I Became the Terminally Ill Character in My Friend’s Academy Novel – Chapter 18

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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: JayM
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Just because I received a notification that the main story was starting didn’t mean anything drastically changed.

The butt was still using my desk as a chair during homeroom, rumors about me bribing my way into the academy were still circulating, and the delinquents were still tearing up and throwing eraser bits at me.

There were still six days left until it started, and since this incident didn’t have any particular foreshadowing, my day didn’t change much.

The only difference was that our butt had started managing her image.

“Oh my, our loser is here?”

What was this called?

She hadn’t even bothered to respond to me before, but now she was greeting me first, probably after seeing Cheon Yoo-hak scolding the boar in the cafeteria.

Calling someone a loser was unacceptable, and I won’t forgive her just because she started greeting me.

Her eyes were still filled with mockery and annoyance, but the way she smirked using just the corners of her mouth was incredibly irritating.

“You should reply when someone greets you, loser.”

Oh, surprisingly, our butt, Kim Ga-eul, seemed to have very low intelligence as she showed no sign of reflecting on her actions over the past two days.

“Ah, just kidding, you’re not mad, are you?”

“Well, you’re even greeting a loser like me. You’re kinder than I thought.”

She flinched, as if surprised by my response, but then she seemed pleased, thinking I had surrendered.

Yes, be happy.

You seemed to want to appeal to Cheon Yoo-hak by acting differently from other delinquents, but it probably wouldn’t be easy, considering his personality.

I sat down without hesitation, and the butt looked at me with a dumbfounded expression.

“What are you doing…?”

“Sitting in my seat.”

Actually, that was true.

There was no rule against sitting in your seat just because a girl was sitting on your desk.

As long as I could overcome the bizarre sight of a back and butt in front of me, with a voice coming from above, I could reclaim my seat.

“Pfft.”

Cheon Yoo-hak, who was sitting nearby, let out a small laugh, and the butt’s face flushed red.

“You, just you wait.”

Oh, this was an unintentional deepening of the rift between us.

I wasn’t really scared. Most people who said “Just you wait” weren’t actually scary.

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Today was Friday.

To be precise, it was Friday, April 6th, 2035, in this fictional world.

The first class of the day was a very meaningful one for me.

“Hello everyone. I’m Jin Kyung-tae, and I’ll be teaching Basic Monster Studies.”

A handsome male teacher in a suit and with a warm smile began his self-introduction.

Just like how the male students reacted to Professor Cathy, the female students were stirred at the appearance of the handsome young teacher.

“It might only be for one semester, but I’m very proud and happy to have the opportunity to teach such excellent students.”

Jin Kyung-tae was, how should I put it… the image of an ideal young teacher.

That was a given, since he was described that way in the original story, both during classes and when counseling students.

“Since it’s the first day, I’m planning to conduct a simple Q&A for today’s class. Is everyone okay with that?”

“Yes!”

The female student who answered energetically was the butt.

Yes, yes, our face-obsessed friend was hard at work.

“Then I’ll start taking questions.”

“Do you have a girlfriend, Professor?”

“Well, I’d prefer questions about monsters, but getting closer to the students is also important, I guess. No, I don’t have one right now.”

“Kyaa!”

The student who asked the question squealed, “Oh my god~!”

He scratched his cheek while looking troubled as the female students bombarded him with questions.

Wow, just when I thought I was getting used to it, a new variation of gestures appeared, reminding me that this was a fictional world.

Scratching his cheek because he was “troubled.” It was disgusting to see someone pretending to be troubled when they clearly weren’t.

“Well, instead of these kinds of questions… How about that student sitting there with a bored expression?”

Seriously, why were all the professors here so obsessed with me?

Everyone’s attention suddenly focused on me.

“…I understand monsters and villains, but what’s the difference between monsters and beasts?”

“Ah, that’s a very good question. I chose the right student to ask.”

He nodded satisfied and started writing on the board.

“Yes, the difference between monsters, the creatures we’ll be studying in this class, villains, and beasts, is actually quite simple. Although villains are technically subject to rehabilitation, they are humans like you except they committed crimes. Beasts, on the other hand, are sentient beings from another world.”

That’s right.

Superhumans who committed crimes were called villains, and mindless monsters from another world were called monsters. Beasts were somewhere in between.

“Generally, sentient, hostile races from other worlds are called beasts, but some argue that some of them are just races we can’t communicate with yet. Well, since I specialize in monsters, beasts will be covered in other classes.”

He smiled and jokingly pointed at me.

“Let’s give a round of applause to the student who asked such an insightful question that gets to the core of this class!”

Jin Kyung-tae.

He liked students.

Not jokingly, but genuinely.

The problem was that his affection was twisted, and his methods were bizarre.

He was a villain who admired and idolized the beauty of youth and honest passion.

He periodically and secretly indulged in his twisted affections and desires, but he was supposed to become increasingly unable to satisfy himself with just fantasies and pseudo-acts, eventually causing an incident.

He was probably almost done selecting his prey and was already making preparations.

The psychopath, who had come to despise everything else due to his intense longing for youth, was still smiling brightly at the students.

It was a truly disgusting sight.

“Ah, it’s already time for class to end. Thank you for your hard work, everyone.”

“Yes~”

Oh, our main victim was smiling happily.

Well, it wasn’t my problem.

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Combined Weaponry.

It was a setting my friend added later to create a class that both Lilac, who used a sword as his main weapon, and Cheon Yoo-hak, who used a spear, could take together.

Lilac was already taking Beginner Swordsmanship and Intermediate Swordsmanship, and Cheon Yoo-hak was taking Intermediate Spearmanship, but they were both participating in this Combined Weaponry class because it was a feedback-based class that focused on sparring.

The setting was so full of holes that it had the insane rule that whichever close-combat instructor was free on the day of the class would teach it, just because he didn’t want to create a new instructor character. What more needed to be said?

Today’s instructor was Kim Min-soo, our Basic Physical Training instructor.

Two students were facing each other in the training grounds for a demonstration.

Although they were using practice weapons, the fact that Lilac and Cheon Yoo-hak were the ones sparring against each other rendered the bluntness of the weapons meaningless.

Without the latest technology to absorb the impact of the weapons and the safety devices surrounding the training grounds, one of them would probably be seriously injured in this sparring match.

This class format came about because Kim Min-soo, after finishing his explanation, suggested, “Since we’re lucky enough to have both joint top scorers in this class, how about a demonstration?”

In the original story, the two already had a strong dislike for each other, but thanks to several coincidences that changed the setting, they weren’t exactly friendly now, but they weren’t hostile either.

“Nice to meet you. Let’s do our best.”

“We should settle this once and for all.”

Cheon Yoo-hak lightly dismissed Lilac’s greeting and raised his practice spear.

“Huh?”

“Even if we’re joint top scorers, what’s the point of getting perfect scores on a test with a predetermined answer and a ranking determined by talent level? We need to clearly show the students who’s superior.”

“What’s so important about rankings? Let’s just do our best.”

The two boys smiled.

Cheon Yoo-hak made the first move.

Fundamentally, a spear was a superior weapon to a sword.

A weapon that could control the opponent by maintaining distance and using threatening thrusts.

That was a spear, and that was the correct way to use it.

Cheon Yoo-hak’s thrust, already entering the realm of mastery due to his overwhelming talent despite his young age, shot forward.

Most swordsmen would have been defeated in this single exchange, but the boy facing him was also a genius.

A divine aura enveloped his blunt, attributeless sword.

He wasn’t intimidated even when facing perfect spearmanship.

Knowing that the spear would pierce him the moment he retreated in fear, he charged forward.

If his opponent was a perfect spearman, Lilac would show him the form of a perfect swordsman.

Using the light of the holy sword as a shield, he deflected the thrust and closed the distance.

Of course, Cheon Yoo-hak wouldn’t readily give up his range advantage, but unlike a spear which required both hands, a sword could be used with a shield depending on the situation.

Unlike Cheon Yoo-hak who had to attack and move simultaneously, Lilac could deflect attacks with his light shield while closing the distance to pursue him.

His clever use of the limited space of the training grounds and his optimal choice of deflecting the thrusts instead of blocking them head-on turned the tables, putting Yoo-hak on the defensive.

“Not bad.”

“You too.”

Cheon Yoo-hak, who generally liked competent people, smiled.

Lilac, who enjoyed honing his skills, smiled back.

It was the first clash between the two, who, even in the original story, acknowledged each other’s skills despite their dislike for each other.

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In the end, the spar between Cheon Yoo-hak and Lilac ended in a draw.

Lilac tried to close the distance while deflecting his opponent’s attacks, but Cheon Yoo-hak maintained his range advantage with his elegant footwork. On the other hand, Cheon Yoo-hak hadn’t been able to inflict any significant damage to his opponent and was almost put in danger by Lilac’s sharp counterattacks. These were all according to the instructor’s evaluation.

“Well, you two are so good that it’s difficult for me to give feedback.”

That was high praise.

“As an instructor, I’m very happy to have two such excellent students, but since the essence of this class is feedback, it would be good to have another team of slightly less skilled cadets.”

The students, who were still abuzz due to the impressive display just now, started whispering amongst themselves, seemingly more interested in this spar.

Indeed, it was more entertaining to watch fights where the participants were weak.

Of course, it would be frustrating for those involved, but what did it matter? As long as it wasn’t me~!

But strangely, my hand shot up.

It wasn’t some paranormal phenomenon like a poltergeist activity, but because a girl, who had approached me unnoticed, grabbed my arm and raised it.

“Cadet Kang So-hyun and I volunteer.”

Kim Ga-eul, the butt girl, was smiling.

…Damn it, that’s right.

It was a common rule in web novels that those who thought, “As long as it’s not me~,” would end up getting involved themselves.

“Oh, then would you come up?”

I could have thrown a tantrum and refused, but I decided to just go up.

That girl saw me as a complete pushover, and I felt like I needed to teach her a lesson.

Meanwhile, our butt seemed quite surprised that I obediently went up.

“Loser. Don’t you understand the situation? You’re actually going up there?”

“You called me Kang So-hyun earlier, and now it’s ‘loser’ again?”

“Don’t get cocky. I told you to be prepared, didn’t I? The opportunity came sooner than I expected.”

Our butt had a terrible personality, but she wasn’t a truly bad person.

Well, if you looked at it in black and white, she was definitely on the evil side, but she wasn’t bad enough to deserve death.

Actually, except for when she dealt with me, or Lilac in the original story, her tone wasn’t particularly harsh.

She was just self-centered, selfish, and a spoiled brat who took her frustrations out on others.

…Maybe she was a bad person after all…

“Hey, let me ask you something. Why do you hate me so much?”

“What are you talking about, loser? Why would I hate you?”

The weapon she chose was a whip.

A whip. I wasn’t sure about its practicality, but this was a world with magic. A whip, with its unpredictable movements, could be quite a threatening weapon if used well, but I wasn’t expecting much from her.

Her talent wasn’t suited for combat.

“Oh, I thought you really hated me.”

“No, was there such a misunderstanding between us?”

She and I smiled at each other.

“Do you think you’re even worth hating?”

The whip lashed out at me.

Crack.

With an ominous sound, the whip struck the spot where I had just been standing.

Since it wasn’t her talent, she must have mastered it through pure effort.

“What makes you so cocky? You can’t even exercise, and you’re so weak.”

That’s right.

I was weak.

I was so weak that if I got hit by that whip outside the training grounds, I would cry from the pain.

Crack.

The whip struck the ground again.

Her one-sided offensive continued.

“I couldn’t even be in the same class, let alone the same team, as him, but you, of all people, rejected Yoo-hak’s offer? Are you that great?”

Blindly defending what she liked and feeling inferior to someone, it was common for kids at this age.

I didn’t know how she would take it, but at least she was doing this out of goodwill.

Of course, it would be a problem if there was a victim, but since I was currently the target, it wasn’t exactly crossing the line for me.

I suddenly thought, should I try to fix this?

“This…!”

Annoyed that I was nimbly dodging her whip, she started wildly swinging it.

The whip bounced and created a wall of continuous strikes.

I had no fighting skills.

I didn’t have Cheon Yoo-hak’s fancy footwork, nor did I have Lilac’s innate combat talent.

But I had something else.

I calmly walked into the barrage of whips where an ordinary person wouldn’t even see an opening to dodge.

An attack so fast that it was difficult for an ordinary person to even follow it with their eyes.

Then I just had to make my eyes not ordinary.

Thanks to my enhanced eyesight, which had already been awakened through Enhancement, everything seemed to be moving in slow motion.

While the whip moved dynamically like a connected line, it was still just a line until it hit something and bounced off.

A rapidly approaching weapon was scary, but no one was afraid of a slow, predictable weapon that almost seemed to be standing still.

My body was also pathetically slow, but it was enough to slip through.

The wall created by the flurry of whips completely lost its function.

“Huh…?”

Perhaps I looked like a ghost to her as I calmly walked through her attacks.

I was close enough now. If I stabbed her with the dagger in my hand, I would win.

Her face turned pale as I approached her while smiling.

“Let’s do our best, shall we?”

I stabbed her with the dagger in my hand and simultaneously allowed myself to get hit by the weakest of her whip attacks.

Damn it, that stung.

“Draw!”

The instructor declared a draw.

To everyone else except the two of us, it looked like I had recklessly charged in, endured the whip attacks, and then stabbed her with the dagger.

Six days left.

That was how much time she had left, and the remaining time I had to decide what to do with her.

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T/N – A girl bullies someone by spreading nasty rumors about them, instigated people to bully them both in words and actions, and actually tries to humiliate them in front of everyone all because they didn’t respect their crush is actually not that bad of a girl according to the author (I mean the actual author of this novel). And it even says she was doing it out of goodwill to make the MC take her crush’s offer. I don’t know what the author’s smoking, but I want some of that sh*t too!

If you find any mistakes, feel free to point them out in the comments.