Ominous Feeling (4)
It had been a long time since I’d seen a look like that—ever since the crazy mage and the Cursed Shrine, maybe.
I flinched a little before I could help myself, but I didn’t dwell on it. No one understood better than I did that Jung Hayan wasn’t the same girl she had been back then.
She hadn’t killed anyone lately, and she seemed to be trying not to do anything that might upset me.
In fact, she really had become much more well-behaved. It was practically a given that she wouldn’t harm me.
Anyway, Jung Hayan stared at Han Sora in front of her for a moment, apparently too stunned to react, and then began to look at her blankly.
Before long, tears the size of chicken droppings began to plop, plop, plop down her face.
She even started hiccuping in surprise, which was weirdly cute.
“Uh… eek… hic.”
I’ll have to comfort her later.
She was so cute it made me question whether I really had no sadistic streak at all.
I didn’t know what Jung Hayan had been thinking as she watched those tears fall, but Han Sora’s back looked downright pleased.
There was no doubt she thought everything was going exactly as planned.
Just thinking about it, that idiot woman’s scheme was absurdly simple.
She was probably planning to drag me into a sexual scandal, then leverage that to get herself admitted into Blue under better conditions, but that kind of trick wasn’t going to work.
Ambitious, I’ll give her that…
She had simply picked the wrong target.
On Earth, where even company owners were constantly hounded by sexual scandal, I could understand how she’d come up with something like that. Unfortunately, this wasn’t Earth.
And I wasn’t a corporate owner either. I wasn’t some celebrity who lived on the public’s attention.
“Eek… hic….”
Jung Hayan’s expression looked a little complicated.
She kept hesitating, as if the scolding she’d gotten during the Kasugano Yuno sleeping-together incident still lingered in her mind, and her indecision kept flickering into view.
She thought she was going to get yelled at again. In the end, she lowered her head and ran off in the opposite direction.
That one deserves praise.
Looks like clobbering her properly during the Kasugano Yuno incident had worked.
With Jung Hayan reacting like that, it was only natural for the idiot woman in front of me to turn around.
“I did tell you you’d regret it, didn’t I? Now let’s see who’s going to protect you.”
“……”
“I’ll make sure you realize you picked the wrong person to mess with. And for the record, I really didn’t want to do this either.”
“Fine. I get it, so hurry up and get out.”
“I’m going to go find Instructor Jung Hayan.”
“Sure. Go ahead and try whatever you want.”
“I’ll run to Instructor Jung Hayan and tell her you sexually assaulted me, and then I’ll report it to the Red Mercenary instructors.”
“Do people ever tell you that you’re really bad at reading the room?”
“That’s what I was about to ask you. Anyway, you can struggle all you like.”
“Fine. And since you’re already going to see her, make sure you tell Hayan that she can do whatever she wants.”
“You really are shameless until the very end….”
“I’m busy, you know? Hurry up and get out.”
She managed a smile that was almost wicked, and her tearful act was actually pretty decent. Compared to An Gimo, it was nothing special, but it wasn’t bad.
Maybe around seventy points…
Once the door slammed shut, I could hear her rushing off somewhere in a panic.
I already had too much on my plate, and losing precious time left me feeling filthy, but it wasn’t enough to bother me much.
After all, she’d said she was going to find Jung Hayan on her own.
Come to think of it, maybe that wasn’t such a bad plan.
If her target had been some ordinary instructor at another guild instead of me, I might even have clapped for her a little.
She’d timed it to catch Jung Hayan as she was coming back from class, and while it was a little underhanded, it was also the sort of thing someone in a weaker position might naturally think of.
And she’s got guts, too…
If she’d been an ordinary instructor at some mid-sized company…
“At the very least, it wouldn’t have ended like this.”
Maybe the outcome would have changed a little. At the very least, she wouldn’t have been put through something this ugly.
Even a sleeping lion can be teased by the whiskers…
Yeah, and she really did poke the wrong one.
Jung Hayan was surprisingly shrewd. She understood power differentials pretty well.
A lot had changed compared to when she dealt with that woman whose name I couldn’t even remember anymore.
She understood her own social position very well, and she’d gained enough room to think about the other person’s status and the power they held, too.
She could also tell who mattered to me and how much.
For example, she’d already categorized people like Cha Heera, Kasugano Yuno, Lee Jihye, and Dialuria as important to me.
Strong people, people useful to Oppa, people with value, and people she might not like but definitely couldn’t harm.
I couldn’t read Jung Hayan’s true feelings, but after observing her for so long, I’d figured that much out.
That said, her nature itself hadn’t changed completely.
Jung Hayan was still intensely jealous, and she still sent me those chilly looks from time to time.
Han Sora wasn’t strong, and she wasn’t useful to me. She wasn’t valuable, and her social standing was extremely low.
It was only a guess, but I didn’t think she’d hold back this time. She probably knew better than anyone that there’d been no physical contact, but…
From her reaction, it looks like she forgot that part…
She must have been so shocked by what she saw that she’d forgotten everything else.
Well, whatever.
Her face, wet with those ridiculous tear drops, came to mind, and I decided that if she handled this properly, I’d have to give her a pretty big reward.
“Who should I bring in as rear support….”
* * *
Things worked out even better than I expected…
I’d come up with all kinds of plans, but the timing was better than I’d hoped.
The best possible outcome was to run into Instructor Jung Hayan in this state. No, actually, the truly ideal situation would have been for that idiot alchemist to accept my proposal, but heartbreakingly, he’d rejected my offer.
For a moment, I wondered if that overly relaxed attitude meant he had some other trick up his sleeve that I didn’t know about, but…
It’s basically over.
Everything had wrapped up perfectly.
Assuming only that side had hidden cards was a mistake. He’d probably try to control the instructors somehow and stop the rumor from spreading, but I’d prepared plenty of things in my own way, too.
What would really nail it down from here was bringing Instructor Jung Hayan over to my side.
Thinking back to her sobbing just a little while ago made me feel strangely good.
Most ordinary women would react that way.
Anyone could tell from that expression just how shocking it would be to watch the man you loved sexually assault or molest another woman.
Originally, I’d been planning to go to the Red Mercenary first, but once I pictured Instructor Jung Hayan’s face looking like she’d lost her country, I couldn’t help thinking this might actually be more effective.
She’d be confused, so if I went to her now, explained what had happened, and sweet-talked her a little, it would naturally follow that woman would become an enemy of Lee Kiyoung.
It’ll take a little time, but convincing one airhead isn’t exactly hard.
Getting her on my side before she went to Red Mercenary and got grilled about everything was a very important move.
As far as everyone was concerned, she wasn’t some woman I’d been fooling around with—I was the victim here.
That was what mattered.
Even on the way to where Jung Hayan had run off, I could feel a few gazes sticking to me.
That was proof enough, so of course I was pleased.
I forced back the smile that kept trying to break free, squeezed out a few tears, and knocked on Jung Hayan’s door, but there was no answer.
“I-I’m coming in, Instructor. Hic….”
“……”
After priming the tears, I opened the door at once, and Jung Hayan’s figure appeared in view, burrowed under the blanket.
“I-I’m sorry. It was all so sudden…. I know I’m being rude, but I thought this was the only place I could come for help. I-I was worried you might misunderstand….”
“Eek… hic….”
“I didn’t have any other intentions, Instructor… I just, uh, thought Instructor Lee Kiyoung had called me to the temporary office for a moment… I thought he was just going to make me an offer to recruit me….”
“Hic….”
“It’s a misunderstanding, Instructor Jung Hayan. It’s not what you think.”
“A misunderstanding?”
“Yes. It wasn’t because I was there with Instructor Lee Kiyoung that—”
“……”
“This is really hard to say, but… Instructor Lee Kiyoung… sob….”
“……”
“He said that if I kept quiet, he’d make sure to speak well of me to the guild. I-I of course said no, but he just wouldn’t listen….”
“Hic… Oppa did that?”
Exactly.
“Yes. I told him that he shouldn’t do that, but he was just so forceful….”
“He, he, he… he touched you?”
“Yes….”
“W-where did he touch you?”
“It’s hard to say….”
“I asked where he touched you!”
I was a little surprised by the sudden burst of her voice, but there was no way I could be anything but delighted.
Jung Hayan was far more agitated than I’d expected, and she looked mentally shaken.
“It was… my chest….”
“Huuuuuaaahhh… hic… oooohhhhaaaahhh….”
This is done.
By now, that idiot alchemist was probably proving his innocence to Red Mercenary, but if I could pull that airhead into this, I’d already won half the battle.
“What did Oppa… hic… say while he was touching you?”
“Even if I tell you….”
“Ju-just… hurry up and say it!!”
“He said I was attractive, and I kept telling him it wasn’t right, o-of course….”
“Attractive?”
“Yes. He said he knew it wasn’t right because you were there, Instructor, but he kept saying he was irresistibly… sob… sexually drawn to me. He forced a kiss on me.”
“……”
“And he told me not to tell anyone, then he… lifted my skirt….”
“D-d-did he go lower too? Hic….”
“Yes.”
“Huuuuuuuhhh… hic… oooohh, oooohhh, oooohhh….”
She’s really bawling her eyes out.
I could understand the shock, of course, but I never would have imagined she’d cry this hard after wrapping herself up in the blanket like that.
Her wails sounded like a country had been taken from her, and I found myself wondering all over again whether she was actually mentally unsound.
Still, that only meant the emotional impact was huge, which might work in my favor. But if she got so overwhelmed that she couldn’t even talk, that would be a problem.
I need her testimony… tsk. This got annoying.
“Huuuuuuuh… I hate him… hate him so much… hic.”
“I know it must be a huge shock, but… Instructor Jung Hayan.”
“I’m going to kill him….”
“You can’t do that. Whatever happened, you still—”
“Hic… keeeeh… oooohhh… I-I’m going to kill him… kill him, kill him!”
Crazy bitch. This is a real crazy bitch, isn’t it?
“Shouldn’t we go to Red Mercenary first and explain the situation? I-I mean, even you’d have a hard time if it went that far…. The incident will only get bigger, so for now we should at least give testimony… Of course, that doesn’t mean Instructor Lee Kiyoung was right, but if you kill him….”
“I-I can kill him. He’s useless, so it’s fine. This time… right? Just this once. It’s really the last time….”
“Pardon?”
“N-no, that won’t do… it can’t be allowed! Oppa will get angry. He might really scold me. This time it’s real. What if he bans me from approaching him again?”
“What… are you saying right now…?”
“But that girl has nothing, does she? She’s not like the red-haired one or the blind one—she’s not useful to Oppa! He didn’t even tell me to be careful about her! He just hasn’t said anything yet, has he? No! It’s different! Maybe this time I won’t get scolded so badly!”
“Jung Hayan….”
“Would it be okay? J-just this once… would it be okay just once? Yeah… she doesn’t even have talent… Oppa must have gotten it wrong this time. He hasn’t even made a recruitment offer yet. Ugh! She’s the useless one!”
“Instructor…?”
“Yes! A-after all… after all, let’s kill her! No, that won’t do…. If we kill her, Oppa will find out.”
“Huh?”
Click.
“As long as we don’t kill her… right! As long as we don’t kill her! Then let’s do that. That’s what we’ll do!”
The sound of the door locking.
“Hehehe….”
I didn’t know what was going on, but then, all at once, my body refused to move.
A small dagger was sticking out of my chest.
“Huh?”
The blood spilling out felt maddeningly real.
But the scream that tore out of my mouth wasn’t from pain.
It was from fear.
“Aaaagh!”