Chapter 107

“Why am I over there?!”

His own face, standing on the opposite side, pointed at him and bellowed. Fortunately—or perhaps unfortunately—it seemed their voices hadn’t changed. Based on the voice, the person wearing his appearance was Father.

Theo and Father looked at each other in absurdity before suddenly remembering Holanghee, Noquia, and Blaine. What happened to those three?

In a panicked rush to check on them, Theo heard Blaine’s voice calling out, “Hyuuung…” He turned to see a tearful-looking Holanghee staring at him.

“…B-Blaine?”

When Theo asked in a dazed voice, the figure of Holanghee, standing in an awkward, hesitant posture, simply nodded.

“…….”

Theo and Father stared blankly at Holanghee before shifting their gaze to the remaining two.

There was Noquia, standing with a sour expression as if she’d just chewed on a piece of crap, and Blaine, who was staring vacantly down at his own body. Since they weren’t speaking, it was impossible to know for sure who was inside, but Theo felt like he could guess.

Judging by that sour face, that Noquia was nine times out of ten Holanghee. Which meant the one inside Blaine was…

Everyone turned their anxious eyes toward Blaine. Blaine was examining every inch of his body as if it were the most fascinating thing in the world. Then, he raised eyes that were twinkling with a burdensome level of intensity and looked at the group.

A sense of dread washed over them.

“Is this a gift from God?”

The voice that finally escaped Blaine’s mouth belonged to Noquia. Everyone felt it instinctively. They were screwed.

Those twinkling eyes were now gleaming with a greasy sheen of pure desire.

“Hey, don’t you dare…”

Theo instinctively tried to stop him, spooked by the fanatical light in Noquia’s eyes. Noquia hadn’t even done anything yet, but Theo knew she wasn’t going to stay still.

Noquia smiled and looked at Theo. That gaze and that expression felt like a warning—a prophecy that something very ominous was about to happen.

“Noquia, don’t.”

Father also sensed the unusual atmosphere and raised a hand to dissuade Noquia. But Noquia acted as if she couldn’t hear them and reached her arms out into the air. She wore an ecstatic expression as she gazed at her own firm, well-defined muscles.

“This physical beauty…”

Noquia seemed so enamored with Blaine’s body that she pulled her extended hands back to hug herself. Since the exterior was Blaine, it looked quite artistic, but the soul inside was Noquia nonetheless.

As Theo watched Noquia’s pathetic display of vanity, he caught it for a fleeting second: Noquia’s hand gripping the edge of her cloak.

Something flashed through Theo’s mind like a bolt of lightning. He suddenly realized exactly what that woman was planning to do. Theo shouted urgently and lunged at Noquia. No matter what, he had to stop that.

“Hey! No! Don’t take it off!”

But Noquia sneered at Theo’s frantic face as he rushed toward her. Before anyone could stop her, she flung the cloak aside.

“Behold, this radiant body of a God!”

At the booming shout, every eye inside the Guild House snapped toward Noquia—or more accurately, toward Noquia in the form of Blaine.

The cloak fluttered through the air, drawing a graceful line as it drifted through the void. Using the falling cloak like a stage curtain, Noquia, in Blaine’s body, slowly revealed herself, showing off her back with a smile more confident than ever before.

Fair skin without a single blemish. A broad back and smooth, well-knit muscles without a hint of fat. The line of the back and waist stretched straight and connected so perfectly it was mesmerizing. And below that, those cute little Venus dimples.

Everything was revealed to the world.

Shocked by seeing his own body from a third-person perspective, Blaine turned bright red, screamed, and covered his face with his hands. Theo, who had been lunging at Noquia, was so flustered that he stopped in his tracks and whipped his head away. Theo’s face was burning as red as Blaine’s.

With Theo’s interference halted, Noquia began to show off her back with even more arrogance. Theo could feel the subtle movements even with his head turned, so he just stayed looking away and started yelling.

“Stop it! Put the cloak back on, now!”

Cackle, cackle. A frivolous laugh—a mix of Blaine’s face and Noquia’s voice—rang out shrilly through the Guild House. She looked like she was about to toss her shirt off too if left alone. The others were so preoccupied with Blaine’s exposed back that they didn’t even think to stop Noquia.

“Tsk.”

Just then, the sound of a tongue clicking echoed from behind Theo. Something shot out like a lightning bolt, brushing past Theo’s side, followed immediately by a loud thwack—no, a smack.

When a startled Theo looked up, an unbelievable sight unfolded. There was Noquia being slapped on the back by Father—or rather, visually speaking, there was Blaine being smacked on the back by Theo.

Red handprints began to appear one after another on the exposed white back, accompanied by the repeated smack-smack of the hits. Theo beating the daylights out of Blaine’s back—it was a truly strange and novel sight for everyone.

However, for Blaine himself, it must have been a terrifying scene. He swallowed a shrill scream and trembled with a face pale with fright. Holanghee, unable to watch any longer, picked up the cloak sprawled on the floor and began to pull Father away.

Thanks to Holanghee—whose lackadaisical attempts to “stop” the fight made it unclear if she was actually discouraging it or egging it on—Father’s thrashing continued for quite a while longer. By the time it was over, Noquia had been beaten into a tattered mess. She was forced to scramble back into her discarded cloak and slump into a corner of the Guild House like a vagrant.

Once the commotion caused by Noquia settled, the absolute disaster that was the interior of the Guild House came into full view. Most of the guild members had used Shuffle Rings, and everyone was so jumbled up that it was impossible to tell who was who.

After some deliberation, they decided to wear name tags to distinguish themselves. Honestly, they could have just used the Shuffle Rings again to swap back and be done with the hassle, but there was no way they were going to easily give up the only source of entertainment thrown into their boring daily lives.

This was true even if Holanghee, currently in Noquia’s body, still looked like she had just chewed on a piece of crap.

Marco tilted his head as he looked over a weapon commission. Despite the fields being closed and hunting being off-limits, weapon requests had suddenly spiked. Even stranger was the fact that every single request was for a bow with its attack power boosted to the absolute maximum.

Staring at the forms in thought, Marco accepted the commissions for now. With work being scarce lately, he couldn’t afford to turn down orders, even if they were few and far between.

However, he couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling. Marco opened his transaction log and examined the previous requests. The commissions asking for a bow with maxed-out attack power had started coming in three days ago. In those three days, twelve orders had been filed.

He was a bit shocked. He hadn’t realized it while taking them one by one, but twelve cases? In one sense, it could be nothing, but in another, it felt ominous. Why bows, of all things? And why with maxed-out attack power? If you max out attack power, the accuracy and range inevitably drop to zero.

The only person who used a bow like that was Theo. Should he ignore it? Or should he treat it as something serious? After agonizing over it for a long time, Marco made up his mind. He opened the guild chat.

At that moment, Theo was leaving the house with Blaine. Though they looked like Father and Holanghee, they were moving naturally enough, having grown somewhat used to the change. Chatting as they walked down the alley, the two stopped dead in their tracks as they passed the training grounds.

A single player was visible in the empty training area. He was practicing against a training dummy, but his movements were bizarre yet strangely familiar.

The way he stuck close to the dummy and swung his weapon was clearly a melee style. However, the weapon he was swinging wasn’t a melee weapon—it was a bow. The player wasn’t firing arrows; he was physically bashing the dummy with the bow itself. Exactly like Theo.

After watching blankly for a moment, Theo and Blaine shared a silent glance before looking back at the player.

What on earth was that?

[Marco: Hyung. Theo Hyung.]

Just then, Marco called out to him over the guild chat. Theo snapped back to reality and answered in a dazed voice.

“Yeah?”

[Marco: Has anything strange happened lately?]

“Something strange?”

Theo looked at the “strange thing” happening right in front of his eyes. Did he mean something like this?

[Marco: No… it might just be me being paranoid, but… commissions for bows with zero accuracy/range and maxed attack power have been piling up.]

“What?”

[Marco: It started three days ago, and when I checked, there were twelve of them.]

[Marco: So I was wondering if you knew anything about it…]

[Father: What is that supposed to mean?]

[Marco: I mean, they might just want a strong bow, but… it’s not like one person ordered twelve. Twelve different people all asking for the exact same bow is just weird…]

[BastardKid: You’re saying they’re asking for a bow identical to Theo Hyung’s? Twelve different people?]

[Marco: Yeah.]

[Noquia: That’s sketchy as hell…]

“Actually, there’s a weirdo right here at the training grounds.”

[Marco: ?]

[Father: A weirdo?]

[Noquia: At the training grounds?]

“He’s holding a bow and beating the absolute crap out of a dummy….”

[Holanghee: Holding a bow? He’s bashing it instead of shooting?]

“Yeah. He’s swinging the bow staff just like I do.”

[Marco: What the…;]

“Marco, you said the requests started coming in three days ago?”

[Marco: Yeah.]

“Guild. Then something must have happened three days ago…”

[Marco: I guess so…?]

Ending the conversation, Theo stared intently at the player in the training grounds. Then, he began to walk toward the training area.