The Buffs I Raised Are Too Strong - Chapter 17

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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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Episode 17.
‘……Did he really come?’
Why?
How could this be?
“Oh! So-hyeok! I’m coming up now!”
“Ugh……!?”
My eyes met Baek Yul-heon’s.
His head was just barely poking through the opening.
‘How does he always have such perfect timing…….’
Baek Yul-heon stepped into the villa.
I hurried to tidy up the surroundings.
‘I wonder what Baek Yul-heon will say when he sees this vegetable garden.’
Creak—
“So-hyeok, how have you been?”
Baek Yul-heon pushed the iron gate open and came through.
“Stop!!”
“Wh, wha……?”
I halted him urgently.
“Down there.”
“……Oh.”
Right beneath his foot, a fully grown perilla leaf plant was flourishing.
“Please walk slowly toward the bare earth.”
“R, right.”
Having used every inch of the small rooftop,
there was precious little space left for a person to actually walk on.
Nothing but a narrow path perhaps as wide as a footstep.
Baek Yul-heon, who’d barely made it inside, spoke awkwardly while wiping cold sweat from his brow.
“So…… what is all this?”
“I mentioned it before, didn’t I? I wanted to try growing new plants. Since I was going to do it anyway, I thought I might as well do it properly.”
“……So you turned the entire rooftop into a vegetable garden?”
“Well, it’s your sister’s building anyway.”
“That may be……but.”
Baek Yul-heon couldn’t sit still, his gaze periodically drifting back to the garden.
I grinned and extended something toward him.
“Try these.”
“……Hm?”
A white plate.
Three varieties of vegetables arranged neatly upon it.
The test subject had walked right to my doorstep.
“This is lettuce, this is perilla leaf. And finally, chicory.”
“……You want me to eat them?”
“For some reason, they don’t seem to work on my body. I was planning to call your sister, but since you’re here, would you help me test them?”
“Haha…… sure, let me give it a try.”
Baek Yul-heon reached out slowly.
Then he stopped abruptly.
“You’ve confirmed all the abilities already, haven’t you?”
“Yes.”
“……There were no side effects?”
“Try them and judge for yourself.”
“……Why do you have to sound so ominous about it.”
But truthfully, there couldn’t possibly be any side effects.
I wasn’t incompetent to that degree.
Baek Yul-heon, reading my expression, picked up the fresh vegetables with an uneasy look.
“These still have such an odd appearance though.”
“……I think so too.”
“Is it a rooster’s comb?”
“Doesn’t it look more like a campfire?”
“Hmm.”
After a brief moment of contemplation,
he swallowed.
“Hmm… mm….”
“What do you think?”
“It’s strange—I almost feel something, but then again, maybe I don’t….”
Baek Yul-heon put a piece of lettuce in his mouth.
It definitely had an ability attached to it—Flame Resistance.
It would be difficult to confirm with just his bare hands.
“Mm… ah!”
I called out to Baek Yul-heon urgently.
“What is it?”
“Just wait a moment, please.”
Click, tick-tick.
Whoosh!
I set a frying pan on the stove and turned on the gas flame.
After letting it heat up properly,
“Here goes.”
“…Huh?”
I lifted Baek Yul-heon’s hand directly over the hot pan.
“Aaaah, it’s hot, it’s—?!”
Baek Yul-heon convulsed and stumbled backward.
“W-what are you—! Wait, huh? It’s… it’s not hot anymore?”
“Ha, pretty interesting, isn’t it?”
“This is… what?”
Baek Yul-heon opened and closed his hand repeatedly.
He felt it with his other hand,
and brought it to his cheek.
“…Is this the ability?”
“Yes. It’s called Flame Resistance.”
“…Huh.”
As if dumbfounded, Baek Yul-heon let out a hollow laugh.
He got to his feet and walked toward the gas stove again.
“…It really isn’t hot.”
He pushed the frying pan aside,
then plunged his bare hand straight into the flame.
‘…That’s either remarkable courage or considerable recklessness.’
Even knowing that Flame Resistance had awakened, how many people would actually thrust their bare hand into fire like that?
‘Though he did say he was an A-rank Awakener in his prime, so maybe it makes sense.’
An Awakener’s skin exists on a different plane than that of an ordinary person.
Most flames won’t cause burns.
It might still feel warm, but nothing more.
Even so, I wouldn’t conduct such a dangerous experiment on an ordinary person, Awakener or not.
‘…Still, putting his hand directly on a hot pan might’ve been a bit much.’
“Whoa-ha-ha! This is genuinely amazing! It’s exactly like having my hand in a heated pad!”
“…I’m relieved you’re pleased.”
He seems to have already forgotten everything I just did.
I’ll have to use this strategy regularly.
“But anyway, what brings you to our house?”
“Huh? Oh, that’s right. I almost forgot.”
As if something had just occurred to him, Baek Yul-heon hastily withdrew his hand from the flames.
“Come with me somewhere, will you?”
“…Where to?”
“Come on, don’t be so wary. It’s not far—near the Guild.”
Maybe he was planning to buy me a meal.
That’s what I thought.
“We don’t have much time, so let’s hurry.”
“…Time?”
Pushed along by Baek Yul-heon’s insistence, I reluctantly got into his car.
“Hm.”
There was a familiar face in the driver’s seat.
“You’re the one who showed me the way before….”
“Ah, you two have met? This is my secretary. Secretary Yu.”
“I’m grateful for your time, Jeong So-hyeok.”
Businesslike. Stiff.
When we’d met at the Guild before, she hadn’t sounded like this.
‘Is she in work mode?’
I decided not to burden her with unnecessary small talk.
“Then we’ll be on our way.”
At a brief signal from Secretary Yu, the car pulled forward.
“……Ugh.”
Quickly. Too quickly.
* * *
“Bleeeegh……!”
“Are you alright?”
The world spun.
I couldn’t keep my feet planted firmly on solid ground.
‘What kind of driving is that……?’
I glared at Baek Yul-heon with resentment.
He slipped his gaze away from mine.
“Ahem. Hem.”
“…….”
Even lifting my head felt impossible.
I turned my gaze toward the driver’s seat instead of toward Baek Yul-heon.
“Are you feeling alright, So-hyeok?”
Secretary Yu tilted her head slightly as she asked.
As if my condition baffled her.
‘Does he always get like this……?’
So Baek Yul-heon rides in cars driven like this all the time?
Sympathy began welling up in me.
“Then I’ll be on my way.”
Secretary Yu gave a brief bow from the driver’s seat and vanished.
With an enormous roar of exhaust.
“W-wow, we still got here thirty minutes early.”
“…….”
“……Sorry.”
I steadied my muddled mind and lifted my head.
The building stood so close that I could see the Guild just by turning my head slightly.
“What is this building?”
“This is owned by Baekryeon too. Though we use it for something different.”
With Baek Yul-heon’s support, I made my way inside.
The cool air conditioning helped pull my mind back into focus.
The building wasn’t quite as tall as the Guild building, but it was still impressively high.
Roughly fifteen stories.
Baek Yul-heon headed straight for the elevator.
“Which floor?”
“Ah, no, it’s fine. I’ll get it.”
He was supporting my shoulder with one hand, so I’d been about to press the button for him.
Instead, Baek Yul-heon smoothly used his other hand to press the button.
“?”
Basement Level 1 and Basement Level 2, both at once.
In that instant.
“Eek……!?”
Rumble-rumble-rumble—
The elevator shook as if an earthquake had struck.
The nausea I’d barely begun to recover from threatened to return.
“Hold onto the rail, So-hyeok.”
“……Huh?”
Then came a brief sensation of weightlessness,
and my ears began to pop.
Ding—
The vibration stopped,
and when I checked the floor number,
“Basement Level 3……?”
The elevator clearly only had buttons marked down to Basement Level 2.
‘What is this, some kind of spy film…….’
Waiting for the doors to open with a vague sense of unease,
“This way, Jeong So-hyeok. Come on.”
“Huh?”
Baek Yul-heon was already walking through a door that had opened at the rear, beckoning me forward.
‘This isn’t some sci-fi movie.’
What on earth could be hidden so meticulously like this?
I followed Baek Yul-heon down an endless corridor.
He showed no sign of fatigue, but with my stamina, I was already feeling the strain.
‘No, my body’s fine.’
It’s just mentally exhausting.
Since that last activation of my body, physical tiredness had never really touched me.
But the disconnect between mind and body created its own peculiar exhaustion.
Like my brain was ordering rest while my body kept moving ceaselessly.
“Um…… how much farther are we going?”
I finally couldn’t hold back and asked him.
“Almost there.”
“Do you at least know where we’re headed…….”
“Well…… I think you’ll figure it out once we arrive. Ah, there it is. Go ahead, Jeong So-hyeok.”
Baek Yul-heon pushed at my back.
A small light appeared ahead.
The end of the corridor.
I quickened my pace toward the light.
With the end in sight, my body finally obeyed.
“Ugh…… it’s so bright.”
I finally emerged from the tunnel,
and light poured in from all directions, overwhelming my vision.
Slowly, I opened my eyes that had reflexively squeezed shut.
“Uh……?”
What I saw was a white space.
Empty, devoid of everything and everyone.
The ceiling soared beyond sight,
and the floor sprawled as wide as three basketball courts combined,
nothing but a white expanse.
“What is this place…… what’s it for?”
I scratched my head, turning around.
Baek Yul-heon, who should have been following behind me,
had vanished.
“……Guild Master?”
―Hey! Jeong So-hyeok! Can you hear me?
‘……?’
I was glancing around in confusion at his disappearance,
when his voice echoed from everywhere at once.
“Where are you?”
―Don’t worry. I’m watching the whole time. Just wait a moment.
‘Wait for what……’
Wait for what, exactly?
Underground in a building.
A secret chamber.
A sealed white room.
“……Is this dangerous?”
My shoulders began to tremble.
My heart along with it.
Thump. Thump-thump.
“?”
Thump-thump-thump-thump!
No.
It wasn’t my heart or my body trembling.
“An earthquake?”
The space itself was truly shaking.
From the floor.
“Guild Master!? Are you there!? Hello!”
No answer came back.
The tremor intensified.
And then.
“Ugh——!”
The moment a small hole opened in the floor.
Something emerged.
“……That bastard.”
Boom! Crash!
A violent explosion.
A silhouette unforgettable.
“You…… you son of a bitch, you really did shove me down into that hellhole, didn’t you……?”
The terrorist.
My Buff Was Too Strong
Author |
Naengmyeon Hwachae
Publisher |
Samyang C&C Co., Ltd.
Editor-in-Chief |
Editorial Department
Published by |
Samyang C&C Co., Ltd. — Dream Books
Address |
7th Floor, Gwangseong Building, 28 Bongeun-sa-ro 114-gil, Gangnam-gu, Seoul
UCI |
G720:N+A063-20260731072
Blog |
blog.naver.com/dreambookss
X (formerly Twitter) |
@dreambookss
Submissions |
[email protected]
No part of this book may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of Samyang C&C Co., Ltd. — Dream Books.

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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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