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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: JayM
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The morning of the day I decided on my first murder dawned.
Perhaps it was because my practice had paid off, or perhaps it was because it just didn’t feel real, but I was surprisingly emotionless today.
“…Something wrong?”
“Huh?”
Ha-ni suddenly asked me that on the way to school.
“No? Why? Does it seem like something’s wrong?”
It wasn’t a lie. I even felt more relaxed and composed than usual.
“No, it’s not that. You just seem… strange, different from usual, somehow? Anyway, you seem a little tense?”
“Um, I don’t know?”
“…Really? Well, it’s good if you don’t have anything to worry about. If you do, you should tell me, okay?”
Before I could answer her, Lilac and Yoo-na joined us while giving us their greetings.
“So-hyun! Ha-ni!”
“Hi.”
However, they too tilted their heads with strange expressions on their faces as they approached me.
“So-hyun, is something wrong?”
“You too? Why? Do I seem strange?”
Maybe my calmness was just my imagination, and my inner turmoil was actually showing on my face…? That wouldn’t do…
“No, it’s not strange, but… you seem a bit on edge today…”
“You’re usually like a wary cat, but now you’re like a cat whose tail has been stepped on.”
Yoo-na made a rather incomprehensible analogy.
“Ah, right. That’s exactly the feeling.”
What kind of feeling was that…?
“Anyway, if anything happens, call me right away. I’ll really put aside almost anything and come running to help you. Right, Yoo-na?”
“…Well, if I have time.”
Oh, to hear those words from Yoo-na… I guess I’ve managed my relationships pretty well since I possessed this body.
As I opened the classroom door and entered, the butt that was usually sitting at my desk greeted me boisterously.
“Loser! You’re here? Uh…?”
But she soon became worried and looked down at me as I sat down.
“Loser, have you been crying…?”
“…No?”
“Right? It doesn’t seem like you were crying, but something’s different. Hmm, did you skip breakfast?”
“No…? Anyway, nothing happened to me, but everyone’s making a fuss about me today.”
“Really…? If nothing happened, then that’s a relief, but if something’s wrong, tell me. I can at least cover the cost of the tteokbokki. We’re friends, after all.”
She made a relieved smile, and got off my desk.
“Then, loser! Tell me if anything’s bothering you~”
As soon as Kim Ga-eul left, Cheon Yoo-hak, who was sitting nearby, approached me.
With the most serious expression among the people I met today, Cheon Yoo-hak wasn’t his usual confident self. He hesitated for a moment and seemed to be carefully choosing his words.
“Are you really alright?”
“Is my expression really that bad that even you’re worried…? Then it must be really serious, right?”
I chuckled and responded jokingly, but Cheon Yoo-hak’s expression didn’t brighten.
“…No, your expression is fine. It’s just that your atmosphere is just like… that day… No, I shouldn’t pry. You’ll handle it well. But if you think I can be of help, tell me. I’ll definitely come running.”
“Forget it. Just share some good info next time we go hunting.”
“Of course.”
Cheon Yoo-hak finally regained his usual demeanor and returned to his seat.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
“Oh? Is Kang So-hyun sick?”
“Huh?”
During magic class, Professor Park Ah-ram, the academy’s mascot, tilted her head and asked me after she shouted “Then, Kang So-hyun, can you answer this!?” as usual.
“No, I’m not sick.”
“Really? You’re always like this, but you seem even sharper today, so I just wondered.”
“Then, I don’t have to answer?”
“That’s a separate issue! Now, answer this question, Kang So-hyun…!”
“Number 3.”
“Guessing on a subjective question? You’ve got guts. I’ll let it slide this time. Next time, you’ll be stuck with TA duties, you know.”
Oh, she didn’t threaten me with an F this time.
As the class ended without incident, the cute little witch tossed me a candy.
“You dropped this.”
When I returned the candy, she chuckled as if she was dumbfounded.
“I gave it to you. You should know that, you sly fox. I don’t know what’s going on with you today, but you’ll feel better if you talk to someone about it. Cadets are still young, so they need to learn to rely on others, you know?”
“Seeing how everyone is strangely concerned about me today, I guess my expression isn’t good.”
“No, it’s not your expression. It’s just… something. It’s not like the usual Kang So-hyun.”
“The usual me?”
“Yes, um. Actually, we don’t have a long personal relationship, so I can’t explain it well, but anyway, there’s something like that?”
She took out another candy and popped it in her mouth.
“Well, if it was a really big problem, you would have talked to someone else already! But since I’m kind of an adult, you can talk to me. You’re my future TA, after all!”
“Who’s your TA?”
“You are. I’m kidding, so don’t feel pressured. Come by if you want. I’ll at least offer you candy and tea.”
She said that and left the classroom.
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“Hmm, good. Cadet Kang So-hyun. Seeing your posture getting better, it seems that your stamina has improved a lot.”
My last class of the day was Professor Cathy’s class.
I seemed to be in good condition today.
I had less strength in my body than usual, so whether it was a kick or a punch, my strikes landed precisely where I wanted them to.
“So-hyun.”
“…Yes?”
It was unusual for her to drop the formalities inside the academy.
At least, it was unheard of for her to do so suddenly while in the middle of class.
Of course, with the distance between us, the other cadets wouldn’t hear it.
“Do you remember your promise to tell me if something was wrong?”
Right.
I had made such a promise with her before.
Although I knew it was a promise I couldn’t keep, the fact that I was breaking it so soon didn’t sit well with me.
“If the promise you made with me is a burden, you can break it.”
“…Huh?”
“I made you make that promise because I wanted to help you, not because I wanted to make you anxious and uncomfortable.”
“What do you…”
“I don’t know what’s going on, but I understand that you can’t tell me about it. Boys sometimes make that sort of expression.”
“…What kind of expression do I have right now?”
She stroked my head at an angle that couldn’t be seen by others.
“An expression of forcing yourself.”
“No, I’m not forcing…”
“And it’s the expression of someone who has made a decision in secret. Kids with that face rarely listen to persuasion.”
She had a point.
“I won’t be offended. But let’s make another promise.”
“…Again?”
“Yes. Come back safe, without getting hurt.”
“Hey, what do you think am I going to do? You’re going too far.”
I would try not to get hurt.
“So-hyun, getting hurt doesn’t always mean physical injury. You know that, right?”
“…Yes.”
“Okay, we can’t just stand around like this, so shall we continue? It’s important to get used to your body when your posture improves.”
She said so and corrected my posture little by little.
“I’ll support you no matter what. So good luck.”
Her reluctance to even offer me help made my heart ache for some reason.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
After all my classes ended, I was left alone in the academy classroom, feeling dazed, and with various thoughts coming to my mind.
“Really, they’re usually so oblivious and act like suckers, but how do they know this kind of stuff so well?”
Was it because they were characters from a novel?
Or was my poker face just that bad? I was pretty confident too.
As I recalled their deaths in the original story, the warm feelings within me instantly turned cold.
I didn’t want to see them, who I had become so close to, die.
It was already starting to get dark outside.
It was the time when the moon began to shine transparently in the sky when the sun was still up.
It was a somewhat poetic expression, but I liked this time of day when the sun and the moon coexisted for a brief moment.
Stories with only bright sides were boring, but stories with only dark sides were even more boring.
There needed to be a balance. Balance. Right?
How long did I wait like that?
When the sun almost disappeared from the sky and the moonlight began to brighten, the guest I was waiting for finally appeared.
“Ah, sorry. Am I late?”
“No, senior. I’m the one who asked you to come, so thank you for coming.”
“Haha, you wrote the letter in a way that I couldn’t refuse. I was hoping it was a pretty junior calling me, but it’s a shame.”
“Ah, I understand. When you receive a letter like that, you might think that a girl is going to confess to you, right?”
“Yeah, but I actually gave up on that expectation after reading the content. ‘I know your secret. If you don’t come alone to the academy training grounds by 7 p.m. after school, I’ll reveal everything.’ That doesn’t sound like a confession at all.”
“Hmm, it’s not a confession, but it’s not not that either, right? If you think of it as a confession from an obsessive yandere character, it sounds pretty plausible, doesn’t it?”
“That’s a novel interpretation. So? What is it? Why did a cute junior like you call me?”
“Ah, it’s nothing much.”
Yeah, it’s nothing much.
As I told Ha-ni, it was just cleaning up the trash.
It was just that no one but me could clean it up right now, and it was a large piece of trash that would rot the surroundings if left unattended for even a moment.
“It’s just… I’m about to clean up some large trash that I don’t like.”
“…What? Are you being bullied? If so, you’ve come to the right person. I’m part of the student council, so I’ll make sure you don’t suffer any…”
“Ah, you don’t have to answer. I know you’re sincere. I’m sorry to do this to you when you don’t know anything.”
I held Ruyi, which was in the form of a knife, in reverse grip and reinforced my whole body.
“First, please die.”
“…W-what!?”
He hurriedly tried to draw his weapon, which was a bow, but since I had already closed the distance with my reinforced body, I wasn’t going to give him time to draw the string.
I aimed for his neck with the knife, but he managed to dodge at the last moment by dropping his bow. It only grazed his shoulder, so I didn’t inflict any significant damage.
“What is the meaning of this…!? Who put you up to this!? I don’t know if there’s some misunderstanding here, but I don’t remember making any enemies!”
“Yes, I’m sure. Senior Vice President Seo In-young. You’ve done nothing wrong.”
“Then why…!?”
“It’s just that you were born.”
“…You…!”
Enraged, he lunged at me.
He must have thought that he was just caught off guard and that he could subdue someone like me in close combat if he wasn’t careless.
Since he was a third-year cadet and I was a freshman, it wasn’t entirely wrong.
If I didn’t have Ruyi, that is.
He was gauging the distance, thinking that my weapon was a knife.
That momentary misjudgment was his downfall.
He started to close the distance in a single breath, but I had already swung Ruyi.
The moment he entered my range while closing the distance with an incomprehensible look on his face…
“Extend, Ruyi…!”
The knife transformed into a long sword.
“…What…!?”
A sickening sensation was transmitted to my fingertips.
The feeling of a sword cutting through human flesh and muscle wasn’t very pleasant.
“Uh…ugh…!?”
He looked quite wronged, having been hit by a surprise attack.
He seemed to not even understand why this was happening to him.
Well, it was understandable.
He, Seo In-young, was truly innocent.
No, he wasn’t even human in the first place.
“I thought it was a dirty relic even when I read about it, but it’s even worse seeing it in person.”
‘Wow, that’s it! The academy is safe!’ It would be nice if I could say that right now, but of course, the world wasn’t that easy.
“…What?”
Light enveloped Seo In-young’s collapsed, bleeding body, and his wounds completely healed.
And he was examining his condition with a completely different expression than before.
The real enemy had finally appeared.
“There’s still some time until the plan…? Why now? No, was I attacked? Despite the fake personality?”
The first relic he possessed.
The Puppeteer’s Tea Party.
A relic that intentionally created another personality within oneself, and the personality created by the relic couldn’t recognize its true nature, so it wouldn’t get caught by most lie-detecting relics.
Unless pre-set conditions were met or a life-threatening crisis occurred, the original personality would never emerge, making it, in a sense, the optimal relic for infiltration.
It was the main reason why he had been able to enroll in the academy every four years while disguised as a different student without being caught by the Chairman.
And the reason he just recovered from the near-fatal wound I had inflicted was due to his second relic, the Lucky Double Coin.
It had a one-week cooldown, but it completely healed a fatal wound once. It was an amazing relic.
He looked at his torn clothes and asked me.
“Did you do this?”
“Yeah, that’s right.”
“…You look like a cadet?”
“That’s also right.”
“Calling me trash means you’re not Lilac or Cheon Yoo-hak. Do you know what you’re doing? Or are you just doing this because you didn’t like my fake personality?”
“Of course, I did it because I know who you are, what your purpose is, and what you were planning to do.”
“You’re quite talkative? Didn’t you learn that being so honest gets you killed quickly?”
“Would you let me live if I lied?”
“No way.”
“Right? Then what’s the point of lying?”
He looked down on me and stretched.
“Alright, any last words?”
“Wow, your lines are so outdated. But you know what?”
“…What?”
“It’s not me who needs last words, it’s you.”
I provoked him while holding Ruyi, which had returned to its knife form, in my hand.
“You’re going to die here today, you trashy villain.”
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T/N – Damn! I am hyped! This is basically the MC’s first proper fight, and he’s fighting with the Ruyi too. Let’s go So-hyun, kill that piece of shit!
Also, I found it kinda sweet that so many people sensed that something was off with him and asked him how he was. It just goes to show how many people the MC has bonded with.
If you find any mistakes, feel free to point them out in the comments.
So what’s a TA?
Teaching assistant