Chapter 36: Gym

I secured a total of 3 days off from broadcasting.

I sat on the sofa for a moment, spacing out.

‘What should I do?’

It was a peaceful Monday, and there was nothing to do.

Did I say I was taking a break for nothing?

Haim had university lectures, Lady Kim was chatting with friends, Department Head Lee was at work, and I was the only one home.

‘Should I just turn on the broadcast?’

At first, I happily announced the break as soon as I won, but after announcing it, I really wanted to broadcast.

The problem was, if I turned on the broadcast after announcing a break, I would feel too sorry for the viewers who work.

‘This won’t do.

-Let’s at least go outside.’

Lately, after broadcasting, my stamina has been too low, so I might as well go for a run along the Han River to improve my stamina.

I chose some comfortable track pants and stopped by the Han River.

‘The Han River hasn’t changed at all….’

Nothing had changed compared to 8 years ago.

Perhaps because of that, I felt a slight sense of familiarity.

I did some simple exercises and got ready to run.

‘Okay, let’s do this!’

The vast Han River, people who came to run for stamina improvement like me.

Well, there were some damn couples, but that wasn’t a problem.

Full of motivation!

There’s nothing impossible for me now!

***

10 minutes later.

‘Haa…

-Haa…

-What happened…!’

I was out of breath and my side hurt so much, but what hurt the most was my chest.

Damn chunk of meat!

No matter how much I ran, there was no end in sight, and it felt like about 30 minutes had passed, but only 10 minutes had actually passed.

‘Huff…! Was my stamina this bad…?’

I knew my stamina was low, but I didn’t expect it to be this low….

‘Kuk! I can’t give up here…!’

I ran at full speed towards the straight line again.

‘I am the fortune-teller who defeated the Demon Lord, this much is nothing!’

***

5 minutes later.

“G-Give up….”

In the end, I, who had run out of stamina, lay down on the road.

The fortune-teller who defeated the Demon Lord was defeated by 20 minutes of Han River jogging.

It was truly an unsightly ending.

How many seconds passed like that?

“U-Um, are you okay?”

“……?”

Suddenly, someone spoke to me.

I turned my head and saw a woman wearing leggings asking with a worried tone.

“Haha, I’m okay.”

“I just ran too hard….”

I felt somewhat embarrassed.

‘I must never say I only ran for 15 minutes.’

I quickly brushed off the dust and got up.

“Thanks for worrying about me.”

“I should run again…”

“It’s not good for your body if you run too hard.”

“Rest for a bit and then do it.”

‘Rest, it was a strong temptation, but to such a demonic temptation, I….’

“…U-Um, shall I?”

‘Taking a little break, just for a moment, will be okay.’

‘Right?’

We sat on a bench for a while and rested.

I leaned my tired back against the bench and exhaled.

“What’s your name?”

“I’m Choi Suha.”

“Ah, I’m Lee Seonga.”

We casually started small talk.

“I’m 24, how old are you?”

“Ah, I’m 22.”

‘She was younger than me.’

‘Yet she manages herself so thoroughly.’

“You’re older than me, so please speak casually.”

“Hmm… okay.”

“Then I’ll speak casually.”

“Exercise, do you do it often?”

“Ah, yes, my family runs a gym.”

‘No wonder she had defined abs, her family runs a gym.’

“Is this your first time exercising?”

“Uh, I felt like my stamina was too low lately, so I was running….”

‘My stamina was much lower than I expected.’

‘Do I really need to go to a gym or something….’

“Um, if that’s the case, I know a gym…”

“The gym your family runs?”

“I-I’m not promoting it! You don’t have to come!”

Suha shook her head back and forth, rushing to explain herself.

‘It’s fine even if you promote it….’

“Well, alright. Anyway, I was thinking of going to a gym.”

“R-Really?”

Moreover, I’m worried because I seem to have gained weight lately, so this is good.

I should do a diet along with it.

We immediately went to the gym.

As a clear bell sound echoed in the gym in the middle of Seoul, a quiet atmosphere also lingered.

“Are there usually no customers at this time?”

“One person rents out our entire gym.”

“One person?”

“Yes, they said they didn’t want to exercise where there are many people….”

‘To rent out the entire gym because they don’t want to exercise with others, how much money do they have overflowing?’

“Can we use it now?”

“They’re coming late today.”

“For now, shall we change into leggings casually?”

“Leggings?”

I lightly scanned the leggings Suha would wear up and down.

‘No, to wear clothes that cling so tightly to the body like this….’

“C-Can’t I just wear track pants? I feel like leggings are too revealing….”

“These are surprisingly comfortable. It’s definitely good to wear them when exercising. Plus….”

Suha explained 250 advantages of leggings to me.

But my opinion remained unchanged.

‘The moment I wear clothes like this, I become an exhibitionist!’

‘Look, her navel was fully exposed and the lower body was so clingy it was practically like not wearing anything.’

Suha sighed, perhaps tired of my continuous refusal.

“Alright. Well, everyone has their own thoughts. Then I’ll start with an InBody check. You just need to get on the scale.”

“Okay, I understand.”

I felt relieved at the thought that I didn’t have to wear leggings.

I got on the scale and held something similar to a remote control.

And the result came out in less than 5 minutes.

Suha’s expression darkened abruptly when she saw the result.

‘Is there a problem?’

“Unnie, isn’t this too severe? Can you hold chopsticks?”

“Is it that bad?”

“Yes, how can your weight, skeletal muscle mass, and body fat percentage all be below standard? As a human being, this shouldn’t be possible….”

Suha’s expression became completely serious.

“Well, it just happened that way….”

Originally, the job of a fortune-teller is one where not exercising is not a problem.

So I couldn’t help but get further away from exercise.

“You eat well, right?”

“Of course, I eat well. I ate so much multi-grain rice.”

Because Lady Kim strongly insisted that I must eat breakfast, I try to eat three meals a day as a basic rule.

“Multi-grain rice?! Unnie, this is not the time to be eating things like that!”

“……?”

‘Isn’t multi-grain rice good?’

Because of Lady Kim, who cared about the health of her family, the staple food in our household was multi-grain rice.

“From now on, eat white rice, which has a lot of carbohydrates! Eat lots of snacks, and eat lots of delivery food too!”

“Uh… uh, okay.”

“In your current state, I can’t make you do intense exercise.”

Suha looked around, grabbed the pink dumbbells nearby, and brought them over.

“Which one would you like?”

There were two pink dumbbells in Suha’s hands.

‘I don’t know what the difference is.’

“The right one is 1kg and the left one is 2kg.”

For a moment, I was dumbfounded.

“Aren’t you underestimating me too much? You can give me the iron dumbbells.”

“In your current state, even this will be hard to lift.”

My pride cracked and was wounded!

‘No matter how little muscle strength I have, it’s not this bad, I have to show them with action this time too.’

“Hmph! Watch closely what I do.”

I moved my feet to where the dumbbells were gathered, and the 5kg dumbbell caught my eye.

I bent down and smiled confidently.

‘Suha will also regret it like Haim and the viewers….’

‘Huh? Why isn’t it lifting?’

I looked down and saw that even with all my strength on the dumbbell, I couldn’t straighten my back.

Trying to lift it with two hands was also useless.

The same was true for the next target, 4kg.

No matter how hard I tried to lift it, it wouldn’t lift.

And finally, 3kg.

Fortunately, from 3kg upwards, I could lift it using two hands.

Of course, I couldn’t lift it easily, but this was almost equivalent to humanity discovering fire for the first time.

“How’s that?”

“I lifted 3kg!”

“This much is amazing─!”

“Unnie.”

“……?”

Suha approached me, took the 3kg dumbbell I was holding, and placed a 1kg dumbbell in my hand.

“It seems even 2kg might be too much.”

“…….”

In the end, I diligently lifted the 1kg dumbbell with tears in my eyes.

I felt wronged.

‘If only I had a man’s body…!’

Ding!

“……?”

Suddenly, someone entered the gym.

‘What is it?’

‘There shouldn’t be anyone coming in….’

“Unnie?”

“Rona?”

We were both startled as soon as we saw each other’s faces.

‘Why is Rona here?’

“What is it?”

“Is someone here?”

“Huh?

-Oppa?”

Following closely, Haim also entered the gym.

‘Surely the person who rented out the entire gym is….’

“Rona!”

“Haim!”

“You came?”

Suha welcomed the two people with a smile.

Since they were both 22, the probability was high that they were university classmates.

“Didn’t you say you were coming late today?”

“Today the professor’s lecture ended early, but why is that person here?”

“Ah, I happened to meet her while jogging along the Han River.”

“Sorry.”

“I’ll exercise on the second floor.”

“No, it’s okay.”

“That person is Haim’s Oppa.”

“Huh?

-Oppa?”

“What do you mean by that?”

“She’s a woman?”

“…….”

‘I don’t know how to explain this.’

‘“Oppa” but “woman”, they were contradictory words.’

“Uh, well…”

Rona, who knew I was a returnee, didn’t know what to do.

I quickly sent her a message with my eyes, telling her not to say I was a returnee.

Rona’s body tensed even more, and inevitably, Haim sighed and stepped between the two of them.

“Sigh, it’s just a nickname or something, so you don’t need to worry about it.”

“Ah, is that so?”

Fortunately, Suha didn’t have any particular suspicions.

Rona and Haim came towards me.

“Have you two become very close?”

“Yeah! She said she wanted to exercise, so I brought her?”

Suha stepped up to explain instead of me.

I diligently lifted the pink dumbbell.

Lifting the pink dumbbell in front of my younger sister’s friends made me feel somewhat embarrassed.

While I was diligently exercising, the two of them changed into leggings in the changing room and came out.

Their conversation flowed into my ears.

“I got a request from the guild today, so I have to leave quickly. Let’s just lightly check how much we lift in the three major lifts.”

“Wasn’t it 800?”

“That was half a year ago.”

“It’s probably increased more?”

“That’s right.”

“I should do it too while I’m at it.”

“How much did I get before?”

“You were 750.”

‘800 and 750, how absurd.’

‘Someone is lifting a 1kg pink dumbbell.’

‘If only I was an Awakened One, it would be much more than that…!’

“Everyone is amazing.”

“Well, you’re more amazing.”

“Even though you’re not an Awakened One, you lift 1000 in the three major lifts.”

“Wasn’t that half a year ago too?”

“How much is it now?”

“Well, I haven’t counted since then because it’s troublesome, so I don’t know.”

“…….”

The three of them only talked about exercise, so I couldn’t join in.

I felt a somehow inexplicable sense of alienation.