Academy was restored at an incredible speed, and everything was back to normal.
Not only that, but Tanteroi and Luamos, which Lee Seok-Hyun caused a mess, also went through further evolution.
In the case of Bellutos, Lee Seok-hyun did not play a game, but he quickly identified the problem after seeing the academies being destroyed.
In the end, it could be said that the snowball rolled by Lee Seok-hyun dramatically raised the level of all academies.
However, these things were not widely known because Lee Seok-hyun did them secretly.
Nevertheless, Lee Seok-hyun was enjoying tremendous popularity.
The biggest reason, as I mentioned, was the achievement of catching a named mine.
Is it right for some to have Lee Seok-hyun as a cadet? There was even a story coming out.
In order to catch mines, the academy trains them.
The opinion was that it was difficult to see him as a cadet because he had already beaten that mine better than anyone else.
In fact, scouts came from various guilds, and whenever that happened, people were always curious about Lee Seok-hyun’s reaction.
“…Skeria will give you the position of knight commander, so come.”
“It’s a bit harsh up to that point.”
In the midst of the world getting dizzy.
The existence of a newly born strong man was more valuable than anything else.
Even the strongest student who doesn’t belong anywhere else!
He was a talent that anyone could covet.
And the judgment Lee Seok-hyun made here is right.
“Hey, would you like to make a team at our academy?”
It was to create an independent force that was not influenced by any other force.