The Public Enemy (3)
Everyone, please greet them. These friends here joined us today as transfer students.
Morning homeroom. Yoon Sun-ho brought us to the class and introduced the newcomers.
By this point, my mind was completely blank. I just wanted to go home. No, even if I went back now, it would still be the same control, right? No matter how much I thought about it, the reason I had returned to school wasn't for this. I didn't even come here for school.
This is Kim Su-jeong, and this is Lee Jin-ah. Their seats for now... you can put them in the empty desk back there. The desks have a bit of dust, but wiping them should be enough.
Yoon Sun-ho handled the introductions with perfect timing and skipped the rest. After all, anyone who had been here for twenty years would naturally have their eyes glued to new transfer students.
I walked behind them, leading the stiff Kim Su-jeong who kept staring at the floor. The hostile, envious gazes that wanted me dead didn't even register with me anymore.
"?"
"...Tsk."
At that moment, my eyes met someone else's. It was the girl in the back seat. She glared at us with obvious hostility, and I felt a slight jolt. Her nametag read Kim Su-han.
"Then shall we move on to the announcements?"
There was no time to quibble.
Yoon Sun-ho immediately began handling class matters. The students, sensing his authority over the class, started listening attentively.
But Kim Su-han didn't pull her stare away.
"Hey, that girl keeps glaring at us like we're about to eat her."
Kim Su-jeong tilted her head and whispered to me in panic. She couldn't bring herself to say she was glaring at us, not me.
"Just stay quiet for now. In case something happens."
The homeroom was wrapping up. I crossed my legs and leaned back comfortably in my chair, taking in every single one of those stares that felt like they could burn my skin.
But right now Yoon Sun-ho was here, so after class and when he left, there was no guarantee the stares would stop. I warned Kim Su-jeong anyway.
"It's obviously some kind of misunderstanding. You're not going to kill that girl, right?"
Ren, who no one else could see, climbed onto my desk and grabbed my arm, shaking it.
[Got it.]
I thought about it for a moment, then nodded. Even though it felt like I was already tangled up, I hated being dragged into pointless trouble.
According to the Demon Realm rules, anyone who got in my way got killed, but since we were dealing with humans, I figured I'd let a few kid troublemakers off once or twice.
Of course, that required quickly reading the situation and spotting the timing, but whatever.
"Hey, transfer student."
As soon as Yoon Sun-ho left, she stood up like she had been waiting.
My guess was right. The uniform looked a little tight on her, her face was still babyish, and the makeup was slapped on... she seemed like a kid who was already heading down the wrong path.
"Why?"
"You're so arrogant—"
"Hey, knock it off."
Just as she was about to start a full-on fight, someone else stepped in and pulled her back. A boy from nearby.
"Are you crazy?"
"Can we talk for a minute?"
The guy looked friendly, so he grabbed her hand and dragged her out of the classroom. A small storm had just passed.
That storm was enough to make the other kids around us hesitate and not approach us. It had gone even more wrong than I expected. Maybe it was all part of his plan.
"Kids these days are so mature."
"...Says who?"
I grinned and laughed. Ren clicked his tongue in exasperation.
"Next class is starting soon, but he's not coming back... Guess he got tagged by us troublemakers."
"Stop worrying about useless stuff and focus on studying. It's going to be hard to catch up. Actually, the kid who hasn't even been to school properly in the first place."
"...What about you? That's you too."
"Me?"
I snorted at Kim Su-jeong's words. I never had any intention of studying in the first place. Especially not middle school stuff. I didn't even need to look at the books.
"But you do, right? You have roots here and you're going to stay and live here from now on. So worry about yourself. In this era, even having good grades might be necessary if you're going to do something."
At that moment, the bell rang. The noisy kids settled back into their seats. The two cute troublemakers who had left earlier returned to the classroom.
Kim Su-han marched straight to her seat with a stiff face.
"Hello?"
"...Yeah."
This boy came right up to me and greeted me directly. His nametag said Park Tae-joon. He looked tall and clean-cut for his age.
"Let's get along well from now on. I'll introduce you to the other kids."
"Really? Why? I just transferred here today."
"Because you're pretty."
No hesitation at all in the answer. I was about to ask why he was starting trouble, but the unexpected reply froze me for a second.
I was starting to figure out his style.
"Want to play together?"
The boy grinned and flirted. I kept my expression blank and met his eyes. He was good at hiding his feelings for a kid.
But the pitch-black malice inside him couldn't hide from a magical girl's eyes.
"S-Stop that!"
Ren jumped in shock and blocked me and the boy.
[What exactly are you misunderstanding about?]
"N-No, I thought you were going to kill that boy. Think about it again. Being young means there are more chances, right?"
[...It's fine. I'm not killing little kids anymore.]
Just as English class started and the teacher was writing on the board, I laughed at Ren's urgent words.
[But it's weird. If you have performance points, you do anything, right? Magical girls don't do that to each other.]
"T-That's a rule. No matter how obsessed you are with performance points, you don't touch the kids who are future hopes. The very reason magical girls exist is that rule."
Ren wiped his chest in relief and muttered.
I wasn't lying. I really didn't plan to mess with kids unless it was absolutely necessary.
[But you know, Ren. This guy's just young in age, but his heart is pitch black. If I leave him alone, he won't let me off easy. He's already marked me as his target.]
"Then what do you plan to do...?"
[Well, I have to play with him a bit.]
The corner of my mouth lifted slightly. I wasn't particularly interested in kid's pranks, but I couldn't ignore him now.
And if anything, it might even be a chance. A chance to slip away that had been blocked by too many overlapping circumstances.
"..."
Kim Su-jeong looked at me worriedly, as if she had sensed what I was thinking.
I wrote her a note. If Park Tae-joon approached and said anything or did anything strange, don't panic and act normal.
Then go out and make friends as quickly as possible.
"He's not normal at all. I wonder what he's going to do. Worst case, he's just a snitch, so what could he possibly do?"
The class bell rang. The classroom started getting noisy again as the teacher packed his things and left. The boy stood up like he had been waiting and walked over to me.
*
'Orphan from a facility?'
Boring English class. Not many people were fully paying attention.
Park Tae-joon, seated in the middle, was no different. Right now he kept glancing at a single girl.
The transfer student today was Lee Jin-ah. Of course Kim Su-jeong was sitting next to her, but to him, it was only Lee Jin-ah.
The attraction wasn't for any other reason.
She had no idea, but from the very beginning, the appearance of the magical girl body she had been made into was stunning.
The beautiful face that didn't match her age and the makeup had been the biggest reason Kim Su-han started trouble and got Park Tae-joon's attention.
'I could have so much fun playing with her.'
Moreover, Lee Jin-ah was completely different from the other students.
No hesitation, no trace of caution when dealing with people around her. He didn't know that that ease was the freedom of the strong who could crush everything. He just wanted to break that ease.
'If I reject me one more time, I have no choice.'
The class ended. He stood up.
On his phone screen, a message was displayed: The two transfer girls are from the Management Bureau facility.
There was no reason not to use this weapon.
"Have you thought about it?"
"Are you going to take me with you?"
"Yeah."
"...Fine."
But Lee Jin-ah accepted his proposal without needing to pull out any weapons. He laughed.
Kim Su-jeong's face turned pale with worry at her friend's decision, but neither Lee Jin-ah nor Park Tae-joon paid any attention.
"I guarantee it'll be fun. I can do anything."
This wasn't the first time he had done this.
His family was the owner of a mid-sized corporation and a local influential figure, his uncle was a regional congressman, and his cousin was a prosecutor. From a very young age, he had been close to real power.
He already knew what kind of power he held and what it could do. No matter how haughty an orphan from a facility became, he could crush her in an instant.
"Hey."
"Huh...?"
"But do you have any alcohol? What do kids even do for fun these days?"
Park Tae-joon, however, couldn't even imagine that the beautiful girl he had chosen was a being who had transcended human common sense.