Chapter 24 — You're Not the Type to Miss the Signs
After the cold-weather training ended, the unit was peaceful. The officers wouldn't bother the soldiers unless they had a good reason to.
In that relaxed peace, what little remained of December came to an end, and the new year arrived. That meant it was the year Seo Juhwan would be discharged.
Seo Juhwan thought to himself as he smoked a cigarette.
'Ah, I want to have sex.'
Whether it was the new year or his upcoming discharge, he couldn't get that Christmas night out of his head. The night he and Jeong Sora had passionately explored each other's bodies. He wanted to go to her right then and there and ask her to sleep with him.
But reality was harsh.
'I didn't think she'd be that firm about it.'
Seo Juhwan let out a long sigh.
The truth was, he had already been sending her subtle signals. But her response had been complete silence. One day, thinking she hadn't caught on, he sent the signals several more times — and Jeong Sora pulled him aside to a secluded spot. He had gotten his hopes up, thinking it had finally worked, but what came back was a sigh-laden scolding.
'Why are you acting like this at the unit? What do you think is going to happen here? I thought you understood what I told you back then… Was that just me imagining things?'
'...'
'Juhwan, you're not the type to miss the signs.'
'…I'm sorry.'
Seo Juhwan bowed his head and apologized. Honestly, he wasn't without some hurt feelings, but the embarrassment hit harder.
On that Christmas day when history was made, the two of them hadn't only shared a fierce physical exchange. Jeong Sora in particular, while turning down his confession, had opened up about her mindset when it came to life at the unit.
And yet there he had been, driven by lust, pestering her about having sex inside the base — so the embarrassment had come crashing down on him belatedly. Once he'd come back to his senses, he couldn't even look her in the face properly.
'Ah, but I still want to have sex.'
The problem was that the thought itself hadn't changed one bit.
Of course, he stopped sending her strange looks and signals. But the mind of a 32-year-old man who had just lost his virginity and the vigorous body of someone in his early twenties were creating an utterly unnecessary synergy effect. This went beyond thought — it was instinct. On top of that, the blessing of the Dream Demon God, which had turned him into a powerhouse of stamina, was now acting more like a poison.
Seo Juhwan took a drastic measure. What he chose to do to suppress his urges was intense exercise.
"Sergeant Seo Juhwan, going to work out again?"
"Yeah. Want to come run with me?"
"Hahaha… I'm fine, sir. Good luck!"
"Alright."
Once work hours ended, Seo Juhwan devoted himself fully to exercise. Exhausting his body with hard training would quiet the urges. More precisely, it would leave him without the energy to even think about it.
'Might as well build a proper body out of this.'
Around this time in the original timeline, Seo Juhwan had put on a lot of weight — laziness that had crept in after becoming a sergeant, combined with the stress of military life. If he gained any more, his health would be at risk. Working out and losing weight was a hundred times better than wasting his time in the military.
"Huff, huff, huff!"
He finished about ten laps around the drill ground and leaned against a tree trunk, catching his breath. Running hard when you're carrying a lot of weight puts strain on your joints. So he alternated — walking three laps and lightly jogging one.
A message appeared before Seo Juhwan's eyes one week into his exercise routine.
[Achievement unlocked: 『Escaped Severe Obesity!』]
[300 LP awarded as a reward.]
A far humbler reward compared to 『Pounding Rice Cakes with the Superior Officer』 he'd achieved before. But according to Lucy, the main way to accumulate LP was actually through these small achievement completions.
Seo Juhwan stared blankly at the message before his expression twisted.
"I was severely obese?"
Sure, he had put on a lot of weight, but he still had decent strength and stamina. In other words, with his muscle-to-body-fat ratio, there was no way he should have been severely obese.
But it was as if Lucy were telling him that was just his opinion.
[Your current body fat percentage is 29.92. You've just barely escaped severe obesity.]
"…Really?"
[Yes. For reference, your current height is 171cm, weight is 87.5kg, and skeletal muscle mass is 33.7kg.]
"…No need for a body composition scanner, then."
Lucy even knew his skeletal muscle mass. Seo Juhwan marveled quietly, then let out a deep sigh at the state of his body — worse than he'd thought. Lucy offered some comfort.
[If you keep exercising the way you are now, you'll reach a healthy weight quickly.]
"You think so?"
[Right now you're benefiting simultaneously from the 『Dream Demon God's Blessing』 and the 『Gym Rat's Blessing』, so your efficiency is excellent. Not only that — your karma, which had been incorrectly assigned, has been corrected and your body is continuing to change physically as a result. As proof: over the past week, your height has grown by 1cm and you've lost nearly 5kg.]
That did match what Lucy said. Even though he wasn't on a strict diet, the weight was dropping steadily. His height, which hadn't grown since he was 17, had started increasing too. He never thought the correction of his karma would extend to physical changes.
"Alright. Let's get to 80kg before the next leave."
Either way, it was a positive change, so Seo Juhwan threw himself even more seriously into working out. He cut out the frozen food he used to buy at the snack bar entirely and put together a rough diet plan to stick to.
"Today is chest day."
He pushed open the door to the fitness room and stepped in. The sound of upbeat club music was thumping inside.
It was the atmosphere created by one soldier who loved working out — he had personally brought in a cassette player to set the mood. That soldier had been chewed out endlessly by the officers for trying to sneak in an electronic device back when he was a private. But somehow he managed to persuade them and succeeded in bringing it in. Thanks to that, more people started using the fitness room, and the average physical fitness of the soldiers at the Uljin unit improved as a result.
"Oh, Juhwan! You showed up again today? You've been going really hard lately."
That soldier who had pulled it off was Lee Junghoon.
As he stepped inside, Lee Junghoon, the fitness room regular, greeted him warmly. Lee Junghoon was wearing only a tank top, and his body was impressive at a glance. Broad shoulders and well-defined muscles throughout.
Seo Juhwan clicked his tongue where no one could see. The world really wasn't fair. The guy already had good looks and a great personality, and now a great body too.
[Master can achieve the same.]
He gave a nod at Lucy's encouragement. It had been about five more days since he'd seriously started training, and he was now close to his goal of 80kg. To be precise, he had grown another 1cm taller and lost another 4kg, bringing him down to 83.5.
"Hey, I'm going to do bench press — spot me."
"How much?"
Lee Junghoon had just finished his dips and wiped off the sweat as he asked. The two of them were now on casual speaking terms, getting along like brothers.
"Hmm. Start at 70 and work down from there."
"Already?"
"Tried 60 the other day. Was manageable."
"Wow, you're seriously built for this. If you keep it up, you'll be hitting 100 in no time."
Lee Junghoon said, eyes wide. Seo Juhwan's rate of progress was absurdly fast. Ten days ago he could barely lift 50kg, and now he was going up by 20kg. They say beginners see fast gains early on, but this was just too fast.
It was all thanks to the effect of the blessings.
- 110 Advanced Chapters of {The Desire System: Reincarnated with a Demon God's Gift}: patreon.com/aristo0_0