Chapter 35: What Did You Say Again?

The girl, instead of being put in a black bag, was placed on a stretcher.

Someone covered her with a white sheet and carried her away.

I kept watching, unable to look away.

I wondered what the difference was between the boy and this girl.

In the end, there wasn’t much.

Perhaps just slightly different uniform patterns and colors, and a little difference in ability.

After a while, I wasn’t sent back to my room but was left in the waiting room.

The healer grumbled but treated my wounds and wiped away the blood.

Soon, someone called my name again.

I was a little tired, but not enough to be unable to fight.

Or I could just surrender with my arms wide open.

Again, I received a few blades and started walking.

Then I saw a familiar figure.

A girl with blue hair, light pink lips, and a rather light-looking sword.

She seemed to recognize me as well.

Even as we got closer, we didn’t rush at each other.

Instead, we talked casually.

“Why are you, you here…?My teacher told me to be, be careful because you’re dan, dangerous……”

“Just lucky.”

Hye-yeon frowned at my words.

I wasn’t particularly scared.

Maybe because I couldn’t feel anything.

Or maybe the drugs hadn’t worn off yet.

Thinking about all the blood I’d lost, it would be troublesome if the drugs hadn’t worn off.

“……I heard you killed your classmates.”

“A mistake.”

“A mi, mistake? How can someone kill someone by mi, mistake?”

“If I say it’s a mistake, it’s a mistake.I didn’t want to kill them. My heart aches, and I’m incredibly sad.”

 Hye-yeon didn’t seem to believe me, no matter what I said.

But my heart truly ached.

For the boy who suffered such a fate, and for the girl who shouldn’t have died, whose future was undoubtedly bright.

I didn’t want to do that.

It’s all, all, all their fault. Who? Right. The researchers’ fault.

They could have stopped it. They even deflected an arrow with a chart board at the last minute.

If they had done that sooner, would I have killed them?

It’s not my problem in the end. It’s the fault of those people who left me alone.

Maybe that’s why they left me.

They left me alone in the village.

They took care of the girl in front of me.

They protected her and even fended off the pressure and dirty tricks from influential families.

But they left me alone, and that’s why this happened.

Jealousy welled up inside me, and I stepped back.

If I win here, would I have to fight fiercely, surrounded by countless spectators, like those clowns on TV?

No, that’s an excuse. If I want people to know me, but hate that kind of attention, it’s an excuse.

I just don’t want to fight the girl in front of me, who wants to be my friend.

Because I know what I’ll do if we fight.

I’ll do things a villain in a novel would do, without a second thought.

So I dropped all my weapons on the floor, grinned, and looked at where the researchers were sitting.

Then I raised my arms and yelled that I surrendered.

I was already exhausted from fighting that girl earlier.

That’s a good enough reason.

The match ended anticlimactically.

I became a B-rank, and the C-rank and B-rank boy and girl I fought died meaningless deaths.

Nothing would change.

What meaning is there in a mere change in rank in this world?

Especially if it’s gained by killing kids who may or may not have been guilty, but certainly didn’t seem like villains.

There’s no reason for me to live in this world anyway.

I lowered my head, closed my eyes, and replayed my thoughts.

Today wasn’t much different from the days I spent in the lab.

Pulling out the arrowheads was incredibly painful.

Even though no one knew, no one worried about me.

This place might not be much different from that horrible village Seo-jun talked about, the one I used to live in.

But still, this place…

This place has nothing.

No snow that falls in autumn and doesn’t melt even when spring comes.

No people bundled up in fur coats all the time.

No clustered houses, no constant snowfall.

No ground where I can leave footprints everywhere I go.

No deer with clear eyes.

No hunting dog I raised at home.

I crawled out because I didn’t want to be there.

The place I ended up in was a lab.

When I wanted to leave but couldn’t, Si-hyun “unni” got me out.

And she was hunted down and killed like an animal, just for losing her temper.

There’s nothing here, but that’s right.

The village still exists, and the people are still there.

If nothing remained, I wouldn’t have any memories either.

“Don’t think I’ll teach you anything.You’ll never be useful to the world, no matter what you learn.”

“Is it because I crawled out of the slums…?”

“……”

“Good. Because there won’t be any slums anymore.”

I returned to the dormitory, and soon my assigned room was changed.

They said I should attend Class B-2 starting next week since tomorrow is the weekend.

The girl who wore the same uniform as the girl I killed handed me the same uniform.

I didn’t like the way she looked at me, but maybe she was just having a bad day because a friend died or something.

I barely had any personal belongings, so I stuffed everything into the large bag that contained Si-hyun “unni”’s belongings and went to my newly assigned room.

What would happen to the room I used?

No, who would use it?

I hadn’t lived there long, but I was proud of how dirty I’d made it.

Unusable by anyone else.

The room was quite spacious.

About the size of a small apartment.

With three rooms.

I put the bag on the table I saw and moved around as I pleased for a while.

The sun had been setting just a moment ago, but now it was night.

I walked to the bed and threw myself onto it.

I fell asleep as if collapsing, and when I woke up in the morning, I was a mess.

My hair was messy, I had dark circles under my eyes, and most of all, I didn’t like the look in my eyes.

And people were looking at me.

The girl I met yesterday, the boy I met two days ago, the nameless idiots who died in the F-rank dormitory, the test subjects I killed because they begged me to, Team Leader Joo, the Department Head, the researchers.

They surrounded me.

I tried to take a step towards them, but they just backed away expressionlessly.

When I swung my fist, they blurred momentarily and then reappeared.

“This is so boring. The same, repetitive, meaningless.They’re all just words. Just, disappear when I close my eyes.”

I muttered something, unsure if it was a monologue or a conversation.

They didn’t react.

I sighed and took the pill bottle out of the bag I brought yesterday.

I poured all the remaining powder onto the table.

Then I brought my nose close and inhaled it all.

Finally feeling a bit hazy, I sat on the edge of the bed, exhausted.

I stared at the ceiling for a long time, counting the patterns on the now-loathed wave-patterned plaster.

Then the doorbell rang.

When I didn’t open the door, they kept ringing.

I walked over and opened the door to find the blue-haired girl, and the boy who didn’t want to be childhood friends with me.

What did he say?

He said we didn’t have to be childish childhood friends.

We could become friends again at school.

Is this even a school?

They don’t care how many useless kids die.

“You two were together when we first met. So why are you here?”

“I heard about the match from Hye-yeon. And that you two became friends.”

“Yeah. I asked her to.”

“Do you need help moving your things or anything?”

“No. Nothing.”

Because I have nothing.

“……You, no. Excuse me.”

Seo-jun stared at my back for a while before coming into my room without a word.

Without permission, as he pleased.

I reached out to stop him, but someone grabbed my wrist first.

It was  Hye-yeon.

They shoot down beast-like F-ranks like they’re hunting harmful animals.

But they treat B-ranks like humans.

Anyway, thanks to her grip, I couldn’t stop Seo-jun from looking around my room.

He saw the bloodstains on the floor, which I didn’t even remember making.

He saw the drugs on the slightly cracked table, and the broken mirror.

We were playing in the snow.

You said I was the only one you had, and I said I felt the same.

But nothing went as planned.

When we had to part ways, you promised not to forget me.

You didn’t forget, and sometimes you even came to see me.

Maybe we shouldn’t have.

We should have remained perfect childhood friends, frozen in time in that village, a beautiful memory.

“It’s all for you, you know. Seo, Seo-jun said he couldn’t just leave you a, alone after hearing what happened.”

“For me?”

“……Yes.”

“You come into my room without asking, grab me, and rummage through my things, and you say it’s for me?You guys, you’re always like this.”

“Ju, just stay still.”Coming closer again. You, and you too. Ah. Ugh.”

I was incredibly cold.

Colder than when the junkies next door tried to attack me, and I escaped through the window and shivered in the cold for a long time.