Genius Archer’s Streaming - Chapter 397

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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The Genius Archer’s Streaming Season 2 Episode 117
41. Political Warrior (2)
Leaving behind the strange phenomenon unfolding across the internet, Sanghyeon and his companions arrived at the hospital.
“Let me know when you’re done.”
“Sure. Thanks.”
After getting out of the car, I watched Juhyeok and Jia drive away.
The two of them headed toward the riverside park like last time. They were clearly going on a date.
I turned in the opposite direction, toward the familiar white building.
Ding.
The automatic doors slid open, revealing a clean lobby and reception desk.
Since I was a scheduled patient, I simply informed them of my arrival and took a seat.
I gazed out at the scenery beyond the window, waiting to be called….
Ding.
I encountered a woman in an electric wheelchair.
“Ah… Hello.”
It had been a while since I’d seen her, so I greeted her with genuine warmth.
“….”
But her demeanor was quite different from usual.
Though she had always been somewhat cold, she was typically quite courteous. She never did anything remotely rude.
But today felt different.
An odd sense of discord.
“?”
I couldn’t understand why.
Was she angry?
No words were exchanged. It was quiet. Now that I thought about it, even the reception staff seemed unusually silent.
“…Yes.”
She barely managed to respond before leaving the building.
I stared blankly at the door through which she had exited.
‘What’s going on with her?’
She had been leaving the consultation room. If something had gone wrong with her treatment, it would concern me as well.
I wanted to ask, but I couldn’t. We only shared the connection of shared suffering. We had no real relationship.
“Sanghyeon. You can go in now~!”
The receptionist’s voice called out indifferently, drawing my attention back.
“Yes. I’m going.”

* * *
A solitary white building stood amid the serene landscape blanketed in snow.
The door opened, and a single electric wheelchair emerged alone.
Whirrrr.
The woman in the wheelchair swept her long black hair back carelessly and exhaled a sigh.
“…Sigh.”
She gazed at the scenery, her breath misting white in the cold air.
The peaks of the mountain range stretching horizontally were crowned with white.
Seeing that the snow hadn’t melted despite how long it had been since it fell, I realized just how remote this place was.
Time moved particularly slowly here.
Nothing had changed.
“Nothing has improved in ten years.”
They say mountains and rivers transform in a decade.
My body had undergone no transformation whatsoever. Just like the landscape of this place.
I remained confined to the wheelchair, still living with a gaping void hollowed out in one corner of my heart.
Then came the sound of footsteps.
Crunch, crunch—the sound of grass being trampled.
“What are you doing? You look like a dead person.”
He approached and offered me a cigarette.
Choi Sa-rang’s eyes lifted slightly.
A familiar face.
“…Why did you come?”
Though I responded coldly, I took the cigarette—not just a single stick protruding from the pack, but an entire carton.
“That’s not all of it for you.”
The man spoke as if exasperated.
“Stop complaining. You don’t even smoke these.”
“So that makes it yours?”
“Just say you brought them for me. Act like a man about it.”
Click.
With an expressionless face, I lit the cigarette and moved the electric wheelchair again.
Whirrrr.
I turned and left, completely excluding the man.
“Still got that sharp tongue.”
The man chuckled and came running after me.
We arrived at a vast grassland behind the hospital.
Now covered in white snow, this place was my favorite space within the hospital grounds.
A moderately fierce river flowed through it, and behind it rose a majestic mountain range—a truly auspicious location, one might say.
It was perfect for clearing one’s mind and sitting in a daze.
“Sigh.”
I exhaled another sigh.
Then, with a soft sound, a blanket draped over her shoulders.
It was that man from earlier.
“Sarang. Do you remember that?”
He stood beside her, pulling out a cigarette as he spoke.
“Back when Jaemin was around.”
“….”
Sarang didn’t respond, only smoking more intensely.
“The commentators were always saying that about him. Wow, such animal instincts! The Banana player! He’s a beast!”
Sarang still said nothing.
The man didn’t mind and chuckled to himself as he continued.
“But that bastard really was an animal, you know? He was the only one who genuinely liked you as the opposite sex. We all thought you were still a man, but he alone was crazy about you. He didn’t even understand why himself. He even started questioning his own gender identity.”
Sarang still didn’t respond.
However, the corners of her mouth were beginning to rise slightly, something she herself would find hard to deny.
“So we always teased him as ‘Gay Bar Nana.’ ‘Please call Nana from the gay bar~!'”
Pfft.
A stifled laugh escaped from Sarang’s lips.
“But plot twist. You were a woman all along. Who would’ve thought someone would deceive everyone about their gender just to enter the dorm? Do you know how relieved he was when he found out you were a woman? When he thought you were a man, he kept buying flowers and throwing them away, buying them again and throwing them away—he made such a mess that the apartment garden had an oddly large number of flowers blooming back then….”
Poof.
Sarang finally burst out laughing.
Puhahaha.
“Ah. Really. Don’t make things up.”
“Make things up? This is the condensed version! Do you know why that bastard Jaemin kept going to mid lane constantly?”
Sarang couldn’t hold back her laughter, her shoulders shaking as she lowered her head.
“At least you’re actually the best mid laner in the entire world. If you were a liability and still played like that, I’d be… ugh….”
“It’s better than going top lane. Idiot.”
Meeting an old friend brought back her old speech patterns. A side of her that others couldn’t see.
This man seemed familiar with such a side of her, showing no particular reaction.
Rather, he seemed more at ease.
“…Ha. Yeah, that’s true. Better than top. Better than top.”
That’s right.
He was Popcorn, the top laner who had won the Worlds series with Sarang.
“Ah, Banana exposed us way too quickly. Thinking about how hard the manager worked to cover it up… really….”
His efforts brought back memories for Sarang as well.
“How did you think we wouldn’t find out? Do you see commoners as dogs and pigs or something?”
“I thought there was no way lower-ranked players would find out.”
“Seriously.”
Popcorn laughed in disbelief.
“Later, thinking about how hard we had to work to hide it for you… you wore such strange makeup to look like a man, but why did you try so hard to look male anyway?”
“I already told you that.”
“No, even after hearing it, I still don’t quite understand. If you’d said you were a woman, you would’ve been way more popular. Your face too… well, it’s decent.”
Finding it embarrassing to compliment an old colleague’s appearance, Popcorn glances away.
“Half and half? I’d say she’s breathtakingly beautiful.”
“Is, is that moderate?”
Sarang laughs it off, then answers Popcorn’s earlier question.
“You just said it yourself. She’d be even more popular if she were a woman.”
“Yeah. So I understand─”
“That’s why I said she’s a man.”
“?”
He tilted his head with a giant question mark plastered across his face.
It wasn’t an emotion easy for a man to comprehend.
“I didn’t expect anything.”
As Sarang sighed, Popcorn hastily added on.
“There’s definitely prejudice. Can’t even have group training. Weird posts probably flooded the community. Yeah. I admit it.”
A moment later.
He adds again, clearly still not understanding.
“But I think being more popular would be better….”
Silence followed.
The two people simply gazed blankly at that unchanging scenery and smoked cigarettes.
Sarang asked again.
“So why did you come?”
“Why do you keep asking why I came? You bastard.”
“?”
“Ahem. Well… what do I say. I wanted to see how you were doing. I even told your Department Manager that I’d pick you up today.”
“Your timing is impeccable.”
“…Timing?”
It was from this point.
That Sarang’s voice began to tremble.
“I can’t.”
“What….”
Popcorn, about to ask what, freezes.
Because thinking of where she had just come from, he could immediately understand what couldn’t happen.
“I’m just hopeless, apparently.”
“What are you talking about? The doctor said that? What nonsense is this? How could they say something like that….”
Just as Popcorn was about to get angry instead.
“But that person can.”
“…What?”
He hears something strange.
“There’s someone with a similar illness to mine. They can, but I can’t.”
“How is that even possible?”
“I don’t know either!”
Zzzzt.
Popcorn flinched as if electricity had surged through him.
Jeon-ja-pa rarely made such a loud cry.
Especially since she wanted to hide her feminine voice, she had been even more careful.
‘So others can be healed, but she can’t… Damn it.’
Popcorn could fully sense Jeon-ja-pa’s despair.
I knew better than anyone what kind of humiliation she had endured because of her legs.
Compared to that suffering, a Worlds championship was merely a small reward from this world.
“I really tried hard to like that person.”
“Like… tried? Why on earth?”
“Yeah. Otherwise, I’d get jealous and angry for no reason, and I’d go crazy.”
Forcing something like that could never work. Just as Jaemin couldn’t stop liking Sarang.
“That person is a good person. Cute, handsome, a bit odd, but pure and….”
“Yeah? That’s good─”
“But I hate them so much! I hate them so much!”
Gulp.
Popcorn swallowed hard.
I could feel Sarang falling apart.
“That person is a good person. I hate myself for hating them! My situation! Why can they do it and I can’t? We went through the same thing. Why can they be healed and I… I… You’re making me a bad person!”
“W-wait, Hyeon-a. Calm down. Calm….”
Sarang finally burst into tears.
“I came here first too… I worked harder….”
“It’s okay. From what I can see, that doctor still… huh? What don’t they know.”
Popcorn just spouted strange words.
Even if I wanted to comfort her, I couldn’t do anything because I didn’t understand.
“Hey… hahaha.”
Sarang even laughed now.
“I don’t remember? Apparently I dreamed of being a track athlete when I was young. But I don’t remember.”
“….”
“Even that feels like a lie. I can’t believe it. I was born disabled from the start, but it feels like I’ve been brainwashed.”
“Hey. Hey. Why are you like this!? Please calm down!”
“You’re all deceiving me. Dad, that mister, and you too!”
“Ugh!”
Smack.
Popcorn got hit for no reason.
“W-why are you suddenly hitting me!”
“You too! You too! You deceived me too!”
Smack. Smack. Smack.
“Hey, hey…! You’re the one who deceived me!?”
Popcorn had become an unfortunate target for her anger.
It was absurd, but there was nothing I could do. I was helpless.
This was the first time I’d seen Jeon-ja-pa cry like this in front of me.
‘She was this weak.’
Her fists were far weaker than I’d imagined.
That creature who’d seemed so imposing.
Was so small.

* * *
After completing several examinations, Sanghyeon
reviewed the accumulated play data together with Hana Song.
“…Was this when you were playing Zombie School… Are you certain?”
“Yes.”
A question she’d already asked several times.
Sanghyeon sensed something was wrong.
“Sigh.”
Hana Song collapsed forward onto the desk.
Something didn’t seem right.
“What do I do… Even you, Sanghyeon… I didn’t expect this.”
‘Something went wrong.’
In that moment, Sanghyeon had an intuition.
That he’d harbored false hope once again.
“It’s strange. I was certain… the timing was perfectly precise, without even a one-second margin of error, so I thought that was the reason… but….”
She alternated between papers with bewildered eyes.
“And Sarang having no effect either… perhaps….”
Hana Song rummaged through the documents as if her mind had scattered.
“I may have misspoken. I apologize.”
“….”
Sanghyeon couldn’t say anything.
After a moment, Hana Song reached a conclusion.
“…I don’t know what to tell you. Sanghyeon. I felt almost certain. But now we’re starting from the beginning again.”
It seemed the theory that Zombie School prevented the deterioration of the arm had failed.
Or rather, it hadn’t become a successful theory.
“Still, please continue playing periodically. I’m certain we’ll discover something.”
“Ah, yes. I understand.”
I nodded, but internally thought otherwise.
‘Of course.’
This wasn’t the first or second time I’d experienced something like this.
Sanghyeon reflexively consoled himself.
‘It’s fine.’
A game as a cure.
It was nonsense from the very beginning.
Yes, from the very beginning….
I didn’t believe it.

* * *
“Then I’ll see you next time.”
Click.
After the door closed, Sanghyeon walked quickly without looking back.
As I passed the reception desk while leaving the hospital building.
Thud!
Something sharp pierced straight through my heart.
A hot, choking sensation clawed its way up my throat.
Was Choi Sa-rang in this state just now?
I swallowed it down in the end and spoke to myself.
‘It doesn’t matter anyway.’
Regardless of my arm’s condition, I was going to compete in the international tournament anyway, and preparations were proceeding smoothly.
With my rank climbing through consecutive wins, there was no need to play so hard that I’d strain my body.
Everything was going well.
‘That’s right. It’s all the same. I just have to do it.’
Like how the earth hardens after rain, paradoxically, my desire took root even more firmly.
As if it were compensation for losing my arm.
As if she had once done the same.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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