I Became a Genius Swordsman in the Pretty Girl Game

“Ah… I really wish you’d give me a heads-up before doing something like this… Seriously, I have no idea how to react to something like this.”

As I uttered those words while crying, the party members paused momentarily before bursting into laughter, congratulating one another.

“Yes! We finally made Jin Yuha cry.”
“I know, right? I didn’t think this would actually work…”
“Phew, can I take off this ridiculous headband now?”
“J-Jin Yuha, c-could you cry in three acts next time, by any chance?”
“Sophia, you’ve been watching way too many shows…”
“Totally worth the effort.”
“Wow… I’ve never seen a man cry like this before, but seeing the instructor cry…”

Amid their playful teasing, I forced a smile and replied.

“Thanks… really. When did you even plan all this?”

It was a gift that touched my heart more deeply than any other.

Lee Yoo-ri stepped forward, her usual confidence nowhere to be seen, her hands tightly clasped together.

“Hoo─ Jin Yuha…!”

She bit her lip as if choosing her words carefully before finally speaking.

“…It doesn’t matter to us who you are. Just being Jin Yuha is enough. You’ve always been there, watching over us, guiding us… Because of you, we’ve made it this far. So… so…”

Her voice trembled.

“S-so! If you ever feel tired, i-it’s okay to lean on me sometimes, okay?”

Lee Yoo-ri’s stuttering confession and her bashful demeanor drew sharp looks from the other party members.

“…You already got the first spot in the video, and now this?”
“‘Me,’ not ‘us,’ huh? Using your vice-leader privileges to pull something like this?”
“Yoo-ri, saying something like that at this moment is kind of unfair, don’t you think?”
“Totally underhanded.”

Lee Yoo-ri’s face turned bright red.

Time passed.
The cake was finished, and the candles were blown out one by one.
Yet our conversation seemed endless.

“…Honestly, at first, I thought Senior Ga-eul was such a mature person…”
“Mature senior? Yoo-ri, are you saying I’m not like that now?”
“…”
“Look me in the eyes and say that! Look into my eyes!”

Stories about clearing the first gate.
First impressions of one another.
The fear we felt when we first defeated a demon.
The mishaps at the swimsuit festival.
We had accumulated so many stories.

But it seemed everyone had exhausted themselves preparing for today. They began nodding off or closing their eyes.

“Savior…”

I carried Ichika, who was struggling to stay awake until the end, to her room, tucked her in, and returned.

Then, on the balcony of the party room, I noticed someone.

It was Shin Se-hee.

I stepped out onto the balcony, crossing my arms, and stared at her as if silently asking if she had something to say to me.

Se-hee, clearly feeling a bit guilty, gave me an awkward smile and avoided my gaze.

Although she knew all of my secrets, all she had told me was, “Try to get along with the party members, even if they seem a bit strange.” She had said nothing about this event.

“Well…”

Scratching her cheek, she hesitated.

“At first, I just thought it would be nice if you didn’t feel awkward with the other party members and could get along well…?”
“Hmm?”
“But as it went on, I thought it might be fun to surprise Jin Yuha with a little event. I also wanted to see your reaction when you had no idea this was coming. Before I knew it, I started getting a bit more… sincere about it.”

Poking at the ground with the tip of her shoe, she mumbled as if she were a child caught making excuses. Her adorable demeanor made me let out a faint laugh.

“Jin Yuha, today was dangerous, wasn’t it?”

Realizing I wasn’t angry, she shamelessly shifted the subject. And I, fully aware, played along.

“Yeah, I almost spilled everything.”

I scratched my head and admitted it.

Those words—”It doesn’t matter who you are to us. Just being Jin Yuha is enough.”

Honestly, for a brief moment, I had been so overwhelmed by emotion that I nearly blurted out the truth about being a game transmigrant, someone not from this world, to the entire party.

“You did well holding back. If you had said something then, it would’ve made things awkward.”

In reality, I hadn’t held back. For a fleeting moment, I’d felt a strong conviction that it might be better to reveal everything right then and there.

However, there was one person not present tonight—someone who stopped me.

Baek Seol-hee.

In the video, there had been footage of me through my mentor’s perspective. That meant she had been one of the people helping prepare this event the previous day.

But she wasn’t here today.

“Where is my mentor?”

When I asked, Shin Se-hee tilted her head and replied.

“Not sure? I can’t manage her schedule too. She was with us until the morning and then disappeared at some point.”
“…I see.”

“Maybe she’s busy with the Demon Slayer Squad…?”

I was relieved I hadn’t slipped up, but at the same time, I felt a twinge of sadness.

.

.

.

“What…?”
“I want to understand the responsibility and burden a hero feels.”

Inside the Velvet Hunter Academy director’s office.

Lina stood before Baek Seol-hee, her expression stern, as she abruptly posed her question about the pressures of being a hero.

“…What are you talking about? Explain yourself clearly.”
“Well, you see—”

Baek Seol-hee had been with them until early in the morning, but then, spurred by a sudden thought, she abruptly left.

Sophia had interpreted Jin Yuha’s subconscious, exposing fragments of his self-deprecation and the weight of his burdens.

She agreed with the notion that showing her disciple how she viewed him—how she truly thought of him—might help him. However, she didn’t believe it was a fundamental solution to his problems.

The responsibility and burden of being a hero felt like emotions far removed from her experience.
She had lived her entire life working in the shadows, away from people’s gaze.

That’s why she sought out someone who might understand it best:
Lina.

No matter what anyone said, Lina the Mage Emperor was the most famous hero before the advent of Utopia. She had borne the expectations and burdens of many people.

“So… you’re saying this Jin Yuha in the video said something like that?”

Lina, naturally, kept up with Utopia’s strategy broadcasts, so the scene was familiar to her.
The battle scenes were fluid, and back then, Lina had cheered with bated breath.

But… to think there had been such clever editing that even she hadn’t noticed?

Indeed, focusing on it now, she could sense subtle, awkward inconsistencies in the footage.

“Yes. Can you restore the original audio?”

At Baek Seol-hee’s request, Lina shook her head.

“No. If it were live, perhaps, but with a recording? It’s impossible. The mixing was done masterfully. Hmm… honestly, is this even interference caused by mana? It feels too artificial—”
“More importantly, tell me how I can help my disciple.”

Before Lina could stray into another tangent, Baek Seol-hee redirected the conversation.
Lina paused briefly, organizing her thoughts.

…Jin Yuha? Feeling burdened? That didn’t seem like him.

Lina still remembered that day vividly, as if it had just happened.

An unofficial meeting.

Her so-called disciples had been using her reputation and fame to pull off outrageous schemes behind her back.

Though she felt immense betrayal, she couldn’t bring herself to say anything. But then—
Jin Yuha had stepped forward.

He had punished them, just enough to keep them alive.

—”Lina isn’t someone who should be hurt by trash like you. You miserable pieces of garbage.”

His handling afterward was even more thorough.

He placed watchful eyes on them to ensure they couldn’t plot behind her back again and made them atone for their actions directly.

On the way back to the academy, Jin Yuha had said something that left an indelible mark in her memory:

—”Chairwoman, you’re just like me. An ordinary person. Betrayed, stabbed in the back, hurt by people you trusted—it happens.”

Ah.

For a moment, Lina’s expression hardened with a realization.

Back then, Lina had been too overwhelmed by the situation to recognize something crucial:

Jin Yuha had called himself “ordinary.”

In other words, he, too, was just a normal person. Someone who felt pain, bore burdens, and dealt with the weight of expectations.

How could she have forgotten?

The higher one climbs, the more inevitable loneliness becomes for a hero.

She herself had often thought about abandoning her position as chairwoman of the academy and disappearing. But she always swallowed her sighs, knowing the world would crumble without her.

Jin Yuha must have felt the same.
No, his burden might have been even greater.

Unlike her, who had no direct predecessor, Jin Yuha had inherited and was expected to surpass the legacy of the Mage Emperor:

A global hero.
The master of magic.
The greatest figure in history.
A living legend deemed impossible to surpass.

Bearing such a name, while declaring himself the hero of a new era, must have been unimaginably difficult.

He would constantly be compared to the Mage Emperor’s monumental achievements and criticized no matter what he did.

It was a cruel, thorny path.

How could I have been so blind?

Lina bit her lip in frustration at her own shortsightedness.

“…This was my oversight.”

She glanced at Baek Seol-hee, who was standing before her with an uneasy expression.

I should explain everything to Seol-hee too, she thought.

After all, they both shared the title of “mentor.”

Even if she hadn’t formally taught Jin Yuha, as her successor and a member of the academy, he was essentially her disciple, too.

Having made up her mind, Lina nodded.

“Seol-hee, let me tell you about the unofficial meeting.”
“The unofficial meeting… Are you talking about the incident involving your so-called dis—”
“They’re no longer disciples. Don’t call them that.”
“Ah… Understood.”

Baek Seol-hee nodded, and Lina recounted the events of that day.

The moment Jin Yuha had exposed what her former disciples had been plotting, his intervention to prevent Lina’s outrage, and his calculated punishment of those involved.

He truly acts like a disciple, she thought, a faint smile tugging at her lips.

However, as Baek Seol-hee listened, she couldn’t shake an odd feeling.

Something about the way Lina spoke of Jin Yuha seemed… peculiar.

Almost as if she were describing her own “disciple.”

“…So, as someone who has lived their entire life as an ‘ordinary’ hero, I can understand his burdens. By the way, isn’t it arrogant of him to just grab me to stop my outburst?”
“…And what exactly are you suggesting I do?”

Irritated by Lina’s smug tone, Baek Seol-hee’s words came out sharp.

But Lina, oblivious to the tension, answered smoothly.

“Start by sharing some of his burden.”

Then, Lina’s gaze shifted to Baek Seol-hee.

“Seol-hee, isn’t it about time you stepped out of the shadows?”
“…Out of the shadows?”