Translator: Wan ED/PR: Personal Ghost
51. Student representative general election (10)
Hwang Myeong-ho great mansion’s basement facilities.
No different from the previous time when I visited it during the 12 Zodiac Alliance Meeting, it was amazing.
The ancient languages engraved with the ink made by melting golden otherworld metals and high purity magic power, and the enormous magic circle, which I only saw in the setting book, was the same as before.
The point, that was different from the previous time, was that this time only two domains were active among the 12 sections of the magic circle.
On one of them ‘Ho tribe, 寅[Tiger-nim]’ was written, and on the other ‘Ma tribe, 午[Sensitive Heuk-ma]’. [1]
午 [Sensitive Heuk-ma] “I bothered to give you a device code, but you’re contacting m through a magic circle? That’s meaningless.”
Caption was added to Heuk-ma’s voice and floated above the magic circle.
Hwang Jiho answered with an arrogant voice to Heuk-ma’s words, as his hair and eyes shined gold.
寅 [Tiger-nim] “A place must match the importance of the conversation.”
The magic power filling Hwang Jiho’s voice felt worthy of a tiger leader.
Of course, though the voice was plausible, because he was still wearing Eungwang School’s uniform as if he thought of maintaining a highschooler concept even in the midst of it, watching it from the side I didn’t feel great dignity.
午 [Sensitive Heuk-ma] “Okay? Then I have some expectations for what we will talk about.”
寅 [Tiger-nim] “I’ll accept your suggestion.”
When Hwang Jiho got straight to the point, superpower wave gushed out of Heuk-ma’s domain like a fog.
From how Heuk-ma’s superpower wave flickered with a gentle light, it seemed she was satisfied with Hwang Jiho’s words.
寅 [Tiger-nim] “Then let’s discuss details.”
After Hwang Jiho and Heuk-ma finished a short conversation, they agreed on the following:
[Ho tribe and Ma tribe swears to cooperate on the subjugation of Demons, which invade the divine realms.]
After the two heads finished the oath, the magic power rampaged[2] in the magic circle.
Heuk-ma’s magic power and Hwang Jiho’s magic combined into one and then divided into two and headed to each domain.
Paat!
After the alliance oath phrase materialized with magic power in front of Hwang Jiho floated up once, it quickly entered his left hand.
The two heads, who finished the oath, continued their conversation with gentler voices.
Firs of all, they decided to send their elites to each other’s divine realms.
午 [Sensitive Heuk-ma] “We will send a white child from our side. Which tiger will you send? I like Jeok-ho.”
寅 [Tiger-nim] “Jeok-ho is busy. I’m sending someone else.”
午 [Sensitive Heuk-ma] “A pity. Jeok-ho is good because he speaks prettily.”
After deciding which Jin people will be sent, the conversation topic switched to the ‘Eyes’.
To be precise, to the Eyes priest of Avaritia was assumed to have transferred.
Heuk-ma, who asked about the appearance and superpower wavelength, etc. of the priest of Avaritia captured by the Ho tribe, opened her mouth:
午 [Sensitive Heuk-ma] “His Eyes probably entered the hands of ‘priest of Invidius’. The two had frequent exchanges.”
The word ‘priest of Invidius’ caught me.
Wasn’t it the Demon God Invidius, which the Demon, who interfered into the story to aim at Ju Su-hyeok and turn Bang Yunseop into an Enemy, served?
The trigger for that Demon priest to have interest in Ju Su-hyeok became Seokchon Lake’s Frozen Otherworld Clear incident, but I participated in that maze conquest wearing a crow mask.
And right now the Eye that Demon priest put his hand on recorded the scene of me, wearing a crow mask, using kotodama.
‘The priest of Invidius would be aiming at me, the Crow Mask, and not at Ju Su-hyeok now.’
I may get involved in the matters that the title hero Ju Su-hyeok should have been involved in.
I recalled the wicked trap to crush his mentality and position, and take away Ju Su-hyeok’s friend at the time of Christmas event.
‘I can’t simply say it’s a crisis. It’s also an opportunity.’
As I knew what piece priest of Invidius was aiming for, the number of options decreased, and I could rather easily make a move to fight back.
Even when I left Hwang Myeong-ho’s great mansion and returned to the dormitory room with no one around, my mind was making complicated calculations.
* * *
Monday morning.
The enthusiasm left by the sport exchange with the Military Academy’s Highschool department didn’t die down, but the atmosphere changed greatly once again.
Because the period for the student representative candidate submissions ended and the election campaign period arrived.
Everywhere on the road to school posters of people coming up as a candidate in the student representative general election were installed.
The students, whose faces turned haggard throughout the weekend, perhaps because the midterm exams were approaching with big strides, looked between the candidate posters and the holograms summarizing the study content on their way to school.
Our class children were no exception.
Today I decided to meet with the class children on the way to school and go together, and instead of worrying about the midterms, the election story was brought up.
“It seems that the election and midterm exams will overlap like the last time.”
“I remember. It was National Assembly members election, correct?” [3]
Unlike the Student Council’s candidates posters, which were distributed around the whole school, the Earthly Wings Council’s president candidate posters were allowed to be installed only in the residential zone, and as such, there were many more posters of the Wings Council’s president candidate in the residential zone.
Passing through the residential zone and heading to the 1st year zone, I saw the face of the Earthly Wings Council’s president sole candidate Gye Idam.
“The sole candidate also puts up posters?”
Maeng Hyodon, who was memorizing the formula for proving inequation with an absolute value symbol[4], took his eyes off of the paper scrap for a moment and pointed at Gye Idam’s face.
Maeng Hyodon was indifferent to his surrounding, but as his life at the dormitory prolonged, it seemed that he started to slowly remember the faces of the Earthly Wings Council’s people.
“In the case of only one candidate, there is a voting for yes or no. Over 1/3 of the students with voting right has to vote, and he has to get a majority of votes among them to be elected.”
“… What is that sound? That’s complicated.”
At my answer, Maeng Hyodon’s eyes rolled like a small stone rolling.
I heard him mumbling quietly ‘One third voting and majority for yes…? Then how many votes does he have to obtain?’.
‘Isn’t it better to give up math now? Even though he can’t do math, Maeng Hyodon has many strengths.’
Sawol Seeum handed a butter cookie stick coated in sugar to Maeng Hyodon, who was operating his brain with difficulty.
Sawol Seeum said that he had visited the bakery MITRON in front of the west gate to buy snacks to eat with the class children.
I admired Sawol Seeum’s kindness and diligence from the morning.
“… Hyodon-ah, eat this and cheer up, please! Everyone, please take it.”
“Ah, thanks.”
“I’ll eat well.”
“Thank You!”
Sawol Seeum, who handed me and Mok Uram a butter cookie stick and ate his share, asked:
“Um, I don’t think such a thing will happen, but what if He fails?”
“In case of the Earthly Wings Council, the person appointed by the current Wings Council’s president senior Seong Siwan-nim will temporarily lead the Wings Council. And when candidates are recruited again, another election will be held.”
“I hope that senior Gye Idam-nim is safely elected. Knowing my circumstances, senior-nim introduced me to the place with the highest pay among the scholarship part-time jobs. I’ll make sure to vote.”
The high pay means that the work is tough.
The scholarship part-time jobs were the key chores, like distributing food at the cafeteria like Maeng Hyodon and Kwon Lena worked before, but sometimes they also gathered people for work that needed superpowers or physical strength.
The work representative of that was the job of sorting and delivering parcel packages arriving at Eungwang School, which because of Eungwang School’s size and amount of parcel orders were immense, it was said to be close to a small size parcel company in fact.
The work load wouldn’t be small, but Mok Uram didn’t show any signs of having a hard time.
I guess Mok Uram’s physical strength grew well during his hogu life.
“Uram-ah, have one more.”
“I’ll take one more! Thank You!”
The kind Sawol Seeum gave one more butter cookie stick to Mok Uram, who had a hard time, and Mok Uram accepted it, touched.
* * *
Gwangli Elementary School’s canteen, lunchtime.
The lower grades, holding children tableware, and the higher grades holding ordinary tableware, were divided into two lines in front of the canteen.
Everyone gathered into groups of three or four and followed teachers’ guidance, but there was a student that couldn’t stick anywhere.
The children thought he was like that because there was no child, who ate with him, and pitied him, but Hwang-ho’s young alter-ego simply didn’t like school meals, so he didn’t eat lunches.
‘The effort paid off today, eh? I thought of observing him a bit more if he went to work before the lunch.’
Hwang-ho’s elementary school homeroom teacher couldn’t endure the mental pressure these days and didn’t report to work today.
Though the Ho tribe was mobilized to put pressure on him, the breaking point was the prank the students from the same class as Hwang-ho played on that teacher last week.
It was like the children stomped on fingers of that teacher, who was mentally drawn to the edge of a cliff.
‘But I wasn’t aiming for that. Didn’t he bring it upon himself?’
The teacher stuck shameful pictures or unpaid bills to children’s backs, wrapping it as a joke, so the children ended up doing it to the teacher.
The children secretly stuck the printed exposing comments from teacher’s SNS’ account to the teacher’s back, and because the teacher’s reputation was in ruin, no one hinted at it until he returned home.
The teacher finally ended up realizing it when changing clothes after coming home.
Surprisingly, most of the class children didn’t think it was a bad action, and didn’t think the teacher didn’t report to work today because of shock from that.
Because it was an action the teacher often did.
‘The students he tried to get involved were all dealt with, so it wouldn’t be strange if he slowly disappeared. I should hand him over to Hyangrok. Assign a strict teacher to this class, to reform the students’ characters and…’
Hwang-ho, who was sitting in the classroom alone, packed his bag to leave the school early without a permission.
At that moment, someone, who kept staring at Hwang-ho from the back door, approached him.
‘It isn’t this class student, eh? Who is it?’
Looking at the child’s expression, he didn’t seem to have any malicious intentions, and it didn’t seem like he was forced by someone to try to play a bad joke.
The child, who had a meek[5] face, hesitated and opened his mouth.
“Lunch… Do you want to eat with me? Today they serve miniature tonkatsu as a side dish. They’re still distributing them at the canteen! Let’s eat together!”
The child’s words grew quicker at the end.
From how his speech was somehow awkward, it seemed that he kept practicing saying it to Hwang-ho.
Hwang-ho carefully observed the child with a meek impression.
The hair was asymmetrical, as if cut by a beginner, and his clothes were old, and the size didn’t match, and showed signs of being worn by many people.
But the clothes and fingertips were all clean and his eyes were full of life.
‘He doesn’t seem like a kid with a wealthy background, but he has the most honest and upright eyes among the children I saw here. If he was allocated to this class, he would become that teacher’s target. He was lucky, eh?’
At first Hwang-ho thought of ignoring that child, but because he liked that child’s energy, he decided to reply.
“Are you worried about this one being alone? Don’t trouble yourself with worrying. I’ll transfer tomorrow and won’t come to this school.”
The child made a shocked face.
It didn’t seem like a surprise worthy of thinking it was strange for Hwang-ho, in the appearance of the elementary school student, to use a tone that didn’t match his outer appearance.
It was an attitude as if he truly didn’t want Hwang-ho to transfer.
“I should have spoken up faster… I wanted to become friends…”
Seeing the young human lose his energy, Hwang-ho thought about the youngest of Eun-ho’s descendants, Eun Jaeho, who was the same age as this human.
Recently, because the first Eun Seoho and the second Eun Niho were preparing for the Eungwang School’s entrance exam, they couldn’t play much with him, and he often made such a face.
Hwang-ho indulged his whims again and spoke to the child.
“Why do you want to become friends with me? Do you like something about this one?”
The child hesitated, not replying straight away.
Hwang-ho thought with a crazy arrogance ‘It’s probably this one’s appearance, right?’, but the child’s answer was something he couldn’t expect at all.
“… Being like a tiger?”
Hwang-ho reacted to the word ‘tiger’.
Usually, Hwang-ho didn’t bother trying to hide that he is a Ho, but he had no memories of showing anything tiger-like at this elementary school.
He thought back to his actions at the elementary school a few times, and then asked.
“You mean this one is somehow like a tiger?”
“It’s just… You sometimes look like a tiger.”
It didn’t seem like the child was lying.
The eyes of young Hwang-ho sparkled a bit.
*~*~*
[1] On one of them ‘Ho tribe, [Tiger-nim]’ was written, and on the other ‘Ma tribe, [Sensitive Heuk-ma]’. — Two things of note. First, I changed Heuk-ma’s nickname to a more precise translation as I stopped holding back on Korean names usage. Second, to clear up, 寅 and 午 aren’t used in the tribe names, Ho stands for 虎 and Ma for 馬.
[2] rampaged — moving chaotically and quickly, mainly referring to natural phenomena like storm, blizzard, wind.
[3] “I remember. It was National Assembly members election, correct?” — Sawol Seeum’s sentence.
[4] symbol — 기호 (giho) also means to ride a tiger, a code signaled by flags, or to enjoy something, or house starving due to famine.
[5] meek — also means ‘to offer one’s life’.
Translator’s note: Our another little kid is here! Hello little kid whose name we won’t learn for about the next 1000 chapters, are you doing well? That’s great. You deserve a world and mini tonkatsu, though I don’t know what exactly does it mean that you like them. *pat pat*
But narrator-nim, what do you mean ‘indulge his whims again’?! I’ll curse you!
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