Chapter 96 Change-3

Chapter 96 Change-3

“Young Lady! I truly adore you! For a long time now, even before I met you!”

He clenched his fists and spat out the words with burning eyes.

My heart was pounding wildly with excitement at finally speaking my true feelings.

Then, a moment later, I let out a deep sigh.

“Ah, do you think this is too absurd? Should I not mention that it started even before we met?”

Before going to find Lady Sojeo, I found a secluded open space and pondered what to say to confess my feelings to her.

“How about this? Sojeo! To my eyes, you are the most beautiful in the world! More than Cheongyeon Sojeo! Far more than Dang Sojeo!”

But after saying that, I shook my head again.

“Sigh, no matter how much I adore Lady Na, this feels too fake, doesn’t it? Should I just say looks aren’t important? That I fell for Lady Na’s kind heart?”

I’d already thought of dozens of phrases and rehearsed them, but nothing felt right.

They all felt either too childish or overly dramatic.

Then, sighing deeply, he thought.

‘Is this really something I should be doing?’

After eighty years of cultivation, the confidence that had filled my body like a solid mass vanished like air along with the dozens of confessions I’d rehearsed in my imagination, leaving only a bare skeleton behind.

It seemed that inner strength and confidence were indeed different things.

No matter how much I thought about it, I couldn’t imagine Miss Nao accepting my confession.

I couldn’t tell if this lack of confidence was cold self-reflection or just pathetic cowardice shriveled by my own lack of confidence.

Above all, I was terrified that if I confessed for no good reason and failed, things might become awkward between me and Miss So from now on.

Sighing again, he muttered to himself.

“Maybe I shouldn’t do it?”

It was a thoughtless utterance.

But the moment I said it, it began to feel like an overwhelming temptation.

Yeah.

If I do nothing, won’t anything change?

Then I could keep living with her exactly as I always had.

Just like before, I’d watch her alone.

Just like before, only I would be the one worrying.

And nothing would ever change.

Yeah, just like before…

As I was thinking that, I suddenly realized I had slowly slumped down into that spot.

And only after recognizing that did I finally realize what the problem was.

I was trying to run away.

From an unpredictable, frightening future.

From a change that could destroy the present me.

And this feeling was all too familiar to me.

I chuckled hollowly and muttered to myself.

“Ha, this is exactly like the Sun Woo-jin of my past life, isn’t it?”

That’s right.

This was exactly the kind of thought my past self would have had.

Sunwoojin, the cowardly pig who gave up moving out of fear of unpredictable outcomes.

“Huuuuuu.”

He took a deep breath.

Only now did his head feel clear.

He realized that whether his confession succeeded or failed might not actually be important.

What truly mattered was whether I could confess at all.

Whether I could stand before her with confidence.

Believing in myself, standing tall on my own two feet, facing my fears head-on.

That was what I truly needed.

If I couldn’t do that, it wouldn’t matter whether I stayed in the seventh group or moved to another one.

Because wherever I was, I’d forever be left watching from behind like this.

I jumped up from my seat.

And I began to walk.

Toward the direction where Na Sojeo would be.

It didn’t matter if it wasn’t a confession.

Right now, in this moment, I wanted to stand tall before Na Sojeo, look her straight in the eyes, and speak my mind.

I didn’t want to let this realization, which had just barely come to me, slip away.

As I walked along with those thoughts, before I knew it, I found myself arriving at the Seventh Floor Women’s Dormitory.

“Huuuuu.”

I took a deep breath.

Realizing my problem didn’t mean the fear had completely vanished.

I was still scared now, and I wanted to stop and sit down right there.

But even so, I could move now.

No, I had to.

I knocked cautiously on the door of the lodging.

Knock knock knock!

Then, from inside, Miss Cheon Ju-eun’s voice came.

“Yes! Who is it?!”

He swallowed hard.

Then, closing his eyes tightly, he spoke.

“This is Seon Woo-jin. Is Lady Na inside?”

He said.

He said it.

He had asked them to call her.

His heart was pounding like crazy.

Then the door opened immediately.

Squeak!

For a moment, it felt like my heart would stop.

“Young Master Seonwoo?”

But fortunately or unfortunately, the person who opened the door wasn’t Lady Na.

Inside the door, Miss Cheon stared at me with her cute eyes wide open.

“Seo-yu sister has gone to headquarters. It seems she received some kind of message from her family home.”

“Oh, I-is that so?”

The thought that Lady Sojeo wasn’t inside suddenly drained all my energy.

Alongside deep regret, a sense of relief also surfaced in a corner of my heart.

Just then, Lady Cheon Ju-eun opened the door to the lodging wide and said,

“You may come in. Would you like to wait inside for a moment?”

I quickly smiled and shook my head.

“Ah, no. I’ll just head to headquarters, I suppose.”

Then I started walking toward headquarters.

I was afraid, but I couldn’t give up here.

If I missed this chance now, I couldn’t be sure when I’d find the courage again.

Today, I absolutely had to talk to her.

And on the other hand, it seemed better to meet her outside rather than in front of the lodging.

At least that way, he wouldn’t have to worry about other people noticing.

As he walked toward headquarters thinking this,

Suddenly, I saw someone sprinting toward me.

The woman most deeply etched in my mind from my past life until now—it was none other than me, Sojeo.

Gulp.

Without realizing it, I stopped in my tracks.

Where had all that resolve from earlier gone? My mind felt completely blank.

I wasn’t ready yet, but she was approaching far too quickly.

She was running toward me, calling my name.

“Young Master Seonwoo!”

I reflexively snapped to attention and answered.

“Yes, sir!”

Then she stopped right in front of me.

There was no one else around.

Only she and I were here.

So I had to speak now.

“I, I’m Sojeo!”

He forced his mouth, which seemed to have suddenly malfunctioned, to move and desperately pushed out his voice.

And he tried to speak again.

But.

“Young Master Seonwoo! I think I need to hurry back to my family home!”

“So you’re saying… you’re going home?”

Realizing the meaning of her words belatedly, he suddenly looked at her face.

Only then did her expression register.

I hadn’t noticed before because I’d been so distracted, but Miss Na looked extremely anxious now.

Her eyes even seemed to be brimming with tears.

She poured out her words with a desperate look, as if she might burst into tears at any moment.

“Father is very ill! There was no mention of it in his last letter—what on earth happened so suddenly… So I took leave. I got a month for now, but I won’t know exactly how long I’ll be gone until I go . There’s no team leader right now, and I probably shouldn’t leave my post too. Ah, I really shouldn’t… What am I going to do?”

Watching her ramble on like this, my head finally started to clear.

And now I realized what I had to do.

First, I calmed her down.

“Young Lady, I’m fine. Don’t worry about a thing and go ahead. The search the squad leader led shouldn’t take too long, and even if it does, I’ll handle everything else myself.”

“…Young Master Seonwoo.”

Seeing her finally seem a little calmer, he smiled faintly and said.

“Trust me, Miss. Even though I look like this, I’m the kind of talent people are seeking out to make team leader or deputy leader, aren’t I? Nothing will happen. I’ll make sure to relay everything to the other team members, so don’t worry. Go see your father now.”

Then, as if finally feeling a bit relieved, she wiped away the tears welling in her eyes and said.

“Thank you so much. I’ll just pack my things and go right away.”

“Yes, be careful on your trip. Take good care of your father, and come back once he’s feeling better.”

I, Sojeo, immediately rushed back to the lodgings.

She looked terribly desperate.

Watching her retreating figure, I thought to myself.

This is something that cannot be helped.

Perhaps it was heaven’s will that the time wasn’t right yet.

***

“Haa, haa, oh my, I’m dying. Looks like the squad leader isn’t coming back today either?”

Biseyoung, who’d just finished sparring with me and got thoroughly beaten, lay sprawled on the ground and asked out of the blue.

I chuckled and replied.

“Well, it’s only been two days.”

After gasping for air for a moment, he asked again.

“So I’m coming back in a month?”

“So you got that leave, huh? It’ll depend on your father’s condition, right? Why? Do you miss the squad leader and me, Miss So, since you keep dueling me?”

Struck right at the heart by my words, the startled fellow cleared his throat before answering.

“Hmph, well, not exactly. I just think it’s more fun to face off against a variety of people.”

Since returning to the front lines, that guy Biseoyoung had thrown himself into training with renewed fervor.

It seemed he genuinely wanted to catch up to the real Hwayeobin.

So I took his enthusiasm seriously and gave it my all, but seeing how much he missed others, it must have been tough for him to endure.

He lay there blankly for a moment before suddenly asking again.

“By the way, did we really get extended to a month for our vacation now?”

“Ah, it seems Lord Sword Saint changed it. Regular leave can be up to three weeks, and for family matters, it’s now possible to take up to a month.”

He sighed in admiration, yet also felt a pang of regret.

“Man, if our vacation hadn’t already passed, we could’ve taken three weeks too. That’s a shame.”

“Missed out? Don’t you remember that Team O, who was originally scheduled for this vacation, couldn’t take their leave because of our deployment, and then this happened because of the withdrawal?”

“Hmm, is that so?”

During the month we were gone, Lord Geomseong, Lady Cheongyeon’s father, changed many things on the front lines.

And among those changes was something concerning leave.

Originally a one-week vacation could now be extended to a maximum of one month.

Thanks to Mayu-gyeom’s concession, our squad, which went on leave instead of Squad Four, only got a week off. But starting with Squad Five, which was next in line after us, they could now take three weeks of leave.

However, Team Five suffered heavy casualties in the recent Iron Demon incident, and their leader, Doksu-gwang, was sent out to search for the Iron Demons, delaying his leave once again.

Suddenly, the face of Squad Leader Doksoogwang, who had always disliked me, flashed into my mind.

I didn’t particularly like him either, but somehow I still felt a pang of sympathy.

It was because I could tell his behavior toward me and Team Leader Seolpung was an expression of his inferiority complex.

If not for that, he was a squad leader who earned his team members’ trust in his own way.

Suddenly, a thought crossed my mind.

‘Two days have passed already. I wonder if he’s getting along well with Team Leader Seolpung during this search?’

It had already been two days since the Thirteenth Division’s squad leaders had left for the Iron Demon search.

That also meant it had been just as long since I, the young lady, had hurriedly returned to my family home.

Nothing particularly noteworthy had happened during that time.

We were maintaining our routine on the front lines, training and patrolling as usual even without squad leaders.

There was just one thing that bothered me a little.

That was…

I suddenly glanced over at Bae Jong-gwan and Lady Cheon Ju-eun sparring right beside us.

Both of them had grown significantly since their last deployment.

The problem was that our squad training now only had these four members.

Bisea-yeong remarked casually as she passed by.

“Seems Young Master Ha isn’t coming out today either.”

“Hmm, that’s right.”

What was troubling me was precisely the matter concerning Lady Cheongyeon.

Her state was decidedly strange.

Lately, whether on patrol or in her daily life, she was always lost in thought and rarely spoke.

No matter what you asked her, she only gave short, curt answers.

She even refused to participate in training sessions, to the point where Lady Cheon Ju-eun had confided her worries to me.

After a moment’s thought, I muttered to myself.

“I suppose I should go talk to her myself?”

I felt I needed to set aside time to have a proper conversation with her.

After all, I was the one who came to the front lines with her, and I’m also the person she’s known the longest.

Then Biseyoung stared at me blankly for a moment before chuckling softly and saying,

“You seem pretty confident lately, huh?”

That unexpected remark made me ask with a puzzled look.

“Huh? Me?”

“Yeah, you always hated that sort of thing, didn’t you? Approaching people first. You’d be ruthless to anyone you considered an enemy, yet you treated those close to you with the utmost caution, like they were fragile objects. Back then, no matter how close you were to Lady Cheongyeon, you probably wouldn’t have thought to approach her first and talk about her problems, right?”

Suddenly, the thought struck me: ‘Did I really do that?’

And soon, I admitted it.

He was probably right.

I used to dread anything that might cause emotional conflict with those close to me.

At home, I feared clashing with family, siblings, and friends; on the front lines, I feared clashing with my squad members.

I was afraid that the few people I had might drift away from me again.

So I never approached them first, always hesitating and worrying.

‘That’s why, even in my past life, I chose to be a fool rather than fight with my brothers.’

I thought I had changed a lot in this life, but apparently my attitude toward people hadn’t changed much from my past life.

Perhaps it was because I lost my mother at a young age, and ever since, I’ve only seen people drift away from me.

Whether in the Seonwoo family or on the battlefield, my past life had always been one of losing people.

That’s why I was always anxious, afraid I’d lose the people beside me now too.

‘That’s how it was…’

If anything about that had changed even a little now, it was probably because I had finally resolved to confess to Lady So.

Though I hadn’t actually confessed, perhaps my decision to confront the fear within me influenced my actions?

That thought crossed my mind.

I chuckled and asked Biseyoung.

“Why? Do I seem too pushy?”

Then, with a rare serious expression, he shook his head and said.

No, he finally looks a bit better. Like he’s shed some kind of shell, I suppose? He’s such a talented guy he shouldn’t need to envy anything in the world, but it was kind of off-putting how he always seemed uneasy and overly concerned with what others thought. ‘Ah, this kid… must have lived a life thirsty for human connection. Even though I was starved and struggling, I was always loved by my brothers. I guess this guy never had that.’ Well, that’s what I thought.”

“……”

It was the first time I’d heard this story.

A story about me, told by a friend I’d never met before.

Those words pierced my heart like a dagger, stabbing and stabbing, yet somehow felt refreshing.

He kept talking.

“You can afford to be a little arrogant. You’re quite the catch. You’re handsome. Your martial arts are top-notch. You’re smart too. When a guy like you lacks confidence in himself, doesn’t it make me, who only has unfounded confidence, feel a bit embarrassed? And… you’re not alone anymore, right? You’ve got so many friends who like and support you now.”

Suddenly, something welled up inside him.

His words that I wasn’t alone anymore, that sincere look in his eyes telling me so, felt so warm I couldn’t bring myself to speak.

As I stood there blankly staring at the scene, he scratched his head awkwardly and stood up.

“Ah, that was a good rest. How about we try training again? Hey, Jong-gwan! Miss Cheon! Let’s go head-to-head on this matter!”

Even after he fled the scene with an utterly mortified expression, I remained standing there for a while longer.

I wanted to hold onto this warmth just a little longer.

It suddenly occurred to me.

I’m so glad I came back.

I’m so glad I came back so I could save my friends.