I Became the Academy’s Hidden Skill Master – Chapter 4

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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: Shio
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“Ah, do they all really carry it?”

This anthill wasn’t made systematically.

It was made by digging where it seemed there would be mana stones.

Therefore, it made sense to have the orphans sleep near areas where large amounts of mana stones were expected.

So in a way, maps were essential.

‘But still, at least one guy could leave it behind.’

They could forget and leave it.

Why were these guys so lacking in humanity?

As a result of thoroughly searching the floor and cleaning without missing a single speck of dust,

I realized that I had wasted an hour.

Usually, in this situation, a special event would progress additionally, but that was the worst possible scenario.

‘I have no luck at all.’

Normally, I would find a map lying around while cleaning, put it in my underwear, and leave.

But if I failed to find one I had no choice but to initiate the special event.

‘The trigger is probably…’

“Accidentally” breaking one of the beds while cleaning.

When that happened, I had to call one of the guards who heard the commotion and steal the map he had.

This plan had no advantages, and the disadvantage was that I wouldn’t die comfortably if I failed.

To make an example out of me, I would be whipped all day, turned into a bloody pulp, and then killed.

“But this is the only way.”

The guard caught here was random.

As long as it wasn’t that son of a bitch, I didn’t care who got caught.

‘The kind Paragon or…it’d be fine even if the manager came.’

Please, please, just not him.

I prayed to the whole world and moved to the bed that looked the oldest.

When one anthill ended, they moved to another place, so the durability of the beds was very low.

How sturdy could a makeshift bed focused on convenience be?

Crack!

I swung the mop refreshingly and shattered the bed leg.

As if on cue, there was an immediate reaction from outside.

Thud!

Footsteps that sounded similar to the bed breaking.

Vibrations loud enough to be heard outside, with this, the preparations were complete.

Now all I could do was pray.

Thud! Thud! Thud!

But huge vibrations that mercilessly trampled on such expectations came from outside the quarters.

‘…It’s over.’

Footsteps that caused vibrations similar to when the bed collapsed.

Even without seeing, I could roughly guess how huge they were.

“Who’s in the quarters right now!”

A rough voice and a barbaric motion of opening the door as if to tear it off.

“Is it you?!”

The most brutal among the anthill guards, who had a hobby of killing orphans,

It was the appearance of Belbart.

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Belbart didn’t like Lee Seok-Hyun.

The fact that he was popular among the guards despite being an orphan meant that he didn’t work diligently.

He had other reasons, but what he disliked the most about Seok-Hyun was that his expression was bright despite being an orphan.

Radiant smiles like his often meant that the person was thinking of escaping.

He tried to explain this to his colleagues, but they didn’t believe him.

‘Stupid bastards.’

The problem was that everyone except him liked Lee Seok-Hyun.

Orphans were consumables that lost their value when they died, so why shower them with affection?

In reality, the guards’ affection for Seok-Hyun was only at the level of treating him like a superior product, but even that irritated Belbart.

‘I’ll catch him one day.’

Acting normal one day and then kissing up to the guards the next?

He one hundred percent had some type of ulterior motive.

While the other guards spouted nonsense like,”It must be because we look cool,” Belbart prided himself on never being fooled.

And finally,

“This bastard is really causing trouble!”

“Uwah!”

It was a good thing he left something behind in the quarters.

If it wasn’t for that, he would have missed this wonderful situation.

Did even God wish for Seok-Hyun to be smashed?

If any other guard saw this, they would’ve let it slide, but Belbart would never let it end that easily.

“This bastard, to my bed!”

Bang!

Belbart roughly grabbed Seok-Hyun and violently threw him on the floor.

The kid who directly hit the hard stone floor writhed in pain.

“Why are you here? If you can’t answer that properly first, I’ll kill you!”

No matter how much he despised Seok-Hyun, he couldn’t kill him without justification since the other guards favored him.

If it was another orphan, he would have crushed their skull right away, but this guy was annoying to deal with.

‘These days, even the head guard likes his massage.’

So he needed a reason, even if trivial, to kill him.

“Manager gave me permission to clean the guards’ quarters.”

“Why did you try to clean it?”

Honestly, he liked that it was clean, but he wouldn’t admit that.

So he glared at Seok-Hyun fiercely, burying his true thoughts.

Usually, when orphan bitches were glared at like this, they would cower in fear, unable to speak.

“It’s because I respect the guards and really wanted to clean the quarters.”

However, Seok-Hyun spoke while looking straight into his eyes.

He had hopeful and dignified-looking eyes.

Belbart despised those eyes.

“But you broke the bed, what kind of dog act is this, huh?!”

“Keuk… kuhk… so…sorry…”

Belbart viciously grabbed Seok-Hyun’s collar again and lifted him with one hand.

His formidable physique, standing over 2 meters tall, made the malnourished Seok-Hyun look even smaller.

He was so angry that he unzipped his outer coat and flapped it wildly to vent his frustration.

“I can kill you right here! You know that?!”

“Y-yes, I… kn-kn-ow.”

“Hah, look at this bastard.”

How could the eyes of a bastard who says he knows shine like this?

He wanted to gouge out Seok-Hyun’s eyes and strangle him to death, but the fact that the head guard liked his massage came to mind again.

“You broke the bed leg because it can be fixed, right?”

“Y-yes, it… c-can h-heuk… be done.”

Whenever he spoke, it seemed hard to breathe, so Seok-Hyun shook his legs in the air and suffered.

Belbart quite liked that sight, so he drove a straight punch into his abdomen to satisfy his urges.

Kwatududuk.

“Keuaaaaagh!”

He made sure to control his strength just enough to not break Seok-Hyun’s bones.

Belbart didn’t care how much the other guards favored him; he wanted to make sure Seok-Hyun understood.

“Fix the bed nicely and clean it thoroughly. If I come back and I’m not satisfied, you’ll really die then, got it?!”

Belbart gave that threat, slammed Seok-Hyun on the floor again, took the item he left, and went outside.

However unlike when entering the quarters, Belbart failed to notice the emptiness inside his outer coat while leaving.

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“After Belbart left, I reopened the first-aid kit and tightly wrapped my body with compression bandages.

‘Thanks for making sure my bones wouldn’t fall out, you fucking bastard.’

Inside the tightly wrapped bandages was the map I had stolen from Belbart.

If all it took to get a map was being thrown on the floor a few times and punched in the gut, that was a trade I’d make any day

‘Belbart, you son of a bitch.’

Belbart was a mid-boss-level existence in the prologue who despised Lee Seok-Hyun for no reason.

I get that hardships and adversity were necessary for story progression, but this was just too much.

‘It’s a good thing I got in the head guard’s good graces beforehand.’

It was fortunate that I didn’t give massages just to the manager, but to the others as well.

Otherwise, he might have realized there’d be no repercussions and smashed my head in.

Unlike the stupid manager, Belbart was a cunning and vicious bear.

‘I guess that’s why he’s called the mid-boss.’

However, the problem wasn’t finding the map, but figuring out where to look at it.

If I opened it near the orphans, those who knew it paid to kiss up to the guards wouldn’t hesitate to snitch, just to get out of work.

The thought of surviving together had long disappeared from their minds.

‘What I need now is personal space and time.’

I needed space to analyze the map and time to make a detailed escape plan.

Even though I knew the game’s story, Lee Seok-Hyun’s prologue had too many variables.

While it wouldn’t be possible to account for all of them, I had to at least try, right?

It made sense to be wary of any threats.

‘I can’t clean the guards’ quarters every day…’

Especially because there was no such thing as causing a commotion and being put in solitary confinement or something.

If I caused another disturbance, I would be executed on the spot.

In the anthill, locking someone up to educate them wasn’t a thing.

Why would they bother to pacify and coax a disposable asset that could be replaced endlessly?

Of course my stats increased after the beating was finished.

I was so grateful I could cry.

‘My first priority is to escape alone, the second is to escape with all the orphans.’

Of course, the rewards for escaping alone and escaping together were on a different level.

If I was lucky, I might be able to get a high-grade sub skill.

But to achieve that, cooperation was essential.

‘Right now, I only have a good image among the guards.’

In exchange for buttering up to the guards, I lost the trust of my fellow orphans.

But that was just the shallow trust of kids, anyways.

Children were the type to change their mind with just a little kindness, so it’d be easy to regain it.

There was a reason I took as much medicine as possible from the first-aid kit and left the guards’ quarters.

‘Now it’s time to obtain a hidden skill.’

Now that I had the map, it was time to gather at least some minimal force.

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[Shio here~!

I SAID IT WAS A RED FLAG, I CALLED IT!]