Chapter 2: Marie-thérèse charlotte j. thierry de arc

Although there was a brief commotion due to racist Kang Suho’s discriminatory remarks, the entrance ceremony proceeded normally.

Kang Suho sighed deeply and muttered in an exhausted, weak voice.

“You’re probably the first bastard, Dohan, to call Vice Principal Valignano, the Cherry Blossom Angel, a ‘negro’….”

“What’s that black person’s name?”

“Valignano.”

“You bastard, are you an Ilbe user? Why do you put ‘no’ at the end of your words?”

“What.”

‘A pro-Japanese, anti-nationalist, otaku, Japanese-sympathizer, racist Ilbe user.’

He was a truly horrible and terrifying friend.

“Damn it… I’m not a pro-Japanese collaborator, nor a racist, nor an Ilbe user!”

“Shush. Professor Valigna is giving his admonition.”

“It’s Valignano, not Valigna… no, never mind.”

“Yeah, whatever, otaku.”

“….”

‘He seems to be an otaku, alright.’

Ignoring the grumbling Kang Suho, I sat comfortably and watched the entrance ceremony.

The vice principal flapped his angel wings and raised his voice.

“You are the most special generation in the entire history of the Academy! This Academy was built with the purpose of providing equal education in abilities under the motto ‘Every Child is a Hero’—but until now, for political and economic reasons, not everyone has been given equal opportunities.”

“However, this generation is different!”

“All students will receive equal education regardless of skin color, disability, religion, or ideology.”

“We oppose all forms of discrimination and hatred, and we will prove in this Academy that the qualification of a hero is an inherent right bestowed upon us!”

Cheers erupted from the students at the vice principal’s declaration.

‘That’s a nice speech.’

‘What I hate most is racial discrimination.’

‘My second least favorite thing is black people.’

“Did you hear that, you racist bastard, Kang Suho?”

“Reflect on it and don’t do it again.”

“You’re the one who was racist, you crazy bastard.”

“I can’t hear you, you otaku’s words are too quiet.”

“Damn it.”

I clapped vigorously at the heartfelt speech, and soon the next event of the entrance ceremony, the salute to the flags of all nations, began.

Following the announcer’s guidance, the students stood up.

I was about to stand up too, but seeing a few students still seated, I just remained sitting.

‘It seems you can salute while sitting.’

“Student there! Why are you sitting?”

“Huh? Me?”

“Didn’t you hear that you should stand to salute the flags of all nations?”

“But that person over there is also sitting?”

“Doesn’t that student lack legs!”

“Wow, did you just call a student ‘crippled’ for their legs? Equality is dead.”

“That’s not—”

“You said this is an Academy where all students are equal, right? ‘You have no legs, so salute while sitting,’ ‘You have legs, so stand and salute,’ is that equality?”

“The Academy’s discrimination against disabled people is insane…. I should post this on SNS.”

“Could you look here for a moment so I can take a picture?”

“Don’t take out your smartphone at the entrance ceremony!”

“We can bring cameras but not smartphones? They’re filming over there too.”

“Ugh! Do you want to be expelled for disrupting the entrance ceremony?”

“You’re kicking a student out of the entrance ceremony? Whose entrance ceremony is this?”

“Was this not meant to welcome students, but rather for the professors and guests of honor?”

“….”

As the surroundings grew noisy, the scolding staff member’s face flushed, and he fled.

Kang Suho, who had been standing and saluting next to me, stared at me as if I were insane, but I ignored him.

‘It’s really comfortable saluting while sitting.’

‘To think that only disabled people enjoyed this comfort, indeed, this world is unfair.’

“Hey, Kang Suho, you sit down too.”

“Why are you standing, hurting your legs?”

“You crazy bastard….”

“It’s not me who’s crazy, it’s the world!”

‘Didn’t Uncle Jjam say it too?’

‘What I truly wanted to bake wasn’t bread, but this rotten world.’

‘We too need to emulate the spirit of the most delicious hero—Hoppang.’

****

–Next, we will have the student oath by the freshman representative.–

As I was pretending to salute and lost in thought, a girl with a cane stepped onto the stage: *thump, tap, thump, tap*.

She was a girl with short, pure white hair and a face that still had some baby fat, giving off contrasting vibes.

With the hand not holding the cane, she was holding the hand of a woman in a suit, and she wore a black blindfold over her eyes, making it clear at a glance that she was blind.

“The freshman representative is blind?”

“That’s Thierry Marie Joanna De Arc.”

“The Blind Saint.”

“Her name is really long.”

“Joanna is her baptismal name, and De Arc means her birthplace, so if you just say her name, it’s Marie Thierry.”

“You said Thierry Marie at first?”

“The order is different when you call her formally versus informally.”

“Sometimes they also include her baptismal name and call her Marie J. Thierry.”

‘Formal style and… what? Unofficial patch?’

‘What’s that, otaku?’

“That’s disgustingly complicated.”

“How do you know all that?”

“…Because I’m a fan.”

“What?”

“I’m a fan of Marie Thierry.”

“She’s the most famous hero candidate among kids our age.”

“You bastard, were you a stalker?!”

‘I thought he wouldn’t be interested in real-life girls because he’s an otaku, but to think he’s such a hardcore stalker that he even followed her to enroll in the school.’

‘Terrifying bastard.’

“What are you talking about?! I’m not a stalker or anything like that?!”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“I’ll support your love.”

“They say there’s no tree that won’t fall if you chop it ten times without reporting it.”

“I’m not!”

“You can be honest with your best friend, you bastard.”

‘Even though Kang Suho is an otaku, pro-Japanese, racist Ilbe user, or whatever, he’s still a good guy.’

‘He was too good a friend to give to a blind person.’

‘But isn’t true friendship about genuinely supporting a friend’s love?’

“Dohan, you just met me today…?”

“Only gays care about things like that.”

“Act like a real man, friend.”

“Didn’t Liu Bei, Zhang Fei, and Guan Yu swear brotherhood after just one drink at a tavern?”

“That’s from the *Romance*!”

“What.”

“It wasn’t official history?”

After a quick search on my smartphone, it turns out that ‘Romance’ wasn’t the original, and the episode first appeared in a novel called ‘San Guo Zhi Ping Hua’.

‘My knowledge has increased.’

“Haa.”

“As expected, you can’t trust the history of those jjangkkae bastards.”

“You’re trying to be racist here too…?”

‘Anyway, it’s all those jjangkkae’s fault.’

As I was joking around with Suho, the freshman oath also ended.

‘She’s blind, so how did she read the oath?’

‘Did she memorize it all?’

“Ah! Because of you, I couldn’t record Miss Marie’s freshman oath!”

“Filming secretly is a bit….”

“It’s not, not like secret filming or anything?!”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“You stalker, secret filming criminal, otaku.”

“Damn it….”

Whether Kang Suho despaired at the cruelty of the world or not, the entrance ceremony concluded.

Having finished the long event, I automatically yawned.

“Haaah… It’s finally over.”

“So what do we do now?”

“We have to go to the dorm.”

“Where’s the dorm?”

“The layout map was posted at the entrance.”

“Where’s the entrance?”

“Haa…. Let’s go together.”

As I left the auditorium with Kang Suho, for some reason, the gazes of other students felt sharp.

“The kids are staring at you, Suho.”

“They’re looking at *you*, you crazy bastard….”

“More accurately, they’re looking at ‘us’.”

“I’ll sort this out, just wait a moment.”

“What are you going to do now?”

I approached one of the murmuring students and said confidently.

“What are you staring at?”

“…Huh?”

At that, Kang Suho was startled.

“Y-y-y-you crazy bastard!”

‘The person I approached was the freshman representative Marie Tiara… what was her name again?’

‘Anyway, it was that blind girl whom Kang Suho had declared he was stalking.’

‘I hadn’t approached her to expose Kang Suho’s creepy stalking.’

I put on the most gentle expression I could and spoke in a growling voice.

‘Since she’s blind, she’ll only hear my voice.’

“If you have nothing to say, lower your eyes.”

“Hm?”

In truth, since she was wearing a blindfold, I couldn’t tell if she lowered her eyes or not, but that wasn’t very important.

What was important was that this top freshman was a blind woman who couldn’t see.

Her eyesight and mine were in a perfect hierarchical relationship!

“Or do you have something you want to say?”

“Hmm?”

‘In other words, if we had an argument about gazes, I would definitely win.’

‘As the art of war says, the best strategy is to fight when you’ve already won.’

‘I, Kim Dohan, am of the mindset that I don’t fight battles I’ll lose.’

She was flustered and couldn’t utter a single word in response.

Then, the sweet stalker Kang Suho stepped forward and grabbed me.

“Kim Dohan, why are you picking a fight with Miss Marie…! I-I-I’m sorry, Miss Marie! He’s crazy.”

“He’s a friend who’s a bit mentally unwell.”

“But his eyes are perfectly fine, aren’t they?”

“You shut up….”

Shaking off Kang Suho who was holding my arm, I glared at Marie-whatever.

But then, something strange appeared before my eyes.

[Thierry Marie Joanna De Arc]

[Would you like to open the patch notes for this character?]

“Patch notes?”

[Opening patch notes.]

[13.07 : Improved some avatar designs]

[11.03 : Character script modified (Visual-related scripts modified due to setting change)]

[11.01 : Character settings and design partially changed (Blind setting added)]

“What the hell.”

“Hey! Kim Dohan!”

Kang Suho kept shouting next to me, but that wasn’t important right now.

I had to examine the status window that had appeared before my eyes.

“Suho.”

“I know you’re happy to see Thierry Marie, whom you like enough to stalk… but could you please be quiet for a bit?”

“Your hyung is thinking right now.”

“Stalking, you say…?”

Marie-whatever retorted.

‘Is it because she’s a French country bumpkin that she uses such a strange dialect?’

‘Is she from Chungcheong-do?’

Kang Suho, whose stalking crime had been exposed, stammered out excuses.

“Oh, th-th-that’s not it! Dohan here is just mentally unwell.”

“Please don’t mind what he says.”

“You said you entered the Academy to see her, didn’t you? And earlier, during the freshman oath, you even tried to secretly film her with your camera.”

“Shut up!”

Thierry Marie flinched and took a step back.

While Kang Suho frantically waved his arms, making excuses, I slowly examined these ‘patch notes’.

[07.14 : Character name changed (Thérèse Charlotte -> Thierry Marie Joanna De Arc)]

“Thérèse Charlotte…?”

“Y-yes…?”

“Huh?”

“How do you know my childhood name…?”

“Your name is Thérèse Charlotte?”

“It was my name when I was a baby, but….”

At that, Kang Suho’s eyes suddenly sparkled, and he began to explain something.

“Miss Marie was adopted into the prestigious Thierry family of France when she was four.”

“She also received the baptismal name Joanna then.”

“Normally, infant baptism is supposed to happen within 100 days, but in Miss Marie’s case, she received her infant baptism late due to her innate abilities.”

“The bishop who performed Joanna’s baptismal sacrament at the time said that—”

“You stalker bastard.”

“Ah.”

Silence hung in the air for a while.

“I-I’ll get going now? Goodbye!”

Marie Thierry ran away.

Kang Suho stared at the retreating back of Marie Thierry with forlorn eyes.

“I’m ruined….”

“Don’t worry, bastard.”

“At least you didn’t get reported, right?”

“…That’s certainly comforting.”

“And all the other kids are avoiding eye contact too.”

“We achieved our initial goal.”

The students who had been staring just moments ago were now all avoiding eye contact.

Especially, the number of students flinching and averting their gaze whenever Kang Suho looked around increased.

Primarily female students.

Kang Suho’s arms drooped, and he despaired.

I patted the despondent Kang Suho’s shoulder, comforting him.

“Stop moping and let’s go to the dorm.”

“Damn it….”