Chapter 7 – LV.One Priest Seo Yun – [Two]

When Seo Yun’s expression twisted, Kim Jihyeok flinched, but he stubbornly finished what he had been trying to say.

“What, you are an angel, right? Lesser Angel, starting with 1 point in Divinity as a Race Bonus…”

It wasn’t nonsense. That was Seo Yun’s in-game Race. If you scanned Seo Yun with a Mage’s Spell, it would show ‘Race: Lesser Angel.’

So, did Seo Yun like that damn Race? Not at all. Being called angel-like was used as a compliment for a woman’s beautiful appearance. And Seo Yun still hated her current appearance. Honestly, it was dreadful!

Unable to hide her irritation, she snapped.

“Why don’t you just call me a Troll? What, you don’t call other bastards that?”

Kim Jihyeok hurriedly shook his head.

“No!”

“No, my ass. I know you call anyone with Regeneration as good as a Troll that.”

“It’s really not…”

“First of all, my Regeneration is better than a Troll’s, you idiots. They teach the Rulebook content during school classes, right? Was everyone sleeping during that time?”

Even after Seo Yun stopped venting her annoyance, Kim Jihyeok cautiously watched her mood for a while.

Seo Yun asked as if telling him to get lost quickly.

“So, why did you come?”

Kim Jihyeok answered carefully.

“Well, you’ve been staying alone lately too, right?”

“So?”

“I wanted to tell you not to be too upset.”

“I’m not upset?”

The next moment, Kim Jihyeok made an expression that said he understood everything, which pissed Seo Yun off.

Kim Jihyeok said.

“Those bastards will probably come to like you after some time passes.”

Seo Yun thought about hitting him. But wanting to at least understand why he was saying that, she asked first.

“Why?”

Kim Jihyeok hesitated a bit, then said this.

“Because… you’re fucking pretty.”

And Seo Yun changed her mind. Should she kill him?

“Have I been ugly until now?”

“Until now, it was because they were immature. But time has passed, right? They’re not at the age anymore where they act all silly about being close with someone of the opposite gender.”

“So.”

“So they’ll probably realize soon? The fact that they need to somehow look good to the pretty girl they ostracized for no reason. Maybe they’ve already realized. Look, even Park Taeyang hasn’t been picking fights with you lately, right? His gang too…”

Gradually, it was becoming hard to hold back her anger. Seo Yun said in a subdued voice.

“So what?”

It seemed her emotions seeped into her voice. Kim Jihyeok hurriedly spoke.

“What I want to say is…”

Seo Yun cut him off mid-sentence.

“Up until now, haven’t I openly shown that I hate it when someone compliments my appearance?”

“You have…?”

“You know that, and yet you still do?”

Kim Jihyeok said in a voice tinged with grievance.

“So I…”

Seo Yun was about to snap asking if he wanted to die, but stopped. Forcing her anger down and thinking about it, it didn’t seem like that bastard was spouting that nonsense to deliberately piss her off. Then why?

Seo Yun made an effort to speak in a quiet voice.

“Okay, someday I’ll escape this ostracism, so don’t be too upset, that’s what you want to say, right?”

“Roughly…”

Seo Yun sighed.

“You really don’t need to worry about that.”

Kim Jihyeok cautiously asked again.

“Because you’re leaving the village soon?”

“Yeah.”

“But…”

“But what.”

“If you’re not ostracized anymore… then you don’t need to leave the village, right?”

Only then did Seo Yun realize why Kim Jihyeok had come and spouted all these annoying nonsense. Come to think of it, the time she had announced she would leave the village was almost up.

‘So he came to persuade me not to leave.’

Seo Yun sighed.

“What, you thought I was leaving because I’m ostracized? Like transferring schools to escape ostracism?”

“No?”

“No.”

“Then what on earth is the reason you want to leave the most prosperous village in Incheon? You know there’s no village better than here, right?”

Seo Yun waved her hand in a tired voice.

“It’s a bit hard to say. Anyway, you know me leaving the village is a secret, right?”

“I know…”

“Okay, anyway, you must have been stressed watching me too. You probably felt bad about being a bystander to the ostracism, sorry about that.”

Thinking about it, it was indeed something to be sorry about. Even the current situation was like that. Wasn’t it like a grown adult, boiling over with anger for an unexplainable reason, bullying a kid? She decided to act maturely, even if belatedly.

Seo Yun approached Kim Jihyeok.

As Kim Jihyeok stood blankly, not understanding, Seo Yun reached out her hand.

Just like on the day they first met, she gently stroked Kim Jihyeok’s head. Now that there was a height difference, she did so while standing on her tiptoes and said.

“Anyway, you’re a good kid… I’m really sorry, okay?”

Kim Jihyeok flinched, then hurriedly turned his head away. Silence flowed for a while, then Kim Jihyeok suddenly ran down the Fortress Wall as if fleeing.

Seo Yun waved her hand from behind.

“Yeah, it’s cold, so go on.”

When no reply came back, Seo Yun thought. Hah, bastard.

Seeing him leave without even saying goodbye, he seemed sulky because his persuasion failed, but she decided not to stop him.

There was no need to give unnecessary room. Whatever that bastard said, she was going to leave here.

And it wasn’t an empty statement that the reason wasn’t ‘because of the ostracism.’

It was true that she didn’t feel good about having to stay alone. But Seo Yun wasn’t a teenager who believed school relationships were everything in the world, and she wasn’t even the same age as the village teenagers to begin with.

Being rejected by them was just a stress factor, not a serious enough reason to move her residence…

Lost in thought, Seo Yun suddenly flinched.

Footsteps sounded again. Much louder than Kim Jihyeok’s from earlier.

Sure enough, the person who appeared a moment later was not Kim Jihyeok. Seo Yun sharply confirmed the uninvited guest’s identity.

“Lee Jongho?”

A deep voice, clearly having undergone puberty, replied.

“Yeah…”

Looking at Lee Jongho who appeared on the Fortress Wall, Seo Yun tensed up. Why is that bastard here?

During today’s swordsmanship class, she called him out for a Sparring and hit his neck hard. Is he here for revenge because it hurt? Or to avenge Park Taeyang, whose nose bridge she completely smashed?Considering that guy was originally something like Park Taeyang’s lackey, it wasn’t a baseless assumption. Even though the pecking order among the boys had recently reversed because Park Taeyang remained short while Lee Jongho had shot up in height, the basic friendship dynamic should still remain…

“Why are you here?”

Lee Jongho answered Seo Yun’s question.

“I have something I want to say.”

Seo Yun, wondering whether she should point the guard-duty crossbow at him or not, asked.

“Spit it out.”

After hesitating briefly, Lee Jongho opened his mouth.

“Let’s get along from now on.”

This was another unexpected statement. Seo Yun raised one eyebrow.

“What are you talking about?”

“A week from now, on New Year’s Day… you know what day it is, right?”

Seo Yun nodded.

“The so-called Class Change day. The day the village kids get game jobs.”

“Yeah, after the Class Change, you become a Player. You said you were going to change class too, right?”

“I did. So what?”

“Not everyone who applies for the Class Change gets to change class, only a few of them can. Only those who qualify…”

Seo Yun thought. What the hell is this kid trying to say?

Lee Jongho continued.

“Probably, we’ll only be able to form one hunting party, right? Then all the kids who changed class will have to stick together. Protecting each other… We can’t be on bad terms then, can we?”

“I suppose not.”

Encouraged by Seo Yun’s words, Lee Jongho continued with a more confident voice.

“And from what I see, you and I have a really high chance of succeeding in the Class Change. Since you and I are first and second in swordsmanship. Actually, you’re almost a sure thing. You’re first in swordsmanship and you have other factors too…”

Now she could see what he came to say.

“So, since we’ll likely be in the same party, you want to make peace gradually?”

Lee Jongho nodded vigorously.

“Right.”

“Anyone watching would think I was the one in the wrong?”

“Actually… we did pick a fight with you for a pretty stupid reason.”

“A pretty stupid reason? Pre~tty?”

When Seo Yun mocked him, Lee Jongho bowed his head.

“Okay, we acted like total assholes for a really fucking stupid reason. I haven’t had a chance to bring it up until now to apologize… I’m really sorry. Okay?”

By this point, Seo Yun was surprised. No matter how much calculation there was about needing to restore relations gradually, she didn’t expect him to come with such a low posture. It’s an attitude rarely seen in kids that age.

When she stopped mocking him and stayed silent, Lee Jongho said one last thing.

“That bastard Park Taeyang… sure, he was pretty pissed off today… but he also agreed that we should make peace gradually. He’ll probably apologize someday too.”

Seo Yun could be blunt about that.

“Tell him I don’t need it, so get lost.”

This time too, Lee Jongho didn’t get angry or argue.

“Don’t be like that…”

After that, Lee Jongho went on apologizing for a long time, and only left after bowing at almost a ninety-degree angle.

Watching Lee Jongho leave, Seo Yun felt bewildered. Why is that kid acting like that so belatedly?

Considering she would be leaving this place soon anyway, it was truly a pointless endeavor. Precisely because it was futile, she didn’t even feel like getting angry and asking if he was apologizing just because he needed to, which would have been shameless.

Indeed, even upon reflection, it was futile. Despite the efforts of the two boys who had just sought her out, Seo Yun would be leaving this place soon.

A week from now, after that damn Class Change.

Three years ago, the world became a fantasy game and some people in the world obtained the game’s jobs. Fantasy jobs like Warrior, Mage, Rogue. Those who changed class like that were called Players.

Players acted like actual RPG characters, directly wielding weapons or unleashing magic spells to defeat the monsters that newly appeared in the world, gathering materials, and acquiring Experience Points. And when they gained a certain amount of Experience Points, their Level increased, and their physical and mental abilities also rose. Superhumans who transcended human limits.

There were several Players in this village too, and as they performed the most dangerous and important tasks, they also earned enormous Contribution Points. They were mostly the ones who swept up the items Seo Yun collected outdoors at absurdly high point values.

On the other hand, almost all the village youths wanted to become Players, but Oh Haengbok had declared that he would only grant the right to become a Player to those 17 years or older. He said he couldn’t bear to see kids younger than that fighting for their lives. Actually, 17 wasn’t a sufficient age either, but given the state of the world these days, he said they would roughly consider that age as the tacit adulthood threshold.

And a week from now is New Year’s Day. The day the village’s 16-year-old youths turn 17 in Korean age, and according to the age Seo Yun claimed, she would also turn 17 that day.

Seo Yun would also change class that day.

A week from now, Oh Haengbok would offer Tribute at the Goddess’s Altar made by the village stonemason. Then the Goddess’s Altar would activate and become a Divine Artifact imbued with Divinity, and before it, the village youths would pray for the Goddess to bestow power upon them. And a qualified few would change class and become Players.

Seo Yun thought she would likely be able to change class that day. So she could leave the village the very next day.

She thought it was a shameless act. Living under the village’s protection, then leaving as soon as she got what she wanted? They might even consider her a traitor to the village and try to capture her.

That’s why she had earned Contribution Points to a meaningless degree. The enormous amount of Contribution Points she had earned but not used would prove that Seo Yun hadn’t just lived off the village’s benefits. So it would make her leaving the village after getting what she wanted seem like a kind of fair transaction.