VSP 40

“Were you two ganging up on Seo Sejun or what?”

Choi Hangyeol threw that question at Yerin and Dohun. His big hand was still resting on Sejun’s shoulder. It felt so heavy that Sejun’s body trembled, and Hangyeol’s gaze turned toward him.

Their eyes met.

For a second, Sejun blinked fast, feeling like he was being pulled into some deep pit.

Ah, right. That guy’s ability…

The moment he remembered Hangyeol’s specialty, a nasty feeling ran through him, so Sejun carefully lifted Hangyeol’s hand off his shoulder.

Hangyeol smiled strangely for some reason.

“Lee Dohun, are you picking fights with Sejun-hyung again?”

As if he had never made that twisted face while looking at Sejun, Hangyeol returned to his usual sullen look and scolded Dohun.

“Again? What did I even do?”

“The fact that you don’t know is already a serious problem…”

Good one, Choi Hangyeol.

Sejun found himself cheering for him. But the moment that thought crossed his mind, Choi Hangyeol smirked at him in a strange way, and Sejun immediately regretted it.

Seo Sejun, you idiot. You just remembered his ability and you go and think that…

[Sejun-nim, please learn something already.]

Even the system had to say that.

Sejun quickly averted his eyes, and Hangyeol laughed, then tapped Dohun’s shoulder twice.

“I told you before to cut it out. Keep it down, you too.”

Dohun looked at him and twisted his mouth.

“You sure cover for Seo Sejun a lot, huh? Just like Sehyun-hyung.”

“Me? I don’t care about anyone.”

“That’s not what it looks like to me. Ease up on covering for him. People might think you’re in love with Seo Sejun.”

Dohun said nonsense then scowled at Sejun, but for once he didn’t say more. Instead, he just waved his hand.

“I’ve done my part, so I’m off. You guys deal with carrying that baggage and try to clear the dungeon.”

“Either mock us or cheer us on, pick one.”

Dohun didn’t reply to Hangyeol’s last jab. Yerin sighed as she watched him.

“Lee Dohun, take care of Siwoo. Don’t just run off on your own again. He’s mental type, he’s fragile.”

This time Dohun had been teamed with Jeong Siwoo. Naturally, that left Cha Dogyeong with Na Yookyung, and that pairing was without doubt the strongest in terms of sheer force in this round of team assignments.

Dohun and Siwoo’s pairing was a bit different.

“Fragile? You think anyone could be weaker than Seo Sejun?”

Dohun sneered at Yerin’s words.

Even if Siwoo being a mental type meant he was on the weaker side, nobody would ever rank him below Sejun. Among S-ranks, they believed that there was nobody weaker than Seo Sejun, meaning even mental types like Siwoo and Hangyeol were seen as stronger.

So, despite Dohun being difficult, even Sejun admitted he was strong.

And unlike with Sejun, Siwoo could actually help him in various ways. Their relationship wasn’t bad either, so if Siwoo ended up in danger Dohun would likely step in to help him. Maybe not a dream team, but still a decent one.

Which meant if you had to pick the weakest team in this shuffle, it was obviously the one with the Choi twins and Seo Sejun.

Two supports, plus Sejun, who was technically offense but couldn’t even pull his own weight.

Of course, since it was only an A-rank dungeon, three S-ranks going in meant the risk of failure was slim. But this team was the weakest in the lineup, and Dohun had hit that sore spot before leaving.

As soon as he left, Yerin turned to Sejun.

“Sejun-oppa.”

Sejun flinched at the old-fashioned “oppa.” Not just because Yerin had called him that.

“I don’t know how long this team will last, but let’s work well together.”

“Uh, yeah.”

“I saw Sehyun-oppa today. He said he’s going to shorten the rotation cycles. Apparently Siwoo complained it was boring being stuck with the same partner too long.”

It seemed Sixoo had played a big role in triggering this reshuffle. Sejun felt resentful. After all, he had even given Siwoo lemonade.

“Boring being with the same teammate, or boring being with me?”

“He kind of hates his own kind, you know.” Hangyeol cut in.

Before the reshuffle, Team 1 had been Na Yookyung and Yerin. Team 2 had been Hangyeol and Siwoo.

Anyway, whether they were mental types or healers, the base stats of an S-rank alone were enough to clear an A-rank dungeon, so the rotations weren’t really built with team synergy in mind.

If a standard raid team had been put together like Team 2, made up only of mental-type ability users, then of course people would have said what kind of nonsense team composition is that.

Even if they were both mental-type, one was manipulation and the other was detection, so the abilities were completely different. But Hangyeol’s comment about self-hating among their own kind wasn’t entirely wrong.

On top of their abilities not meshing well, Choi Hangyeol and Jeong Siwoo’s personalities clashed constantly, so it made sense that Siwoo might have complained to Ryu Sehyun.

“Choi Hangyeol, the way you talk…”

“What about it?”

Yerin scolded Hangyeol for his barbed tone, but Hangyeol just looked like it was nothing.

They were twins, so no matter how much they got annoyed at each other, it never lasted long. For Sejun, suddenly stuck in between them, the feeling of discomfort only kept growing.

Why am I even standing here? Can’t I just say goodbye and leave? No, actually, instead of thinking like this, I should have already said goodbye and walked off.

“Of course you could do that, hyung.”

But that attempt was blocked by Hangyeol, who had casually read Sejun’s thoughts.

Ah, damn it. Not like I’m a goldfish.

Because he had forgotten Hangyeol’s ability again, Sejun’s thoughts had been laid bare. When he lifted his head with a flustered face, Hangyeol was looking at him with a smile.

“We haven’t seen each other in a while, and we’ll be in the same team soon. If you just think about leaving us coldly like that, Hangyeol feels sad.”

Sometimes Hangyeol did this. With other people, he barely even talked, never mind showing affection, but weirdly, he sometimes pulled these kinds of dumb jokes with Sejun.

But his expression wasn’t playful or sly, it was still his usual gloomy face, while he spoke in third person like, “Hangyeol this, Hangyeol that.” It made Sejun’s skin crawl.

Why does a guy over 190 like Cha Dogyeong act like this?

“Choi Hangyeol, cut the shitty way of talking. It’s annoying.”

Thankfully, unlike Sejun, who couldn’t bring himself to say anything straight to him, Yerin immediately jumped in and called Hangyeol out.

She stared at Sejun for a moment, then said,

“Even if I can’t read minds like him, I can tell you really want to get out of here.”

“No, I just…”

“Forget it. Oppa, just go. Don’t let Hangyeol hold you back.”

That was the chance Yerin gave him. Sejun’s face brightened in relief.

His feelings were written all over his face, but whether Yerin and Hangyeol were secretly amused by that or not, Sejun didn’t notice. He just said quickly, “Then, I’ll be going!”

“Sejun-hyung.”

But Hangyeol wasn’t as cool about it as Yerin. He called out to Sejun again just as he was about to walk away.

Ah, I really want to ignore him!

Sejun shouted inwardly, but of course, even that was picked up by Hangyeol, who chuckled.

“Let’s work well together.”

“What do you mean…”

“You’re the only offense type among us.”

…What?

Sejun blinked.

[That’s true.]

And as the system pointed out, it really was.

Yerin, though she used elemental magic, was basically relied on more as a healer. Hangyeol was a full-on mental type no matter how you looked at it.

Which meant… the only one who could even halfway be counted on for offense in this team was Sejun. Sure, in the rankings made by professionals, both of them were placed above Sejun, so you couldn’t exactly say he was more specialized, but strictly speaking, that was the fact.

“I’ll just have to ride on your back, hyung.”

With a face that made it impossible to tell if he was joking or not, Hangyeol said, “See you,” finally letting him go.

Only then did Sejun realize that in a team with these twins, he would have to be the one to actively push the raid forward.

Sejun’s vision darkened, but the twin siblings in front of him simply waved cheerfully and walked off.