Chapter 95 : Chapter 95
Chapter 95
Do Minyeong and Cha Yeri returned to Hero Prep without exchanging a single word after visiting Sienna’s special ward.
It was not that something was wrong between them.
They simply needed time to sort through what they had just witnessed.
Namely, Choi Seol, Choi Suhyuk’s older sister.
The first to break the silence was Do Minyeong.
“It would be better not to say anything, would it not?”
“Yes. Our purpose was to find Senior Choi Suhyuk.”
“…….”
“…….”
Do Minyeong and Cha Yeri could roughly guess what sort of illness Choi Seol suffered from.
They did not know the precise symptoms, but in awakened society, the name for such an illness was a hereditary disease.
In Seoul, it was only natural to seek a spouse with outstanding genes in order to develop one’s abilities.
Likewise, many sought to preserve their abilities.
In Choi Seol’s case, it was about preserving her family’s ability, and the most representative method was consanguineous marriage within the family.
More precisely, cousin marriage.
Some countries permitted cousin marriage, but within awakened society it was a rule that could not be tolerated.
That was because awakening, called humanity’s evolution, had existed for only four generations at most.
In the early period after the Great Rift, there were occasional cases of consanguineous marriage born of ignorance, but the moment hereditary diseases were proven, the Bureau prohibited it.
Of course, not everyone developed a hereditary disease.
Because, like Choi Suhyuk, who had come from the same womb as Choi Seol, there were many cases in which one gained superior abilities, such attempts continued in secrecy.
The greatest reason awakened society guarded against such attempts was the horrific end of those with hereditary diseases.
Usually, at the moment of awakening, mana that could not be assimilated placed a burden on the body, and when the person received a shock beyond a certain threshold, the body rampaged and death followed.
Exceptionally, there were those whose bodies endured even while mana rampaged.
But even if they clung to life by luck, their time limit did not change, and in most cases they became consumed by madness and displayed a tendency to destroy everything around them.
Even the family members who cared for them.
The “soundproofing” the special ward staff member had mentioned was, in truth, warding against magic.
Even if a patient rampaged and died, the building had to be able to absorb the impact.
Do Minyeong and Cha Yeri’s silence broke again only after they came near the dormitory buildings.
This time, it was Cha Yeri.
“Ji Seokhyeon…. No, what do you think happened to the people who went to District 26?”
A question about the members who had headed to the arena to find Choi Suhyuk.
But Do Minyeong could not answer easily.
Because the moment the name Ji Seokhyeon was spoken, a strange atmosphere began to flow between them.
They stopped walking, and with wordless looks, became sharply aware of one another.
They had arrived at the reason they had insisted on moving together, even to the point of excluding Gwon Chihun.
“Cadet Ji Seokhyeon seems like a good person, does he not?”
Cha Yeri’s voice was calm.
Do Minyeong sensed, faintly, that Cha Yeri was different from her usual self.
As if she had taken off a mask.
“Yes, well… in some ways.”
She had tried not to be conscious of it, but her voice trembled.
They naturally avoided each other’s eyes and looked out over Hero Prep’s scenery.
A few seconds passed like that.
Then Cha Yeri turned back toward Do Minyeong and spoke again.
“Do you perhaps like Cadet Ji Seokhyeon?”
A direct question.
It was a manner quite unlike Cha Yeri’s usual image.
She had always stayed a step back, watching the situation.
“W-why are you asking that?”
In contrast, Do Minyeong took a timid stance.
The Do Minyeong who never hesitated with anyone was nowhere to be found.
“Because a direct-line heir would not associate with someone from the outskirts for no reason.”
“…….”
“So, if you truly have no relationship at all… may I be greedy?”
In that instant, Do Minyeong forgot what expression she was making.
She did not even register how Cha Yeri was looking at her.
She only kept asking herself, again and again, what Ji Seokhyeon meant to her.
What kind of meaning he had come to occupy in her life.
Whether she was being stubborn for no reason.
“Do Minyeong… cadet?”
When no answer came quickly, Cha Yeri asked again, her voice trembling faintly.
At last, Do Minyeong’s voice spilled out.
Colder than ever.
“No.”
***
After matters in District 26 were settled, we returned to Hero Prep.
Lee Eunho went straight to his dorm without asking a single question about the incident, and Gwon Chihun vanished somewhere the moment we entered the 4th Scholastic District.
I tried to meet Do Minyeong and Cha Yeri to give them a rough explanation, but for some reason, neither of them answered my messages.
They did not even seem to be together.
So I left a message and entered my dorm.
“Surely they did not meet Choi Seol….”
The Broadcasting Club incident concluded as Choi Suhyuk had intended.
If I had been someone who did not care about honor or standing, I would have stopped thinking and withdrawn immediately, but….
“For Choi Suhyuk, he needed a plausible pretext.”
The “leadership class” of awakened society that Choi Suhyuk brushed against would not view a student who withdrew from Hero Prep without a special reason kindly.
But waiting half a year to graduate would have been an enormous burden with Choi Seol’s treatment costs.
Because he was under contract with Blackcastle, he faced many restrictions on official activity until graduation, and his family—his support—had long since declined after Choi Seol’s hereditary disease manifested, having been subjected to the Bureau’s sanctions.
One might argue that financial pressure was unrealistic for one of the top talents of the 4th Scholastic District.
However, in awakened society, curing, protecting, hiding, or conducting related research on hereditary diseases was illegal.
Even if those with hereditary diseases were living human beings, the sight of them consumed by madness was as horrific as a Demonic Being.
As recently as a few decades ago, people had believed it was a transformation into a Demonic Being.
That was why all necessary medication had to be smuggled, and in times like these when monsters were scarce, supplies were even lower, requiring even more money to secure them.
Worse still, some who knew Choi Seol’s secret applied financial pressure to Choi Suhyuk whenever the mood struck them.
He had endured through various sponsorships earned with his natural looks, but in the original work, I had written that he was “ultimately cornered to the point of having to give up graduation.”
If he could have asked Blackcastle for support from the beginning, that would have been ideal, but unfortunately, there was no guild that would support a hereditary disease.
Rather, the moment he revealed that he carried a potential hereditary defect, he would be discarded in awakened society.
“A hereditary disqualification, so to speak.”
In a world that would stake its life on the talent of a second generation, it was the worst possible marriage prospect.
In any case, after returning to my dorm, I first went to Choi Suhyuk’s dorm, opened the door with the password, and found a bulging bag in the entryway drawer.
Inside it was the mana stone from the Broadcasting Room.
The item I had demanded as the price for keeping Choi Suhyuk’s crime quiet.
In truth, it was what I had been aiming for from the start in this episode.
Because this was Lee Eunho’s fortuitous encounter that increased his stats.
I briefly hesitated, wondering whether I should hand it to Lee Eunho for a moment, but it truly was only a momentary thought.
No matter how I considered it, there was nothing to gain by giving it to a protagonist who never listened.
“If he goes crooked and rampages someday, I will surely regret it until I am pounding the ground.”
Leaving the bag in place, I put only the mana stone into my inventory and returned to my dorm.
I sat on the sofa, took the mana stone out, and without hesitating, touched it and let mana flow into it, establishing resonance.
“……?”
In that instant, unbearable electricity surged through my entire body.
“Urgh…! Aaaagh!”
Now that I thought about it, in the original work it had been set up that one grew stronger by absorbing a special kind of electricity.
For Lee Eunho, who had lightning affinity, it would not have hurt at all, but for me it was agony as though I had been struck by lightning.
I had never been struck, of course, but could lightning possibly be more painful than this…!
“Zzzzz… Aaaaargh!”
How long had I writhed in pain?
Only after I had charred the sofa and the floor mat black did my mind clear.
System messages that I did not even know had appeared were floating in the air, and the mana stone had vanished without a trace.
[Vast mana settles within you.]
[Durability increased by 3.0.]
[Magic Power increased by 3.0.]
The increase was so great that the pain washed away the moment I saw it.
Now my durability was 13.3, and my magic power was 11.4.
My durability could be considered top-tier even among awakened beings, and my magic power was finally at a level befitting a Hero Prep cadet.
After the system messages, the episode completion message appeared.
[Episode completed.]
[The influence of the sub-character, ‘Ji Seokhyeon,’ has increased.]
[The setting intervention rate of future episodes will increase by 7.531%.]
An intervention rate in the seven percent range.
An extra episode that could no longer be ignored….
“It might be better to fail and have my stats decrease instead.”
I caught my breath for a moment, looking at the news on my smartphone from atop the pitch-black sofa.
Among the online articles, the report about Muspel’s prison break had drawn quite a high number of views.
It had already been more than a month-old incident, but it was only after the Special Affairs Division immediately executed all escaped prisoners that it was being covered.
Normally, the public would have erupted, demanding to know why such a major incident was being disclosed a month late, but the comments were fairly positive.
It was the kind of handling only the Special Affairs Division could manage.
It also meant that the citizens of Seoul Special Self-Governing City of Superpowers trusted the Special Affairs Division that much.
The next news item was that monster appearances around Gangwon-do were gradually increasing.
“Is Hyeonseong Express stock finally going to skyrocket?”
I had invested in Hyeonseong Express with the six hundred million won I had earned from selling MA6.
At present, I was down ten percent compared to my principal, but judging by the atmosphere, the day to cash out with enormous profit did not seem far off.
Related news included a notice from Suwon’s administrative office recruiting guilds to help establish a forward operating base in the Gangwon-do region, and the recruitment conditions were fairly strict, which made it clear they intended to assemble a proper expedition force.
“What should I do with the profits when they come?”
Buying land would probably be best.
Land in a region I had never once mentioned in the original work, if possible.
At the very least, places like that would not get swept up in absurd developments hastily improvised for catharsis.
BZZZZZ—
As I was about to open the next article, a call came through on my smartphone.
It was Park Chaeshin.
The moment I answered, he shouted without even letting me hear his voice.
—I found it! I figured out who the backer is!
The backer.
Hearing that word, I immediately matched his energy.
“How?”
—That research journal you brought me! I had been half ready to give up because I could not find anything unusual, but the papers used in the journal were not all printed in the same place! I accidentally spilled water, and the material was clearly different!
As expected, he was sharp.
To find a clue this quickly….
“If they were not printed in the same place, then where were they printed?”
—Public institutions like the Bureau have to keep official documents on record, so they use special paper supplied for that purpose, right? I looked into it, and there is only one place that uses this kind of paper!
“Then where is it? Who is it?”
—Do not be surprised.
Park Chaeshin’s voice, which had been brimming with excitement, suddenly sank.
Even I, who already knew the answer, swallowed along with him.
—The office of Secretary to Bureau Director-General Baek Dojin.
“…….”