Chapter 24: Club (1)

‘Ugh. Why do freshmen have to join a club? We have to submit a club activity report, so we have to join one somewhere.’

It’s troublesome.

I’ve become incredibly famous overnight.

Swordsmanship clubs, magic research societies, even art-related associations—

Seniors flocked.

They tried to recruit me in droves.

Saying there were openings, that they couldn’t do without me.

Refusing was useless.

When I turned around, they reappeared.

Everywhere, persistently.

Even when walking down the street, leaving the classroom.

Even while eating at the cafeteria.

A terrible obsession continued.

To the point where I considered wearing a human-skin mask.

Why is it so bad?

When I wanted to know the reason and slightly opened my eyes.

I had faced gloomy desires.

Every single one.

All of them.

Full of thoughts of using me.

‘They’re all clinging because of Cancellation.’

A young girl has a strange magic.

They’re trying to extract it.

While naturally interacting in the club.

Pretending to get close.

They’re trying to find out somehow.

But.

That.

Not just anyone can do it.

Even if I told them, I’d be the only one who could do it.

‘It’s a magic that needs to be used improvisationally depending on the situation. If you can’t use insight, sniping is impossible.’

But.

Even if I made this argument, it wouldn’t make a dent.

“Sigh.”

A long sigh.

Selecting a menu at the kiosk.

Normally, coffee with a strong espresso.

Bitter taste. Caffeine, an adult’s taste.

……I would have chosen those.

But maybe because I’m feeling down.

An option I don’t usually choose was captured.

An unbelievably cute pink color.

Softly whipped cream.

Round strawberry pieces.

“It’s really delicious. Our store’s strawberry latte is no joke!”

As I was hesitating.

The sales pitch of the part-timer hooked me.

Her eyes sparkle.

Her face was full of confidence.

‘I heard that when a part-timer, not the owner, recommends something, it’s because it’s really delicious.’

Should I try it?

Feeling the cold cup touching my fingertips.

As if kissing it, gently.

Gulp.

Bang!

Pink fireworks exploded in my head.

Sugar granules tickle my tongue.

The milk melts softly, smoothly.

A feeling of my body floating.

My feet slightly lifted off the ground, as if I could float.

“Mmm…….”

The worries that had been weighing me down until just now melted away.

The magic of strawberry latte.

The greatness of sweetness.

Holding the cup tightly with both hands.

One more sip.

Then.

Instantly, a chill touched my right cheek.

I wasn’t surprised.

Ideation is always spread out to replace my vision.

Even without turning my head, my synesthesia reads everything.

Her movement that entered my space was drawn in my mind.

Tilting my head in an evasive maneuver.

There will never be a time when her outstretched fingers touch my chewy cheeks.

“Hehe, it didn’t work?”

“What is it?”

“What do you think? I came to see our cute El.”

A strange woman who entered the academy disguised as a man.

I don’t know why this woman is disguised as a man.

I’m not particularly curious, and I tend to refrain from opening my eyes.

Exuding an E personality.

Jeong Chaemin naturally sat down opposite me.

As if it were her original seat.

She had no fear of meeting or interacting with people.

Like an actor on stage, always the center of attention wherever she is.

The complete opposite of me, who was born an outsider, loner, and shut-in.

“It’s a mess outside because they’re looking for you.”

“I’m tired of it these days.”

“You look it. To the point where you’re craving something sweet. So, which club are you going to join?”

“Can’t I not join?”

“It’ll be much more annoying if you don’t do any club activities at all. This academy is the world’s best academic institution. Everyone thinks that building relationships here is power, opportunity, and the future. No one will leave you alone.”

“…I’m not interested in that kind of thing.”

The academy is a microcosm of society.

While walking between the ancient stone buildings and the lawns, professors leisurely discuss academics, and students build friendships as if sculpting their own ranks.

Heavy promises over coffee cups.

Deals where billions move with a single handshake.

Secretly forged connections.

Those who are key to climbing the tower, those who move the market, those who hold important positions in this country are produced in the academy’s classrooms.

So a single club, a single gathering, inevitably acts as more than just a hobby.

I lightly bit the straw.

A sweet taste spread smoothly from the tip of my tongue.

No matter how much I think about it, it’s a story that has nothing to do with me.

‘I don’t even have enough time to study, let alone club activities.’

I want to graduate quickly and go to the tower.

So that I can see the world with my own eyes.

But now, I had to worry about joining a club.

The academy.

More than studying.

It seemed to be a place where meeting people, belonging to an organization, and preparing for the future were more important.

“Anyway, is it because you’re a genius?”

“What is?”

“Others are enthusiastically running around trying to get into a good club to build connections, get on a professor’s good side, and get help, but you’re not interested in any of that.”

Jeong Chaemin studied my expression.

A look that understood my isolation, avoidance, and distancing.

“But on the one hand, I think I get it. You want to avoid annoyance, but you don’t like being obsessed over. And you don’t want to just join anything, right?”

It’s funny.

I’ve never shown that much to warrant such words.

But I was accurately pierced.

Jeong Chaemin knew.

That I get along reasonably well in the classroom, but contact stops abruptly after class.

That I’m quiet in group chat rooms, but always speak up when needed.

A distance that is neither too prominent nor too pushed out among people.

She saw that.

And then she leaned her body towards me.

A closer distance.

And then.

She made an offer I couldn’t refuse.

“How about joining my club?”

“You founded a club yourself?”

“I don’t want to join a club just to network like El either. So I made one.”

“Unidentified Paranormal Phenomena Research Society?”

I mulled over the club name.

It’s something, profound.

I immediately retorted.

“There’s no such thing as ghosts.”

“That’s why I made it.”

Jeong Chaemin said with a grin.

“Just pretend to do it with a bit of bluff. I don’t have any intention of seriously researching.”

“Then what kind of club is it?”

“Just to slack off in the club room.”

Jeong Chaemin’s voice was so confident.

I was bewildered. Is this okay?

“Joining a club is mandatory at the academy, but that doesn’t mean you actually have to do anything, right? Everyone joins for connections or hobbies.”

Jeong Chaemin continued, wiggling her fingers.

“So I thought of a way. A harmless, non-competitive club, reasonably out of the spotlight. And most importantly, a club that no one cares about.”

“So you made the Unidentified Paranormal Phenomena Research Society?”

“Because there’s no such thing as ghosts anyway. If El has nothing to do, come here and study. As you can see, the club room is a library. No one else comes here, so it’s quiet and nice, don’t you think?”

I was dumbfounded, but I realized that this was the most realistic way.

As long as I’m a member of a club.

Seniors who make strange suggestions to me won’t stick around.

I concentrated my ideation and looked around.

Fluorescent lights that seemed to be 10, or even 20 years old.

The light was dim, and there were even black stains here and there.

The floor was full of broken tiles, and a damp book smell tickled my nose.

It was a library that opened a long time ago.

But when a new library was built, this place was naturally abandoned.

The administration office said it was “space rearrangement for student convenience”.

But it was obvious.

This old building was just left untouched because they couldn’t do anything about it.

In the end, the awkwardly remaining space was passed on to the students.

And so, the closed library became a club room.

“Hehe. It really feels like a ghost might appear.”

It was a statement I couldn’t relate to.

Ghosts?

Horror movies?

I’ve never seen one.

No, I couldn’t see.

I am visually impaired.

I’ve only recently been able to see.

I didn’t know what kind of atmosphere ghosts appeared in, or why people were afraid of such things.

So the ‘fear’ of this world, the sense of experiencing it visually, was still an area I hadn’t experienced.

An exception is the ghost house that appears in Wednesday’s daily dungeon.

But that’s the ‘Tower’, so it’s right to consider it an exception.

“But. Don’t you need at least 5 people to start a club?”

“El is the fourth member.”

“Ah-ha.”

There are many conditions to create a club in the academy.

A minimum of 5 regular members. Recruiting a faculty advisor. Submitting an activity plan.

Student council approval. Budget application, etc.

Usually, recruiting freshmen is the most difficult.

But, this club now?

Most of it is already resolved.

The Unidentified Paranormal Phenomena Research Society, a useless club.

What did the other members come here for?

‘As expected, social butterflies are different. I don’t know who they are, but they probably filled the numbers with kids who, like me, don’t have any particular passion for clubs.’

Just gathering during club activity hours, chatting casually, filling out a report roughly, and ending it.

That kind of light atmosphere.

I like it.

I sat down quietly.

“Then I’ll go out to find the last member!”

“Yes, please do.”

Creak.

The sound of the door closing.

‘Since I’m at the library, I might as well study.’

Originally, the only language I had was braille.

Hangul?

The moment I saw the letters with my eyes.

I naturally learned it by matching it with braille.

With my eyes closed, I opened a book.

It didn’t matter if the text wasn’t visible.

‘Because I can read it with ideation.’

Flip.

The moment I turn the page with my fingertips.

All the information written there poured in at once.

It’s not reading one word at a time.

Not a sentence unit.

Recognizing the entire page at once.

This is what synesthesia is like.

Words turned into sounds.

Sentences flowed through touch.

Language is so colorful.

‘It’s like absorbing, not reading, a book.’

It was said that a snake crawls on the ground with its whole body and digs up secrets hidden in the ground.

It’s not just movement.

A primal attempt to feel and understand the world itself with the whole body.

I am the same.

It wasn’t about chasing the text with my eyes.

Like a snake.

I mobilized all my intelligence, instincts, and senses.

I just grope the book with ideation and understand.

And.

The synergy between ideation and Savant was tremendous.

‘My reading speed has increased.’

Neurons swirled into an electrical storm, and synapses connected at the speed of light.

The brain instantly analyzed the pattern.

The shape of the letters.

The pattern of grammar.

The flow of phonemes.

All of it was imprinted on my mind like a kind of “picture”.

The totality of a complex symbolic system.

All language was essentially a code, and in general learning, a process of receiving and interpreting information is necessary, but now it’s different.

The temporal lobe and frontal lobe were simultaneously activated, and the language center (Wernicke’s area) and motor speech center (Broca’s area) were perfectly synchronized.

The concept of memory itself was meaningless.

The conversion process from short-term memory (hippocampus) to long-term memory (neocortex) was omitted.

As soon as I read, all the information was permanently imprinted.

It wasn’t learning, it was just recognition.

Like breathing, like walking, unconsciously.

It’s fun.

Studying.

‘My eyes can cheat, but I don’t intend to rely on that forever.’

Cheating?

If an S-rank professor comes in as a test supervisor, it’s over.

Even if I can see through the test questions with my eyes.

It doesn’t mean that the correct answer is automatically revealed just by looking.

Eyes only acquire all the information.

Deriving the correct answer with that information is entirely my responsibility.

Why is a question a question?

It’s a question because it’s wrong in the first place.

The numbers are off, there are full of blanks, and the word order and logic are twisted.

If you don’t understand, no matter how much you look at it, it’s just a tangled mass of letters.

Even if you use X-ray vision, it doesn’t say choose number 3 because the answer is number 3.

So.

Studying.

Intense focus.

Devouring, demolishing.

One book.

Two books.

Three books.

A tower of knowledge piling up on the desk.

Night fell in the blink of an eye.

It was pitch black outside, and the faint lights in the room flickered.

The shadow of the pile of books like a mountain stretched long.

Thump—

Even though there was no wind, a book slid down.

It happened to be a textbook.

The thickness was brutal.

I moved my head slightly to evade.

And.

A pouring yawn.

I opened my eyes slightly while stretching widely.

Rubbing my eyes with a fluffy face, blank—

Then.

On the desk.

Something was sticking out—

“Huh?”

A head is sticking up.

There’s no neck.

Just a head.

It’s protruding through the desk.

Its eyes are looking at me.

Something’s wrong.

‘I didn’t sense anything with ideation?’

But.

I can see it with my eyes.

“…?”

A beat late, my brain understood the situation.

And—

“Kyaaa!!!”

I hugged the book and fell backward.

Legs straight, arms flailing, losing balance and staggering.

Books poured down.

[Can you see me?]

On my whole body.

Goosebumps rose.