Chapter 49
Terminally Ill, but It's Okay — Episode 49
Unlike most other educational institutions, Taehak had a great many assessments.
Over the course of a single semester: diagnostic, formative, midterm, final.
They were administered in that order, and the diagnostic assessment was, as the name suggested, for diagnosis, so its results were not reflected in grades.
Therefore, the first thing that actually affected grades was the formative assessment, which would be held throughout this week, but.......
Except for yesterday's individual sparring, they were all one-off assessments, so the burden was on the lighter side.
Fortunately, I had beaten Cheol-soo yesterday, so I already had one win.
Anyway, after a quick shower, I opened my textbook for the history assessment scheduled for this morning.
The lines that had once been nothing but print now seemed to swagger at me as if they were something important.
But so what?
Weren't they all going to be absorbed with a single gesture anyway?
I recalled what today's assessment questions had been, then reached out toward the general expected range and activated Appraisal.
[The Significance of Social, Political, and Economic Changes After the Day of Judgment]
[Goryeo History and Joseon History from an Awakener's Perspective]
[The Reorganization of the World Order, the Logical Structure of Colonial Historiography]
.
.
The extracted information swirled through my head in disorder, as if rebelling, but soon settled into a single system.
This should at least get me an A.
I had thought it plenty of times before, but Appraisal really was broken—especially for someone who had spent his whole life avoiding books.
I packed my bag and left the dormitory.
As usual, I arrived ten minutes early and quietly opened the door and went in.
The lecture hall was excessively lively, just like yesterday.
Groups of three or four students were talking all over the room, some excited and others wearing unusually serious expressions.
As expected, this damn department never had a single quiet day.
What was all the commotion about this time?
I listened in on the conversation of some extras whose names I could barely remember.
"That's bullshit. Like anyone could get a perfect score."
"No, I'm serious. I saw it clearly this morning."
"Who the hell is Buhansi?"
......Somehow, though, this felt awfully relevant to me.
"It's you, Baek Sa-young."
"What is? Buhansi? I'm telling you it's not me. I haven't even signed up yet."
"Wow, look at this bastard denying it. If it's not you, then who else among the second-years could get a perfect score?"
"How should I know?"
"It's really not you?"
"Yeah. I'll prove it in a bit, so let's go to the training ground together."
Lee Yeong-han, Baek Sa-young, and even Joo A-rin, who was listening with half-lidded eyes.
They were all talking about Buhansi.......
In other words, they were obsessed with the perfect score I had accidentally gotten yesterday after joining on a whim.
Well, this is awkward.
For now, I walked on calmly, pretending not to know anything.
"Hey, let's talk later."
"......Ah, that guy?"
Their gazes landed on me.
They poured in from every direction like spotlights.
Suddenly, I remembered what Joo A-rin had said yesterday.
She had said people were talking.
My pestering Cheon Seo-yoon seemed to have been the spark that got me branded as a complete scumbag.
Hm.
Curious how bad my reputation had gotten, I listened closely.
A colorful assortment of labels immediately reached me.
Social misfit, drug addict, a bastard disowned by his sorcerer family, a lecher obsessed with women.......
But aside from that last one—"lecher"—none of it was new to anyone who knew me.
It was also a problem that was bound to blow up eventually.
Something similar had happened in the original under the grand name of the "Park Ha-yul Scandal."
It had probably been right after Park Ha-yul awakened Manifestation. As I remembered it, someone in his sorcerer family, jealous of the attention he was getting, had deliberately engineered the scandal.
So what happened?
Surprisingly, it had fizzled out without much drama.
I wondered who he took after. The original Park Ha-yul was also a stubborn loner who didn't care what other people thought.
Since there was no reaction, it had died down on its own.
Anyway, if this was the price of getting Cheon Seo-yoon moving again, I had gotten off cheap.
That assumption turned into certainty when Cheon Seo-yoon walked in right on cue.
"Hey, you're here? What's with your face?"
"What?"
"You look completely wrecked. Were you drinking last night?"
"Wanna die? Drinking, my ass. We have a written assessment today. I was up all night studying."
Her condition had improved enough for her to play along with Lee Dae-ho's joke.
But had I stared too openly?
Our eyes met.
"......."
During that brief eye contact, the emotion in her clear gaze still carried a fierce, cold hostility.
"Yeah. Better that than a walking corpse."
After confirming that the embers were still burning, I turned my head away first.
I walked toward the back seat, which was now practically my reserved spot.
Then the voices tearing me down shifted back to praising someone else.
"If it's not Baek Sa-young, then who the hell is it?"
"They say it's one of the top students in the Magic Track. Someone already analyzed it and posted on the community. Apparently you can get that score if you take the boss down in one shot from the starting point."
"Damn it, does that even make sense? It has to be at least 300 meters. How are you supposed to hit that?"
The situation was so absurdly funny that a snort of laughter escaped me.
* * *
Taehak aimed to cultivate Awakeners balanced in wisdom, virtue, and physical ability.
It held that one-sided growth could never be complete. Taehak wanted warriors more like Guan Yu than Lü Bu and never neglected theory or general education.
Professor Cha Myeong-hwan agreed with that philosophy and had devoted his career to it.
But when had it started?
How had Taehak students, who were supposed to embody well-rounded growth, turned into idiots who cared only about power.......
"Hng."
Professor Cha Myeong-hwan surveyed the lecture hall with a disapproving glare and finally groaned.
The exam had only started ten minutes ago.
The room ought to have been filled with the scratch of pencils. Instead, the reality was miserable.
One student sighed as if trying to cave in the floor.
Another raked a hand roughly through his hair while muttering something close to a curse.
And what's this?
One had even given up completely and put his head down on the desk.
Yet when practical exams like live combat training came around, those same students would throw themselves in with fire in their eyes.
Of course, Cha Myeong-hwan was not trying to dismiss the importance of physical ability.
Taehak's essence was the cradle of demon eradication.
Whatever else might be said, raw combat power was undeniably the foundation.
But even so, there had to be limits.
At the very least, they should have the basics.
Did those brats even know that a people who forget their history have no future?
"Tsk, tsk."
The thought was so lamentable that a dark shadow crossed the face of the elderly professor nearing retirement.
Once the assessment ended, he intended to visit the dean and complain.
Step. Step.
Then, at some point, clear footsteps reached him.
He turned to see what was happening and found one of the brats from the back row striding toward him with an exam paper in hand.
The student slapped the exam paper down, bowed, and headed for the door.
.......
And now someone was even giving up halfway through the exam.
"What exactly do you think you're doing?"
Cha Myeong-hwan was speechless for a moment, then raised his voice.
But the answer he got was unbelievable.
"I finished all the questions, so I'm leaving."
Finished everything?
He had spent ages selecting questions worthy of Taehak's reputation, and this brat claimed to have finished the whole exam in ten minutes?
"Good heavens."
Professor Cha Myeong-hwan spoke through tightly restrained anger.
"Are you certain you really solved everything?"
"Yes."
"Then I suppose you expect at least an A. Is that right?"
The good-for-nothing stopped and answered cautiously.
"Unless I shifted my answers onto the wrong lines, I think I should get at least that much."
"Around that much?"
"Yes, I'm not sure about an A+, but I wrote down everything I know."
"Heh heh."
What a truly shameless brat.
Cha Myeong-hwan warned him.
"You had better be ready to stand by those words."
"I did my best, so I have no regrets."
The brat bowed once more and walked away.
Trying to show some manners, the brat even opened the door gently and closed it just as gently behind him.
"What is the world coming to?"
Still looking dumbfounded, Professor Cha Myeong-hwan snatched up the answer sheet irritably.
Determined to catch the brat making a fool of his professor, he glared down at the answers and began reading.
But then.
"What in the......."
His stern expression quickly turned to shock.
Insight that cut straight to the examiner's intent. A flawless set of answers.
It was as though the student had stepped inside his head. He could not find a single thing to fault.
Professor Cha Myeong-hwan hurriedly flipped back to the first page and checked the name at the top.
* * *
Immediately after the written assessment ended, Joo A-rin grabbed Cheon Seo-yoon by the arm and pulled her along.
"I said I don't have an appetite."
"Then at least eat at the cafeteria."
"Nooo— I told you I feel like I'll get sick if I eat."
"Then get sick. Better than starving yourself, right?"
Seeing Cheon Seo-yoon looking so gaunt made Joo A-rin deeply uncomfortable.
"Ugh, seriously."
"Come with me while I'm still asking nicely. I'm busy too."
Joo A-rin gave a small sigh and took the lead.
A much deeper sigh followed, along with the soft shuffle of footsteps behind her.
"......."
And so the two of them walked toward the cafeteria in uncomfortable silence.
When had things changed between them?
Joo A-rin suddenly felt oddly unsettled by how much her own attitude had changed.
Not long ago, her relationship with Cheon Seo-yoon had definitely been closer to rivalry than friendship.
Cheon Seo-yoon might not have felt that way, but she had.
They could hardly avoid being compared, and Joo A-rin's grades had always lagged just slightly behind.
The subtle resentment always fell to the one standing behind, and Joo A-rin had swallowed it again and again.
But when had it started? During the Final Stage Occupation Battle? Or after the auction incident?
When that back—always so annoyingly full of energy—began to look smaller and smaller, a strange feeling rose in her.
Was it pity? Or friendship she had only realized too late?
She could not quite put the vague feeling into words, but there was one thing.......
One thing she knew for certain.
She could not pretend she did not see Cheon Seo-yoon's pain.
And there would be nothing satisfying about beating a Cheon Seo-yoon who was missing a screw. It would only be embarrassing.
"...Why aren't you asking anything else?"
Cheon Seo-yoon, unable to endure the awkwardness, spoke up, but Joo A-rin didn't look back.
"You were curious about that bastard and the necklace...... weren't you?"
"Was I?"
Only then did Joo A-rin stop. She half-turned her head and answered in her usual tone.
"Not anymore. I'm more interested in what the cafeteria is serving today."
"What the......."
Cheon Seo-yoon stared at her in disbelief, and Joo A-rin smiled.
It was still better than the gloomy face she had grown sick of seeing lately.
"Let's hurry. I'm hungry."
Joo A-rin exaggeratedly rubbed her stomach and started walking again.
"Hey, that way doesn't lead to the cafeteria."
"......."
"You've never eaten at the cafeteria, have you?"
At those words, her footsteps stopped.
......Come to think of it, that really was true.