Without My Knowing
Only when I finally reached the monorail station near the academy on Monday did it hit me all over again.
It had already been a week since I’d enrolled here. Feels like a month had gone by, honestly.
Academy life really wasn’t easy. In just one week, I’d already been dragged into this many annoying incidents, which only made sense if you thought about the people around the protagonists.
Of course, more than half of those messes were my fault, and one of them had even been a situation I could have dodged if I’d wanted to—yet I’d willingly stuck my neck into it.
Still, it was hard not to think things were getting a little excessive.
If anything, it would only get worse from here. No way things were going to calm down. And it was already this insane.
I’d even started wondering whether I’d make it to the end of first year with all my limbs intact.
Given the medical tech in this world, even severed limbs could probably be stitched back on somehow, and the protagonists and heroines had all kept their arms and legs, so maybe that was an absurd thing to worry about.
Then again, maybe that only applied to the main cast. The extras were a different story.
As I made my way toward the academy gate, fretting over something that was probably pointless, I found the place swarming with reporters as expected.
Like flies and wild animals swarming a corpse, they thrust microphones at students and faculty alike, desperate to snag even one article-worthy soundbite.
On both sides, the sight was so consistently disgusting it almost made me laugh.
Of course, nobody gave them a proper answer.
Why would they? They were strangers. Why should anyone care?
And on top of that, there were students who actually got angry.
Hunter Department, maybe.
The Hunter kids were probably burning up inside right about now.
After all, it wasn’t their lot who’d cleared the gate—it had been the aspiring heroes. That had to sting.
The rivalry between Hunters and heroes was pretty famous in this world.
“Rivalry” wasn’t even the right word, really. It was more like a fight over which side had gotten there first.
At some point, both sides had just started treating it like a competition.
Hunters, in their own way, hated that they were the ones keeping this society running by mining mana stones and artifacts, only for the media to pay attention to heroes instead.
Heroes, for their part, would ask what exactly they’d ever done to the Hunters, and point out that they were the ones who rushed in when someone inside a gate cried out for rescue.
It wasn’t a perfect analogy, but if you asked me, they were basically ants and soldier ants.
If Hunters were the worker ants gathering resources outside, then heroes were the soldier ants protecting the rest.
That is, among people with powers.
Compare powered people to ordinary civilians, and naturally the civilians are the worker ants while the powered ones are the soldier ants.
That was the distinction, if you wanted to split hairs about it.
As I casually avoided reporters lunging toward the girl from the video—the one they were all obsessing over—I spotted Yeonhwa trapped in the middle of the crowd, looking visibly cornered.
“I-I mean, I didn’t really do much. It was all Jinhyun…”
“But it was your wall of fire that stopped the villains!”
“The video makes it look like that boy did nothing at all!”
“Did you learn that technique from your father?!”
One look was enough to tell me exactly how this had happened.
Yeonhwa was too nice, so she’d answered every question they threw at her, and the vultures had swarmed in response.
But where the hell was that guy in all this?
Wow. So he really ditched his childhood friend when she was in trouble?
What a piece of garbage.
I casually spread a little smoke, and the reporters scattered while screaming about some kind of attack.
“Huh, Blanca…?”
Now that she’d finally been freed from the reporters, Yeonhwa looked exhausted.
Fair enough. Any normal person would be wrecked after helping burn a bunch of people alive.
And Yeonhwa was kind-hearted to begin with, so the shock had probably hit her even harder.
“You’re way too nice for your own good.”
With a wry smile, I caught her hand as she stood there and led her through the gate.
“Th-thank you, Blanca.”
“Thank me for what? I just did the job that idiot should’ve handled himself. There she is, the daughter of an old benefactor, getting dragged through the mud and he still bailed.”
I let my Jinhyun-hate show as naturally as breathing, and Yeonhwa hurriedly explained that it wasn’t like that.
Apparently he’d overused both his mana and his abilities to the point that his condition was awful, so he’d been told to rest in the hospital until today.
“If that’s the case… well, I can’t really say anything.”
Still, that didn’t make it any less infuriating.
I ground my teeth inwardly and gave Yeonhwa my own little piece of advice.
“Yeonhwa. This is friend-to-friend advice, so listen up: you don’t have to be nice to everyone. You don’t have to go around showing kindness to every last person you meet.”
It was kind of ridiculous for me, of all people, to say that—since I was the type who’d eventually betray somebody—but I meant it.
Human energy isn’t infinite.
There are way too many people out there who act kind and then start thinking it’s their right.
And Yeonhwa looked exactly like the kind of girl who’d get worn down by people like that.
“Thanks for the advice, Blanca. But… I think I like things the way they are now.”
“If that’s how you feel, then I’m not going to push it. Just keep it in mind, okay? Keep it in mind.”
Seriously, she was hopelessly nice.
She should be a little more wary of people.
…Then again, I wasn’t exactly her real friend, so maybe pushing it any further would be overstepping.
We exchanged a few words about Jinhyun and what she’d done over the weekend before entering the classroom, only for the students to swarm us like bees drawn to honey.
At the sight, I almost wondered whether these were really the same awkward kids from last week.
“Are you all right, Blanca?!”
“You’re not hurt, are you?! No, you’re fine!”
“I-I was scared…! There were so many people… and I didn’t know anyone in the classroom…!”
“…You look fine.”
“Good. Glad to see you’re okay.”
Most of them were Yeonhwa’s friends, but it wasn’t like nobody was worried about me.
Hukukin, Aeghe, and the rest of those losers.
Lapis was whining too.
Minho, Lucia…
“I watched the interview. I looked it up myself afterward, and it said you were the one who took down the boss monster. Is that true?”
…Even Im Changwon.
I’d never even talked to this guy.
Why was he taking an interest in me?
---
In the original story, Im Changwon wasn’t the kind of person who took an interest in anyone first.
He existed only as a milestone for the protagonist to overcome, and then as the basis for a solid rival afterward.
So I had no idea what the hell was going on.
She seemed just as clueless as I was.
Whether it was because she knew what kind of person Im Changwon was, or because some total stranger had walked up to her, I couldn’t tell.
Whatever the reason, one thing was clear.
My head was starting to pound.
Did she even realize that just by existing, she was already smashing the original plot to pieces?
The villains’ attack was supposed to start at the field trip, at the earliest. Not now.
And the Suicides? I’d never even heard of them before. The fact that someone capable of opening a gate right in the middle of the city existed was shocking enough on its own.
Lapis had killed that villain, so at least I didn’t have to worry about some unknown gate popping up somewhere and make me sweat over it…
But that wasn’t the real issue.
The real issue was that the original story I knew was slowly changing.
I’d thought maybe I was overreacting, since we were still way too early in the story for this kind of panic, but it was already showing meaningful differences. It wasn’t something I could just brush off.
Right now, it was dealing with a spar against the rehabilitated Hukukin, chatting with Lapis, or keeping an eye on Im Changwon whenever he came over to talk to her.
I opened the status window and clicked on her entry.
Nothing had changed since last time.
Just her body information and name, which I’d already learned and gained nothing from.
The rest of the details were still locked.
To unlock them, I’d probably need to build a connection with her…
But there was no bond quest to help me build that connection.
How depressing.
It would show me bond quests for all the other heroines, so why was Blanca the only one it wouldn’t display?
A relationship doesn’t have to rise only after you clear a quest… probably.
I could just contact her personally even if the quest didn’t tell me to.
She wouldn’t refuse me, and she wouldn’t run away.
But I was scared of the fallout that might bring.
So far, whenever I’d followed the status window’s instructions, things had gone fine. Which meant I had no idea what would happen if I did something it hadn’t told me to do.
Then again, sitting still because it hadn’t told me to do anything made me even more uneasy.
“Minho. You look like you’ve got a lot on your mind. Something bothering you?”
“Ah… sorry. It’s nothing important, Seolhwa.”
“You were just staring at that girl a second ago.”
Her expression didn’t change, so I couldn’t tell whether she was annoyed or just genuinely curious.
If she had a tail like Blanca, I could probably have read her mood from that, but unfortunately that wasn’t an option.
All I could do was assume the worst and act accordingly.
“I apologize. I lied.”
“No need to apologize. It’s fine. I was wondering about her too.”
Good. So it really had just been simple curiosity.
“I heard about it. From Yeonhwa, and Lapis too. They said it would’ve been a disaster if it hadn’t been for Blanca.”
If even Seolhwa was interested, then the clearing of that dungeon must have been a bigger deal than I’d thought.
…Maybe it really would be best to gather information as quickly as possible.
---
“No way. They really stole the spotlight from us.”
“Those filthy dogs who crawled out from God knows where! How dare they get there before us!!!”
“If they were going to call themselves the Suicides, they should’ve died in the name itself. Why the hell are they causing trouble for everyone else…!”
“...At this rate, our position is going to get awkward. We’ll be seen as nothing more than copycats.”
All day long, the members vented their fury while watching the news coverage.
Every insult was aimed at the villain group called the Suicides.
As expected, they looked pathetic. No wonder they’d been scraped together from the streets.
News is always buried by bigger news.
“Quit whining, all of you. If we go bigger and flashier, that’s all that matters. Besides, we were told the old man would be backing this operation too. What the hell are you so worried about?”
“There he goes again, acting like some complacent little Chinese bastard—!”
“Now, now. What does the region matter? We’re all citizens of the Republic of Korea now, aren’t we? Right, Aleksei? Let’s get along, shall we? Be friendly.”
Lifting a member who’d started getting out of line by the throat, he laughed.
“...I’m annoyed too, you know.”
“Got anything in mind, Wang? I’m not interested in becoming some cheap copycat.”
“I do. The raid will proceed as planned. But… on that day, let’s target that cross-eyed bitch.”
---