Chapter 51
“You can’t even use S-rank strength anymore! You must have secretly used your ability! I won’t accept this!”
“What are you going to do if you can’t accept it? Everyone else here acknowledges it.”
Everyone nodded at Seo Jae-yi’s words. Even Baek Joo-won shrugged, as if telling Park Hyung-woo to stop being ridiculous.
“And I’m confident I can win, no matter how many times we fight. I can even leave you with worse scars.”
Park Hyung-woo’s face flushed even redder at her words, which touched upon his only weakness.
“If it weren’t for you, if it weren’t for you, I could have gotten rid of this scar! If I had an S-rank Guide, this, you, would be nothing!”
Park Hyung-woo shouted, scratching at his burn scar with his fingernails.
Yes, if only he had Baek Joo-won, he could erase this scar. Once this reminder of his inferiority was gone, he might even be able to defeat Seo Jae-yi.
If only he had an S-rank Guide!
“Treating people like objects…”
Seo Jae-yi frowned, suddenly noticing something strange about his words. There was something off…
“You’re trying to recruit Baek Joo-won not for your Guild members without Pairs, but to make him your Pair?”
It wasn’t strange. Of course, he could do that. The problem was…
“You already have a paired Guide. How is that possible?”
There were four S-rank Espers, including Seo Jae-yi, who desperately needed Baek Joo-won because they didn’t have paired Guides. Park Hyung-woo wasn’t one of them.
He was already paired with an A-rank Guide with an 80% Matching Rate. It was a pretty good match, considering that all S-rank Guides in Korea refused to be paired.
She had assumed he was obsessed with recruiting Baek Joo-won just to spite her, and to reclaim his number one spot.
But it seemed his intentions weren’t that simple.
“Are you planning to break up with your current Guide and make Baek Joo-won your Pair?”
Normally, Pairs only broke up when one of them died or was severely injured, unable to continue working.
They were bound by a sense of duty, having spent years together, sharing their powers and experiences.
Being paired wasn’t just a simple Esper-Guide relationship; it was a special and significant bond.
To break up with a perfectly fine Pair and choose someone else as a partner, for such a selfish and trivial reason!
It was disrespectful to his current Guide, who had been with him all this time. He deserved to be condemned.
Did his Guide even know? How devastated would he be if he did?
Even if he didn’t know, it was still pitiful. An A-rank Guide was more than capable, but he was being abandoned because Park Hyung-woo coveted an S-rank.
“Park Hyung-woo, is it true? You know breaking up with a Pair without a valid reason is prohibited.”
Joo Seon-min asked, her face filled with anger, but Park Hyung-woo denied it shamelessly.
“So? Are you going to report me for something I haven’t even done yet?”
He was right; they couldn’t punish him for something he hadn’t committed. They had only confirmed his terrible personality.
“Since Baek Joo-won won’t choose you now, that will never happen, as you said.”
Park Hyung-woo’s face contorted.
Baek Joo-won hadn’t said anything, but he wouldn’t join Taesan after witnessing this. He wasn’t that foolish.
“Come on, let’s leave this guy behind. It’s time for the winner to monopolize Baek Joo-won.”
“Honey, can’t I join too?”
“The one who forfeited stays forfeited. My sweet time with Baek Joo-won is mine. Ah, what should we do? I’m already excited.”
They left the training room, leaving Park Hyung-woo behind.
A murderous aura emanated from Park Hyung-woo, who was standing alone in the training room, now a desolate ruin.
“Damn Seo Jae-yi.”
None of this would have happened if she had just died! If only he hadn’t been stuck with a useless A-rank Guide as his Pair!
“I’ll kill you. Seo Jae-yi, I’ll kill you with my own hands!”
He would beat her to death with his own fists until there was nothing left!
***
Joo Seon-min stayed at the Center to catch up on her training, as she would be entering a dungeon soon.
Grayson tried to follow them, but he said goodbye with a sad face when Seo Jae-yi clenched her fists in front of him.
Seo Jae-yi, now able to monopolize Baek Joo-won, drove with a cheerful expression.
Their destination was her flower shop, a peaceful place where they could be alone without distractions.
“But you seem to close the shop almost every day during my training hours. Is it okay to run a business like this? You’ll lose all your potential customers.”
Baek Joo-won commented as he followed her into the shop. Seo Jae-yi stared at him blankly.
“Now that you mention it…”
“…”
Her expression clearly conveyed his thoughts: “What am I supposed to do with this woman?”
“You said you enjoyed running the flower shop. And you’re going to sell dungeon plants. So you don’t have to come here so often now.”
“But I can’t continue this enjoyable work without you. I’ve started to want to live longer, so I can’t give up.”
Seo Jae-yi declared, emphasizing that her priority was him now.
“So please don’t go anywhere else and choose me.”
She grinned at him, and Baek Joo-won looked at her with a strange expression.
“That’s the most sincere you’ve ever sounded.”
“Eh, really? I thought I sounded sincere before too.”
Wasn’t she? Seo Jae-yi tilted her head.
“Master! Gasp!”
Airok, who had been flying towards them from the greenhouse, sensing Seo Jae-yi’s presence, froze mid-air when he saw Baek Joo-won.
Baek Joo-won smiled at him, and Airok shrieked and clung to Seo Jae-yi’s back.
“Y-you didn’t say he was coming!”
“Yeah, it wasn’t planned. I won his afternoon as a reward for defeating another Esper in a sparring match!”
But unlike Seo Jae-yi, who was proud of herself, Airok was horrified.
“A sparring match with an Esper? And look at your clothes, Master!”
Her clothes were torn and stained with blood, as if she had just emerged from a dangerous dungeon.
The sight was even more alarming when she took off her cardigan.
“It’s just a scratch. The bleeding has stopped. The scars will be gone by tonight.”
She didn’t mention the bruise on her side, knowing she wouldn’t be able to handle Airok’s nagging.
“Who did you spar with?!”
“Someone who’s trying to curse me to death.”
“What?! How can there be such a person?!”
“Don’t worry. He probably has a fractured arm. He must be throwing a tantrum right now, his pride hurt.”
“That’s not enough! Just wait until I meet him. I’ll drown him until he’s waterlogged!”
Airok trembled with rage, ranting about all sorts of creative ways to kill Park Hyung-woo.
A well-raised baby was worth ten Espers.
“You two seem close.”
“Of course we’re close. Logi cares about me this much. He’s a good boy. I want to be with him forever.”
“I see.”
Baek Joo-won stared at Airok at Seo Jae-yi’s words. Airok, who had been spewing threats, flinched and shut his mouth, intimidated by his intense gaze.
“It’s even more… overgrown than last time.”
Baek Joo-won commented as he entered the greenhouse.
As he said, almost half of the greenhouse was now filled with dungeon plants. Seo Jae-yi had even planted the parasitic grass she had ripped from the Greenroll.
“Can you grow something that parasitizes monsters in soil?”
“It’s a bit wilted compared to when it was attached to the monster. But it comes back to life if I fertilize it with dungeon plants grown with my flames or Airok’s water.”
“Dungeon plants as fertilizer…”
It was an unexpected idea.
“You could sell them all at once, but wouldn’t it be more profitable to cultivate them?”
Hehe. A constant supply of fresh potion ingredients. She could already imagine people clamoring to buy them.
“I was mistaken. It seems like nothing bad will happen even if you close the shop for a few days.”
On the contrary, people who desired dungeon plants would be waiting even more eagerly. But no matter how much they begged, Seo Jae-yi’s focus would only be on Baek Joo-won.
“Please sit over there and rest. I need to tend to the plants.”
Seo Jae-yi seated Baek Joo-won at a table in a corner of the greenhouse and put on her gardening gloves.
Her previous claims of focusing on him were forgotten as she became engrossed in her work.
She seemed quite skilled at tending the plants, watering them with fire, ruthlessly pruning dead branches, providing support for overgrown ones, cutting stems and replanting them in empty spots, and showering them with Airok’s water.
‘Why is she so serious about tending dungeon plants?’
Everyone avoided dungeon plants, which could kill monsters, but Seo Jae-yi treated them with care, as if they were beloved pets.
She wasn’t just tending them for profit; she seemed genuinely happy.
“Are you enjoying this?”
“Yes, very much.”
She answered without hesitation, as if she had been waiting for the question.