Translator: Wan ED/PR: novio
10. April’s Fool Day (1)
“Baek-ho, Jeok-ho. Thank you for coming. You can use any floor except for the 5th floor, which I’m using.”
In chairman Hwang Myeong-ho’s house.
Hwang-ho, looking like Hwang Jiho, welcomed two sacred tigers.
Jeok-ho stared at the smiling Hwang-ho with eyes saying he can’t understand.
“… Hwang-ho, why did you call me and Baek-ho here? Don’t you resent us for putting everything on your shoulders and abandoning you?”
At Jeok-ho’s words, Hwang-ho recalled a very hazy and distant past.
‘Resentment, you say…’
Heavenly God, who spread his gentle care over the Korean Peninsula.
Sinin, who extremely resembled that great Heavenly God.
Cheong-ho, who made a happy face at Sinin’s feet.
Baek-ho and Jeok-ho, who raced together through the barren land.
And Eun-ho, the head of the Ho tribe, who he admired more than anyone else.
Precious beings appeared in his mind and then disappeared.
That glorious past disappeared. He watched those lights fade in the present world.
‘… My precious friends already received a punishment.’
Baek-ho, who wished for freedom to go anywhere from Heavenly God, was tied to the Divine Realm.
Jeok-ho, who pleaded for forgiveness for the Ung tribe on his own expense from Heavenly God, was betrayed by that Ung tribe and lost everything.
Seeing those two precious friends bearing their punishment, Hwang-ho wasn’t even a bit relieved.
“Are you saying I should resent two precious friends who already received their punishment?”
Every time when he looked in the dead eyes of his two precious friends, filled with guilt, it was painful enough that his will to live disappeared.
Those eyes changed, so he wanted to live with them.
“Eun-ho would also forgive you.”
Hwang-ho approached near the Silver Light Building bird’s eye view drawing hanging on the wall of the living room, as he spoke.
“I should thank Jo Uisin. Because he helped you come back to your senses and gave you new goals.”
Hwang-ho, who turned his back to the bird’s eye view drawing of the Silver Light Building, looked at Baek-ho and Jeok-ho with eyes that completely lacked the previous bored-with-life appearance.
They were those twinkling eyes which Jo Uisin usually regarded as very ominous.
***
The last day of March, morning.
I found 1st year class 1 classroom.
As expected, Yu Sang-hun came to school early after finishing the basketball morning training.
“Jo Uisin, what is it?”
“Hey, Yu Sang-hun. Can you give me a minute?”
I called Yu Sang-hun out to the corridor without people.
He followed me straight away without questions.
I wanted to see his face and ask him a question.
“Do you know those guys?”
Yu Sang-hun nodded after I mentioned the names of two students from the 1st year class 1.
“Jo Uisin, do you know them?”
“No. I don’t know them.”
“Then continue not knowing them.”
I was a bit surprised by Yu Sang-hun’s resolute attitude.
“They feel similar to that Son Mingi bastard.”
After Yu Sang-hun was stabbed in the back and brushed against death, I guess his intuition got better.
The two guys I spoke about were illegally admitted with Choe Pyeondeuk’s help.
Choe Pyeondeuk brought them to class 1, because he planned to become the 1st year class 1 homeroom teacher after Kim Sinrok’s death.
‘Originally Kim Sinrok would have died and Choe Pyeondeuk would become homeroom teacher so he would watch their backs, but that went awry, so they wouldn’t be able to commit as many incidents as they thought.’
They wouldn’t commit that many wrongdoings yet.
However, hearing Yu Sang-hun’s words, their essence didn’t seem to change.
I made up my mind.
‘I can’t let them attend Eungwang School.’
They will of course commit evils, even if trivial, in the future, but I didn’t know what type of acts they would do by themselves in the future which has changed.
Even their family was well off enough to give Choe Pyeondeuk gift money, which satisfied him, while they appeared ordinary on the surface.
In the game also, they were fantastic talents who were able to wrap terrible atrocities as pranks that were made between friends, with snake-like hearts.
‘Self-rationalization, avoidance of responsibility, ability to manipulate information of those guys’ was at the highest level. I have to make them leave the Eungwang School, and if possible, the player world, for an eternity.’
In addition to those two being extremely lucky, their evil tricks always turned out great.
They survived the event which killed a massive amount of students.
That’s because to escape, they blocked three out of four existing emergency exits after sealing them with SSR items.
The reason was that other students would hinder them when they escaped.
“Are you going to do something again?”
“Why?”
“Jo Uisin, your expression is a bit…”
“What?”
I was only thinking about how to dispose of the evil bunch at Eungwang School in the future.
“It’s the expression you made before you smashed Son Mingi like a dog.”
Yu Sang-hun tapped my shoulder with a smirk.
“Are you free this Saturday? Show me around the dormitory.”
“Okay. Let’s meet at lunchtime. But let’s eat outside.”
“Let’s also pull Jang Namuk’s leg with a video call.”
I made plans for the weekend with Yu Sang-hun, while giggling.
Jang Namuk didn’t belong to the Eungwang School and couldn’t enter the dormitory, so I guess Yu Sang-hun wanted to play with him in some way.
However, he wrapped it as ‘pulling the leg’.
If this case ends safely, I should play with Yu Sang-hun and Jang Namuk as a reward.
***
The class bell announcing afternoon classes was a Muryeong Chigog[1], a traditional march of the military band, performed by the Traditional Music Club.
[The order to march is given once the jing strikes!]
Jing—.
Once the president of the Traditional Music Club gave the order, I heard the sound of a jing and the performance started.
The awe-inspiring sound of wind instruments: nabal, nagak, taepyeongso and the percussion instruments: yonggo, janggu, jing and china cymbals played.
Thanks to an unexpected song selection drowsiness, which surged after lunch, swiftly evaporated.
‘I liked the morning bell ‘Breath of the grassland[2]’, but Muryeong Chigog isn’t bad either.’
While listening to the class bell, I opened a digital textbook and the Enemy introduction book.
The afternoon class was the Introduction to Enemies, the lecture that Choe Pyeondeuk was in charge of.
Or, the first class of Gong Cheong-hwon, Han Yi’s hero.
“I’m Gong Cheong-hwon, I’ll replace the currently wanted Choe Pyeondeuk-ssi, as a teacher in Introduction to Enemies. Nice to meet you.”
Behind the desk stood a man so handsome he could be a human personification of the concept of virtue.
‘Even in the game he looked like the very spirit of goodness, but seeing him in reality it’s even more so.’
Because all 1st years were escaping Choe Pyeondeuk’s class, there were barely ten people left.
However, today, when the teacher in charge changed from Choe Pyeondeuk to Gong Cheong-hwon, there was one more student.
‘Luckily, the period to change classes hadn’t ended yet.’
The period to change the class was during March.
Han Yi joined this class at the last minute.
Han Yi, who sat beside me, looked at Gong Cheong-hwon with a happy face.
“You didn’t progress even up to here? It’s the same if I start from the beginning.”
After checking students’ class progress, Gong Cheong-hwon made a quizzical face.
Choe Pyeondeuk didn’t conduct the class.
Because the class time was littered with nonsense like bragging about his connections, dissatisfaction with the world, his political views no one asked about, was curious about or cared about, slandering other teachers without reason, etc… day after day.
‘I almost shouted that order.’
I don’t know how many times I wanted to shout ‘Teacher-nim, go ahead’, the cursed order which would call upon the majority of the students’ hatred and anger if used in the classroom.
I could persist because I didn’t want to call Choe Pyeondeuk’s ‘teacher-nim’.
“When we’re learning, the most important question is ‘Why?’. Why should we study the Enemies?”
Gong Cheong-hwon conducted the lesson in a silvery voice.
Though Han Yi’s ears were deaf, she was determined not to miss even one word from Gong Cheong-hwon with her lip-reading technique, and her gaze didn’t turn away from his face.
“You can check an Enemy with a wearable device, or use an analytic item or use an insight-like skill.”
Even the ten remaining students concentrated on Gong Cheong-hwon’s words.
Even with Gong Cheong-hwon’s soft manner of speaking, his eyes held power.
“The answer is: to reduce ‘time’. Because you need to respond to variables during the attack on the otherworlds in a matter of seconds.”
Gong Cheong-hwon’s words continued to the conclusion.
“Checking the device, or using an item or a skill, takes time. We do this to help in reducing that time and to take advantageous positions.”
Gong Cheong-hwon opened the table of contents of the Introduction to Enemies book with his wearable device on the electronic blackboard.
“The study of Enemies will become a useful weapon.”
Finishing an orientation on the Introduction to Enemy Studies, Gong Cheong-hwon started a lesson, sometimes writing on the electric blackboard.
As expected, the lesson content was substantial and excellent.
It was worth persisting until Choe Pyeondeuk was taken out.
‘It’s noticeable, because Gong Cheong-hwon applied for this lecture the moment he obtained a teaching position.’
I ended up listening to the lesson diligently, just like Han Yi who sat beside me.
***
April 1st, April Fool’s Day.
Even in the previous world, April Fool’s Day was treated as a sort of a festival at school:
Setting up the teacher’s desk at the back of the classroom or hiding underneath it.
Filling a gym suit to make it like a puppet and placing it at the back of the classroom.
Wearing a school uniform front-to-back and sitting turned around.
Covering oneself in ketchup and playing a corpse around the school.
A graduate wearing a school uniform and sneaking in.
The pranks of the April Fool even in the previous world were pleasant enough.
However, Eungwang School April Fool’s jokes were on a different level.
“Aaaack!”
“Kyaaaa!”
Early in the morning when I left the dormitory, I heard screams from the 2nd and 3rd year dormitory buildings.
From far away I saw Ghost Enemy[3] and similarly formed clouds of gas wandering around the entire 2nd and 3rd year dormitory.
‘I guess they spared the 1st years because they didn’t have Enemy battle practice yet.’
The gas clouds were also at the teacher dorms, but they were repelled in an instant.
It was a quick and prompt response, worthy of Eungwang School’s veteran teachers.
‘The pranks have already started!’
The April Fool’s Day at Eungwang School was a small festival.
The level of pranks by the highschool students, with outstanding abilities and good heads, was beyond imagination.
‘Even what little was described in the game was amazing.’
The 2nd and 3rd year class 0 would install traps and portals in the entire central zone and a few classes would be remodeled to look like otherworlds.
The lake at the school campus, the Clear Blue Lake[4] would freeze, or evaporate, or bizarre aliens would descend.
‘They would build up stress while studying and attacking otherworlds… but if there are no injuries, this degree of jokes would be fine.’
And one of the best pranks today was visible before my eyes at the clocktower in front of Eungwang School’s main gates.
‘How was it installed up there?’
The pure-white clocktower of the main gates changed into a neon sign tower.
Numerous big and small neon signs shaped like the school symbol covered the clocktower.
It was time to go to school, so students who saw the clocktower stopped with their mouths wide open.
Today, Eungwang School’s teacher’s would have a headache, but the majority of students would have a pleasant April Fool’s Day.
So in the game, when people in Eungwang School heard the news, no one believed it at first.
During April Fool’s Day, around Eungwang School’s main gates, a taxi driver and passenger died in a traffic accident.
‘Everyone thought it was a vicious joke.’
The taxi driver had a family to support.
The passenger was barely a middle school kid.
When articles appeared later, Eungwang School suffered enormous shock.
I don’t precisely know when and where the incident happened.
Nothing was mentioned besides that the incident occurred on April Fool’s morning, around the Eungwang School.
‘I already thought about how I can respond.’
If I stood on the rooftop of the only skyscraper in the Eungwang District, the Hwang Myeong Tower of the Hwang Myeong group, the entire Eungwang District was clearly visible.
Today’s weather was good, and there were no clouds.
On the 55th floor of the building’s rooftop, the blowing wind was refreshing.
⟨Using the Gwangrim ‘Player’s Trajectory’.⟩
The character I was gonna use had a Clairvoyance skill.
‘World in the Eye’ Cheon Dong-ha.
If I borrow the Gwangrim of this guy, currently a 2nd year student of Eungwang School and a member of the Guideline Club, watching the entire Eungwang District won’t be difficult.
I’ll check the moving taxis one after one, and if there is a middle school student inside, set them as a target…
“Jo Uisin.”
I immediately canceled the Player’s Trajectory and looked in the direction I heard the voice.
It was Hwang Jiho.
“I didn’t see you at school. So I tried to track you, as if it was perhaps an ‘emergency’. As a chairman, I naturally worry about the students.”
Damn guy.
I guess he traced the location of the device paid by the school with his authority as a chairman.
“Of course this is nonsense. You said you’ll be busy during April Fool’s Day and I was curious why you would be busy, so I chased after you. What are you doing? Do you know this is my building?”
Hwang Jiho’s eyes sparkled, as he confessed immediately.
But I think he didn’t plan on hiding anything from the beginning.
Today’s 1st year class 0 attendance rate is ruined.
Hwang Jiho behaves as he likes, I can’t stop him.
Teacher Ham Geunhyeong-nim, I’m sorry.
“Preventing a traffic incident.”
“Is that so? Then I’ll help.”
I guess he is not curious about why I know the traffic incident will occur.
“When this ends, let’s make a big prank at school.”
Even so, you want to make a prank on the April Fool…?
But I would be thankful if Hwang-ho helps.
If it’s possible to increase the chance to block the incident even a little, I can do as many pranks as you want.
When I nodded, Hwang Jiho’s eyes twinkled as he smiled.
“Then we have a deal.”
Hwang Jiho climbed Hwang Myeong Tower’s rooftop railing with a light leap.
It’s like Jeok-ho, the first time I met him, he also stood at the railing of the dormitory’s balcony. I guess the Ho tribe likes the high places.
Hwang Jiho spread both of his arms wide as he maintained perfect balance.
“This one is a guardian of the divine realm. If I make up my mind, nothing is a secret to me in the Eungwang District.”
On the subject of neglecting Choe Pyeondeuk’s degenerated establishments.
But until now, he wasn’t interested, so naturally he wouldn’t know about it.
Paaaa—.
After Hwang-ho freed his power, the flow of the air changed completely.
His hair and irises changed to golden color.
Golden circles and pressure spread out with him as a center.
Even without insight type skill, it was clear it was not power a human could compete against.
‘Is that the true power of a sacred tiger?’
Because Hwang-ho almost didn’t interfere in the narrative, it was my first time seeing him fully unleash his powers.
After Hwang-ho scratched his hand, golden particles spread in the air and covered the entire Eungwang district.
The golden particles rained down on the city of Eungwang district from the blue sky.
It was a fantastic sight.
Paaaaaa—!
Hwang Jiho’s eyes suddenly opened wide.
The eyes, like those of a wild beast with golden pupils, flashed.
“Jo Uisin, there is never a boring time when I’m with you.”
The sparkling eyes held a dim threat, unlike usual.
“Currently, there are Ung tribe members around the Eungwang District. Their target is a taxi that is running away and speeding up.”
The traffic incident in front of the Eungwang School’s main gates on April Fool’s Day.
I guess it wasn’t an unfortunate incident which happened by chance as I thought before.
*~*~*
[1] Muryeong Chigog – 무령지곡(武寧之曲) – another name for traditional military march, which was performed for kings, high officials or armies. I’m saying ‘another name’ because it’s usually called daechwita (대취타), the word used in just the next clause. What is the exact difference between them, I’m not sure.
[2] Breath of the grassland – 광야의 숨결
[3] Ghost Enemy – Ghost(species) Enemy
[4] Clear Blue Lake – Okay, so the name of this lake is: 청랑호, 청랑 means clear, but! 청 (Cheong) means blue. Also if you read it backwards… 호랑이 means tiger. In conclusion, this lake is named after two characters.
Translator’s note: I struggle to translate or even interpret Cheon Dong-ha player alias (note from the future: I figured it out! I think! Note from the future future: Now I got it (I got someone else to figure it out))…
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