Chapter 2055 – 2055. Savior Of The Academy
The third day of the cultural festival.
Since it was the day of the final, third exchange match, I couldn’t just wander around and have fun.
‘How annoying.’
Most of the academy students were all at the same level. Me participating in the exchange match was like a wolf joining a group of sheep.
The only one who could be considered a match was Hyodo Yuki, the protagonist of Arashi Academy, but… that was in the past. No matter how strong Hyodo Yuki was, he couldn’t handle me now.
『Name: Sung Yu-jin
Strength: A Stamina: A Agility: A+ Durability: A Mana: S-
Traits: Spirit Eye (S) Demon Hunter (S) God of Storms (A)
Skills: Spirit Contract (A+) Spirit Possession (A) Barrier (C+) Swordsmanship (A-)
Karma: Good 120』
These were my current stats. My physical abilities had been maximized with elixirs and other means. Just in terms of physical ability, I was above the average A-rank hero. And on top of that, I had my experience and skills?
Frankly speaking, I wasn’t confident that I would lose against most A-rank heroes. Except for A-rank heroes with slightly unusual abilities or those with special items.
‘The academy exchange match is only for students, and items are restricted. I can’t lose even if I want to.’
My opponent would definitely be Hyodo Yuki, but would I gain anything from fighting him?
No. On the contrary, Hyodo Yuki would gain some experience from fighting a strong opponent like me.
Thud.
Someone placed their hand on my shoulder.
“Yu-jin, you’re not thinking of running away, are you?”
Sung Ha-ri asked with a smile. She had been following me around since this morning, afraid that I would run away. I had lost her trust because I had been skipping out too much lately. And there was also the Amaterasu incident.
“Of course, I’m not running away.”
I hadn’t participated in the first and second exchange matches. There would be complaints even among the students. Since my reputation was at stake, I had to participate in the third exchange match.
“Shall we look around the cultural festival until the exchange match starts?”
The exchange match was in the afternoon. That meant I was free until then. I wandered around the cultural festival with Sung Ha-ri, Elena, and Yuria.
Arashi Academy, being in Japan, had very active club activities. There were many normal clubs, but there were also many that weren’t so normal. A prime example of a strange club was one that worshipped yakisoba. I couldn’t understand why they would worship yakisoba.
‘They might as well worship vaginas.’
We found a photography club. The photographers were passionately taking photos like they were for a magazine, and there was also a place where we could use sticker photo booths. We decided to take some sticker photos casually.
“Ugh.”
Elena suddenly grabbed her head and staggered. She had been quiet since earlier, and the hand holding the smartphone I had given her was trembling.
“What’s wrong? Are you playing a game or something?”
“It’s blue… blue is… taking over my chart!”
When I went to her side, I saw a stock chart plummeting. It had been going up until yesterday, but today it was suddenly crashing.
“10% is already gone. 200 million… 200 million won is gone…”
“…You invested 2 billion in stocks? Where did you get that kind of money?”
“I sold all the gold coins I had. It was my personal money, not related to the Baldert family. It was my allowance that I had saved up for months. 10% of that allowance is gone.”
“The investment item is… High Frog? What kind of company is that?”
Elena glared at Sung Ha-ri, twirling her hair with her finger.
“It’s a venture company that’s doing well these days. I invested in it because I trusted Sung Ha-ri’s words. And as you can see, this is the result. 200 million disappeared in less than 24 hours. This is strange no matter how I look at it. There’s manipulation. There’s manipulation.”
“Hey, even if you say that, I lost about 5 million too, you know? That’s how stocks are. Don’t you know the word ‘hodl’? Just wait a bit. It’ll definitely rebound. This company is being backed by the government. There’s no way it’ll fail.”
Sung Ha-ri, who was agitated, blurted out.
She had been quiet lately, but I never thought she was doing stocks. Since she was an S-rank hero, it would have been easy for her to get information about stocks.
“I shouldn’t have listened to you. I trusted you because you spoke like an expert… Didn’t you say that the last stock you invested in also failed? You should stay away from stocks.”
“Ugh. It’s not like I only lose. I showed you that I made a profit of 30 million won last month. Stocks are all about hodling.”
“You’re talking about hodling when your house is on fire.”
Sung Ha-ri and Elena glared at each other.
Watching them, I became curious about stocks.
‘Should I invest in a suitable item? It’s annoying to actually do it.’
When I thought about it, there was no reason for me to do stocks. I already had more than enough money. If I really needed money, I could just bring gold and jewels from other worlds and sell them. If I was really desperate, I could rob a criminal organization or a bank.
‘I can just rob a bank, so why would I do stocks?’
Unlike the two who were arguing loudly, Yuria was quiet.
“Yuria, you don’t do stocks?”
“I didn’t feel the need to… If Master orders me to, I will try it once. I have studied stocks to some extent.”
“You studied stocks? There are no stocks in Baekhwan.”
“The maid academy taught me about stocks. To be precise, stocks were one of the ways to manage assets.”
“Maid academy… What kind of place is that?”
“It’s a place where you learn everything. Of course, you don’t really learn everything, but there are some subjects that you must learn. Administration and combat are among them.”
I had felt it before, but the maid academy felt like a training center for superhumans. That’s probably why maids with certifications from Neo London were recognized as top-tier personnel.
I turned my head away from Elena and Sung Ha-ri, who were still arguing. I pointed my thumb at the sticker photo studio behind me and asked Yuria.
“Shall we go take photos first?”
“Yes!”
Yuria naturally linked her arm with mine.
“That uniform suits you very well.”
“Really? I was a little worried, but I’m glad.”
In the studio, there were cosplay items such as sunglasses, animal headbands, and princess dresses.
“Do we have to decide on a pose first?”
“How about referring to the photos on the wall over there?”
On the poster, there were photos of a man and a woman posing as if to show examples of couple photos. Kissing, making finger hearts, and V signs. They were couple photos that perfectly matched the word ‘lovey-dovey’.
“…Is that okay?”
“There’s no reason why it wouldn’t be.”
We had already gone beyond kissing and cuddling. We could do this much without any problem.
We stood in front of the camera and tried out some poses as a rehearsal. Yuria had a constant smile on her face. Her cheeks were slightly flushed with a peach color.
Since we weren’t taking professional photos, we immediately started the real thing. Since it was a state-of-the-art machine, card payments were possible, so there was nothing to hold us back. While setting up the machine, I found a couple pose mode. The machine would tell us the couple poses.
-Starting the photoshoot.
First, a simple hand heart.
I made half a heart with my left hand, and Yuria made half a heart with her right hand, combining them. It was natural for our shoulders to touch. We didn’t forget to smile. You had to smile in these kinds of photos to make them look good.
-3, 2, 1. Click.
The next pose was to put our cheeks together and make a heart using our whole arms.
-3, 2, 1. Click.
A pose with a wink and a V sign.
-3, 2, 1. Click.
A pose where we hugged each other tightly, a pose with a wink and a finger heart, a pose where Yuria kissed my cheek, a back hug pose, a pose where we deliberately made angry faces, and so on. We took all sorts of poses until we reached the last one. The last one was free, with no specific pose.
What kind of pose should we take? While I was thinking, Yuria ran up and hugged me. And then she kissed me.
-3, 2, 1. Click.
After it was over, I made eye contact with Yuria. Yuria, with her flushed face, smiled happily.
Soon, the sticker photos came out of the machine. Yuria and I each took one. Yuria stared intently at the sticker photo and smiled.
Click!
Suddenly, the door opened, and Elena and Sung Ha-ri burst in. They crossed their arms and glared fiercely at me and Yuria.
“We’ve been secretly watching you since earlier… You two were completely lost in your own world, weren’t you? We had to force ourselves to hold back from barging in.”
“Even so, isn’t it wrong to go in and take photos just the two of you?”
Yuria glanced at them and then managed her expression.
“Your words are too harsh. The two of you were having too much fun talking about stocks, so we just moved first. We can’t waste time. If it were me, I would decide the next order instead of arguing about that.”
“…The next order. I see. It’s my turn based on seniority.”
“Wait a minute. What are you talking about? I want to take photos with Yu-jin too. I’m Yu-jin’s mother.”
“You’re talking nonsense. You said you’re the mother, but you’ll probably take couple poses for the photos.”
“Ugh… It doesn’t really matter, does it?”
If I left them alone, they would fight and take up more than three minutes. A mediator was needed. I stepped in and said to them.
“Let’s decide with rock-paper-scissors.”
They exchanged glances and immediately raised their right hands.
“Rock-paper-scissors.”
Elena chose scissors. Sung Ha-ri chose paper.
Elena smiled and pushed the dumbfounded Sung Ha-ri and Yuria out.
“Go wait outside.”
“Wait, something felt strange just now…”
Bang.
The door closed.
I paid with my card and asked Elena.
“Did you use illusion magic?”
I asked just in case.
“Did you notice? I used 10 years of my lifespan to slightly manipulate the possibilities. It’s an unfamiliar way of using it, so my lifespan was excessively reduced.”
“You can do that too?”
“If you use illusion magic, you can do most things.”
“You can’t revive the dead, can you?”
“That depends on the situation. It’s impossible if they’ve been dead for a long time… But if they simply died from a stab wound, I could revive them at the cost of a few years of my lifespan.”
I selected the couple mode and decided on the poses as they were presented. Now that I looked at it, the basic poses seemed to be randomly selected.
-3, 2, 1. Click.
We took several photos. There were poses that I had taken with Yuria, and there were also poses that I was seeing for the first time.
The last one was, as expected, a free pose.
Tight.
Elena grabbed my collar and pulled me in for a kiss. It was a wild kiss. Even more so when she slightly bit my lip.
Elena smiled with satisfaction after seeing the printed sticker photos.
“Good. It’s a bit embarrassing to put it in a frame, so I’ll have to keep it to myself.”
Next, Sung Ha-ri came in. Sung Ha-ri used the couple mode as if it were natural. I didn’t say anything to Sung Ha-ri. Her face was already flushed red to her ears.
-3, 2, 1. Click.
In the last free photo, Sung Ha-ri closed her eyes like a girl and raised her chin. The meaning of that action was clear.
‘If I don’t kiss her, she’ll sulk for a long time.’
I decided to hold back my playfulness and kissed her on the lips.
-3, 2, 1. Click.
Sung Ha-ri also looked satisfied as she looked at the sticker photos.
We didn’t leave right away and decided to take photos together as a group since it was a rare occasion. The seriousness from before was gone. It felt like taking photos with friends.
“Hey, wait a minute. Yuria, that’s my spot, isn’t it?”
“Master’s right side is my spot.”
“Can you two move a bit? As a mother, I want to take photos with Yu-jin.”
“Let’s take turns.”
-3, 2, 1. Click.
“We took the photo, so move.”
“Yu-jin, let’s hold hands, Mom.”
“…Please don’t pull my hair?”
Elena’s hand mercilessly pulled Yuria’s silver hair.
-3, 2, 1. Click.
“Yu-jin, no! Don’t touch my chest!”
“Master, you can touch my chest as much as you want. No, I would like you to touch it.”
Since Sung Ha-ri and Yuria were on either side of me, I put my arms around their shoulders and grabbed each of their chests. Elena was unfortunately pushed to the back.
“These crazy bitches are just strong like gorillas… Yuria, weren’t you supposed to have the same physical abilities as me?”
“Strength depends on how you use it.”
“Eek.”
Elena came from behind and jumped, hugging my head. I could feel the sensation of her chest through my neck. This was heaven.
-3, 2, 1. Click.
