Chapter 10: A Costly Confrontation

Totomia’s shouts quickly drew attention, causing the gaze of more than half the classroom to converge on their spot.

Under the watchful eyes of the crowd, his expression grew increasingly uninhibited.

“You probably don’t know this pretty boy yet, do you? He’s that pathetic simp from the Magic Academy!”

“Hahaha, after all that simping, weren’t you ultimately kicked to the curb? You absolutely deserved it!”

“Let me tell you, in Celeste’s eyes, you’re not even worth as much as a true dog!”

Totomia grew more agitated with each word, his voice so thunderous it reverberated throughout the entire building.

‘No, why are you shouting so loudly?’

Yalin let out a helpless sigh internally.

In truth, he had long foreseen such an occurrence.

After all, in the world of a Mary Sue novel, there were always characters who, having nothing better to do, inexplicably popped up to stir up trouble.

Regarding this, Yalin only wanted to tell the author: My lord, you’re eating a big pile of shit (TL Note: A crude internet slang phrase implying that something is terrible or disgusting).

This kind of plot had been savored quite enough; it was time to take it away (annoyed).

Don’t they realize that modern readers no longer tolerate such tropes?

Keep churning out this tedious garbage every day, and you’ll just be waiting for your novel to flop!

Yet, on second thought, wasn’t this fellow making his appearance a little too soon?

Yalin mused that he had no prior animosity or grievances with this person, so why was he aggressively accosting him right from the start?

‘Wait, it wasn’t that there was no enmity or grievances!’

A figure matching his description actually existed within the original owner’s memories.

Yalin recalled it then: the incident had occurred shortly after his enrollment, during the welcoming party at the Magic Branch, where all the academy’s students were gathered.

During the banquet, this cat-eared fellow had instantly fallen head over heels for Celeste.

One could tell from his pointy head—no, his ears—that he was indeed not particularly intelligent.

The moment he laid eyes on Celeste, he thought of nothing else, merely rushing straight up to confess his feelings, leaving Celeste utterly bewildered.

As Celeste’s loyal servant, the original owner naturally leaped out without hesitation to protect his mistress, fiercely scolding Totomia with the proverb “a toad lusting after swan meat” (TL Note: A Chinese idiom meaning an ugly person desiring someone far superior to them, often used to describe someone pursuing an out-of-their-league love interest). This left Totomia utterly dumbfounded.

Totomia seethed with anger, but with the goddess standing nearby, he couldn’t bring himself to lash out. He could only feign a gentlemanly demeanor, slinking away in humiliation before the assembled crowd.

Upon returning home, as he replayed his spineless behavior, he grew increasingly indignant with each passing thought.

That frail pretty boy, whom he could easily dispatch ten of with a single punch, had actually dared to address him with such an arrogant demeanor.

‘How could he possibly endure this?’

Consequently, an unwilling Totomia began to discreetly investigate Yalin’s background.

He hadn’t known until he investigated, but a single inquiry immediately sent him into a “red hot” rage (TL Note: A gaming term, ‘hong wen,’ describing a state of extreme anger or frustration, like an overheating CPU).

“No, seeing you put on such a righteous front, I thought you were someone significant to her… But after all that, it turns out you’re just another simp?”

“And the most utterly shameless kind at that?”

“Then how dare you speak to me?”

Totomia, suddenly enlightened, gnashed his teeth in hatred, but as the two were no longer in the same location, he had no means of confronting Yalin.

Now, having finally cornered him here, he naturally wouldn’t let such an opportunity slip away.

Yalin offered a helpless, bitter smile.

‘Damn it (TL Note: A softened expletive, ‘kao nen niang,’ often used to express frustration or annoyance), it’s the original owner’s fault again.’

‘They truly treat me as the ultimate scapegoat.’

To be honest, however, this guy was also quite pathetic.

Not only did he fail in his attempts to simp for the goddess, but he was also verbally abused by the goddess’s own simp.

Were the roles reversed, he wouldn’t be able to tolerate it either.

“What are you laughing at? Are you deaf in the ears (TL Note: A literal translation of ‘er duo long,’ meaning ‘deaf’ or ‘hard of hearing,’ used here aggressively) when I’m speaking to you?”

Totomia roared angrily.

In his estimation, Yalin should, at this very moment, be trembling and weeping uncontrollably.

Yet, upon seeing Yalin’s utterly unperturbed expression, Totomia’s rage surged to its zenith. He seized Yalin by the collar, hoisting him into the air.

If this were a typical ‘cool novel’ (TL Note: ‘Shuang wen,’ a genre of web novels focused on wish fulfillment and satisfying power fantasies) protagonist, he would undoubtedly have slammed the table, mercilessly beaten his opponent, and thoroughly shown off.

Unfortunately, Yalin was no such protagonist.

He was merely a ‘turtle man’ (TL Note: ‘Gui nan,’ a derogatory Chinese slang term for a man who is overly submissive, cowardly, or tolerant of disrespect, often implying cuckoldry or extreme weakness).

And listening closely, it seemed the fellow hadn’t been wrong after all.

The original owner truly was “that pathetic” (TL Note: ‘Diao yang,’ a crude and dismissive way to describe someone’s behavior or appearance as pitiful or contemptible), making it impossible for Yalin to even formulate a rebuttal.

‘Ah, forget it. I’ll just endure.’

After all, Yalin simply desired a peaceful existence.

“Aren’t you so good at simping? Why can’t you even utter a single word now?”

“A wretch like you, even if you spend your entire life simping for women, you’ll gain absolutely nothing! You’ll remain at the bottom rung of society forever!”

The smile vanished from Yalin’s face.

He hadn’t reacted at all to the torrent of insults hurled at him until then, but that final sentence had pierced his defenses with pinpoint accuracy.

‘This scoundrel… uttered the one thing he absolutely should not have!’

Yalin had endured humiliation and shouldered heavy burdens, spending every day entangled with a host of troublesome women, all for the sole purpose of accumulating enough money one day to heal this body and live a normal life.

And yet, this fellow had dared to cast such a venomous curse?

‘Don’t you understand that some words can be spoken, while others absolutely cannot??’

Totomia continued his relentless tirade, completely oblivious to the subtle shift in Yalin’s gaze.

Behind him, a phantom began to materialize.

The phantom gradually solidified, eventually taking on the form of an angel.

The angel emanated a platinum radiance, its six wings fully unfurled, spanning across more than half the classroom, resembling a deity descended upon the mortal realm.

Bizarrely, however, faced with such an unbelievable spectacle, everyone present, including Totomia, remained utterly oblivious.

For they were utterly incapable of perceiving the angel’s form.

With a subtle flick of Yalin’s finger, the six-winged angel raised the sword in its hand high, its tip shimmering with an ethereal, multicolored glow.

Crack.

In a flash of sword light, Totomia’s pants were instantly severed in two, fluttering to the ground and exposing his stark white underwear.

“Huh?”

Totomia froze instantly.

He lowered his head, staring in bewildered shock at his now exposed, smooth thighs, even forgetting to hurl insults at Yalin.

The next instant, screams erupted in a cacophony, one after another.

One must remember that half the students in the classroom were high-born young ladies, utterly unaccustomed to such a vulgar display, and they immediately dissolved into a chaotic panic.

“What the hell? How did this happen?”

Having his indecent parts exposed so publicly, Totomia’s face flushed crimson with mortification.

He bent down, attempting to pull up his pants, but his foot caught on something unseen, sending him stumbling and pitching headlong down the steps.

He tumbled several times, finally coming to a stop only after his head collided with a wall, leaving him curled painfully on the floor.

“My goodness, what just happened?”

“Hurry, go call a teacher!!”

Students, never ones to shy away from a spectacle, swarmed around Totomia, who lay sprawled on the ground.

Yet, not a single person at the scene suspected Yalin’s involvement.

The reason was quite simple: Yalin hadn’t used any magic, so how could he possibly have sent the over two-meter-tall Totomia sprawling?

After all, the use of magic was strictly prohibited within the teaching building; even an Archmage-level spellcaster couldn’t bypass the potent barrier woven throughout the area.

Yalin remained standing exactly where he was, his expression utterly detached.

He still hadn’t managed to restrain himself; in a moment of impulse, he had directly summoned the Conceptual Deity.

Totomia lay sprawled on the ground in utter disarray, yet Yalin felt no satisfaction whatsoever, only the profound emptiness and regret that followed “Sage Time” (TL Note: A Chinese slang term, ‘xian zhe shi jian,’ referring to a moment of post-clarity or disillusionment after an intense experience, often post-orgasm, but here used more broadly for a moment of ‘what have I done?’).

As he watched the angel behind him gradually dissolve into golden particles, ultimately vanishing completely into the air, Yalin’s heart ached with an unbearable pang.

“My… my money!!”