Academy’S Gumiho Is A Magical Genius [EN]: Chapter 180

Academy Gumiho is a Magical Genius – Episode 180

Academy Gumiho is a Magical Genius Episode 180

No Fingers are Less Painful (5)

Academy Player.

A title I feel like I’ve heard somewhere, but a novel I’ve never actually read.

“The focus is on academy life?”

“Yes, it’s a novel about students attending the academy and getting involved in various incidents during their enrollment. There were rumors that it would end with graduation near the end, but it was discontinued, so it turned out to be unfounded.”

“……That’s very different from the novel I know.”

“What about Eve’s novel that you remember, Your Excellency?”

‘What do you mean, it’s very different?’

Especially the main setting.

“The novel I remember was largely divided into two parts.”

“Two parts……?”

“Yes, I remember the first part being about meeting and growing in the academy. The second part is about becoming a hero in society and the industry after graduation.”

“Excuse me? That’s…….”

“It’s very different from the development you mentioned.”

The setting itself is different.

The Seven Stars Academy and the world’s top 5 academies.

It was the same in that South Korea was a leading power and that Minds were the main villains. In that sense, the essence was similar.

The problem is that the direction of the planes formed by those essences is different.

“The main theme of her novel that I heard about is praise for humanity. It’s a story of the end, disaster, and humanity enduring it.”

“That sounds bleak. But the novel I read had a rather bright feel compared to the dark background. It was an easy-to-read fantasy novel.”

“At this point, only the worldview is the same. It seems like you and I are discussing completely different novels.”

“I guess…… that’s how it is. But Your Excellency, ‘heard about’ sounds like you haven’t read it yourself?”

To the question that came back, I opened my mouth nonchalantly.

It wasn’t something to hide.

“I have experience reading it, but I can’t remember it.”

“What do you mean……?”

“Eve seems to have messed with my memories once. All I remember are fragments of conversations I had with her.”

“……That’s difficult.”

“Yes, it’s a headache. But I still remember what her novel is aiming for.”

Even though I don’t remember reading it, I remembered the stories inserted in between through conversations with her.

Surely the title is Academy Loser……?

Troublemaker?

‘That’s strange. Why can’t I remember?’

My head was full of question marks.

I can’t remember the title, the arrangement of short words.

I remember hundreds of much longer and more difficult magic books clearly, but why can’t I recall only the title?

A question I ask myself.

In fact, I already know the answer.

Because she is the only person in the world who can give me such a strange sense of incongruity.

“We need someone who has seen the forest [the big picture]. But the only thing engraved in the brain of the person in charge is a tree [a single detail]. It’s more of a headache than I thought.”

“What do you mean?”

“Ah…… well, do you remember everything I said earlier?”

“Except for the important topics, I listened with appropriate filtering.”

“Ah! That’s enough. The part where I said that her novel was discontinued……?”

“Of course, I remember.”

Baek Eun-ho’s words were unexpected.

It doesn’t mean that the topic is unexpected.

It’s just that I didn’t expect the discontinuation to suddenly become a topic of conversation, as we had been exchanging information about the novel’s development, the main character, and the supporting characters.

And at the end of that conversation.

“……Just now, can you swear that there wasn’t even an inch of lie mixed in that statement?”

“Yes……! How dare I lie on that topic. I swear there is not an inch of lie!”

I had no choice but to touch my face with a stiff expression.

According to his words.

That novel that Eve discontinued.

It means that I am the only one who has seen the ending.

* * *

According to Baek Eun-ho, I was the one who gave the final review before Eve serialized her novel. And I was the one who saw the ending of her novel and added that it would be much better to discontinue it.

But I have no memory of seeing the ending of Eve’s novel at all.

I have no memory of recommending her to discontinue it.

If I am given a long time, I can definitely recall it, but in this world where incidents happen all the time, there is no resource as scarce as time.

“……There’s nothing I can think of even if I worry about it now, so let’s stop talking about this.”

“But, Your Excellency……!”

“There’s nothing that changes even if I forcibly recall memories that don’t come to mind. Rather, it would be better to exchange useful information with each other during that time. And…”

Swish.

I raised my still uncomfortable left hand and pointed to Baek Eun-ho’s mouth.

There was something that had been bothering me all along.

It was a certain title.

“Not Your Excellency, Clan Head.”

“Huh…… yes?”

“Correct the title. I don’t care if it’s just the two of us, but if you call me Your Excellency in front of others, what will happen to my face?”

“But, not being able to call Your Excellency, Your Excellency……!”

I wonder if he’s imitating Hong Gil-dong [a Korean folk hero who could not be called by his true name].

Baek Eun-ho’s expression was sincere without any hint of playfulness.

“In the first place, I don’t really like that title of Your Excellency.”

Your Excellency.

The title that calls me varies depending on the person, but Your Excellency is one of the titles I hate the most.

It’s less repulsive than the damn ‘Teacher’.

I wonder if it’s because the more I call it, the more I feel a sense of distance from others.

It’s very uncomfortable.

“Anyway, from now on, make it a habit to call me Clan Head in both official and unofficial settings.”

“I understand. If Your… no, if the Clan Head wants it.”

“It’s getting late. I’ll be on my way.”

“Where are you going, Clan Head? And all you’ve done since you came to the mansion is talk to me?”

The sharing of information has been sufficient.

Because there are parts that are difficult to explain in words, Baek Eun-ho showed me the main contents of the novel and miscellaneous opportunities that he had secretly recorded while living in the mansion in writing.

In response, I also shared dozens of pages of information in the empty notebook on the bookshelf. If I were to pick a scene that was particularly memorable in the process, it was that the protagonist of the novel Baek Eun-ho read was a girl.

A female student at the academy.

I was a little surprised when I first heard it.

Anyway, I remembered that information and left Baek Seung-woo’s room.

Ignoring the numerous servants.

I was looking for that driver to carry out the next schedule.

“Hello. Nice to meet you.”

“……You’re his sister.”

“Yeah.”

“I see. Nice to meet you.”

I ran into a mature white-haired woman.

She left as if she had nothing more to say to her brother.

After that, I made eye contact with some of the elders and frowned at each other.

The children of the collateral line avoided me.

My younger sister saw my somewhat strange left arm and ran away without even saying hello.

‘I’m being treated like dirt.’

Originally, no fingers are less painful [all family members are precious].

That is true in reality, but it is also a word that means the preciousness of blood.

But I have no blood relatives.

My family in the original world is not here.

In the safest place in the world, they will be living while enjoying the astronomical wealth I have earned and the absolute honor that my image has built up so far.

That was atonement as a son who had never been spoiled by his parents since he was born and became aware of himself, and the price I had to pay as an older brother who had never played with or properly hugged them since I left home.

‘On this land I am standing on now. There are no blood relatives of ‘Baek Seung-woo’.’

I knew it.

From the point when my black hair was different from their pure white.

Those who are said to be deceased parents, sisters who are said to be the only family, elders who are said to be distant relatives, and all the people of the collateral line.

They are all people who have nothing to do with this body.

Blood is thicker than water.

Even if I die, there is no reason or affection to shed a single tear.

Even if there is no physical family relationship.

There is a reason why the word adoption exists.

Family relationships also include mental bonds that are not related by blood.

Rather, recently, people tend to value the latter relationship.

Just because you give birth to them doesn’t mean they are parents who deserve filial piety.

But in this body, there was no physical bond or mental bond. I had already noticed from the point when my hair was black.

I couldn’t even become an adopted son.

Perhaps ‘Baek Seung-woo’ will be alone forever.

So, I have no painful fingers.

Because there is no one to sympathize with my pain and share it with me.

Even if I crush all nine fingers with my teeth, it certainly won’t hurt.

So, to prove this.

I will personally ruin nine fingers.

* * *

Before entering this world.

No, even before that, Baek Eun-ho was a soldier.

He was a private, a low-ranking soldier, but he had a firm determination to protect his loved ones from abilities and monsters.

Of course, even with such determination, he was too weak, so he was in charge of supplies in the rear.

Occasionally, he killed awkward monsters of the 9th or 10th level, and that was all.

That series of trivial events was Baek Eun-ho’s military life.

‘I’m weak. Even if I get stronger with opportunities, I can’t be the main character because I don’t have any properly learned skills.’

Baek Eun-ho cannot be the main character.

At first, I thought that I was the true protagonist of this world who possessed the novel, but I realized it the moment I met Baek Seung-woo.

I am just a terminal for him.

Or just an ornament.

Instinctively, I thought that he was the main character.

Due to his suspicious nature, he was wary of the two different protagonists in the novel, but Baek Eun-ho remembers.

Even if I was in the rear unit.

Even if the opportunity to see the horrors of the battlefield was less than on the front lines, it was enough to collapse my mind and slowly go crazy.

He spent as many as 7 years in such a place.

Moreover, he was the main player in the war who was in charge of most of the war situation and the war situation.

Shivers, shivers.

Baek Eun-ho trembled.

It has been several years since I retired, but my body reacts naturally when I think of that time. The fear of those days.

It was something I could never forget.

If the head forgets, the body.

If the body forgets, the instinct will remember it for a long time, deeply imprinted.

“I will never doubt him.”

Baek Eun-ho, who came out of his room and returned to his room, immediately knelt down. This is an informal mass that does not follow the ceremony.

A short prayer and a vow to himself.

It is a blessing on the day I met the great man.

“Originally, it would have been right for me to greet the Clan Head barefoot. But you didn’t ask me for my sins. Ah…… you are infinitely deep. How can your generosity be so broad?”

In the past, Baek Eun-ho believed in God.

He was a devout believer, but the God he worshiped and revered did not respond even while so many people were dying.

The same was true of other religions.

There were no miracles such as saving lives, parting the sea, escaping from a painful life, and throwing away 煩惱 [bonnō, earthly desires that cause suffering].

In fact, I didn’t even want that.

Just a small blessing.

That’s all I wanted.

In a ruined world, faith often became the only hope not to give up on life. Even while families died and all their property was lost, they lived only with hope.

The boy who performed miracles with a sword on the front lines naturally had no choice but to become the hope of mankind.

After that, their thought circuits equated faith and hope, and soon treated the boy and faith at the same time.

Baek Eun-ho was not so immersed in Seung-woo.

However, reverence comparable to faith.

The respect that I believe without a doubt was an emotion that was infinitely close to worship. What’s even more surprising is that it was extremely natural in the world he lived in.

That day, Baek Seung-woo gained a powerful ally who knew all the strange relationships in the world.