Chapter 132 - Wasteland (2)

2

“Look! Up there...”

“Wh-what do we do? Should we get a teacher?”

Students gathered on the school field, pointing at the rooftop.

“What's that kid trying to do?”

“I don't know. Looks like they're going to jump...”

One student stood on the rooftop.

“What do we do?”

“Holy shit! Someone get a teacher!”

“Over there! There!”

Students who had been kicking a soccer ball. Students out for a stroll. Even students leaving school a little late. The children scattered around the grounds gathered in little groups. It was instinctive. They sensed that something they could not handle alone was happening—was about to happen.

“Damn...!”

Someone chose to act quickly rather than simply join the helpless crowd.

“This is bad. Gongja! Call 119. Give them the school's name and tell them there's a student about to jump off the roof. Hurry! I'll go up and try to talk the child down!”

Raviel did not send someone to fetch a teacher. Instead of looking for someone to take responsibility for her, she dealt with the situation without wasting a second. Without waiting for my answer, she hurried toward the main school building.

“Ah...”

Watching her go, I felt my frozen body loosen. Yes. Whatever was happening, there was no time to hesitate. I hurriedly dialed my phone. One. One...

CRUNCH!

Something fell onto the school grounds just before I could press nine. At first, I thought the student had jumped. But the sound was far too small for a human body hitting the ground. It was the sound of the student on the roof throwing down a phone.

“...”

I pressed nine and looked up at the roof.

Our eyes met.

It was a face I had seen in the classroom. The child who had sat alone by the window in the back row, silently studying ahead. Yet it felt as though this was the first time I had ever truly looked at that child's face.

The child's eyes were black.

The child's cheeks were white.

“...”

The corners of the child's mouth lifted in a sneer.

Slowly, the child's lips moved. A silent sound. The voice, concealed by distance, reached my eyes through the movement of those lips. It was a two-syllable death cry I could not fail to recognize, however much I tried not to.

[“Die.”]

And then.

Those little rake-like fingers released the rooftop fence. Let it go.

The wind.

A person,

“■■■■■■■■!”

The students screamed. Noise filled the world like a thick fog. “Cra■!” Someone groaned spasmodically. “■■Aaaa■■■ah!” Someone trembled, clawing at someone else's sleeve. “Teach■! Tea■er!” “Fu■.” “■azy!”

In an instant.

The school was no longer a school. Everything shattered. The field was a barren desert of sand. The main building was nothing more than a hideous prison. The classrooms were slaughterhouses where beasts were butchered, or pens where beasts were raised. The beasts were always hungry for food. In a world of slaughter and breeding, a human was something that would become a corpse.

In red.

A person had died.

“...”

I stared blankly at the school grounds. The bricks held the redness. The redness spread farther. Afraid it might stain the tips of their shoes, the students backed away. Some took out their phones.

CLICK!

An artificial sound rang out.

“Ah.”

That sound set my body in motion.

“Don't take pictures.”

I approached the students.

“What the hell are you doing? Right now. Don't take pictures! I said stop!”

The students flinched. Yet more and more kept gathering. Leaving soccer balls in the desert, leaving flowers along the paths, turning back on their way home, more and more people gathered.

“Don't take pictures!”

When I stopped one side, phones came out on the other.

“I told you to stop! Fuck, stop!”

An emotion I could not name surged back up my throat. I felt as though I would cry. It was rage. It was contempt. It was disgust. From the main school building—from the first floor, the second, the third, the fourth, the fifth—students leaned out to look this way. Countless faces. With countless eyes.

They watched a person as a spectacle.

“Stop. It!”

The sunset was red.

“Goddamn it.”

Why.

“Just stop doing that!”

Hundreds of faces were expressionless. The Black Dragon leader watched from the first floor. The Inquisitor leaned out on the third. The Paladin and the Count watched from the grounds. The children of the Infernal Mansion surrounded me. The cult members stood on the field.

CLICK! CLICK.

They moved their fingers and took pictures.

+

I'm the one you murdered.

Don't forget.

You killed me.

+

I looked up at the roof.

“...”

Raviel was looking down at me.

“But, Gongja.”

Her voice drifted through the reddened sky.

“Were you not the one who killed that child?”

The world crumbled.

The sky turned red.

Red paint fell, soaking the earth.

The people turned red, and my vision reddened too.

“... As you know, an unfortunate incident occurred at our school.”

The principal spoke in the auditorium. He had the Sword Saint's face.

“But I have faith in the students of Sinseo Middle and High...”

Redness.

“That kid sent a text like that. Seriously, isn't that insane?”

Students whispered in the classroom. They had the faces of the Count and the Paladin.

“Exactly. Looking back, that kid was always a little strange.”

Redness.

“I hear plenty of bastards are making a fuss over it, but don't let it bother you. They wouldn't dare make a peep to your face, but their fingers sure are lively. Tch. We ought to cut off every last one of their fingers.”

At home, Father drank whiskey. He had my attendant spirit's face and laugh.

“Yeah, dumbass. Sometimes you hit people. That's life. What, that kid went and died over a little thing like that? Isn't that a total attention whore? Hey! Call the Four Kings! Let's go play some games together!”

My older brother put an arm around my shoulders. The Flame Emperor spoke cheerfully.

Redness.

“Yes, I'm very sad too. I am, but...”

Our homeroom teacher spoke from the podium. He had Viper's face.

“This is a very important time for you. Once you're in your third year, time flies before you know it. In practice, it's your second year that decides the outcome. Think carefully about what matters to you, and pull yourselves together.”

The students opened their mouths. Everyone answered in unison.

“Yes, sir.”

Only the class president lowered her head without a word.

She had the Black Dragon leader's face.

White flowers were placed on the child's desk. One day, two days, three days. Before a week had passed, the desk disappeared somewhere. No one knew who had removed it. No student asked who had removed it, either.

No new desk took its place by the window in the back row.

“...”

The wind blew.

The curtain fluttered.

Where the wind blew, there was no one.

[Repeating the trauma.]

And then.

[Penalty depth: High.]

[This is the Animal Realm.]

DING.

DONG.

DANG.

DONG.

A dreary melody rang out.

It was noise wearing the guise of sound. An electronic imitation of natural tones. To conceal the fact that it was merely a counterfeit, the melody struggled all the harder to sound cheerful.

-This is an announcement from the broadcasting club to all students remaining on campus.

A counterfeit.

-Everyone except those participating in evening self-study should now leave the school. Once again, an announcement from the broadcasting club.

A failed thing.

-Recently, students have been seen remaining on campus after dismissal. If you are still on campus and have not signed up for evening self-study, please leave the school.

Feeling my stomach churn, I opened my eyes.

“Wake up, senior! They're telling us to go home!”

“...”

“Oh. You're already awake.”

The Inquisitor beamed.

“But sleeping slumped over a desk is bad for you! It's bad for your back, and most importantly, you can't sleep properly. Midterms are coming up soon, so...”

I did not wait for the Inquisitor to finish. I stood and ran out of the library. His voice followed me.

“Ah, senior! You mustn't run in the hall!”

Running down the hallway, I clenched my teeth.

'I understand.'

The mystery was solved.

This was indeed the trauma of the Heaven-Slaying Star, Lefanta Aegim.

It was simply that [my memories] had been laid over Lefanta Aegim's nightmare like a [skin].

The same situation.

The same roles.

Only their appearances had been dressed up as people I had encountered in my life, rather than the people Lefanta Aegim remembered. That was why the Black Dragon leader, the Paladin, and the Count had become students. My Master and my attendant spirit had become my parents.

'I'm the perpetrator.'

A metallic taste filled my mouth.

'The role I've been given is the person chiefly responsible for all this.'

I had experienced many traumas before, but each time I had been an [observer]. There had always been the lingering sense of watching in the first person. But perhaps the penalty had grown harsher as my rank rose.

Here, I was directly involved.

Not only me, but every person I remembered was, too.

Except for one.

'Damn it!'

I reached the stairs.

[Behave Properly♪]

[Live Cheerfully♪]

[Keep Your Heart Happy♪]

Those unfunny slogans hung in the stairwell. Don't screw with me. Seriously, this wasn't funny. Cursing inwardly, I looked up the stairs leading to the roof.

Standing there was the only [person absent from my memories] in this world.

'The Heaven-Slaying Star.'

He was a small child. Gripping the closed iron door, the student tugged it this way and that.

CLACK. CLANK!

The chain was sturdy and looked impossible to undo.

“Ha... The key...”

The student sighed and turned around. In that moment, our eyes met. His breath stopped for a brief instant, but he soon bowed politely.

He bowed his head to greet me.

'Why didn't I realize it sooner?'

I should have noticed something was wrong as soon as I learned that child was my classmate. Wasn't it obvious?

What classmate in the world greets another child in the same class by [bowing their head]?

Something was wrong.

“...”

After gauging my mood, the student quietly walked away. As he tried to pass me, I called to him.

“Just a moment, please.”

“Yes?”

The student used polite speech as though it were only natural. He did not look straight at me, but cautiously glanced up at an angle ingrained in his body.

My throat churned.

“... Could you give me your phone for a moment?”

“...”

“Please.”

The student obediently handed me his phone. A brief silence fell, but it was not resistance to my demand for his phone. It was simply bewilderment at my use of polite speech.

I opened the phone, which did not even have a passcode.

+

Unread messages: 47

+

I opened the messages one by one.

I looked.

[I feel so bad for the younger kids at our school :'( They have to call you their senior, ■■. Have you ever thought about how they feel? Doesn't your conscience bother you?]

[Hey, are you fucking ignoring me?]

[Shocking! A student who doesn't wash their uniform!?]

[■■... Seriously filthy. Somehow you're even dirtier than the math teacher lol]

[I said hi to you once in the hallway yesterday and you were so fucking happy lol Hey! I only did it because I lost at rock-paper-scissors! Please don't get the wrong idea :'(]

[■■ lives in a garbage dump. Even the indoor shoes and uniform are recycled. There's only one piece of trash that can't be recycled, and that's ■■.]

[You smell so bad. Seriously, you stink.]

[See you after class.]

SNAP.

I closed the phone.

I could not read any more.

“...”

I closed my eyes and breathed. By breathing, I barely managed to calm myself. In this trauma, I had no dagger hilt to hold. I did not have the handkerchief Raviel had given me, either. It took a great deal of effort to settle my emotions.

“Why...”

I looked at [the Heaven-Slaying Star's past].

“Why do you bring your phone to school? Just don't bring it.”

Then the student answered.

“... You said you'd kill me if I didn't bring it.”

Cold saliva slid down my throat.

My head spun.

“Then, just, throw it away. Please throw it away. If you say you lost it, there's nothing anyone can do.”

“This...”

The student.

The person who would later be called the Heaven-Slaying Star parted his lips and spoke softly.

“It's the phone you gave me, Lord Gongja. The one you used to use...”

“...”

“My family doesn't have any money... So you're paying the bill for me, too. So I can come right away whenever you tell me to. That's what it's for. You said you'd kill me if I lost it, too...”

A building that had become a monstrosity.

In this breeding pen of masks—friendship imitating friendship, love copying love, meaninglessness mimicking meaning, feigning uniqueness and staging greatness—only malice.

“May I really throw it away?”

Only malice was not fake.