Translator: Wan ED/PR: Solarin
42. Price of achieving a wish (8)
A fossil on the deepest floor of the stagnant and rotten water of the national game wreck Player Maister Highschool.
I didn’t think this modifier was even a bit embarrassing or wrong.
But since coming to this world, there were times when I doubted should I dare to call myself that.
The fight between my Playable Characters Sawol Seeum and Kwon Lena with NPC Han Yi was a bit of such case.
Clang-claang! Bang! Swish! Waang!
A broken flower pot crashed into the window and the reinforced glass broke completely.
Thanks to that, I began to clearly see what was going on inside.
Inside the messed up staff lounge.
The pieces of furniture flew around because of the aftereffects of Sawol Seeum using his Wind Art.
“Teacher Gong Cheonghwon-nim also said You can’t go out, so why are You so persistent about going? Was there perhaps a curse code planted in the message You said that was sent to the device? Have you gone crazy?”
The sight of Sawol Seeum asking his class friend if they had gone crazy was unfamiliar.
Kwon Lena, who fiercely swung her whip towards her class friend, was also unfamiliar.
Chiiink! Swish!
The winds called by Sawol Seeum made an opening and the whip swung by Kwon Lena tried to restrain Han Yi.
But before the end of the whip could touch her, Han Yi blew it from the side with a knifehand strike and changed its trajectory.
It seemed to be a move applying Taehokwon’s basic techniques, as Hwang Jiho evaluated ‘The movement is good. She had diligently trained Taehokwon even during the break, eh?’.
“…Step aside. You’ll get hurt.”
The two, who knew Han Yi’s abilities very well, had worried faces.
But the two didn’t yield to Han Yi’s power and shouted:
“… We will work hard not to get hurt!”
“Yeah. If someone among us can get hurt, we can heal ourselves with recovery items. Even if Han Yi hurts us, we won’t let you go.”
“Lena is correct. Those people looked very dangerous. Rather, resting in the school infirmary will be safer!”
“Yep, our school have good infirmary facilities. And the beds are comfortable, and even the snacks offered there are delicious.”
“Then it would be good to send Han Yi to infirmary!”
“Let’s us nurse you!”
“Yes!”
My Playable Characters were openly discussing sending their class friend to the infirmary…!?
My mind went dark, but when I thought about it carefully, the point was that they were moving for Han Yi, so they were kind and good children just like before.
Yeah, as expected, my Playable Characters were owners of extraordinary characters for sure.
And children usually grew up fighting.
I decided to cheer on our class children’s first fight until the situation was about to become dangerous and someone could get seriously injured, or the building could collapse.
“I won’t be looking after the two of you…!”
It was two against one, but in fact, Sawol Seeum and Kwon Lena, who were the weakest in our class, weren’t opponents for Han Yi.
The struggle was tense because of Han Yi’s hesitation, rather than because of Sawol Seeum or Kwon Lena.
Unlike what she said, that she wouldn’t be looking after them, it seemed that Han Yi couldn’t decisively use her hands to hurt the two of them.
“It reminds me about the time when I fought Cheong-ho before, eh?… That punk didn’t look after me.”
While watching Han Yi use Taehokwon, the geezer fell into the memories of the past.
The geezer, who a moment ago was in a poor mood, at a certain point, was watching the class children’s fight with an excited face.
“The leg technique is still awkward, eh? The talent is remarkable, but the training is still insufficient compared to me.”
Wasn’t that a bit too much to compare the training time that of a 5 thousand year old spirited elder[1] to the time of a 17 year old highschool 1st year student?
It seemed that the chairman, who laughed while giving advice, wasn’t particularly bothered even while the school building was destroyed.
I wondered if watching the fight while throwing provocations, might have been started as Eungwang School’s student tradition, who liked to spectate fights, by the chairman in the first place.
And according to the Eungwang School’s tradition, students started flocking to watch the fight.
“Hey, the class 0’s kids are fighting!”
“They’re fighting in the staff lounge, sir!”
Starting with someone shouting like this, people riding airboards flocked from everywhere.
“Which? The 2nd year? The 3rd year?”
“The 2nd year class 0 went to China following Head of School Affairs Teach-nim and the 3rd year class 0 is in the middle of rolling on the bootcamp on a deserted island…!”
“Then it’s the 1st year!”
“Those guys come to school?”
The surroundings became noisy because of the spectators, but our class children were fighting diligently.
‘If possible, I wanted the class children to solve it among themselves.’
But it wouldn’t be good if rumors spread.
When I took a step forward and was about to stop them.
“Uisin-ah, stay back.”
“…”
The Earthly Wings Council’s president Seong Siwan blocked my way.
At the side of Seong Siwan with a tranquil face, stood members of Earthly Wings Council, including the wordless Gye Idam.
As an incident occurred in the residential zone, it seemed that words got to the Wings Council.
“Hahaha, I expected that there would come a day when even the 1st year class 0’s children would cause an incident someday, but… I thought you may endure until the start of the 2nd year semester.”
Seong Siwan, who faintly spoke like this, said to Gye Idam.
“Idam-ah, you stop the kids.”
“Senior Seong Siwan-nim, I’ll stop them.”
But Seong Siwang shook his head at my words.
“There are more cases of unproficient than proficient superpower control among the 1st years. We’ll handle that. Idam has better talent at being an arbiter than I.”
Gye Idam jumped inside the lounge which turned into chaos full of wind filled with superpower waves, whips, fists and kicks.
I heard the children’s voices: ‘Please don’t interrupt!’, ‘Who are You?’, ‘Wait…’, ‘What, my superpower isn’t working well!’
A few seconds after it turned completely silent, our beaten-up class children and an unscathed Gye Idam appeared, and then…
Swish!
At that moment, someone arrived, jumping down from the airboard.
It was our class’ homeroom teacher, teacher Ham Geunhyeong-nim.
Eungwang School’s spectators, who were happily watching, saw the unsettling face of teacher Ham Geunhyeong-nim, gasped with a ‘heuk’ sound.
Ham Geunhyeong who saw the class children, whose clothes were ripped and wounds were dripping with blood, spoke with a voice as scary and low as his face.
“… All three of you are going to the teacher’s room. No, let’s go to the infirmary before that.”
He spoke with such a scary face and voice that even the students, who were watching were filled with fear, but he showed worry about class children, who fought for the first time.
On the other hand, Sawol Seeum and Kwon Lena were delighted at the words about going to the infirmary.
“Wow, we’re going to infirmary! Han Yi, let’s go!”
“Excellent! Let’s go quickly!”
When Sawol Seeum and Kwon Lena tightly grabbed both of Han Yi’s arms, while speaking like this, teacher Ham Geunhyeong-nim asked reasonably:
“… Weren’t you fighting?”
After following the class children, the Earthly Wings Council members and even teacher Ham Geunhyeong-nim appeared, the expression of Han Yi, who judged it was impossible to follow Gong Cheonghwon, stiffened.
“Teacher Ham Geunhyeong-nim! Teacher Gong Cheonghwon…”
“Teacher Gong Cheonghwon-nim will be okay. I’ll go to look after Him.”
Teacher Ham Geunhyeong-nim seemed to be unable to figure out the situation like before, but he looked at me and closed his mouth.
Sawol Seeum added a word.
“There won’t be any problem if Uisin goes to look after Him! Rest assured now and let’s go to the infirmary.”
“I’m going to nurse you!”
“Me too!”
Anyone who looked could see that Sawol Seeum and Kwon Lena were much more hurt than Han Yi, but they were making such noise.
Han Yi was confused, as she tightly bit her lips, and then spoke towards one addressee with a crawling voice:
“… I’ll request it.”
It seemed that Han Yi was requesting it to me, but it was Hwang Jiho who replied:
“Don’t worry. Nothing will happen as this one will go personally. Ah, your footwork when dealing a blow to avoid the whip was poor. Your connection between one of ‘Taehokwon’ basic postures ‘Tiger step’ and the attack move isn’t very good. That’s because your practice time is still insufficient. Repeat it 100 times in the morning and evening.”
Han Yi, who read Hwang Jiho’s mouth, openly made an expression of dislike.
Even seeing that face, Hwang Jiho laughed ‘Hahahaha!’.
When teacher Ham Geunhyeong-nim guided the children to the infirmary, me and Hwang Jiho headed towards the abandoned factory where Gong Cheonghwon was said to have gone.
I heard the voices of the Earthly Wings Council’s people, who were cleaning up.
“… Those guys fought, right?”
“Class 0’s children… As expected, it seems that they live in a dimension with different thinking from ours.”
“Let’s call the automatic cleaner…”
“Uh, not much was as broken as I thought. It seems that there won’t even be a need for a repair job!”
“… As expected, the 1st year class 0’s children are meek!”
Even from that short conversation, I could keenly feel the Earthly Wings Council’s troubles.
* * *
Jongro-1 Street, Red Lion team’s building.
The Yong tribe member, who won the rock, paper, scissors and monopolized Yeom Junyeol’s break time, wandered around the wide training room.
But even at the side of the waterfall materialized with the superpower wave, inside the cave or at the bottom of the pond, there was no Yeom Junyeol.
‘Considering Yeom Junyeol’s personality, there is no way that he didn’t cool-down and left the training room…’
The Yong tribe member pulled on his superpowers and sharpened his senses.
He got his breath back as he soon discovered Yeom Junyeol sitting in the shade of a bamboo grove, in the middle of mediating.
Somehow it seemed that his presence was fainter than usual, but not enough to be worried.
“Junyeol-ah! Are you hot? The training room temperature is set to be the same as the air temperature outside, so… Should we lower it a bit?”
“I’m okay. Thanks to being a descendant of a dragon, who uses flames.”
“Even so, you should take care of your water intake. Here, take this ion drink and towel. The interview materials that arrived beforehand today were sent to your device.”
“Thank You.”
While smiling politely, Yeom Junyeol shook off the mat and stood up.
He spoke brightly, but because of the fact that he still couldn’t achieve the task of ‘Erasing the traces of presence’ given to him by his master, Red Wall Thief, Yeom Junyeol’s heart was anxious.
To hide the anxiousness of his heart, he turned on the device and checked the materials while speaking:
“The list of the audition participants was confirmed?”
“The recruitment is still ongoing. That is the list of Players confirmed for the first audition.”
On the list were pictures of the Players who planned to appear in the audition program and their simple background records.
Though it wasn’t really promoted yet, there were quite a few participating Players, who learned through acquaintances.
Yeom Junyeol, who checked the list, made a surprised face.
“Why are you like this? Do you know someone?”
“No, that’s because there is a child from the same class as juniors I know.”
“As from Eungwang School? There is even a child from Eungwang School coming to audition, huh?… But what kind of juniors are they? Are they very kind juniors like Junyeol? They aren’t some strange kids, right?”
The Yong tribe member was immediately wary.
It was because although Yeom Junyeol’s school relationship were thoroughly checked, there weren’t any exact records of exchanges with school juniors.
“Seeum and Uisin, who played chess with me before.”
“Ah, that…”
The Yong tribe member, who recalled the defeat in the chess tournament straight away, made a distressed face.
Cheongryong, who was observing that scene from afar, was shooting a sharp superpower wave at him.
It was meant as a rebuke: ‘Don’t touch Yeom Junyeol’s painful memories by making useless sounds’.
Yeom Junyeol, who didn’t notice the fierce superpower wave exchange, showed the name list while speaking brightly.
A picture of a pink-haired girl was attached to the name list.
“The participant is Eungwang School’s 1st year class 0’s Dokgo Miro. It’s the first time I heard this name…. But the 1st year class 0’s children don’t attend school very well.”
* * *
Outskirts of Eungwang District, just after arriving in the Gwangli neighborhood’s abandon factory[2].
Hwang Jiho’s expression was somewhat strange.
“What is it?”
“… I feel the clash of superpower waves.”
Teacher Gong Cheonghwon is in the middle of a fight?
However, Hwang Jiho, who watched the class children’s fight while laughing, didn’t seem to be making an expression saying ‘teacher is fighting a bit’.
Hwang Jiho, who jumped over the rusty wire fence, mumbled.
“I feel a familiar and nostalgic energy, eh….”
As we entered inside of the abandoned factory, Hwang Jiho’s movement speed gradually grew faster with each step.
When I also felt the clash of superpower waves, Hwang Jiho’s hair and eyes turned shining yellow gold.
‘Why are you suddenly like this…!’
Hwang Jiho opened his power and started moving.
Hwang Jiho ran into the maze-like abandoned factory at a speed that was difficult for eyes to follow.
When we at last entered the center of the abandoned factory.
I saw Gong Cheonghwon surrounded by the men holding iron pipes in the distance.
“Cheong-ho…!”
What? Did you say Cheong-ho?”
But before I could ask, Hwang Jiho took out bō and ran forward.
The shining yellow gold superpower wave and wind pressure swept the people, who were getting ready to fight.
Kwaaaa!
Because the flash of light covered my eyes and I couldn’t see in front of me, I hastily activated the skill.
⟨Skill ‘Brilliant Gaze’ activated.⟩
The light was filling my vision like before, but after the skill activation, I began to clearly see the flow of superpower waves and the silhouettes inside the factory.
‘Did Hwang Jiho beat up the people here with one strike?’
I guess Hwang Jiho had no thoughts of watching the fight this time.
Among the service company’s people, who collapsed, the only one left standing were Hwang Jiho and Gong Cheonghwon.
‘But what are you doing right now…!?’
The end of the shining gold bō, which Hwang Jiho was holding, was pointed at Gong Cheonghwon’s throat.
At the end of the weapon aimed at the throat, yellow gold mana and superpower wave intertwined and blazed to such a degree that my eyes hurt.
Hwang Jiho, who panted for a breath, asked:
“Where did you receive that blessing? Where did you receive Cheong-ho’s blessing?!”
*~*~*
[1] spirited elder — an elder, who keeps good health even at an old age and is very energetic. 노익장 (no-ik-jang) comes from the Chinsese saying ‘老 益 壯‘ (roughly translating becoming better with age), and was popularized because of Huang Zhong (one of the Five Tiger Generals). A fun fact about Huang Zhong is that in Korean his name would be read as ‘Hwang-jung’.
[2] factory — the homonyms for factory are: an empty funeral (a funeral with empty coffin without body), noting down important things that shouldn’t be forgotten or such note, preparations for a banquet, letter containing government position when meeting with governor during Joseon dynasty, an old word for craftsman, and jejunum or empty stomach. Also, abandoned factory is ‘폐공장 (pye-gong-jang)’, ‘폐공’ could mean to ‘cover and obscure the sky’ or ‘quit studies or work in the middle’, or some kind of tax, or abandon well.
Translator’s note: ‘Idam has better talent at being an arbiter than I.’ is the funniest sentence I ever heard.
And Hwang-ho… I really really cannot trust you. You can’t just say such things and pretend to be innocent.
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