Hellish PE Class (4)
Success or failure, all eyes would have locked onto me either way—but the moment I actually lifted the thing and stepped forward, regret hit hard. I should have just quietly given up and gone back inside.
Students who moments earlier had been sprawled about or busy badmouthing the instructor were now staring at me as one. Every face carried a different emotion, yet one thing bound them all together.
Doubt. The expressions varied, but every last one of them was reeling at the thought that some girl who knew nothing of magic or mana breathing techniques could pull off something like that.
Georg, in particular, had gone past astonishment straight into ashen-faced shock. One golden sun had already been more than enough pressure; having every single person look at me with that what the hell is this freak stare made the cream bread and steak I’d eaten earlier threaten to stage a comeback.
Whatever else might happen, throwing up on the very first day of transfer would be social suicide. Already a faint salty taste was creeping into my saliva.
Dangerous. This is definitely coming up.
…This is all Georg’s fault for testing me. He just had to go and prod the pride of a loner who should have been left alone. This is what happens.
Give up? Saying something like that with that face of his would have pissed even the Buddha off.
Granted, the bigger share of the blame probably lay with me for rising to the bait and making a scene. Still, watching that smug nose of his get thoroughly broken had been a little satisfying. The pleasure drained right out of me the second I realized the whole thing felt exactly like one of those loser fantasies you see online, but whatever.
Even a shut-in loser will thrash if you step on them hard enough.
My mind was still wallowing in that tiny, pathetic victory, but my body was diligently preparing to send everything back the way it came. The salty taste was fully present now.
I looked back and forth between Georg and the cube with desperate hope, waiting for him to speak.
Surely after all this he’d at least admit I’d lifted it? Though knowing him, he might just nitpick that it never left the floor and snark that nobody watching would call that “lifting.”
He simply looked the type. Even I, with zero talent for reading people, could tell he was the sort whose face was permanently twisted with petty malice. Being an elf only made it more believable.
The original novel had only gotten around twenty chapters in; all it really dropped was that the protagonist would enter the academy and start building a harem. Even in that short stretch, though, the elves’ racial prejudice had come through loud and clear.
“I have lifted it. I shall take my leave.”
I knew it was rude, and I had no idea whether he’d allow it, but I forced the words out. There was no time left to hesitate. My vision was blurring; even standing upright was becoming a struggle. Just holding the rising tide back was enough to make my head swim.
And those stares—those stares kept boring straight through me.
“…You, that power of yours… no. Too early to jump to conclusions. Fine. You may leave.”
Teacher Georg simply let me go. For a second I thought he looked like he’d wanted to grab hold of me and only reluctantly released me, but I scrubbed that impure thought from my mind.
Right now I was too busy overflowing with boundless respect and gratitude toward Teacher Georg.
Maybe I had been the one looking at him through a thick lens of prejudice all along.
Once I took off the “old-fart elf” sunglasses, everything changed. He had never once discriminated against me or the other students. Even those deep wrinkles that did most of the work making him look fierce suddenly seemed full of the dignity of long years.
As for the overall angry-looking face… some people are just born that way. At least he wasn’t ugly, so that counted for something, right?
A completely new fondness for him was blooming at high speed—right alongside the equally determined wave of nausea. I offered him a respectful, heartfelt bow, then fled the stares and hurried out of the gymnasium.
The air outside was still foul, and even the warm spring sunlight felt thoroughly unpleasant, yet the simple absence of those eyes was enough to let the queasiness settle a little.
The salty taste lingering in my mouth warned that any sudden running would bring everything up at once, but so long as I didn’t overdo it I should be fine.
Only after I had essentially fled the gym did one thought strike me.
I had nothing to do.
In my original world I would have read a novel; back home I would have followed the captain of the guard around, sparring and teasing him until boredom never stood a chance. Here there was nothing I actually enjoyed.
Trailing after the protagonist? Reading this world’s books? Talking with the god who owned this land would have been fun too, but that felt wrong.
It would have been exactly like forcibly waking someone on the verge of death just to chat. Compared to the gods of my homeland, this one felt like a patient barely clinging to life support.
A few more conversations and he might simply stop breathing. The fear of that kept me from calling out.
So, the library? This was a proper academy; they surely had plenty of books. I set off full of hope—then the obvious problem surfaced.
Where was the library?
I hadn’t even found the gymnasium on my own. How was I supposed to locate the library by myself? Thinking about it, the whole idea was ridiculous. I’d only found the gym because I’d luckily run into my homeroom teacher on the road. Right now classes were in full swing; nobody would be wandering around.
Well, maybe one person would.
Han Dogeon. He hadn’t shown up the entire time I was inside. I’d assumed he’d gone from the rest area to the gym after eating bread, but maybe he had gotten lost the same way I had. Teacher Georg would probably forgive him generously—he looked scary, but he was a kind soul underneath.
A glance at the clock tower showed PE was almost over. Out of the PE block that ran through sixth period, only fourth period had finished. More than two hours remained before every class ended.
…In a normal academy story the protagonist would ditch class and get tangled in all sorts of events, but nothing that dynamic ever happened to a side character like me.
I hadn’t really expected anything, so it didn’t bother me. Honestly. Dangerous stuff like fighting evil or uncovering dark conspiracies wasn’t something I wanted to do anyway.
I had time to kill, so I figured I might as well wander and memorize the layout of the academy. Just as I was about to set off wherever my feet took me, someone appeared in the distance, walking slowly toward the gymnasium.
It was Han Dogeon.
Where the hell had he been, and why was he only showing up now?
Maybe I had been taking this world too lightly. Just because it was based on a novel, I had arrogantly assumed that no matter how much the details shifted, the big currents would still flow the same way.
Iris Stargazer. According to the original, she should have been lost somewhere in the sprawling academy right now, desperately searching the dormitory area for Gymnasium No. 2. I went to the places she was supposed to be wandering—and found no trace of her.
Wondering if I had missed something, I ran through the original plot again.
Lost near the dorms, she ends up late for PE. Her PE teacher lets her off with a gentle scolding, but the incident still leaves her ostracized by the group she had been hanging around with.
She was a misfortune-type character, a heroine the story loved to pile endless unfairness onto.
A sudden gust of wind would flip her skirt in front of the protagonist; a monkey would appear out of nowhere and snatch her bag; Stephania, who held her family’s purse strings, would use her however she pleased.
She spent the early chapters getting relentlessly screwed over, then the moment she joined the protagonist’s harem her screen time vanished like a ghost. Inside and outside the story she was the designated pitiful one.
As a supporting heroine her events were few. Compared to Anastasiya and the other heroines fighting for the official wife position, she barely registered.
But a heroine was still a heroine. I still had to capture her route, which only made the anxiety worse.
“…Nowhere.”
Bottom line: she was nowhere. I reinforced my body and scoured every corner of the academy just in case, but that distinctive violet hair never appeared.
So it wasn’t going to be easy. How many events had already shattered in a single day?
Still, giving up wasn’t an option. If something this small could break my resolve, I would have long since stolen every fortuitous encounter for myself and bolted east alone.
The reason I hadn’t was simple. I wanted to laugh together with these heroines.
I hadn’t found Iris yet, but she was the living embodiment of misfortune. If I just kept walking the academy grounds I would eventually stumble across her getting screwed over by something. Thinking positively, I started looking for a place to hide the fruit.
Any number of spots crossed my mind, but the safest was still inside a locker.
These nobles had money to burn, so practically everything was layered with magical protections. The lockers came equipped with biometric recognition and magical security systems. Perfect for storing something important.
For all that magical reinforcement, though, they somehow never managed to detect the demon worshippers’ schemes in advance.
I knew the real reason was that catching everything would leave no story to tell, but even so the whole setup felt sloppy both in description and in logic.
I’d find out the truth later. Until then I just had to do what I could.
I hadn’t met Iris, and the World Tree fruit was safely hidden. That left only one task: prove my ability to Georg.
Show him any attack magic or simply lift his special kettlebell and he’d acknowledge me. It looked easy, but there was a nasty catch.
The kettlebell was covered in every kind of magic imaginable. Gravity amplification, spatial compression—pure sadistic malice packed into a single object.
Unravel the secrets of that kettlebell and learn magic from him. That was the next step. His personality was rotten, he was arrogant as hell and an old-fashioned hardass to boot, but as the former mage of the Hero’s party he still had plenty worth learning.
In the original I had ignored his offer to leave after a few token attack spells, revealed the magic on the kettlebell instead, and earned his recognition that way.
I wondered what it looked like in reality. With that thought I headed for Gymnasium No. 1—only to see Baek Hoyeon trudging out of the building looking completely drained.
…How?