A mature, gentle, and kind child.
Lenna Lee was perceived as a good child since she was young.
She did not cry often, and she was treated as a nice kid who was willing to share everything with everyone.
However, Lenna never thought of herself as ‘good’.
‘I was like that only because I had no one to comfort me when I cried and no one to hear my tantrums.’Lenna’s oldest memory was sitting alone on the floor of a spacious, cold living room.
Parents that were busy with meetings each night.
A much older sister who never visited home after moving to the school dormitory.
It was rare for the four people to come together.
‘’When I think about it, I think my family has drifted apart more after my psychic abilities developed. Maybe my family became this way because of my ability.’
After her psychic abilities blossomed, her intelligence increased and her physical abilities were improved, so naturally, she became the best and most behaved student at school.
Now, Lenna is struggling to avoid failing in Eun-kwang high, but among all the players, Lenna quite superior.‘…… Although I’ve never been praised by my parents.’
Lenna’s parents always argued about how much money and time was spent on her upbringing and education, and how unhappy they were because of that.
For Lenna, it was unavoidable that money and time was spent on her as long as she lived in their house.
That was why she tried her best to live up to all the money spent on her, and obeyed her parent’s words.
Except for what she testified about the Dream Auction.
‘My parents said it was all for me, for my sake, but I wished that the dream auction would be gone….’
Lenna first went to the Dream Auction when she was a middle-schooler.
There, she saw players with rare talents being tortured, and Lenna was terrified.
She told her parents that she’d rather have her tongue cut off than do nothing about this, and persuaded them to break the vow to inform the police and Players Association.
As a result, she received punishment and admonishment.
‘This is for your sake.’
‘We’re only doing this so you’ll have connections with the higher society.’
‘We go through all this for you, how dare you say that, you ungrateful bitch!’
Even after hearing those harsh words, Lenna believed that her parents really participated in the Dream Auction for her own good.
To stop participating, she believed she had to become successful enough to not go to the Dream Auction.
That’s why she took the entrance exam for Korea’s best player high school, Eun-kwang.
Despite her efforts, her parents still said she had to go ‘Because you entered Eun-kwang high, you need to see more high-ranked people’ and Lenna fell into despair.
However, the auction she hated to go to, ended in the hands of the Phantom of the Red Wall, and the high-ranked people who supposedly in Eun-kwang high were arrested.
‘I believed that everything would go well if there were no auctions that my parents had to participate in.’
Lenna actively testified of the Dream Auction and chose silence when it came to the Phantom of the Red Wall.
She figured that because the auction ended, her family wouldn’t have to force themselves to come to this horrible place and suffer for her sake.
It turned out her parents only tried to fill their self-interest using Lenna as an excuse.
Consequently, after her testimony, her parents took all their anger out on her.
Lenna’s parents were so fierce and pushed her to the limit that she thought of killing herself.
Although now they lost all contact with her after they were caught in the brothel business incident.
‘Anyway, I’m glad that the Dream Auction disappeared and Se-eum is safe.’
When Se-eum Sawol first attended school on April Fools’ Day, Irena’s shock was beyond imagination.
She fell into self-loathing, thinking that she only watched her classmate being sold off as a slave had it not been the Phantom of the Red Wall.
‘If anyone knows I was in the auction, Se-eum and the other kids will be disappointed in me……’
Mr. Geun-hyung Ham, who defended herself among the board members who tried to cancel Lenna’s admission and accepted her in class 0.
Eui-shin Cho, the vice class president, who saved her from falling off the dormitory roof on the first day of enrollment.
Yuri Kim, the class president, who smiled sweetly and asked her to keep coming to school.
Han-yi, who spared his study time to help her during midterm week.
Hyo-don Meang and Se-eum Sawol, who stayed up all night during midterms with her and encouraged each other.
Every time Lenna thought of the faces of her classmates, her heart warmed up, but at the same time, it also became heavier.
‘All of them are good kids…… but I am…….’
On the desk in the dorm room.
Irena blamed herself when she saw the printed group photo of the first grade 0 class picnic.
She was fine when she was between her classmates, but when she was alone, the words and dark thoughts she had heard from her parents flooded out of her.
‘……Let’s just go to school.’
Today is the performance day of the EverLake Team Master Jae-in Kwon.
Lenna brushed her useless thoughts away, blaming them for her lack of sleep.
After dressing up, she put a violin-shaped badge from the string orchestra club on her school uniform.
Students in music-related clubs often collaborated.
For easily securing performers and purposing collaborations, it was customary to wear a badge that stood for the musical instrument each student played.
Although Lenna wasn’t skilled enough to collaborate yet.
‘By the way, Jun-yeoul Yeom wasn’t the Phantom of the Red Wall… Who is the Phantom?’
Phantom of the Red Wall, Jun-yeoul Yeom.
She didn’t have a long conversation with the two, but she could see that they were not the same person.
The Phantom who saved both her and her classmate.
She wanted to say thank you to him one day.
A place accommodating about 1,000 people, a concert hall in Hoyeon hall in the central area.
There was still time until the performance started, but the area around Hoyeon hall was overflowing with people.
As the security process for Eun-kwang high was complicated, it seemed that outsiders who did not have regular access permission came early with enough time to get registered.
‘……Yup, it’s always the early birds who manages to get the tickets.’
First grade, class 0 was defeated in the ticketing war and became a staff member.
Among them, there were four who took on the daily staff role today.
Me, Se-eum Sawol, Yuri Kim, Lenna Lee.
Jiho Hwang wanted to do it, but there were only four daily staff recruiting.
‘You’re supposed to be a close relative of chairman Myung-ho Hwang. If you’re staff, you’ll get too much attention.’
I persuaded him with these words, and although complaining, Jiho gave up.
The four of us arrived safely behind the stage of Hoyeon hall without Jiho.
“…… Our team master is as fickle as the weather, many people are suffering. Why a performance in Korea so suddenly? And in Hoyeon, of all places! It’s not exactly a well-equipped hall. I don’t know what Jae-in is thinking.”
One of the members of the EverLake team was the organizer of this concert in Korea.
Jared Lee.
Inspired by Jae-in Kwon’s musicality and talent, he is a blonde foreigner who abandoned the “Three Knights’ Oath,” his former team and one of the top 10 teams in the world at the time.
‘Now, EverLake is also in the top 10, but then it was just a novice team.’
It was rare for Jae-in Kwon to directly deal with the media.
It was Jared who was dealing with the media on her behalf.
In Korea, he was quite popular as the “blonde foreigner who speaks Korean better than Koreans.”
“It was difficult to recruit people because of the sudden decision. Thanks, for being here, guys.”
Jared handed out business cards to the four of us and greeted us in a friendly manner, speaking perfect Korean.
The tone and accent were completely Korean, so I felt like watching a Korean-dubbed person.
Jared explained step by step what we should do and what we need to watch out for.
‘We’re just part-time staff. Maybe it’s because Jae-in Kwon is our alumnus, but I can’t believe the director is explaining this to us.’
Our job wasn’t that great.
What we were in charge of were subtle chores; not important enough to be entrusted by a staff with expertise, and even more so to formally recruit people.
Carrying equipment.
Inspection and distribution of booklets.
Posing a paper poster.
Seat informant.
I realized what kind of efforts were made behind the scenes for a concert held for less than a few hours.
‘Alright, here we go!’
Jae-in Kwon’s performance that I only saw through the game screen.
I was just doing chores, but being a part of it was more rewarding than I thought.
“Should I install this on the ceiling?”
“Yeah. I would like to ask you to adjust the angle of the lighting on the wall.”
“Yeah! Which one?”
Among the four of us, Se-eum was the most active.
Se-eum was one of the weaker players among Eun-kwang High, but he was stronger than normal people and had flight abilities.
‘It’s his first time experiencing a part-time job or watching a concert, he seems to be enjoying it……’
It was inefficient to use flying or teleport items every time, and it was difficult to recruit players with flying skills because they were treated as advanced personnel.
Se-eum, who really enjoyed doing the work, was most welcomed.
“I don’t know if it’s allowed to order around a Eun-kwang highschool student with flying skills like this. Jae-in might scold me later.”
“It’s team master’s fault for scheduling the concert this suddenly. Just pretend you did nothing.”
While checking the copy of the booklet, I heard the acoustic staff talking.
They were working as the acoustics staff, but most of them were actually members of the EverLake team brought by Jae-in Kwon.
‘It’s not something the top Players and acoustic staff should worry about.’
Although born with psychic abilities, the players of EverLake were more interested in music rather than attacking the other-world.
Those who lived like hermits joined the EverLake team, drawn by Jae-in Kwon’s melody, and the team grew.
‘It’s not unusual because there are fans of Jae-in Kwon, not only in the Original clans but also among the top players.’
When Jae-in Kwon held a solo concert at Manchester Arena and performed ‘for LENA’ in response to a passionate encore request, among the nine Mussai sisters, the muse, Terposicore, Euterpe, and Calliope descended for one minute and danced and disappeared.
That incident was famous.
“Can I take my really leftover posters and brochures…?”
“Yup. We prepared more than enough, so you can take as much as you need.”
“Thank you······!”
“That’s great, Lenna. Oh, if there’s a booklet left, I’m going to have one too!”
Lenna was Thrilled by Jared’s words.
Yuri, who was inspecting the booklet next to her, also looked bright.
As I finished checking the brochures I had for my share, the staff from the EverLake team spoke to me.
“Eui-shin Cho. Please attach this poster to the location stated in advance. Normally, it is processed as a hologram, but our team master insisted on installing a paper poster…”
“Yes sir. I’ll be back.”
Se-eum was busy with work.
Checking the booklets were not over yet, and Yuri and Lenna would want to see the rehearsal performance.
Instead of these three, it would be better for me to go outside Hoyeon Hall.
I stepped outside the Hoyeon Building with a box of posters, tapes, and scissors.
In front of two gypsum tiger statues in front of Hoyeon Hall.
It was noisy and bustling.
A group wearing our school uniform was at the center of the noise.
It seems that there are some students who have succeeded in group ticketing in our school.
“Rock Paper Scissors!”
“Ah, I drew again! Don’t copy me, Chan Wang, you asshole!”
“reflect!”
“Then I rainbow reflect!” *
* reflect and rainbow reflect: when someone swears at you, you can use reflect to make the curse bounce back to the person who used it. Rainbow reflect is stronger than reflect and used as a counter-attack. It’s a common concept among Korean elementary school children.
I heard their voice somewhere.
‘It’s a combination of 2nd-grade class 0 Geum Chan Wang Chan…!’
As I looked closely, there was also a teacher standing among the second graders in school uniforms, Mr. Jae-gul Jegal.
“Ah, they’ve already drawn the tenth time.”
“Crazy people have similar thinking circuits. That would be the result of their own advanced psychological warfare doing rock, paper, scissors.”
Assuming what I’ve heard from their conversations, second-grade class 0 tried to get tickets for the whole class and succeeded nicely.
‘So those people ruined our ticketing!’
And now, those who succeeded in ticketing were playing a rock-paper-scissors tournament for a seat next to Jae-gul Jagal.
the seat to the right of Jae-gul was occupied early by the ace of the theater club, who was the best at psychological tricks.
The problem was the left seat.
With that one seat, two proud class executives were in the finals.
I proceeded to work by hiding my body properly behind the pillars so that I could not be seen.
‘…… Let’s pretend not to know them.’
The craziness of second-grade class 0 also happened earlier in school today.
As Jae-in Kwon’s concert in Korea was held today, at the Hoyeon hall, the broadcasting club organized songs composed by Jae-in Kwon as class bells.
However, the second grade, class 0 secretly changed all the songs to ‘for LENA’.
The comments left by class 0 of the second year, who conquered the Broadcasting club, were as follows.
[The more you listen to a masterpiece, the newer it sounds!]
As a result, today’s class was the same song all day long.
It was the same song, but the players and instruments kept changing.
Songs that all the music clubs covered “for LENA” with all kinds of instruments were used as class bells, and the more I listened to it, the more it felt like I have never heard the song before.
‘The Haegeum and Taepyeongso* version were the most impressive.’
* Haegeum and Taepyeongso: traditional Korean instruments
After finishing the work, I looked around the second grade 0 class again, and I noticed that they wore a group cloth emblem with today’s date and summary.
Jae-gul Jegal was wearing one, too, but his had gold leaf ornaments.
‘They get along so well.’
Jae-gul Jegal was here, so there was no need to worry about them making an accident during the concert.
was curious about the outcome of Geum Chan Wang Chan’s Rock Paper Scissors tournament, but I was done with my work so I decided to move.
I moved to another area, checking the holograms.
I ran into a group wearing suits.
The figure standing in the center was familiar.
‘That’s Jiho Hwang……!’
His hairstyle is different, and his hair and eyes are blacker than Ji-ho.
Still, I saw it several times in the game and immediately recognized it.
This was the 30s version of Golden Tiger.
