Chapter 74
It was a hectic morning.
Thanks to going to bed late last night, I didn't even hear my alarm and ended up waking up late.
In the end, I barely tamed my bedhead with a comb before hurriedly changing into my school uniform.
“Professor Cheon, are you going out today?”
“Ah, I'm planning to stop by the school to meet some professors I know. Should I give you a ride to the Academy?”
“I'm meeting some friends, and we're going to go together. They're right up ahead.”
“Haha, all right, all right. The weather's still chilly, so be careful not to catch a cold!”
We went our separate ways in the elevator, with me going down to the first floor and him to the basement.
The wind was certainly howling outside, and the sky was thick with dark clouds, making it a gloomy day.
Many other students were heading along their own routes to school, chatting noisily.
“Hey, Name! Been waiting long?”
Han Seori came running over, waving her hand.
“Hi, Seori.”
“No, no, no! Hey, Seori! This is how you do it!”
She brought her right hand to her head, then raised it high into the air and stretched out her arm.
If she had brought her left hand to her stomach as well, it would have been a perfect Nazi salute, but fortunately, Nazi Germany had never existed in this world.
Jihye came trotting over a little later and greeted me too.
“How could you run ahead like that...! Hi, Name. Did you have a good weekend?”
“Hi, Jihye. Yeah, I'm a little tired because I went to bed late yesterday.”
“Really? I overslept today too, so my dad woke me up when he was leaving for work. But then I got scolded really badly...”
“Huh? You got scolded? Just for oversleeping?”
Seori's eyes widened. Jihye stuck out her lips, showing how unfair she thought it was.
“My dad is just kind of strict... Don't you think scolding me was a bit much?”
“Ahem, I've never overslept, so I wouldn't know?”
“What are you talking about! You always oversleep and come out late, Seori!”
“But I came out early today!”
“Hwaaah!”
Seori tickled Jihye's neck and ran away.
Jihye dropped even her schoolbag and chased after her as if she meant to punish her for it.
“Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey! Running while using aura is cheating! Aaaaaah!”
“If I catch you, I'll tickle you just as much. I'm not going to go easy on you!”
Where did they get that kind of stamina? Children in the middle of growing up couldn't contain their energy and ran all over the place.
I decided to carry the schoolbag Jihye had left behind at least as far as the main gate.
The routine of Jihye entering through the back gate of the apartment complex, meeting Seori first, and then joining me had continued unchanged for two weeks.
Judging by the sound of Seori's laughter, Jihye must have caught her in the end.
“Aah... Just my neck... Just my neck! Not my armpits!”
“Nope. More, more.”
“Jihye, stop... Stop...! Name, help me!”
“Ah, right, my schoolbag!”
“I brought it here.”
“Aah, thank you so much! I feel really bad... Should I carry yours to school?”
“No, it's fine.”
“Am I invisible? That's so mean!”
After passing through the main gate, we walked straight along the main road.
Since all the cars ran on electricity, this world without exhaust fumes was pleasant.
While Seori and Jihye continued bickering, I couldn't escape my thoughts about Adella.
It was far more likely that Adella would grow stronger than Jin Chronicle than that I would destroy 108 pillars of ice.
But with so little time before the boss battle, was raising her really the right path?
I wouldn't know until I tried.
“Yeah, Name? What is it?”
Seori asked when she saw me stop near the bus stop.
“I promised to go to school with a classmate too. Do you two want to wait and go together?”
“Is she coming by bus?”
“Yeah. She'll be here soon.”
“Then let's wait! We've still got plenty of time.”
“But who are we waiting for? Someone from your class?”
“We thought we were your only best friends!”
Just as I was about to answer them, a bus arrived and people began pouring out.
Perhaps because it was a stop with a subway station, it took quite a while for everyone to get off.
And whether I should even call that a bus...
It was a double-articulated vehicle made up of three sections connected by two accordion joints, capable of comfortably carrying more than a hundred people.
After a while, a red-haired girl wedged between a potbellied office worker and a long-haired male high school student finally managed to set foot on the ground.
She looked around, checked her clothes, and retied her shoelaces.
“Yuna, good morning?”
“Huh? Oh, NoName!”
Because of her family circumstances, she had always gone around with a gloomy air, just like today's weather.
But today, a smile seemed unable to leave her face.
“Hehe, hi! It's been a while since I've taken the bus at this hour. There were so many people I almost died. I'd be better off just walking to school.”
Yuna said this with a short sigh.
“What, Seo Yuna?”
“Ah, so it was Yuna. Hi...?”
Seori and Jihye looked back and forth between Yuna and me with awkward expressions.
An awkward tension arose among the four of us.
Since we couldn't be late to school, I had no choice but to push everyone along.
“Seo Yuna, didn't you hate Name?”
“When did I ever? I really like Name.”
“Are you feeling okay? You collapsed last week and went to the infirmary...”
“Yeah, Name treated me all the way, so I'm fine.”
Yuna answered bluntly, subtly emphasizing how close she was to me.
She suddenly snatched my right hand and interlaced her fingers with mine.
Not to be outdone, Han Seori grabbed my left wrist.
Before the atmosphere could grow even more hostile, I changed the subject.
“What did you do over the weekend, Yuna? Is your mother doing okay?”
“Yeah, I went on a picnic with my family for the first time in ages! It was sunny yesterday, so Mom was really happy too. Did you go straight home after being discharged, Name?”
“Pretty much.”
“Discharged? Were you hurt somewhere?”
“It was nothing serious. I just cut my wrist a little.”
“Let me see! Don't tell me it was the left one? It can't be the left...! I gripped your wrist pretty hard earlier!”
“See? It's completely healed.”
I showed Seori my wrist, healed cleanly without a single scar.
This is the advancement of modern medical magic, you idiots.
“Be more careful...! Deep wounds can leave scars later. My dad has tons of scars on his back and arms because of that.”
“Right, Jihye, you said your father was a detective before, didn't you?”
“Yeah, yeah.”
“Wow, having a detective for a dad must be terrifying even when he just gives you a mild scolding. Does he take you down with judo techniques when he scolds you?”
“Not really... He only uses words when scolding me. Though he has used judo techniques on me before.”
“Huh?”
“Huh?”
I left Seori and Jihye buffering for a moment and checked Yuna's complexion.
I hadn't noticed from my quick glance earlier, but only her mouth was smiling, while the corners of her eyes drooped.
“Are you feeling really bad?”
“No, I'm just a little worried... It really didn't hurt back then?”
“If you can't handle pain this minor, you'll never become an adult. They say war mages keep fighting even after getting a hole punched through their stomachs.”
“Huh? That's what war mages did? That's the first I've heard of it.”
“Isn't it?”
Back in my day, everyone fought like mad.
Apparently, that wasn't really the case here.
“Anyway, starting today, the four of us are going to school together like this. Got it?”
“Do we have to? I want to go with Name alone.”
“What are you talking about? Name was going to school with us first. You came later and butted in.”
“From now on, I'm going to be Name's best friend.”
“Who decided that?”
“Enough, let's just walk faster. You can fight while walking, can't you?”
Why did they keep stopping every few minutes?
Jihye fidgeted as she tried to mediate, but I gestured that she didn't need to bother.
“Why...?”
“People naturally grow closer by fighting.”
Especially when they're young.
Once we became close, we probably wouldn't even remember what we had been fighting about.
That's how I became close to Hiasen.
Though in most cases, I had beaten the crap out of Hiasen.
“Do you even know what Name likes?”
“Of... of course! Do you know what my hobby is?”
“Let's figure it out based on what Name did yesterday.”
“Okay. I'll go first. Name, Name!”
Yuna asked me with an expectant look in her eyes.
“You practiced the otamatone yesterday, right? You said you'd play it for me at school later.”
“I practiced it the day before yesterday, but not yesterday.”
“Whyyyy...?”
“I played it too much at the hospital.”
Seori barely managed to cover a burst of laughter with her hand.
“My name is Han Seori THE Nostradamus! I know exactly what Name did yesterday!”
“Didn't Nostradamus know the future, not the past...?”
“Jihye, shh! Ahem, anyway, hmmmm... I know! Name must have studied magic yesterday!”
“What kind of hobby is that! That's cheating. If that's how we're doing it, I can guess too.”
“It counts as a hobby for Name, right? Right? Say it does, NoName!”
Han Seori was sharper than I'd expected.
“But I didn't study yesterday. I normally would have, though.”
“How can this be... Then what did you do yesterday?”
“I played a VR game.”
“A game? VR? You mean a capsule game?”
“Yeah.”
“You play games too? Wow, I see you in a whole new light. That's so amazing.”
Yuna was naturally even more surprised than Seori.
“What game?”
“Do you know World of Arseria?”
“Yeah, I've heard of it. It's the game Kim Hangyeol oppa plays. I know because he talks about it all the time. Do you need a capsule to play it?”
“Yeah. Why, are you going to play it too?”
“No... Capsules are expensive...”
Yuna wilted like a dried-up reed and trudged along.
“Is she still trying to copy Name?”
“Yuna's really persistent...! She took the wrong medicine last week and got chewed out so badly...”