School (4)
I stared for a moment at the class president, still frozen with that look locked on her face, and since I had nothing to say, I went and sat in my seat by the window in the back row.
There'd been a time I thought I would never make it back here. Sitting down now, the feeling was strangely new.
I set my school bag on the new desk, and I could feel the class's eyes creeping in on me one by one. It wasn't the look of people staring because I'd gotten handsome or anything like that. It was the look you give something strange. And they seemed a little afraid, too.
My confidence in my own face was steadily falling apart.
While the class held their breath and stole glances at me, Franc stood at the back of the classroom with her hands covering her breasts and her crotch, glancing around in shy discomfort.
If she was that embarrassed, she could just watch from inside the Soul Stone.
I took out the school tablet and turned my head toward the window, away from their eyes.
Mmm. This wasn't the atmosphere I'd wanted. I'd hoped for gasps and questions about the Phase World, girls fawning over my changed looks. Reality was the stare you give a scruffy purebred, and it was getting me a little depressed.
Tap, tap, tap. The paralysis must have worn off. I turned at the sound of the class president charging over, and she didn't stop until she was in front of my desk, slamming her palm down with a bang.
"Ow, ow. Amazing, amazing! Seoha, you're really an ability user now?!"
"Uh? Yeah."
Her reaction loosened the frozen air bit by bit, and here and there kids started talking among themselves.
"You've changed so much! You got so tall, too!"
What about my face?!
"Congrats on making it back~."
Kang So-ra, sprawled across the desk beside mine with both arms stretched out in front of her, turned only her head to look at me and spoke like a languid cat.
Messy hair gathered any which way and tied behind her head, a drowsy face, a drowsy voice. I'd only memorized her name because she sat next to me. She wasn't my type. She was pretty, though!
"So what ability did you geeet~? Physical Reinforcement... doesn't seem like it. Elemental~? Healing~?"
Why'd she rule out Physical Reinforcement?! And she doesn't even mention Special Type?!
"It's Special Type."
At my answer the space around me grew noisier, murmurs starting up.
"Oh, come on."
"Just Detection? Poor guy."
"I said it before, but the Phase World isn't that big a deal, right?"
My blood went cold. That bastard running his mouth about how it was manageable—that was the same asshole who'd been talking shit when I first got back, wasn't it?
Whether my feelings showed or not, things quieted a little, and then Kang So-ra, drowsy expression and all, spoke up in that drowsy voice.
"People who've never even been there sure run their mouths, huh~? The same ones who couldn't even breathe, frozen stiff, at the sight of Seoha when he came back~."
"..."
The classroom went dead silent in an instant at her blunt words.
Did she just shield me?
I'd been about to sneer at the guy saying things I didn't like—something like, Well, it was a little hard for me, but you probably wouldn't even know what hard feels like—but it seemed somehow pathetic, and since Kang So-ra had already covered for me, I just shut my mouth.
Come to think of it, sniping back would only cost me points with Franc. Good job holding it in, me!
I glanced at Franc, leaning against the window beside me. She was looking back and forth between me and the classroom, worried and angry.
"D-don't be disappointed just because it's Detection! I heard from an oppa I know that Detection users are essential in the Phase World! In the raider world, they're nobility second only to healers! So..."
"It's fine. It's true I survived thanks to Detection, and I've never once thought my ability was worthless."
"R-right."
Maybe my voice had gone a little cold. The class president, who'd been trying to comfort me, went noticeably awkward and returned to her seat.
...
Ah, whatever. My head was a mess, and I didn't even want to look at the people Search was feeding me from around the school. It was absolutely not because the kids hadn't cheered when they saw me!
Right. Popularity, with a face like mine? I'd be satisfied that Franc liked me.
I turned on the school tablet, and it connected to the school intranet, syncing a month of progress. I was looking through it, filtering and blocking the information pouring in through Search, when our homeroom teacher, Choi Miran, failed to appear and the P.E. teacher from the next class came in instead.
Mm. Mom and the teacher were still talking with the principal.
"All right, I'll take homeroom today. Oh, so you're the returnee. Congratulations on becoming an ability user!"
Had the rumor already spread everywhere? The P.E. teacher the students called Sweat-Stink clapped three times in my direction, so I dipped my head in a small bow in return.
The uneventful homeroom ended quickly, and the P.E. teacher left. Then Kang So-ra, still sitting there with that drowsy look, propped her chin on her hand and spoke to me.
"Hey, heeey~. There's something I'm curious about. Will you tell me~?"
"What?"
"The stuff you learned at school. Did it help~?"
The survival studies class, she meant?
I could see the other kids pricking up their ears. I looked like nothing much, and Special Type made me pitiful, but curious was still curious, I guessed.
Ah, whatever. I was an ability user now. I ought to act generous! Didn't want to look petty!
"More or less? Starting a fire, and a few of the Aberrants, were exactly like the textbook. The survival methods and the emergency ration belt helped a lot, too. Oh, and the uniform was incredible. I rolled around pretty brutally, and not a single thread came loose."
"Huuuh~. So it wasn't a waste of money and time~. Thanks for answering~."
Ugh. A voice that made you drowsy just listening to it. Still, she was the only one who'd shielded me, so out of genuine gratitude I offered a few pieces of advice I considered most important.
"Don't mention it. So wear that emergency ration belt until you turn thirty-six, no exceptions. And exercise without skipping. Build your stamina."
Once I answered Kang So-ra readily, a few others wore expressions that openly said they had questions—but I was a little sulky, so I sat there with my face set. That must have made it hard to approach. They only watched my mood and didn't come closer.
The truth was, I'd been sucked into the Phase World not long after the semester started, so I barely knew anyone, and close friends were even scarcer. Nothing to be done about it.
"Seoha. Are you all right?"
Franc must have noticed my mood had soured. She crouched in front of my desk, chin resting on the surface, and asked.
"I'm fine. The reaction was a little different from what I imagined, but don't worry about it. Whatever anyone says, I'm an ability user now."
"Yes. You need not concern yourself with the regard of others. You have only to advance along the path you believe to be right!"
Franc smiled brightly and encouraged me, telling me that attitude was a good one.
"You've got this!"
"Yeah."
Watching her cheer me on with both fists clenched tight, my sulk melted away. Franc really was the truth.
I gave her a small smile, then tapped the fully synced tablet and started cramming the memorization-heavy subjects I'd fallen behind in, stuffing the material into my head.
When fourth period ended and lunch began, half the kids poured toward the school cafeteria, while the ones who stayed pulled out lunch boxes, clustered with friends, and pushed their desks together to eat.
It struck me all over again that I had no friends.
In middle school there'd been two of them, but Siha's force-fed Spartan studying got me into Euihan High School, and when the other two went on to high schools in different regions, we drifted apart on our own.
I set the tablet on the charging pad and stood, and the kids still in the room sent me curious looks.
Maybe because the students here were all docile types with terrifyingly strong self-esteem, outright bullying never happened—but quiet ostracism did, often enough. Average grades. Bad looks. No reason to get close.
On top of that, the Euihan Foundation usually ran an escalator from Euihan Kindergarten all the way through university, so most of the students were linked by connections whether they realized it or not. People like me, who entered midway, tended to end up floating.
When I got in through my sister's efforts, she was so outstanding, and she wrapped herself around me so tightly, that I couldn't make friends. By the time she graduated and I moved up to second year, the quiet-outcast atmosphere had already hardened. Every kid who looked at me gave off the same feeling. That's Senior Jung Siha's little brother? But he's nothing like his sister. Mix in my personality, and, well...
Anyway, in anime and light novels, when an outcast like me becomes an ability user, the prettiest girls in the district come swarming. Reality really was different from delusion, wasn't it.
Maybe it was because everyone here already had something, whether family background or their own ability. Even though I'd returned alive from the Phase World, once you set aside the curiosity, their reactions didn't feel any different from before.
"I heard that kid became an ability user this time?"
"They say it's Detection!"
"Whoa, I heard Detection makes a ton of money. So jealouuus."
On the way to the cafeteria, the rumor must have already spread through the school—whispers followed me from every direction.
The kids from other classes were showing more interest than my own. And that last voice had been a girl's. Did she just like money?
Money was nice. The more, the better. But for a high schooler's values, wasn't that a little bleak...
"Survived just fine on Detection, huh."
"Must've been luck. Out of a hundred who come back alive, Special Types don't even make three."
True. If I hadn't stumbled into Phase Power control partway through, I'd have died swimming. No—before that, I wouldn't have survived the lightning.
Remembering that situation sent a chill up my back, cold sweat threatening to break. Damn it.
"He's a Detection user, so he'll make a lot of money, right?"
"Unless they're seriously incompetent, raid teams will try to secure a Special Type Detection user one way or another. And that kid even took down a Low Grade Aberrant on the way back and brought the byproducts, so hasn't word already reached every raid team, one way or another?"
"Once he graduates, most of the raid teams in the country will probably come knocking."
"Ha... I still don't have a clue what I'm supposed to do with my future, and somebody's already riding the maglev."
The girls were mostly saying they envied me, that I'd make a lot of money, that life would be easy from here on. The guys, for the most part, were pouring out jealousy and resentment.
Honestly, it was less envy or jealousy and more them looking at me and worrying about their own futures.
Who'd look at them and call them high school seniors? Little old men, the lot of them.
Eavesdropping on boys envying me—an ability user with a wide-open road ahead—my mood started creeping upward.
Thinking about it, that nameless bastard who'd been running his mouth about how easy the Phase World was—he was probably just jealous of me, too.
The school cafeteria had been built on a scale of three floors above ground and one below, able to seat two hundred a floor—six hundred at once. First-years used the first floor, second-years the second, third-years the third. The basement held a buffet for faculty and the school's hired staff.
The facilities were state-of-the-art: ten professional chefs, thirty kitchen assistants, and five nutritionists. Cleaning was contracted to a specialist firm, so the place was always spotless. The menu changed every month, and the same dish didn't reappear for at least six months. The repertoire was that broad.
The basic choices ran about four dollars, but the quality was five-star hotel level, so everyone bought meal tickets without a word of complaint. The daily special, offered only at lunch, cost closer to six and still sold out faster than they could make it. For anyone agonizing over what to eat, it was heaven's own menu.
They issued ten thousand meal tickets a month, and after the students' lunch ended at half past one, outsiders were allowed in to eat. I'd heard a rumor that nearby offices had shifted their lunch hours to half past one through half past two because of it.
Of course, for enrolled students, every item on the menu was free.
Siha had told me they ran the cafeteria on money earned from outsiders. When I asked how she knew, she said that if you served as student council president for two years, you ended up learning all sorts of things.
Most people only lasted a year in that post, and she'd done it for two. Thinking again how incredible my sister was, I started to suspect that maybe she'd monopolized every stat point in Mom's womb, and that was why I'd turned out like this.
For the record, the person who came up with the cafeteria system was the chairwoman. Which was to say, Hwayeon's mother. Auntie President.
She was remarkable enough to always land among the ten most respected people in Korea, and calling her that made her standing drop straight through the floor.
Even while I collected today's special—a pork cutlet curry set—and ate, I could hear people whispering about me from all over. I decided not to care.
A light novel protagonist, with a face like mine. I'd just shoot a fusion fantasy with Franc and call it a day.
Franc hadn't been able to bring herself into the crowded cafeteria and had waited outside. When I finished and came out, she was gazing at the kids running around on the school field with a distant, wistful look.
I didn't know what had struck that sentimental chord in her, but it felt like I shouldn't interrupt, so I stood beside her and watched the scene with her.
"Ah—when did you come out?"
"Just now. What were you looking at?"
"I was... recalling the days when I attended the special school."
So she'd been thinking of the old days. Good thing I hadn't interrupted.
Partly to walk off lunch, I strolled the garden path—tended by professional horticulturists—with Franc, back from the past to the present.
Fitting a wealthy school foundation, there was a park on the grounds for the cultivation of the students' sensibilities. Beautiful scenery, a good atmosphere, lovely and tidy, so student couples brought packed lunches, ate together, and sunbathed there.
The old me couldn't even approach the place, thanks to an A.T. Field. But now I had Franc beside me!
And I was an ability user now!
Look! That couple was whispering while looking at me, too!
"Ah! Yeongjin, look over there! That's him!"
"Ah... that's the kid?"
"Yeah, yeah. They say he's the first survivor our school's produced in ten years."
"That's incredible. Not that I could do it."
What? Was that guy an ability user too? No, he wasn't.
The girl stuck to the boy who looked like her boyfriend trembled her shoulders as if frightened and leaned her head on his shoulder.
"If I get sucked into the Phase World, I absolutely, totally couldn't last. I'm scared..."
"Don't worry. If you get summoned to the Phase World, I'll follow you, and I'll protect you no matter what!"
"...Really?"
"Of course!"
"Yeongjin, I like you so much♡"
Tch. And here I thought it was something. You just wanted to look cool in front of your girlfriend?
Anyway. The first survivor in ten years. That was the line I'd heard most since I got to school today.
Ten years. It really drove home how low the survival rate was for minors. No wonder the rumor had spread through the whole school and people were whispering.
Walking the path under the gaze of a pair of cockroach-like things, it suddenly occurred to me that I was pretty light-novel-protagonist-like after all.
I had a childhood-friend noona who'd transformed into a stunning beauty, a sister so pretty you didn't even see her kind easily on TV—annoying as she was—and a peerless ghost young lady who loved only me, right here at my side.
Krgh. Last night's dream was coming back, and the blood was trying to pool in one place again.
Franc, floating along in front of me and even minding my line of sight, was watching the kids laughing and chattering with a faintly envious expression.
"There are a great many young people keeping company."
"Instead of studying like they're supposed to!"
"Pardon?!"
"Nothing. I just got the feeling I absolutely had to say that."
Come to think of it, had Franc never dated anyone while she was alive? Proposals and love letters had poured in, and she'd rejected them all, so maybe there hadn't been anyone she liked, either?
A question only a pathetic, possessive boyfriend would ask kept circling in my head.
The cliché devices that always showed up in romance novels looked pathetic when you took a step back and watched. Once you were the person involved, it was a completely different story.
In the end I couldn't hold it in, and I asked.
"Franc, before you entered the Phase World, was there anyone you liked?"
"Yes!"
Ghk. An i-instant answer?!
S-s-someone she l-liked. Well, Franc was twenty-seven, s-so it was only natural there'd b-be someone like th-that.
Calm down, me. The person Franc liked now was me! That other person was probably dead by now, sleeping eternally underground!
"Knight-Captain Florence Équire of the Regular Order, Knight-Captain Alain Dré of the Common Order, and Vice-Captain Ébel Noquion were persons of character, truly deserving of reverence!"
"...What?"
"Not one of the three was an ability user—they were ordinary people—yet their character and their integrity were so noble that even the ability users of the house liked and respected them, every one! They were so excellent that even the head of the house and the elders addressed them with honorifics and received them with every courtesy!"
At the sight of Franc clasping her hands and sparkling like a girl in love, the choked lump climbing my chest dropped clean away, and something cold and sparkling rushed in to fill the space.
The names she'd spoken were ambiguous—except for one, I couldn't tell whether they belonged to men or women—but the very fact that she'd named three people meant she'd used them in the sense of like, not love. No question.
She still wasn't used to Korean, so she must have mixed up love and like.
"People you respect and cherish that deeply. I'd like to meet them too."
Franc really did respect and like those three. Her eyes sparkled as she struck every pose imaginable and poured out their martial exploits and stories in a rush of excitement, and I spent all thirty minutes left of lunch listening in earnest.
Ding-dong, ding-dong.
"Ah. That's the warning bell. I should get back to the classroom."
"And so Master Noquion, in order to save their comrades, went so far as to defy the head of the house's orders... Pardon? Ah! The time. I've gone and used up all of Seoha's rest..."
As if! Every time Franc struck a pose, her swaying breasts and the overwhelmingly soft-looking fur down in that secret place made me lose all track of time!
Was something I could never say, not even on my deathbed.
"No. I was really moved, too. Especially the part where Florence, despite not being an ability user, carried their convictions all the way through and refused to overlook injustice—I actually got chills, you know?"
"Yes! Florence is truly magnificent!"
Recalling Florence again, her eyes went hazy, and a girlish expression came over her face.
If she liked and respected them that much, I ought to be broad-minded enough to understand.
"Is that the kid?"
"Yeah."
"Doesn't look like an ability user."
"They say that's him after he changed a lot. Before, he was short, wore glasses, and was an acne-covered pig."
"Whoa, then he changed a ton."
During break, as I walked toward the canned-drink vending machine, two boys whispering in my direction reached my ears.
Heh. Foolish commoners. Praise me, the ability user! Wahaha!
I focused Phase Power on my ears and started eavesdropping more closely. Other murmurs came through too, but once I concentrated, the exchange between the two came through clear.
"Anyway, the Phase World must not be as big a deal as people think."
Huh? What were they saying?
"Why? The graphs prove the Phase World is dangerous. And when that kid came back, the state he was in..."
"You didn't know? That's the weeb creep who used to wander around grinning that disgusting grin. If a weeb creep can make it back alive, then if we keep our heads on straight, our odds of surviving ought to be even higher. Don't you think?"
"...I don't think that's it. Not every otaku is a complete loser, and that kid's Senior Siha's little brother, so he might have some other talent. Right? And if it were as easy as you say, our school wouldn't have produced its first survivor in ten years."
"Well, maybe. But I heard that guy took eighteen seconds to run a hundred meters at the fitness test. Couldn't even climb the bar, and couldn't do a single pull-up."
Ghk!
"Whoa. For real?"
"That's why I'm saying it. You admit it?"
"Yeah. I admit it."
"Heh heh. ...Hey, but why's that guy just standing there all of a sudden?"
"Right? No way he's listening to us, is he?"
"...Creepy. Hey, let's go."
"Y-yeah."
I was shaking.
I could feel the two of them hurrying off. I'd thought no way, no way—but the kids whispering about me from a distance weren't envying me for becoming an ability user. They were badmouthing me like that?!
Still telling myself it couldn't be, I focused on the whispers around me, and countless conversations poured into my ears. Most of the ones about me compared my past and my present, and treated the Phase World as easy, or looked down on it.
The girls in particular took one look at my somewhat gaunt face and called it scary, called it hideous. Urk, the b-back of my head!
Rage rose until my guts went cold! I'd been so sure they were looking at me with envy, squealing that they wanted to come talk to me!
The story flipped completely in half a day!!
"This is unreasonable!"
The moment class ended I bolted home and shouted, feelings and all, at my sister, who was sprawled on the sofa like a sloth.
Siha was lying on her stomach reading, wearing nothing but a pink sports bra that left her navel bare and short hot pants of the same color. At the sudden nonsense she put on an expression that asked what on earth I was talking about.
Rolling around dressed like that again! Even without deliberately running Search, the curves of her body were on blatant display, so I looked away for a second—then snapped my eyes right back and hurriedly drew the living room curtains.
When I swept the apartment building across the way with Telescopic Vision, Search had caught several bastards peeking this direction with telescopes and binoculars.
These sons of bitches. Sending lecherous looks at someone else's sister! I ought to just—!
"What exactly is so strange?"
"I'm an ability user now, and I'm not popular with the girls at school!"
For a moment Siha looked utterly dumbfounded, then shook her head with a face that, if this were a comic, would have had a black whirlwind raging over it.
The way her whole body called me childish, it seemed my sister wasn't going to acknowledge my grievance either.
"I heard what the kids were saying at school today, and it was nothing but them looking down on me! That's weird, right?! I'm not an acne fatty anymore, I got taller, and I even became an ability user—at this point, being popular should be normal, shouldn't it?!"
Then, along with a look that said how pathetic, came an expression that said so this sorry creature was her little brother. Something about it felt ominous.
"Little brother."
She sat cross-legged, put on a gentle expression, and called to me in a soft voice. I answered with an uneasy look.
"Yeah?"
"Do the kids at school know your ability?"
"No?"
I'd told Kang So-ra it was Detection, but why would I spell out the details? You never knew what might happen. You hid eighty percent of your ability.
And tell them I had an ability that scanned a whole body and saw straight through to bare skin? Do that, and if nothing else, the girls would try to bury me.
"That's the problem. You are clearly an ability user, but you don't look like one."
"Whaaat?"
I didn't look like an ability user?! What kind of talk was that, Sister?!
"Compared to before, you definitely got better-looking, but..."
"But?"
"It's a common face, isn't it?"
Hearing it point-blank was a shock.
"So if you want to assert yourself and win any popularity around you, first you have to show a technique that's unmistakably yours—something that makes it clear you're an ability user, something they can't look down on. Can you show them that?"
"There aren't even any Aberrants. How am I supposed to show them..."
"That's what I mean. A common face, an ability that's Detection, and no means of showing anything outstanding. Oh my. Of course you aren't popular?"
She shrugged with a pitying expression, and the intent to tease was thick in it.
This damn woman, running her mouth just because it was open! And I couldn't even deny it, so I felt like I was going to cry.
"Damn it!"
"Eek! Hey! Jung Seoha!!"
Rage surged at the assault of facts. In a fit of anger I hurled the empty leather bag I'd been holding straight at my sister's chest, then bolted for the front door.
"Youuu! Come back in here and you're dead, you hear me!"
"Don't care! You flat-chested fatty!!"
A terrifying shriek erupted behind me, and I worried a little about what came next—but I had Search and Phase Power control now! I was not going to live getting smacked around by my sister!
As if I was scared of her!
...
I'd go home later, after Mom got off work.