Academy’S Gumiho Is A Magical Genius [EN]: Chapter 239

Academy Gumiho is a Magic Genius – Episode 239

Academy Gumiho is a Magic Genius Episode 239

Funeral (4)

I lost focus.

The meaning of those short words is quite diverse.

In a relationship, it can be the spark of discord that leads to a breakup.

In a battle where every second counts, it can be the cause of victory or defeat.

And in a situation like this, where lives are on the line, losing focus means…

It means risking your life.

No, perhaps it means asking to be killed.

“Are you… perhaps making a mockery of this fight right now?”

A lowered tone. A chilling gaze.

They were very small elements, but just facing them made me feel a cold sensation. That guy is angry right now.

Enough to realize that fact head-on.

The current “Bephar” was not hiding his emotions.

Rather, he actively revealed them.

How angry he was.

He openly revealed his inner thoughts without the slightest concealment.

‘Is losing focus during a fight an insult to him?’

It’s not common, but you can often meet people like “Bephar” in life. I’ve met them from time to time while living my life.

But someone who reacts this dramatically.

I’ve never seen it in my life.

“…You’re getting angry over something like that?”

“Something like that? So you are making a mockery of this fight.”

Making a mockery, my ass.

“Mockery? Do you think I’m fighting because I like you?”

“Then what is it?”

“Ha, I don’t care about fighting you. I’m just here to eliminate unnecessary elements in raising the children.”

The reason I came out of the dorm at night in the first place was for that reason.

To raise the children properly. To find a good nanny to prevent them from going astray, I flew all the way to distant Germany.

The reason I left the sleeping children and chased after the woman was to block variables that could harm the children.

So, the reason I lost focus was solely for my goal.

“My ultimate goal isn’t to kill you.”

Rather, to protect the children without being held back by the likes of “Bephar.”

“It’s to save the children.”

My goal was to safely save and protect them.

The supply of viscount-class demons was just an incidental product that could be obtained in the process. I didn’t know how “Bephar” was taking my fight.

But I could vaguely feel it in the darkness that brightened my eyes.

“I thought of you as a worthy opponent. That’s why I took out and consumed that woman’s ‘name’ that I had been saving. I decided to use it when I met someone who was worth using it on someday.”

The darkness deepens with every word he utters.

Chiiiiik!

The fire that had been illuminating the surroundings was extinguished. The method was not complicated.

Just a vast amount of water.

Vast and deep water, felt like an endless ocean, passed by and put out the fire. Yes, that is the sea.

The power to manipulate blood and rot wounds is not “Bephar’s” main power.

“The sea.”

“Yes, it’s the sea! It’s seawater raised from the coast beyond space!”

The sea extinguishes the fire and covers the sky.

A huge wave is coming towards me. The starlight and moonlight shining in that sky are also obscured by the sea, and nothing can be seen.

Can I cut it with a sword?

I can cut it, but well.

What will change if I cut through an unknown amount of seawater?

In the end, I thought it was best to avoid it.

But I couldn’t.

The moment I had the thought of running away, the seawater suddenly moved quickly and covered me. “Bephar” handles the sea.

That means not only can he freely manipulate the shape of the water.

It also means he can manipulate the speed.

Bubble bubble!

Swallowed by more water than a river, I lost my breath because I was caught in the seawater while taking a breath. With the rising water, my mind began to fade little by little.

‘I have to kill that guy….’

Clang!

I gripped my sword again while wrapped in seawater.

But my consciousness faded faster than my hand could move.

Like that, my world.

Slowly faded away like a spark falling into the sea.

* * *

An empty world.

I couldn’t see the sea here.

“…….”

In a world where I couldn’t see or feel anything, my body was clearly visible. The color of my skin was the same as before.

However, there was a big difference in clothing.

Black shirt and black pants.

Where did the black coat go, and I was only wearing a pure white uniform.

It was a monotonous white outfit, but it didn’t look like cheap clothes.

Rather, it looked much more luxurious and expensive than the clothes I used to wear.

“…White, which I hate.”

A pure white color that won’t be erased no matter how much you wipe it off if blood gets on it.

Two swords were fastened to my waist.

They were things I hadn’t worn for about half a year.

It was a weight that I couldn’t forget even if I wanted to.

The fox’s ears and tail were nowhere to be seen.

It was as if…

It was as if I had returned to my past self.

The moment I maintained silence in a world where nothing existed.

Ttok, ttock.

The sound of shoes kicking off the floor was heard.

A stable sound without the slightest shaking. This was a consistency that could not be simply imitated by wanting to do so.

Only time.

You had to invest a long time in training to make such neat and dignified steps. I know it well because I actually received training for a long time.

I can also walk with dignified steps.

But even the irrepressible ease was embedded in this sound.

It was truly the epitome of elegance that could be produced with just footsteps.

I knew whose footsteps these were.

Baek Seung-woo.

That was my name and his name.

“Nice to meet you. This is the first time we’ve met like this, right?”

The owner of the body I’m using now appeared.

“In the other world, you collapsed the mountain range in place of me, who had lost consciousness. I already saw you once at that time.”

“Don’t tell me, were you not completely unconscious at that time? Even a superhuman armed with a strong mental strength would not have been able to maintain consciousness from the pain and fatigue at that time.”

“Don’t think of me as an ordinary player.”

“Well, that’s true.”

After that, we didn’t have much conversation.

We just stared at each other with the same face, without an inch of error, as if we had installed a mirror. In the meantime.

“Actually, there was one thing I wanted to ask.”

“Tell me.”

“Your constitution, 「Solar Meridian Severance」 [a condition that enhances fire abilities but causes the body to burn from within]. How did you overcome that pain?”

Incurable disease, 「Solar Meridian Severance」.

It adds absolute power only to abilities related to fire and heat, but in return, it slowly burns away one’s own body. This disease also causes pain that makes it impossible for the person suffering from it to live a normal life.

Every moment of breathing was a sensation of flesh and muscles all over the body burning in flames.

I’m enduring it with mental strength.

How did ‘Baek Seung-woo’ overcome this pain?

I was curious, so I asked.

“Why would I need to do that?”

‘Baek Seung-woo’ pointed to himself with his hand.

Look at me. I’m here.

“…What do you mean?”

At first, I didn’t understand.

Even if I understood, I gave up on understanding.

Because I know how painful the scorching pain that burns one’s body from time to time is. Even though I had already noticed it, I didn’t understand it with a feeling of sympathy.

But ‘Baek Seung-woo’ drove a wedge into this fact.

“「Solar Meridian Severance」 is a curse that I imposed on myself. So, there was no need to overcome the pain.”

I couldn’t understand what he was saying.

The moment I heard those words, so many questions arose in my head, and the destination was only one question.

“…Why?”

Why would you do such a thing?

Did you want to die that much with this painful, limited-time curse?

Enough to put a curse on yourself?

I compressed these questions into one.

“That’s… a really unexpected question.”

‘Baek Seung-woo’ looked as if he hadn’t expected such a question.

He smiled with a somewhat pitiful smile and opened his mouth.

“I didn’t impose a curse on myself for any particularly great reason. To put it simply—.”

—It can’t be put simply.

I immediately sensed that everything that would come out of his mouth from now on was nonsense.

A trial I imposed on myself. I thought that if I overcame this, I could become stronger. After my parents died, I imposed shackles to forget loneliness and live as the head of the family.

Various excuses popped out of my mouth.

In the end, it was an excuse.

Not a single truth was mixed in.

“It’s full of excuses.”

“You already found out? That’s strange. There shouldn’t have been any elements to be caught, including my expression and tone.”

“Even if there were no elements to be caught, I would have noticed.”

That’s because.

‘Baek Seung-woo’s’ body was temporarily mine right now.

No matter how many lies you tell to deceive yourself, you can’t do anything about the traces left on your body. His body was full of terrible pain and regret.

“Amazing. Honestly, I was impressed.”

“Then the answer to the question. Can I hear it this time without any excuses or lies?”

“If you know me this well, I can’t help it. If there’s no point in lying, I have no choice but to tell the truth.”

I pondered his words.

The words that he knows me well. Those words were wrong.

I don’t know ‘Baek Seung-woo’ well.

It’s just that I compared his situation and inner feelings with mine.

His appearance is like mine.

No, it’s not like, is it?

‘That guy must have come to the same conclusion as me.’

I even thought that there was no need to listen to the conversation.

I haven’t heard it yet. ‘Baek Seung-woo’s’ years of life, that process will definitely be a story I’m hearing for the first time.

But the result will definitely be something I already know.

I realized it with my heart, not my head.

I really realized with my heart that our conclusions could not be the same.

“I grew up as the child of the previous head of the family couple. But that doesn’t mean I was born as their child. I was a child without a birth. An ominous black fur. I was the child that someone in the family abandoned, I don’t know who.”

Cheonhobaekga.

The family, also known as Baekga (白家) [White Family] for short, was all white.

Their tails, ears, and hair. All body hair was white, like pure white snow.

But ‘Baek Seung-woo’ was different.

His skin may be white.

Ironically, his body hair was black. A child with a trait that could never be born in Cheonhobaekga, where all skin and body hair are white.

That’s why the child was in one corner of the family.

He was being abandoned and dying as soon as he was born in a remote corner where even the servants didn’t come to clean.

It was his parents who saved such a child.

“I grew up as my parents’ child. The elders suspected the relationship between me and my parents, but in those days, the head of the family’s authority was strong. No matter how many nine people expressed their opinions, anything would be canceled if the head of the family pushed it through.”

For example.

“They laughed off the appeal that they should take my blood and do a paternity test with my parents.”

His parents.

They were such people.

“In the end, I was able to grow up peacefully under the protection of the two. I was able to grow emotionally while playing with my kind sisters, and my heart seemed to warm up as I watched my cute fiancée eat snacks.”

It’s a happy story.

The fate of a child who should have died was completely reversed by the choice of a couple.

It was truly a story of being saved by two people. But in the end, it was salvation by two humans.

That means.

It was the same as saying that if those two people were not there, ‘Baek Seung-woo’s’ salvation would become worthless.

People are far from eternal. Their age, physical strength, and mind are worn down and consumed over time.

And the previous head of the family couple.

Even ‘Baek Seung-woo’s’ parents could not overcome the flow of time.

They eventually met their end in some form.

In the end, the boy who had been saved by the power of only two people had no choice but to return to the cruel reality again. To the family that had been indifferent and cruel, leaving him abandoned immediately after he was born.

Just because his body hair was black.

To that desolate family.

“I became the head of the family after my parents died. I wanted to become a good head of the family, even if I wasn’t like my father, and I firmly believed that in the distant future, Isabel would help me like my mother helped my father, and the family would be able to maintain peace for thousands of years. That determination was made right before my parents passed away. I made a firm promise at the two’s hospital.”

As the head of the family, I would rule the family with my two sisters.

It was the first firm determination I had ever made since I was born. It was an excessively ambitious and big ambition to have at the age of a middle school student, but because it was a determination I had at that age, it was an inappropriately heavy responsibility.

It was a heavy determination that a normal adult with a normal way of thinking would not have made.

I was able to make that determination because I was a boy of that age.

“But that determination didn’t last long.”

“…My parents’ will.”

“You. You noticed? That’s a private matter that I didn’t even write in my diary. A secret that only I know, that my older sister and younger sister don’t know, and that the elders don’t know.”

A couple who loved their son and children.

Their will was.

“The two said that they regretted taking me in when I was dying of cold. They also said that they resented the fact that they didn’t have a biological son during their lifetime, so a guy like me would become the head of the family.”

Ironically, it was a curse.

The couple left a curse on their son. With those words as their last, the two passed away at the same time.

The curse soon became a will.