Taken aback, Ji-eun blurted out a question.
“What?”
Ji-eun’s friends were surprised as well. They were very timid high schoolers. If it were any other day, they would be shrieking, “Eeek!” and getting all surprised and excited, but seeing how the situation was what it was, they just kept their pounding hearts to themselves.
“I’m too heavy to - “
“Ah, hurry!”
Seung-ho began to feel more and more rushed. If something went wrong, he would really fail the quest.
‘He certainly is energetic.’
Without realising it, Ji-eun was overpowered by Seung-ho’s aura and laid her body on Seung-ho’s back. His good looks also played a part in her lack of rejection.
As she got on Seung-ho’s back, both of their bodies were more sensitive to touch due to the fact that their clothes were soaked through with the copious amounts of sweat that had been shed while they’d climbed the mountain. Thinking he might be disgusted, JI-eun leant slightly away as she gripped Seung-ho’s shoulders.
“Sorry. I’m really heavy, right?”
However, Seung-ho didn’t reply because he was feeling rushed. He quickly stood up and started running.
“Ah, so he’s Choi Seung-ho.”
“Look at his broad back.”
“His shoulders are so…”
“He’s so tall, too.”
Seung-ho didn’t have the energy to spare any attention to whatever was being said behind him. He began to run up the mountain with all his strength.
Ji-eun was even more frightened because Seung-ho was going quickly up the already steep trail.
She leant fully into Seung-ho and wrapped her arms around his neck. In Seung-ho’s head, ‘quest’ and ‘15 points’ were the only two words flaming in his head.
As he kept running, he began to see Teacher Ryu Han-shin way up in the distance.
‘Just a little bit more!’
The peak was beginning to make itself known just ahead of Teacher Ryu Han-shin. If Seung-ho kept his current pace, he would be slower than the teacher.
“Hold on tight.”
“What?”
Seung-ho started sprinting at a dead run up the mountainside. The hands that were holding onto Ji-eun’s thighs were gripping powerfully. Naughty hands.
Teacher Ryu Han-shin was walking along leisurely. There were around 10 steps left to reach the top. The 4th cla.s.s’s teacher Kim Ha-neul would definitely be amazed at him for climbing so quickly.
‘Huhuhu. She’ll be surprised at my st.u.r.dy thighs, right?’
In order to meet up with Teacher Kim Ha-neul, he had left his own students behind and had hiked up alone. Soon, he saw her.
“Aaaack!”
He stopped and turned at the sudden sound of screaming.
‘Seung-ho?’
His cla.s.s president was piggy backing some female student and was running up like a madman. It was like watching a charging rhino.
‘What is this rascal doing?’
Ryu Han-shin was staring blankly at Seung-ho. Even he, who had hiked for a long time, was tired but that student was running up at an incredible speed while simultaneously piggybacking some female student.
While the teacher was standing in trepidations, Seung-ho ran past him.
“h.e.l.lo, sir!”
“Huh? Yeah.”
Seung-ho overtook the teacher just like that and reached the top first. As soon as he stepped foot on the peak, a translucent panel popped up.
QUEST SUCCESS!
You were the first in your cla.s.s to reach the top by a hair’s breadth.
Reward: 15 points
Additional reward for overcoming the adversity: 5 points
“Woaaaah!”
Seeing the quest success message, Seung-ho reflexively let out a cry.
The gaze of the students and teachers who had reached the peak before and had been resting unanimously snapped to Seung-ho.
“What is it?”
“Are they dating?”
“Woah, they’re in a relationship. I’m jealous.”
“But before that, isn’t that Choi Seung-ho? He’s extremely good-looking.”
“Oh my G.o.d. Choi Seung-ho has a girlfriend?”
“Oh no. He’s my type, too.”
Over 200 kids started whispering amongst each other. It was then that Seung-ho took stock of the situation. The female student that he was giving a piggyback ride to was hugging his neck tightly.
Because he’d been sweating profusely, his top was wet and so he could feel her right above his clothes. It was his first time giving a piggyback ride to a girl.
He also realised just then that his hands had been holding onto Ji-eun’s thighs quite tightly. His face flushed red in an instant.
“Um, can I get down now?”
“S-s-sorry.”
Seung-ho found an empty bench and let her down gently on top of it.
“Thanks. I must have been really heavy.”
“I-it’s nothing. You weren’t heavy at all.”
“I’ll be sure to return the favour next time.”
It was the awkwardness that permeated all 19-year-old youths. After exchanging embarra.s.sing farewells, Seung-ho went back towards his teacher who had just come up.
“Is that your girlfriend, cla.s.s president?”
The teacher let out an “Oh” of admiration and slung his arm across Seung-ho’s shoulders.
“N-no. She sprained her ankle on the way here, so somehow…”
“It’s alright. Everyone dates in high school and stuff. Isn’t that right?”
As expected, the teacher was quite the jokester. It was because of this side that Ryu Han-shin was popular among the students.
“She’s really not my girlfriend.”
“Alright. Whew, look at all that sweat. Why did you run like that? You could have just taken your time.”
He wanted so much to tell the teacher that he had to break the quest, and the teacher was so fast that he thought he was going die of tiredness, but Seung-ho couldn’t manage to utter a single word out loud in the end.
“At any rate, get some rest. I’ll go look around the other cla.s.ses. When the kids come, choose a place and grab hold of the kids, so they don’t go anywhere.”
“Yes, sir.”
After finishing what he had to say, Ryu Han-shin headed straight toward the place where the 4th cla.s.s was. Teacher Kim Ha-neul was fanning herself with her hands where his steps were taking him.
Seung-ho looked here and there but couldn’t find an empty spot, so he just collapsed on the ground in the end.
“Whew, my legs.”
Although he wasn’t exhausted, he felt tired all the same. He’d been able to carry Ji-eun on his back because his strength and stamina stats were high; if either of them had been lower, he’d have collapsed on the way here.
‘Anyway, I didn’t see her face properly because things were so awkward. Her name is Ji-eun, right?’
He could worry about it on the way down later. If he told the girl’s homeroom teacher, they would definitely take care of things, but he felt responsible due to carrying her all this way.
‘Well, if all else fails, I can piggyback her again on the way down.’
He didn’t have a quest that had to do with going down, so he could take his time. In that case, he wouldn’t have a problem going down while the female student was on his back. The problem was that the female student would be extremely fl.u.s.tered.
‘Ah, right. But what was that reward for overcoming the adversity thing?’
That hadn’t been a clause when he’d first received the quest. Finished quests disappeared without the need of pressing the confirmation b.u.t.ton, so he couldn’t check again.
The only adversity he’d come across today had been the fierce compet.i.tion with his homeroom teacher and piggybacking the female student. The former had been part of the quest so it’d been an obvious thing, so the clause for overcoming the adversity definitely had to do with the latter.
‘Did I get the extra points for carrying that girl on my back on the way here?’
Apart from that, there was no other plausible explanation. It was a good experience that he would take into consideration when similar circ.u.mstances cropped up while he was in the middle of later quests.
He could think about it later. Whatever happened, he had received a whopping 20 points. Because the people around Seung-ho were all stealing glances at him, he pretended to stretch to open the stats menu naturally.
STATS MENU
Name: Choi Seung-ho
Career: High School Student
Height: 186 cm (+ -)
Weight: 73 kg (+ -)
Strength: 35 (+ -)
Agility: 12 (+ -)
Stamina: 23 (+ -)
Intelligence: 21 (+ -)
Appearance: 41 (+ -)
Charm: 32 (+ -)
Luck: 5 (-)
Basketball Dribble: 4 (+ -)
Basketball Shooting Accuracy: 13 (+ -)
Basketball Pa.s.sing Accuracy: 6 (+ -)
Self-Control: 2 (+ -)
Left Vision: 1.5 (+ -)
Right Vision: 1.5 (+ -)
--
Available points: 20
As he saw the part that said that he had 20 points available, he felt proud. It was as if he’d received compensation for the hour of hard work he’d taken to climb up to the top.
‘First, I should raise my self-control like I planned.’
That way he wouldn’t act impulsively no matter what situation came up. Not that long ago, he’d acted rashly by running with the female student on his back due to his urgency.
‘Let’s raise to just 10 like the others.’
He invested 8 points into his self-control. It was as if calmness had entered his heart. Maybe it was because the urgent feeling had disappeared?
‘Good.’
Because he’d raised his self-control, he could control himself from raising it further. Controlling himself for too long could also become an illness and a problem.
-----
“Excuse me, you’re Seung-ho, right?”
“What?”
Seung-ho was resting on the ground when some female students approached him. It was his first time seeing their faces.
“T-that’s right.”
“Was that your girlfriend back then?”
In case someone misunderstood his relationship with that female student, Seung-ho shook both his hands and denied it.
“No, I just gave her a piggyback ride because she’d hurt her leg.”
Hearing Seung-ho’s words, the female students’ faces brightened. Two of the three girls pushed the girl in the middle toward Seung-ho.
‘Why are they doing this?’
Whoever was watching this scene would have gotten the hint, but only Seung-ho didn’t know what was going on. If the author could do what he wanted, he would have made a ‘Wits’ statistic and raised it using his personal points.
“C-could you give me your number?”
Avoiding Seung-ho’s gaze, the female student held out her phone. It was his third time getting his number taken just that day. It was because those who hadn’t been able to approach him at school due to peer pressure had gotten courage under the name of ‘School Trip’.
“Ah, sure.”
Seung-ho awkwardly received the phone, entered his number, and returned it.
“I’ll send a CoffeeTalk later!”
The female student smiled brightly and went back with the two students she’d come with, giggling. Even if he received a lot of messages that evening, he wouldn’t be able to tell who had taken his number and when.
‘Aside from So-hee and Seul-hwa, n.o.body else contacted me after getting my number.’
He was trying not to expect too much. There was no way Seung-ho would have known that the those he’d exchanged numbers with hadn’t contacted him out of fear of getting rejected.
It was after waiting for a long while that the 7th cla.s.s students started reaching the top, one or two at a time. Even though all of the cla.s.s had arrived, the teacher - wherever he’d gone - stayed out of sight until it was time to go back down.
“Now, 7th cla.s.s! Let’s go down!”
n.o.body knew what he’d been up to, but the smile on the teacher’s face was bright. There was no doubt that he’d received some compliment from Teacher Kim Ha-neul.