Chapter 260 - Chapter 260 (2/2)

Jin-Woo recalled the faces of people he shared his memories with, in the now-erased past.

'Association President Woo Jin-Cheol, and....'

….And, Madam Norma Selner.

He thought about the distinct possibility that she might have also regained the memories from the erased timeline, and while wondering about that, he turned around to leave.

He no longer had any business with 'Iron', no, 'Kim Cheol'. Because... the kid was living as a 'human', and not as a Shadow Soldier, now.

But then, the boy on his knees called out to Jin-Woo and stopped him in his tracks.

"H-hang on..... Wait."

Kim Cheol wiped his eyes with his hands and hurriedly stood back up. His tears might have stopped, but his nose was still beet-red, but not caring about that, he squarely met Jin-Woo's gaze shifting back at him so he could speak, his voice choked up with thick emotion.

"This, is this.... what they call love?"

He was being swept up by the sudden torrent of powerful emotions that he had never experienced before. Although he was deeply mistaken about what his feelings were, he was dead serious right now as he had ever been in his life.

"..."

Jin-Woo stared at the boy for a long while in an utter daze, feeling like he's been struck hard in the back of his head. Eventually, a lengthy groan escaped from his mouth.

"....This won't do."

Indeed, he couldn't let some poor kid live the rest of his life confused about his sexual orientation like this, now could he? When Jin-Woo walked closer, Kim Cheol's cheeks blushed beet red like a maiden in love.

Unfortunately...

Snap!

All signs of cognition and emotion were wiped from the boy's face along with the sound of fingers snapping. Kim Cheol's eyes lost focus and became blurry. Jin-Woo stood in front of him and began inserting new memories to replace the old one.

"Okay, so…. You tried to provoke me, but then found out, coincidentally, that I was the son of your father's friend's friend's friend and that's how we got to resolve our differences."

Kim Cheol dazedly nodded his head.

"Oh, and also...."

For a brief moment there, Jin-Woo recalled back to when the kid was still 'Iron' and was crying his eyes out as they were about to say goodbye, right before the Chalice of Rebirth was to be used. A thin smile floated up on his lips and he continued on.

"From here onwards, you gotta stop behaving like a bad person, alright? You were one of the guys who fought to protect this world, so be proud of yourself, man."

".....Yes, sir."

After hearing a hushed, soft reply leaking out of Kim Cheol's lips, Jin-Woo finally undid the hypnosis and let the boy be.

Snap.

"Uh…. Eh?"

Kim Cheol regained his consciousness and stayed rooted in his spot for a little while, utterly confused, only to belatedly discover Jin-Woo's distancing back over yonder.

As if he was separating again from a friend he met after a long time, Jin-Woo waved his hand in a genial manner.

"Hey, see you again next time!"

"Uh…. O-okay."

Feeling bewildered by this situation, Kim Cheol waved his hand and smiled along awkwardly as well.

'Nice.'

Jin-Woo turned away from the kid's direction, a happy grin forming on his face now. The unexpected encounter with an old comrade had come to a successful conclusion, but it was now time to search for that girl in earnest.

With excellent timing, he heard the announcement reverberating throughout the athletics field.

- The preliminaries for the middle school participants will begin shortly. All athletes, please report to the competitor's area.

***

Somewhere at the far back of the athletics field, which was quiet and sparsely populated.

A young girl managed to get to the shade of a tree with some difficulty and plopped down on her butt there. Her shaking hands reached down to take off one of her shoes and her sock. Her swollen ankle testified as to what her current situation was.

She lightly bit her lower lips and glared at her ankle, before squeezing her eyes shut and leaning against the tree's sturdy trunk.

What a blunder it was.

Her shoulder was shoved away by another runner right next to her and that caused her to stumble ungainly during the race. She somehow managed to pass the first round of preliminaries even with this fairly heavy injury, but now….

Now, it was clearly asking for too much to compete again with her leg being like this.

'I'm furious....'

Indeed, she was.

This might be the last time she competed as a middle schooler, and so, she didn't want to end the day with an injury.

That was why....

'That's why... I should just carry on.'

This was a line of thought that could only be cooked up by the head of an immature middle schooler, who still hadn't shed the mindset of a child yet.

And it was the role of the adults to stop such a child from going down the wrong path since the dawn of time itself.

"You want to hide your injury?"

The girl flinched grandly after hearing the voice of a male student, walking out from behind the tree, that she failed to detect earlier. This mysterious male student didn't look at her, but instead, stared into the distance.

"Even though a certain someone competed in that condition, hurt her ankle even more and had to spend over a year to recuperate, but still ended up as a third-rate athlete and could only regret the decision she made today?"

The male student shifted his gaze back to the girl with her wide-open eyes and formed a refreshing grin.

"I was talking about a person that I know, actually."

Here was a strange guy telling her a strange tale. But the girl, Cha Hae-In, didn't immediately run away from here and instead, chose to observe the boy for a bit longer.

'Isn't he an athlete....? A high schooler, right?'

She could detect a hint of this nice scent coming from the male student for some reason.

As for the identity of that scent, the 'smell' of the purest Mana leaking out of Jin-Woo, as well as her possessing a unique constitution that allowed her to sniff out Mana, she'd get to learn about them much, much later on.

As Hae-In grew more flustered by the second, Jin-Woo crouched near her and carefully placed his hand on her swollen ankle.

"Ah...."

She flinched again for a moment there but didn't resist him all that much, either. And when his hand left her skin, her ankle was completely healed.

She raised up her shocked eyes and stared at Jin-Woo.

"Run without any regrets. You only have one shot, right?"

She shone so brightly as a rank S Hunter fighting against monster threats, but today, her sweating figure under the bright sunlight would shine just as wonderfully.

Jin-Woo smiled and tried to stand back up, only for his wrist to be grasped in a hurry by Hae-In.

"W-wait a minute."

".....?"

Could it be that a change occurred with the contact they made just now? Now facing off against Jin-Woo's curiosity-laden gaze, Hae-In's face flushed just a little.

"Excuse me, we.... Have we met somewhere before?"

She had to work up so much of her courage just to ask that simple-enough question that even her neck had turned beet-red by the time she was done asking it.

"Let's run."

"Eh?"

Hae-In visibly grew confused, but Jin-Woo maintained his grin.

"If you run against me and ever win, then I'll tell you everything."

".....I saw you compete, oppa. I saw you coming in at first place in every preliminary race you entered."

Jin-Woo smirked and stood back up.

"I'll take that answer as you giving up."

But then...

"I-if that's the case!"

Cha Hae-In worked up her courage once more and made a suggestion.

"The record for the preliminaries about to take place in a bit…. How about you telling me the truth when I break that? Even if it's not right now?"

Jin-Woo's head lowered and did his best to suppress his chuckles.

'Whether she's younger or older, she's still so pure.'

While briefly entertaining the idea of breaking the world record for the under-18 track event today, he nodded his head, a warm smile filling up his face.

"Alright, deal."

Having successfully changed the condition of the bet, Hae-In formed a sunny smile as well.

'Well, you ain't going to be smiling later, though.'

Jin-Woo turned around and left her side for the athletics field while continuing to suppress his chuckles from breaking out.

On that day.

Under the bright spring sunlight, the world record for high school male athletes was shattered in what was supposed to be yet another ordinary preliminary race meet.

And the track team Jin-Woo was a part of defeated their rival Hwaseong Tech High on their way to achieving their goal of an overall first place finish.

< Chapter 260 > Fin.