Looks Like They Got Ganked (1)
Monday.
The first place Jin Gyeo-wool went after reporting for school duty was, of course—
"Hey."
—Choi Go-yun's seat.
If this had been last week, she would have headed straight for the farthest corner, sat down quietly, stuck wireless earbuds in her ears, and stared intently at something until class started. That was how well-behaved she was supposed to be before the bell.
"What the hell did you say to your brother?"
But Choi Go-yun knew full well he had done something worth getting summoned over. He had done it on purpose, hadn't he?
Passing the slave seat off to his little brother and filling the kid's head with empty hope so he would stay a slave forever—that operation had been a roaring success. Yesterday's hopeful declaration from Choi Do-yun, the moment he got home, was all the proof anyone needed.
"I'm… going to make Noona happy."
It was a line so cringeworthy it could make you throw up. Like a servant or maid nursing a crush on the young lady of a ducal house.
Choi Go-yun pictured that idiotic look on his brother's face and answered Gyeo-wool.
"I, uh… didn't really say anything special."
Still, after all the hours they had spent gaming together at the PC bang, he wasn't as terrified of having his hair ripped out as he used to be.
"You didn't say anything special, and yet the kid has some serious misunderstanding going on."
No—he was still terrified after all.
Gyeo-wool stepped in close, their eyes met naturally, and he felt the murderous intent swimming in her pupils.
"I-I really didn't say anything!"
He had steeled himself not to get nervous. Wishful thinking, apparently.
Choi Go-yun berated himself for crumbling before fear. But those eyes were terrifying. Eyes that could kill a person—or rather, kill a person socially.
"…Is that so."
And yet, just as Lee Yeong-bin had said, Jin Gyeo-wool had definitely mellowed out compared to before. The old Gyeo-wool, who would try to devour you over the slightest thing, had been gone for a long time now. If he had to describe the current version, she was like a tiger whose claws were still intact but whose teeth had loosened so she couldn't bite properly.
"Anyway, thanks for the introduction. I found a good teammate because of you."
Her way of thinking, though, was still pure villainess. Dressing up a slave as a "teammate." The way she spun it so smoothly it almost sounded convincing was enough to give him chills.
"A teammate, though?"
He should have left the conversation there, but Choi Go-yun couldn't rein in the curiosity that rose up on instinct. The reason he had climbed all the way to Diamond was curiosity about the game. Curiosity made him dig, and dig, and dig some more, until he ended up there. So the fact that he couldn't control his instincts and charged straight in now wasn't really a failure of judgment.
"Ah. We're entering a tournament in August. An amateur one."
Choi Go-yun had heard of amateur tournaments. The Presidential Cup run by the Korea Esports Association, if he remembered right. That was the one his little brother Choi Do-yun always had on his lips—someday, when he found teammates he clicked with, he wanted to enter for sure.
But why was Jin Gyeo-wool going?
Isn't that the kind of place kids who want to go pro enter to build their careers?
He had seen with his own two eyes that she was good at Recon, but wanting to become a pro gamer was a completely separate issue. The general consensus in the Recon scene was that even if a female Plum showed up, debuting would be nearly impossible. And Jin Gyeo-wool? A girl who had barely hit Master tier?
She's probably just looking to make a memory.
So Choi Go-yun decided it wasn't a big deal and let it go. If she genuinely wanted to go pro, she wouldn't be showing up at school right now—she'd be playing the game. It was the same reason he was always nagging his brother Choi Do-yun that his "attitude was all wrong." If you were going to do it, you had to give it everything you had. If you were going to half-ass it with some wishy-washy middle ground, you might as well stay a comfortably high-tier player like Choi Go-yun himself. Unless she had some ironclad reason she absolutely had to become a pro gamer.
Honestly, with Master tier and Jin Gyeo-wool's face, she could make a killing just by streaming. One appearance on that "tournament born of capital" famous among streamers, and fans would flock to her on their own.
Conclusion: Choi Go-yun was glad he had escaped Gyeo-wool's reverse harem. If he had stayed, he would have been dragged into the amateur tournament in Choi Do-yun's place, embarrassed himself with mediocre skills that were neither here nor there, and crawled back to ordinary life.
Now that it's come to this…
He had a new reason to keep feeding his little brother's delusions. The longer that kid played slave for Jin Gyeo-wool, the longer Choi Go-yun could stay free from the terror of hair-ripping.
Gyeo-wool was scary, but he was interested in the wealth she had. If hanging around her like this meant big gifts like last time, Choi Go-yun was more than willing to take a low posture with her. Think of it as practice for adult social life, and it got a lot easier.
And there was no need to feel too sorry for Choi Do-yun. An amateur tournament only happened once a year. Once they got demolished with pathetic skills and washed out in the prelims this year, Gyeo-wool would realize her own limits. She would also understand that everything she had been doing was just playing house.
"Got it. If there's anything I can help with, let me know. Fighting."
"…Thanks."
Somehow, Choi Go-yun felt like this was the first time he had ever heard Jin Gyeo-wool say thank you.
"I heard Jin Gyeo-wool turned into a total pushover."
"Come on. That Fight-Gyeo-wool? No way."
"I'm serious, I heard it. She paid for Lee Yeong-bin and his friends at the PC bang and bought them a ton of food."
Everyone was keeping their heads down, but that didn't mean nobody had grievances. In any society, there are people who keep their mouths shut and quietly nurse their resentment. Some hate the idea of starting trouble; some hate being the center of attention when trouble starts. All kinds of reasons keep their impulse to act locked down.
"Hilarious. Image rehab, you think?"
"Looks like it. Not even funny."
But every so often, something comes along that throws a match onto that bottled-up impulse. The target shows a moment of weakness. Or people who share the same opinion form a pack and get their confidence up. The three girls here satisfied both conditions.
"The way the guys all scramble around her is seriously hilarious, right?"
"They only leave her alone because she's a girl. Gyeo-wool knows that, which is why she acts even more unhinged."
"She treated us like her personal servants for a whole year, and now she wants an image makeover? Give me a break."
For the record, Jin Gyeo-wool had never done any such thing. In the atmosphere of fear, they had simply distorted the facts in their own memories. She had occasionally shown her temper and frozen the mood of the class solid, but that was the extent of it. Gyeo-wool swore she had never ordered anyone around like a slave.
So why had this atmosphere formed?
It was because of Lee Yeong-bin. Wanting to smooth over that incident from the start of the semester and improve the class mood, he had voluntarily become Jin Gyeo-wool's slave—and that image had burned itself into his classmates' memories with overwhelming force. Lee Yeong-bin asking for her opinion, Gyeo-wool answering curtly. That was the only picture that remained in their classmates' heads.
"Her family's loaded, right? Looks like she's trying to buy her image rehab with money too. Should we squeeze some cash out of her?"
"How?"
"We deliberately bump into her in the cafeteria, fall down, and say she pushed us. If we scream first, the other kids will believe us."
A truly clever strategy. Jin Gyeo-wool's school reputation was rock bottom, so if you just fanned the discontent a little, the fire would spread on its own.
The girls charged in without hesitation.
"Kyaa!"
Crash.
A stainless steel soup bowl and tray hit the floor with a clattering racket. Jin Gyeo-wool, who had merely been on the receiving end of the collision, got a little soup splashed on her hand from the impact. She flinched, but luckily the soup wasn't hot. Even through all of that, she kept a firm grip on her tray.
She hurriedly shook off the lukewarm broth and was about to ask the girl who had crashed into her if she was okay—when the girls' scheme kicked off.
"Dana, are you okay?!"
"Are you all right? What happened?"
The moment every eye in the cafeteria snapped toward the noise, the planned shot was fired.
"She—she just… I didn't do anything and she suddenly pushed me…"
Every pair of eyes turned on Jin Gyeo-wool. Whispers started up from every direction.
Cha Ga-eul, who had been walking behind Gyeo-wool, instinctively sensed a crisis. She immediately set her tray down to one side, snatched Han Yeo-reum's tray as well, and set it beside her own. Lee Yeong-bin, who had also picked up on the problem, came running over in a hurry.
"What are you talking about? When did I push you?"
He was always saying Hon Gyeo-wool had a rotten personality, but the truth was Bae Do-hyun was in no position to talk. If his patience had been just a little better, he wouldn't have beaten Jang Jae-hong, and then he wouldn't have gotten hit by a truck and died, and he wouldn't have ended up as a high school girl. He blamed Hon Gyeo-wool every time, but the patience explosions that happened mid-game were half Hon Gyeo-wool's fault and half Jin Gyeo-wool's.
"You're the one who came and bumped into me. Why are you talking like that?"
With the cafeteria in an uproar, Gyeo-wool's words didn't carry well to the people around them. Only the mean-faced girl who had collided with her heard them.
I knew it—she was just keeping her temper in check. Got her.
Good news for the girls. The more Gyeo-wool lost her cool and went wild, the easier it would be to slap a malicious frame on her.
The girl who had crashed into Gyeo-wool brushed a little side dish off her uniform and slowly stood up.
"What? Did you just say I bumped into you? Isn't that going way too far? You push someone and then try to make them look like an insurance scammer?"
Of course Jin Gyeo-wool wasn't going to take that kindly. The anger of Hon Gyeo-wool, embedded in her body, fanned the flames. Completely unaware that the other side was hoping she would come charging in, Gyeo-wool walked straight toward her opponent, tray still in hand. With the spilled soup on the floor, every step made a wet squelching sound.
"You are an insurance scammer. You came and bumped into me, then lied and said I pushed you."
Not having a human black box must have been the regret of a lifetime for Jin Gyeo-wool. He could feel it too. He was raising his voice to prove his innocence, but the looks aimed at him were not friendly. Everyone had the old Jin Gyeo-wool filter over their eyes, clearly thinking, Yep, Gyeo-wool's a psycho as usual.
At this rate…
He had done a little image rehab, and now this was how they were going to trip him up?
"Cut it out. There's nobody here who's going to believe you, you know? Just say you did it. If you put it that way, people will be shocked, but at least they'll believe you."
What kind of cruel treatment was that? It was the same as a public execution. The act of kicking Jin Gyeo-wool—who had finally crawled up out of the tunnel she had been hiding in, ready to leave the past behind and make a fresh start—right back down into the hole.
But the girl's words weren't wrong, either. If Gyeo-wool just said she had done something bitchy, the whole cafeteria would shrug and move on. Everyone seemed to want the lie they preferred to believe more than the truth.
The loneliness of standing alone in a crowd. Bae Do-hyun had felt this exact sensation more than a few times. So he knew well enough. How much Jin Gyeo-wool must have suffered alone. How much she must have torn herself down and seethed with frustration inside the pit she had buried herself in.
It wasn't Gyeo-wool's fault.
"Just say I did it…"
He wouldn't hold back. He would tell the truth. Even if everyone laughed at him, that was the right answer according to Jin Gyeo-wool's way of thinking.
He shifted the tray to his left hand and shot his right hand out fast, reaching to grab the lying girl by the collar. If words wouldn't work, he would force the truth out of her with strength.
"?!"
The girl flinched at Gyeo-wool's sudden move. The hand flying toward her felt like it was about to slap her across the face. Thanks to that natural physicality, there was even an afterimage.
And then the fear of Jin Gyeo-wool stamped into the girl's mind made her body malfunction.
"Kyaa!"
She let out a short scream and threw both hands out. Not only did Gyeo-wool's incoming hand get knocked off course—the girl's outstretched hands smacked both of Gyeo-wool's shoulders.
"Ugh?"
And under Gyeo-wool's feet was a generous puddle of today's cafeteria soup that the girl had spilled earlier—kimchi stew, of all things. Hit on both shoulders, Gyeo-wool's upper body lurched backward and her balance broke. She tried to shift her feet to catch herself, but right underfoot was a big chunk of kimchi.
"Waaah!"
A kimchi chunk meeting soup broth, performing the ultimate lubricating role. With a single cry, Jin Gyeo-wool kicked both feet high toward the sky and flung her tray into the air. To keep from cracking her skull, she had to throw her hands out in a breakfall. And that entire sequence looked, to everyone watching, like poor Jin Gyeo-wool had been shoved by a wicked insurance-fraud gang and gone sprawling on her back.
The reason was obvious. Gyeo-wool managed to twist her body and land without injury—but the tray she had flung skyward came down right on her back. Today's side dishes, rolled omelet and braised anchovies, pattered down onto Gyeo-wool's head, and cold kimchi broth cascaded over the back of her neck.
In an instant, Jin Gyeo-wool had been cast as the tragic heroine of a pure-love comic, subjected to some awful prank by a pack of jealous girls. Anyone looking could tell the villains were the scheming girls.
"What… what just happened?"
"Didn't that girl just shove Jin Gyeo-wool?"
"Holy crap. She's covered in soup."
"What is this, what's going on?"
The girls who had been lying needed to drag the situation back in their favor somehow. But public opinion in the cafeteria was already starting to shift, and roughly half of them were feeling sorry for Gyeo-wool.
Han Yeo-reum and Cha Ga-eul seized the moment, piled on the MSG, and cut off the scheming girls' escape route.
"Gyeo-wool, are you okay?! You guys, what on earth do you think you're doooing?!"
Han Yeo-reum seized the narrative with her booming voice, and—
"I saw it from over there. You came and bumped into her, didn't you? And this guy saw it too, right? Am I wrong?"
—Cha Ga-eul pulled the self-appointed slave Lee Yeong-bin into her well-crafted lie and locked the win down for good. Lee Yeong-bin wore a momentarily baffled expression, then read the room and quickly fell in with Cha Ga-eul.
Now the girls had nowhere left to run.
Because they had gotten ganked.
Valkyrie Jin Gyeo-wool's triple kill.