Chapter 26: Absolute Proposition (7)

[Calm down, Nari! You have to keep him alive! Don’t touch him! We need him to give witness testimony and explain the situation! cries the Lord of Chaos, trying to stop you.]

“Shut up! If he hadn’t run his mouth, none of this would have happened! Just die quietly already!”

“Aghhh!! The number one rank has lost it!!”

Min Jaeyoon shrieked, stumbling back. The same kind of blood-soaked fight that had erupted in Nari’s apartment with Kang Ihyun broke out again! Lude swung his black half-scissor wildly, and Min Jaeyoon scrambled to dodge, running in circles…

But unlike what happened with Kang Ihyun, there was no one here to help Min Jaeyoon. Yes, there were no noise complaints from the neighbor downstairs!

So the chase went on for quite a while. In the end, faced with overwhelming power, Min Jaeyoon could only throw himself down in surrender.

“Mr. Lude! Spare me, please, Mr. Lude!”

He clung to Lude’s leg flat against the floor. His smug grin was gone and his face twisted in terror, while being on the verge of tears.

“I’ll do whatever you say! Anything at all! If you tell me to be your dog, I’ll be your dog! That’s right! From now on I’m Lude’s dog!!”

“N-No, that’s a bit much…”

Min Jaeyoon lay flat on the floor. Lude, who had meant to beat him down, was more flustered than angry now. Jaeyoon started barking like a dog.

“Woof, woof!! Woof, woof!! Here! Wagging tail, wagging tail! I’ll keep your secret, I-I’ll be your loyal mutt…!”

Lude set down the black half-scissor. A chilling stillness filled the library.

“No, uh.”

[This is your fault, Nari, the Lord of Chaos scolds, pointing at you.]

“I’m sorry…”

Lude extended a hand. Sniffling, Min Jaeyoon grabbed it.

“Never do that again, seriously.”

“Yes… sniff, I was wrong…”

Min Jaeyoon clutched the handkerchief Lude handed him, sniffling all the while. Lude cleared his throat with an awkward cough.

‘Maybe I went too far. He’s still just a high schooler…’

[A twenty-five year old chasing down a seventeen year old and threatening to kill him isn’t exactly a noble sight, says the Lord of Chaos, shaking his head.]

“Sorry. I was too harsh.”

“No, no, it’s my fault too.”

“Right. If you blurt out someone’s secret like that right in front of them, of course they’ll freak out. That’s basically a crime, you know?”

“I’m sorry. I-I promise I’ll keep it a secret. I won’t do it again I swear…”

Min Jaeyoon wiped his nose on his sleeve and stood up. Nari finally got a clear look at his bare face. Sharp eyes glowing red behind black-rimmed glasses softened his features, giving him an oddly composed aura. Even the small mole by his lip added to that air.

As Lude blinked, thinking his face looked familiar somehow, Min Jaeyoon looked up at him miserably.

“B-But then you have to keep my secret too. My hidden strength…”

“Sorry, can’t do that.”

“W-Why not! I promised to keep yours…!”

Looking betrayed, he stared at Lude. Lude sighed hard and rubbed his neck.

“I have to write a report. Especially things this sensitive, I have to detail them. No exceptions.”

“J-Just leave my name out!”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Even if I covered for you, officials will investigate and turn the whole school upside down and you’ll be caught anyway. You think government inspectors wouldn’t recognize a mage’s workshop? They’re terrifyingly thorough.”

Sniffling, Jaeyoon blew his nose into his blanket.

‘Ew, gross…’

A moment ago he’d been so cocky. Now he just fidgeted with the frayed edge of his blanket, deflated.

“Don’t take it lightly. Even I had my secret exposed by someone like you. Playing at hiding strength only goes so far. And you went too far.”

“N-No please. If my grandfather finds out, I’ll be in huge trouble. He’ll never let it slide.”

Seeing him so downcast, Lude frowned and crossed his arms with a sigh. After all, there was no such thing as a hidden strength without a story.

Pretending you wanted to hide your power because “I’m rich and I want to stay unknown” never lasted long. It took effort to keep a double life going. Look at Nari, paying both Hunter pension and national pension, unable to get a phone in her own name, using company phones or borrowing Kang Ihyun’s just to make work calls…

[Our poor Nari even has to take her salary in cash, with the guild printing cash receipts, chuckles the Lord of Chaos, patting you on the back of the head.]

“…”

Living socially under an avatar meant endless hassles. Thinking of that, Lude looked up with dead eyes before pulling himself together.

“So then, why did you report it?”

“Eh?”

“If you were just going to cover it up, why not pretend to be normal and cut class? You even processed the mana into pseudo-stones, right?”

Jaeyoon blinked and scratched his head. After hesitating for a moment, he answered with a shrug.

“Well, if I didn’t report it, everyone would have died. The school’s so old that everyone thinks malfunctions are a common occurrence.”

“That’s it?”

“What do you mean ‘that’s it’! I can’t just let teachers and students die! Do you know how much I panicked when I saw the mana was gone this morning?! Someone had to have stolen it. My demon overheard some second-year bullies laughing about selling it on the black market!”

Lude stared at Min Jaeyoon who became emotional. Whatever he was thinking, Lude was about to respond with a dark expression, but his phone rang.

“…Let me take this call.”

“O-Okay.”

Lude, who didn't look particularly pleased, checked the name that appeared on the screen and headed outside the library. It was Kang Ihyun.

Just now, after hearing that guy's words, he had almost gotten into a bad mood, but Lude thought this guy always cuts in at just the right timing as he positioned himself in the corridor in front of the library.

"Yeah. What's up?"

[Um, Lude. I'm not doubting your abilities at all, okay? Absolutely not, but... did you really rescue all the students?]

When Lude answered the phone with an irritated tone, Ihyun's cautious voice could be heard from the other end of the line.

"Why, is something wrong?"

[N-No. That's not it! But there's a kid I know who goes to this school, but I don’t see him. So um...]

The sound of Kang Ihyun moving to a place where there were no people around could be heard, then he muttered in a small voice.

[His name is Min Jaeyoon, he should be a third-year student. He doesn't usually go to school much... but I know he went to school today.]

"He's with me. Before that, I want to ask you something. According to the rules, the Sanctuary guild can’t subjugate this gate, and is it because of this kid?”

Lude's eyes narrowed. Min Jaeyoon, demon, somewhat similar impression, and his grandfather.  Certainly even though 'Sanctuary' was the most outstanding guild in the central region, there were restrictions on this school's gate subjugation. Something connected in his mind.

[Yes, that's right. He is Hunter Min Jaewon’s...]

"His grandson?"

At the affirmation heard through the receiver, Lude let out a deep sigh. When it's confirmed that a direct family member of a guild member is trapped in a gate, that guild member is excluded from subjugation.

And that guild implicitly doesn't conduct gate subjugation, except for special circumstances like now.

The reason is in case the guild member might make an extreme choice. It was said to be a case that actually happens quite often.

They might not care about anyone else's lives except their family, or follow their deceased family member by giving up their own life during gate subjugation, or kill all guild members when their own guild fails in subjugation.

Anyway, people trapped in gates, whether hunters or civilians, are bound to develop PTSD. Moreover, when it involves one's own family, there was no one Nari knew who could make rational judgments.

"He's healthy with all limbs intact. Don't worry because he'll come down with me after work is finished."

Lude, having roughly grasped the situation, thought he had gotten caught up in a troublesome matter and pressed his forehead with two fingers. As Ihyun sighed with relief, Lude casually threw out his words.

"He's a much better kid than me. Really funny huh. We're the same type, but one is a bad guy and the other is..."

[Huh?]

"N-Nothing. Anyway, if you're done with emergency treatment there, you have a long-range attack strong enough to destroy a school building, right? Get that ready."

[I do have one, but why?]

Kang Ihyun kept asking back as if he'd been hearing incomprehensible words. Lude, who had been cutting off his counterpart's words, made his expression blank and continued.

"I'm going to destroy the school starting now."

* * *

She arrived at the classroom after lifting herself that felt heavier than ever. Nari's desk always had clear marks carved with a box cutter.

The shoes in her shoe bag disappeared at a rate of one pair every three days, so later she just came to school wearing indoor shoes.

During break time, when she put in earphones that played no music and lay down at her desk with clear box cutter marks, she could clearly hear her classmates' gossip.

'Hey, why does she keep stubbornly coming to school? She should just die following her mom.'

'◼◼◼ takes care of him, that's why she comes. Hey, honestly, don’t you feel bad for ◼◼◼? I don't know why he takes such good care of someone like her.'

'Do you think they’re in that kind of relationship?'

'Crazy... It's creepy because it actually seems possible. But ◼◼◼ is going to ◼◼ soon too, so now there's no one to take care of her, so she won't come anymore.'

'Please, I hope she doesn’t. Honestly, I hate seeing her looking like she's dying all the time. What, is she the only one whose mom died? But honestly, wasn't her mom deserving of death?'

High school student Nari heard all those words as they were. For some reason, she couldn't help but listen. If she didn't listen, she felt like she would imagine the content on her own and hurt herself instead.

She endured a full three years at school like that. Without even knowing why she was enduring it, she persisted.

And honestly, Nari at that time had thought it would be good if a gate opened like this and everyone just died. Of course, including herself.

"What are those goats on the lower floor?! I had a hard time tearing this off because they were biting and tearing at my uniform. Look at this shirt!"

"Oh. You came?"

Lude, who had been lost in old thoughts, turned his gaze at the sound of someone fuming beside him. Min Jaeyoon, who had torn off evacuation route maps placed in each corridor, was looking at Lude and waving his tattered sleeves.

"But why did you tell me to tear off these maps?"

"I'm going to destroy the school and rebuild it. You can do that much, right? Hide the fact that you're powerful by eliminating your workshop, and build other safety devices while we're at it."

"What?! Wow, thank you so much! I'm really grateful, but uh, I can't do that much. I've never done it before."

"I'll help you."

Lude looked around the inside of the school carefully. What was so brilliant about ordinary people's school life, what was so good about it? Beautiful memories when you look back? Nari had no such thing.

The sense of caring for teachers and friends was something Nari, whose school life had turned into hell since the second year of middle school, would never understand for the rest of her life.

Lude's face was cold. It was an attitude of not feeling much emotion about this situation.

"This kind of thing shouldn't happen at school."

But regardless of his own emotions, he knew there was an absolute principle when dealing with minor students.

"I'm an adult, so I'll take responsibility."

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.