There's No Such Thing as a Bad Person Who Buys You a Meal (3)
The alarm blared through the quiet room—ding-ding-ding, bam-ba-bam, bam-bam, bam-ba-bam, bam-bam-bam.
“Ughhh…”
I woke to the familiar sound and fumbled to turn it off. The last thing I remembered was Jeong-ah dropping me off at the dorm last night before she vanished again, saying she had work to do. I must have fallen asleep alone after that.
When I sat up and looked around, sure enough, Jeong-ah was gone. I tilted my head at the rumpled blanket, then it finally clicked.
‘She can slip in and out without making a sound if she uses her ability, huh?’
She’d done the same thing on the first day, and apparently she used her power for coming and going all the time. That explained why I never noticed her entering or leaving and just kept sleeping like a log…
I checked my phone. It was still only seven. I sat on the edge of the bed for a moment, feeling my messy hair sticking out in every direction, and just enjoyed the rare moment of peace.
‘But sometimes when she comes in… what if I’m in really bad shape…’
‘Like, bleeding somewhere. Or covered in injuries. I could trip and fall on the street, right?’
‘Couldn’t she just heal me with her ability?’
The things Jeong-ah had said yesterday floated through my head in a jumbled mess. I’d let it slide at the time, but the more I thought about it, those weren’t words a normal student should be saying. And the fact that I was the problem here—any normal person would have demanded to know what the hell she was doing to get hurt that badly—wasn’t lost on me.
‘We’re friends, though. She even put a heart next to my name. Right?’
When someone with a face that pretty leans in and asks you for something, it’s hard to say no. Or maybe I’m the bigger problem compared to Jeong-ah. Am I just a total pushover?
“…Sigh.”
After a brief moment of self-reflection, I decided to head to school. I mean, I said that, but there was no guarantee she wouldn’t come back injured… I really hoped nothing would happen.
I got up, took a quick shower, changed into my uniform, and left the room. On the path from the dorm to the classroom, the fresh spring air wrapped around me in a cool, vibrant embrace, and I felt a little energy returning to my body. I’d felt completely drained when I first woke up, but the warm sunlight was already giving me a small spark of motivation.
When I reached the classroom, Narae was already sitting at her desk.
“Good morning.”
“Ah… Seol, good morning too…”
I naturally took the seat beside her, and Narae greeted me with a happy little smile. After organizing my things, I brought up the topic we’d discussed.
“Oh, right. Where should we practice later? I’m not sure if we’re allowed to use the gym or something like that.”
Just like we’d talked about over messenger yesterday, we’d agreed to test our abilities against each other after class today. The problem was, I still didn’t know what facilities the academy even had… I’d made the promise out of sheer enthusiasm, but now the location felt awkward.
“Umm… yeah…”
Narae thought for a moment, then finally spoke.
“If you’re okay with it, Seol… do you want to come to my house…?”
“Huh?”
“I just moved in recently… there’s a yard… it should be fine… if you don’t want to, that’s okay too…”
Whoa, is this the “visit a friend’s house” event?! This is a high-level event that only triggers once your favorability passes a certain threshold. There’s no way I’m missing this chance.
“Of course that’s fine! Hehe, I’m looking forward to it.”
“R-really…? That’s a relief… hehe.”
We were chatting in a warm, friendly atmosphere when the classroom door suddenly burst open and our homeroom teacher walked in.
“How’s everyone doing?”
With his sloppy stride, the teacher headed for the lectern, tossed the attendance sheet down, and scanned the room with his eyes.
“One, two, ten, twenty-four… everyone’s here.”
…Can he really count that fast just by looking? If it’s real, that’s impressive. But I have a feeling he’s just pretending so he doesn’t have to bother counting properly…
“Even though it’s only the second day, I see quite a few pathetic students who look like they’d rather die than come to school.”
I flinched at his sharp gaze and quickly fixed my expression. He wasn’t talking about me, right?
“Back in my day, dimensional erosion was happening everywhere at full force. We couldn’t even dream about academy life—we got dragged straight into combat training. Kids these days are spoiled rotten. Right? What the hell is ‘going to school’? We slept inside erosions, endless waves of dimensional beasts pouring in… if you didn’t die, it was a good day. If this were my time, you’d all be nothing but bones by now…”
He suddenly launched into full old-man rant mode, grumbling away, then added as if he’d just remembered something.
“Ah, almost forgot. Since the academy uses a class system, we need to pick a class president.”
Oh, class president. I had zero intention of volunteering, but watching students desperately campaign at the start of the semester had always been pretty entertaining. Promising to buy everyone hamburgers, throwing out ridiculous pledges… usually the popular kid ended up winning regardless.
“The class president will basically be my errand runner… uh… my underling… no, that’s not it… my subordinate. That kind of role.”
“…”
“And as the class representative, you’ll have to attend various student council meetings, act as the face of the class for events, and there’ll be a ton of other things I’ll make you do. Honestly, if it were me, I wouldn’t do it. Ability users should focus on smashing dimensional beasts, not waste time on this pointless crap. Anyway, we’ll vote. Nominations and voting will happen tomorrow morning. So come thirty minutes early—be here by 7:30.”
Ugh, it’s not interesting enough to wake up thirty minutes earlier for. But there wasn’t a single student in the room brave enough to talk back to our overwhelmingly charismatic teacher, so the matter was settled just like that.
“Oh, one more thing. The vice president is chosen by whoever becomes president. So if you want the position, you’d better start sucking up to whoever you think will win. That’s it for morning assembly! Head to your classes on your own.”
Having wrapped things up at lightning speed, the teacher disappeared as abruptly as he’d arrived.
…Looking at him yesterday, he seemed like a battle-hardened veteran soldier who’d seen it all. Today he just looks like an office worker who hates his job. He’s probably deeply invested in training students to fight dimensional erosion, but finds everything else about being an academy teacher annoying…
Once the teacher left, the classroom buzzed with students chatting among themselves.
“Your Highness, this is your chance! Start by taking control of this class, then slowly conquer the whole school—”
“…Be quiet.”
“Hwaaam… Ah, Your Highness… please don’t make me vice president…”
“…I wasn’t planning to.”
At first glance it looked peaceful, but the area around the princess had a strangely heavy atmosphere. The ever-serious Kim Yeon and the perpetually sleepy student the princess had chosen as her partner were chiming in.
“Hmm… you’re obviously going to run, right, miss?”
“Hmmm.”
“Hoho, who else but you could represent the students, miss? As the child of a noble family, it’s only natural.”
“Hey, why do you bring up nobility every single time…? The Great War ended ages ago, you know? Are you saying that stuff for us commoners to hear?”
“I’ll overlook it since No Chae-a is a commoner but quite clever!”
“…”
On the other side, where Wi Ha-yeon sat, the atmosphere was lively and loud thanks to the students openly chatting away. I could hear No Chae-a—the one who’d spoken to me yesterday—and a cheerful blonde girl with spiral curls falling down both sides of her face talking energetically.
…So that weird “hoho” laugh I’d heard in class yesterday came from her. Anyway… it looked like both of the class’s top contenders—the princess and Wi Ha-yeon—were planning to run for president. Not that any student would be bold enough to declare their candidacy against either of them… but I was worried the subtle rivalry between the two might grow even stronger.
I wanted to ignore faction fights and just graduate peacefully… but there were too many things happening to completely disregard them. Both the princess and No Chae-a… ugh. Just going to school normally is hard enough—do I really have to deal with this too?
I turned my head and looked at Narae.
“…? W-why are you looking at me…?”
She noticed my gaze and asked, wide-eyed. Those big, rabbit-like frightened eyes, that small frame that triggered protective instincts, and the dark circles under her eyes… At least when I was with Narae, I wouldn’t have to worry about these headache-inducing matters.
Ah, but that doesn’t mean I’m ignoring her or anything! Absolutely not!
“Hehe, it’s nothing.”
“R-really…?”
“Shall we head to the next class? We’ll be late if we dawdle.”
That’s right. No matter what happens later, since I’m at school, focusing on the classes right in front of me is the most important thing.
I checked the schedule and stood up with Narae, heading to the changing room to switch into our gym clothes. The next class was definitely…
Subject: Ether Combat Techniques
Instructor: Hye-jin
Location: Main Training Field
In the middle of a massive athletic field that looked twice the size of a normal school’s, Instructor Hye-jin gathered the students and announced,
“Alright, we’ll begin the first lesson of ‘Ether Combat Techniques’!”