Academy’S Gumiho Is A Magical Genius [EN]: Chapter 25

The recovery of all the bodies was complete.

They gathered even the fragments of flesh and bone that were barely recognizable as corpses and placed them in coffins.

Those coffins were delivered to the families of the victims.

The bereaved families expressed their grief in their own ways.

A woman clutching a coffin and weeping all day. A couple screaming and calling out for their child. A child looking for a father they could no longer meet. And people venting their anger at Chilseong Academy.

The forms were different for each, but no one stifled their cries.

All around was filled with wails and tears.

In this atmosphere, studying was impossible.

Chilseong Academy granted the students a week’s break.

Consequently, the performance evaluations and midterms for all grades were postponed.

None of the 6,000 students in the entire school protested. They, too, were keenly aware of the gravity of the situation.

The injured totaled 241.

Besides that, there were 36 deaths.

Guards, twenty-one.

Tutors, six.

And nine first-year students.

They were just young children, barely past their freshman orientation.

They were elites, receiving expectations and trust from their respective countries, brilliant new talents about to bloom.

One of the professors teaching the first-year students muttered.

“We overlooked it too much. The Demon’s influence [referring to a malevolent force or individual] was everywhere.”

He taught martial arts to the students and instructed them on basic self-defense.

He felt a great sense of guilt and responsibility for the current tragedy.

Next to him, a professor said in a tearful voice.

“If I had known this would happen, I would have taught them more magic—magic that could at least protect their own bodies.”

At those words, someone clicked their tongue and muttered.

“Don’t talk nonsense. One must protect their own body. Those guys just didn’t know how.”

The tone was harsh, inappropriate in front of so many coffins.

However, no one argued with those words.

Because they weren’t wrong.

In this world, death is always close. You never know when it will strike.

Suddenly, a dungeon break might occur, and monsters could ravage the city. Or wanted Demons could cause terror, and you might get caught up in it.

But if you were strong, you might be able to protect yourself.

Therefore, in this world, being weak is a sin.

Everyone here knows that.

They’re just turning a blind eye to it.

Because it’s too sorrowful to admit and too true to deny.

“Everyone knew it, didn’t they? That the life expectancy of Players [individuals with special abilities] is short.”

“Still, I didn’t expect flowers to wither before they turned twenty.”

“……”

Spring was in full bloom. Colorful flowers heralded April.

However, in this academy, the most brilliant flower buds withered before they could even bloom.

People felt sadness and moved away.

It was almost time for the funeral to begin.

A wide forest where the bodies were found.

Using that vast land as a cemetery, people were laid to rest in coffins.

Starting with the bereaved families, all the professors and teaching assistants, and most of the students who could participate were present.

There were no reporters or cameras.

There was no need to record this scene.

This moment would be buried in the hearts of everyone here.

After a while, the chairman’s memorial address began.

He explained the circumstances that led to this incident and spoke of the lives of the dead. There were no grand, flowery words.

Their lives were too ordinary.

That’s what made it so regrettable.

Why did they leave so futilely?

Wailing spread from here and there.

The gloomy forest, as if a ghostly cry would emerge, was soon filled with people’s tears. The cries of the first-year students who lost their friends were especially loud.

They learned the pain of loss too early.

They shed tears and suffered, mourning the deaths of their friends.

Seo Yerin and Noh Yoora were also in that line.

Seo Yerin, who seemed so mature, reddened her eyes, and Noh Yoora, who had comforted me, shed thick tears.

It was a completely different look from when she comforted me last time.

‘……Well, yeah.’

Noh Yoora was young.

The pain of loss isn’t something you easily get used to, no matter how many times you experience it. How could a young student endure that pain?

Clearly, she must have been putting on a brave face in front of me.

It must have been an act because she could read fragments of my senses.

“……”

I stood among the teaching assistants, silently observing the whole scene.

Even if I wanted to close my eyes and turn away.

I kept my eyes open until they turned red and held the sight in my heart.

I could have made this whole scene as if it never happened.

I felt nauseous. I felt a strong headache that made me lose my sense of balance.

‘If I had caught even one professor…’

The situation would have been different.

Then Yuren and the group of monsters would have been killed long ago.

The protagonist’s awakening and the innocent students getting caught up in it would not have happened. People wouldn’t have gathered in this place.

But I chose an irreversible path.

I kept silent about what would happen in the future.

I rationalized it by saying that no one would believe me anyway.

‘Yet, in the end, I tried to take responsibility for everything.’

Before, I clearly chose survival over morality.

I covered my own eyes and ears, saying that all of this was a sacrifice for a happy ending. But I reversed my choice because of my absurd sense of morality.

This is the result.

Open your eyes wide and look straight.

Engrave all this death and sorrow in your heart.

This world is no longer a novel.

It is a demonic realm where all sorts of villains exist, and innocent citizens die following a set scenario.

If it were me before, I would have chosen to stand by in order to survive in this demonic realm.

Because there is no surer way to survive than that.

In fact, even now, my desire to live is earnest.

But now I’m thinking a little differently.

‘I don’t want to leave them to die.’

I don’t know if it’s out of pity for the characters trapped in a set scenario, or because of the guilt and morality I feel towards those who will die.

If I’m going to live anyway, I hope everyone doesn’t die.

Because I’ve seen people dying.

I’ve seen dead people enough to be sick of it.

* * *

When I was young, I had a brilliant talent.

An ability that could dominate the battlefield and change the course of war.

Thanks to that, I became the hope of terrified citizens and a light illuminating the path of soldiers.

Hope became the driving force for people to live, and the light illuminated the darkness where you couldn’t see an inch ahead.

So far, so good.

It was just good.

Until I realized how heavy the hope of all people was and that firewood was needed to keep the light burning.

From some point on, many people started dying around me.

In war, a person’s life is worth less than a fly, but this was too much.

I grieved at their deaths, but I fought even harder so that their deaths would not be in vain. That was the only thought.

So, every time a battle ended, a mountain of corpses surrounded me.

The corpses of monsters and the corpses of humans were intertwined and piled up like a mountain, and the blood flowing from them blocked the path to me like a defensive formation.

Shishan Xuehai (屍山血海) [literally, “mountain of corpses, sea of blood,” an idiom for a scene of utter carnage].

Every time I saw that, my feelings about corpses and death diminished.

I thought it was strange that it happened every day, but I didn’t have any major doubts. My mind and spirit were being eroded in inverse proportion to the corpses that were piling up every day.

It was one day when I was mentally driven to the edge of a cliff.

During the dark hours when the war with the monsters would normally subside, a large army of monsters launched a secret attack.

In the process, countless people died, and I resisted by wielding my sword.

The war situation was dire.

Because they had fought a large-scale battle the day before, there were more sick people than soldiers in the camp. At this rate, everyone was going to die.

Right then, the soldiers in the camp made a decision.

Let’s save Baek Seungwoo.

Everyone couldn’t die.

At least one person could be made to escape.

That’s why they forcibly exiled me from the attack.

─You are the hope of the people.

─The only light that can dispel this hellish darkness.

─So even if we all die for you.

You must live.

They attacked me and transported the unconscious me.

Through the blurry vision, I could see the soldiers dying.

There weren’t just one or two of them.

Tens of thousands. Maybe hundreds of thousands.

Beyond one unit, the entire battalion sacrificed themselves to save me.

The people who transported me changed every moment.

If they got tired or injured their legs, someone else would carry me on their back.

They ran, burning their stamina and lives.

Only then could I know.

The corpses that surrounded me were to protect me.

They were desperately blocking the path to me so that the spark of hope would not be extinguished.

At that time, I felt the weight of the burden on my shoulders.

Too much was on it.

The hopes and wishes of the people, and the lives of countless numbers, were on my narrow shoulders.

It’s heavy.

It was too heavy.

I never knew that someone’s hope could be so heavy.

By the time my blurry consciousness became clear, I heard the news that the 3rd Battalion guarding the outskirts had been annihilated.

No, to be exact, it’s not annihilation.

I’m alive.

I barely survived.

No one regretted their sacrifice.

Rather, they praised it as a noble sacrifice and celebrated it on a large scale. It’s a crazy world.

Saving one person with the sacrifice of hundreds of thousands of people is a noble sacrifice.

It was a completely crazy world.

From then on, I heard hallucinations in my ears.

You must live.

That was a curse.

A curse that bound me and gnawed at me.

Even though a long time has passed since then, I still see the scene and hear hallucinations sometimes. Especially at funerals like this.

I didn’t feel well, so I slipped out of the funeral for a while.

I feel like I can breathe now that I don’t sense any presence.

“……That’s why I hate funerals.”

“Oh my, you sound like you’ve been to a lot of funerals?”

“Is it fun to appear behind me?”

I leaned against a nearby tree.

A familiar voice from behind.

Even if I don’t sense any presence now, I just assume it’s her.

The woman in front of me, Nam Hwayeon, is a magician who can hide her presence without any problem.

“Yeah. It’s fun.”

“……Then do whatever you want.”

“Just kidding, just kidding. Don’t take it too seriously.”

She said, hitting me on the shoulder.

I didn’t have the strength to answer or resist, so I just took it.

Nam Hwayeon looked at me blankly and handed me a cube.

What is this?

I took it because she handed it to me, but it looks like a Rubik’s Cube.

However, unlike a normal Rubik’s Cube, it had no color.

“What is this?”

“Why don’t you try solving it first?”

“……There’s no color?”

“Does it really look like there’s none?”

When I asked Nam Hwayeon how to solve it, she answered with a question instead.

I tilted my head at the incomprehensible answer.

Suddenly, her red eyes were covered in purple.

Magic visualized between her eyes, which sparkled like amethyst.

Thus, a cube of various colors appeared in my vision.

But something was still bothering me.

It was strongly binding each cube piece.

A kind of lock.

If I can’t interpret it, I can’t solve this cube.

And ‘that’ was a form I knew well.

“Spiral……?”

No, it’s not an ordinary spiral.

It’s not even the double helix that I embodied when I became Lee Miho.

There was something like a thread entangled on top of it.

“Triple…… helix?”

“Oh, you knew as soon as you saw it.”

“You want me to solve something like this?”

“If your knowledge and experience support you, you can do it enough.”

Triple helix.

I don’t know why Nam Hwayeon gave me this cube.

The triple helix is not a realm that I can touch right now.

I haven’t even properly handled the double helix yet.

Stepping into a higher level than that is not easy.

“At least it’s not something I can solve right now.”

“Do you think you can do it if I just tell you the knowledge?”

“……Maybe? Experience and trial and error—I can do it anytime if I have the knowledge.”

“Then why don’t you become my disciple?”

“……!”

My pupils widened at those words.

Nam Hwayeon’s disciple.

That is both beneficial and detrimental to me.

To put it in perspective, it can be said to be a poisoned chalice [something that appears attractive but is harmful].

A disciple of the Demon King……. It’s not like I didn’t have that setting, but there’s a certain level to it. No matter how much I set the Demon King as the ‘King of Magicians’ rather than the King of Demons, so he’s not a villain, there has to be someone who fits the dignity that comes from the title.

Hmm? What about the main character?

Of course not. It’s a bit unsightly for a fool to become a disciple of the Demon King. The same goes for the supporting characters.

Then isn’t it the same as having no setting?

Of course, it would be fun to include it. But suddenly putting a talent in the scenario that catches the eye of someone called the Demon King is a collapse of plausibility.

Nam Hwayeon is a genius who will be remembered in the history of magic.

She advanced the current history of magic by hundreds of years, and her contribution was recognized by the system, and she obtained the title of Demon King.

As such, I can guess how picky she is when it comes to seeing disciples.

At least they have to have the talent right below her, or the same talent as her.

I can’t even dare to discuss a talent that is superior to her. Nam Hwayeon is such an existence in the magic world.

At that very moment.

One of my traits came to mind.

‘Magic Divinity…….’

「Magic Divinity(魔道聖)」[a title signifying an unparalleled talent in magic], absolute talent for magic.

A trait that grants the talent to become a saint of magic.

At first, I didn’t know why I had this trait.

I just said that good things are good and moved on.

I judged that it wasn’t a problem that could be solved by thinking.

But at this moment.

I think I know why I have this trait.

‘……Eve.’

My old friend’s arrangement.

I can only think of it that way.

Then why did she put such an arrangement on me?

Why did she send me into the novel?

The worries gradually deepened, but nothing was clearly resolved.

All I can do now is move forward.

That’s all.

“Professor…….”

“Oh, let’s hear the answer to the question later. I heard you’re going to the dungeon. You took a monthly leave.”

Nam Hwayeon left the cube in my hand and departed.

There’s still time left before the funeral ends.

She’s a professor, so she can’t leave her post for long.

While watching her back, my pocket vibrated.

The vibration of the cell phone was heard.

It wasn’t a phone call that only rang once; it was a text message.

“……Who sent me a text message?”

A text message came to me, who doesn’t even have ten contacts registered in my contact list.

It’s the first time I’ve experienced this in a month of living.

Maybe it’s a disaster safety text message.

I wondered what it was, so I took out my cell phone, and a contact number I had never seen before was written on it.

I remember seeing her unique, stiff writing style a few days ago.

“Baek Seolhee?”

My body’s biological younger sister.

It was her text message, she who was constantly aiming for the position of the head of the family in the novel.

She confirmed that I took a monthly leave and said that she would send a car on the same day.

Something is suspicious.

She, who sent an old-fashioned letter last time, suddenly sends a message?

I don’t know what it is, but it’s clear that she has something in mind.

‘……It wouldn’t be bad to show my face to the family once in a while.’

I thought I would play along with Baek Seolhee’s scheme once and sent a positive reply. A few days later.

The day I took a monthly leave was approaching, and she replied that she would have a car waiting at that time.

I thought I shouldn’t be late on a day like this, so I came out 30 minutes early.

But the car was late.

What is she trying to do?