Translator: Wan ED/PR: Personal Ghost
38. Youth training camp (2)
Seongmo Island looked like a long boot on a hill, turned upside down. [1]
The training camp spread wide between located in the center of the island Nakga Mountain and Haemyeong Mountain[2] in the south.
Perhaps for safety, or perhaps for profits obtained by hosting several teams at the same time, each of the facilities and lodgings had a considerable distance between them.
The 1st year class 0 male students’ lodgings we moved to after parting with teacher Ham Geunhyeong-nim, Kwon Lena and Kim Yuri.
Song Daeseok, who looked at them, said a word:
“… It seems that Eungwang School’s operations are completely just, fair, proper and clear.”
“Yes? What is this sudden sound?” [3]
“We have a chairman relative in this class, you know? But even so, we were assigned such poor lodgings! I wasn’t looking forward to a special treatment, but this is exactly the opposite!”
Song Daeseok pointed at the allocated to us tents while pouring out poisonous remarks.
Those tents were one of the school equipment and items used by Pro-Players whenever the otherworld conquest prolonged.
They were temporary accommodations, but those tents were made from material which could withstand a mid-sized typhoon and not be torn apart by a decent superpower wave.
Originally, the 1st year class 0 was to use the same building as teachers, but I suggested using tents to persuade teacher Ham Geunhyeong-nim.
“I hate using rooms like other classes. And we would have to watch ourselves because we would be in the building with teachers if we did that.”
“Vice president, were you the one who suggested it…?”
Song Daeseok stared at me with dissatisfied eyes.
“It looks fine to me, why are you fucking around? If you don’t like it, sleep outside.”
“Ah, there are sleeping bags, do you want me to put them outside?”
“… I’ll sleep inside.”
After Maeng Hyodon started to unpack with Sawol Seeum, who added a final word to help, Song Daeseok also started to unpack.
From how they talked about searching every corner of the tent after unpacking, I guess it was the first time they were staying in a tent.
“Hello? Yes, I can talk. Please speak. Ah, yes… we arrived. There is no need to worry.”
About the time when we unpacked everything, Sawol Seeum received a call in the corner of the tent.
It seemed to be a call from a family member, who was worried about Sawol Seeum, who was involved in a horrible incident before.
“Ah, when we arrived, we almost gave out our devices, but homeroom teacher-nim stopped it, so…”
As Sawol Seeum said, an incident almost broke out at the opening ceremony held at the auditorium before we went to the accommodations.
The training camp instructor made a face as if he was dissatisfied with something, shouted ‘Are you here to play?’ and ‘Everyone sit down, stand up, bow your heads!’.
‘But everyone stood in line and there was no one making noise.’
Then he suddenly ordered for everyone to take off their devices and hand them over.
We heard stories about possession inspection to prevent from bringing in dangerous goods, but we never heard about taking out devices.
When students were agitated.
Teacher Ham Geunhyeong-nim, who was observing the situation, stepped out.
— What are you saying now, sir?
Teacher Ham Geunhyeong-nim spoke politely, but because the impression he brought was too menacing and scary, and he was in fact a powerful Player, the training camp instructor, who tried to enforce discipline against the young students, seemed to lose his confidence.
— Are You trying to confiscate devices, which receive PlayerSAT-K’s otherworld notifications? Are You allowed to do it without a prior consultation on such critical matter?
— Because we usually confiscate them…
— Usually? Then did You always confiscated the devices of the 1st year students who participated in the training camp?
After Ham Geun-hyeong’s face gradually turned grave, he stepped back, unknown whether he decided to turn a blind eye or not to the training camp instructor.
‘Ham Geun-hyeong will probably thoroughly investigate this matter when he returns to school.’
The training camp, which had close ties with Choe Pyeondeuk through the kickbacks.
There were many cases when a teacher on Choe Pyeondeuk’s side, who fed them enormous amounts of money, pretended not to know about instructors’ abuse of students or turned the gazes of other teachers away or closed their mouths.
However, there was no Choe Pyeondeuk and among the remaining teachers, there was no one who was charmed by money to sell students.
‘In the game, Choe Pyeondeuk, who was the 1st year class 1 homeroom teacher, and Ham Geun-hyeong had an argument.’
Finally, in the game, excluding Kim Yuri, who was the sole participant from the 1st year class 0, and Mun Saeron, who hid a spare device used for back-up news coverage, all students had their devices confiscated.
Ham Geun-hyeong, who was worried about the students, whose devices were confiscated, patrolled each night throughout the entire period of the training camp, and it became the move, which minimized the damage of it.
“No… I still couldn’t find Him. But I met with senior Yeom Junyeol-nim. Yes…”
It seemed that ‘Him’ meant ‘that word’.
Isn’t that an extremely important story?
I guess they weren’t on guard against our class children at all.
The eyes of Hwang Jiho, who was unpacking, sparkled as he looked at Sawol Seeum, and then at last, as if he felt the gaze, I heard hurried words.
“Ah, so about that… au-aunt are You doing well? … Uh? I heard the sound of something breaking, are You okay?”
Sawol Seeum, who quietly listened to the other side’s words for a while, said that:
“But during the previous call, You said You would marry uncle Semin, and You even said that it was okay to call you aunt… yes…”
I guess that person was very actively charming Sawol Semin.
And even was so close with Sawol Seeum, that she said they would become a family unit.
‘No way, is that that bodyguard from that time…?’
During the Fantasy Auction, she was the one who hit Byeon Sunhoe’s back of the head and called Sawol Seemin to save Sawol Seeum.
I vividly recalled how she untied herself and beat up Byeon Sunhoe with her foot.
Ding.
At that moment, a message notification rang.
[Lee Lena] This side unpacked everything! Boys side have tents? Can we come to play?
It was a message from Kwon Lena, who was still recorded as ‘Lee Lena’ in the device address book.
There were only two female students from our class, Kwon Lena and Kim Yuri, who came, so it was decided they would use a two-person room in the teachers lodgings located between male students and female students lodgings which were quite a distance apart.
[Me] Yeah, come.
[Lee Lena] Ah, Yuri is washing up right now, but we will get going when she finishes!
I was worried that like on the boat, Kim Yuri would continue to stay in the room.
I guess it wasn’t fortunately to that degree.
Soon, I caught sight of Kim Yuri walking towards the tent, led by Kwon Lena’s hand.
***
After all class children gathered and we had lunch with lunch boxes provided by Eungwang School.
The youth training camp program started in full-swing.
First activity, teamwork training.
It was called teamwork training, but the content was just gymnastic and PT exercises used in the army.
After warm-up, the true colors started showing.
“50 rounds of jumping jacks! Don’t shout last number. If the last number comes out, You will all face disciplinary punishment in joint responsibility! Understood?”
“Yes!”
Laughter was buried in the voices of the students who replied cheerfully.
The teamwork training, which was set like the training course for the public highschool students, wasn’t particularly difficult.
Compared to the training at school, it felt like a picnic.
‘Because it’s like this, even seniors would probably let it go with smile, even if things were unreasonable…’
However, everyone matched the hush-hush atmosphere, because it was clear that instructors would lose their temper if we showed it.
No one shouted the last number, but because they found a fault with us, saying that the counting down voice, which was shouting before, was quiet, we had to put arms around each other as the entire group, and then squat down and stand up repeatedly for a few times.
Even physically the weakest in our class, Kwon Lena finished that teamwork training program without losing a breath.
“Um, it was more doable than I thought!”
“That’s right! Are training camps originally like this? Looking at the reviews on the internet, they said that it’s pretty hard.” [4]
“Perhaps it’s because there is only one Player among the training camp instructors, so they don’t have accurate understanding of Players’ physical strength.”
“Aha….”
They said they’re giving a disciplinary punishment, however, considering our, the Players, physical strength, it was like a childish joke.
So at the time, the class 0 bastards, who passed down a brilliant legend about the training camp, didn’t immediately cause and incident after being given a disciplinary punishment, and the chaos ensued when the instructors let down their guard and tried to cross the line, right?
“How was it as a middle school student? Did anyone of you went on one?”
At Sawol Seeum’s words, only Kim Yuri raised her hand.
Kwon Lena and Maeng Hyodon couldn’t participate in the money-eating outside activities at all, and Sawol Seeum and Song Daeseok go only through the middle school examination.
I, during my middle school days, every break spent training chess, and Hwang Jiho… I wasn’t particularly curious.
“Uh, really? Only me?”
“Did you go as a middle school student? How was it?”
“How was it… The training camp I went to at the time was in the Gyeong-gi Province, and because the place was quite big, they were hosting other schools with us. But that was an all-boys middle school, so…”
Kim Yuri, who came from all-girls middle school.
Listening to the story about how the students from the other school received a disciplinary punishment as a group because they picked a fight over An Dain on the last day of the training camp, the break time came to an end.
Next were outside adventure activities facilities.
Walking across the swaying-bridge, which was about a hand wide, passing through the maze tunnel, climbing the artificial rock wall…
The fastest to complete the entire course in our class was Hwang Jiho, who laughed ‘hahahaha’, when sprinting through it.
Following behind him was Maeng Hyodon.
“… I can’t fly there, correct?”
“I don’t like hurting my hands.”
They passed through the other courses well enough, but Sawol Seeum and Kwon Lena had quite a struggle with the stone wall climbing.
“Come quickly! There is a rope slide-down if you climb all the way up! It’s super fun and great!”
As if a rope slide-down was fun, Song Daeseok was excited like a child and returned to climb the rock wall again.
Perhaps curious about the slide-down, the two people gathered their strength and stretched out their hands towards the climbing handles again.
After we completed the entire afternoon program without anyone falling behind, we ate a dinner of subtle flavor.
“The worst problem of this training camp is that the dinner has no flavor, eh?”
“Compared to the school meals, it’s really particular, but because I’m hungry, it’s somehow delicious…”
Today’s dinner was japgok-bap[5], extremely watery curry with soggy fish cutlet, mushy braised burdock roots and sour kimchi.
The gourmet Hwang Jiho kept grumbling, and other children ate well, diligently moving their spoons and chopsticks.
“Starting next year, I’ll start to personally select the subcontract companies.”
Hwang Jiho, who almost didn’t touch the food, declared that in his outrage.
Those were quite strange words if someone didn’t know his identity as a chairman, but the class children let it go, thinking ‘Lunatic acts like a lunatic again’.
After eating dinner, it was recreation time.
Following the recreation instructor’s words, we clapped and chanted, but when we gradually got sick of the repetitive pattern, the instructor shouted.
“Hey, from now on, I’ll be scoring each class. The class, which receives the most points, won’t have a roll call on the last day!”
Whoaa…
The worn-out voices came out just like before.
“The noise is too quiet, shout as loud as possible!”
Whoaa!
The shout, which was somehow filled with rage, burst out.
Anyhow, because the noise was loud, the instructor made a satisfied face and spoke:
“The 1st year class 2, which gave the most enthusiastic shout, 500 points!”
Oooh!
As I looked in the 1st year class 2’s direction, I could see my Bread Shuttle with a simple thinking circuit, Bang Yunseop, happily yelling.
“Wow, will there really be no roll call if we get a 1st place? Will we be able to play for the entire night?”
“It’s probably a lie?”
After Sawol Seeum innocently asked, Kim Yuri spoke with a bitter smile.
I guess Kim Yuri, who was the only one who experienced youth training camps, knew that they would in the end call a roll under all kinds of excuses and put children to sleep.
“There is no way that the recreation instructor has a right to modify the schedule decided by the training camp and Eungwang School, right? And they won’t be able to take responsibility when residents complain about the noise or students cause a problem at night. That must be a lie.”
Song Daeseok spoke with cynicism, but only a moment ago, he enthusiastically clapped, following the instructor’s words, so his persuasive power fell.
“That’s too much! I won’t be working as diligently from now on!”
Sawol Seeum, who was shocked, and other children started moving only as much as it was necessary.
The training camp instructor, who observed it from behind, didn’t seem to like it and was about to give us disciplinary punishment, but after the other instructor said something, he stepped back.
Hwang Jiho, who had bright ears, said:
“After mentioning ghostly phenomena, which occurred after they gave class 0 disciplinary punishment, he turned quiet.”
“Ghostly phenomena?”
“Well, instructors facilities were raided by will-o’-wisps[6], a mannequin in white mourning clothes[7] was installed outside the toilet door…”
Listening about the achievements left behind by the previous generations of the class 0, the night program ended.
Only the roll call remained.
Each class president and vice president were in charge of the roll call, so 6 people in total.
Opportunely, this year’s class officials’ gender ratio was half-and-half, so we ended up taking charge of both the roll call check and reporting.
After I had a chat with Yu Sang-hun and Ju Su-hyeok, who were in charge of the class 1 and class 2 male students’ roll call and returned, the majority of the kids already fell asleep.
“Hey, I’m going out.”
“I’ll accompany you.”
Together with Hwang Jiho, who was awake, I made and placed a dummy, and used a hiding item to leave the lodgings.
As I couldn’t get even a wink of sleep and wandered around the entire Seongmo Island, while checking the map, the sun soon started to raise.
“It would end easily if you called Ho tribe to this island, even now.”
Before we returned to our lodgings, Hwang Jiho suddenly spoke up.
“If I do that, they will try to find out the reason why that happened, right? Even if the fact about Jeok-ho’s infiltration won’t come to light, the matter of the To tribe and Association will be revealed.”
“I know.”
On the time of new day.
Hwang Jiho looked at me sternly at the break of dawn as he spoke:
“’Remember you have such an option’.” [8]
I guessed what Hwang Jiho was worrying about, but I decided to pretend not to know.
Like this, the first day of the training camp ended.
*~*~*
[1] Seongmo Island looked like a long boot on a hill turned upside down. — For maniacs like me, yes, this island indeed looks like that. Unrelated notes: The popular belief is that the name ‘Seongmo (석모 seok-mo)’ means ‘rocky corner coast’. Two noteworthy things about Seongmo Island is the stone carving of seated Avalokiteśvara Bodhisattvan in the Bomun Temple and one of the best sunset views in Korea.
[2] Haemyeong Mountain — It’s probably nothing, highly probably not even where the name of the mountain comes from, but ‘해 (Hae)’ could mean sun and ‘명 (myeong)’ could mean ‘fate, life’.
[3] “Yes? What is this sudden sound?” — Sawol Seeum’s sentence
[4] “That’s right! Are training camps originally like this? Looking at the reviews on the internet, they said that it’s pretty hard.” — Sawol Seeum’s sentence
[5] japgok-bap — mix of various grains of rice with some beans.
[6] will-o’-wisp — in raws: dokkaebi’s fire
[7] white mourning clothes — ‘소복 (so-bok)’
[8] “’Remember you have such an option’.” — I don’t want to get into Korean grammar here, but I must note down that I’m uncertain if I should treat that sentence as a quote (reasons why apostrophes are here) or a command with ‘and’ particle.
Translator’s note: It’s dawn and Hwang-ho reminds that there is an option to call for help…? Oh, Jo Uisin, the ‘sin’ your name could also mean ‘calling the dawn’, are you also pretending not to know that? ㅠㅠ
Did you see a mistake? 🐞
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