Chapter 48: Execution. (1)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 48: Execution. (1)
Left alone in the room, Kang Ha-ni was reflecting on the conversation she had just shared with Kang So-hyun.
— Are you my mom?
That wasn’t something one would say lightly.
Perhaps it was something he had grown so accustomed to that he’d blurted it out without a second thought, but she didn’t think that was the case.
He had lost his mother to a terrorist attack at a young age.
There was no way a boy who had only just entered the Academy could have brushed that aside, no matter how much time had passed.
“He’s not out there doing something dangerous, is he? He said he’d be right back, so what’s taking him so long?”
The moment she muttered the words to herself, familiar footsteps began to echo from the hallway. Speak of the devil.
“Ah, whatever. Sounds like he’s here.”
The door lock clicked open, and a voice drifted in.
“Hey, I bought Melona.”
But even though the Kang So-hyun she had been waiting for had returned, she was overcome by an indescribable sensation.
Until now, she had never felt a shred of wariness toward him.
It was a simple matter of skill; he simply wasn’t powerful enough to pose a threat to her.
However, the Kang So-hyun she was facing now, only an hour later, exuded an aura entirely different from when he had left the room.
It was like the first time she had seen Lilac or Cheon Yu-hak at the entrance ceremony. No, perhaps it was even more than that—a violent energy was radiating from him.
“Hey, you…!”
The moment she grabbed his shoulder to interrogate him—
“Huh?”
As if it had all been a lie, that energy vanished. The usual weak and frail Kang So-hyun stood there, holding a Melona.
“…What? Should I go back and get something else?”
The way he spoke, looking strangely intimidated, was the image of a boy she felt she had to protect.
Was it an illusion…?
It made no sense for such a powerful aura to disappear so suddenly. She must have been so worried that her mind played tricks on her.
“Um, Han-hee. My shoulder kind of hurts…?”
“Ah, sorry.”
Startled, she let go of his shoulder. So-hyun began to rub it with exaggerated distress.
“Man, I thought my shoulder was going to pop off. What’s wrong with you?”
Seeing him in pain from just that, she felt certain it had been a misunderstanding.
“Ah, I’m really sorry. I must have been mistaken.”
* * *
Actually, it wasn’t a mistake.
If the Ruyi hadn’t been a split second faster in suppressing the aura it was emitting, I would have been screwed.
— The child has sharp intuition.
Thank you so much. All hail the Great Sage, Heaven’s Equal.
It wasn’t exactly that her intuition was sharp. Because of her specific goals, Kang Ha-ni possessed an artifact that allowed her to sense special auras from strong people. I had let my guard down because the setting stated it didn’t react to ordinary tools.
Perhaps it detected it because the Ruyi’s current state differed from the original work?
Wait. Come to think of it, aren’t you the cause of this…?
— Ahem, I forgot I had something to organize. I likely won’t be able to answer for a while, so please understand.
Hey, Mr. Sun Wukong. What does a residual thought have to organize?
Even if he was just a remnant, seeing the world’s strongest being flee with such a pathetic excuse was quite a sight.
Well, more importantly.
“Han-hee, why are you looking at me like that…?”
Ha-ni was still glancing at me suspiciously, which was honestly terrifying.
I felt like she was going to pull out a sword any second and say, “Hey, let’s see what you’ve got.”
“Hey.”
“Yes. What is it?”
“…I mean, why do you keep switching to formal speech? No, that’s not it. Does it hurt a lot?”
“Huh? What does?”
“Your shoulder. You said it hurt earlier. Is it bruised?”
Ah, thank goodness. It seemed the look Ha-ni was giving me wasn’t one of suspicion, but concern.
Since she doesn’t show much expression, I misunderstood her blank stare for a glare.
Just as I was starting to feel guilty, Ha-ni said something I couldn’t possibly ignore.
“Let me see.”
See what…?
“Huh? No, it’s not that bad.”
“What if you’re injured? Just take off your shirt.”
Hey, of all people, shouldn’t you be the last one saying that?
— Hey, Kang Han-hee. No matter how small, an injury is an injury. What if it gets infected…!
— Fuck, I’ll take care of it myself, so get lost, Lilac!
A scene from the original work flashed through my mind, where Lilac, isolated during a villain attack, tried to treat Ha-ni’s wound and was rejected.
Why was a girl who hated being touched by men acting like this?
“Ah, I was just exaggerating. I’m not hurt, really.”
“Right, I’ll be the judge of that, so don’t worry and take it off.”
Take off what? Don’t phrase it like that…!
“Uh…? Whoa!?”
To my surprise, Ha-ni reached out and approached me, clearly determined to see my shoulder.
“I said let me see your shoulder! Why are you being so difficult…!”
“Would you like it if someone did this to you!? I said I’m fine…!”
As I tried to resist, a strange struggle of strength began between Ha-ni and me.
Wait, you’re asking why I’m making such a big deal out of showing my shoulder?
It’s not because I’m shy, obviously.
There was a very clear and logical reason for my losing battle.
It was because, in the original work, Kang Ha-ni once tried to stab Lilac after seeing his body and finding it “disgusting.”
Of course, in the original, Lilac had already done plenty of unlikable things, and right now she was the one trying to undress me, so she probably wouldn’t go crazy. But still, she might feel repulsed once she actually saw a man’s body, right?
The hearts of heroines in novels are as fickle as reeds.
And since I wasn’t the protagonist, I didn’t have the confidence to endure and accept such an irrational change.
But while my mind was saying no, my body was being honest.
A mind cannot overcome an overwhelming difference in physical strength.
Ha-ni subdued me with her superior power while being careful not to hurt me. Eventually, she ended up pinned on top of me, breathing heavily, looking a bit exhausted from the effort of restraining me gently.
“Phew, you’re no match for me.”
The objective seemed to have shifted slightly, but Ha-ni soon remembered her original goal and reached out to unbutton my shirt.
I closed my eyes and decided to humbly accept the fate that was about to befall me.
Goodbye, the favorability I worked so hard to build.
Welcome, the looks of contempt and disdain that are about to begin…!
However, just as I gave up and prepared for the worst, I felt the hand unbuttoning my shirt stop.
What? Does she mean she won’t even forgive me for closing my eyes and enduring it?
With a faint glimmer of hope, I opened my eyes and saw Ha-ni’s face, which looked strangely flushed.
…Are you blushing right now?
I thought she might get angry, but I honestly didn’t expect this reaction…?
She does show a shy side in the original work, but that’s something you only see toward the very end of the third year.
“Your skin is pale.”
“…Pardon?”
“Your arms and legs are thin, and you’re weak.”
A soft hand stroked my stomach.
What? What the fuck? What is she doing?
Ah.
— Kang Ha-ni pushes Lilac away because of her strong sense of shame, but in her heart, she possesses a girlish curiosity about men. It’s just that muscular bodies trigger a sense of alien disgust before curiosity, causing her to reject them.
Yeah, there it was.
I remembered that the Setting Book contained information that was absolutely zero help to my current situation.
An irresistible difference in strength.
A young man and woman tangled together, breathless, in a room where they were completely alone.
In the eyes of the predator who had begun to take an interest in the opposite sex, a different emotion began to mix with the shame and confusion.
It was curiosity about something encountered for the first time, an investigative spirit toward the unknown.
While it was a very desirable attitude for a heroine, the problem was that I was the prey.
“Men aren’t that different after all…”
This is bad.
Judging by how she’s talking about “men,” she probably doesn’t even realize what she’s saying anymore.
At this rate, I’d be ravaged like something out of an adult doujinshi, and I’d inevitably end up discovering Kang Ha-ni’s secret, which I already knew.
Not yet…!
I had been holding back for fear of hurting her, but just as I was about to use Reinforcement to push her away—
Ding-ding~
A tacky default notification rang from my smartphone.
It wasn’t a call or a text, but an update notification.
And as if that were a signal to snap back to reality, Ha-ni jumped back, startled.
“Oh? I… just now. Hey, sorry.”
Ha-ni, apologizing with a red face, was strangely cute, but the problem was the setting that I didn’t know she was a girl.
I had to act accordingly.
A male friend you trust in the boys’ dormitory suddenly pins you down by force, touches your abs, and blushes?
Ugh, gross. I wouldn’t feel satisfied even if I cracked his skull with the Ruyi right now.
So, I put on the most contemptuous expression I could muster and glared at her while backing away.
“Han-hee.”
“…Yeah?”
“…Is that… your thing?”
“No, it’s not…!?”
Ha-ni shouted in panic, but I pretended not to hear.
It might be unfair, but what can you do? If you don’t like it, you shouldn’t have been a cross-dressing character.
* * *
In a dark classroom at the Academy.
He was grinding his teeth alone.
Because his plans, which he thought were perfect, kept ending in failure, his position within the organization had narrowed considerably.
The Twelve Zodiacs.
Now that a significant number of executives had been killed or arrested, they could no longer live up to the name, but they were still a fairly powerful force among the Villain Alliances operating in the shadows.
Choi In-ho, who was the Rabbit, had been caught, and they had lost Jin Gyeong-tae, the candidate for the new Snake.
Since the Boss didn’t count toward the Twelve, and including the seats that were originally vacant, there were effectively only six executives left, including himself.
This couldn’t be happening.
Originally, they were supposed to successfully carry out a grand terrorist attack at the entrance ceremony of the impregnable Leilan Academy and make their name known to the world.
What was the point of infiltrating this place for years, even using those garbage artifacts?
“No, it’s not over yet.”
Choi In-ho? He was just a pawn to be used and discarded anyway. I just need to plan a bigger terror attack and pick someone better.
Jin Gyeong-tae? His knowledge and status as a former Academy professor are a loss, but he’s not absolutely irreplaceable.
“Yes, I’ll take it slow.”
It’s a bit early, but there are new candidates, and I have plenty of material to persuade them.
“I just have to start over from the beginning.”
After all, there was no one in Leilan Academy who could defeat him.
He had all the time in the world.
“Lilac and Cheon Yu-hak, was it?”
It was the Chairperson of Leilan Academy who caught Jin Gyeong-tae and Choi In-ho, but it was the cadets who had defeated them once before.
Also, although he wasn’t an executive, Barrier, who was still useful, had been caught by a cadet as well.
He didn’t know what the future held, but for now, he had left those two alone because they didn’t seem like they would interfere with his plans.
However, now that he had been backstabbed so severely by them, he couldn’t just leave them be.
He ground his teeth as he thought of the two who had obstructed his plans.
“Fine. I’ll put you two on the watch list along with the Chairperson. From now on, I won’t leave even the slightest room for any variable.”
The plan to neutralize the Chairperson was already in the preparation stage.
“Enjoy your short Academy life until the new plan begins. Lilac. Cheon Yu-hak.”
A despicable smile played on his lips.
“The moment the Chairperson is neutralized, I will kill you both personally.”
Just one more week.
In one week, he would be able to neutralize the Academy’s greatest power, the Chairperson.
And then, the name of the Twelve Zodiacs would spread throughout the world.
* * *
“Should I just do it tomorrow instead of putting it off?”
“…Do what.”
Ha-ni, who had tried desperately to clear up the misunderstanding that wasn’t really a misunderstanding, was hiding under her covers, whether out of embarrassment or exhaustion. Surprisingly, she still answered.
“I need to clear out some trash, but I was waiting because I wasn’t ready. I think it’ll be fine soon, though.”
“What kind of trash?”
“Waste that can’t even be recycled.”
“Then you should clear it out quickly. Can you do it alone?”
“Yeah, I can do it alone. Actually, it’ll be a problem if I’m not alone.”
“Is that so…?”
“Yeah. Putting it off will just make it a hassle. Better to clear it out quickly and rest.”
“I guess so.”
Tomorrow night.
I will kill the traitor of the Academy.