A Persistent Classmate
"Come here~~"
As soon as I arrive at school in the morning, Yang Jeongwon calls me.
What? Is that bastard already here? Why is he earlier than me? Is a bully allowed to be this diligent? Shouldn't a bully skip school, hang out with other delinquents, and only show up once in a while? Yang Jeongwon seems to lack the basic qualifications of a thug. If he's going to be like this, why even bother? He should just give the title to me. Wait, is that not it? Anyway, back to loser mode.
"Uh..."
"Hey, you piece of shit. Why weren't you at school?"
What? Is this bastard worried about me? I was absent for days, and even the teachers didn't care. But this guy was thinking about me? Seriously, he's disqualified as a bully. How can you be a bully with such a delicate heart?
"I... I was a bit sick..."
"Is this motherfucker faking it just because he got hit a little?"
"No, I was really sick. I couldn't even get out of bed."
"Shit. Getting knocked down by just that? Huh? How are you gonna survive with such a fragile body?"
See? He really is worried about me. A tsundere?
"Sorry."
"You piece of shit, I couldn't even eat bread because you weren't here. Go buy me some bread, fast."
As if it were second nature, he tossed two thousand-won bills onto the floor. Last time he only gave me one thousand, but today it's two thousand. He's surprisingly detail-oriented. Quite considerate, even.
"I'll be right back."
I ran again.
After arriving at school, Kwon Jua scanned the classroom.
I guess he's not here today either.
He had been absent for several days now. It wasn't that she was worried. Just curious? There was something she wanted to know.
That day, she had happened to see Gong In-bae getting beaten up. Gong In-bae getting beaten wasn't anything special. It happened every day. She had figured it was just another typical day, but the beating went on longer than usual, and In-bae's expression looked terrible.
Is he going to cause trouble at this rate?
While she was thinking that, Gong In-bae collapsed.
But she saw it.
She saw Gong In-bae reach for Yang Jeongwon's necklace as he fell.
And she saw the necklace vanish.
No one else would have noticed, but she did.
She didn't know how the necklace had disappeared. Was it some kind of pickpocketing skill? She didn't know the method, but she knew for a fact that Yang Jeongwon's necklace had vanished in an instant.
The necklace itself didn't matter. It was the how that intrigued her.
She was just curious.
Because she was curious and wanted to ask, she had been waiting for Gong In-bae. But since that day, In-bae hadn't showed up to school.
Rather than being worried about Gong In-bae, Kwon Jua was simply dying of curiosity about how he had stolen it. She just wanted to ask.
Right then, the back door of the classroom slid open, and Gong In-bae walked in, holding a bag of bread.
Maybe because I had collapsed, or maybe because he mistakenly believed his fists were nuclear-powered, or perhaps because a shred of pity remained in his heart—whatever the reason, he didn't beat me today. Sweet.
On the way home.
My heart is already fluttering at the thought of dinner tonight. Before I got the Inventory, I had nothing to eat, so the school lunch was my only meal of the day. But now, I can eat my fill for dinner, and even choose what I want.
Going to the warehouse discount mart last time and packing a ton of stuff really helped. I wonder if I've ever been this happy in my life.
"Gong In-bae!"
"Hey! Gong In-bae!"
Huh? Is someone calling me? My name is indeed Gong In-bae, but no one at school ever calls me by my name. They always call me 'beggar bastard,' so I thought that was my name.
But there's someone who remembers the name I had almost forgotten myself? Someone is calling my name?
When you call my name, I'll probably have to go over and take a few hits, right?
I thought I was going to get through the day without getting beaten, but as expected, the world isn't that easy.
When I turned toward the voice, Kwon Jua was standing there.
Today is full of surprises. It's surprising enough that someone at school knows my name, but that person is Kwon Jua.
Back to loser mode.
"Uh? What's up?"
"Can we talk for a second?"
"With me?"
"Follow me."
Kwon Jua left it at that and turned on her heel. I meekly followed behind her like a lost puppy.
She stopped in a deserted area behind the school. Then, she whipped around and stared at me with sharp eyes.
"You stole it, didn't you?"
"Stole what?"
"Yang Jeongwon's necklace."
"Me? No way. How could I steal Yang Jeongwon's necklace? I'd get beaten to death. Even if I found it, I would've returned it to him."
Personally, I thought that was a perfect response. A loser has to live a loser's life.
"No, you did. I saw you. I saw you steal it."
"You must have seen wrong. I didn't steal it."
Did she really see it? Even when I place an object in my hand and use the inventory ability, it just vanishes in a blink. How did she see it from that far away? Does she have amazing eyesight? Does she have Mongolian blood in her?
"I saw you touch Yang Jeongwon's necklace when you fell. Right after you touched it, the necklace was gone."
"It must have been a coincidence. Maybe the chain snapped, and it just happened to fall when I collapsed. Or, like you said, I might have brushed against it as I went down. If I could remember, I'd tell you in detail, but I was getting beaten so hard I lost consciousness. How could I think about stealing a necklace in that state? I don't really remember, so I can't give you a detailed answer."
I tried to convince Kwon Jua by emphasizing that I was the victim. I don't remember. Wasn't I getting beaten up? How does someone steal a necklace while getting beaten up? Like that.
"No. You definitely stole it."
"No matter how much you say that, I didn't steal it."
"Then let me see."
"See what? My backpack? Sure, go ahead."
I took off my backpack and held it out to her. But Kwon Jua didn't take it.
"No, it's already been two days. You wouldn't keep it in your bag. You might have sold it, or hidden it in some secret place no one knows about."
"So what are you trying to say?"
"Just tell me how you stole it. That's all I'm curious about. It happened in the blink of an eye. I just want to know the method. I don't care about that stupid necklace. I'll keep it a secret from Yang Jeongwon."
"What have you been listening to this whole time? I told you, I didn't steal it."
"And I told you, I saw you."
"Then go ahead and report me. Go tell Yang Jeongwon that I stole his necklace. Then I'll get beaten half to death until the necklace shows up, all because of your guess."
"No, that's not what I mean. I'm just curious about how you did it."
"I said I didn't steal it!"
My voice cracked, rising to a shout—completely unlike my usual loser self.
Maybe it was because I was afraid of getting caught, or maybe it was a defensive reaction because Kwon Jua was showing curiosity toward my Inventory ability. I didn't know the exact reason myself. I just wanted to get out of there as fast as possible.
In any case, it was the first time I had ever raised my voice at school.
"If you have nothing else to say, I'm leaving."
I turned around and started walking. Kwon Jua followed right behind me.
"Wait up!"
"Why are you following me?"
"Where are you going?"
"I'm going home."
"Then I'm coming too."
"Where?"
"To your house."
"Are you out of your mind? Why would you come to my house? Are you really Kwon Jua?"
"I'm seriously going crazy with curiosity. Can't I just go and take a look once?"
"Ha... this is ridiculous."
"You live alone anyway, don't you? If your conscience is clear, you have nothing to hide."
"How did you know I live alone?"
"Huh? Is there anyone who doesn't know? I'm pretty much sure the whole school knows you're an orphan."
"Is that so? Well, I'm not an orphan. Though my situation is actually worse than being one."
Kwon Jua glanced at me before speaking again.
"If you let me search your place, I'll never suspect you again."
"...Fine. Whatever."
I didn't like it, but it didn't really matter. I didn't know why she insisted on coming to my house, but if showing her my place once could clear her suspicion, so be it. She would never find it anyway. If taking her to my house once could dispel any suspicion about my Inventory, that was more than enough.
"It's a tough climb. Keep up."
"How much further?"
"We're almost there."
"You said that a minute ago."
"Because you asked a minute ago."
"Hmph."
"It's that house over there."
I pointed toward a dilapidated house sitting at the very bottom of the mountain slope.
It was a house my dad had bought.
Almost nothing that man did ever ended cleanly. Most of his actions only brought trouble. He made trouble impartially, without discriminating between big and small matters. He made the wrong choice every single time.
The only thing he ever did right was buying this house.
Why? Because his bad choice actually worked out in my favor.
He had bought the house on a whim, without looking into it, simply because it was cheap. As it turned out, the owner of the land and the owner of the house were different. What my dad bought was just the building, while the land belonged to someone else. Actually, was it two people? Or three?
For someone to buy this house, they would have to meet my dad, the house owner, and the two or three unknown landowners to negotiate the price and draft a contract.
But that process was by no means easy.
Even for normal houses where the land and building came as a package, buying one was a massive headache. So trying to track down and negotiate with multiple landowners and a house owner who were all different people? It was practically impossible.
On top of that, human greed knows no bounds.
If someone expressed interest in buying, both the house owner and the landowners would demand exorbitant prices. The buyer would have to negotiate through all these conditions while paying a premium. There were far better properties on the market than to go through all that trouble.
For that reason, this house was incredibly difficult to sell.
And that was why the house was still registered under my dad's name, and why I didn't have to live on the streets. Since the house couldn't be sold. If it could have been sold, I would have been kicked out onto the streets long ago.
But it wasn't just this house. The entire neighborhood was like this.
There were about twenty to thirty houses in this area, but the number of landowners was close to fifty. The landowners, house owners, and residents were all different.
Such a tangled web of contractual relationships posed a massive obstacle to redevelopment. Despite being located in the heart of Seoul, this hilltop slum had never been redeveloped for this very reason.
It wasn't that construction companies hadn't tried.
Prominent companies whose names anyone would recognize had come in, handing out flyers and meeting with residents, claiming they would redevelop the area. They confidently claimed they were different and began buying up properties.
First, they bought the houses with clean titles. Then, they put effort into securing the ones with complicated contracts, tracking down individuals one by one to persuade them.
However, even those who owned less than a single pyeong of land demanded massive compensation plus a brand-new apartment. Those with larger plots argued that their compensation should increase proportionally to those with smaller plots. If a one-pyeong owner got compensation plus an apartment, then a ten-pyeong owner demanded ten times the compensation and ten apartments.
This was the ultimate albakgi holdout. The landowners and house owners made absurd demands and threats as if it were their daily routine. They were completely unreasonable.
In the end, even the construction companies threw up their hands and left.
The people who had sold their houses left the neighborhood, the construction companies left, and with no people around, the local business owners left as well.
Empty houses began to crop up everywhere, and commercial spaces became vacant. The neighborhood turned into a hollowed-out slum. It was eerie. Even delinquent teenagers didn't come here, claiming the energy of the place was bad.
And I lived at the very top of that neighborhood.
I ended up bringing Kwon Jua all the way to my house.
Even though she had insisted on coming, she seemed to hesitate in front of my ruin of a house. Was she afraid a ghost might pop out?
"Hurry up, look around, and go," I said bluntly, stepping inside.
Our house was small, but the yard was quite spacious. Honestly, I didn't know if this yard belonged to us, the neighbors, or if it was just part of the mountain. It didn't matter. I just liked having a wooden platform here where I could look down at Seoul.
I set my backpack down on the platform, opened the front door, and spoke to Kwon Jua.
"This is my house. I won't even step inside, so feel free to search wherever you want. Oh, I'm taking this out, though. I'm starving."
I grabbed a portable gas burner and two packs of ramen that were sitting right inside the door and walked back to the platform.
"Okay..." Kwon Jua replied, her voice lacking its earlier confidence.
Was she scared to enter a haunted house?
While she hesitated at the door, I started boiling the ramen on the platform.
Even if she searched for a lifetime, she would never find the necklace. Because it was safely tucked away inside my Inventory.
The ramen boiled deliciously. It was time to eat.
I blew on it to cool it down, about to take a bite, when—
"Can I have a bite?"
An unwelcome voice drifted from behind my back.