Chapter 51
Chapter 51
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 51
Chapter Title: Wind and Sun
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The road between the twin dormitories.
People were crowding outside the safety fence.
"Guarantee our rightful rights!"
"Guarantee them!"
Where had they gotten it from?
Quite a few women were up on the wide platform.
Two men were mixed in among them.
The girl with the bob cut stood at the very front.
She had rolled up a piece of paper like a megaphone and was raising her voice.
"Fellow students! They're exploiting us! Why are you all putting up with such terrible conditions…."
Watching her brought a flood of thoughts to mind.
The biggest one was, 'Did I really look that much like a pushover?'
"Wow. She's got some pipes on her, starting this early in the morning."
Jang Ho-seop spoke casually.
He'd sounded so urgent when he'd come to pick me up earlier.
But the moment he saw my face, his expression had quickly settled.
His anxious feelings had turned calm and relaxed.
This guy was pretty mysterious in a lot of ways.
"How long are you all going to tolerate this unfair oppression and exploitation? Just to avoid going hungry today…."
Jang Ho-seop and I stood at the dorm entrance for a moment, watching the bob-cut girl.
"We're sinning against our own future. That's why we have to raise our voices right here, right now."
Her greasy, matted hair sparkled in the sunlight.
The glasses she wore were crooked and ill-fitting.
Her clothes were filthy, and grime caked her long nails.
As far as I could see, the bob-cut girl was in no position to be talking about the future.
"Everyone! Give us your support. Unite with us."
"Hey, you crazy bitch!"
That wasn't just my opinion, apparently.
A woman a full head taller than the others yelled up at the platform.
"If you're gonna spout bullshit, do it somewhere else! Why the hell are you making a racket here?!"
The bob-cut girl looked flustered.
She forced herself to meet the tall woman's eyes and replied.
"Are you afraid of them? Find your courage. If we band together, we can manage just fine without those people…."
"Then why didn't you band together sooner? Now that the big monster swarm's gone, you slink out like this…."
Jang Ho-seop chuckled under his breath beside me.
There was a real mix in the crowd.
The usual workers heading out for jobs, and the bob-cut girl's crew.
"No, why are you trying to turn yourselves into slaves? We can go out and scavenge supplies ourselves just fine."
I could feel the crowd's emotions.
Anxiety stemming from the bob-cut girl's antics.
They were all watching my reaction.
"It's because they won't let us farm for ourselves! It's not even their stuff!"
"Then is it yours, you bitch? Those people came and wiped out the big monster swarm. Have a little shame."
One by one, voices rose in rebuttal to the bob-cut girl.
"Shut the fuck up and get down from there!"
"You gotta survive today before you worry about tomorrow. Zero grasp on reality."
"Who the hell are you? What gives you the right to show up and stir shit?"
Jang Ho-seop muttered in an embarrassed tone.
He said it wasn't an uprising after all—he'd been mistaken.
"Stop! Don't say things you'll regret later! We've already got so many people who've joined our cause."
It definitely wasn't an uprising.
It wasn't like they'd all risen up en masse.
Still, there were quite a few sympathizing with the bob-cut girl's stance.
"We want to live independent lives. We can do it. Why grovel under those filthy men like…."
Then the bob-cut girl slipped up.
She let her true feelings spill out from under the polished facade.
"Hey, have you ever even killed a single monster?"
"Of course…."
"Not the big ones. Have you ever fought a goblin or an orc?!"
The bob-cut girl's presence felt weak.
She was just an ordinary person.
"I know you all spread stories about me to everyone else. But so what?"
This time, a pretty woman calmly laid into the bob-cut girl.
Jang Ho-seop told me she was the one seeing Mr. Bae Bong-sik.
"I'd take this over risking my life against monsters any day."
At her words, the bob-cut girl lowered her paper megaphone.
And muttered something to herself.
'Slut?'
I was guessing from her lip movements, so I wasn't sure, but it was definitely a curse.
"Ah~ You can't handle this yourself, huh? So you're out here luring people in? Can't do it, so no one else can?"
The bob-cut girl's face turned bright red.
She couldn't hide her agitation, and it showed plain on her expression.
Then someone from her group sidled up and whispered in her ear.
They glanced our way—they'd spotted Jang Ho-seop and me.
"Even when I spell it out, you don't get it. Don't come crying later."
"Pfft. Nu-nu~"
"I'll show you right now. That we can do this just fine on our own. Hey, Representative? If you're so aboveboard, come out and talk."
The bob-cut girl pointed right at me.
The eyes of all the gathered workers turned my way at once.
I'd climbed up onto the platform.
All eyes were fixed on me.
Jang Ho-seop had offered to handle it, but I'd turned him down.
"Release the people. It's pathetic, dangling food like bait…."
The bob-cut girl started blustering with a smug look.
"Guarantee our freedom to farm. Starting today, we'll head out into the streets ourselves…."
My head was starting to heat up.
Target Detection.
In a big crowd like this, I had to dial it back, just like when fighting the big monster swarm.
"And share out the excess supplies you've hoarded. We're not asking for much. Just fair compensation for people's labor…."
But right now, I was focusing my Target Detection instead.
Reading emotions to pick out the ones hostile to me.
"And the people you exiled. Where did they go? We demand a clear explanation!"
And finally, it was clear.
It was time to wrap up the story of the wind and the sun.
"Speak up. Can you be honest… in front of everyone?"
At the same time, the bob-cut girl finished listing her demands.
I had no idea what she'd said.
I hadn't been listening.
"Does everyone here agree? If not, get down now. This is your one and only chance."
I scanned the people on the platform as I spoke.
A petite woman raised her hand.
"Not me! I'm out."
She scurried past me and hopped down from the platform.
Then she looked back up at us with excited eyes.
"No, you—hey! Do you think we're playing around here?"
I walked slowly toward the bob-cut girl.
She lifted her chin and stared me down.
She really was an incomprehensible woman.
"Loud enough for everyone to…."
Slap—!
I slapped her without much force.
"Ow! What the…."
Slap!
She opened her mouth, so I hit her again.
Greasy oil smeared onto my hand.
The bob-cut girl instinctively staggered back.
I followed and landed a few more.
Slap! Slap! Slap! Splash!
The crowd stared in stunned silence at the sudden violence.
I couldn't understand the bob-cut girl.
She probably couldn't understand me either.
We were living in completely different worlds.
So there was no point in talking.
"W-wait!"
After about ten slaps, the bob-cut girl crumpled to the ground.
One of her companions snapped to his senses and charged at me.
A young guy.
"Hey! What the hell do you think you're doing?! Violence like this!"
He tried to grab me.
Spouting nonsense.
Slash.
He reached out, so I whipped out my axe in a flash.
With a light swing, I cleanly severed his extended arm.
The man couldn't process what had just happened.
Thud.
"Uh… Aaaagh!"
Only after his arm hit the ground did he start writhing and screaming.
With the interrupter gone, I approached the bob-cut girl again.
Wonder if too many slaps could kill someone.
I raised my hand.
The moment Yi Hyun climbed onto the platform, Jang Ho-seop had his interns form a wall.
He gathered the survivors there for easier management.
He blocked off escape routes so the people on the platform couldn't flee.
Then he watched what Yi Hyun did.
"S-sunbae-nim."
"Yeah?"
Lee Yu-na approached him.
"Just curious, but… wouldn't it have been better to do this from the start?"
The two stood side by side, watching Yi Hyun as they talked.
"Like, why bother with those people up till now… that kind of thing?"
"Yeah. If we'd just kept the ones who accepted our terms, none of this would've happened."
Truth be told, Lee Yu-na still didn't fully understand Yi Hyun's talk of wind and sun.
Yi Hyun was all about efficiency.
To her, it had seemed like he was taking the long way around at Myeongshin Women's University.
"This is just my take… I don't know hyung-nim's intentions exactly either."
"Okay."
"Hyung-nim hates people."
"Pardon?"
Jang Ho-seop paused for a moment before continuing.
"He knows people inside out because he hates them. Hyung-nim's clever… and political."
"Ah~ You mean handsome and smart? I already knew that."
"Huh? W-well… yeah, that's part of it."
Lee Yu-na's response stalled Jang Ho-seop's train of thought for a second.
He picked his words carefully again.
"If he'd handled things quickly, hyung-nim would've had to kill way more people than this."
"Mm… because there'd be more opposition?"
"Yeah. So he started with the warm sunlight to test the waters."
Jang Ho-seop was cautiously interpreting Yi Hyun's thinking.
As he'd said, Yi Hyun had let things simmer.
"That's how he filtered out most of the reactionaries."
"Reactionaries?"
"Eh, strong word maybe. Up till now, it was all about distinguishing friend from foe."
Jang Ho-seop thought Yi Hyun had a childish side.
He was pure.
His likes and dislikes were clear-cut.
"Mom's skill takes way longer to sway total opposites."
"Ah… yeah. I kinda get it."
So even if it seemed inefficient short-term, Yi Hyun's choice made sense long-term.
He hated the idea of constant backlash later, so he'd gone through this process.
"And the ones trying to outright shatter the rules showed their true colors first."
"That woman?"
"Yeah. It's about justification. Might look excessive to others, but she picked the fight."
Jang Ho-seop shook his head—by old standards, it wasn't excessive at all.
He even said her timing was off.
People were in the middle of adapting to the order Yi Hyun's group had laid down.
"That's why he's political. This whole crowd's split into two camps now. Allies and enemies."
"No way… he planned all that?"
"Obviously. He even set the board nice and easy for Mom's skills."
While Jang Ho-seop and Lee Yu-na talked…
Yi Hyun had subdued everyone on the platform.
Every one of them missing a limb.
"Ah… I don't get it. Don't know what I should do. You just move right along with what Yi Hyun-nim thinks…."
"Me? Nah, no way. I ask him about everything."
"Even spreading meat smell in Building 2 to rile them up?"
"Ah~ that was a bit on my own… but he approved. Called it the warm breeze."
Lee Yu-na asked why that counted as a warm breeze.
To her, it was pure provocation.
"He gave them an opening. Gentle sunlight or scorching—it's all sunlight. Same difference."
Kim Soo-jung had appeared on the platform before they knew it.
She got Yi Hyun's okay and began her speech.
"That's how it is?"
"Yeah, pretty much."
"Anyway, what should I do?"
This was what Lee Yu-na really wanted to ask.
She wanted to get closer to Yi Hyun but didn't know how.
"You're doing great, ho-bae."
"Me?"
"Yeah. Seems like you know it on instinct."
"Know what?"
As Lee Yu-na's voice rose, Jang Ho-seop answered in a hurry.
"You like hyung-nim, right?"
"Yes."
"There you go. That's enough. Just don't cross the line. Keep being loyal like you are. Let your feelings show."
Lee Yu-na fell into thought for a moment.
Then she realized Jang Ho-seop's advice wasn't much help.
"You sure? No secret techniques or anything?"
"Argh, hey. I'm flying solo too… Anyway, most guys are simple."
"But you just said Yi Hyun-nim's clever and political…."
Kim Soo-jung had the crowd spellbound with her practiced skill.
She gave the same speech as during training time.
That Yi Hyun would save them, that he was on their side, so just follow him.
And she'd said essentially the same thing to Lee Yu-na.
"That's separate. Praise how cool he is, don't cross lines. You're not the type aiming for the top of his head anyway."
Lee Yu-na nodded—she supposed that was true.
But she was still anxious.
No, impatient was more like it.
Because…
'Unnie… sigh. I can't beat unnie.'
There was her rival, Yoon Bom.
The mere thought of Yoon Bom brought two massive mounds floating into Lee Yu-na's mind.
Even her Fundamental Skill, mana storage.
Lee Yu-na had always had the physical edge over every woman she'd met.
And then Yoon Bom appeared, transcending Korean norms.
"Levels go up, mana increases too, right?"
"Yup."
"So maybe…."
In her frustration, Lee Yu-na almost asked about the correlation between mana and bust size.
"N-no, forget it."
"Hey, quit daydreaming and let's go. Hyung-nim's calling."
"Huh? Yeah, coming."
Yi Hyun was beckoning them from in front of the unconscious bob-cut girl.
Could I slap the bob-cut girl to death?
I dropped the thought quickly.
A better idea had come up.
'Before that….'
I needed to deal with the others first.
The ones trying to destroy the rules, and anyone harboring resentment toward me.
I called over Jang Ho-seop and Yu-na.
'Both look pretty serious.'
They must have been wrestling with the same dilemma.
It suddenly hit me how well I'd chosen my companions.