KEG 74

“Fine, you go buy them.”

I handed him my wallet.

This was such a hassle.

I should just let him handle everything, bread, cigarettes, everything.

Lee Yuksam asked how many packs he could buy, and I told him to buy as many as he could charge to the card since it wasn’t mine.

“Ho-hyung, should I buy as many cigarettes as I can swipe?”

“Just buy one pack of those.”

“Huh? Why? Isn’t this exactly the time to go all out? You smoke so much.”

“I don’t want to live burdened by things I don’t need.”

If you get greedy, it all becomes a burden.

Just enough to get by. Protect what you have, minimize losses.

Living like that is already enough to make life worth living.

“It seems like you’re living with a whole bunch of stuff you don’t need.”

I glared at Lee Yuksam, who was making useless remarks.

The guy cowered as if I were about to punch him and ran outside.

It pissed me off that he acted like that when he had never even been hit a few times.

I’m gonna grab him and beat the shit out of him so he won’t feel wronged.

“…Wow, look at that. Who is that?”

Someone appeared out of nowhere and spoke up.

“It seems like there’s nothing but extraordinary people around you, Seongho-ssi. Just look at how scared that cursed doll is.”

It was Park Suheon, whom I hadn’t seen in ages.

The dark mage who’d entered the gate with me during the Gil Sangwook incident.

The cursed doll nailed to his wrist was trembling in his hand.

Is that a doll that measures mental contamination levels or something?

“What brings you here?”

“Ah, the disciplinary action from the Association regarding the desecration of Gil Sangwook’s corpse was lifted today. I just thought of you and decided to stop by. Have you been doing well?”

Park Suheon had used necromancy on Gil Sangwook’s corpse to revive him. As a result, he received a fitting punishment for desecrating a corpse.

So today was the day that was lifted.

“Nothing much.”

“No weird religious groups hanging around?”

“Well…”

I hesitated for a moment before answering.

My mailbox had recently been constantly filled with flyers promoting cults, ​visit our site​which was becoming a nuisance.

I’d been acting in ways that could easily be misconstrued, so I had a lot to feel guilty about. Even if it was just a coincidence, constantly getting entangled with a specific religious group felt ominous.

“Be careful. In a world like this, businesses that prey on people’s beliefs thrive, and propaganda runs rampant.”

“Is being careful enough?”

“Well… I suppose so.”

Park Suheon scratched his head, looking a bit sheepish.

A world overflowing with cults and bizarre ideologues. Fighting monsters was hard enough, but now we were being bombarded with nonsense philosophies. It was a transitional period where it was hard to tell if we were evolving or devolving.

“Do you have something to say?”

I’d said that to tell him to get lost, since he was just hanging around making nonsense small talk instead of leaving once he’d seen I was doing fine.

But Park Suheon just looked at me with a “How did you know?” expression. Then, after hesitating, he cautiously spoke up.

“Um, well… were you… a school bully back in the day?”

What the hell is that supposed to mean?

‘Were you a school bully?’ I didn’t bully anyone.

I was such a good student back then.

“‘I’m a middle school dropout.”

I was a good student for maybe three days.

I barely showed up to class, ignored all calls, and just lived however I wanted. I was going through puberty, so I guess that’s understandable.

“You must have been quite the troublemaker…!”

“No, I wasn’t.”

“I knew it! No wonder my nerd DNA is just going crazy around you…!”

Is his ear canal blocked? Even when I deny it, he just interprets things however he wants and seems to enjoy it.

We can’t even have a conversation. Maybe I should just ignore him and go do my own thing.

“Actually, my Pair doesn’t want to go to school because of bullying.”

My head turned automatically.

Park Suheon is at least in his mid-twenties. But hearing that his Pair goes to school made it sound like he was dating a minor, which made me uncomfortable.

All those filthy bastards who mess with kids should just die.

“Seongho-ssi, are you interested in something like an ‘uncle escort service’?”

“What’s that?”

“It’s where you act like a scary gangster hyung and walk them to and from school.”

“A bodyguard?”

Park Suheon explained that it was closer to role-playing than actual security. He said that just as there are role-players who pretend to be boyfriends, there are also those who pose as tough hyungs to boost someone’s confidence.

I wondered if such a thing even existed. I even questioned whether he was in his right mind.

But that wasn’t what I was most curious about.

“How much are you paying?”

If you pay me, I’ll do anything, be it acting like a thug or playing the sidekick.

I’m even an experienced pro at this.

I was confident I could pull it off more realistically than anyone else.

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“Ah, Park Suheon, you seriously…!”

Park Suheon’s Pair, whom we met at a restaurant after work, flew into a rage. He even punched him in the face.

The way he acted like causing trouble wasn’t anything new, suggested Park Suheon was a rotten apple.

“I’m sorry… That must have been a hassle… Oh, I’m Kim Yiyun.”

“I’m Ha Seongho.”

“I’m Lee Yuksam!”

Lee Yuksam, who had tagged along, was eagerly devouring his cold noodles and short ribs. I, too, had piled a mountain of meat on my side plate and was eating. It was a free meal bought by Park Suheon before we got down to business.

“Well, as you’ve probably heard… it is bullying, but I’m not the one being bullied…”

Kim Yiyun was a contract teacher. He seemed to be racking his brain over a bullying incident happening at his school.

After the Dungeon Break incident, many schools disappeared.

“Homeschooling is all the rage these days, so kids don’t have many opportunities to learn social skills anymore.”

That was what they meant by the fact that the foundations of learning were shrinking day by day. Criticism of today’s generation, accused of lacking social skills, grew louder with each passing year.

“Haa… Kids are just too cunning. Once they awaken, even teachers can’t stop them.”

If someone awakens at a high class, they go to an academy for Awakeners.

But if you awaken with an F to D class, you attend a regular school. While their abilities are insufficient to fight monsters, they’re a disaster for ordinary people.

“Just think of it as them walking around with an invisible knife.”

You can’t hunt a rhinoceros with a box cutter.

But you can hurt a person. You can even kill them.

“Actually, we teachers can see everything too. Who’s bullying whom, and who’s being bullied…”

“Isn’t it February? The kids are on break.”

I cut him off because I felt like we’d end up talking about school forever if I let him continue. Kim Yiyun realized he was complaining, cleared his throat a few times, and then answered my question.

“That’s right. And my contract ends at the end of this month.”

“Then you won’t need the role playing service?”

It was vacation time, when the kids weren’t in school. Kim Yiyun’s contract as a temporary teacher was almost up.

There was no need for a thug to stick around and keep spirits up. The bullies and victims were on vacation too, so they would probably be at home.

“I’m afraid of the new semester those kids are about to face. I won’t be there anymore, so who’s going to protect them….”

“My baby is way too kind~”

Park Suheon chimed in.

Gone was the gloomy, mentally unstable Esper who had been giggling away inside the gate; in his place sat some creepy little bastard.

“Park Suheon, be quiet.”

“Mm-hmm.”

His Pair didn’t even like it.

What kind of supply-and-demand imbalance is this?

“Anyway, what I need isn’t an uncle, it’s a thug.”

I chewed on my meat, waiting for Kim Yiyun to finish.

I hoped he wasn’t seriously expecting me to play the role of a thug at my age.

“Lee Sangwoo, Class 4, First Year. He’s a D-rank Esper and the ringleader of the bullies.”

“What’s his ability?”

“Mind control and hypnosis. They say he picks on weaker kids to ‘level up’ in his games, or borrows their names and phones to set up dummy bank accounts.”

He was worse than I expected. I thought he’d just throw a few punches or rip up books, but identity theft? That was despicable. Combined with his powers, he was practically a criminal in the making.

No, not “in the making”—he’s already a criminal.

“A few days ago, I received this text from a student who often came to me for counseling.”

Kim Yiyun held up his phone and showed me a screenshot of the message.

It was a message that had come in the early hours of the morning a few days ago.

-Teacher, I can’t take it anymore. They say it’s all my fault.

-I’ve committed too many sins. If I just disappear, that’ll solve everything, right?

-I’m sorry. I really can’t do this anymore. I’m scared to live.

-I’m going to hell.

There was almost no space between the messages.

It meant he had typed and sent them without a moment’s hesitation.

“I got blocked right away, before I could even reply.”

“What happened to the student who sent them?”

Kim Yiyun bowed his head and wiped his face. Then, with slightly bloodshot eyes, he continued.

“We couldn’t get in touch with the guardians, and his home had become a contaminated zone after a gate spawned nearby. So we couldn’t get close.”

“Is the student missing?”

“I don’t know. I’m not really in a position where I can go look for that student….”

Is this what the relationship between a teacher and a student being bullied is like? A teacher whose status prevents them from offering practical help, and a victimized student who relies on that teacher.

Does that mean everyone around them had turned a blind eye?

“We have our closing ceremony on February 5th.”

Kim Yiyun got to the point.

“Act like a thug and go to the school to find out what Lee Sangwoo did.”

“Don’t be fucking ridiculous.”

“Ho-hyung, can I have one more bowl of naengmyeon?”

I immediately cursed him out, and Lee Yuksam, completely oblivious, shouted for another bowl of naengmyeon.

This situation was chaotic.

What kind of logical process leads to the conclusion that I should dress up as a thug to take down school bullies?