“Juno, don’t be too discouraged. Let’s try one more time. Who can use a new tool well on their first try?”

“I guess so…”

Although I got up at Benjamin’s words as I couldn’t just keep lying down, I couldn’t hide my discouraged face.

Benjamin looked uncharacteristically flustered as he tried to comfort me.

“Let’s do it one more time and then head home early to rest. It’s the weekend and the weather looks nice outside. Is that alright?”

“Yes, sir.”

After making a sulky face, I unraveled the rope tangled around my body and put it back into the launcher.

Perhaps because it was C-grade, the rope launcher didn’t have any features to compensate for my clumsiness. It simply fired the rope at a wall or ceiling to hook in the grapple, and used the recoil to make you jump up. That was it.

The biggest flaw was that the button didn’t work right away and functioned erratically.

So the rope would suddenly shorten, getting tangled around my body or making me jump up in an absurd manner.

‘Can’t this piece of junk be upgraded or something?’

Using the rope to enhance mobility would clearly be more efficient than just shooting guns on the ground.

But the biggest problem was that it was tricky to use.

Meanwhile, Adrian was absorbed in creating an ice shield somewhere else.

Still, Adrian was doing it in a cool way. Our grades only differed by one rank, yet I was the only one looking silly. Wasn’t that ridiculous?

So I decided to try operating this damned scrap heap one last time with renewed determination.

After taking a few deep breaths, I pressed the button on my waist to launch the grappling hooks.

Poof, poof!

The second grappling hook also safely embedded into the training ground ceiling.

And my body shot up without warning.

“Aack!”

“Juno!”

The rope suddenly shortened and my body rapidly ascended towards the ceiling.

In the process, the rope got wrapped around my right leg. Instead of a stable posture, I ended up dangling from the ceiling like a starfish.

It all happened in an instant.

And the soldiers around me were staring at me hanging from the ceiling, letting out shouts.

Ugh, damn it.

I tried hard to act nonchalant and keep a calm expression, but my face had already flushed bright red and felt hot. The heat from my face could probably melt the icebergs in the Arctic.

“This is so embarrassing… I need to get down quickly…”

I was fumbling, feeling around my waist where the grappling hook launcher was, when it happened.

Click.

“Huh?”

I turned my head at the ominous sound.

One of the two grappling hooks embedded in the ceiling had fallen out.

The rope from the fallen hook dangled loosely from my waist.

Swoosh.

It felt like my blood ran cold.

Oh no, this is bad.

One of my legs was tightly coiled by the rope, and now there was only one grappling hook left supporting my body from the ceiling.

With the two hooks that had been stably supporting me reduced to one, my head drooped down. Instead of a starfish, it now looked like I would fall head-first to the floor.

As I felt the blood rushing to my head, unable to do anything while suspended in midair, I heard from afar:

“Juno, I’ll catch you!”

Adrian, who had looked like a small dot in the distance, shouted.

He had stopped making his ice shield and come over to where I was.

Adrian stretched out both arms towards me as if telling me to just jump down.

I hesitated for a moment, alternating glances between the precariously embedded single grappling hook and Adrian. No matter how I looked at it, there was no better option than this.

I let out a small lament.

“Ah, I’m really not supposed to be this clumsy type of character…”

“What was that?”

“No, just talking to myself. You’ll really catch me, right?”

“Of course.”

When I shouted, Adrian grinned and nodded.

With Adrian’s S-rank physical abilities, even the people around us didn’t seem particularly worried about him catching me.

I wasn’t really worried either. I just felt bothered that I once again gave off the image of a clumsy girl to him.

I carefully reached my hand up towards the ceiling. And just as my fingers were about to touch the grappling hook-

From constantly twisting and writhing my body, the rope coiled around my leg slowly unwound and came loose.

“Uh-oh…”

As the rope got pulled, the part that had been wrapped tightly around my leg loosened and the taut line slackened. My body dropped down with a whoosh.

“Ahhh!”

My body got farther and farther from the ceiling. Fortunately, the grappling hook remained firmly embedded in the ceiling.

But so what? This was no different from bungee jumping now.

Before my head could hit the ground, I squeezed my eyes shut and rapidly pressed the button on the rope launcher. Until the loosening of the rope stopped.

Soon, the button activated and the rope went taut. The unfurling had ceased.

“Phew, that was close…”

Thankfully, I didn’t hit my head on the ground or anything. Nothing hurt either. Based on the feeling, this wasn’t heaven either.

I slowly opened my eyes, one at a time.

Then I saw Adrian’s face up close, upside down.

“…?”

By some strange coincidence, my face, hanging upside down by the rope, and Adrian’s face were at the same level.

Seeing this, one thought flashed through my mind.

‘This is totally the Spider-Man kiss scene.’

In the movie, Peter hangs upside down by his web and Jane lifts his mask halfway to kiss him, right?

It had turned into exactly that pose…

“Are you okay? I was going to catch you, but…”

His question cut off my random thought.

Adrian had one arm wrapped around my shoulders and was using his other hand to untie the grappling hook launcher from my waist.

Then my body fell with a thud into Adrian’s arms.

I ended up cradled in his arms by chance.

“Th-thanks.”

“It was nothing.”

Adrian replied breezily and set me down on the training ground floor.

Unlike me who had randomly thought of a movie scene and fantasized, he had an unaffected expression.

Seeing his face naturally allowed me to put aside my embarrassing thoughts and calm down.

Right then, Benjamin approached us.

“Miss Juno, are you alright?”

“Yes, I’m fine. Adrian caught me well.”

I cleared my throat with a soft cough and replied. Benjamin let out a sigh.

“That grappling hook rope seems quite tricky to operate. Shall we practice on a cushion from now on?”

“Yes, that would be good. And the button should be modified if possible. It keeps not working at crucial moments… Or it might be more convenient to adapt it into the shape of a gun.”

“I see. The shape of a gun. I’ll gather opinions and tell the research team.”

Benjamin collected my rope launcher. He then checked his watch, which had just passed 12 noon.

“Then shall we call it a day here? It’s a golden weekend, so it would be good to rest in the afternoon.”

“Fine by me. Though I won’t be able to rest and will have to do homework.”

“Homework?”

“I’m supposed to do it together with Adrian.”

We had planned to go straight to Adrian’s house after training to write our essays.

As I was about to leave the training ground, I let out a low sigh.

“Oops. Adrian, sorry but I left my backpack in the jeep, so I’ll just go grab it and come right back. Can you wait for me a bit?”

“Sure, take your time. I’ll be waiting here.”

Adrian said with a bright smile that he would do some brief training with Benjamin in the meantime.

I nodded and headed to the jeep in the basement.

After Juno went down to the basement, Benjamin glanced at Adrian and asked in surprise:

“Adrian, are you feeling ill? Your face has gone all red. Are you okay?”

“Oh… it’s nothing, sir.”

At those words, Adrian averted his gaze with an awkward expression.

Not long after Juno left, his face up to the back of his neck had flushed a burning red.

Adrian pressed his forehead firmly with his chilled hand.

“…”

Somehow, it didn’t seem like it would easily cool down.

* * *

After getting some distance from the military base housing the training ground, we took a taxi together to Adrian’s house.

Come to think of it, I realized that in the one year I had spent in this world, I had never properly made friends or visited a friend’s house.

‘Well, I guess we’ve gotten pretty close.’

If going to a friend’s house was proof of closeness, that is.

The taxi went from the city center packed with banks and cultural facilities to a quiet neighborhood.

Instead of high gray skyscrapers jutting out haphazardly, low and clean mansions surrounded by lush green trees began to appear sporadically.

‘He lives in a really nice area. I figured as much, though.’

Adrian was the protagonist of the drama and came from a famous family, so I had expected him to live in a wealthy neighborhood.

‘At least there’s that consolation. It’s not like a chauffeured car is coming to get him? As long as it’s not to that extent, there’s nothing to be surprised about.’

I rested my chin and admired the wide open sky outside the taxi window.

A cool breeze wafted in through the half-open door crack.

Summer was approaching before I knew it.

We soon arrived at Adrian’s house.

There was a long ash-gray fence, and Adrian spoke to the taxi driver in a familiar manner.

“Could you go in up to the garden?”

A garden. Come to think of it, the Thompson estate also had a pretty big garden. It took about 5 minutes to walk from the front gate to the mansion entrance.

Then would Adrian’s house be similar in scale to the Thompsons’?

As we approached the front gate with black iron bars, I had contacted them in advance and the gate smoothly slid open on both sides.

It moved so smoothly that there was no unpleasant metallic sound.

“Wow.”

The taxi entered the garden through the neatly arranged driveway. I was admiring the view outside the window when I squinted my eyes in confusion.

“Why does the house have a tennis court and olive trees…”

Did I see wrong?

The taxi leisurely drove through the garden at a slow pace.

On the left was a well-manicured tennis court, and on the right were green coniferous trees and white wild hydrangeas planted for landscaping.

‘This is on an even grander scale than the Thompson estate…’

I tried hard to hide my flustered reaction.

Soon, the taxi came to a stop and the driver asked for the fare. As Adrian was about to take out his wallet, I quickly took out my card.

“Please charge it on mine!”

“Juno, you really don’t have to. This time, I’ll…”

“No. I’ve gained a lot thanks to you.”

Perhaps due to my Korean spirit, I had the upper hand in insisting on paying.

I forcibly paid for the taxi and pushed Adrian out. Adrian got out of the taxi with a very dissatisfied expression.

And as soon as I stepped out of the taxi, I couldn’t help but gape at the sight that unfolded before me.