Chapter 78: Second Arrangement (4)
Ignoring the murmuring students behind me, I sat down in the seat next to Merhen.
“Th-thank you…”
“You're eating that weird lunchbox again today?”
“… Pardon?”
“You know, the one with just a single boiled potato. Are you eating that?”
Merhen's face turned bright red.
“H-how did you…”
“I saw it. By chance.”
Even though there was a cafeteria, she always ate hiding somewhere.
So I followed her and checked it out.
Watching her force down nothing but boiled potatoes had been pretty pitiful.
“Let's eat together today. I'll treat you.”
“No, it's fine…”
“Tsk. People need to eat hearty meals to live properly. Just come along.”
She hesitated for a moment.
But she quietly followed and stood in front of the cafeteria. Numerous food models were visible between the menu boards.
“Pick something. At least 5 silver worth.”
1 silver felt roughly like 10,000 won. Fortunately, this Kern guy had a decent amount of money.
Even if he didn't, it didn't matter.
I could just pull junk items from my inventory and sell them for silver or gold.
Maybe because nobles were the main customers, the prices for a single meal got brutal the higher up you went. Still, nobles rarely went for the cheap stuff.
It was a sort of dignity maintenance fee.
“I-I'm really fine…”
“You like meat, right? How about that one?”
I pointed to a model of beef stew loaded with big chunks of meat.
Gulp.
I heard her swallow.
As expected.
I'd never seen anyone who hated meat. Merhen was no exception.
I placed the order. After a short wait, the stew arrived just like the model, packed with meat. They even threw in extra veggies for health.
“Eat up.”
I scooped some stew into my mouth first.
A soft, rich meaty flavor spread out.
‘Tasty.’
Seeing that, Merhen started devouring her stew just as eagerly.
A happy smile appeared, so it seemed to suit her taste.
Well, this had to be a hundred times better than a boiled potato. As we were finishing the stew, I asked,
“Is academy life tough?”
Slurp! “Yes? Uh?”
“I asked if it's tough.”
“I-it's fine.”
“Doesn't look fine to me.”
“…”
She stared silently at her stew.
Soon, she lifted her head and asked,
“Is this why you helped me?”
“What do you mean by 'this'?”
“… What you're doing to me right now, Kern. Buying me food like charity to a beggar, just to mock me?”
“It's not mocking.”
“… Then why ask something like that?”
Her eyes, which had been bright just moments ago while eating stew, turned deeply gloomy, as if it had all been a lie.
“If I say I'm struggling, would anything change?”
“Yes. A lot.”
“No. Nothing. Even if it did, I'm still just a half-baked failure who can't even get the sponsorship everyone else does.”
Sponsorship.
I'd heard academy students were all about getting sponsors.
Usually, the higher your noble parent's title and your own talent, the more sponsorship money poured in.
In that sense, Merhen had no shot at sponsorship.
A commoner and a half-baked mage.
It was like throwing money on the street.
“You're half-assed.”
“… What?”
“You're not fully standing on your pride, nor have you completely abandoned it. You haven't quit being a mage, but you're not burning with passion either.”
“…”
“One thing I know for sure is that people who are half-and-half end up with nothing.”
Merhen bit her lip and asked,
“What do you know about me…”
“If you were going to abandon your pride, you'd have begged me for help because you're struggling. If you were going to hold onto it, you wouldn't have accepted the food in the first place.”
I spoke to her, who seemed at a loss for words.
“If you were quitting mage life, you'd have left here or looked for other work by now. If you were passionate, you'd have risked your life for manifestation. But none of that.”
It was exactly the behavior of someone her age.
All of it half-assed.
In other words, she couldn't choose and focus.
“… That's awfully expensive for the price of one meal.”
“No. I'm the one paying you for this.”
Kim Minwoo said with a serious face.
“Half-assedly worrying about others and racking up debts, half-assedly getting picked on, half-assedly clinging to dreams. Has your life gotten any better?”
“Then what am I supposed to do! I'm just a talentless commoner half-baked mage! Should I resist the nobles? Quit the academy I barely got into?”
“If I were you, I'd have succeeded in manifestation or died trying by now. And I'd have fought the nobles long ago.”
“Ha, easy to say.”
“That's why it's hard, and why you have to do it. Why do you just take it lying down? Because you're a commoner? No talent? All excuses.”
“I told you. I can't even use a single spell.”
“But you can still fight. Right?”
Merhen was speechless.
“If you fight, those bitches will kill you? Ruin one commoner and get expelled? No way, right? If they're sane, they'll at most break a few limbs.”
“…”
“Don't you think a crazy bitch who snaps and goes wild is better than a pathetic doormat?”
“You know since you're a noble too. If I resist, my family will be in danger…”
Kim Minwoo smirked.
“Was that really why you stayed quiet? Not just because you're scared?”
“… Why are you so sure? What if that's really the case?”
“If you were really holding back for your family, you wouldn't live so stupidly. Those kinds do it with venom in their eyes. They'd risk their lives for manifestation.”
Merhen bit her lip.
Truth be told, Kim Minwoo knew.
It was incredibly hard to expect that level of resolve from a girl her age.
‘So what?’
There was no reason for him to understand that.
Help Merhen?
Actually, that was too easy.
Shower her with sponsorship money, pamper her, block all the bullying, become friends and hang out.
That would do it.
It was a really easy path.
But would good rewards wait for something anyone could do?
At least Gate Hunter wasn't that unfair game.
You get what you put in.
That was the law of this world.
The easy path and the hard path.
Kim Minwoo was a gamer who almost always chose the latter.
This time too.
Pampering her wouldn't change her core. And if he disappeared eventually?
‘It'd just vanish like bubbles.’
For Merhen to truly change, she had to do it herself, not rely on others.
She needed to fill her own self-esteem, think for herself, and act proactively.
That was the real way to happiness.
To change from the roots, he had to shake her up inside first.
That was why he was laying into her.
“Just looking at the situation. Do you think whining changes anything? I don't think so.”
“… Thanks for the meal. I'm leaving.”
Merhen shot up and left the cafeteria. I didn't bother stopping her.
I'd thrown out the first seed.
Now it was time to watch what happened next.
* * *
Merhen strode forward.
She'd bitten her lip so hard it was on the verge of bleeding.
Kern.
What an insolent bastard.
But what really pissed her off.
Was her own pathetic self, unable to muster a single proper rebuttal to his words.
Since when had her life gotten so messed up?
When she was born a commoner, not a noble?
When she took the aptitude test in her village?
When manifestation failed and she plummeted to rock bottom?
When she started borrowing money and overextending to protect her half-assed pride?
She didn't know.
One thing was certain.
Her life, now twisted into knots, was like a tightly tangled ball of thread she couldn't even dream of unraveling.
―You're half-assed.
Kern's words stabbed her heart like a dagger.
He was right.
She really was neither here nor there.
Just a lucky commoner girl who hit the jackpot, nothing more or less.
Then realizing luck was an illusion and crumbling in an instant like a fool.
Had she tried as hard as dying?
No.
Just following classes like everyone else and struggling in the library. That was it.
It could be called effort. But not enough to qualify as “dying for it.”
―Not just because you're scared?
Yeah, it was because she was scared.
Family?
As the fifth child, she was pushed aside by siblings and not even treated as a proper daughter. Just a tool to sell off.
Her tenant farmer father had bloodshot eyes from trying to sell her to some old noble.
Her mother was the same.
If she hadn't taken the aptitude test, she'd probably be some pot-bellied noble's concubine by now.
Holding back for family?
Merhen smiled bitterly.
‘Fucking idiot bitch.’
Honestly, it was just something she spat out.
That she wasn't that worthless.
That she had her reasons. To that Kern who seemed to see right through her heart, she felt she had to make some excuse.
She already knew she was at the bottom.
Today just made her face it again. But why did her heart sting so much?
She couldn't make sense of it.
That was when it happened.
“Hey, half-baked.”
A familiar voice came from somewhere. She whipped around to see a familiar face.
Dolores.
And her entourage of young ladies.
Five women started approaching her.
Especially Dolores's eyes were spinning with rage.
“If you can't do magic, just shut up and leave. Expulsion's not far off anyway, so now you're trying to hook a guy to leech off? Huh?”
“Oh, Lady. You know better. Lowly blood doesn't just vanish.”
“Right, right. Looks like she wants to snag a guy to fix her fate, but that one's famous, you know? The ending's obvious.”
Pretending to hold her back while slyly egging on Dolores's words. That was the young ladies.
Soon, Dolores was right in her face, jabbing her chest with her finger.
Each time, Merhen was helplessly pushed back.
Of all times, when her mood was absolute shit.
Really, nothing was going right today.
Everything pissed her off.
The Dolores in front of her, the idiot young ladies giggling beside her. All of them.
‘What am I even enduring this for?’
When she couldn't even use magic like that bitch said, and she'd have to leave here soon anyway?
Was her worthless life that precious?
Even after leaving the academy, a sewer-like existence awaited.
Thinking it over, there wasn't a single reason to hold back.
No.
If she endured this and got expelled, she'd regret it for life.
“You filthy bitch. What are you gonna do about my hair? Should I kill your whole family? Huh? Just say the word to Daddy and…”
“… Do it.”
“… What?”
“Do it then. Kill them all, you fucking bitch!”
Grab.
Merhen seized Dolores's now-shortened hair.
She shook her hand wildly, veins bulging. Dolores's head flopped around like a balloon doll.
“Aaack!”
“Lady!”
“Is this crazy bitch nuts?! Let go?!”
All the women gathered here were mages, sure. But none thought to use magic.
They never expected Merhen, who'd been mouse-quiet for so long, to suddenly go berserk like this.
And outside class, casting magic on others was forbidden. The young ladies were thoroughly accustomed to that rule.
In the end, the most familiar hands lashed out. The young ladies grabbing Merhen's head, neck, shoulders, arms, pinching and beating.
Merhen ignored them all, clinging desperately to Dolores's hair and body.
“Die, you cunt!”
“Let go! Aaaah!”
The six women tangled up and brawled like dogs. Students and professors started gathering amid the chaos in an instant.