Lena opened her unusually large eyes and blinked.
I spoke to Lena as her eyes were open.
“Are you okay?”
I who was holding Lena in my arms, and Siwan who was opening the teacher’s lounge ahead of me, silently stared at Lena.
“Ah…”Suddenly Lean’s face turned blue.
Seeing her face I instinctively knew.
Lena had really intended to die.
“Come in.”
Ham Geun Hyeong placed the towel over his head on a table and signaled for us to come in.
He should have been able to dry himself in three minutes if he used the whole body dryer provided in the shower room.
Perhaps Ham Geun Heyong didn’t want to make us wait and came here ahead of us with only a towel in hand.Plop.
I placed Lena down on the couch opposite Ham Geun Hyeong still covered in the blanked.
Ham Geun Heyong looked between Lean and me before turning to Siwan.
“I told the students in the dormitories that it was a prank by Class zero….would it be better to discuss in detail another time?”
“Yes. You should dry your hair before you catch a cold.”
“I’m okay…oh, thank you.”
Ham Geun Hyeong threw the towel towards Siwan after noticing his frosted hair.
I thought it would be best for me to leave.
I bowed and greeted Ham Geun Hyeong goodbye.
“I’ll make a move first. Goodbye.”
“Be careful on your way back, Jo Eushin. Let’s talk more tomorrow.”
Just as Siwan and I were about to leave.
Lena stretched out her hand from behind the blanket and grabbed a hold of me.
“Oh?”
A weak arm with visibly protruding bones was feebly holding on to the ends of my uniform shirt.
“….oh, sorry.”
Lena hesitated before letting go.
Lena seemed frightened by something.
“Perhaps…”
I tried to picture myself from her point of view.
Her parents.
The dream auction.
By looking back I could somehow guess what she was afraid of.
“….perhaps she is afraid of adults?”
Ham Geun Hyeong was a rather unpleasant looking man in his late thirties.
Siwan who was in his third year but held the demeanor that suited his title as the head of the Jiik committee.
And there was me who was a freshman, with a medium build and still in my uniform.
To Lena, I was probably the one she felt most comfortable with.
It would be better if I stayed.
“Professor Ham Geun Hyeong, would it be alright if I left a little later.”
“….sure.”
Siwan, who had been observing us, leaned on a wall nearby and started to towel dry his hair.
He must have no intention of leaving his dormitory students here unattended.
I sat in the seat next to Lena.
As I sat down, Lena spread out her hand and held onto the end of my shirt again.
Perhaps this was a subconscious behavior.
‘Maybe it would be better for me to speak instead of Ham Geun Hyeong.’
I signaled to Ham Geun Hyeong with my gaze and he sensing my intention nodded his head.
“Can I ask what happened?…. Or do you want to go back and rest for today?
If we forced her to speak it would probably backfire.
I tried to make her feel reassured and asked cautiously.
‘Let’s wait.’
For a while, Lena didn’t say anything.
But none of us pressed her to speak up.
We tried to keep our gazes elsewhere so as not to pressure her and waited relentlessly.
“My parents were banned for life from the player’s association today….”
So it was something to do with her parents.
Ham Geun Hyeong covered his mouth to hide his expression.
“Then they told me it was all my fault, and I should never have been born.”
Tears started to well in Lena’s eyes.
“It felt like it was all my fault, and I thought I didn’t deserve to…live.”
Lena’s words started to break off.
And towards the end, we could only hear the sound of her cries.
She cried until she exhausted herself to sleep.
After which we left her in the care of the freshman female student guidance counselor and left the staff dormitory.
Easing Lena’s slender hands from my shirt felt harder than destroying the entire dream auction.
Siwan returned ahead to report the incident to the Jiik committee.
Only Ham Geun Hyeong and I were left behind.
Ham Geun Hyeong escorted me to the freshman dormitory on behalf of Siwan.
“It’s the dream gate, isn’t it?
Ham Geun Hyeong stopped walking and looked down towards me.
“Those that were recently banned for life by the player’s association were players involved with the dream gate.”
Lena was not allocated to class zero in the game version I was aware of.
Her sudden allocation must be due to the dream gate.
Ham Geun Hyeong answer with a rather tensed up voice.
“Lee Lena did not have the mark of the cidelentium coin in her hand left by the red cliff thief on all the participants of the auction. She cooperated as a witness to the police and the association. But her parents were rather heavily involved so she was allocated to class zero.”
The dream gate was currently the biggest scandal in the world of players.
If this was publicly exposed, Lena who herself had committed no wrong doings, would bear the crimes of her parents.
I could guess what Ham Geun Hyeong was worried about.
“I know Lena is innocent.”
“….yes.”
Ham Geun Hyeong looked relieved at my answer and smiled for the first time today.
“You save Lena today, Jo Eushin.”
The fierce-looking Ham Geun Hyeong looked like an ordinary professor as he smiled and encouraged his student.
“If Lena had fallen to the first floor and survived she would have experienced pain that would have killed a normal person….and Lena would have thought that she deserved that as her punishment since she believes she doesn’t deserve to live right now.”
Ham Geun Hyeong lightly patted my back.
“Well done, Eushin.”
By the time I had returned to my room after receiving Ham Geun Hyeong’s farewell, it was already late into the night.
I was headed towards the shower to get ready to go to sleep.
When I spotted something shining from the corner of the living room.
‘This…’
It was the golden ribbon that Lena had worn.
I wonder when it had fallen off.
I lifted the ribbon carefully, so as not to wrinkle it.
The ribbon that had been left unattended for a long time was ice cold.
‘Lee Lena’s parents…..’
One more item was added to my list of to-dos.
I was easily able to come up with my next move.
***
I ran around Cheon Ak San as my morning training and also to keep a lookout for signs of cotton wool.
It was just a manner of speech to say run, as my actual speed while I moved through the hiking tracks, was much faster than a normal person bolting.
Perhaps the cold weather was keeping everyone indoors.
‘I’m the only one on the hiking track.’
As I reached a slightly elevated area I could see from afar the dormitory students lining up for their selected ‘Eunkwang training course.’
There was a player training curriculum in Eunkwang high.
But it was optional for the students.
There were students who preferred the freedom to determine their own pace and time to study.
But there were also students who preferred a routine lifestyle and needed others to strategize ahead.
Eunkwang catered to both types of students and gave them to choose either of them.
Being time-bound would limit my movements so I chose the option of a free curriculum.
‘It would be best to train myself physical skill to move about easily.’
When I first joined this world my overall skill was Lv.10.
3 months since then I was now an Lv.13.
The average level of most freshman was between 10 and 20, since now was the beginning of the semester, my physical skill was probably around the middle amongst the freshmen.
Based on the Player information’s special selection, my physical training was the lowest-ranked.
Because the esteemed ability allowed me to increase my overall skill based on the character I selected.
There was no need to be so hung up on one’s level. When the overall skill level rose it placed a limit to one’s feeling of damage.
‘But it’ll be good to expand on my lung capacity, just in case.’
As compared to others my esteemed ability was rather heterogeneous.
I had accomplished mastering the skill of control and used the selected character’s power without affecting my appearance.
Even so, I wanted to avoid using the player information in front of others as much as possible.
‘I bet Yoo Sanghoon would tease me for at least ten years if he ever found out that I was the red cliff thief.’
The title that made me cringe.
I had to stop anyone from ever finding out that was me.
The above was the biggest reason.
‘I’m rather curious about the reporter who came up with that title.’
If possible I wanted to return him the favor by coming up with an equally embarrassing title for him.
‘Cotton wool, where are you.’
This morning’s search for cotton wool was another failure.
The alarm from my wearable device went off as my allocated training time came to an end.
I returned to the dormitory to prepare myself to go to school.
Lessons started at 9 am.
The morning assembly was at 8:30 am
The time I arrived in the first year’s class zero was 8 am.
There was one other in the classroom.
“Hello.”
Kim Yuri, one of the playable characters greeted me first.
“Oh, hello.”
As I replied to her greeting Yuri stood up from her seat and came over toward me.
Yuri was much taller than other female students of her age.
Her straight posture and way of walking made her seem resolute.
In the official game illustration, she was drawn in association with a magnolia and it felt like it would suit her even in real life.
<’Notification on Kim Yuri’s Profile.>
[NAME] Kim Yuri
[TITLE] Eunkwang high freshman class zero rep
[BELIEF] The words of the royal lineage that hid their name ‘Have a bit more courage.’
[ESTEEMED ORDER] (Sealed)
[CONDITION] Normal
[Overall skill] Lv.15
[Skill]
Fencing Lv.4
Danger detection Lv.2
Sprinter Lv.2
I checked the settings and saw that Yuri’s esteemed ability was sealed.
‘Nothing is different from the game.;
Kim yuri falls into a state of panic after she experiences her esteemed ability for the first time age 17.
Kim yuri is afraid of her own esteemed ability.
She voluntarily joined class zero and requested the players association to seal away her esteemed ability.
‘She died while hiding this truth even from her best friend An Dain.’
In the end, Kim yuri was not able to overcome her fear of her own esteemed ability before she died.
“I’m Kim Yuri, Nice to meet you.”
“Jo Eushin. Nice to meet you too.”
We were wearing name tags and were aware of each other’s names but still engaged in a formal introduction.
“Eushin do you remember yesterday we were choosing the class rep and vice rep? We decided for me to be the class rep but Hanyi says she doesn’t want to be involved in school committee roles. So I was hoping either you or Jiho can take it up. Oh, if you want to be the rep instead I’ll let you do it. “
I couldn’t ask the others since no one was here yet.
Looking at Yuri she was friendly towards me even though this was pretty much the first time we had met.
Her natural ability to continue a conversation gave me the impression that she must have been in a similar role in her secondary school.
‘Thinking of the future progress I definitely wanted to be either the class rep or the vice rep.’
I couldn’t ask for more than someone like Yuri for a school committee role.
“Hwang Jiho would find something like this a hassle. I’ll be the vice rep.”
This wasn’t a lie.
Hwang Jiho, no, Hwang Myeongho to be more precise.
Anyways the yellow tiger seemed to find his current chairman role a hassle as well.
“Wah, I’m relieved. Let’s work hard together this year.”
Yuri spoke brightly.
She must have been worried that no one would want to be the vice rep since many in class zero were famously known to have odd ones.
“Eushin, will you share your device code with me?”
“Sure, send me yours too.”
We were going to be the class rep and vice rep together.
It would be easier to know each other’s contact number.
We exchanged our wearable device codes and chatted as we waited for the morning assembly to start.
“Eushin you are the ‘nameless supernova’ right? I didn’t think you would join class zero.”
“Ya somehow it turned out that way.
I really didn’t know things would turn out this way.
This was a result of my deal with the yellow tiger.
‘Overall it wasn’t a bad choice.’
It was in close proximity to the main characters in class 1 and 2.
And there were several characters in class 0 I wanted to save.
Besides my different vibe as compared to most Eunkwang high students could be easily passed off without suspicion as “Class zero acting up again.”
“I think class zero is really nice. Other classes have like up to 50 per class but our class doesn’t even have 20 in total. So it’s easier to ask our professor for help and use the classroom spaciously.”
Yuri seemed to genuinely like class zero.
“Did you see the common timetable? Today’s ‘player battle practice1’ is a combined class.”
Player battle practice1.
First-class.
This was an event that was treated with more importance even in the game.
Yuri continued to talk.
“Because our class size is too small, we are combining with class 1 and 2.”
Year 1 class 1. Year 1 class 2.
The classes where the main hero Soohyuk and the main heroine Dain were in.
My first class would be together with these main characters.
