Chapter 264 – Episode 264 – The Protagonist Is Being Targeted (4)
“Hoo…”
Something hot flows through the meridians of my body.
Woo-woo-woong-
A warm and mysterious energy.
This special energy, rapidly circulating throughout my body, soon began to manifest visibly outside my body.
The Qi of the Thousand Mile Flame Technique.
It was a cultivation method I obtained through the Heroine App box, and I hadn’t been neglecting my daily training with this manual.
Feeling the Qi thinly covering my body, I swung my arm, imbued with internal energy, towards the iron plate in front of me.
Swoosh-
Paaang-!
The iron plate was floating in the air thanks to Delia’s power.
A normal person’s fist wouldn’t have left a scratch, but the iron plate that met my fist tore apart like paper, losing its original shape.
I looked at Delia.
“How was it?”
“Ah, your power has increased considerably. Excellent, Jinhyun.”
Delia approached me with a happy expression after I successfully tore the iron plate.
Compared to before, when I had difficulty controlling Qi, I had made tremendous progress. Delia, who had been helping me train every day, couldn’t help but feel proud.
Honestly, there’s nothing to fight in reality, but as Delia said, there’s no harm in training my body.
“It’s all thanks to Lia.”
“No, it’s all thanks to Jinhyun’s hard work.”
“It’s thanks to Lia.”
“No, it’s because Jinhyun…”
Bickering back and forth with Delia, I finished my Thousand Mile Flame Technique training, then took a shower with her, cuddling, before heading to the living room, where the heating was cranked up.
It wasn’t just the Thousand Mile Flame Technique that had improved.
Even after training for quite a long time, my body felt very refreshed.
My physical abilities were also increasing day by day, and now my body was looking at stats in the high 80s on the Heroine App.
Considering that my stats were all in the 30s at the beginning, this was a remarkable improvement.
Of course, if I used all the overflowing Heroine App coins, I could get even higher stats than the current 80s, but… I didn’t feel the need to do so right now.
The Heroine App also has an interest system.
I thought it would be more profitable to keep the coins and let them grow.
“Haaah… good.”
Thud-
As I sat on the living room sofa to rest, Sujeong came over and laid her face on my lap.
“What, aren’t you wearing clothes?”
“Whyyy, it’s comfortable like this.”
“Heh. Come a little closer.”
“Hehe.”
Delia was in the kitchen preparing snacks, and I gently stroked Sujeong’s hair.
I had lovely women, and I was making a lot of money. I was also giving my parents a considerable allowance, and our relationship felt even better.
So much had changed since before I got the Heroine App.
Then… what hasn’t changed compared to the me before I got the Heroine App?
I pondered for a while and guessed that it might be my relationship with my childhood friends.
‘Eunju and Harin.’
As I called out their names in my mind, their faces naturally came to mind.
Come to think of it, I first met Harin in the first grade of elementary school.
More precisely, a few weeks before entering the first grade.
When we were young, Eunju and I were always together, to the point where it felt awkward not to be.
We were cousins of the same age, and our houses were close.
So, one day, as usual, Eunju and I went to the park to play in the sand.
We found a girl alone on a swing in the park, which should have been empty.
She was a face I had never seen in the neighborhood, and feeling somewhat happy, I kindly spoke to her first.
[Hey! That’s our spot!]
That’s a lie…
I started by picking a fight, telling her to get out.
To defend myself, it wasn’t that I had a problem with my personality. It was just that I was a bit wary…
When Eunju and I were young, we often went to the park near our house, and since it was a small park with only a slide and a swing, we considered it our secret hideout.
A stranger, especially a seemingly easy-to-bully girl of my age, was occupying that hideout, so I felt a surge of unfounded confidence and said that.
[Hic, hic…]
Honestly, I didn’t expect her to cry right away.
Even now, I don’t think my tone was that harsh.
As soon as I shouted, the girl on the swing stopped moving, started sobbing, and tears began to fall.
I was so flustered that I quickly approached her.
[Huh? Hey… are you crying?]
[Hic, hic, sob…]
I remember being very exhausted because she kept crying for a long time, even after I tried to comfort her.
Eunju was also flustered and helped me comfort her.
Anyway, after finally calming the girl down, we introduced ourselves and started talking.
[You’re not going to cry anymore, right?]
[Uh-huh…]
[But why were you crying?]
[Uh, well…]
[Let’s introduce ourselves first. I’m Cheon Jinhyun. What’s your name?]
[M-my name is Harin. Joo Harin…]
Even though it was a very old memory, the reason why I remember our first meeting so clearly is probably because the meeting itself was so intense.
After talking, it turned out that Harin was crying because she had been scolded by her parents. She was being compared to her older sister or something.
She was sad, so she ran out of the house and was swinging in the park when she met us.
Anyway, Eunju and I listened to Harin’s story.
As we listened and shared our own stories, we somehow became friends.
There’s a saying that you can become friends just by making eye contact when you’re young. That’s exactly what we were like.
Harin had regained her smile. We even promised to meet at this park whenever we had time.
Unfortunately, Harin only visited the park a few times.
But thankfully, or perhaps not, Harin didn’t need to keep that promise for long.
A few weeks later, Eunju and I entered elementary school, and we saw Harin again in the same class.
[Huh? You go here?]
[Ah. Jinhyun, Eunju. Uh-huh…!]
Honestly, I didn’t have many friends.
I wasn’t the type to lead a group due to my introverted personality.
But strangely, I acted very bravely in front of Harin and Eunju.
Maybe it was because they were my only real friends, and I didn’t want to lose them.
As we moved up grades, the three of us were in different classes, or sometimes only two of us were in the same class.
Even if we were in different classes, we always met during breaks or after school and played together.
Because of that, we were often teased for always being together.
Although we grew apart when Eunju went to study abroad in the US and Harin transferred to another school when we entered middle school, the memories of the almost six years we spent together were still vivid.
They were very happy memories.
Come to think of it, since a boy and two girls were together for six years, there were some subtle emotional exchanges between Eunju, Harin, and me.
But none of us ever said anything like, “Let’s date.”
Harin and Eunju might not have known, but I liked them both quite a bit.
However, for some reason, when I was in elementary school, I considered them true friends, and I had this ridiculous idea that dating a girl was something to be ashamed of.
Perhaps that’s why I didn’t show them that I liked them.
Even to Harin, not just Eunju, who was my cousin.
Oh my. Thinking about it now, how foolish I was.
Even if it wasn’t now, I would have regretted it later in middle and high school.
I should have grabbed Harin back then!
I never imagined that I would become a horny dating sim player who went through the legendary all-boys middle school, all-boys high school, and military service without ever having a girlfriend, and who would get up and talk about sex whenever I had the chance.
I thought that my relationship with Harin and Eunju would end there…
[Jeong Eunju: Are you awake?]
[Joo Harin: Yeah]
[Joo Harin: Jinhyun, you know our appointment is at 3 today, right?]
“Something… something is happening.”
I quietly muttered as I looked at the continuous notifications on my phone.
The relationship that I thought had stopped after elementary school was now slowly starting to change.
I don’t know why, but Harin and Eunju were approaching me first.
The current messages were also from a group chat with me, Harin, and Eunju.
Hmm. Have I become a lucky guy because I used the Fortune Tracker so much?
It was a coincidence that I briefly met Eunju in Boston. It was also a coincidence that Harin came to the café.
Before meeting them, I thought they either hated me or had completely forgotten about me. After all, we hadn’t contacted each other at all.
They even said they were moving to this neighborhood, which was quite bewildering.
‘I haven’t even registered them as heroines yet…’
To be precise, it was more like I couldn’t rather than I hadn’t.
My current rank was 8.
Even if I tried to connect the threads of fate to Harin and Eunju to register them as heroines, I only got a message saying that my rank was insufficient, just like during the Ye Hwa incident.
So, they weren’t heroines yet.
Of course, I had completed so many challenge quests now, and after completing the scenario quest on December 22nd, I would be able to rank up to 7.
According to Delia, after ranking up to 7, items would be added to the store, and if I bought and used one of those items, I would be able to make Harin and Eunju heroines.
So, I was planning to rank up to 7 first, then register them as heroines, see their capture styles, and slowly win them over…
[Jeong Eunju: You know, right? You haven’t forgotten, have you?]
[Joo Harin: But he hasn’t seen the messages since last night.]
[Jeong Eunju: Isn’t he still sleeping?]
[Joo Harin: Maybe?]
It feels like opportunities are coming to me without me having to reach out first.
