Translator: Wan ED/PR: Solarin
51. Student representative general election (5)
Namkung Gyu-yeon and Hong Gyubin.
Excluding their different genders, the two looked extremely similar.
I thought there was a possibility of them not being biological siblings, but 3rd degree relatives, but that thought was soon erased.
‘Considering that when mentioning Namkung Gyu-yeon, Hong Gyubin just called her younger sister, the possibility of her being a younger relative is slim.’
It was rare to call a niece or a younger cousin ‘younger sister’.
Moreover, Hwang Jiho and Hong Gyubin had such a conversation in the past.
— The service company under Namkung Group threatened an Eungwang School’s student.
— Did You say Namkung Group?
— Yeah.
— Understood.
When hearing that conversation at the airport that day, I felt suspicious.
It seemed as if Hwang Jiho spoke on the assumption that Hong Gyubin had a connection with Namkung Group.
‘No way…’
It seemed like I could confirm whether my hypothesis was true or not without difficulty.
I opened a search portal site on the device to check and typed in a keyword:
[Keyword: Namkung Gyubin]
As it was an uncommon name in terms of rarity, there weren’t that many search results.
And I found what I wanted in the not so long results’ column.
On the blog, which the most recent update was a few years ago, Namkung Group’s family tree was uploaded.
The attached pictures were from the newspaper articles in the case of adults, and in other cases, the picture seemed to be sourced from SNS or school student photo book.
‘He’s here…!’
Unlike the tired from overwork face right now, Hong Gyubin’s face looked very young.
It was a side-profile of him wearing a coat over his school uniform, and though not so much as Yeom Junyeol, he looked like a pretty young master.
Looking at that name, I recalled something Oh Hyejeong said to Sawol Semin, which I didn’t know if it was a marriage proposal or dissing on the four Groups, when I visited Sawol clan’s mansion.
— If not even them, then perhaps I should dig out the family register of the son, who had sanity hammered straight into his head and got married into the mess which is Namkung Group?
If we exclude his clingy and dirty behavior towards Jegal Jaegeol, Hong Gyubin was rather outstanding, with a sane head properly screwed.
And right now he wasn’t Namkung Gyubin, but Hong Gyubin.
‘The son, who cut off his family register from Namkung Group was Hong Gyubin?’
If so, the problem was the cause of removing his name from the register.
I couldn’t quite figure out the circumstances, but I had a guess.
In the past Hwang Jiho mentioned to put a lot of work on Hong Gyubin, and in the process he told me this:
— The people who experienced the Dark Age were reluctant to let the precious children of their houses to become superpower users. Currently, the perception changed a lot, but there are people, who didn’t change. Hong Gyubin’s house was like that. Jegal Jaegeol helped with Hong Gyubin’s dream of becoming a superpower user and… as result Jegal Jaegeol lost a lot.
— For a price of hearing about that process, I employed Jegal Jaegeol at the Eungwang School. There were humans, who acted annoying, criticizing me for it, but they couldn’t change this one’s decision.
I could infer following facts from those words:
Hong Gyubin hid his superpowers according to the Namkung’s group policy, and then left the house, while even changing his surname to become a Player.
Jegal Jaegeol, who was Hong Gyubin’s private tutor at the time, helped in the process.
As a result, Jegal Jaegeol lost a lot, and was only able to work at Eungwang School thanks to Hwang Jiho’s backing, while Hong Gyubin became a Player.
‘But then how did Hong Gyubin’s biological younger sister Namkung Gyu-yeon got permission to enter the Player Military Academy?’
Doubts remained, but it wasn’t much of a problem.
Rather, it seemed that the few things I was worried about were solved.
‘If Hong Gyubin previously belong to the Namkung Group, then the pieces I can use during the four Groups secret war increased.’
What’s more, to let Hong Gyubin achieve his dream, my Playable Character Jegal Jaegeol had a hard time, and Hwang Jiho, who was Jegal Jaegeol’s employer, also told me to shove Hong Gyubin around.
It was enough of a justification to order Hong Gyubin to work as much as I wanted.
As I thought what work needs to be done, and when to order it, the time passed quickly.
* * *
Hwang Myeong-ho’s great mansion.
After finishing dinner, Kim Sinrok prepared the drinks and snacks with his own hands.
At the drinking table, Jeok-ho told his son and Eun-ho’s descendants old stories.
Baek-ho silently listened to the story and Hwang-ho sometimes cut in or corrected things.
“Hahahaha! Pungbaek and Usa didn’t accept my spar request. Wasn’t it just because you, Jeok-ho, provoked them with ‘Don’t you come flying if something just rubs you wrongly?’.”
“Wasn’t it like that?”
“You truly think so? Only the speech tone changed, huh?”
“Jeokho-nim! Please quickly tell us the next story!”
The young Eun-ho’s descendants leaned their ears to the stories of Jeok-ho’s exploits and about Punbaek, Usa and Unsa, but as the night deepened and the conversation prolonged, they couldn’t win against their sleepiness and fell asleep.
Even after moving the young descendants to their bedrooms, the tigers’ drinking party continued.
As the number of empty alcohol bottles increased, the topic became darker.
“Those People will sprinkle the evil snow? You mean to say they will pierce the Eungwang School’s barrier?”
“When that day comes, the long tail will personally step out and twist the barrier.”
At the word ‘Long Tail’, Kim Sinrok showed signs of nervousness, but he soon fired up with a combat spirit.
“Understood. When that day comes, please allow me to fight too.”
Jeok-ho nodded at his son’s attitude, seriously pleased, and soon started to boast about his son.
It was about the performance he showed during the nurse officer’s torture at the Association today.
Kim Sinrok looked like he hoped that Baek-ho or Hwang-ho would stop him or cut in into the story, as if his face turned hot.
But after Baek-ho chewed on dried persimmon in a cabbage[1] roll, he didn’t say a word, and Hwang Jiho observed Kim Sinrok’s red face, while smirking.
“There is a Player in charge of interrogation at the Association, but they couldn’t compare to my son’s abilities. All observers were amazed by his skill of stimulating the fingertips’ nerves fibers with just a thumbtack and destroying them exactly as he wanted.”
As each word was as savage as the torture Kim Sinrok inflicted that they seemed to drip with blood, but the tigers felt just a pride about the descendant’s performance.
Jeok-ho’s son boasting ended after five alcohol bottles were emptied.
“… Like this my son obtained a clue to erase one faction of TC Group with one thumbtack.”
The face of Hwang-ho, who listened to those words, while smiling, hardened at the word TC Group.
“TC Group you say. The things which don’t know their place are causing trouble again. This time they even aimed at the divine realm’s student, so they’re truly blasphemous.”
“Hwangho-nim hated TC Group since the past, correct? I remember You moving behind the incidents that happened at TC.”
Kim Sinrok added a word thinking it was an opportunity to change the topic.
At those words, Baek-ho, who didn’t even said a word, opened his mouth.
“Hwang-ho, what did you do?”
Even though he thought that Baek-ho’s question was unexpected, Hwang-ho slowly answered.
“Nothing in particular. When the TC Group’s founding pair was going to fill the divorce lawsuit, I cooperated with the wife’s side, but I didn’t use my hand on anything besides pressing them to change the company name.”
Hwang-ho lightly made a sound that would be enough for the TC Group, especially the Do family, to pass out if they knew about it.
“I remember the events from that time, as I moved under Hwang-ho’s order, but Baek-ho, who didn’t even inform if he was dead or alive, wouldn’t know about it, eh?”
“…”
Baek-ho didn’t refute Jeok-ho’s sharp words.
“The thing Hwang-ho didn’t like was TC Group’s old name. As it was put together from the founder pair’s surnames, it had different meaning if put in hanja, but when pronounced in Korean, it meant they were seriously crazy arrogant and not knowing their place.”
“Old name?”
At Jeok-ho’s description, Baek-ho asked.
Jeok-ho answered that question straight.
“The TC Group’s old name was ‘Taocheon[2] Group’.”
When the word ‘Taocheon’ came out, Hwang-ho didn’t hide his feelings of displeasure.
Hwang-ho, who emptied the full glass in one gulp, opened his mouth.
“What Taocheon? It’s no different from saying they’re looking down at the Heavenly God. Doesn’t that means great water that overflows so much it reaches the Heaven, and that one doesn’t know to be afraid of the Heaven’s wrath?”
* * *
The sport exchange with the Army Academy’s Highschool Department, its last day shined.
There were two disciplines left until now, basketball and ice hockey.
As the closing ceremony was planned to be held around sunset, after the two matches ended, our class decided to divide into two groups according to the discipline, and then met together again.
Among our class children, the kids who came to see basketball today were Kim Yuri, Han Yi, Maeng Hyodon and me, the four of us.
As we grabbed our audience seats early, Tao Sihu recognized me again and diligently waved his hand towards me in a greeting.
Because he got acquainted with Maeng Hyodon’s face through the Baseball Stadium and Cymopoleia incidents, he somehow acted like he knew us even more today.
“That is Uisin’s friend, who Daeseok said ‘what was that’ about, huh?”
“Ye, that’s the fucker he said what kind of defense was that.”
Thanks to the fiery speech of Song Daeseok, who watched the game yesterday’s and was outraged about it, Tao Sihu became famous in our class.
Han Yin and Maeng Hyodon played the video of yesterday match and started to analyze what Tao Sihu’s defense was like.
“Um…”
On the other side, Kim Yuri became less talkative after Tao Sihu appeared.
It seemed she fell in thought about something, and it seemed like was suppressing something.
‘What is it?’
Looking just from her side, her superpower wave seemed to be slightly flaring up.
Before I observed her using the ‘Brilliant Gaze’ skill, I decided to ask first.
“Are you okay?”
“Uisin-ah, I think that kid Sihu must not go into the water.”
It was something that anyone who knew Tao Sihu even a bit knew.
Because he was a bastard not only suffering from seasickness, but also unable to swim.
But there was no way that Kim Yuri knew it, so did the higher beings related to sea and water said something?
“I can’t hear what They’re saying, because higher beings are speaking at the same time, but it seems They roughly mean that that kid can’t play with me.”
The higher beings attached to Kim Yuri were right about something.
‘Is there something else besides the seed about Tao Sihu?’
I think I could guess what it would be like if Tao Sihu came into contact with Kim Yuri.
But Kim Yuri, who couldn’t participate even in the practice class, because of unstable superpower wave, shouldn’t be put in front of Tao Sihu, who was even more unstable in a certain sense.
According to the higher beings’ advice, it seemed better that Tao Sihu and Kim Yuri don’t play together.
“It seems that it will start soon.”
“Oo, the referee come out with a ball.”
As if the team-up drew closer at some point, the athletes finished warming-up and gathered around the central line.
Today the starting members include Yu Sang-hun and Tao Sihu.
Ping!
The main referee threw the basketball high into the air, and the electronic clock began moving.
Unlike the 1st and 2nd match, where points were frantically scored, amidst swift attacks, the 3rd match proceeded more or less calmly.
Different from the first half, when they had no information about each other, they read the opponent’s moves and habits, and made countermeasures.
The score changed at the speed much slower than the 1st and 2nd match, but the game itself continued to be intense.
Around the end of the 3rd quarter, both teams barely scored over half of the points they scored during the 1st and 2nd games.
“If it goes like this, it seems we will go into overtime.”
“No way, it’s going to end in a draw?”
“There are no draws. We will continue to extend by 5 minutes, until a victor emerges according to the rules.”
While giving an overtime rule explanation to the class children, the break time ended.
Before Yu Sang-hun entered the court, he looked around the entire audience and I had a feeling our eyes somehow met.
With everyone nervous, the 4th quarter started.
*~*~*
[1] cabbage — Brassica oleracea, 양배추 (yang-baechu) in Korean. It’s not a type of cabbage that was very widely used before Japanese occupation. It was also called 가두배추 (kadubaechu), and 가두 (kadu) could also mean ‘city road’ or ‘fake head/mask that covers both the face and the head’. Or ‘감람 (gamram)’ which could also mean things not going according to plans. (I’m frankly not quite sure why it’s mentioned here, so I’m throwing all I have).
[2] Taocheon — 도천 (滔天) docheon according to revised romanization.
Translator’s note: Jo Uisin… You can’t keep describing only men like this and not realize…
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