Chapter 231: Jealousy (3)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 231: Jealousy (3)
Summer break was slowly entering its final stretch, but unfortunately, the heat showed no signs of dying down.
While the new dormitory was equipped with a perfect air conditioning system, a hero cadet’s status didn’t exactly allow for lounging indoors all day. Thus, we found ourselves in the middle of a sparring session to compare our skills.
I suppose everyone had been stimulated after seeing Lilac and me yesterday.
“Do not come near me.”
“It is… too dangerous.”
“Requiem…”
“…Guys, I’m really sorry, so can we please stop? I’m dying of embarrassment here!”
…Or maybe not. It felt more like they were just bored and decided to spend the day publicly humiliating Lilac.
As Cheon Yu-hak began to tease Lilac during their spar, Ga-eul and Ha-ni immediately joined in. Lilac, who had been holding his own at first, eventually lost his focus and began to waver.
But honestly, he brought this on himself.
No one forced him to go through such a half-baked “edgelord” phase.
“If you’re shaken by this level of mental interference, how do you plan to handle a real battle later?”
“Hey, Yu-hak! You’re totally doing this to get back at us for roasting you on your birthday, aren’t you?!”
“My, what an extraordinary display of baseless speculation—truly fitting for such a ‘dangerous’ man. For the sake of clearing my name, I think I should keep my distance. Don’t you agree?”
“I… wanted to be like you.”
“Aaargh…! Are you guys really going to keep this up?!”
Watching Lilac tear at his hair, I felt a strange sense of warmth in my heart.
Haha, another boy is becoming an adult.
“Still, you should be glad it’s summer break. Not many people saw you besides us.”
“…True. I can’t imagine what would’ve happened if it were during the semester.”
“Huh? What do you mean?”
I had spoken to offer some comfort, but Ga-eul, who had been busy teasing Lilac, muttered in confusion.
“What? I mean, if it were during the semester, the whole school would’ve seen it. It would’ve been way more embarrassing, right?”
“No, I mean… So-hyun. Do you realize how famous Lilac is in our Academy?”
“I mean, I know he is.”
“Well, he was the Freshman Representative. Compared to others, he stands out, right?”
That wasn’t the only reason, of course, but everyone present agreed that Lilac was famous.
Even Lilac himself didn’t seem inclined to deny his fame and nodded sheepishly. Seeing this, Ga-eul began to tap away at her smartphone with an expression one might reserve for a pitiful creature.
“You know there’s a fan cafe for the four of you, right?”
“…Yeah? It’s been quiet lately, so I haven’t really been paying attention.”
At this point, we could all guess what Ga-eul was about to say. Only Lilac, the party involved, tried to play dumb and deny the information until the very end.
“Here, look.”
However, his futile resistance crumbled the moment Ga-eul accessed the fan cafe and showed us the current status.
The list of posts, sorted by the week’s highest views, was something else.
‘This is what charisma looks like: Lilac’s Theory on Heroes.’ ‘Model Student Lilac’s Deviation Caught on Camera.’ ‘Black Feather Lilac: A New Ability?’ ‘The Broken Heartthrob Style: Even Oozing Decadence.’ ‘The All-Black Fashion Hitting Late This Summer.’ ‘Catching Up with Dark Lilac.’
The titles were so cringeworthy that if they were about me, I would have sworn to track down the authors and bury them in hell.
Lilac stared at the screen for a moment before speaking.
“…Who’s Lilac? There must be someone else with the same name as me, guys.”
He had clearly snapped and was attempting to flee from reality.
“Face reality, Lilac. A certain subset of girls are absolutely losing their minds over you.”
“Ga-eul, you’re lying, right?! Please, tell me you’re lying…!”
Ga-eul shook her head very slowly. She dropped a round ball she had picked up from somewhere and spoke.
“It’s easier if you just give up…”
Lilac fell to his knees with a wail, but none of us felt particularly sorry for him.
* * *
However, a short distance away, there was a girl watching them who did look at him with pity.
She was an ordinary cadet—pretty enough, but not strikingly so; not particularly energetic, but not entirely friendless either.
She was the type of girl who admired those in the spotlight from afar but lacked the courage to actually speak to them.
Her secret hobby was observing the people she admired and drawing them in various poses. While browsing the fan cafe for drawing references, she had fallen quite hard for the recent photos of him.
Those melancholy eyes that sought no sympathy from those around him; that cold attitude that pushed others away, which was a kindness in its own way.
It was ridiculous for someone as invisible as her to claim she empathized with someone always surrounded by people, but she felt as though she understood him.
“What am I even thinking?”
But she was well aware that it was just a delusion.
His “deviation” had been brief, and he had already returned to his usual self. Even if it wasn’t a delusion, she lacked the courage to approach him and the eloquence to comfort him.
There was nothing someone like her could do.
Normally, the story would have ended there.
A girl with a slightly more sensitive soul than others would have been satisfied drawing the boy she secretly admired, eventually growing into an adult and looking back on it as a fond memory.
Even if her sketchbook were discovered, he and his friends weren’t the type to mock her; she might have even been praised for her drawing skills. It was an incident so minor it hardly deserved the name.
However.
As is always the case.
— Do you really think so?
“Huh?”
Demons have a way of squeezing through the tiniest cracks in a human heart.
The moment she heard that voice, a certain emotion within the girl’s heart was amplified.
She was momentarily flustered by the sudden, unnatural surge of emotion.
But soon, that bloated sentiment began to swallow her whole.
She hated Lee Yu-na. She hated how Yu-na acted as if the seat next to him naturally belonged to her, and yet failed to truly understand him.
She hated Ju Ri-ra. It infuriated her how Ri-ra squeezed herself into that group just because she had a pretty face and was close to Cheon Yu-hak, despite having nothing else going for her.
She hated Kim Ga-eul. That trashy delinquent. It was disgusting how she played the victim after causing so much trouble, cut ties with her old friends, and naturally slid into a group that forgave her.
She hated Aisha. It was unsightly how she shamelessly relied on their kindness to worm her way into an already established circle of relationships—something the girl herself could never do, no matter how much courage she mustered.
She hated Kang So-hyun. Even though he was a guy, the way he stayed by his side with a face prettier than hers looked strangely… right, and it made her horny… no, that wasn’t it. Anyway, she didn’t like him.
She hated Professor Cathy. It was unpleasant how she made no effort to restrain herself in front of the cadets, knowing full well her looks and skills drew everyone’s gaze.
Thoughts bubbled up, finding reasons to dislike every female(?) close to him.
If these emotions had felt entirely foreign, she might have realized something was wrong and calmed herself.
She might have even thought to ask for help.
But she couldn’t.
Even if they had suddenly spiraled out of control, even if they were amplified, these were emotions she had genuinely felt while passing them by or watching them in silence.
They were emotions that an immature cadet could not easily cast aside or overcome.
It was something that had once been called admiration, which over time turned into envy and longing.
And finally, after those feelings became distorted and stuck to her like thick sludge, a new emotion was born.
Jealousy.
Admiration, envy, and even longing were devoured by an inferiority complex, leaving behind something sticky and solid that scrambled her mind and blocked her rational judgment.
The demon loved this moment.
The way a heart that cherished someone, or a heart that admired and wanted to catch up to someone, could be twisted.
The way the precious driving forces of their lives could be warped by a single word.
The moment those precious emotions were devoured by a pathetic inferiority complex that could have been overcome with enough time.
It felt so unbearably good that the demon couldn’t stop.
Oops, not yet.
It wanted to claim her soul right this instant, but this girl would serve as a valuable pawn.
— You are someone who deserves it. With just a little help from me, you can take his side instead of those women.
“…Me?”
— Yes. It would be better for him, too. You’re the only one who can truly understand him.
We are different from those lazy Demons of Sloth who failed by leaving their prey to fall into ruin on their own.
My master, my King, will seize the path paved by Sloth and infiltrate the world more carefully and perfectly.
I heard the plans were disrupted and a meeting was even held, but I wonder what expression the King of Sloth will make when he realizes we’ve infiltrated through the path he opened.
Just imagining that face, usually soaked in lethargy, twisting with jealousy was electrifying.
His King would surely gain even greater power.
“I… I…”
— I don’t ask for much. Just a very small price. This is an opportunity. An opportunity I’m giving you because I pity you, gasping for air in a position far below where you belong.
“Ah…?”
A demon’s proposal is always incredibly sweet.
Is it not said that the road to hell is paved with good intentions?
In truth, the demon had no intention of taking anything significant from her right now.
To be precise, it would gain a massive profit even without taking much.
She would become a seed.
A Seed of Jealousy that would bloom her own jealousy magnificently and allow new jealousy to take root.
The demon’s demonic energy swallowed the girl, and the seed planted within her began to change her bit by bit.
Into the form she had longed for, yet never truly wanted.
* * *
Since we focused on sparring yesterday, I headed to the training grounds today intending to do some light training, but the interior was strangely noisy.
Wondering if another terrible accident like Lilac turning “dark” again had occurred, I looked toward the crowd. There, I saw a female cadet I didn’t recognize, surrounded by students.
“Wow~ In-hye! How did you get so pretty!”
“Seriously! I didn’t really notice before because you always wore glasses and kept your head down. Your skin is amazing, too! Did you decide to change your image?!”
“Hehe, they say cadets need to manage their appearance, too.”
There was no wasted movement in the way she naturally tucked her hair behind her ear.
“Wait, In-hye, weren’t you in the Support Track? This is the Combat Training Ground.”
“Ah, yeah. I felt like I was lacking because I only focused on my major. I figured I should work on the things I’m not good at.”
Saying that, she took a stance and threw a straight punch, putting her hips into the spin, and slammed the sandbag in front of her.
Thwack! The clean sound of the impact echoed as the sandbag flew back. The follow-up flurry of punches was, by no means, the technique of a beginner.
The other cadets watching were so shocked their mouths hung open, and a few began to praise her exaggeratedly.
“In-hye! You used to be so bad at moving your body?!”
“Ah, well, yeah. Honestly, I just trained really hard during the break~ and it just started working?”
“Wow, In-hye, were you a genius all along~?”
Genius? Well, sure. I guess you could call that a talent.
After all, you need something to tempt a demon with if you’re going to be devoured by one.
To those who couldn’t perceive demonic energy, she probably just looked pretty and impressive, but through my Fiery Eyes and Golden Pupils, she looked like nothing more than a pitiful thing twisted by demonic energy.
“Oh, it’s nothing like that.”
The mass of demonic energy, wearing a shyly smiling face, looked at the other cadets and laughed as if it were truly no big deal.
“If you can’t even do this much, you’re just not trying~”
Most of the cadets burst out laughing at her words, but a few students’ expressions twisted for a split second.
“Wow, In-hye’s changed a lot. She could barely even speak before the semester.”
“She’s gotten confident.”
Hmm, those two cadets probably used to look down on this In-hye girl.
But now that she suddenly seemed better than them, they were annoyed even if they didn’t want to admit it.
While I was watching them, wondering what to do, the cadet named In-hye spotted me. She turned her gaze and approached me with a bright smile.
“So-hyun~”
…So-hyun?
“Ah, sorry. Even though we’re in the same class, we haven’t really talked much. Was I too sudden?”
The way she fluttered her bangs was so performative that, honestly, it didn’t feel great.
“But I actually really wanted to talk to you during the first semester~”
…Look at this.
To be honest, I wasn’t particularly interested in this In-hye girl beyond the fact that she was possessed by demonic energy.
“Oh, are Lilac or Yu-hak coming here today, too~?”
However, the phenomenon that occurred after this In-hye girl approached me was enough to capture my full attention.
One by one, I began to sense demonic energy emanating from the cadets she had been talking to.
This familiar energy was unmistakably a contract with a demon.
The men were feeling jealousy because I was talking to a girl like In-hye and we seemed close, while the women were feeling jealousy over her sudden transformation and her confident attempt to join our group.
…I don’t know why Jealousy is crawling out at this timing instead of Sloth.
But honestly, I wasn’t particularly scared.
“Who knows? They’ll probably show up.”
“Ah, so you don’t know~ Then it’s a shame, but should the two of us train together for now?”
She’s naturally assuming it’s a given that I’ll join her?
No, it’s probably not In-hye, but the demon clinging to her that thinks it can easily seduce someone like me.
“Shall we?”
I didn’t let it show and instead reached out my hand.
“Huh?”
“Let’s shake on it, to celebrate becoming friends.”
“Ah~ sounds good! We’re friends now, okay~?”
Sure, why not.
If you can actually grab this hand, I’ll play along.
Of course, she couldn’t take my hand.
To be precise, the demon she contracted with couldn’t take it.
Even if it was covered by a glove, the demon would clearly feel the pattern on the back of my hand.
“What’s wrong? Aren’t you going to take it?”
It was heartbreaking to see the girl’s face, which had been smiling just a moment ago, turn pale with terror.