Translator: Wan ED/PR: Solarin
67. Gap (4)
That female student was one of many of Ju Su-hyeok’s fans, but in PMH she received a special treatment in Ju Su-hyeok’s fandom for the only reason that she belonged to the same middle school and highschool as Ju Su-hyeok.
Because she could form a bond of sympathy with Ju Su-hyeok, who was no different from a being from another world[1], and knew many secret stories that weren’t known to the world.
Inside of Ju Su-hyeok’s fandom in PMH, her status was high, and she knew well how to present herself in front of Ju Su-hyeok.
So Ju Su-hyeok saw her as a ‘good colleague’, but I saw her differently.
‘Her talent and personality are at rock bottom.’
Her talent as a Player crawled on the bottom of Eungwang School, but perhaps because she worked hard to get along with Ju Su-hyeok, I heard she didn’t get failing grades at Eungwang School in PMH.
To endure without failing at the Korea most prestigious highschool was a great achievement, but it didn’t look good to me.
Because in my memory, that female student was the owner of a rotten personality — acting weak towards the strong and strong towards the weak.
As proof, she couldn’t even send a hateful glance towards An Dain, whom Ju Su-hyeok openly liked.
She used the fact that she couldn’t hold ground against An Dain out of fear to pretend that she accepted Ju Su-hyeok’s personal relationships and respected his private life.
So, even though Ju Su-hyeok knew she was his ardent fan, he was somewhat careless around her.
‘And then what did she do when Bang Yunseop died, and Ju Su-hyeok was having a hard time for a while?!’
However, perhaps like most of the weak-to-strong-strong-to-weak characters, who were born with poor insight, she ended up failing to properly recognize a strong person, Gu Seulbi, revealed her true nature and was punished.
That female student, who presumed Gu Seulbi was weak, lured Gu Seulbi outside the school.
As there were no malicious fans like that female student inside the Eungwang School, it would be difficult to beat Gu Seulbi one-on-majority.
‘My Playable Character Gu Seulbi is not someone who would suffer under a ragtag mob[2].’
The female student, who gathered malicious fans, tried to say a few harsh words to Gu Seulbi and grab her by the collar, but she was completely covered in excrement of the flock of birds summoned by Gu Seulbi.
The attention seeker Gu Seulbi turned on the lighting and grand music to produce a scene of victory, and because of that she drew the attention of Ju Su-hyeok, who saw everything.
It wasn’t exactly that Gu Seulbi tried to inform Ju Su-hyeok of the female student’s nature, but things grew bigger from there.
Through Gu Seulbi’s incident, Ju Su-hyeok learned details about the female student and figured out what kind of things the malicious fan community, including that female student, did.
‘The reality of weak-to-strong-strong-to-weak was revealed. The center of the malicious fan community was caught cursing the weaklings around Ju Su-hyeok.’
The members of the malicious fan community wept and asked Ju Su-hyeok for forgiveness, but Ju Su-hyeok only got more angry and said they should beg the victims for forgiveness if they want proper closure.
Ju Su-hyeok tore down the malicious fan community, found the victims one after another, apologized and helped with taking legal actions if they wanted.
After that, the connection between Ju Su-hyeok and female student was cut off, and she didn’t appear again.
I didn’t know everything about what she was doing in that malicious fan community, but based on the fact that she was the center of Gu Seulbi’s incident, I thought it was an obvious end for her.
‘In this world, Ju Su-hyeok’s malicious fan community wasn’t created.’
The incident that became the trigger for the assemble of individual malicious fans of Ju Su-hyeok, didn’t occur in this world.
The so-called ‘Malicious Fan Gwanghwan Gate[3] Conformation’ incident.
The incident where Ju Su-hyeok and An Dain’s malicious fans gathered at the Gwanghwan Gate and held a fight should have occurred in October in PMH.
That incident didn’t break out in this world.
Because every time I had time, I checked the articles mentioning the two, and checked the communities about Players who scoop up those articles.
‘If there was a post or comment that violated T&Cs of the portal sties, I would report it right away, and if necessary, I would post several comments to bury it before a trend could form, so they couldn’t gather.’
Because the toxic fans of Ju Su-hyeok in PMH I remembered were just individuals, they didn’t have much power.
If one did fire extinguish work before the embers could gather and become a great flame, the people wouldn’t gather and show off their enormous firepower.
This work was easier than I thought.
It was thanks to a diligently working fan, who did fire extinguish work in An Dain’s fandom.
… Then I recalled a certain former malicious commenter and Eungwang School’s Earthly Wings Council’s president, who jumped through dimensions and world because he was a fan of An Dain, and felt dirty.
It seemed that because the title hero and title heroine were so perfect and amazing, particular trash-like fans clung to them.
‘Her name tag says ‘Choe Yeong-hui’… wait, Choe Yeong-hui?’
Ju Su-hyeok’s colleague and toxic fan in PMH and Bang Yunseop’s heartbreaker, named Choe Yeong-hui.
Looking at her face, I got a headache.
‘Yeong-hui’ was a common name among people born in the mid-20th century, but not anymore.
It was rare among the teenagers of this world to have such a name, and in Eungwang School’s 1st year, only one person had such a name.
I saw that name on the printed document delivered by Jeok-ho, not long after the 1st semester started.
‘The fraudulent special admission…!’
There were four people in total admitted through Eungwang School’s special admission.
Excluding Maeng Hyodon, three of them were fraudulent admissions done by Choe Pyeondeuk through document manipulation.
Two among the three bribed by Choe Pyeondeuk, but one person was different.
It was a victim of good intentions who was let pass because it would be less suspicious to get one student worse than the two currently expelled fraudulent admissions.
She originally didn’t have the qualifications to be admitted to school, but considering that she was a well-intended victim, she was given an opportunity by the Eungwang School.
Choe Yeong-hui, who took that opportunity, remained at the Eungwang School.
… But though I didn’t know her, that fraudulent admission said such things to Gu Seulbi!?
‘To think there would come a day when I pity Bang Yunseop!’
Bang Yunseop was a shithead, but he was admitted to Eungwang School with his own ability and right now he was a disciple of THE Tak Geosan.
In PMH’s days, he was weak towards the strong and strong towards the weak, like Choe Yeong-hui, but he at least didn’t scheme behind the back.
Currently, Choe Yeong-hui wasn’t a part of the malicious fan community, and didn’t say anything to Gu Seulbi, and as she entered the top 50% of Eungwang School, she was officially recognized as Eungwang School student.
Even so, seeing her actions from PMH days, I felt overpowering pity for Bang Yunseop.
I had no idea how my bread shuttle ended up liking such a person and had such a difficult time because of her.
… But as someone who somehow liked a gamewreck like PMH, perhaps I shouldn’t say anything.
“Yunseop-ah, then we will go first. Talk with Uisin-i.”
As Bang Yunseop wouldn’t calm down, Ju Su-hyeok decided to step back.
When using common sense, Bang Yunseop should be angry at me, who made him into the bread shuffle.
But Bang Yunseop ignored me, and was gushing towards Ju Su-hyeok and Choe Yeong-hui.
‘Does he know Choe Yeong-hui is Ju Su-hyeok’s fan?’
As they graduated from the same middle school, someone may mention something about their days in middle school.
There was a chance that Bang Yunseop looked into it personally, but it didn’t seem like this bastard had a head for such wits.
Looking at how he was raising his voice to ‘get lost’ even at Choe Yeong-hui, who was clearly worried about him, it was clear that Bang Yunseop awareness index regarding love was zero.
“…”
“Yeonghui-ah, let’s go.”
“… okay.”
Even while leaving with Ju Su-hyeok, Choe Yeong-hui looked back a few times.
Bang Yunseop, who didn’t even glance at the two as they were leaving, didn’t know that.
‘She seems more concerned about Bang Yunseop rather than Ju Su-hyeok. Is it because Bang Yunseop is angry? Or…’
Many things in this world had changed, so the people Choe Yeong-hui met and the things she experienced, would also drastically change.
So Choe Yeong-hui’s feelings and thoughts may be very different from PMH.
But as I still had little basis to think that and couldn’t know a person’s heart, it was difficult to act right away.
“… You’re going to order me to buy bread? Give me the list and get lost with Ju Su-hyeok.”
Bang Yunseop opened his mouth after the two completely disappeared.
His voice was full of a deep sense of defeat and jealousy.
Bang Yunseop would’ve accumulated a lot of stress standing at the side of the hard-working geniuses like Ju Su-hyeok and Maeng Hyodon.
And if in the midst of it was someone he liked, and he thought that someone liked Ju Su-hyeok, all the suppressed feelings of inferiority and jealousy would explode.
There was nothing wrong with what he felt by itself.
The problem was that, depending on how you manage and overcome those feelings, and not harm your surroundings, you will be either a shithead or a person, and… Bang Yunseop was a shithead.
“I think cookies would be better than bread.”
“Cough!”
At the words cookies, Bang Yunseop coughed for a while, as if he choked up on them.
His bronchial tubes really didn’t seem to be in a good state, so I had no idea why he was causing trouble by trying to smoke cigarettes as usual.
Bang Yunseop shouted with a cherry red face.
“You! You…! Ah, how!? How do you know that!?”
“What?”
“… Aghr!”
It was clear there was a problem between the two, but seeing how sensitively Bang Yunseop reacted, I couldn’t get involved willy-nilly.
He had a fit just because of one word ‘cookies’, so if I say something here, it would only have an adverse effect.
‘… I can do nothing but observe for now.’
Watching Bang Yunseop was suddenly added to the things I have to do.
There was little room for me to get involved here, but I decided to speak up.
“It seems that Choe Yeong-hui has something to say to you.”
“… What does it have to do with you?”
“It has nothing, but I wanted to say something.”
“Get lost!”
Opportunely, the afternoon classes were about to start, so I decided to indeed get lost.
Before I get lost, I passed the mission to my bread, no, cookie shuttle.
“Deliver something from MITRON for Choe Yeong-hui by tomorrow. I don’t know much about cookies, so I’ll leave it to you.”
“Hey!”
While listening to the shouts ‘Jo Uisin, you fucker!’ behind my back, I headed to take my classes.
Bang Yunseop cursed me for the whole day, but it was a daily occurrence, so Eungwang School’s students weren’t particularly bothered.
It seemed they thought it was another bread errand because he was caught smoking again.
When I finished my afternoon classes in such peace, and was about to head for the club activities.
“Jo Uisin, go with me.”
Hwang Jiho suddenly popped out and said.
I thought that he meant to go with him to the Newspaper Club, so I continued to head to the central area, but Hwang Jiho blocked my way.
Looking at his serious expression, it didn’t seem to be an ordinary matter.
“What’s the matter?”
“Take a break from club activities today. It’s better to save time.”
Mun Saeron at last returned to school, so I thought I would be able to hear from her about Yeom Junyeol’s master.
What was more important than this?
As I stopped in my tracks, deciding to hear him out first, Hwang Jiho lowered his voice and spoke:
“That couple I gave permission. I think you would want to go too.”
I came back to my senses at the word ‘couple’.
There was only one couple Hwang Jiho mentioned until now.
The Ho couple, who lost their descendant to the Ung tribe.
On April Fool’s Day, through Baek Ho-gun, Hwang Jiho and Jeok-ho’s actions, Ung tribe members were captured alive, and that included the target of the couple’s revenge.
I heard that the couple was carrying out the revenge in the Ho tribe’s Garden.
I didn’t have plans of interrupting the couple’s revenge, but it so happened that Ung had a clue related to the Dark Mastermind, so we contacted them.
“Now, I’ll guide you to the Ho tribe’s Garden.”
*~*~*
[1] another world — 별세계(byeolsegye), ‘별 byeol’ can be interpreted as a star, so it could be interpreted as a ‘star world’. Also, it’s a different word from ‘otherworld’, no relation.
[2] ragtag mob — literally, a disorganized flock of crows.
[3] Gwanghwan Gate — the main gate on the south side of Gyeongbok Palace, the main palace during Joseon period in Seoul. The name means ‘King’s great virtue illuminates the whole nation’. The palace burned down before, so a haetae (legendary creature, which is said to differentiate between righteous and unrighteous people, and bite the unrighteous) statue was put in front of the gate to suppress the energy of the Gwanak Mountain (which was a fire mountain according to feng shui).
Translator’s note: Look at Jo Uisin saying there is no room to interfere and then squishing himself through any gap he can find.
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