I Don’t Want To Be An Ojakgyo

Eric stared at Shuraina as she blocked all of his attacks and didn't miss a single opportunity to strike back like she was a monster. Eric was assured in his defeat. No, now he was getting nervous about what came after his defeat.

The tip of Eric's sword was shaking. He stupidly wondered why his sword was shaking by itself, but it was because his hands were shaking. Eric was completely taken aback by the pressure that the small girl in front of him was exuding, and was fearful of her without knowing it. But his mind didn't seem to accept it just yet.

"Why are you scared? You're not that scared of a mean-looking, short, unskilled girl attacking you, right?"

"….."

At Shuraina's taunt, Eric once again yelled loudly and charged at Shuraina.

"Your attacks have no power behind it, and your body is overweight and sluggish."

But once again, his attack was blocked immediately. Shuraina stared at Eric with pity.

"Was that supposed to be an attack?"

"Shut up!"

Whenever he was hit by Shuraina's attacks, whenever his attacks were blocked with such ease, Eric's thick sense of pride slowly crumbled.

Eric now realized. The reason why Shuraina let herself get hit by his attack was because she wanted to get him to accept her duel request. It was too late to regret his stupid past self.

From what Eric remembered, Shuraina practiced the sword in situations that were much, much worse than his childhood.

Because he had also learned swordsmanship since he was a child and didn't improve much, he didn't put much thought behind how Shuraina was still learning the sword. He thought that she was just taking swordsmanship classes.

Eric had assumed everything in the most simple way possible when he heard people praise Shuraina, someone he had ignored as a child. He'd assumed that Shuraina's swordsmanship would be so-so.

Shuraina had been nothing more than the child he had approached to get close to Hestia. She had been nothing more than the mean-looking kid, nothing more or less.

But seeing how much he was flagging behind Shuraina, solely based on skill, made Eric's pride fall lower and lower.

Shuraina continued to move like flowing water. She didn't even use magic against Eric. As if she was just warming up, she easily blocked his attacks and moved slightly faster than usual when she saw an opportunity.

Shuraina's excellent skills had a lot to do with it, but it also meant that Eric's skills were just that bad as well.

Meanwhile, Swanhaden, who had stood up from his seat at Eric's "Shut up," calmed down just a little as he watched Shuraina move with such ease.

He decided to work on Eric's annoying word choices and behavior later, and just calmly decided to watch Shuraina's duel.

He sat on the floor of the corner of the training hall entrance. Swan placed his chin on his knees as he wordlessly watched Shuraina beat Eric up with affection teeming in his eyes.

"……"

Ever so often, Shuraina would throw taunts that would strike at Eric's pride during their duel. Eric, who completely fell for those taunts, would swing his sword without a care, and Shuraina would block those attacks, attack back, and made Eric more and more of a pity party.

"Oooh……"

Swanhaden watched Shuraina's flexible, fluid movements as she taunted Eric as he leaned on the wall behind him. He slid down the wall and sat on the ground.

Swanhaden held his hand over his mouth to cover his lips twitching into a smile. He stared at the floor for a moment before looking back up, not willing to miss even a second of Shuraina's taunts against Eric.

"Awesome."

Shuraina had trained with Hylli for a long time, so her skills didn't seem remarkable. But when she was placed against someone who was pretty bad at swordsmanship, her skills came out to show.

Swanhaden couldn't help but think of the past. Compared to the Shuraina back then, her skills had really increased by leaps and bounds. It was an obvious fact, but it was something that he had realized because of how shoddy Eric's skills were.

He grinned slightly with his chin on his hands. Then, he roughly tousled his own hair. He was in big trouble–he fell for her more and more every time he saw her.

If Shuraina was just kind of pretty, then he would've confessed to her and dated her and married her already, but he couldn't just approach her easily when the hurdle had gotten so high. It was hard to approach someone who was so lovable.

When Swanhaden finally decided to wrap his jacket around his face with his arms crossed to calm his emotions, Hylli ran in after hearing the ruckus. Soon, Cory and Yves arrived as well.

Cory walked towards Swanhaden, who was waiting for Shuraina with his arms crossed, and took a seat next to him.

"What happened while we were gone?"

This situation was baffling to Cory. He was torn between going out and stopping them, or if he should keep watching because Shuraina was basically just beating him up.

At Cory's question, Swanhaden lowered the jacket covering his face and nodded towards Eric.

"As you can see."

Swanhaden didn't go into detail, so Cory decided to just cheer for Shuraina. He slyly added a strength buff to Shuraina's body.

"Victory to Shushu~."

Cory rolled his book into a circle and put it near his mouth, so his voice came out louder than usual. Then, he continued to watch Shuraina's assured victory with Swan.

"Shuraina, today's dinner is steak! You can do it!"

There was a hidden meaning behind this statement: attack more so you get hungrier. Shuraina was concentrating and couldn't hear most of their voices, but they cheered as hard as they could anyway.

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Meanwhile, Yves had brought puppy Shushu to the training hall. Puppy Shushu tried to run around the training hall and drool everywhere, so Yves was currently hugging Shushu in his arms.

Yves' eyes grew cold as he wordlessly watched the situation unfold in front of him. To be precise, his gaze towards Eric grew colder.

Yves scowled more as he glanced at Eric's friends, then at Eric.

"I can guess what happened here, but……"

Yves frowned as he held puppy Shushu in his arms.

"I guess he's not even worried for his future."

Yves unknowingly put more strength into the arm holding puppy Shushu. Puppy Shushu, who was currently panting loudly as she drooled, widened her eyes as she drooled even more. Then, as if she was miserable, she whined as she fidgeted in his arms.

Cory felt bad for puppy Shushu and took her out of Yves' arms. He carefully hugged the loudly panting, drooling Shushu in his arms.

Cory held the front paws of the orange puppy that resembled Shushu as he moved the paws left and right, cheering.

Puppy Shushu had her paws swaying in the air as she drooled.

The duel ended so quickly that it was almost disappointing. Eric had dropped his sword in the middle of the duel and had flopped onto the ground.

When Shuraina stabbed her wooden sword right next to Eric's face, the duel was over. Eric looked aggrieved as tears almost gathered in his eyes, but he grit his teeth to not cry right there.

"You feel inferior against me, huh?"

Shuraina tilted her head down as she stared at Eric. The sunlight was bright behind her, so Eric was under her shadow.

"If you were too busy playing around to pass the entrance exam and had to get in with daddy's money, then you should've at least learned from your mistakes and tried your best. What are you doing? Your skills are way too shoddy to be in senior swordsmanship classes."

At first, she had just attacked Eric out of anger, but her anger shifted to pity as time passed.

She had thought of Eric as pathetic even while they dated, but now that her rose-tinted glasses were off, he was even more pathetic. Eric had tried to hide his shoddy skills behind loud declarations of 'Swordsmanship is so easy that I don't need to practice.' until now.

"Now, all I can feel for you is pity. How embarrassed of your own skills were you to try and leech off of me? But you failed to even leech off of me, didn't you?"

Her tone was matter-of-fact, but they could all hear the taunting behind it. Eric bit his lips at her words as his eyes widened. She must've hit the mark.

"If you were going to leech off of me, then you should've been ready to put your head to the ground as you begged, ready to lick my feet. You know, enough for me to pity you. Then I would've tossed you a morsel or something."

"…….."

"Grow up. I can smell the baby formula around you."

Shuraina removed her sword from the floor as she placed it back on her hip. Then, she grabbed Eric's hand and pulled him up.

Eric was taken aback by her actions, but he didn't have the strength to stand up so he didn't refuse her hand.

"Thanks until now for going out with someone not in your level like me, and,"

Shuraina had a gentle smile on her face as she spoke. With her sword stabbed straight on the ground, she placed both her hands on the handle, chin resting on her hands. When she tilted her head, her orange hair flowed down her shoulder, and her eyes were half-lidded. Shuraina's face was red from exertion, and the corners and bottoms of her eyes were red as well.

When the corners of her eyes curved into a half-moon, Eric unknowingly took a deep breath.

"Seeing you again is going to make me hurl, so it's goodbye."

Shuraina's gentle smile didn't last for long. With that, her expression stiffened once again. She turned around and walked towards the exit.

Eric just blankly stared, unable to take his eyes off her straight form and confident gaze.

Every single word and sentence hit his conscience so thoroughly that his almost-empty confidence hurt, but the anger and inferiority he felt against her was slowly fading away.

Shuraina didn't care if Eric stared at her or not. She was just hungry, so she walked out as fast as she could.

She didn't know who said it, but someone said that dinner today was steak. She needed to hurry up before the steak got cold.

"You guys surprised me, why are you all huddled up like you're scheming?"

She was trying to rush out of the hall when she saw a group of familiar faces together. Shuraina looked surprised.

She narrowed her eyes as she stared at all four of them. All of them looked conflicted.

It looked like they were incredibly angry–all of them had rage written in their faces.

Cory was the most threatening. His face was kind of scary to begin with. Now that he looked angry, he looked moments away from murder.

The only one that looked stupidly happy in this group was puppy Shushu. Puppy Shushu was currently chasing after a fly. Shuraina picked her up and tilted her head in confusion.

All of their gazes were cold with fury as they glared at Eric's group.

Cory's eyes were pinned on Eric as he spoke to Shushu who was about to leave. His voice was low.

"Shushu, don't push yourself today. Eat lots, wash up with warm water, and then have a long, deep rest."

"You should go on first."

Cory, then Hylli said to Shuraina.

"……"

Yves' expression was also dark, but he gave her a light hug and gently brushed her hair.

Shuraina was confused at how all of them suddenly seemed ready for murder, but she worried that the cafeteria line would grow too long if she wasted more time here.

With that, Shuraina told them 'Good luck' and was about to leave the training hall, not knowing a thing, when she bumped into Swanhaden.

Eric stared at Shuraina as she blocked all of his attacks and didn't miss a single opportunity to strike back like she was a monster. Eric was assured in his defeat. No, now he was getting nervous about what came after his defeat.

The tip of Eric's sword was shaking. He stupidly wondered why his sword was shaking by itself, but it was because his hands were shaking. Eric was completely taken aback by the pressure that the small girl in front of him was exuding, and was fearful of her without knowing it. But his mind didn't seem to accept it just yet.

"Why are you scared? You're not that scared of a mean-looking, short, unskilled girl attacking you, right?""….."

At Shuraina's taunt, Eric once again yelled loudly and charged at Shuraina.

"Your attacks have no power behind it, and your body is overweight and sluggish."

But once again, his attack was blocked immediately. Shuraina stared at Eric with pity.

"Was that supposed to be an attack?""Shut up!"

Whenever he was hit by Shuraina's attacks, whenever his attacks were blocked with such ease, Eric's thick sense of pride slowly crumbled.

Eric now realized. The reason why Shuraina let herself get hit by his attack was because she wanted to get him to accept her duel request. It was too late to regret his stupid past self.

From what Eric remembered, Shuraina practiced the sword in situations that were much, much worse than his childhood.

Because he had also learned swordsmanship since he was a child and didn't improve much, he didn't put much thought behind how Shuraina was still learning the sword. He thought that she was just taking swordsmanship classes.

Eric had assumed everything in the most simple way possible when he heard people praise Shuraina, someone he had ignored as a child. He'd assumed that Shuraina's swordsmanship would be so-so.

Shuraina had been nothing more than the child he had approached to get close to Hestia. She had been nothing more than the mean-looking kid, nothing more or less.

But seeing how much he was flagging behind Shuraina, solely based on skill, made Eric's pride fall lower and lower.

Shuraina continued to move like flowing water. She didn't even use magic against Eric. As if she was just warming up, she easily blocked his attacks and moved slightly faster than usual when she saw an opportunity.

Shuraina's excellent skills had a lot to do with it, but it also meant that Eric's skills were just that bad as well.

Meanwhile, Swanhaden, who had stood up from his seat at Eric's "Shut up," calmed down just a little as he watched Shuraina move with such ease.

He decided to work on Eric's annoying word choices and behavior later, and just calmly decided to watch Shuraina's duel.

He sat on the floor of the corner of the training hall entrance. Swan placed his chin on his knees as he wordlessly watched Shuraina beat Eric up with affection teeming in his eyes.

"……"

Ever so often, Shuraina would throw taunts that would strike at Eric's pride during their duel. Eric, who completely fell for those taunts, would swing his sword without a care, and Shuraina would block those attacks, attack back, and made Eric more and more of a pity party.

"Oooh……"

Swanhaden watched Shuraina's flexible, fluid movements as she taunted Eric as he leaned on the wall behind him. He slid down the wall and sat on the ground.

Swanhaden held his hand over his mouth to cover his lips twitching into a smile. He stared at the floor for a moment before looking back up, not willing to miss even a second of Shuraina's taunts against Eric.

"Awesome."

Shuraina had trained with Hylli for a long time, so her skills didn't seem remarkable. But when she was placed against someone who was pretty bad at swordsmanship, her skills came out to show.

Swanhaden couldn't help but think of the past. Compared to the Shuraina back then, her skills had really increased by leaps and bounds. It was an obvious fact, but it was something that he had realized because of how shoddy Eric's skills were.

He grinned slightly with his chin on his hands. Then, he roughly tousled his own hair. He was in big trouble–he fell for her more and more every time he saw her.

If Shuraina was just kind of pretty, then he would've confessed to her and dated her and married her already, but he couldn't just approach her easily when the hurdle had gotten so high. It was hard to approach someone who was so lovable.

When Swanhaden finally decided to wrap his jacket around his face with his arms crossed to calm his emotions, Hylli ran in after hearing the ruckus. Soon, Cory and Yves arrived as well.

Cory walked towards Swanhaden, who was waiting for Shuraina with his arms crossed, and took a seat next to him.

"What happened while we were gone?"

This situation was baffling to Cory. He was torn between going out and stopping them, or if he should keep watching because Shuraina was basically just beating him up.

At Cory's question, Swanhaden lowered the jacket covering his face and nodded towards Eric.

"As you can see."

Swanhaden didn't go into detail, so Cory decided to just cheer for Shuraina. He slyly added a strength buff to Shuraina's body.

"Victory to Shushu~."

Cory rolled his book into a circle and put it near his mouth, so his voice came out louder than usual. Then, he continued to watch Shuraina's assured victory with Swan.

"Shuraina, today's dinner is steak! You can do it!"

There was a hidden meaning behind this statement: attack more so you get hungrier. Shuraina was concentrating and couldn't hear most of their voices, but they cheered as hard as they could anyway.

Meanwhile, Yves had brought puppy Shushu to the training hall. Puppy Shushu tried to run around the training hall and drool everywhere, so Yves was currently hugging Shushu in his arms.

Yves' eyes grew cold as he wordlessly watched the situation unfold in front of him. To be precise, his gaze towards Eric grew colder.

Yves scowled more as he glanced at Eric's friends, then at Eric.

"I can guess what happened here, but……"

Yves frowned as he held puppy Shushu in his arms.

"I guess he's not even worried for his future."

Yves unknowingly put more strength into the arm holding puppy Shushu. Puppy Shushu, who was currently panting loudly as she drooled, widened her eyes as she drooled even more. Then, as if she was miserable, she whined as she fidgeted in his arms.

Cory felt bad for puppy Shushu and took her out of Yves' arms. He carefully hugged the loudly panting, drooling Shushu in his arms.

Cory held the front paws of the orange puppy that resembled Shushu as he moved the paws left and right, cheering.

Puppy Shushu had her paws swaying in the air as she drooled.

The duel ended so quickly that it was almost disappointing. Eric had dropped his sword in the middle of the duel and had flopped onto the ground.

When Shuraina stabbed her wooden sword right next to Eric's face, the duel was over. Eric looked aggrieved as tears almost gathered in his eyes, but he grit his teeth to not cry right there.

"You feel inferior against me, huh?"

Shuraina tilted her head down as she stared at Eric. The sunlight was bright behind her, so Eric was under her shadow.

"If you were too busy playing around to pass the entrance exam and had to get in with daddy's money, then you should've at least learned from your mistakes and tried your best. What are you doing? Your skills are way too shoddy to be in senior swordsmanship classes."

At first, she had just attacked Eric out of anger, but her anger shifted to pity as time passed.

She had thought of Eric as pathetic even while they dated, but now that her rose-tinted glasses were off, he was even more pathetic. Eric had tried to hide his shoddy skills behind loud declarations of 'Swordsmanship is so easy that I don't need to practice.' until now.

"Now, all I can feel for you is pity. How embarrassed of your own skills were you to try and leech off of me? But you failed to even leech off of me, didn't you?"

Her tone was matter-of-fact, but they could all hear the taunting behind it. Eric bit his lips at her words as his eyes widened. She must've hit the mark.

"If you were going to leech off of me, then you should've been ready to put your head to the ground as you begged, ready to lick my feet. You know, enough for me to pity you. Then I would've tossed you a morsel or something."

"…….."

Shuraina removed her sword from the floor as she placed it back on her hip. Then, she grabbed Eric's hand and pulled him up.

Eric was taken aback by her actions, but he didn't have the strength to stand up so he didn't refuse her hand.

"Thanks until now for going out with someone not in your level like me, and,"

Shuraina had a gentle smile on her face as she spoke. With her sword stabbed straight on the ground, she placed both her hands on the handle, chin resting on her hands. When she tilted her head, her orange hair flowed down her shoulder, and her eyes were half-lidded. Shuraina's face was red from exertion, and the corners and bottoms of her eyes were red as well.

When the corners of her eyes curved into a half-moon, Eric unknowingly took a deep breath.

"Seeing you again is going to make me hurl, so it's goodbye."

Shuraina's gentle smile didn't last for long. With that, her expression stiffened once again. She turned around and walked towards the exit.

Eric just blankly stared, unable to take his eyes off her straight form and confident gaze.

Every single word and sentence hit his conscience so thoroughly that his almost-empty confidence hurt, but the anger and inferiority he felt against her was slowly fading away.

Shuraina didn't care if Eric stared at her or not. She was just hungry, so she walked out as fast as she could.

She didn't know who said it, but someone said that dinner today was steak. She needed to hurry up before the steak got cold.

"You guys surprised me, why are you all huddled up like you're scheming?"

She was trying to rush out of the hall when she saw a group of familiar faces together. Shuraina looked surprised.

She narrowed her eyes as she stared at all four of them. All of them looked conflicted.

It looked like they were incredibly angry–all of them had rage written in their faces.

Cory was the most threatening. His face was kind of scary to begin with. Now that he looked angry, he looked moments away from murder.

The only one that looked stupidly happy in this group was puppy Shushu. Puppy Shushu was currently chasing after a fly. Shuraina picked her up and tilted her head in confusion.

All of their gazes were cold with fury as they glared at Eric's group.

Cory's eyes were pinned on Eric as he spoke to Shushu who was about to leave. His voice was low.

"Shushu, don't push yourself today. Eat lots, wash up with warm water, and then have a long, deep rest.""You should go on first."

Cory, then Hylli said to Shuraina.

"……"

Yves' expression was also dark, but he gave her a light hug and gently brushed her hair.

Shuraina was confused at how all of them suddenly seemed ready for murder, but she worried that the cafeteria line would grow too long if she wasted more time here.

With that, Shuraina told them 'Good luck' and was about to leave the training hall, not knowing a thing, when she bumped into Swanhaden.