The Wolf Among the Sheep #3
The children at Sprout Orphanage were all happy. They lived without any shortages because the facility was sponsored by corporate capital. Celebrity older sisters and brothers often came for volunteer work, so every day felt like a festival. Sometimes they had to get painful shots or undergo strange experiments, but at least they never went hungry, so all the kids were cheerful.
Those children, living like that, one day discovered a cat starving to death in the orphanage backyard. The one who fiercely insisted on raising it was Yu Yeoreum, who was popular among the older sisters, brothers, and younger siblings at the time.
“It was a strange cat. It had three tails.”
It wasn’t an ordinary cat. It was a monster cat. Maybe it even possessed the TailConcept. The cat got along well with the people and children, she said. Suddenly, my friend Ing-ing came to mind. Monsters usually hated surrounding creatures, but occasionally there were kind ones like Ing-ing.
Those days that seemed like they would only be filled with happiness continued. Then the frequency of giving the children shots, injecting drugs, or drawing blood increased more and more. The adults’ faces lost their composure and they started snapping often.
“I only learned this later, but the parent company planned to shut down the ‘orphanage.’ Since there were no results, they were going to close the facility that was just eating up the budget.”
Fearing they might lose their jobs, the orphanage teachers had no choice but to rush through all sorts of things. They reduced the children’s meals, imposed harsh punishments for no reason, and even kept them from sleeping for days.
“Awakening comes from children’s strong desires. Those people were trying to push us into a state of deprivation and poverty to force us to Awaken.”
It was a familiar method. The details were slightly different, but it was essentially the same as the training I was currently doing to Seo Gaeul.
“The problem happened that day.”
A car none of them had ever seen before slid into the orphanage. It was pitch black and glossy, so it drew everyone’s attention. What surprised them even more was the child who stepped out of that vehicle.
“She looked like a princess at first glance. She was a girl around my age, but it felt like we lived in completely different worlds. Even as a young child, I thought that if there was a protagonist of the world, it would be someone like her.”
That princess-like girl played with the orphanage children often. The kids grew fond of her and even told her about their secret ‘cat.’ But that day, the cat fiercely scratched the princess-like girl, and the entire orphanage was thrown into chaos.
Everyone at the orphanage was punished. They were locked in a dark, pitch-black basement and had to endure a punishment with no telling when it would end.
“At first, everyone was sobbing and crying. But as time passed, no sound could be heard anymore. They didn’t even have the strength left for that. That’s where the problem occurred. The cat—”
The monster cat that had been locked in the dark room with them caused the incident. Unable to withstand the stress of starvation, it began attacking the humans. That was what monsters were like. Just as Awakened consumed over twice the calories of normal humans, monsters also felt hunger easily and therefore attacked people.
Imagining how a monster cat that had starved for days in a pitch-black room would attack humans and what would happen wasn’t difficult for me.
“That day, Summer unnie saved us from there. She emitted something like light…. If Summer unnie hadn’t been there, I would have been eaten by that cat or killed.”
Sprout Orphanage was eventually closed, and this incident was covered up under strong pressure. Someone with tremendous power had buried it.
“Do you know who that was?”
“I don’t.”
“Then what about the mastermind giving orders to you ‘Villains’?”
“…Is there something like that?”
These guys were just low-level grunts, so they didn’t know. I should have caught that ‘Pinocchio’ bastard earlier. But I had a feeling I would meet him again someday, so I wasn’t in too much of a hurry.
━Kyu-ing.
When I returned home, Ing-ing had already come back first. Did this guy have a homing instinct too? Whatever the case, it was clear that Ing-ing recognized this place as ‘home.’
“You cute little thing!”
I hugged Ing-ing’s fluffy body and rubbed my face all over it. Ing-ing smelled like refreshing grapes. I licked it without thinking and was surprised to find that its cotton-candy-like fluffy body tasted exactly like grape-flavored cotton candy.
“It’s delicious? Ing-ing, so this is what you taste like! This is seriously addictive!”
━Grrrr…!
Of course, Ing-ing didn’t like being licked and thrashed around while making an extremely pissed-off sound. Suddenly, I remembered that Ing-ing was my emergency food supply. If I ran out of food and was on the verge of death, I had planned to eat Ing-ing. So what about the reverse?
“Ing-ing, if you get hungry, would you try to eat me?”
━Ing-ing-ya-ing.
“Yeah, so we’re each other’s emergency food supply.”
Maybe a friendship like that was okay too. I headed down to the basement to let Ing-ing go, only to find Seo Gaeul sleeping soundly on the mattress.
When she was awake she was endlessly rude, but when she slept like this she was an absolute angel. I reached out and pinched her nose shut. Seo Gaeul woke up immediately, finding it hard to breathe.
“What the hell. What is it?”
“I heard the story from the orphanage. There really was a ‘weakness’ for Yu Yeoreum there. But I won’t use this ‘weakness’ you mentioned. I’m going to do it my way.”
“…….”
Seo Gaeul narrowed her eyes. Whether she was still sleepy or simply uninterested in what I was saying, she snatched Ing-ing from me and hugged it like a cushion.
“What exactly is your way?”
“I’m still going to kidnap Yu Yeoreum with porn.”
“As if that’s going to work. Do whatever you want. You’ll end up getting killed by Yu Yeoreum anyway. You know it by now—she doesn’t hold back. She’s ruthless.”
“Seo Gaeul, when you told me about the orphanage, was it because you wanted me to know about what happened there?”
“Who knows. But you’ve probably figured out most of it by now, right? How many people suffered just because I got scratched by a cat. And since you even kidnapped me, there’s no way I’ll get to die peacefully.”
The ‘princess’ who got hurt by the cat’s claws was indeed Seo Gaeul. And it seemed she believed that all those events had happened because she got scratched by the cat.
Was it really because of Seo Gaeul? If we went further back—would it have happened if someone hadn’t suggested raising the monster cat? If the adults hadn’t abandoned the children at the orphanage? If they hadn’t been conducting secret experiments in the first place?
No, I thought such hypotheticals were useless. No matter what choices anyone made there, this world was destined to perish in an unreasonable and absurd way. Destruction was fair to everyone. It meant no one could avoid it.
Therefore, our trivial choices weren’t important. What mattered was how we would solve the major problems we would have to face moving forward.
The future Seo Gaeul had declared that she could fix everything. And I had believed her words without a shred of doubt.
On that rainy day, Seo Gaeul had said this to me.
Maybe those words were actually something she wanted to say to herself. And afterward, she probably wanted to add this:
“What are you talking about? If that were possible, would I be here like this? I’m going to sleep.”
Whoosh—. Seo Gaeul pulled the old blanket up over her face as if I was bothering her and began snoring softly again.
“Did you not sleep last night?”
Poke—. Someone jabbed my side, and when I came to my senses, Ppangddaeng-i was staring at me with bloodshot eyes. Looked like she hadn’t slept either.
“You didn’t sleep either?”
“I was throwing chopsticks.”
“Chopsticks?”
“…There’s something like that! Anyway, you heard what Captain said earlier, right? Starting this afternoon, we’re being deployed for real missions! Do you think we’ll fight that Yeom Hoon bastard again? Huh?”
A strange gleam flickered in Ppangddaeng-i’s bloodshot eyes. It could be called fighting spirit or it could be called madness. This girl had the expression of a Viking warrior woman thirsty for battle.
At Ppangddaeng-i’s words, I recalled the class content I had only half-listened to. After our ‘Clean Plate Club’ defeated ‘Yeomra,’ the citizens’ support for the Youngsa High students had increased significantly. So they were going to send a few carefully selected teams outside the school for patrols to crack down on or arrest ‘Unregistered Awakened’ as a performance.
“It’s a hastily organized curriculum, but I hope everyone does their best. The instructors will award points based on your actions, and the team with the most points will get a big, fat kiss from this big sister.”
The police noona had been assigned as the instructor for this real-world patrol and security maintenance mission. The male students’ motivation skyrocketed at the mention of receiving a reward from her.
“My friend! Let’s all work hard together this time!”
“I hope this goes well and I get a Bogu.”
“I’ll show them my chopstick throwing!”
“…I, I don’t want to fight…”
The friends from ‘Clean Plate Club’ were also full of anticipation for the real combat class. Anyway, as we were about to leave school for the mission with that kind of atmosphere, the police noona grabbed me by the back of my neck.
“Wait, you’re going to be operating as a special team for this mission.”
“Me?”
Not with the Clean Plate Club? While I was wondering what was going on, someone placed a hand on my shoulder.
“Namjin-ah, this is the first time we’re doing something together since the debate.”
It was Jeong Uiseon, the class president of Class D.
“Uiseon, hey.”
Yu Yeoreum from Class F also waved at me. Her expression was quite bright. And next to her was Wang Jahyeon, who was frowning at me.
“What the hell is this about. So annoying.”
Yu Yeoreum and Wang Jahyeon from Class F. Jeong Uiseon and me from Class D. When everyone’s eyes focused on this bizarre lineup, the police noona laughed with a ‘fufufu.’
“Since you’re a special team, you’ll be given a different mission. From now on, you must focus on searching for the missing Seo Gaeul and subjugating the ‘Judge.’”
Putting me, Seo Gaeul’s kidnapper, on the Seo Gaeul search team. Was it coincidence or fate?
That was when we were leaving the school grounds.
“If we find Seo Gaeul this time, we might end up clashing with that ‘Judge’ guy. The ‘Judge’ is currently being pointed to as the one who kidnapped Seo Gaeul.”
Jeong Uiseon, the class president of Class D, said.
“Is it true that the ‘Judge’ is a Youngsa High student? If it is, that’s creepy. It means there’s a murderer hiding among the students. Like a wolf among sheep.”
I answered like this:
“I think I know who it is. The ‘Judge’ is you, Class President.”
“Me?”
Jeong Uiseon looked greatly surprised. Then he burst out laughing as if he had heard a funny story.
“Namjin, you really are hilarious.”
“Jin, that’s so funny.”
Yu Yeoreum also burst out laughing with a ‘pfft.’ Only Wang Jahyeon expressed his dissatisfaction by saying, “What kind of groundless nonsense is that?”
I wasn’t joking though. Honestly, I had been half-suspicious, but that last conversation completely gave it away.