Translator: Wan ED/PR: Personal Ghost
54. Dongsaeng (3)
“… that ends the report.”
Jeon Muyeong finished the briefing.
The report’s subject was the actions of a certain elementary school teacher, who disappeared, and the classroom that teacher was in charge of.
Infiltrating the elementary school wasn’t physically difficult, but mentally it was very painful.
While reporting, Jeon Muyeong’s words slowed a few times, because of an arousing sense of shame, but he succeeded in calmly conveying all of the content.
It was thanks to his hard work to briefly summarize it to keep the oral report as short as possible.
Jeon Muyeong passed the printed beforehand report.
“I organized the details in the document report.”
“Okay, you worked hard.”
Seong Gukeon suppressed a laugh as if he clearly saw through Jeon Muyeong’s thinking circuit, while he accepted the paper document stack.
‘Isn’t it cumbersome to print a report on paper every time and shred it later?’
Seong Gukeon wasn’t inexperienced with operating devices, but he always insisted on the paper documents.
It was a common occurrence for the elderly assemblymen to request to print documents on paper.
But Seong Gukeon was the youngest among the assemblymen.
Seong Gukeon was experienced with the cutting edge technology, and since he enrolled in Eungwang School, the devices were allocated to all students of Eungwang School, and the lesson materials were distributed through the hologram screens.
‘I guess that teacher-nim’s influence still remains, eh?’
Seong Gukeon and Jeon Muyeong were two years apart, so when Jeon Muyeong was a 1st year highschooler, Seong Gukeon was a 3rd year highschooler, and they’ve spent only a year together at Eungwang School.
Even so, he couldn’t forget the Student Council’s president Seong Gukeon’s mighty and shocking action he saw during the 1st year.
Seong Gukeon, who commented that the other party should step down and close the school, even though the other party was the Eungwang School’s chairman, had a lone teacher he followed well.
It wasn’t a teacher, who exactly took students’ side, but he was a good teacher-nim[1], who treated all teachers and students fairly.
That teacher preferred paper and analog writing supplies.
As if influenced by it, Seong Gukeon also favored paper.
‘… I didn’t expect him to leave this early.’
Seong Gukeon heard the teacher’s obituary just after graduating.
The teacher, who was in his late 30s, looked healthy, but the reason of death was said to be an illness.
The teacher had no family and the deceased left a will during his lifetime, asking for a quiet funeral, so most of the people around weren’t informed and almost no one came to pay condolences.
Seong Gukeon somehow learned about it and gathered a few close people, like Jeon Muyeong, to pay condolences.
‘We were shocked when we saw who was the chief mourner in the funereal parlor.’
Seong Gukeon’s party, who came to pay condolences, were greatly surprised.
Because the chief mourner was one of the fellow teachers, Yong Jegeon.
To express respects to the deceased, Seong Gukeon bit his lip hard in the funeral parlor, but the violent energy lingered in his eyes together with sadness.
In comparison to him, Yong Jegeon, who took on the role of a chief mourner, looked peaceful.
Rather, he looked to be in a good mood, as if it was marvelous and good that the students learned about it and came.
Finally, Seong Gukeon called Yong Jegeon out of the funeral parlor and exploded.
— Why are You the chief mourner?
— The family couldn’t take this role, so I’m taking the role of a chief mourner.
— Chief mourner should be the person who grieves the death of the deceased the most. Not the Jin who observes because he thinks it’s fun!
Seong Gukeon’s eyes were bloodshot, but in contrast to him, Yeong Jegeon was smiling with ease.
The accompanying people were overwhelmed by the two’s spirits and couldn’t think of stopping them, so they continued to observe the situation.
—Why do you think that I’ve observed because I found fun in that death?
— You’re a Jin transformed from Dragon King God’s jewels. Your origin is cintamani, which grants all wishes.
— You know me well. But I wasn’t hiding it.
— Even if the cintamani’s all-mightiness disappeared in the human world, it’s not like it can’t cure even an illness! But you watched teacher-nim die and took on a role of chief mourner?
At some point Seong Gukeon wasn’t even using a polite tone.
Yong Jegeon nodded as if he didn’t care about that fact.
— Your words are right. If Dragon King God gives a permission, I can reveal my power as a cintamani. But I didn’t bother using it.
— Then why…!
— The cintamani is an ‘object granting wishes’. It can’t be a wish the person-in-question doesn’t want.
At those words, Seong Gukeon’s face turned white.
It didn’t look like Yong Jegeon lied, and Seong Gukeon knew that.
Even so, Seong Gukeon couldn’t forgive Yong Jegeon.
In Seong Gukeon’s eyes, it looked like the Jin assisted in a human’s suicide.
‘It didn’t seem like teacher Yong Jegeon-nim lied that day. But it also seems like he didn’t say everything. It seemed like he cleverly hid some kind of fact…’
Jeon Muyeong, who had no point of contact with the deceased, thanks to calmly observing the situation that day, judged like this.
But he couldn’t convey such a thought to Seong Gukeon.
Because it seemed that he would dig into Seong Gukeon’s wounds without reason.
Jiiiik….
Jeon Muyeong’s recollection halted at the sound of the paper being shredded in the shredder.
Seong Gukeon, who checked the entire report at some point, was destroying the documents.
“Did you find the whereabouts of the missing elementary school teacher?”
“I wasn’t able to find him. I figured that he was at home during the three days of his unauthorized leave, but he disappeared at the fourth day.”
“Hmm….”
Seong Gukeon fell into thoughts for a moment, as he looked at the shredded pieces of paper.
Just after Seong Gukeon started his term, he solved a certain case involving the Gwangli neighborhood elementary school.
Starting with the anonymous letter sent to Seong Gukeon by a certain elementary school student, the case grew bigger like a rolling snowball, and caused an uproar in the whole country, but in the end, most of the culprits slipped, and the incident was forgotten by the public.
But someone was belatedly dealing with those perpetrators.
Each of them had an incident, was locked in prison or disappeared at a different time and for different reasons.
The last remaining teacher also ended up disappearing.
‘Jin tribe or Pro Player team had to interfere. Probably a Jin tribe.’
The Pro Player team had to have power and a good understanding of Korea to deal with many civil servants this secretively and cleverly within the country.
There were three groups worthy of that.
First, Yeom Bangyeol’s Re Lion.
Second, Kwon Jane’s Eternal Lake.
And lastly, though they almost never conquered otherworlds and weren’t well known, Song Manseok’s Han River Cycling team.
But among those three, there was not even one group with a motive to move.
So Jeon Muyeong and Seong Gukeon concluded a Jin tribe was behind it.
“I’m bothered by that child, who was transferred at that time. You said he had seen though your ability.”
“Yes.”
“And that he was ostracized?”
“Yes, the children from the same class still throw insults at him. As the temporary homeroom teacher is a proper person, he probably will educate them…”
Jeon Muyeong also mentioned that he recently became friends with a child from another class.
Seong Gukeon, who heard an additional explanation about the child, who was ostracized, abruptly spoke up.
“I want to meet that child.”
After ordering to infiltrate an elementary school, now he hatched a plan to meet an elementary school student.
Jeon Muyeong’s sense of shame gradually grew, but he couldn’t help, but nod.
“… I’ll make preparations.”
“Hahee! Endure for just a little longer. I think we will soon reveal a secret.”
Jeon Muyeong had a dying expression, but Seong Gukeon’s energetic laughter only grew louder.
“I’ll know what kind of kid he is if I see him. Leave that kid’s case to me!”
* * *
The assemblyman Seong Gukeon made contact with the elementary version of Hwang Jiho?
There was no way that my Playable Character would take any unnecessary actions, but I didn’t understand why this he troubled himself trying to meet this bastard.
“It seems to be because I pierced through Jeon Muyeong’s hiding skill a few times? It’s easy to smash the hiding skill, but that ability, which I assume is a Gwangrim, is a bit difficult.”
“Why did you show it? Pretend not to know.”
“Because I practice the way of smashing that ability you used with your Gwangrim with Jeon Muyeong as a target.”
Why such a useless training…!
Anyhow, there was no way to Jeon Muyeong’s ‘Time without Traces’ would be easily broken.
“Jeon Muyeong dug around my residence in this form. It seems they’re planning to meet me around home, pretending it was a coincidence… For now I ordered the subordinate, who took on the role of a fake parent to stay at the residence. The setting is that this one is currently staying to play at the house of a relative, so I’m absent.”
“You are not planning to meet with senior Seong Gukeon?”
“For a time being.”
So why did he trouble himself with staying in the elementary school student form?
No, it also seemed like it was unnecessary to have to do this.
As if he read my thoughts again, Hwang Jiho burst out laughing.
“Hahaha! Other alter-egos are all busy. Well, as I can control the age of all alter-egos at will, that’s not a problem, but it consumes superpower wave to go back and forth.”
Superpower wave saving for something like that?
It seemed that Hwang Jiho was beyond busy.
If so, it seemed that the highschool student alter-ego was also working somewhere.
I wasn’t particularly curious what he was doing, so I decided not to ask.
“Then we’ll first watch TC Research Institute, including Tao Wonu. If something happens, I’ll contact you straight away.”
I nodded at Hwang Jiho’s words.
TC Research Institute and ‘Higher being artificial descent project’.
It was a time to think of the next move, considering the new pieces placed on the chess board.
* * *
Monday, after the weekend ended.
Today was the day of Kwon Lena’s retest.
The 1st year class 0’s group didn’t say anything, but everyone was nervous.
Everyone seemed to want to cheer even more out of worry, but thanks to Kim Yuri making a good point of ‘If we cheer too passionately, Lena may get nervous instead!’ beforehand, no one went crazy.
Mok Uram was going crazy in a different direction.
“Ah, then Uram was hired by teacher Tak Geosan-nim?”
“Yes, that’s correct. I shadowed the vice president’s Bread Shuttle to check whether he smokes or not, and teacher Tak Geosan noticed me.”
“I wasn’t able to notice him, but ascetic… No, master-nim knew where that fucker was hiding right away.”
“What? You didn’t notice that bastard? I thought he was just a hogu[2], but he has a talent…”
“Daeseok-ah! Don’t say hogu out loud!”
It seemed that after hearing about Mok Uram’s situation, Tak Geosan thought he was worthy of using to prevent his disciple’s deviations.
He said he was given bread as reward for stopping Bang Yunseop’s misconducts like smoking and skipping classes beforehand and informing him.
Mok Uram was presciently chasing after Bang Yunseop to relieve his anxiety about Kwon Lena’s retest and to do a side-job.
Mok Uram said he already received bread for reporting small misconducts a few times.
‘Even though Bang Yunseop is being watched by Ju Su-hyeok and Maeng Hyodon, he’s still doing this?’
In some sense, Bang Yunseop was also a persistent bastard.
As Mok Uram was here now, misconducts became even more difficult, but it seemed that he still didn’t give up.
“Uram shared what he received from teacher Tak Geosan-nim yesterday. The chestnut bread was delicious.”
“I’m glad! That it suited Lena… ‘s mouth.”
“Yeah, the part-time work started again, and you’re chasing Yunseop, so you must be busy, but you helped me study and shared bread and… Thank you, really.”
After that day, Mok Uram was really restraining himself from calling her ‘Lena-nim’.
Kwon Lena was also happy about Mok Uram’s change, and it seemed they became closer with the change of the title as a trigger.
‘Now Mok Uram has to convey that he also knows Kwon Lena’s secret.’
Mok Uram asked to convey that he was there when Kwon Lena calms down.
It was a situation where we couldn’t distract her mind again at the brink of a retest, so there was no chance for that.
‘When the re-test ends, we have to talk about Dokgo Miro’s invitation to the Playlist shooting site.’
And the next day.
Kwon Lena safely passed the retest.
When I bought snacks to celebrate her passing, and went to school early in the morning.
“Over here.”
“Suspicious vice president-ah, give us a moment.”
The representatives of the 2nd year class 0’s duo, Geun Chansol and Wang Chansol called me.
*~*~*
[1] teacher-nim — the word used here is ‘선생님 (seon-saeng-nim)’, which this novel usually uses for all good teachers. As for ‘teacher’ used across this chapter, it’s ‘교사 (gyumsa)’, a much less respectful word for teachers. You can literally understand it as a school worker.
[2] hogu — pushover, very naive person.
Translator’s note: … Oh, I just realized that if you read ‘동생 (dongsaeng)’ backwards, it means ‘full of life’ or ‘a painting, writing moving as if alive’. Now the content of this chapter makes sense in the context of this title.
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