I Became a Childhood Friend of a Mid-Level Boss - Ch. 39

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Post 2:

Summer Vacation: Kyunwoo's little sister introduces her own childhood friend as her boyfriend. She brags about how they hold hands and have kissed each other on the cheek. Kyunwoo convinces Haneul that it's normal for childhood friends to kiss each other on the cheek.

Class Battle: Kyunwoo and Haneul's classes compete in a friendly battle. Haneul's class wins and she spawns a bunch of subordinate clones to crowd around him. As a reward for winning, she demands that he spend 24 hours with her. When they have to split up at the dorm, neither of them want to go. So Kyunwoo sneaks in but the dorm monitor performs a surprise inspection that forces Kyunwoo to leave through the window. They are scolded for trying to have male-female relations in the dorm.

Bunny Suit: As a reward for studying hard, Haneul puts on a bunny suit. Their tame makeout session turns into their first real kiss when Kyunwoo finally can't hold himself back. Haneul didn't mind either. Eunbi walks in on them while joking that "this has to be the anime cliche where I think something naughty is going on but it's just something wholesome amirite?" One look at Haneul in a bunny suit and both of them red-faced shocks her so much that she drops her phone and leaves while apologizing for ruining the moment.

Officially Dating: The Do Family Head keeps trying to set Kyunwoo up with a Swordsmanship System daughter from another family. He needs to be "officially" dating her because Haneul is not appropriate for his status and dating rumors can wreck his reputation. This brings an endless amount of anxiety to Haneul. Kyunwoo doesn't want to make Haneul official because the torment his mother endured is always on his mind and he doesn't want to put Haneul through that. Things come to a head when Haneul is so upset that she basically asks if they'll wind up doing everything together except date to which Kyunwoo cannot even respond. Eventually he takes the words of another Ain to heart and asks her out formally in a private confession with a gift of necklace and flowers under The World Tree.

Marriage: The Do Family Head doesn't mind Kyunwoo dating Haneul if it's to learn how to interact with women. However, he draws the line at marriage. He can take Haneul as a mistress but his legal wife cannot be an Ain. If Kyunwoo fails to abide by this, he will be expelled. Kyunwoo is so angered by this he goes straight to Hanbyul's love interest and commissions a wedding ring on the spot with materials he has on hand. He then runs over to Haneul and proposes marriage and this is when Haneul's mental health is totally healed. The ring he made has a small ruby the color of her eyes. It's a color she hated so much but Kyunwoo loves it and she realizes the meaning behind it. Kyunwoo then bundles everything he ever received related to the Do Family and ships it to the family head alongside a copy of their marriage certificate.

First Night: After their first night, Kyunwoo comes clean and talks about how he is a reincarnator. Haneul isn't surprised. Both Eunbi and Haneul thought he was a regressor because his bizarre behavior that somehow led to the safe resolution of multiple scandals was simply too suspicious. But it'd all be explained if he was a regressor. She thanks him from saving her from such an awful fate and teases him about whether she is better than his girlfriend from his previous life. Of course, Kyunwoo never had one. But she starts wondering how a video game could capture their world so accurately and this causes Kyunwoo to also wonder. Then he realizes that he cannot recall how he died, his mother's face, or anything else besides the game and its endings. The resulting headache leaves him bewildered. From then on he regularlys dreams of the game but it's not a game anymore. He isn't mashing buttons on a keyboard to swing a sword. He is actually present and swinging a sword with his arms.

Shortly after Kyunwoo's dreams change... Academy City is in ruins. Kyunwoo finds himself at the intersection of Romance and Fantasy Streets, the most popular date spot. He sees his friends gathered around someone lying on the ground. He runs over and to his horror it's himself cradling Haneul. She has a gaping hole in her abdomen and it's clearly a fatal wound. OG Kyunwoo is sobbing uncontrollably and he yells out "What are you crying for?! What did tears ever do for you?! You should've protected her better, you bastard!" to no avail. He can only watch.

OG Kyunwoo manages to choke out, "Haneul, I'm so sorry... If only I hadn't turned you way all those years ago..."

She manages to open her eyes. However, her mouth only moves and no words come out. The two stare with each other's faces in their eyes for a brief moment. Then Haneul breathes her last with a soft smile on her face.

OG Kyunwoo smiles bitterly and says, "Rest in peace now, Haneul. If there's a next life... I swear I will protect you. And if you would be okay with it... I want to be your friend."
If I can ask, would you mind spoil me the ending, if possible... Because of this "ending" I feel like not wanting to read the novel... Ugh
 
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Guess they are doing ad manwha to advertise the novel like ln adaptations of manga do as well
 
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Post 2:

Marriage: The Do Family Head doesn't mind Kyunwoo dating Haneul if it's to learn how to interact with women. However, he draws the line at marriage. He can take Haneul as a mistress but his legal wife cannot be an Ain. If Kyunwoo fails to abide by this, he will be expelled. Kyunwoo is so angered by this he goes straight to Hanbyul's love interest and commissions a wedding ring on the spot with materials he has on hand. He then runs over to Haneul and proposes marriage and this is when Haneul's mental health is totally healed. The ring he made has a small ruby the color of her eyes. It's a color she hated so much but Kyunwoo loves it and she realizes the meaning behind it. Kyunwoo then bundles everything he ever received related to the Do Family and ships it to the family head alongside a copy of their marriage certificate.
A few chapters ago, I made a joke about this adaptation eventually skipping over
their marriage
like it did with so much of the relationship stuff. I didn't realize it was actually a thing that happened in the story.
 
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Lion Nova - A unqiue "swordsmanship" technique that he created with Nam Yuri's help. He creates water using water magic. Then he uses the Military Blue Sword's Electric Current Emission to split the water into hydrogen and oxygen while using a combination of water magic to rotate the water in multiple vectors and light magic to push the gases away from himself. Once Electric Current Emission ignites the hydrogen and oxygen, an explosion powerful enough to wipe out a heavily fortified laboratory occurs. It's called a hydrogen bomb or hydrogen explosion in the MTL, but really it seems to be more like a steam explosion. Clearly inspired by the Rasengan and Roy Mustang. The training involved popping water balloons by rotating water.

Lion Road - A variant of Lion Nova using a water stream to behave like a line charge.

Military Blue Sword 2nd ability - Use electricity to stimulate the wielders muscles. Grants various buffs to Kyunwoo. His physique is enhanced to the point he cannot react to his own movements anymore.

Military Blue Sword 3rd ability - Iron Sand manipulation using induction. He applies this to gather iron sand on the sword and create various shapes including super long sword, high frequency blade, whip, etc.

Spider glove - Lee Gahyun's soul stone turned into a glove that lets him swing around on spider webs. Yes, this is a Spiderman reference.

Air Walk - Skill obtained as a drop from a monster. He disliked not being able to help Haneul in aerial battles so he went out of his way to get this skill so he could never be left behind. He can spend mana to walk on air.

Kyunwoo as a child displayed frightful swordsmanship. He somehow knew all the basic forms without being taught. He genuinely enjoyed practicing swordsmanship but he also instinctively feared his own strength. He was terrified he would hurt someone. Until he recovered his memories and realized the human body isn't that fragile.

Kyunwoo's various Rabbit and Lion titles are merged when he demonstrates Lion Nova in front of the clan. They sing his praises as an unparalleled genius. Henceforth he is Do Kyunwoo the Thunder Rabbit. Lost in translation is the character for rabbit is the one used for the Zodiac so maybe Do Kyunwoo the Celestial Thunder Rabbit would be better. Not having to change his title from Rabbit and getting to keep all the buffs from Lion brings him immense joy because he can match with Haneul.

The Avatar of the World Tree is how it interacts with the world. This soul is endlessly reincarnated with the Gift Resonance Hands. It allows the user to wield anything they can hold in their hands at the level of a master with no training whatsoever. An ability worthy of a protagonist.

The Chairwoman's brother was the previous avatar and was assassinated by the Fate of destruction. This left her with an obsession to save him by turning back time. However, the World Tree had already forcefully reincarnated him as Kang Hanbyul. Her plan would actually have worked if the World Tree hadn't intervened to force Hanbyul to contiue existing.

Hanbyul was similarly orphaned by an assassination attempt by Fate. In that attack he lost both parents and his left arm. Thus he was left crippled with his Gift only functioning at half capacity. While he obtained a prosthetic from his childhood friend and love interest, it isn't his real hand so the Gift does not work. Kyunwoo notices that Hanbyul's footwork implies he is a left-handed swordsman but he wields weapons only with his right - the only hand still capable of utilizing Resonance Hand.

After realizing Hanbyul is her brother's reincarnation, the chairwoman devotes a lot of effort to protecting him.

Kang Hanbyul is raised by the famous Bandit King Tugui. He is similar to Hanbyul in that he has no specialization and can utilize all a variety of different weapons and fighting styles. However, he does not have Resonance Hands and must actually train. He sees Hanbyul's potential and that is why he took him as disciple. As a result Hanbyul has a rather twisted personality.

Like Nolan's Joker said, "If you're good at something, don't do it for free." Hanbyul is good at saving people... and demands compensation for doing so. Also like his master, he enjoys robbing the people he defeats in combat.

As a punishment for losing the class battle, Eunbi has Arin dress up as Megumin and say cringe lines

At the amusement park, Kyunwoo is excited to ride the bumper cars. Literally the entire gang vents out their frustrations by smashing him relentlessly. Haneul runs him over with a giant truck and Eunsol was in the passenger seat with her usual deadpan expression. Kyunwoo is bitterly disappointed that he never got to bump anyone.

Kyunwoo hates jumpscares. Haneul loves them. At the amusment park they were walking through a haunted house. Arin clings to him with the cliche fake Kyaaa! Haneul lets off so much murderous intent that one of the volunteers hands his chainsaw over meekly. She chases Arin around with it.

Haneul buys a black rabbit ear headband for Kyunwoo to wear. He's reluctant because he thinks it won't look good on him but ultimately he relents. Haneul is very happy and snaps a ton of selfies including peace sign, hearts, etc.

The amusement park is under attack by a mad magic bomber. Kyunwoo already knows it's on the ferris wheel so he drags Haneul over. She totally misunderstands him and starts berating herself for having delusions. He wanted her because of her magecraft, not for romance. Romance ultimately does unfold when the fireworks show starts after they disarm the bomb. They hold hands while watching the fireworks together.

In the epilogue dungeon, Kyunwoo calls it a vacation. They have to land a zombified airliner safely. Problem is the pilot's dead. So Hanbyul uses Resonance Hands to master flying instantly while Kyunwoo uses Precognition to copilot. His way of flying is to figure out what pisses off the base Evasion Instinct ability to avoid dying and then NOT do that. The ordeal leaves the entire gang angry at him for his little "vacation."

Kyunwoo tells his classmates what courses they should take in order to beef them up for the final battle. So.etimes these are very questionable but Haneul helps convince the girls by saying "He's told me to do weird stuff since childhood but I've never got a bad result. Usually it mysteriously turns out to help so just trust him." Lisa Grace, Princess of the Grace Empire, is advised to take... pole dancing. Her abysmal physique needs immediate training to correct. In fact, most of the girls need more PT. He even tries to convince them to go on morning runs with the rest of the dudes. But they give various excuses.

Eunbi: "I have a morning anime"

Hanuel: "I have a morning drama"

Lisa: "I already do yoga"

Kyunwoo: "These girls... they just don't want to sweat!"

He is eventually moved to tears when Hanbyul and the other guys join him so he isn't lonely. Also the girls eventually do join.

The teachers at the academy are super depressed over this year's recruits. For some reason they all want to be on the villains in role-playing exercises. Hanbyul and Kyunwoo especially are villainous. Hanbyul pays no attention to hostages and Kyunwoo has no problems sacrificing underlings. It gets bad enough that the teachers threaten to assign teams themselves if everyone is going to keep joining the villain's side. Utlimately, it does sometimes happen.

In one exercise, the heroes have to rescue a hostage. It's a rabbit and Kyunwoo cackles how "they don't know you're already mine" while feeding it carrots. Just when the heroes are about to extract the hostage within the time limit, he shouts and the rabbit returns to him and his carrots. He gets extra credit for fulfilling his villain role and emotionally manipulating the hostage. When he returns the rabbit to the pen, Haneul watches him stroke it and becomes jealous when it starts displaying courtship behavior. This mirrors Mongshil and Haneul from when they were 5th graders. She rejects Kyunwoo's subsequent touch with "how dare you touch me with that hand after touching another woman?!" Kyunwoo is left bewildered thinking "what other woman?"

Kang Hanbyul thinks highly of Kyunwoo. If you asked for his opinion, he would say "Do Kyunwoo is a man who wins over any animal or woman with just his touch!" The two of them are total bros but also get very possessive over their respective childhood friends. "Kyunwoo/Hanbyul, even if it's you I won't forgive looking at her."

Once Kyunwoo upset Haneul with a joke about breaking up and was looking for a way to soothe her anger. He settles on his sister's Once In A Lifetime trick. He texts her in an exchange that looks like

"♡♡♡"
"What is this??"
"...my heart!"
"It's empty..."
"♥︎♥︎♥︎"

For sex ed, the girls send Haneul to put a condom on the banana. She is of course super embarassed. But the class is super serious because contraception is a serious problem to the point there is a phrase: "Hunters enrolling in twos graduate in threes". It is also here that Lisa learns condoms are in fact not water balloons. Kyunwoo was only trying to protect her innocence when he told her that. The girls understand though Lisa is slightly upset at the deception.

The students are told to draft earnest wills upon enrollment because of the mortality rate. Haneul concludes with an earnest plea to Kyunwoo to stay alone (single) for the rest of his life. He is shocked that she would curse him so and he writes the same thing back unaware of the actual meaning. Yena, his homeroom teacher, basically facepalms when she grades it.

Haneul is devastated to learn she and Kyunwoo are not in the same class for their first year. They'd always been together as if bound by fate (reminder this was Kyunwoo abusing his father's newfound authority upon rejoining the succession battle). She even did multiple prayers and purification rituals. The first thing Kyunwoo does after the chairwoman owes him one is cash itin to make sure Haneul and him are together for year 2. He also tells the chairwoman not to say anything because Haneul is a big fan of fated meetings.

Everyone uses a picture of themselves for their profile pic on their messaging app except Haneul. Instead she uses a picture of 2 rabbit plushies. Kyunwoo and Haneul bought them as a set when they were first moving into the Academy dorms in their first year. They wanted to buy plushies that reminded them of the other.

Following the Do Seungwoo incident, the Family Head does a ton of reflecting on the way he's been running the family. His conclusion is that the competitive environment he fostered had turned toxic. Therefore, he wanted to temper competition by teaching cooperation. He dragged all his grandchildren away from their summer vacation plans and stuck them into an artificial dungeon beach. The grandchildren had to clean up all the trash on the beach and build a magnificent tower within a week. He leaves the gate laughing. Not wanting their precious summer vacation to be wasted on the Family Head's whims, everyone rushes around the clock to make the beach pristine and Do Sieun directs the construction of the tower. They complete everything in 3 days which both pleases and disappoints the Family Head. He'd been hoping to spend more time with everyone.
 
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Looking back this actually had all the signs of being just a quick promo bait series.

I remember every few chaps we'd have comment showing all the interesting details skipped and all.
Better yet most of the story focused on mc's game plot than the heroine.

I'm just realizing that a lot of KR series are now coming out with bait titles/summary that have nothing of it in the series itself. (Reminds me of that one novel 'childhood friend of the zenith' where mc didn't even have a childhood friend 😂😂)
 
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Bro i appreciate you writing all this. I can see the story can get actually interesting from the way you described it but this dumbass manhwa just had to end it right here.

That said i guess all i wanna know is are there actual POV from Haneul herself talking about her feelings to Kyunwoo or just how she views him in general? Cause we don't get to see much of it here since it's mostly Kyunwoo

Yes, there are multiple segments written in her POV. They are the ones that let you know how yandere she really is. Most of them are really key moments like the midterm exam or a girls night out. In fact, half of Kyunwoo's confession is from her point of view. These scenes also reveal the depth of how hurt she is from all the discrimination she faced over the years.
 
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