-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: Vine
Chapter Title: The Weight of the Shield (1)
-----------------------------------------------------------------
After the party's inauguration ceremony concluded.
Lee Yuri, who had immediately rushed back to her dorm, buried her face in her bed.
She had tried her best not to show it in front of others, but...
"...Ah."
Now that she was alone,
she gritted her teeth against the surging shame.
"How embarrassing."
Thump! Thump!
As she kicked her feet while lying face down, the bed bounced.
"...If 'it's good to prepare a gift' meant *that*, they should have been more specific from the start..."
Two days ago,
Shin Se-hee had suddenly sent her a message.
At her words, 'it would be good to prepare Jin Yu-ha's gift in advance,'
Lee Yuri had mistakenly thought it was his birthday today.
That's why, wanting to congratulate him on his birthday before the other party members, she had abruptly called him out that morning.
"But it wasn't his birthday; it was just a gift exchange..."
Lee Yuri rolled over on the bed.
"No, well... actually, whether it was his birthday or not wasn't really important."
It was just about returning her gratitude.
She was confident that her gratitude towards Jin Yu-ha was by no means inferior to that of the other party members.
However.
After the time for distributing equipment to each member ended,
the party members each handed Jin Yu-ha the gifts they had prepared.
Shin Se-hee gave him a building ownership certificate with Jin Yu-ha's name on it.
Kang Do-hee gave him a top-tier sword maintenance kit.
Im Ga-eul, like herself, had mistaken it for his birthday and prepared a cake.
Of course, even if Shin Se-hee boasted an extraordinary scale among them,
the others' gifts also held considerable value.
The sword maintenance kit Kang Do-hee gifted was a top-grade premium *something-or-other* kit favored by the Sword Emperor, Korea's #2 ranked Hunter.
The cake Im Ga-eul brought was so rare that orders were backed up, and if you ordered now, you'd only receive it five months later.
It was only possible because her family's main household ran that bakery.
'...I thought unnie was like me, but it was a complete betrayal.'
In any case, everyone had given Jin Yu-ha a decent gift.
But she alone had come empty-handed.
Of course, Jin Yu-ha had told her with an extremely proud expression that he had already received a gift from her, but...
"Why did I give such a pathetic gift..."
Lee Yuri bit her lip tightly.
After much deliberation on what gift would be good, she had woken up at dawn, handwritten it on an A4 sheet,
and then rushed to a bookstore in the morning to laminate the 'wish coupon'.
What's more, it was a crumpled, unsightly piece of paper from bickering with Jin Yu-ha.
As she stretched her hand towards the ceiling,
the geometric tattoo etched on the back of her hand caught her eye.
"If he keeps showering me with gifts like this... what am I supposed to do?"
Now, the debt she owed Jin Yu-ha was growing even larger than her family's debts.
"He took care of me and my brother in Carmella's Forest, and he even saved my life... The subspace tattoo and disaster kit, fine, you could say those were provided as the party leader, but the shield? That's too much, you jerk..."
Honestly, when Jin Yu-ha handed her the shield earlier,
she was utterly exhausted from forcing herself to suppress the urge to refuse it right then and there.
Did she dislike the gift?
Of course not.
It was simply her pride.
A petty emotion that suddenly surged, thinking she hadn't done anything for him compared to the others.
There was no way she didn't know the meaning behind him gifting her the shield.
He must have given her good equipment because she was in charge of the party members' safety from now on.
Moreover, the shield he gave her.
It was the shield of her dreams, bringing to reality what she had always imagined.
Why would she, a tank who had to stand at the forefront and block enemy attacks, make 'evasion' her primary weapon?
It was because of repair costs.
In the end, it was about money again.
When she first became a Hunter and started clearing dungeons, Lee Yuri also used a shield to block enemy attacks, just like other tanks.
However, in a situation where she already had to tighten her belt, the money spent on repairing a damaged shield became too precious to waste.
As a result, she had honed the skill of 'evasion'.
Given her circumstances, a shield that recovered its own durability by utilizing surrounding mana?
Furthermore, the function to see enemy attacks from behind was truly the shield she had always dreamed of.
Haaah—
A sigh, filled with complex emotions, escaped her lips without her realizing it.
"...I'm going crazy, seriously. So how much does this insane shield even cost?"
Lee Yuri scratched her head vigorously, then pulled out her phone and tapped the search bar.
"Surely, the shield's name was something like Cross Shield, right...?"
When she searched for [Cross Shield] on the Hunter-exclusive shopping window,
the shield photo that appeared first.
It was cross-shaped, just like the one she received as a gift.
And at the 'feast' of zeros displayed next to it, Lee Yuri's eyes shot open.
"Are you kidding me?!"
A price so exorbitant that an expletive almost slipped out.
She was so shocked that she shot up from where she was lying.
"W-what on earth did he give me?!"
Curious if the items he gave Kang Do-hee and Im Ga-eul were similarly priced, she looked them up, but...
"Kang Do-hee's shoes were five hundred... Ga-eul unnie's gloves were in the thirty million won range..."
Of course, the shoes costing five hundred (million won) or a sub-weapon exceeding thirty million won was shocking in itself, but...
"The *units* are different! Why am I the only one in the hundreds of millions?!"
Another weight was added to her already burdened heart.
And it was a weight that truly made her gasp, an 'eok' (hundred million) sized burden.
"But, for that, I gave him..."
「☆Lee Yuri's One-Time-Per-Month Free Pass☆」
Recalling that utterly crude piece of paper, Lee Yuri's face flushed crimson.
"Seriously, you draw like trash, so why did you even draw stars? You stupid gukbap-headed girl... Just stick to being a gukbap-head..."
Ugh, ahhhhhh—!!!
Lee Yuri covered her face with both hands and screamed.
A muffled sound filled the room.
Haaah...
"It really sucks to be broke."
Lee Yuri exhaled in exasperation, then clicked her tongue.
"This just won't do..."
If things continued like this, she'd clearly stay up all night, unable to get a wink of sleep due to the embarrassment.
And she had to enter a dungeon tomorrow, no less.
After receiving a shield more expensive than her own body,
to fail at managing her condition too...?
"Bullshit."
That was something that absolutely could not happen.
*
[ Cadet Lee Yuri, entry permitted. ]
The place Lee Yuri visited after leaving her room was the personal training ground used by Velvet Academy cadets.
She had come here thinking that if she just worked up a good sweat, she might be able to clear her head and sleep well.
'Now that I think about it, the monsters we're fighting tomorrow use projectiles.'
The dungeon Jin Yu-ha had announced beforehand was a B-rank gate called 「Thorn Meadow」.
Monsters resembling hedgehogs that shot paralyzing venomous thorns from their backs.
Black Hedgehogs.
A place where B-grade monsters appeared.
"...Until I came here, I was just a girl who hunted goblins. You've really grown, Lee Yuri."
However, she knew well that this wasn't because her own abilities had dramatically improved.
It was likely a selection tailored to the level of the party's damage dealers, Kang Do-hee and Jin Yu-ha.
As she briefly thought about the monsters they'd face tomorrow,
an emotionless voice was emitted from above.
[ Would you like to record your status window? ]
"Yes."
Lee Yuri nodded and summoned her status window.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Name ─ Lee Yuri
Gender ─ Female (20)
Stats
Strength ─ 30 Spirit ─ 64
Magic ─ 35 Durability ─ 55
Speed ─ 67 Charm ─ 50
Specialization ─ Shield Mastery A+
Title ─ Dirt Spoon (土匙)
─ Gukbap-ie
Skills ─ [Shield's Echo], [Sacrificial Shield]
Trait ─ [Willpower]
Exclusive Weapon ─ Cross Shield
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Honestly, she didn't think it was a bad status window.
She wondered about her speed being higher than her durability for a tank,
but even that wasn't a low level, and she was, after all, a tank who primarily relied on evasion.
"...Hoo."
Lee Yuri, having finished recording her status window, let out a soft breath.
[ Commencing ranged combat tank training. Please select a level. ]
Unlike a damage dealer's training, a tank's ranged combat training wasn't about defeating enemies.
It was simply about blocking.
The method was to block as much as possible from the front, ensuring attacks didn't reach the rear.
"Hmm, well... for a warm-up, Level 5."
Lee Yuri retrieved the Cross Shield from her subspace inventory.
She equipped it on her arm and clicked a switch.
A translucent barrier unfolded.
[ Level 5. Goblin Archers. 10 units. ]
Soon, ten goblins, armed with crude bows and arrows, appeared vividly before her eyes.
Goblins, seen after a long time.
Suddenly, Lee Yuri recalled the day she first met Jin Yu-ha and a corner of her mouth lifted.
"...It's strangely nostalgic, you guys."
Ding—!
With the sound of a bell ringing,
the goblins began firing arrows at her.
Whoosh—!
Arrows flying towards her.
"...This would be more fun training with Jin Yu-ha."
Goblins and arrows, if Jin Yu-ha were here,
wouldn't it be more enjoyable to summon even more goblins and fight?
'Pfft, what am I thinking? A girl like me, who gave him a free pass as a gift...'
Just as she was holding her shield, about to block the enemy arrows.
"Yeah, I think so too."
Again, a voice she shouldn't have heard came from beside her.
Just like that time.
Lee Yuri turned her head with a blank expression.
"Did you call me?"
Swish—
He cut down the arrow flying towards her with his sword.
"You did this last time too, Gukbap-ie. Why do you always get distracted whenever I show up? It's dangerous. An arrow's coming."