“Oh? We meet again.”
The male student, who had recognized me first, approached me with a welcoming expression.
I took a step back, maintaining a wary posture as I looked up at him.
“No need to be wary. I’m a guild member here too.”
“You are? Really?”
I asked again, unable to believe him, and he nodded, saying it was true.
After confirming he was a Blood Scent guild member with his ID card, a question arose.
“If you work here, you’d earn a lot of money, so why do that?”
I almost asked why he lived like that, but I managed to collect myself and soften the question.
He then explained with a slightly bored expression, as if he had heard such questions countless times.
“Kissing charges the magic power needed for a specific skill. You can think of it as charging a phone battery.”
This world was clearly going crazy.
Otherwise, the ‘male lead who kisses for 10,000 won’ trope I saw in online novels couldn’t possibly have changed like this.
What kind of skill was that?
If this was true, I felt incredibly sorry for the male student who had to kiss, whether he wanted to or not, for his skill.
Perhaps I unwittingly made a pitiful expression, as the male student laughed and continued explaining.
There must have been countless people like me who were shocked, then felt sorry for him.
“I can charge magic power with a kiss, and earn money too. Two birds with one stone? I’m single anyway, so there’s nothing to lose.”
He said that one time, he urgently needed to use a skill, so he went into an alley, asked a random female student if he could kiss her, and that led to rumors and he started doing it as a business.
“Just date someone you like instead!”
“Then wouldn’t someone just kidnap them first if they wanted to attack me? And I don’t feel anything for anyone, anyway.”
Although it was for a skill, the male student also seemed to enjoy the situation.
“Many people want this kind of thing, so it’s good for everyone.”
The male student shrugged his shoulders with a conceited expression.
‘Who wants that?!’
I had seen the female student who sought him out with my own eyes, but I wanted to deny reality.
I almost blurted out, “Who exactly wants that?” but barely managed to hold back.
It was strange even when I read about it in novels, but it was surprising that there were quite a few female students who actually sought out a male student doing such a thing.
‘It’s best not to get close to him.’
That was the conclusion I reached as soon as I heard him say that it was good for him and good for the female students, so what was the problem?
After that, whenever I saw him in the Blood Scent Guild, I deliberately walked far away or avoided him altogether.
I had no desire to get close to an online novel male lead with such an incomprehensible way of thinking.
***
On a bright Saturday afternoon, I was busily getting ready to go out and headed to the Hunter Association.
[I’m at the apartment entrance. I’ll be waiting! – Yeon Hyeong-gwang]
As soon as I received this text, I rushed to get ready, not even having time to properly comb my hair.
Today was the day when guild masters regularly gathered at the Hunter Association to exchange updates and hold meetings if necessary.
Originally, it was Yeon Ha Yeon’s responsibility, but since Yeon Ha Yeon was busy studying, Yeon Hyeong-gwang had decided to attend the meeting instead.
I decided to follow Yeon Hyung-gwang to the Hunter Association, partly to announce my affiliation to other guild masters.
I’d naturally planned to go alone, but I hadn’t expected her to come and pick me up.
As soon as we met, we headed straight to the Hunter Association.
The association lounge, which I hadn’t seen in a long time, was surprisingly unchanged from before.
Since it was a space used by guild masters, there weren’t many visitors, and there was little to mess up, so it seemed to have stayed the same.
I practically threw myself onto a beanbag chair placed facing the window.
Almost lying down, I lowered the screen to watch a movie and relax.
This was precisely why I’d asked Yeon Hyung-gwang to go to the association with me.
Staying home all weekend meant a barrage of nagging about when I’d study during exam season, so I couldn’t possibly stay home. ‘I absolutely detest studying.’
I was a person far removed from studying.
But with the constant nagging to study, escaping the house was my only option.
After I became a member of the Blood Scent Guild, my parents readily allowed anything as long as I used the guild as an excuse, making my escape possible.
As the movie was almost over, I heard murmuring from outside.
It seemed the guild masters’ meeting had ended. I wanted to spend as much time as possible in the association lounge before going home, so I didn’t get up.
Soon after, the door opened, and I sensed someone entering.
“Oh? Is that Dana?”
James’s voice came from behind me.
I turned my head to confirm James and Cha Hyun-seo had entered, then got up from the beanbag and greeted them.
The two stood facing each other by the ping-pong table, seemingly planning another game.
James, holding a ping-pong paddle, suddenly opened her mouth as if something had occurred to her, then spoke to me.
“Right, I saw Dana the other day.”
“Me?”
I didn’t recall seeing James and Cha Hyun-seo. I was about to ask where she had seen me when James spoke first.
“Yeah, I was so surprised you went into the gate alone. I was even more surprised when I checked who it was and found out it was you.”
When did she see me?
Since Do Yi-hyun figured out my identity, I had always been on edge when going in and out of gates.
‘Is it because they’re awakened individuals of a higher rank than me right now, so I didn’t notice them immediately?’
At this rate, Yeon Ha Yeon and the Four Heavenly Kings would also find out eventually.
Despite the cold weather, I felt sweat trickling down, perhaps due to the heater in the lounge.
Since she seemed certain it was me, it looked like she had seen me clearly, so I couldn’t deny it.
“Ah, that… you must have seen me when I went in for training.”
I barely managed to come up with a reason for entering the gate alone.
I planned to make up that I had tried training to close gates by myself, as I had just awakened but it was before I joined a guild.
I knew that no awakened individual had actually done something like this yet, but couldn’t I be the first?
I decided to brazenly push through.
“Wow, practical training? That’s amazing, isn’t it?”
James seemed to have completely fallen for my lie.
I tried to calm my racing heart, pounding with nervousness, and turned my eyes to Cha Hyun-seo.
“We really should have recruited her to our guild; it’s a bit of a shame we missed out.”
Cha Hyun-seo looked at me with genuine regret as she spoke.
I hadn’t realized that even Cha Hyun-seo, let alone James, had thought about bringing me in as a guild member.
They hadn’t shown any signs, so I was unaware.
Still, it was a relief that both of them seemed to believe my words without suspicion.
‘From now on, if anyone sees me, I’ll have to make up a similar excuse.’
Now that I belonged to the Blood Scent Guild, I would mostly enter gates with guild members, but there would definitely be times when I had to go alone.
No matter how careful I was, there was always a risk of being discovered by awakened individuals of a higher rank than me.
‘I need to raise my rank quickly.’
I checked my status window for the first time in a while.
***
Status Window
[Name: Lee Dana Rank: A (S) (Rank temporarily lowered due to skill lock)
Occupation: Necromancer
Hierarchy: 0th (Assessed by original rank)
Titles: Possessor from Beyond Dimensions, Hooded Hero, Villain to Destroy Earth
Skills: Shackles of Darkness, Shadow Form, Black Cloud Rain, Shield, Black Mist, Lock…
Subordinates: Shahin, Bishap, Stone, Red, Others…]
Compared to when I first possessed this body, things had improved greatly, but the phrase ‘Rank temporarily lowered due to skill lock’ next to my rank bothered me.
Thinking I should clear as many gates as possible with Yeon Ha-yeon after the final exams, I waited for Yeon Hyung-gwang to come in.
***
It was evening by the time I hitched a ride home in Yeon Hyung-gwang’s car.
Noticing that I didn’t particularly want to go home, Yeon Hyung-gwang had entertained me until evening and even dropped me off.
“If you ever want to go out, just contact me anytime.”
Leaving me with a grateful message that she’d come and play whenever I called, Yeon Hyung-gwang went home.
As I opened the front door, the savory smell of soybean paste stew stimulated my nose.
“Are you home? Did you finish your work at the association?”
My parents’ welcoming words startled me the moment I entered. I had said I was going to the association because I had work to do, thinking it would sound strange if I just said I was going, so being asked if I had finished my work made me feel guilty for no reason.
‘It wasn’t exactly a lie, though.’
My initial purpose in going out was to watch a few movies in the association lounge, and the ‘work’ was indeed watching movies in the lounge, so it wasn’t a lie.
But I still felt guilty.
“Yes, I finished it well.”
Since spending time in the lounge, my original objective, was successfully accomplished, I mumbled a vague answer and changed the subject.
During dinner, the conversation seemed to flow smoothly.
But as dinner was almost over, the topic I wanted to avoid came up.
“How much have you studied for your exams? Your grades better be better than the midterms.”
“Ah…”
As I rolled my eyes, unable to find anything to say, Dad clicked his tongue, put down his spoon, and began to lecture.
“Even if you’ve awakened, there’s no guarantee that it will be a lifelong profession. Weren’t gates created because of the dimensional outsiders in the first place? If they return, the gates will probably disappear too.”
That dimensional outsider is me…
I had to swallow the words I couldn’t utter and continue to listen to the lecture.
Don’t neglect your studies just because you’ve awakened, as no one knows when the gates might disappear; study hard, get into a good university, and get a proper job.
My concentration gradually waned as the lecture continued.
All I wanted was to go to my room.
Dad seemed to view awakened individuals as a temporary profession.
To me, who had lived in a world with open gates for decades and grown accustomed to that environment, this was an unfamiliar way of thinking.
However, unlike my original dimension, in this dimension, if I returned, the gates would indeed disappear, so he had a point.
Tired from listening to the lecture, I entered my room and, for the first time, sat at my desk, took out a workbook, and finally opened it.
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