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chapter 306
When the shaman fled the principal’s office as if running away, only Shin Hanji, the principal, Woo Jimin inside the doll, and I were left in the room.
To keep Woo Jimin from doing anything foolish, I controlled the doll, made it face the wall with both hands raised, and locked it in place.
“Uh… sorry… so, can’t you forgive me?”
“Stay like that until I finish talking with the principal.”
I said that because if Woo Jimin kept interrupting, our conversation would never progress.
The principal, Shin Hanji, seemed to agree and told Woo Jimin:
“Jimin, be quiet. I have a lot to discuss with Gunwoo.”
“……”
Since even her friend, Principal Shin Hanji, took my side, Woo Jimin closed her mouth, sulking.
Was she always this childish, even before the regression?
I thought to myself and spoke to Shin Hanji.
“First, about her treatment.”
“Handle it however you want, Gunwoo. If necessary, I can keep her with me most of the time, and you can take her whenever you need.”
So Shin Hanji said.
It seemed she wanted to keep her old friend by her side, but at the same time, acknowledging that I resurrected her and that the doll belonged to me—she was recognizing my ownership.
“Wait, Malttong… I mean, Hanji? Am I being sold off…?”
“Quiet.”
“……”
Hanji silenced Jimin’s anxious words.
Her anxiety wasn’t unreasonable, but the truth was, she had no choice.
Not that either of us planned to mistreat her.
At worst, I’d make her help with dungeon raids. But since she’d raided dungeons constantly in the past anyway, it wasn’t much different. She’d willingly dive into dungeons herself.
And Hanji, being her friend, wouldn’t push her harder than necessary—she’d only use her when truly needed.
Though even then, her combat ability isn’t that impressive, so her uses are limited.
Even if she’d once been called a hero, that was only because she was strong for her time. By today’s standards, with the overall level of Awakeners so much higher, she was just another veteran at best.
Well, except that now she was inside my doll, so in terms of raw physical ability, she was probably beyond that.
“Let’s leave Jimin’s treatment at that. I actually have a request for you, Gunwoo.”
“A request?”
“Yes. It’s something you’ll want as well. About the doll Jimin’s in… can’t we do something about its appearance?”
“Ah…”
True enough—letting Jimin run around in a doll shaped exactly like me would do more harm than good. It’d damage my reputation, embarrass me, and mentally exhaust both Hanji and me.
“Changing the appearance isn’t hard. The doll was originally made to resemble me for sympathetic magic, but now it makes more sense to adjust it to Jimin’s soul instead.”
Normally, altering bones of refined iron and muscles/skin of world tree branches would be nearly impossible. But my case was different.
That doll had been used by me for ten years, infused with my inner energy, so it accepted it almost as well as my own body. With that, reshaping it was easy.
“Since it came up, I’ll handle it right away. Could you find me some old photos of Jimin? It’s easier to sculpt the form by looking directly.”
“Of course. I have plenty of pictures of us together in my albums.”
At that moment—
“Wait a sec…!”
Jimin suddenly shouted, hearing our conversation.
“Haa… what now?”
With her hands still raised against the wall, Jimin interrupted again, making Hanji sigh and glare. But this time Jimin didn’t back down.
“You’re deciding my appearance without me? It’s my face, so I get to choose!”
“……”
“……”
…Did she not hear what I just said?
“Because of the sympathetic magic, the doll has to resemble your soul as much as possible.”
“I don’t care about that complicated stuff! Just make me really pretty!”
“Oh my, so you admit your old face wasn’t all that pretty?”
“Shut up!”
…Later, Hanji explained that Jimin had always been obsessed with looks, even as a child.
She supposedly started wearing makeup in elementary school.
Nowadays, some kids do that, but two hundred years ago? Not at all.
“And by adulthood, her skin was all cracked and ruined.”
“Mmph…! Mmphh!”
Jimin looked like she wanted to argue, but Hanji sealed her mouth with magic, leaving her only to grunt in frustration.
“…Well, no need to recreate cracked skin.”
Besides being a pain, bad skin would reduce defense. A small deviation wouldn’t hurt the sympathetic magic anyway.
“Mmph?”
Jimin reacted to my words—probably asking if I really could give her flawless skin.
After that, with photos from Hanji, I reshaped the doll to match Jimin’s old appearance.
“Wow… it feels easier to move than before.”
While at it, we changed the doll from male to female form.
I didn’t do this part myself—Hanji insisted she could handle it after watching me change the face.
Honestly, it would’ve felt weird for me, a man, to sculpt a female body, so I let her.
“Can you use your ability now?”
“My ability? You mean acceleration? Hmm…”
She tried it.
And—
“Waaah?!” Thud!
She slammed straight into the office wall, unable to control her speed.
“Ugh… what? I only doubled my speed…”
“To me, it looked more like five times. Are you sure it was only double?”
Hanji asked, doubtful.
Jimin nodded, checking her body.
“Yes. I focused the same way I always did for about 2x acceleration.”
“…And yet it came out nearly 5x? Is it because this isn’t your original body, but a doll Gunwoo made?”
“Maybe? Normally even doubling speed strains my body a bit, but this one doesn’t at all.”
“……”
Hanji thought for a while, then muttered a famous saying:
“A sound magic flows from a sound body… must be that.”
It was a twist on “A sound mind in a sound body.”
The Awakener Association president, Richard, had turned that into a maxim about physical training making stronger magic.
So Hanji thinks the sturdier doll body boosted her output.
Not entirely wrong. The durable body helped reduce strain.
But the real reason was different.
The doll wasn’t powered by mental energy at all—it ran on my inner energy.
Unlike aura, mana, or psyche, inner energy had lower recovery speed but much higher quality.
So of course abilities fueled by it became more efficient and powerful.
Neither Hanji nor Jimin realized this—they thought it was just the sturdy body.
“Maybe we should increase the academy’s physical training courses…”
“…That won’t solve it. Excessive training ruins the body. The current level is fine.”
I stopped her.
Too much exercise did more harm than good.
Besides—
If training courses increased, I’d be stuck taking them when I enroll. What a pain.
Honestly, meditation was far more efficient for me than drills.
Hanji nodded.
“You’re probably more knowledgeable about body training than me. I’ll leave it as is.”
Anyway—
“But with her output suddenly doubling, it’ll be hard to control.”
Hanji looked at Jimin.
Jimin nodded.
“This place is an academy, right? Do you have a shooting range here?”
“Of course. A small one, but we need it for cadets aspiring to be marksmen, and for mages practicing aim.”
“Then I should train there to adjust my senses.”
“Alright. But the range still operates for dorm students even during break, so let’s be quiet and not disturb them.”
So we headed to the academy’s shooting range.
Inside, Jimin wasted no time. She grabbed a pistol Hanji handed her, adjusted the zeroing, and fired a test shot.
The result—
“…How can it be this different just because my body changed?”
“Unbelievable…”
Even Hanji and Jimin, who knew her real skill, were shocked.
“Every shot missed…”
“Was it the gun?”
“No, I don’t think so…”
In a bad way. Every bullet she fired missed the target.
“Are your senses off?”
“It’s not exactly off. It’s like… the feeling I had when I first learned to shoot. My head remembers how, but my body won’t follow.”
…At her words, I lowered my head.
This was definitely my fault.
“…Gunwoo? What’s wrong?”
“…Sigh.”
That doll, even though reshaped for Jimin’s soul, was fundamentally still built through sympathetic magic—its stats tied to me.
Which meant—
“I… have never fired a gun before.”
Since I’d never shot one, the doll could only move like someone who had never shot before.
Even if Jimin, a sharpshooter, was inside.
