Chapter 19
Chapter 19
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 19
Chapter Title: Settled In
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Mina's condition was obviously far from normal, even at a glance.
Ropes had been looped around every single joint on her body,
binding her tight. It looked just like...
'Turtle shell binding?'
Our Mina, I thought she was a lady, but turns out she's a gentleman?
'...Ugh. What the hell am I thinking right now.'
Sin Bihyeong turned his head away from Mina's violently provocative appearance.
The library was, after all, an academy facility.
There weren't many people who could truss her up like this inside it.
'Did the staff catch her?'
Sneaking into the library in the dead of night?
That would be a real problem.
At that moment, Mina shouted again.
"Bihyeong! Behind you!"
He whipped around reflexively on instinct.
"Peekaboo."
His eyes met those of a woman tilting her head with a smile.
"There you are. I figured there had to be one more person since the yokai domain wouldn't close... That junior of yours wouldn't talk no matter what."
Her appearance was familiar.
Her black hair stood out strikingly even in the library's darkness,
and despite her neat attire and round-framed glasses, her sharp eyes couldn't be hidden.
She seemed aware of it herself, constantly smiling with her eyes,
just like the image he remembered from the game.
'...Library Chairman.'
The very person he'd been waiting for was standing right in front of him.
'What the...?'
But Sin Bihyeong couldn't help being flustered by the situation.
'My advisor professor definitely said this mission would take the whole week...'
So why was she here?
Sin Bihyeong instinctively put some distance between them.
"Hmm."
The Library Chairman let out an odd hum as she watched him,
then flashed a bright smile and asked,
"What brings a first-year here at this hour?"
Sin Bihyeong knew he had to choose his words carefully.
Escape?
Impossible.
His face was already known, so running off with Mina was out of the question.
And even if it wasn't, escaping from the woman in front of him was impossible.
'The woman who doubles as Library Chairman and Morals Committee Chair.'
Not to mention, she was the top second-year student and one of the academy's strongest.
'She's already on par with some professors.'
And her specialty, Barrier Art, was beyond even most of the faculty.
Escaping from her would be a fool's errand in every way.
Sin Bihyeong bowed at the waist and apologized politely.
"First of all, I apologize for sneaking into the library in the middle of the night."
"Oh?"
Her eyes widened for a split second, as if his reaction was nothing like what she'd expected.
"Ahaha! Our junior's so polite! I even prepared a barrier in case you tried to run."
Snap!
The moment she lightly snapped her fingers, the faint spiritual power blanketing the area vanished.
She'd dismantled the barrier.
Whew.
Sin Bihyeong let out a quiet sigh of relief and straightened up.
"So? What brings you to the library?"
Fortunately, he already knew the one thing that would blow her mind.
He planned to steer the conversation from there.
"I heard the Chairman was out on a mission, so I had no choice but to sneak in."
"Wouldn't the normal thing be to wait?"
"Yes. But since it was supposed to take two weeks... I had urgent business and was rude."
"......"
The Chairman read the sincerity in Sin Bihyeong's eyes.
Those eyes burning with longing.
It wasn't an emotion you could fake easily.
"True. This mission was supposed to take the whole week."
The Chairman turned, lightly trailing her fingers along the bookshelves as she continued.
"But the library's barriers reacted. In the dead of night, no less."
So I pushed myself a bit.
Her face, which he hadn't noticed until now, was a touch paler.
'She overtaxed her dantian to shorten the original timeframe?'
She might have even damaged her innate energy beyond just exhausting her vital force.
Sin Bihyeong felt certain once more.
Yep, she's obsessed with those forbidden books.
"But that doesn't answer my question, does it? Why were our juniors so desperate to get into the library?"
"There was a forbidden book I wanted to see."
Forbidden books.
At those words, the Chairman's expression changed instantly as she closed the distance in one step.
"Forbidden books? Which one? Is the book your junior's after related to them too? Huh?"
Her face was close—machine-gun questions firing rapid-fire.
Her eyes, naturally, were too.
'...Full of longing.'
The change hit the moment forbidden books were mentioned.
'Makes sense.'
The reason she took on the unnecessary role of Library Chairman despite not needing to.
It was all to find the key to lifting the curse plaguing her.
'A woman already on par with professors at this point.'
And,
'The woman who becomes a villain later.'
She was fated to fail at lifting the curse and fall into villainy.
'I want to help, but unfortunately, I can't.'
In Mina's case, the path to her becoming a villain was detailed.
But for the Chairman in front of him, the game only notified that she was already cursed.
There was no way to lift it.
'Not even with the warehouse.'
Among Solo Biography's miscellaneous items, some could be combined into potions or elixirs with various effects,
including curse-lifting ones.
'But they failed.'
Even Sin Bihyeong, a veteran player, had failed to lift her curse.
"Junior?"
The Chairman's voice snapped Sin Bihyeong back to reality.
Her face was still close.
Close enough that her breath clung stickily to the fine hairs on his skin.
Yet looking into her eyes—filled only with longing, no lust—Sin Bihyeong shook his head.
"It wasn't anything that impressive."
"Then?"
"A way to lift a 'curse.' I was curious about that."
The longing intensified.
She saw him as one of her kind.
The eyes of someone convinced of that.
Sin Bihyeong felt a slight pang of guilt but pushed it aside.
'Well, the half-demon nature I have is similar to a curse.'
Searching for a way to lift it wasn't entirely wrong, right?
Yeah. Let's go with that.
"But why go for the forbidden books? You could've found plenty on curses in the regular sections."
"It's not exactly a curse—it's the kind that needs to be 'resolved.' Since forbidden books are related to yokai, I thought I'd find a resolution there."
Only then did the Chairman's interest seem to wane, her expression dropping.
'Because it's a different type from her curse.'
Listing similar symptoms to pique her sense of kinship was an option,
but in his view, it was a bad move.
'Would a woman obsessed with forbidden books searching for a cure stay put if she saw a similar curse?'
No. She'd act.
'And if she couldn't lift it despite that, it means one of two things.'
Either she tried everything and failed,
or she hasn't encountered it yet.
'Those eyes aren't broken from failure.'
They're desperate precisely because she hasn't tried it.
'So, the latter.'
Explaining he had similar symptoms in the midst of that?
She'd pounce immediately.
'She'd cling on somehow.'
But long-term, that's another bad move.
'If I can't show similar symptoms, she'll realize she was tricked.'
She's no fool.
As the top second-year, her sharp mind would see through his lie faster than expected.
So, go straight.
"I'm sorry for breaking the rules."
Sin Bihyeong bowed at the waist again in apology.
The Chairman stared at him for a long moment, then untied Mina.
"Still, sneaking in at this hour isn't okay. How'd you even get in?"
"With my ability."
"Sigh. I'll have to report this to the higher-ups."
Good.
Now for the deal.
'She's strong, but she has no talent for searching or tracking.'
So, briefly radiating his 'presence' wouldn't expose him as a half-demon.
'Even my advisor professor didn't notice.'
Sin Bihyeong calmed himself that way and summoned the lingering aura from his goblin cap.
In an instant,
the atmosphere shifted.
Rooooar—
The presence that even made dragons kneel.
Layering Eoduk's on top made Sin Bihyeong's existence unmistakably etched into the library.
Thud...!
Thud...!
Flutter!
The forbidden books' yokai groaned and writhed in agony before the sudden superior being.
"Ahh!"
(Mina made a weird noise midway, but ignore that.)
Sin Bihyeong looked at the woman before him.
The Chairman clutched her chest, struggling to steady her ragged breathing while showing clear shock at the changes around her.
"Wh-what is this...?"
"Senior."
Sin Bihyeong bowed his head again, then met her eyes as he lifted it.
It felt like cold demon horns reflected in her pupils.
"Let me offer my sincere apologies once more. I know it's shameless, but could you pretend this never happened?"
Instead,
"I'll help you with one thing, whatever you need."
"......"
The Chairman felt her trembling muscles refusing to obey and turned her head.
The library's yokai were screaming in fear.
Watching that, she thought,
Maybe... what I couldn't find, this junior can.
"A-alright. I'll handle today's incident with my discretion."
The moment permission was granted, he withdrew the aura into the cap.
The library's resonance gradually calmed.
"Thank you, Senior."
With that, Sin Bihyeong left the library with Mina.
"......"
The Chairman just stared blankly at his retreating back.
Until it vanished completely.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇ Second-year chief dorm.
The Chairman felt the coziness of her long-vacant nest at last and dragged her weary body into the bathroom.
She soaked in the tub, soothing her strained qi and blood.
Only after recovering a little did she start showering.
Shhh.
The water cascading in the shower stall washed away the foam and the fatigue clinging to her.
After finishing, she toweled off and stood before the mirror.
Her fair skin was flawless, and though her eyes were sharp, her constant eye smiles gave her a decadent allure, or so she'd heard.
Her toned legs and wide hips too.
Her killer figure could ravage any man's heart.
Yet the Chairman only frowned at her reflection.
"...It's grown again."
Precisely, she scowled at the pattern on her lower abdomen, not her body.
The curse that had appeared one day when she woke up.
Since it appeared, her qi circulation had been plagued by countless disruptions.
Her spiritual power would stutter midway, things like that.
'And the occasional stabbing pain is annoying too.'
What the hell is this thing?
Who put this curse on me?
That was when the thought struck her.
'Come to think of it...'
The Chairman trailed her fingers over the pattern on her lower abdomen.
"That junior I met in the library. He must be the first-year chief."
She'd heard about it from a friend over the phone.
An enigmatic first-year had enrolled.
At first, she'd dismissed it as the usual hype.
But meeting him face-to-face, she fully understood the rumors.
"...An overwhelming presence."
She'd clearly seen the library yokai screaming before him.
But what puzzled her most was something else.
The Chairman tilted her head.
"...Why did the pain from the curse stop after I saw that junior?"
She'd always lived with that stabbing pain in her dantian.
But the moment she laid eyes on him,
"...It turned into this weird sensation."
A subtle heat.
And her senses sharpened, making even putting on clothes make her body twitch.
'What the hell is going on?'
With that, Sin Bihyeong had deeply taken root in the Chairman's heart.
...Her heart kept pounding strangely.