School Starts #5
School Starts #5
Old memories come to mind.
At the same time, I had a gut feeling this was exactly what it felt like when a forgotten memory suddenly resurfaced.
"..."
It's a memory from when I was young.
Life at the orphanage. The environment wasn't exactly great, and the kids around me were even worse. A lot of them tried to rule through violence, so I was always fighting.
Because of that, I got shuffled through a lot of orphanages.
"Guys. Stop it. It really hurts when you all gang up on me every single day."
Memories of pain, surfacing little by little.
I got mobbed all by myself a lot. I begged them to let me live plenty of times. Just like right now.
"Fuckin' hell, this Geun-cheol shithead's talking back again."
"Pleathe don'th beat me up, it hurth tho bad."
"You're gonna get hit? You're gonna get hit?"
I absolutely could not stand it.
"You sons of bitches."
"Wha—huh? Ah, AAAAARGH! Hey! Hey! My ear! He's biting my ear off—GRAHHH!"
"He's crazy! Hey, hey! ARGH! This fucker's grabbing my dick—HRK...!"
I wrapped my arms around the kid in front, bit his ear, and reached out to grab another one's crotch and squeezed it like I was trying to rip it off.
"I will return my pain to you!"
"My ear's tearing off! KRUAAAAARGH!"
I got kicked out.
The orphanage carousel.
Wherever I went, I was the outsider. The native kids always started the fights, but I was always the only one who got punished.
"Kim Geun-cheol. You got kicked out of your last place for beating kids up, right?"
"Yeah. That's a painful memory."
"You crazy bastard. Good. Let's get along from now on."
"Fine."
A smooth-talking bastard.
I didn't like his voice or his eyes.
"Then how about you get to work with us, since you're here?"
Do they make the orphans work here?
"Kids do work? What kind of work?"
"Hey. Bring Lee Cheol-min."
Lee Cheol-min.
"Ugh... urgh..."
A kid I'd met once before. In my memory, a younger Lee Cheol-min was dragged in, beaten to a pulp.
He was the one they chronically mobbed.
"New guy's here, so we gotta welcome him. That's Lee Cheol-min. A total loser. Kim Geun-cheol, you beat the hell out of him."
"You want me to rough him up?"
"Yeah. Just go whale on him."
"Beat a person up? Why?"
"Because you gotta do that much to hang with us."
As expected, I don't like this.
"Do I really have to hit someone?"
"It's not 'do you have to,' you need to. Or do you wanna get beaten up instead of Lee Cheol-min? I hate weak little shits."
"I hate weak shits too, you know."
"What? ARGH!"
The moment I impulsively threw a punch, I thought "oh crap," but the second I saw him fall, I absolutely couldn't hold back.
"You! Are! Weaker! Than me!"
"AAAAUGH! Crazy! This fucker! URRAAAARGH! Block! Block it, damn it! GRRRGH!"
"You psycho!"
"Hey, hey! Stop him!"
I climbed right on top of him and gave him a beating.
"If you're gonna! Tell someone to hit someone! You get your ass kicked first, you piece of shit!"
"Gak! Eurgh! Someone make him stop, fuck! KEEAAARGH!"
"Pull him off, now!"
Since it was one against a bunch, I ended up getting hit too, but I absolutely wrecked the ringleader. After all that fighting was over,
I got called in.
"Why did you do it, why! Why are you fighting again! You just got here and you already fought! Why did you fight! You! You fight addict!"
A woman with a hysterical vibe.
"No... about that."
She shrieked at me, interrogating me, and I answered honestly.
"Those bastards said it was a welcome thing and told me to beat up some kid, Lee Cheol-min? So naturally, a fight broke out..."
"Shut up, you worthless orphan scum! Be quiet! Be quiet, I said! A worthless shit like you rolls in and starts running your mouth! Shut up! Shut your mouth!"
"No, you asked why I fought, so I answered because you asked, why are you swearing so much...? You fucking bitch?"
"What? KYAAAAAAHHHH!"
It wasn't even a much louder scream.
She'd already been shrieking at the top of her lungs. So I grabbed a fistful of her hair like a maniac and pinched the hell out of her flabby stomach.
"Your hair! Gimme your hair, you bitch! If you're gonna punish someone, punish those bastards, not me! You fuckers can't make a normal goddamn judgment!"
"AAAAAAH! He's insane! He's a complete fucking psycho! HRGH! KYAAAAAAHHH!"
"You're the psycho for neglecting the orphans!"
Whatever the case, it wasn't a great memory.
Whether childhood or adolescence, the environment was just too bad. A world where words absolutely never worked until you threw a punch. Growing up and living in a place like that, my social skills naturally vanished.
Then one day, I Awakened.
"Fucking jackpot."
The Academy was.
A good place.
There were almost no kids with completely rotted personalities. There were a few, but... by and large, they were probably all normal kids who grew up loved. They were kind at the baseline, and you could talk to them.
So it was hard to fit in.
I just couldn't get close to the kids. No. I'd simply forgotten the concept of normally getting close to people at all. So... I would've just lived quietly, not caring about anything. But.
The memories after that are hazy.
"It is my memory."
This is.
Definitely my memory.
"How old even am I, fuck."
My memory returns to the present. I wipe the mirror. I look at my own face. From my eyes, as I'm in the shower,
"Mister? Are you a mister now?"
Tears
were falling down.
"Calling myself mister... is making me cry."
"Heuk! Krrgh!"
Some emotion I can't identify wells up. Maybe it's a reaction to recalling an old memory. Even I couldn't tell why I was sad.
Even though the memories after that are so foggy I can barely recall them.
"Hueeeuuuuh!"
I finished showering while crying, then came out and lay down on the bed.
* * *
"So that's what it is."
This is my old memory, is it?
"Ah."
Lying on the bed with both hands behind my head, I stared at the ceiling and contemplated. The flowing tears had stopped. Only the time for reflection remained.
Contemplation after overcoming chaotic memories and letting the tears out. Even I think it's a little cool, so I start to feel genuinely serious.
"Chronologically, is that memory the first one?"
The oldest memory means the first memory. It probably refers to a life I had before living on Earth.
I form a hypothesis.
"That orphan world eventually met its destruction, and I died."
Up to here is highly likely. If destruction came, I wouldn't have been able to escape death. Then, after that ended... in chronological order.
My life on Earth came out.
That truly ordinary life where I was born normally, lived decently well, and even went to the army. Of course, I got into a lot of fights on Earth too. Because that's exactly who I am.
"Which means."
Next hypothesis.
"After dying in destruction... I reincarnated on Earth?"
Reincarnated on Earth, lived well.
Then I ended up in this world while looking for a game.
"..."
From here on, it's absurd.
I came back, that's what it is.
And into a world that had been treated as a game on Earth, no less.
"What kind of crazy..."
Now that I've organized it, it's so ridiculous that I'm speechless. Is it some kind of parallel world? For a simple example, the Nazis were defeated on Earth. But in some world, the Nazis might have won.
In that world, the world where the Nazis lost might be treated as fiction or a parallel world... what is this.
"For some reason, I came back. Then I'm definitely a mister..."
If you've spent your twenties twice, you'd naturally be in your forties.
"Crazy...! Shut up! I am absolutely not a mister!"
The moment that despairing hypothesis was established, a realistic terror about my age washed over me. No, wait. If reincarnation is a thing in this world, then the whole human race is thousands of years old. Therefore, I discard the theory that I'm a mister.
I am a youth. A fresh, green late-teenager.
"Okay. Mental care complete."
Once it was clearly proven that I am a 17-year-old high school student, my mind became clear and I felt refreshed. My unease and stuff were all blown away.
"Good."
To draw a conclusion, I came back to this world for some reason. You could call it a kind of return. It was iffy before, but it's confirmed now that I recalled the memory today.
—Swipe.
I grabbed the Fragment I'd set at the head of the bed.
"This bastard."
It's clearly something dangerous.
Yet ironically, it's restoring my old memories. Does that mean my memories or my return might be related to this thing?
Whatever the case, if I returned, it means there's a reason and duty that's just as heavy.
"My goal's becoming clearer and clearer."
Thinking that, I close my eyes.
And with that, I think about my friends.
"..."
The memories surfacing only go up to a little while after entering the academy. In those memories, there's no sign of me getting along well with my current friends or anything.
We just interacted distantly as classmates.
Given that even that is blurry, it probably means I almost didn't bother with them at all.
"Must be a personality difference."
The Kim Geun-cheol who grew up in an orphanage and whose humanity broke had no social skills.
But the Kim Geun-cheol who grew up normally on Earth had them in abundance. Maybe that's where the difference comes from.
Thinking that, I opened my status window.
"Status window."
--------------------
[Status Window - Kim Geun-cheol]
「Strength: 29」
「Skill: 28」
「Stamina: 27」
「Endurance: 15」
「Magic Power: 24」
[Coins Held: 15,764]
[Held Skills]
- Weapon Enchantment (E)
- War Cry (E)
- Mana Shield (E)
- Mana Helm (E)
--------------------
"It really has changed a lot."
I'd barely opened it for a while, but I really grew steadily. And I even have lots of coins. I especially like that my endurance, which barely went up, shot up. My skill ranks went up too.
And a new skill, Mana Helm.
"Mana Helm!"
—Fwoosh!
When I used the skill, a helm of magic power formed around my head.
"Oh."
I'd been practicing it. Just looking, it's at a pretty good level. It feels a bit surreal to see something I was clumsily using suddenly succeed like this, thanks to the skill.
But at the same time, I also think this.
"The memories."
The skill appeared because my memories surfaced.
I can't say for sure, but since my past self went all the way to destruction, he was probably definitely stronger than I am now. Maybe the status window and skills are some kind of indicator of me reclaiming what my past self had—something like that, I think.
"It's really mysterious, this."
I don't know who made this status window, but it truly is mysterious.
It's too unrealistic.
Does this actually function? Maybe I didn't get stronger by raising my stats, but I could raise them because I got stronger. A kind of placebo effect... or, like I just thought, reclaiming my past power. Maybe it's something like that.
Anyway, a lot to think about.
For now, sleep.
"One hour nap, then I get up."
My arm wounds are wearing me out.