Chapter 133
Chapter 133
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 133
Chapter Title: Lectures, Research, Administration
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Professors were involved in all aspects of school operations. They naturally formed close relationships with the students.
But there were a few exceptions.
Tactics Professor Woo Kyohwan was a prime example.
He extremely disliked private interactions.
The students avoided him as well.
A bizarre man whose thoughts were hard to read.
He was so taciturn that one wondered if it was okay to be that quiet normally, yet sometimes he would have outbursts over trivial matters. Woo Kyohwan was a person who was impossible to pin down.
"That kid during the re-examination... was Ben Lightning really the Thunder Tribulation? House Kang's bloodline skill satisfies causality to that extent? Japan only has one bloodline skill that powerful."
Mumble mumble mumble.
Woo Kyohwan, adjusting his cracked glasses, continued muttering.
Even as the tip of Jae-hyeok's sword came right up to his nose, he showed no concern.
Did he believe a mere 16-year-old boy wouldn't actually cut him down?
No.
He had already been cut.
He had felt the intense killing intent from the blade grazing his chin.
Yet the fact that he wasn't scared meant he had something to rely on...
'Or he holds his life cheaply.'
Jae-hyeok knew well what a terrified expression looked like.
He faced it in the mirror every day.
Whether crying or laughing.
He could precisely catch the moment when a person's face revealed their attachment to life.
But Woo Kyohwan right now showed no will to survive.
That said, he didn't seem to have given up on life in despair either.
His eyes, blankly staring at Jae-hyeok, burned with fervent desire.
It was as if he had something more important than his own life.
"How did that kid cut the Thunder Tribulation? And now, how did he endure it this time? Does the pitch-black sword sheath have resistance to lightning? No, it's ordinary. Maybe the bloodline itself resists the Thunder Tribulation. That would explain why Yaksha at his peak became an outstanding figure among National Treasures. He overcame the Thunder Tribulation more easily than others and leveled up quickly. But Japan's association and nobles show no interest in House Kang. If House Kang's bloodline resists lightning, that kid should have fallen into Japan's hands long ago..."
"......"
His muttering, so quiet it was hard to make out and at an incredible speed, made Jae-hyeok uncomfortable.
The lips moving ceaselessly and rapidly were grotesque.
'Should I just kill him?'
Jae-hyeok considered it for a moment but held back.
When Woo Kyohwan had mentioned Jo Seong-hyeon and the armistice agreement.
Jae-hyeok had thought he was the culprit who attempted to assassinate Jo Seong-hyeon.
But upon second thought, there were many inconsistencies.
If he were really the culprit, would he come find me so openly?
'No reason to cause a scene in the middle of downtown and advertise himself as the perpetrator.'
A Lion's Castle professor had much to lose.
'Besides, from the start...'
Jae-hyeok replayed the fight in his mind.
Woo Kyohwan had never used lethal force from beginning to end.
The black threads spilling from his bag at the end had threatened Jae-hyeok's life...
'But that hardly seemed intentional.'
Woo Kyohwan had sustained serious internal injuries just to control the black threads.
If he hadn't retracted more than half of them, Jae-hyeok would have been turned into a pincushion and died.
A half-baked Thunder Tribulation couldn't have perfectly dispersed hundreds of black threads.
"Urgh."
Jae-hyeok groaned as he stretched his body.
Even with 40 percent lightning resistance, the damage from the Thunder Tribulation wasn't zero. His whole body tingled, and his head buzzed painfully.
'How do the kids endure this training...?'
The Seed Team members and Archery Club members with zero lightning resistance.
The pain they felt each time they got hit by the Thunder Tribulation was probably a bit(?) more than he imagined.
Jae-hyeok felt a pang of sympathy for a moment.
'Just dodge it and you won't get hit.'
It was training meant to teach evasion in the first place.
Getting hit meant you failed.
'Plus, we heal them with potions.'
Jae-hyeok pouted.
Train them, heal them.
He felt a bit resentful toward those who complained despite being given everything.
'Even S-Rank Players would envy training to dodge Thunder Tribulations.'
Mumble mumble mumble.
As his irritation peaked, Woo Kyohwan's muttering grated even more.
"Whatever."
Thwack!
The scabbard Jae-hyeok swung struck Woo Kyohwan's back hard.
"The secret to reacting to the Thunder Tribulation's speed at level 10 is thanks to training in the ultra-high-speed Kang Family Iaido... Gah!"
Woo Kyohwan's muttering finally stopped.
Black blood poured from his wide-open mouth as he screamed.
He had vomited dead blood from his internal injuries.
The pharmacist old man widened his eyes.
"He drew out the congealed blood inside with a clubbing? That Kang Jae-hyeok kid... he must be well-versed in medicine too...!"
"...?"
Jae-hyeok felt extreme fatigue.
The situation grew more absurd the more he thought about it.
Treated like a debtor by the health center owner he came to buy snake venom from, nearly killed by a deranged professor's attack, electrocuted by a Thunder Tribulation, and now praised for medical knowledge just for giving a beating.
'I just came out to pick a birthday gift for my friend's dad.'
The world really was dangerous.
What if the attacker today had been a high-level assassin instead of Woo Kyohwan?
Just imagining it gave him chills.
His recently dulled sense of reality sharpened again amid the growth spurt.
Fear welled up.
"...I have been rude."
It was the moment Jae-hyeok's face crumpled.
Woo Kyohwan, having spat black blood, finally came to his senses and spoke.
"I'm sorry for attacking without explanation. Please accept my sincere apologies."
"Is that something you can just apologize for and be done with?"
The pharmacist old man interjected.
"Tch, tsk tsk. A teacher beating a student like that. Jae-hyeok, drink this potion. And apply this burn salve. It'll work well."
The old man's gaze toward Jae-hyeok had changed as he handed him the potion.
The sharp glare that had looked at him like the son of an enemy debtor had softened to one beholding a grandson.
It was the aftermath of being impressed by Jae-hyeok's skills.
"I'll give you some acupuncture too. How about it? Feels great, right? This is the pinnacle of medical technique. How about becoming my disciple and learning it?"
Not for his swordsmanship, but for the clubbing that drew out the blood clots...
'It does feel refreshing.'
Jae-hyeok entrusted his body to the old man, who precisely targeted the shocked muscles from the electrocution with needles, and nodded toward Woo Kyohwan.
"Start with a detailed explanation. If it convinces me, then I'll accept your apology."
"Hmm..."
Woo Kyohwan nodded readily.
Though it was an unexpected accident, he had nearly harmed a young student.
He was aware of how grave his mistake was.
"I suppose I should start with the part about recently contracting with an Evil Eye."
Snap!
"...!"
As Woo Kyohwan snapped his fingers, everyone's eyes widened.
A pink, round demon that looked like a lump of flesh clumped together.
More simply put, a 'giant eyeball' floated above Woo Kyohwan's head.
A demon.
Fearsome enough already.
But the Evil Eye's appearance was repulsive too.
Everyone was startled by its sudden appearance.
Jae-hyeok was startled as well.
Just for a different reason.
'Demon.'
Jae-hyeok had sensed the Evil Eye's presence from the start.
But he hadn't known its true nature was a demon.
It wasn't something commonly seen, so he hadn't jumped to that conclusion.
'This Evil Eye guy, and the Snake God's Curse too...'
Gods and demons really exist.
Information he had encountered via the internet or Player Manager with little sense of reality hit differently after awakening.
Jae-hyeok's heart raced.
The god the Lion Statue had mentioned.
And the demon soul sealed in the original Iyarugut.
The thought that he might one day face them for real stirred a strange anticipation.
Blink.
The Evil Eye's enormous eyeball, over ten times larger than a basketball, stared straight at Jae-hyeok.
But the eye was so big.
Hae-rin, the pharmacist old man, and the middle-aged woman all mistook it for glaring at them.
Woo Kyohwan began his explanation.
"After contracting with the Evil Eye, I tested for days how far I could utilize it in combat. Its stealth level precisely, the limits of its activity range, and so on. Then by chance, I witnessed it."
Woo Kyohwan paused while pulling out a handkerchief to clean his glasses.
He had finally noticed the cracks filling the lenses.
"...There was another Evil Eye inside Lion's Castle. It was observing dozens of hobgoblins."
"Hobgoblins...?"
"The exact group of tamed monsters that first attacked Jo Seong-hyeon. I didn't witness the process myself, though. It was only after hearing recently that Jo Seong-hyeon was attacked by an ogre that I inferred the hobgoblins' identity."
Woo Kyohwan, having pulled out a comb, fixed his disheveled part.
"I tracked the Evil Eye, not the hobgoblins. I had it stealth as much as possible and followed slowly to avoid detection. But by the time I arrived at the scene, the Evil Eye was already dead."
"By whom?"
"I don't know. But one thing is certain..."
Woo Kyohwan tapped his left eye.
"The material needed to contract an Evil Eye is the left eye. To supply energy for it to operate on Earth from its original dimension, you link it to your left eye."
In other words.
"If the Evil Eye dies, the contractor's left eye is destroyed. Potions or medicine can't restore it. Since it's the 'sacrifice' offered as a condition for contracting a demon, it's permanently lost."
"So that means..."
"The one wearing a fake eyeball is the culprit targeting that Jo Seong-hyeon guy or whatever."
The pharmacist old man cut in.
Woo Kyohwan, furrowing his brow, immediately corrected him.
"It's an artificial eye. Be wary of anyone wearing an artificial eye. Someone capable of contracting an Evil Eye and multiple tamed monsters is at least an A-Rank Player, and given the wide activity range, they're in a very free position—high chance they're a professor like me. They might be watching you from closer than you think."
"It's impossible to distinguish an artificial eye with the naked eye, right?"
The middle-aged woman, who had been hanging back since the incident, spoke up.
She was stepping forward on behalf of the students unfamiliar with artificial eyes.
Woo Kyohwan nodded.
"Correct. It looks identical to the real thing, and you can freely emit mana, making it hard to distinguish from a real eye. But for now, that's the only clue, so keep it in mind."
"So you suddenly attacked to warn me to be suspicious of professors and stay alert?"
"Yes."
"You're a real idiot of a professor."
"......"
Hae-rin stared at Jae-hyeok, who clucked his tongue with an innocent expression.
It was novel to see the boy who dropped lightning on friends and seniors under the guise of training criticize someone else's methods as idiotic.