Chapter 183 – Feeling Behind (1)

I tried to share the joy of being promoted to a B-class hunter with Cha Yu-ri, but unfortunately, it seemed that she couldn’t afford it.

Because, right now, Cha Yu-ri was in the middle of dealing with her Stonerello and pouring out her own magic.

I watched closely, wondering if I was being attacked by a B-class monster, but fortunately, it seemed that I didn’t have to worry about that kind of thing.

“It’s dangerous, Mr. Cha Yu-ri!”

“Nothing like this is dangerous!!”

It was Stonerello’s attack that flew in at her fairly fast speed, but the tailwind that surrounded her feet was not enough to dodge it.

Even while flying, Cha Yu-ri cast the next magic at him.

“Screw Tornado!!”

Unlike before, it was a circle 5 wind magic that was used from a little closer distance.

The wind stalks extending from her staff dissipated into the stalks of her magical power as soon as they hit Stonerello’s head.

Well, if it’s natural, then it’s natural.

Stonerello’s resistance to magic is equivalent to rat poison and defensive ability for magic hunters. No matter how strong her magic is, she is no match for him.

Since it was a fundamentally different monster from Woodrello, Cha Yu-ri’s magic had no effect.

The only way to strike her is to use her magic to create a physical means of striking…

Unlike when dealing with black slime, it would be hard to even get a scratch by making a little sharp air.

“Air bar arm!!”

A type of magic that creates shockwaves by exploding compressed air. Stonerello, who touched him, flinched slightly, but even so, it was only an attack enough to buy a little time.

Even that attack, which seemed like a stroke of conversion in the first place, couldn’t even scratch the body of the solid stone.

If you keep watching like this, you should judge that the aspect of the game will not change.

It must have felt a bit like chasing a pesky mosquito from Stonerello’s point of view.

Cha Yu-ri’s ability would be powerful enough to offend a rock golem with magic resistance, but it could never lead to victory.

It was not a judgment that was specifically degrading her ability, but a judgment made from an objective point of view.

That’s why I decided that there was no point in further meaningless engagements, so I stepped between her and Stonerello.

“Stop it now.”

“Oh no! I can win!!”

“You’re struggling without even catching a stonerello, what?”

Right after that, my greatsword swung once and split Stonerello’s body into two, and the B-class monster Cha Yu-ri had been struggling with just now fell to the ground of the Golem’s temple.

“Everyone has a monster that is difficult to deal with. With that, no one really thinks Cha Yu-ri is weak.”

“…”

“Of course, I don’t have any particularly annoying monsters.”

“… Chit.”

Objectively, the glass is strong. This is a fact that no one can deny.

Of course, he had already risen to the position of an A-class hunter before meeting me, and if he expected future growth, there was a high possibility that he would become even stronger.

In the future, as long as you continue to relieve your sexual desire and hone your abilities as a hunter while meeting me, it will be possible to rise to the level of an S-class hunter in the magic world, which is not common.

Of course, if you were to ask if she was stronger than me now, then of course it wasn’t.

“Don’t be too discouraged, that’s me.”

“… I am not discouraged.”

“It’s unofficial, but anyway, can I just say I won the hunting match?”

“… Either yes or no.”

She always insisted that she was stronger than me, and tea glass that had been beaten by me only halfway on the bed.

It was the first time she properly admitted defeat to me.

⁎ ⁎ ⁎

After safely completing the third promotion test of the Guild, the three of us returned to the Guild’s lobby again.

Contrary to me, who was finally promoted to B-class hunter and was in a happy mood, Cha Yu-ri, who realized that she was weaker than me, made her feel depressed.

In between, union employees who don’t know how to behave.

There was a bit of a strange uproar, but anyway, this test ended with me safely raising my Hunter rank to B-rank.

“…”

Perhaps the fact that I lost as a Hunter really shocked me, but even after coming out of the guild, Cha Yu-ri didn’t seem to be in a good mood.

In terms of personality and disposition, he is truly the opposite of Doshi-hee.

“Are you that embarrassed?”

As soon as I said her words, the back of the car glass, which had been drooping, flinched slightly.

“It’s unfair, what is it?”

“Are you saying it’s so unfair that you lost to me as a Hunter? It was low pressure all the way from the Golem Temple earlier.”

“I don’t really think so. I don’t know if you’re stronger than me or not, but it’s an undeniable fact that you were a little more useful as a Hunter.”

“Then why do you look so upset?”

“… Just.”

“How do you know if you just say it?”

“…”

After hearing my words, Cha Yu-ri seemed to put on a worried expression for a moment.

“… I cannot fall behind.”

“Yes?”

“Because unlike you and the other kids, I’m really nothing other than a Hunter.”

“…”

“My position in the Azure Shield, and the affection you show me right now, were all things I was able to gain because I was a Hunter. On the contrary, they are also things that will disappear like an illusion the moment I lack my ability as a hunter.”

“… Do you really think so?”

“Huh. So I can’t be weak. Otherwise, there is no room for me.”

Was this the reason why you stubbornly denied that you were weaker than me?

It was the moment when I could finally get a sense of where Cha Yu-ri’s self-denial and obsession with strength to the point of exaggeration came from.

“It’s not that Cha Yu-ri has become weak. I just got stronger.”

“I know, but what about getting anxious?”

“What are you anxious about?”

“If I stay still and everyone else gets stronger, that means I get weaker. Right now, one of you is barely outpacing me, but how do I know if that will become a hundred or a thousand.”

“The elixir is too strong, Mr. Cha Yu-ri.”

“You don’t know because you just started your life as a hunter. How uptight this feels.”

Cha Yu-ri probably couldn’t imagine it, but on the contrary, I had the experience of experiencing this feeling much earlier.

The feeling of getting ahead of someone who started behind me was an experience that I also deeply felt.

“It’s promotion day after all, and I’m sorry for making you depressed. I wasn’t jealous of you, who just became a B-class hunter…”

“Cha Yu-ri.”

“Why?”

“To commemorate your promotion, please buy me a meal.”

“… Huh?”

“Come to think of it, the promise I made to buy you a meal the day we first met is still there. Yes?”

“… Yes, what okay.”

⁎ ⁎ ⁎

After coming out of the guild, about an hour later, we were able to enter a restaurant barely worth having lunch.

The reason it took an hour to find the restaurant was probably Cha Yu-ri’s fault.

She had never planned a lunch date before, so it would have been quite a challenge for her to choose her restaurant for her lunch date.

She didn’t know what to do, and her confused look was quite worth watching.

Well, half of it was because I wanted to see her like that, so I was joking around.

“So, so, where do you want to go?”

“I said anything was fine.”

“Where is that… ! Huh?!”

“Anything Cha Yu-ri wants to eat.”

“Ah, really… !”

One of the answers that men in the previous world had the most difficulty with women was this answer of ‘anything’.

Of course, it had a valid effect in this world as well, with the sex changed.

That’s why, as soon as she brought out that answer, Cha Yu-ri was also stamping her feet in embarrassment, so it was quite fun for her to observe.

In fact, in my case, when the proposal was made, I didn’t strictly examine this and that, but I really didn’t care about anything.

Even if he asked me out of the blue to eat something like chungkukjang or chrysanthemum soup, I would nod unconditionally.

The problem was that even that ‘anything’ did not come out easily from Cha Yu-ri’s mouth.

“… Is tteokbokki something that men like? Ha, but from her first date, tteokbokki seems too cheap… Then what about pasta? Ah, but Seongcheol might not like flour because he works out, and he thinks steak is okay… ? But I learned that steak is usually eaten on a dinner date…”

Truly, I kept watching as Cha Yu-ri struggled, pretending not to hear, muttering about her troubles, which were evident from only learning about love through writing.

The place she brought me to after a long and long thought was her chicken house.

“Yes, did you say anything was fine? You’re not going to say anything else now, are you?”

“Okay, so let’s go in.”

She half-forced her car glass into her dining room, unsure of her own choice until the very end.

“Chicken is beer, but Cha Yu-ri, is it okay to drink during the day?”

“… It doesn’t matter, because I didn’t have an afternoon schedule anyway without you.”

After she ordered, she chatted in moderation until the food was served, then, by the time her meal was served, she made eye contact with the glass of tea and tilted her glass.

“Bad~.”

“… Braided.”

After passing half of the contents of her lightly bumped beer glass behind her neck, he met her eyes with the woman sitting in front of her and asked.

“Cha Yu-ri.”

“Huh.”

“You told me earlier that I wouldn’t know what it feels like to be outrun by someone else, right?”

“… However?”

“I know. It feels like everyone else is running ahead of me, and I’m left alone, falling behind.”

“Huh? But you, it’s been less than a year since you started living as a hunter…”

“That’s right, less than a year has passed since I started my life as a hunter.”

I calmly confessed my past to Cha Yu-ri, who tilted her head, wondering what I was going to say.

“It’s been less than a year since I received the Awakening ability and became a Hunter, but I went through quite a long time as an aspiring Hunter.”

If I feel like I’m being outrun by everyone else.

At least I would be much more of an expert than her in front of her.