Chapter 118: Predictive

Ah, there he went again.

That brilliantly radiant smile didn’t magically change just because I now knew Na Eun-hyeok was Sephiroth. His personality might have been thoroughly ruined, but his physical appearance was still perfectly pristine. Feeling my heart getting ready to pound frantically against my ribs once more, I hurriedly shifted my gaze down to my phone. I honestly wondered if this was exactly what it felt like to be completely bewitched by a nine-tailed fox.

“Stop spouting nonsense. Either way, we strictly can’t head to the Water Temple until we fill out the remaining slots.”

“We can just fill them out quickly.”

“Well, for the time being, even if the party gets filled, I’m not going.”

“Why?”

“I got a specific buff when I leveled up yesterday.”

Since my explanation was bare-bones, Na Eun-hyeok tilted his head slightly to the side.

“The Blessing of the Fire God…… ah, whatever the name is, it doesn’t matter. Anyway, it’s limited to seventy-two hours, so it’ll terminate in three days. But it’s a buff that inflicts piercing damage proportional to the target’s max HP.”

“Isn’t that an incredibly broken buff?”

“The catch is that there’s a strict condition: every single attack has to register as a ‘Perfect Aim’ hit.”

“But we literally do that every single day anyway.”

“True.”

In Zelfia, a ‘Perfect Aim’ designation denoted absolute physical precision. For instance, when executing a sword strike, you could flawlessly sever a weak point with the exact edge of the blade, or you could execute a slash that connected but swung slightly off-angle. In a real-life scenario, the latter strike wouldn’t completely cut through the target. However, within Zelfia’s game system, both standard and off-angle attacks were categorized identically as a successful hit. If the system judged accuracy any more strictly than that, players would have universally blasted it as a garbage, overly mechanical game that relied way too heavily on raw control. Landing a flawless strike to trigger a Perfect Aim was merely known to provide a microscopic boost to your critical hit rate.

In short, attacking with Perfect Aim meant executing your offensive sequences with absolute, pinpoint accuracy.

And unless a highly specific variable popped up, Na Eun-hyeok and I consistently played exactly like that.

“It’s a solid buff then. It means you’re outputting piercing damage proportional to their max HP with every single sequence, right?”

“Yeah. That’s why I figured it would be highly useful to exploit while executing the guild war against Endless. According to the constraint clauses, the damage output can’t exceed fifteen times my base attack power, but even with that restriction, it’s incredibly strong.”

“Factoring in critical hits, you’ll easily delete one or two of their general guild members instantly. Actually, scratch that. Those guys are all so remarkably terrible at the game that you could comfortably take them down even if Cielo tags along.”

Na Eun-hyeok smoothly trash-talked Endless with a perfectly bright face. I mentally reviewed the duel between Na Eun-hyeok and Cielo from yesterday. Cielo was objectively on the talented side, but his mechanics were miles away from matching Na Eun-hyeok’s absolute control. If I compared Cielo to myself? Evaluating strictly by level metrics, we might be evenly matched, but I certainly didn’t see myself failing to dodge his offensive strings either.

“True,” I replied shortly.

For some reason, an expression of distinct satisfaction seemed to sweep across Na Eun-hyeok’s face.

That afternoon, I literally flew across the battlefield.

The following morning. Driven by a lingering, ominous premonition, I woke up an entire hour earlier than my usual routine. I hadn’t even configured a separate alarm, yet my eyes snapped wide open. I debated burying my head right back into the pillow before a brilliant strategy sparked in my mind.

“Let’s just head to campus right now.”

It was early morning—a full sixty minutes ahead of my standard commuting schedule.

I had a powerful feeling that Na Eun-hyeok would throw a massive tantrum trying to drive me to school again today. While no texts had landed yet, he would inevitably fire off a message the exact second my normal departure time rolled around. Evading a guy who literally parked his car near the bus stop to lie in wait was a logistical nightmare. I had briefly considered taking a massive detour through the side streets, but executing an ultra-early departure to completely leave him empty-handed felt infinitely better. Fortunately, the campus shuttle buses commenced operations at 7:00 AM, meaning if I moved right now, I could hop on without standing in a massive queue.

Once my mind was locked in, my execution was flawless. Completing my morning routine faster than ever before, I threw on my backpack. A wave of bitter resentment surged up over the fact that I had to slink around like a literal fugitive mouse when I hadn’t committed a single crime, but I aggressively shut it down. Analyzing the fairness of the situation was entirely secondary to the glorious objective of messing with Na Eun-hyeok.

Yeah. Let’s thoroughly hand him a loss.

My footsteps grew progressively lighter as I navigated the corridor. Riding the elevator down, I happily pictured exactly how flustered Na Eun-hyeok would be. What if he sat out there waiting for eternity only for me to never materialize? To make matters sweeter, our very first lecture today was a class we shared, meaning if things broke perfectly, I might actually get to witness the majestic sight of Na Eun-hyeok showing up late.

That beautiful blueprint shattered into absolute microscopic pieces the exact millisecond I stepped through the main entrance of the villa.

“You woke up incredibly early, Un-ha-ya.”

Na Eun-hyeok was standing right outside my building.

Utterly failing to mask my sheer panic, I instinctively took a stumbling step backward. Leaning casually against his car, Na Eun-hyeok let out a brilliant grin as he closed the distance between us.

“What the hell is this?”

“I explicitly came to pick you up. You should be profoundly grateful.”

“Grateful, my ass. How do you even know where I live?”

“I literally followed you home when you left campus yesterday.”

No wonder he let me leave so easily yesterday! Enlightenment flashed violently through my brain, but the damage was already done.

“Hey, isn’t that literally categorized as stalking?”

“Stalking? What an incredibly terrifying word to throw around. I was simply walking, and it just so happened that we were traveling in the exact same direction.”

“You literally just confessed out of your own mouth that you followed me when I left campus!”

“When did I ever say that?”

There were probably very few human beings in the entire country who could outmatch Na Eun-hyeok in pure, unadulterated shamelessness. Watching him execute that blatant denial made a heavy sigh slip past my teeth entirely against my will.

No, putting that aside for a second.

“Why the hell are you even out here at this ungodly hour anyway?”

“I spent a considerable amount of energy worrying that our Un-ha might attempt to sneak out completely undetected like this.”

“No, listen to me……”

“Did you actually enjoy yourself for a fleeting second, Un-ha-ya?”

Judging by that smooth, curved smirk, it felt as though Na Eun-hyeok had explicitly read every single thought bouncing around inside my skull.

“Enjoy myself? Not even close.”

“You were totally scheming to leave behind my back.”

“I wasn’t thinking about you at all!”

The second I fired off that irritated shout, Na Eun-hyeok’s eyebrows twitched sharply. Those perfectly sculpted brows contorted into a brief frown before instantly settling right back into place.

“That’s mathematically impossible.”

As if he hadn’t just scowled a fraction of a second ago, a perfectly gentle smile blanketed his lips, yet his vocal timbre carried the distinct weight of someone who was genuinely angry.

“Why on earth wouldn’t you think about me?”

“And why the hell should I think about you?”

“Because I am Na Eun-hyeok, obviously.”

“Are you actual……”

What the hell was wrong with the core logic of a top-tier Hankuk University student? How could it be this completely, utterly disastrous?

Leaving me thoroughly speechless, Na Eun-hyeok casually twirled his car keys around his finger.

“Either way, get in.”

“Can’t I just commute on my own?”

“You are commuting on your own, right inside this car.”

“That is literally the exact opposite of commuting on my own!”

“Why? The car is autonomously delivering you to your destination.”

“Listen, that’s…… ah, whatever. Forget it.”

I had a powerful premonition that this entirely meaningless war of words would persist until the end of time. Letting out a massive sigh, I pulled open the passenger door. Na Eun-hyeok stood fixed in place like a literal prison guard, only moving to slide into the driver’s seat after I had safely entered the vehicle and shut the door. I cast a sideways glance at his profile as his hands gripped the steering wheel.

“I had absolutely zero clue you were this incredibly reckless and overbearing.”

“Honestly, I didn’t know that about myself either.”

His response was obviously a garbage statement completely unworthy of belief. Tailing someone all the way home just to force them into a car wasn’t a level of execution mastered overnight. Old folk sayings always claimed that when a person suddenly starts executing behaviors completely uncharacteristic of them, it means they’re suffering from a terminal illness.

His movements were exceptionally elegant as he ignited the engine and spun the wheel. His luxury vehicle glided out of the alleyways in absolute, serene silence. Breaking past the deserted morning side streets, we merged onto the main avenue where the initial waves of commuters were steadily trickling out. Right on cue, a campus shuttle bus was idling at the curb, waiting for students to climb aboard.

I should have been on that bus.

Throwing a sharp glare in Na Eun-hyeok’s direction, I let out another sigh. There was virtually nothing I could do to alter the current reality.

“Why are you sighing like that?”

“What?”

“I asked why you keep sighing.”

Now he was literally picking fights over the most microscopic things.

“If you were dropped straight into this exact scenario, do you honestly think you wouldn’t be sighing?”

“Therefore, what is the core issue?”

“You’re obviously not asking because you genuinely don’t know. You’re just deliberately trying to turn my stomach inside out again.”

“I’m asking precisely because I don’t know.”

“Haa……”

Letting out a defeated breath, I leaned my forehead straight against the cool glass of the car door. Na Eun-hyeok shot a fleeting glance toward my position.

“Un-ha-ya.”

“What, what is it now?”

I wondered what brand of creative, entirely baseless argument he was about to launch this time.

“You’re strictly focusing on the guild war for the next few days, right?”

“Huh? Oh, yeah.”

“I honestly question if there’s any logical reason to go that far, but……”

Na Eun-hyeok swallowed the rest of his dissatisfied sentence right back down his throat. Following a brief pocket of silence, his voice smoothly drifted out once more, wrapped in its usual gentle tone.

“Since you explicitly want to do this, I’ll assist you.”

“Okay, and?”

“I literally just stated that I’m going to assist you.”

“What about it?”

“I’m helping you, you know?”

“What, am I supposed to offer a profound speech of gratitude? Or should I shower you with compliments?”

“Both sound perfectly acceptable.”

“Are you actually serious right now?”

“Yeah.”

As Na Eun-hyeok gave a firm nod, his profile was entirely devoid of a single trace of amusement. Is this prick genuinely serious? A massive catalog of swear words violently surfaced and submerged inside my mind.

“Hey, Na Eun-hyeok.”

“Yeah.”

“Why do you think Endless launched an offensive against our guild in the first place?”

“Because I joined.”

“Then shouldn’t you naturally clean up your own garbage? Haven’t you ever heard of the phrase ‘the one who tied the knot must untie it’?”

“What about it?”

“Why the hell should I be grateful for something that is an absolute baseline expectation? No, actually, is there even a single shred of logical necessity for me to feel thankful?”

“Didn’t you explicitly want me to participate though?”

That was technically true. But regardless of that fact, untangling your own karmic baggage was a matter of basic common sense, wasn’t it? The sheer disparity between Na Eun-hyeok’s structural logic and my own common sense was staggering. At one point, I had genuinely believed he was so flawlessly upright that he didn’t even feel human; seeing him now, he felt non-human in a completely different, terrifying dimension.

“Fine. Thank you so incredibly much.”

“You’re welcome.”

Though my tone was dripping with pure sarcasm, Na Eun-hyeok’s response was exceptionally crisp and unbothered. His demeanor made it perfectly clear that he didn’t care a single fraction about the underlying subtext. It felt like I had suffered another definitive loss. A wave of useless, petty competitiveness bubbled fiercely inside my chest.

“Ah, right.”

Without casting a single glance toward my direction, Na Eun-hyeok casually continued speaking.

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