Translator: Wan ED/PR: Personal Ghost
[1]
When we were waiting in the classroom for the start-to-day meeting to start.
“Hi.”
Kwon Jane, who was appointed as an honorary teacher, appeared with a simple greeting.
The class children, while surprised, hastily greeted her.
Kwon Jane responded to the greetings one after one with a faint smile.
“That, senior-nim, no, teacher-nim, what brings You here? Teacher Ham Geunhyeong-nim didn’t come yet….”
“I have something to give.”
At her words, I saw some of the children turn nervous.
Considering how extreme were her previous gifts, it couldn’t be helped.
“There were some left by chance. I’ll give them to you.”
Kwon Jane took out nine prettily wrapped boxes from the shopping bag she was holding.
No matter how I looked, it didn’t seem like she was giving something that was just left behind, but giving gifts, which she prepared with great care.
“The content is exactly the same. Choose whichever you want.”
“Um, if it’s not rude, can I ask what kind of gift is it?”
“It’s the headband I was wearing on the last album cover.”
Are you talking about that ‘Kwon Jane headband’?
I told her the story about Kwon Lena failing to buy that hairband with her friends, but it seemed that she came to give it as a gift.
“… That, can we really accept it?”
“If you don’t like it, I’ll buy something else.”
Didn’t you say a moment ago that you’re giving it away, because it was left by chance?
Even setting aside the fact that there was a share for the male highschoolers, starting with the Ho tribe’s head who was more than 5 thousand years old, there were too many strange parts.
The children thought it was strange, but they seemed to pass it as ‘Senior Kwon Jane-nim was like this from the beginning, right…?’.
“Ah.”
Kwon Jane stopped talking as if she realized there was a problem with this situation late.
“I forgot to prepare a share for teacher Ham Geunhyeong-nim.”
… Kwon Jane didn’t seem to realize the problem like before.
It seemed it would be difficult to handle if she gifted teacher Ham Geunhyeong-nim a lace hairband.
“Thank You! I’ll use it well…!”
“… Thank You.”
“Okay.”
After children thanked her, Kwon Jane was filled with joy.
In particular, she was the most touched when she looked at Kwon Lena, who was the happiest among the class children.
She thanked me with her gaze, while looking at me, who gave her advice, but I didn’t know if she should be grateful for changing class 0 and my evaluation to ‘I knew that senior Kwon Jane-nim is a bit particular, but she is more of an oddball than I thought’ with today’s eccentricity.
After Blue Violinist came and went like a storm.
“Should I give it to Niho?”
“How the hell do you use it?”
“Wouldn’t it be good to use when your hair is flowing down?”
“Is there no one but seniors and teachers with screw loose in their heads in this school?”
Unlike the atmosphere among the male highschoolers, which was subtle, the female highschoolers were very excited.
“Uh, what should I do?! This isn’t just a replica, but it’s exactly the same as what senior Kwon Jane-nim was wearing!”
“That’s great! Even when we turned over every shop in Seoul, we couldn’t buy it.”
“Let’s try it out now.”
“I’ll bring a comb!”
When the warm scene of dragging the chair in front of the mirror and preparing to make new hairstyles.
“… I also want to try it out.”
Min Guerin, who was hiding in the hood, hesitated and then spoke.
“Naturally.”
“Geurin, sit down!”
Kwon Lena and Kim Yuri stopped what they were doing and sat Min Geurin on the chair straight away.
Under the class children’s watchful gazes, she carefully removed her hood.
The hair crushed by the hood drew the eye, but as Kwon Lena and Kim Yuri diligently moved their hands, holding the comb and hairpins, it was soon neatly dealt with.
As the curly hair, reaching the collarbone, was neatly combed and the headband was put on her head, her impression looked noticeably different.
“It’s suits you well!”
“Geurin is short, but because your face is small… when wearing accessories, you look much more lively.”
As all children’s evaluation said, it suited her extremely well.
‘It won’t be long when she takes off the AR glasses, huh?’
Min Geurin took off the hood only for a moment, but didn’t it mean that she opened up enough to do that?
Staring at her own reflection in the mirror, Min Geurin wasn’t going to put the hood on again, even though she felt awkward.
“Geurin, it suits you well.”
“Uh…”
Song Daeseok lowered his body to make eye contact with Min Geurin as he spoke.
This gesture seemed to reflect his want to look at her a bit more closely.
Min Geurin, who heard those words just in front of her nose, wavered in embarrassment, and then grabbed the headband Song Daeseok was holding in his hands and shoved it on his head.
“It suits Daeseok too.”
It seemed to be a reaction to avoid embarrassment, but from the outside perspective it just looked like an act of affection.
“Okay, thanks.”
Even though the hairband was put on him awkwardly, thanks to Song Daeseok’s smooth response, the two fell into their own world even deeper.
Teacher Ham Geunhyeong-nim, who entered to hold the start-of-the-day meeting, stiffened for a split second when he saw Song Daeseok wearing a headband, but when he saw Min Geurin without a hood and with the exactly same headband, he understood and moved on.
“…But does that fucker plan to continue walking around with that on?”
“Just pretend you don’t know. Because it’s fun looking at him when he walks around like this.”
As if they didn’t hear Maeng Hyodon and Hwang Jiho, even when they talked like this, Min Geurin and Song Daeseok continued to walk around wearing couple headbands for the whole day.
***
“… I lost.”
Bak Seung-hyeon, who was sitting opposite of me, knocked down his king as he spoke.
“It seems that you’re playing better than before. And the style seemed to have changed a bit.”
“Yeah?”
“To put it better, it seems that you had more time to spare and to put it badly, the number of suspicious moves had increased.”
It was as Bak Seung-hyeon said.
The headache and cold hands didn’t disappear, but as I kept accepting the flooding chess match requests, they weakened.
Thanks to that, the cases where I played bold moves to end it quickly decreased and the moves I played while looking far ahead increased.
We stood up after reviewing the game and sharing our opinions for a while.
“Let’s go eat dinner.”
“Okay. Today dinner Korean menu is a stone pot beef tartare bibimbap[2] and western menu is hamburger steak.”
Usually I would use the Stalemate’s clubroom to play a match, but today I used the Earthly Wings Council Building’s recreation room.
The dormitory cafeteria was very close to the Earthly Wings Council Building.
‘Yeom Junyeol and Cheon Dongha should be playing in the Stalemate matchroom right now, right?’
Throughout the generations of Eungwang School, this was the year when the most of the objections were raised among all the exams ever held here.
And before the final results of the 2nd year 1st semester final exam were announced, the famous Player and the first place Cheon Dongha and the star Player and second place Yeom Junyeol were said to have a violent chess clash, so the inquiries about spectating in the Stalemate matchroom exploded.
Even a talk about renting a gym came out, but as the two people refused, the result was that they limited the number of spectators reservations beforehand, and instead, broadcasted the match scene on the school community.
In fact, I also eagerly wanted to personally see the two’s match, but because I kept delaying the match with Bak Seung-hyeon as I was busy, I decided to just check the game recording later.
“Then the class 0 is going to the youth training camp together with class 1 and 2? Where are you going?”
“Seongmo Island.”
“It’s on the same date as our class’, but the locations are different. Making a group reservation in the Player accessible facilities is really hard, huh?”
I wouldn’t be meeting with Bak Seung-hyeon, who was a member of the 1st year class 7, at the youth training camp.
Besides the youth training camp, we talked about the dinner menu, the match we had just played, the expected final exam grades after score correction, etc, and then we parted ways.
The moment I arrived in the dormitory room, I checked the result of the match between Cheon Dongha and Yeom Junyeol.
The match of those two started almost at the same time as my and Bak Seung-hyeon’s match, but it was two times longer.
‘Did you continue to play even when we were eating dinner? The results… Cheon Dongha won, huh?’
As they couldn’t easily outmatch each other, they played a fierce battle in the situation where each of them had not more than three or four black and white pieces remaining.
By a narrow margin, Cheon Dongha succeeded in calling checkmate.
‘Can anyone not think it was an outstanding match?’
While I watched the recording of the game, the two had played with admiration.
Ding.
A device message notification rang out.
The sender of the message was Hwang Jiho.
[Hwang Jiho] Dormitory? Come to my mansion for a moment.
At this hour?
As I looked at the clock, it was a bit past 8 pm.
It wasn’t that late, but it was a strange hour to go out.
When I was about to reply to contact me later if it’s nothing important.
[Hwang Jiho] The Divine Beast’s elixir arrived.
[Me] I’m coming.
I prepared to go out straight away without complaining.
***
The moment the door to Hwang Myeongho’s main mansion opened, the superpower wave poured onto me.
“Haap!”
“Yap!”
The superpower wave, which didn’t seem to hold any harmful for me energy, hung around me and then scattered.
Eun-ho’s three descendants siblings, who looked at the remains of the shining silver superpower wave, made disappointed expressions.
“It failed…”
“We had prepared so thoroughly!”
I had no idea what the hell the three prepared.
“We tried to bestow a blessing on Uisin oppa in an ambush.”
“We thought it would work.”
“Toyeon noona said Uisin hyung refused Hwangho-nim’s blessing. So we thought that if we just asked Uisin hyung, You would reject the blessing and so…”
I was happy, but aren’t descendants not able bestow blessings from the beginning?
And it was impossible to bestow a blessing without other side’s consent.
Higher beings and Jin people had several limits on the blessings they could bestow.
‘Is it because the blessing is implanting and engraving one’s ‘Presence’ on the target, not a superpower or authority, to be deeply craved into their minds? If you don’t have a ‘Presence’ worthy to be treated as a god or Jin, no matter how powerful your superpowers are, it would be impossible for you to do.’
I saw Hwang Jiho, who took a step back and looked at the three, pressing his temples.
“… Blessings aren’t bestowed like this. And you, as descendants, can’t give blessings.”
“We may be the first descendants to succeeded in bestowing a blessing, You know?!”
“We thought that Hwangho-nim would oppose, so we tried to do this stealthily and in secret.
I guess those descendants didn’t quite know the meaning of stealthily and in secret.
But I had no idea why those kind and gentle descendants were suddenly acting like this.
No, thinking about, I came up with a guess immediately.
“Was it Mountain Spirit’s idea to bestow the blessing stealthily and in secret?”
“Uh, Uisin hyung, how did You know?”
Mountain Spirit, who was observing while floating above the entrance to the living room, started to happily spin around as if pleased with themselves.
However, a moment later they abruptly stiffened under Baek Ho-gun and Hwang Jiho’s gaze as if they were captured by Brilliant Gaze skill.
“I guess the training was still insufficient, eh?”
“Baek-ho, be more thorough next time.”
Hearing those words, Mountain Spirit trembled, but my thoughts were concerned with something else.
Snare was nowhere to be seen.
There was no trace of Snare at the entrance at all.
“Snare?”
At my question, Eun-ho’s three descendants pretended to be ignorant and Hwang Jiho was ready to laugh.
Before I asked again, Baek Ho-gun answered.
“It’s hiding in the house you gifted it.”
“Why?”
“If you go, it may come out, eh?”
I didn’t know what it was about, but I decided to go pick up Snare.
I saw a white cotton ball in one of the hiding spots in the corner of the wide living room.
“Snare?”
Woof!
After I called, Snare hurriedly came out and hugged my arm.
“Why are you like this? What’s happened?”
Keuung….
Snare only moaned without energy.
When I saw Hwang Jiho, while moving towards the drawing room, I felt Snare noticeably stiffen.
“Were you harassing Snare?”
“Hahaha!”
Hwang Jiho, who normally would say something about intelligence, laughed happily.
‘It’s ominous.’
As I entered the drawing room, I saw a suitcase laying on the table.
The inside of the suitcase was full of pouches with a liquid in a strange color I never saw or heard about.
“Here, Jo Uisin. That is a divine beast usable elixir you requested from me.”
You had made so much of it for me?!
I saw Hwang Jiho in a bit different light. [3]
“It’s good for Snare’s body, right?”
“Yeah, naturally. When the divine beast was mentioned, the Nok tribe’s head himself stepped out to prepare it. The bodies and superpowers of divine beasts are different from humans and Jin people, so it was probably a lot of work in various aspects.”
“How much money was it? I’ll pay back.”
“No need. It’s an elixir requested by the Ho tribe’s benefactor to be made for the Ho tribe’s divine beast. It’s natural that I as the head will pay for it.”
I saw Hwang Jiho in a very different light.
But he was ominous because it felt like he was still covertly ready to laugh.
That ominous feeling soon became reality.
… Woof? Woof-woof!
Snare looked up at me with eyes full of feelings of betrayal and shock.
It was the first time I witnessed that expression.
“Uh? Snare, what’s wrong?”
Swish.
Snare free itself from my arms and suddenly ran away.
It was never like this even once before, even when I let it down.
Snare left the dazed me behind and disappeared.
When I was left behind by Snare, who went without even looking back, and became stupefied.
“Hahahahaha!”
Hwang Jiho started laughing.
I heard an icy voice with that laughter sound in the background.
“Divine beast has very sensitive senses. Both smell and taste.”
As I heard Baek Ho-gun’s words, I felt as if I was struck by lightning.
I only thought about Snare’s body and didn’t consider the taste of death Snare would have to endure…!
Why me, who personally experienced it, couldn’t give it a thought?
In addition to the lament for my own idiocy, I felt extreme resentment towards Hwang Jiho who didn’t give me even a word of advice.
I felt wronged that a moment ago I tried to see Hwang Jiho in a different light.
That geezer was a ruined bastard as expected.
“… Everyone is here, eh?”
In the midst of Hwang Jiho laughing so vigorously that he was out of breath and me who suffered a mental breakdown, Jeok-ho arrived.
“Hahahaha! You came just in time! Jo Uisin got on divine beast’s nerves…. What happened, Jeok-ho?”
Hwang Jiho’s voice turned serious.
“Did you get hurt again? Your expression isn’t much better than at that time, eh?”
Hearing those words, I took a closer look at Jeok-ho.
As Hwang Jiho said, Jeok-ho’s complexion wasn’t better than when his body was pierced by forks.
“I confirmed the targets they are aiming for.”
“Are you talking about Eungwang School 1st year students?”
“There’s one more besides them.”
You’re saying there is something else, besides the sacrifices, that the Dark Mastermind is aiming for?
The voice of Jeok-ho, who was reporting, shook.
“They said they’re aiming for the Earthly Wings Council’s advisor and the 1st year class 1’s homeroom teacher, who they couldn’t kill previous year, Kim Sinrok.”
*~*~*
[1] No title — ‘Beginning of growing thread (7)’ =-=
[2] bibimbap — rice mixed with additional ingredients.
[3] I saw Hwang Jiho in a bit different light. — in raws, literally: ‘I saw Hwang Jiho again a bit’.
Translator’s note: Blessing talk in chapter number 7? … I don’t think there exist words to describe what is happening in my brain right now.
Did you see a mistake? 🐞
Leave a Reply