Was it because I had drained too much strength in first and second period.
Third and fourth period classes were truly torture. Setting aside whether the classes were interesting, I mean that not dozing off was really hard.
"Who on earth drew up this timetable."
To teach Military Ethics and Korean History after the Live Combat subject, which drains so much stamina. As Kim To-eun said, I wanted to at least see the face of whoever drew up the timetable.
"Hey, hey. Hwi, can you show me your notes later?"
"That's not hard...... but I wrote them half-dozing myself, so I don't know if they'll be any help."
"Even that's fine. I was fully asleep......."
In any case, it's mealtime now.
The kids shoved their textbooks into their bags and left the lecture room one by one.
Some of them also went to pick up Phantasms they had not been able to bring to the lecture room because of size or other characteristics. They went to the Phantasm waiting rooms prepared in each building.
"What'll come out for lunch today?"
"Don't care, I just hope it comes out fast. I'm going to die of hunger."
"Sorry. Did you wait? I brought Three Men Make a Tiger out."
"Sorry for what. Let's hurry and go!"
At lunchtime Seong-gwon did not force group movement either. So the kids gathered in threes and fives and moved among themselves.
Mostly they clustered by squad, or with friends they had grown close to in the meantime, or through links like being roommates.
"There are too many people on the unmanned rail. Shall we just walk?"
"I don't mind."
"Me neither."
"I'm fine too."
"Good."
I was a case belonging to the first sort. It just turned out that way.
We walked in the order of Yi Hoe-uk, me, Kim To-eun, Sa Seo-yeon, Seong-gwon. The path was wide, so five people walking abreast did not block it. All the more so since the Phantasms followed behind.
The reason Pyo Do-hyeok, of the same squad, was not there? Naturally, that was Pyo Do-hyeok's own choice.
Pyo Do-hyeok chose without fail to go about alone unless it was a moment that required group life. By going off ahead before we could even call him, or by ignoring our calls and sitting off by himself.
"Oh, it's Pyo Do-hyeok."
"Where?"
"Over there. Looks like he's eating alone today too. I thought he'd eat with his twin."
"Leave him. He must want to ostracize the world."
The funny thing was that Pyo Do-hyeok turned his back on his own twin as well. Pyo Do-hyeok would go about alone if it came to it, but he absolutely never went about with his own twin.
'Is it not only Pyo Do-hyeok either?'
Pyo Do-seok, who readily picks fights with me, when you looked closely did not touch Pyo Do-hyeok either. It was not even a feeling of going easy on him because they were twins.
Watching the two of them, they seemed to treat each other as nonexistent people. From the position of someone who had once wanted siblings, it was a scene that felt a little peculiar.
"Ah, here he comes again......."
"Ugh."
Just then Kim To-eun and Yi Hoe-uk screwed up their faces.
With reason. No sooner had we taken our trays and sat down than Pyo Do-seok was coming toward us.
"Lots of seats. Mind if I sit next to you?"
Pyo Do-seok was not the sort to go about alone like Pyo Do-hyeok.
Pyo Do-seok sat down next to us together with his friends. The table being long and having many empty seats was our losing move. The sixteen-seater filled up in an instant.
"There's something I'm just so curious about. Mind if I ask you one thing?"
Pyo Do-seok deliberately took the seat next to me. Making it so obvious that he dislikes me and yet clinging like this — I could not work it out.
There are this many seats, and you want to sit next to someone you dislike?
"Hm? Hm? Hmm??"
Separately, he looked set to keep asking until I answered.
Shoving spicy stir-fried pork into my mouth, I turned to look at Pyo Do-seok. He was smiling glossily, but I could see that his eyes alone were coldly sunk.
"What is it."
At this point I also wondered why this guy hates me so much. Was there something in my self-introduction that deserved that much hatred?
"How does it feel to be born with every special thing there is?"
Uh, special? Am I special?
Well, since they say I'm the only person the Twin Dragon Swords have chosen, if you call it special then special might be right. And it's true my talent exceeds the general level.
But what more I am supposed to feel from that, I don't know. If anything I often find this excessive talent inconvenient in reverse.
"I don't think anything of it."
"Is that so?"
Of course, from the position of people without talent, my impressions would come across as 'well aren't you spoiled.'
Since I was not unaware of that, instead of spitting out my honest impressions I glossed over it suitably. Pyo Do-seok's lips twitched.
"That's...... irritating."
"If you're irritated then stop talking to him and get lost. We find you irritating just the same."
Yi Hoe-uk could not hold back and fired off a remark. Pyo Do-seok smiled and smiled even in front of those words, but the group Pyo Do-seok had brought was different.
Tension began to hang over the table.
"Can I ask one thing too?"
At this rate a fight will break out.
Thinking that, I scraped my tray clean. Unlike the hospital, the military academy's food was really tasty, which was good.
"You asked one thing too."
"Right. Ask. I'll answer."
"Then I won't hold back."
I put the last mouthful in my mouth and chewed it thoroughly. You have to chew well to avoid indigestion. Gulp. The finely chewed food went down my esophagus.
"You don't by any chance want to get closer to me, do you?"
"......What?"
"Because I can't for the life of me work out why you keep coming over while making it so obvious you dislike me."
I asked wondering whether Pyo Do-seok might be of the sort called 'tsundere.' But judging by the expression he made, that was definitely not it.
"If not, never mind."
I'm really glad it's not.
I stood up with my empty tray.
"I'm going to get some more food."
"Uh, uh...... I-I'll get more too!"
"Me too. It was a bit short anyway."
"M-me too. Seong-gwon, it was short for you too, right?"
"I'm fi——"
"Come on, come on! Let's go get more!"
Somehow our squad kids all got up in a group, but in any case the food was tasty.
***
Watching them leave, Pyo Do-seok was dumbfounded.
What? Do I want to get closer? Is the son of a bitch out of his mind?
'Is he oblivious, or is his head too good?'
It was truly nothing but unpleasant.
〚Going out? Grant permission. He is a genius who will define an era. There is no need to earn resentment over something that practically has no chance of happening.〛
Truly, he was nothing but an unpleasant bastard.......
〚I will persuade those above. Treat him as well as you can, short of letting him go crooked. If anyone says anything, you may give my name, Pyo Ja-seong.〛
At the moment from the past that surfaced, Pyo Do-seok's lips twitched. His hand was already fiddling with the die he had put in his pocket.
〚I will take responsibility.〛
As expected, unpleasant.
"Hey, Do-seok. What should we do?"
The fellows sitting beside him opened their mouths hesitantly. All of them were trash who had approached having seen only the halo Pyo Do-seok possessed.
Trash not worth associating with normally, but trash he had decided to associate with precisely for that reason.
"Shall we stomp him?"
One of the trash opened his mouth. Instead of answering, Pyo Do-seok took out the die in his pocket.
"Stomping him is a given."
The important thing was not 'whether to stomp him or not.'
What mattered was how to stomp him.
"Now then, let's see how great this genius is."
Rrrrolll.
The die with white faces and black pips rolled.
***
From that day Pyo Do-seok grew fairly quiet. He still went about in a group, but the frequency with which he picked fights with me noticeably dropped.
"He heard that talking to you would be taken as wanting to get closer, so of course he won't come near."
"Hm? Who said such a thing?"
"......Hwi, I think you're really good at needling people without any malice."
"Me???"
The frame Yi Hoe-uk and Kim To-eun were fitting me with was quite unfair, but anyway.
Every single day was dreamlike. Since it was school life I could not have dreamed of in my previous life, it felt all the more so. Every ordinary thing of no consequence was enjoyable and fun.
"Hey, hey. What's everyone doing this weekend?"
"Holing up in the dorm and resting."
"Ah, boring."
"There's only Sunday for a weekend anyway, so what's there to do going out."
The Hwadam Special Military Academy conducted classes like a weekday on odd-numbered Saturdays. That was why Yi Hoe-uk said there was only Sunday.
"But it's the first weekend!"
But Kim To-eun glared at Yi Hoe-uk with betrayed eyes. Then she turned her gaze our way. It was a slightly burdensome gaze.
"What about you? What about you!!?"
"Uh, um. I'm going to study."
"Yes. Study."
"What?"
"Haha...... We decided to review what we learned in class this week. Since the volume is so large."
It was a study group formed by Seong-gwon saying she would study, me cutting in, and Sa Seo-yeon, who heard that conversation, cautiously cutting in too.
Sorry to Kim To-eun, who had had hopes.
"Y-you model students!!"
Kim To-eun too must have come to First Platoon because her grades are good, so why is she so indignant. As I recall she just dozes often in class but generally scores above 70 on the quizzes.
"Ah, I don't care, I don't care! Don't study, play with me! Play with meee!!"
Faced with Kim To-eun's tantrum, we grew quite troubled. It was the awkwardness of how to soothe her.
"Play with——"
CRAAAASH!
Then a tremendous explosion and a shaking of the ground burst out from over there.
Not just us but the people scattered about reflexively dropped low and set about grasping the situation.
"What is it? What??"
An attack from outside...... was low in probability. The Republic of Korea in this world was equally a divided nation under armistice, but at least the situation was not flowing toward the crisis of war.
So the most likely thing was an internal problem. And a high chance of it being Phantasm-related.
"That explosion just now. Direction of the Phantasm management zone?"
"Probably, yeah."
"Definitely."
At the academy there was a zone that managed uncontracted Phantasms.
It was absolutely not on the level of the Phantasm waiting rooms prepared in each building. The management zone was a region where the Phantasms' habitat, that is, the Rear World, was implemented wholesale.
"Could the upperclassmen have caused an accident?"
"That's the most likely, isn't it?"
Entry authority existed separately for that zone. And that authority was not given to first-years. At most it went as far as entering under everyone's supervision during the Selection Ceremony.
So if an incident had broken out, the cause would be a manager's failure of control or a mistake by an upper-year cadet with authority.
We raised the bodies we had lowered just in case. Three Men Make a Tiger, pressed close against Seong-gwon's body, growled in a displeased shape.
「Attention please. The explosion just now was......」
"Ah, an announcement."
Right on cue an announcement flowed from the speakers installed here and there. As expected, the content was that something had happened in the Phantasm management zone.
Added to it was the word that we should not mind it and should each get on with what we were doing. It was the moment even the unease that had remained under the name of 'just in case' was entirely brought to an end.
"Hey, hey. What on earth do you think happened?"
"How would we know."
"Mm. Might someone have provoked a high-Grade Phantasm?"
Naturally we too began to go on our way.
The afternoon classes were over, and for now, not yet having joined a club. Until dinner we were free.
"See you, everyone."
"See you, Hwi."
"Work hard!"
Regarding that, we parted at the unmanned rail stop. Some to the dormitory, some to the library. It happened because the way each of us spent our free time differed.
'The school headquarters was this way, wasn't it.'
But I could not enjoy freedom right away. It was because a summons had come down today over the matter of frightening the Phantasms.
And those measures were not wrapped up even as dinner time drew to a close. In the end I made do with dinner at the cafeteria in the cadet hall.
'They said I could eat at the officers' mess, but......'
Unlike the cadet dining hall, which closes right on the dot at 7:30, the officers' mess operated until a late hour.
Since it was not my fault that I was late for the meal time, I had also been granted entry to the officers' mess for today only.
But what cadet would want to go to the officers' mess? That's a place not only instructors but all sorts of high-ranking officers frequent.
I simply satisfied myself with all sorts of food sold at the cafeteria. Five sandwiches, four tortillas, fries, three boxes of sweet and spicy fried chicken, a pork cutlet, and two bowls of ramyeon was honestly just about the right amount.
"Which. Way. Shall. I. Go."
But when I came out of the cafeteria having polished off dinner, I deliberated over which direction to run. Go east and it's the quarters where I stay; go west and it's the cadets' quarters.
'Since I'm out anyway, better to exercise before going in, right? And pass on the news to Hoe-uk while I'm at it.'
A message had come saying he thought he had not seen me at the dining hall in the evening. Asking whether something had happened.
Since Yi Hoe-uk is always out on the walking path behind the dormitory at this hour, I figured I could meet him while jogging and explain.
I set my direction for the cadets' quarters and ran. Tap tap tap. My running shoes raced over the packed path.
"He's here."
"......?"
But today, instead of Yi Hoe-uk, a different person was waiting for me.
A cadet whose name I did not know since he belonged to a different platoon, but who often went about with Pyo Do-seok.
"Hey. Feels good getting special treatment?"
What's more, the other party was not alone.
As I was half-forced to stop because a cadet blocked the path, several more cadets approached from around me as if surrounding me.
"Getting cocky because you have talent."
"F*cking irritating."
The lines and the entrance both. It was a very by-the-book delinquent act of the kind I had seen in comics.
I ended up admiring it at an inappropriate moment.
Tab 22