After almost a week of training, all of the party members gathered in Gaon Academy’s club room.

[2siWoo: I've been practicing shooting recently, so I feel like I've recovered quite a bit of my senses. I have my confidence back.]

[2siWoo: Sakura's skills are no joke. Thanks to her, I've improved quite a lot. I also want to show you my shooting skills.]

[2siWoo: I want to return soon. YuSung, how are you doing? I'll be back before the International Competition resumes.]

Lee SiWoo's place was empty—he still hadn't returned from Japan.

'SiWoo…'

Shin YuSung felt troubled.

When Lee SiWoo told him he would go to Japan, he’d wondered if he should stop him, but he stopped when he saw the motivation in SiWoo’s eyes.

'His eyes were like mine when I was on Martial Spirits’ Mountain…'

YuSung wrote his reply while thinking about SiWoo.

[Shin YuSung: I'll be waiting.]

Although the reply was short, it was more than enough. The empty space on the sofa belonged to SiWoo, so as the party leader, YuSung was just going to wait for him. 

Tap!

At that moment, the club room door opened, and Amy extended her arms.

"Buaa! Party leader! I missed you!" Amy ran in with two paper bags. 

EunAh stopped Amy with her hand. "Stop. If you keep acting like this~ I'll forget your face."

EunAh looked at her while narrowing her eyes for not having gone to the Five Island practice, and Amy covered her mouth while making a shocked expression.

"EunAh. Did you begin hating me for my busy schedule?" Amy dropped the paper bags and collapsed onto the sofa.

"No, just… I'll forget your face. I never said I was going to hate you." As Kim EunAh's weak heart made her waver, Amy smiled in satisfaction.

"Hehe~ Right?"

Amy made EunAh fall into her pace and then slowly began walking toward YuSung.

"Hehe, party leader. Long time no see! Haa, I should have some time with the party leader…"

"What you're doing now is more than enough. I was able to obtain as many votes as Adela… thanks to you, Amy," YuSung said, a smile on his face.

Amy gave him two thumbs up and moved a moved expression. "You're handsome even on the inside…! As expected, you're the best party leader! Although…"

She stopped talking and took a glimpse at EunAh before making a mischievous expression. "I can understand why EunAh is complaining. After all, if I weren't this busy, we could've gotten even closer!"

Amy rubbed her cheeks on EunAh's arms.

"EunAh, I made a decision. I won't go on tour for a while. That was too tiring, and I missed Korean food. Now that I think about it… Is… is this a perfume bottle?!" As expected from a streamer, she was talking non-stop.

"What? A perfume bottle. You're American."

"Come on~ EunAh! I'm half. I'm at least half Korean~"

Although they bickered a lot, they seemed close. 

EunAh called up an image on her Pocket. "Check this out."

Paf!

Kim EunAh had taken a picture of herself making a V-pose before the collapsed Crockison.

"Aren't I amazing? I caught this alone. Although it took me an hour… Haa, the last moment was truly thrilling."

Amy made a bitter smile as she looked at the picture.

'This is just a normal rank 2 monster… And there's no way hunting this would have taken her an hour…'

[Image]

Amy fell into thought.

What was so impressive about hunting a rank 2 monster when she'd hunted a rank 4 Lake Dragon?

"Ah, yes… Impressive. Did you hunt the rank 2 alone?"

"YuSung trained me. Although I've struggled a lot, I definitely became stronger."

"Ah… I… I see. It's because you become stronger… Ah, but two people are missing. SiWoo is in Japan, but what about Sumire?"

"Ah… Sumire?"

Amy silently pointed toward the kitchen.

* * *

Reaper Scans

Translator - Daniel Shin

Proofreader - ilafy

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* * *

Sumire silently stirred the curry.

In reality, there wasn't much to do regarding the curry, but Sumire didn't dare look at YuSung.

"U-ugh… Wh-why did I do that to YuSung…?"

The more she thought of what she'd done the day before, the more embarrassed she became.

[I did a good job… so could you praise me?]

She’d tried to act cute so that he would stroke her head.

[That's unfair.]

She had even pouted.

[Then could I ask you…?]

After that, she’d confidently gotten on YuSung's back.

[YuSung, your back is quite warm.]

She’d even murmured into his ears.

"It… It seems like I've gone crazy."

The more Sumire thought of what happened, the redder she became. She wanted to say that it wasn't her who'd done that, but that excuse didn’t work anymore since Laplace had told her the truth.

[Well, explaining why your personality changes after you accept my strength is quite simple… It's just that you became more honest with your desires.]

Sumire’s confident atmosphere when she used Laplace’s strength and her shy atmosphere were both parts of her personality.

Her low self-esteem disappeared due to Laplace's strength—it wasn't that her personality became that of another person.

That meant that everything she'd done was her own doing.

Acting cute so he would stroke her hair, being carried on his back, and murmuring in her ears in a sweet voice—those were all things Sumire wanted.

'Then, as expected, I…'

As Sumire's thoughts reached that place, her nose turned completely red.

It was a secret she hadn’t revealed to anyone, but she'd thought about what it would be like to become one family with YuSung.

He was kinder than anyone—someone she could truly admire.

Having a destiny of falling in love, becoming family and waking up next to each other every morning, eating breakfast with children that looked like him, murmuring sweet things at night to him, and falling asleep with him… How nice would that be?

Sumire kept stirring the curry with a blank expression on her face.

'YuSung is kind… So I'm sure that being together would make the house warmer.'

Sumire quickly gave up on her thoughts.

YuSung and her were party members; she thought that there was too much distance between them.

'I'm sure that, for YuSung, someone like me…'

To Sumire, YuSung was too perfect, so she was happy to just be his party member.

Going through things as members of the same party, joining hands to get through problems, and him eating delicious food she made…

'That's why I shouldn't be greedy…'

Sumire was smiling bitterly when…

"Sumire."

YuSung entered the kitchen because she had been in there alone for so long, although she was making the same curry as usual.

"Can I help you with something?"

"What? N-no! I'm almost done. If you go back to the sofa and wait a bit more…"

Sumire quickly waved her hand and YuSung replied, "No. I'm going to stay here."

"What…?" Sumire was surprised by his firm answer. 

He kept talking. “Being by yourself is lonely, right?”

Sumire ended up laughing. At that moment, she finally discovered why she began harboring such emotions and why she'd acted like that.

"As expected, YuSung…"

It wasn't any grandiose reason.

"You're… really, kind."

Sumire smiled brightly at him.

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