Chapter 65
Chapter 65
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>Translator: Ryuma
>Chapter: 65
>Chapter Title: Jealousy (4)
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While Il-mok was conversing with Ju Seo-yeon.
In that shabby clearing where Il-mok always visited, Jeong-hyeon kept glancing around nervously with anxious eyes.
“…Did I do something wrong to the Young Master?”
The path where Il-mok would come. For some reason, Il-mok hadn't appeared today.
“Well… He has every reason to avoid me.”
Recalling how she had flinched and pulled away whenever Il-mok drew even a little closer, Jeong-hyeon let out a deep sigh.
Her sigh was thick with self-loathing.
Anthropophobia didn't mean hating all people unconditionally. If it stemmed from severe trauma and hatred toward humanity, that might be different. But Jeong-hyeon had developed it due to demonic arts.
“…Am I going to end up alone again like this?”
She got startled and anxious whenever someone approached, but living completely alone was unbearably lonely.
“Should I try finding a new friend…”
The thought crossed her mind, but Jeong-hyeon soon drooped her head as if it were impossible.
“Who am I to…”
She freaked out even when someone just approached a little—how could she possibly make friends?
Naturally, her longing for Il-mok grew even stronger.
For Jeong-hyeon, who had been alone ever since entering the Demonic Path Academy due to her anthropophobia, Il-mok—who had approached her first—was truly a ray of light.
Just as a tear seemed about to roll down from her eye.
“What are you doing there?”
Il-mok's voice snapped Jeong-hyeon back to reality.
Il-mok had appeared in the clearing before she knew it, looking at her with a strange expression as he asked.
“Do you have some skill in drawing too?”
Jeong-hyeon was crouched in the corner, scribbling something on the ground with a tree branch.
Snapping to her senses belatedly, Jeong-hyeon looked down at the picture she had drawn on the ground.
It was Il-mok's face.
In her grief over losing what might have been her first friend, she had drawn that friend out of longing.
Realizing what she had been doing, Jeong-hyeon let out a bizarre scream like she was having a fit.
“Eek!?”
She realized the picture was highly open to misinterpretation.
Not wanting to disgust her potential first friend, Jeong-hyeon wildly swung the branch around.
Il-mok's face was mercilessly shredded and became unrecognizable.
Watching Jeong-hyeon mutilate the drawing of an unidentified person's face, Il-mok awkwardly asked.
“Ahem. W-well, if it's inconvenient, I'll head out for today.”
He wondered if he had triggered her anthropophobia for no reason.
“N-no, Young Master! I'm fine! No, I do have some issues, but it's okay with you here!”
Jeong-hyeon stammered incoherently before hurriedly changing the subject.
“C-come to think of it, you're later than usual today, Young Master.”
The moment she said it, Jeong-hyeon regretted it.
‘This sounds like I'm nagging him about being late! He didn't promise to come here every time! You idiot, Jeong-hyeon!’
Whether Jeong-hyeon was berating herself or not, Il-mok replied with an indifferent face.
“Ah, I was delayed a bit shaking off a leech.”
“A l-leech?”
Were there leeches in the Demonic Path Academy?
The question lingered for a moment, but Jeong-hyeon shook her head vigorously.
‘Get it together, Jeong-hyeon! You can't miss this chance! Right! Instructor Eun-ryeo said it— no matter the side effects of the martial arts, you have to keep trying to overcome them.’
Steeling herself, Jeong-hyeon asked.
“A-are you going to p-practice Stealth Technique today too, Young Master?”
“That's the plan.”
“Th-then I'll t-teach you with all my h-heart!”
As Il-mok made a troubled face at Jeong-hyeon's even more severe stuttering than usual.
Jeong-hyeon mustered great courage and took one step toward Il-mok to demonstrate.
Noting how Jeong-hyeon's attitude seemed somehow different from usual, Il-mok thought.
‘Still quite distant.’
No more, no less—just one step.
It was the maximum courage Jeong-hyeon could muster.
* * *
While Il-mok was honing his Stealth Technique with Jeong-hyeon.
Bang Mi-hwa was diligently training in martial arts at a training ground on one side of the Black Dragon Pavilion alongside Ha-yeong.
As a talented entrant to the Demonic Path Academy, she had no intention of slacking on her training. No, she was intoxicated with herself as a dedicated talent of the Academy.
Her confidence in herself allowed her to train separately like this instead of chasing after Il-mok every day.
In the midst of a friendly spar with her friend Ha-yeong, Bang Mi-hwa had such thoughts.
‘Ahh. If only there were a huge mirror in the training ground.’
The sight of her executing martial arts would surely rival a heavenly fairy dancing. It was such a shame she couldn't see it herself.
While Bang Mi-hwa was lost in self-admiration.
“Mi-hwa.”
Ha-yeong, who had been clashing her iron fan against her practice sword, called out to her.
Only then did Bang Mi-hwa snap out of it and look at Ha-yeong with a puzzled expression. Ha-yeong subtly turned her head, gesturing with her eyes to the side.
There, a few fellow Demonic Path Academy students were walking by while chatting.
Neither Bang Mi-hwa nor Ha-yeong paid them much attention. They were from the E-Class.
The problem was the content of their conversation.
They were sharing a story much like what Il-mok had overheard yesterday. In other words, that Ju Seo-yeon was seducing Il-mok to snag a position.
“Come to think of it, it was weird, right? Ju from E-Class was always chasing after Arm Young Master.”
Ha-yeong, knowing that her friend Bang Mi-hwa had some strange vibe with Il-mok, spoke in a concerned tone.
“Right, Mi-hwa…? Huh?”
When she turned her head, she caught sight of Bang Mi-hwa's back as she dashed off toward somewhere.
* * *
Meanwhile, at that time.
Ju Seo-yeon was wildly swinging her spear in yet another training ground.
‘I must get Cha-seok! I must get Cha-seok!’
Her mind was filled only with that thought.
“Ju from E-Class!”
At that moment, a sharp voice pierced her concentration and drilled into her ears.
Turning her head, she saw a woman she had run into a few times in recent days.
‘Bang Mi-hwa, was it?’
Ju Seo-yeon, who cared little for anyone but Jin Ha-yeon, wasn't even sure of the name.
“What is it?”
She asked without hiding her annoyance, but Bang Mi-hwa didn't care at all.
“I heard the story.”
“What story?”
“That you have a crush on the Young Master?”
“…Pardon?”
Ju Seo-yeon made an absurd face, but Bang Mi-hwa ignored her expression entirely.
“Give up.”
“???”
“He's already smitten with me, so it'll just leave you hurt.”
“???????”
“I came to tell you that. Well, then.”
With that, as if she had said all she needed to, Bang Mi-hwa turned and walked away.
Ju Seo-yeon stared at Bang Mi-hwa's retreating back for a moment.
“What an odd person.”
She quickly lost interest and dove back into her training.
Her mind was filled only with a rosy future with Jin Ha-yeon.
* * *
After dangling Jin Ha-yeon as bait to keep Ju Seo-yeon at bay, and Bang Mi-hwa starting to show only her right face, a half-baked peace settled into Il-mok's daily life.
Excluding one lunatic who challenged him to spars every day and one crazy instructor who kept groping at him, all the problems plaguing Il-mok had vanished.
By moderately dodging those two issues and avoiding laziness, time flew by.
And on the day marking a full month since Il-mok entered the Demonic Path Academy, a change came to the routine.
“Today, we will hold an exam to check your training progress over the past month. Everyone, follow this instructor without falling behind.”
With that, Instructor Chu Il-hwan took the lead toward the Demonic Path Academy's massive main gate.
The gate, firmly shut throughout the past month, was wide open today.
On the way following Instructor Chu Il-hwan toward the gate, Il-mok turned his head and saw Instructor Eun-ryeo leading ten students heading the same way.
‘The exam is being held together with E-Class, it seems.’
Thinking it didn't really matter to him, Il-mok's face quickly turned apathetic.
“As expected, Il-mok Young Master is so relaxed.”
Bang Mi-hwa, who had somehow taken position on Il-mok's left, smiled brightly and spoke to him. Her gaze fixed ahead, showing him only her right face.
Feeling a strange comfort in her odd behavior, Il-mok replied.
“Getting tense won't change much, right?”
“Hohoho. We really do click in so many ways.”
Bang Mi-hwa took his attitude as a sign of his confidence.
In the midst of their idle chatter, they soon passed the Academy entrance and arrived at a place thick with foliage.
There, other instructors and assistants were already waiting, and soon Instructor Eun-ryeo and the E-Class students arrived at the same spot.
“This exam will be conducted jointly by A-Class and E-Class students, divided into five teams of four.”
“Those called now, step forward and follow your assigned leader.”
After Instructor Chu Il-hwan and Instructor Eun-ryeo took turns explaining, they began calling names one by one.
Each time four students stepped forward, a waiting instructor or assistant led them off into the foliage.
“Too bad we're in different teams.”
Bang Mi-hwa said that, then left with Ha-yeong, who happened to be in the same group.
“You can't escape this time!!”
Dokgo Pae, assigned to a different team from Il-mok, shouted a third-rate villain line as he headed into the brush.
Il-mok's impression of the three teams departing was simple.
‘Hmm. They balanced the levels per team, at least?’
It didn't feel like they were strictly sorted by grades from top to bottom. Every team mixed two from A-Class and two from E-Class.
If it had been purely by grades, he and top student Dokgo Pae wouldn't have been separated.
While he had those thoughts, another team vanished into the brush, leaving only four students including Il-mok at the original gathering spot.
“You lot, follow me.”
Instructor Chu Il-hwan said that and stepped into the foliage, with Il-mok and the other three following.
Checking out his teammates, Il-mok nearly sighed despite himself.
“I never thought we'd be in the same team, Young Master! I won't disappoint you this time! Please pick me as your maidservant!”
Ju Seo-yeon, shouting beside him like she was swearing fealty, went without saying.
“…….”
Jeong-hyeon, furtively trailing a chapter behind, kept opening and closing her mouth as if she had something to say to Il-mok but couldn't get it out.
And as for the remaining one.
“P-please take care of me. A-Arm Young Master…”
He was one of the three who had picked a fight with Il-mok at the start and gotten thoroughly beaten.
‘Name was Choi Woong, I think?’
Since he was in A-Class like Il-mok, he vaguely remembered the name. Ju Seo-yeon and Jeong-hyeon were from E-Class.
‘Come to think of it, I heard Ju Seo-yeon barely made it in, so she had to be grouped with me.’
It was the result of lumping first place overall with the dead last for balance.
On the verge of sighing, Il-mok forcibly activated his positive thinking.
‘Right. This place is full of lunatics or pre-lunatics anyway. No matter the team, it's all the same.’
While Il-mok was immersed in his self-hypnosis, Ju Seo-yeon—unsealed after a long time—hesitantly struck up a conversation with him.
Fortunately for Il-mok, Choi Woong kept quiet out of caution, and Jeong-hyeon only mouthed words without daring to butt in.
After walking a good while, ignoring Ju Seo-yeon's praise of Jin Ha-yeon.
The leading Chu Il-hwan stopped.
“Then, I'll now explain the rules of this exam.”
Turning around, Chu Il-hwan immediately handed a letter to Il-mok.
Wary of even their fingertips touching, Il-mok carefully took the letter from Chu Il-hwan's hand.