Academy Gumiho is a Magic Genius – Episode 125
Academy Gumiho is a Magic Genius Episode 125
City and Vagrant (5)
It’s an old memory.
…I’ve been recalling old memories frequently these days.
What is it? Have I become an old man who reminisces about his glorious past because I’m getting old?
But I don’t think I have any glorious times in my past.
Anyway, the memory that surfaces is quite old… It was when I was a little older than the students.
‘Of all things to remember, it has to be this.’
I often have days like this recently.
Days when I have old memories, dreams I want to forget.
Since coming to the reverse side of the world recently, the frequency has increased strangely.
With this frequency, even a fool would know.
That someone is forcing my memories or dreams.
I want to resist, but a helpless feeling like falling into a deep sea swept through my whole body.
I couldn’t do anything but entrust myself to that feeling.
Like that.
Once again, an old past was replayed in my mind.
……
My teacher always told me to smile.
It doesn’t mean that good fortune comes when you smile, or that you should endure by smiling even when it’s hard.
Just smile.
She always liked it when I smiled.
At that time, I just smiled because I liked it, but when I think about how my teacher’s eyes sometimes became dangerous, I think she might have had that kind of preference.
Anyway, the reason I’m saying this is.
“Hey, bro! This bastard is smiling?!”
“Leave him alone. He must have gone crazy after being tortured for a week. No matter how strong the military’s ultimate weapon is, if it’s made of flesh and blood, it’s over if you break it mentally and physically.”
“…….”
Because I was in a situation where I couldn’t smile at all.
Confined on all sides.
I don’t know what tricks they played on my body, but mana doesn’t gather properly, and my thoughts aren’t coherent. Even my limbs are tightly bound and beaten with swords or hammers, so my insides are more likely to come out than a smile.
“I… I have a question.”
“Hee, he opened his mouth, bro! A guy who didn’t even open his mouth even when I hit his knee with an ax until it was about to fall off…!!”
“Shut up for a second. Is that important now? The fact that he opened his mouth is more important. So, what business does Sword Saint have with commoners like us?”
When I struggled to open my mouth, which was full of blood and hardened, two men approached. Demonic beings with inverted eyes, dilated pupils, and goat horns.
Both approached with knives and tongs covered in blood.
The dark red blood stuck to the metal was all mine.
A normal person would have bled so much that they would have gone into shock from lack of blood, but I was alive.
It’s not because I’m armed with steel-like will and mental strength.
It’s just that my extremely trained body wouldn’t allow death.
“Phew… How did… hybrids like you kidnap me…?”
“……You’re asking that question a week after being captured?”
“You must be crazy. Well, I heard that
Yeomra.
The goddess of fire and sword.
The battlefield where she goes is always filled with sulfur fire, and death and stench are rampant.
A pungent smell that stings the nose.
But it’s been almost a week since that smell disappeared from the battlefield.
“……Did she pass away?”
Yeah… So that wasn’t a dream after all.
I tried to stay in the past by recalling memories with my teacher, but it seems like this is overtime.
Well, a week in this remote place is long enough.
The empty sense of loss and her last words were too great to be lost in memories while being driven mad by pain.
It’s time to move on.
Clatter─!
A trained body full of muscles.
Even though my joints and bones all over my body were tied with chains, I struggled.
Clatter─! Clatter──!!
The chains collide with each other, making a loud metallic sound.
Nevertheless, the chains do not fall off or break.
“Puhahaha! Hey, do you think that will come off?!”
“Just in case, I put blades at the end of the chains and stabbed them into your flesh. Do you think that will come off easily? Even if you dissect your body after you die, it won’t be easy to cut off the flesh with a knife.”
Now that I hear that, I see blades stuck all over my body, including my joints and palms.
“I’m not Jesus… I wondered why they put me on the cross. Was it because of this?”
“Did you know now? You can’t escape!”
“Hey, you stupid bastard! I cut off his tendons, do you think he can even run away if we let him go? He can’t, hahaha!!!”
“Still… I’m stronger than you guys, right?”
“Huh?! Your joints are broken, and your left leg is dangling as if it’s about to fall off, how dare you…!!”
“Is that so?”
Crack!
My neck turns lightly, and the bones interlock with a cheerful sound.
“For that, my neck bones are too soft… Like a cracker.”
“S, senior…?”
“This is the guy who almost caused my leg to necrosis with a saw? You have a lot of guts. It’s an achievement that even the executives above you couldn’t achieve. Well… even so, Saintess will heal me.”
Now that I think about it, being tied to a cross like Jesus might not be strange. The nickname of the teacher who will heal me is . So, in a way, it’s a perfect fit.
“How… How is that possible? I hammered magic into the chains and your body to cut off the flow of mana.”
“Innate True Energy.”
The heart or the mind.
The life force itself that lies buried in the deepest place and encompasses all energy. It is human life and, at the same time, the most powerful weapon, Innate True Energy, just a little bit.
I took a speck of it and moved the blades that tortured me.
“I only used it enough not to die. Anyway, it’s my turn now, right?”
Starting with the restraints, I gradually tightened my limbs and dug into the flesh and intestines of the two brothers with knives, axes, hammers, nails, etc.
Thus, I repaid the torture I had received for a week in a slightly tighter 7 hours.
There was no information gained through torture.
There was no exhilaration about revenge.
I just silently repaid what I had received and recalled my teacher’s words.
The only thing I could think of was her words, the words of that person, as I had lost interest in everything.
Come to think of it, did she tell me to smile?
“Heh, hehe, heh heh heh…!!”
Like this.
Is this how I should smile, teacher?
Am I doing well?
“Puh, hahahahaha!!!”
No matter how much I laugh and talk, there is no answer.
So, I entrusted myself to madness, but all that came back was a silence more serene than emptiness.
I would rather die like this than live.
But that is a mockery of those who sacrificed themselves for me.
More than anything… it goes against my teacher’s last words to fight to the end and win.
In the end, I made a mask to stand up again.
Just in case, I wore a lot of masks to prepare for various situations and various people. As many different masks as I could make.
A very unpleasant feeling.
It wasn’t actually putting something on my face, but the physiological discomfort from the feeling of acting like something other than myself was unavoidable.
Still.
I smiled.
Light reflected off the surface of the pool of blood, revealing the faint outline of my expression. A much more natural expression than before.
“Okay, I can smile well with this.”
I smiled naturally.
A perfect mask that no one would know.
The level of completion was considerable for something made on the spot.
Thus, before even reaching adulthood, a mentally immature boy learned how to smile before how to cry.
He learned how to wear a mask rather than expressing and spitting out emotions.
He learned how to endure rather than complaining about pain.
He learned how to kill enemies, whether they were monsters or people, without hesitation, rather than growing flowers and nurturing life.
Learning, mastering, and becoming proficient.
And soon, he became perfect.
Thus, an evil schemer with no blood or tears and a god of war of iron and blood were born.
A Sword Saint was created who only pondered how to kill the opponent with a smile before bleeding even if stabbed.
Created by the history of war.
The most powerful and crazy weapon.
After that, the mask will become an iron mask that will not be peeled off, becoming more sophisticated and solid through adversity, sacrifice, and repeated wars.
Baek Seung-woo.
Before I knew it, my name became not something lovely given by my parents, but the hope and light of mankind itself. At the same time, it became a word referring to mankind’s last resort.
And I just laughed at that fact.
I, the hope of the people and the symbol of a hero, did not need any expression other than a smiling face.
* * *
The fifth morning I’m spending in this world.
Now, the remaining time is only between two and three days, but the progress of the capture has not reached the minimum standard of 50%.
“This isn’t some kind of vacation homework.”
I’m not going to solve everything on the last day, am I?
There’s still a subtle amount of time left, but I can’t help but worry about that.
That’s because.
“Hello, everyone~ What do you want to eat?”
“Wait a minute, everyone! I’m not your friend, I’m your older brother! Don’t keep climbing on me…!”
“Shall I show you some ice acrobatics?”
As soon as the students who went out for an exploration met several children in a remote alley, it suddenly turned from a midterm exam into volunteer work.
“Isn’t volunteer work enough for performance evaluation?”
“Everyone looks happy. Isn’t it okay?”
“That’s right! It’s good if everyone is happy!”
“I don’t like it.”
I covered my head at the actions of those children.
It’s good that they are kind and gentle, unlike the children these days, but they need to know how to distinguish between public and private matters.
I wonder if they don’t really feel the importance of this midterm exam and the dangers of the reverse side of the world.
Everyone had gentle sides.
Perhaps it’s the result of confidence that they can easily fill about 50% with the speed so far.
“……Teacher, can I do it……?”
“Okay… Do whatever you want for a day.”
At the request of Seo Yerin, who is like my beloved disciple, I ended up nodding my head helplessly. It’s not bad to have something like this.
If they have a hard time, they won’t say these things again.
It’s a good opportunity to learn what happens if you get distracted by unnecessary things when you’re already short on time and need to divide every moment to be busy.
The students were very happy with my acceptance and helped the children on the street in their own ways.
“Okay, everyone. Those who are hungry, come here.”
The children who were starving followed Noh Yura and Seo Yerin’s words.
Children with protruding bones.
Frontier had more developed infrastructure than Temil Village, and the residents had some 余裕 [leeway/margin], but the children here showed a nutritional status not much different from Temil Village.
Isis used ice acrobatics to gather the attention and interest of young children. Leeji, who looked like a peer, actively used her unique appearance to make eye contact with the children and lower their guard.
We are not bad people.
She actively appealed.
─Is she 17 years old with that appearance? Hehe… Isn’t something wrong?
“I think so too.”
Most of them look around 14 years old.
Leeji is one of the smallest among them, so even though she is the oldest, she looks like the youngest.
Amazing.
Sung Yeonhwa broke down the children’s guard with her unique liveliness and was already playing with them.
To be honest.
I don’t understand it well.
‘In the end, it’s just a world that has already been destroyed.’
What is the significance of those children’s volunteer work?
Self-satisfaction?
A sense of superiority from the fact that they are volunteering for someone who is worse than them?
It was too special of a situation to think that it was a pure-hearted impulse.
It doesn’t change anything even if you volunteer for them.
This world will be destroyed soon.
Helping others in such a world is not a very efficient choice.
I would never have chosen such a foolish choice if I were alone… Or is that not the case?
If you follow that logic, there wouldn’t be much difference between me teaching those students.
“……I’ve been having a lot of unnecessary thoughts lately.”
I erased unnecessary 잡념 [japnyum – idle thoughts/雜念].
I needed to distance myself from the children a little.
Staggering.
I took a step back and took in the students and the 거지꼴 [geojikkol – ragged/beggarly] children at a glance.
It’s not a pleasant sight.
You can tell by the children’s clothes and condition.
Those children don’t have parents.
Even if they do, it seems difficult for them to take care of those children. In easy terms, can I express them as vagrants?
Unlike the modern era, this world with a medieval background doesn’t seem to have much policy or help for vagrants. Everyone is busy hating them.
Therefore, people who help vagrants in remote roads and alleys are easily noticeable. For example.
“Did you listen to your sister well?”
“Yes! Is it apples again today?”
“No! Today… I brought bread and soup!”
Yes, that side alley.
In the corner where the students who were 정신이 팔린 [jeongsini pallin – preoccupied/distracted] with 봉사 [bonsa – volunteer work] couldn’t see, Isabel was giving hard bread and lukewarm soup to a few children.
It’s so easy to see that it’s hard to pretend not to see it.
“I was wondering where she was. So she was in this city.”
Looking at her outfit, she was wearing a robe, which is a symbol of medieval magicians, over her school uniform with several 방어 마법 [bangeo mabeop – defense magic] cast on it.
Come to think of it, I heard that there was a magic tower in this city.
It seems that Isabel has been given the role of a magician belonging to the magic tower. A role that suits her well to 펼치는 [pyeolchineun – unfold/display] her area.
But.
‘Aren’t medieval magicians usually arrogant?’
Why is she taking care of the food so diligently?
As I stared at her 모습 [moseup – appearance/figure], taking care of the children, which was not in line with her usual behavior, one of the children Isabel was taking care of found me and grabbed her sleeve tightly and pointed at me.
“Sister, there’s a strange 오빠 [oppa – term used by females to address older males] staring over there.”
“Strange 오빠? Where, which guy is it?”
“It’s over there. Over~ there.”
Then, Isabel and I finally made eye contact.
“…….”
“…….”
“Sister……?”
Even though we made eye contact, she kept staring.
As if she was caught in an embarrassing state.
Her face turned red and she desperately waved her hand.
“…….”
“D, don’t look! Don’t look at me with those warm eyes!!”
Even though it’s a meaningless 봉사 that won’t change anything.
Even though it’s okay to be confident as there are many people who find meaning in the act of 봉사 itself.
Isabel’s face was red.
What should I say.
Unlike her first impression, she’s a cute kid in many ways.