There Is No Hidden Villain in This Novel Chapter 9

The cadets who had completed the ‘Dormitory Assignment Ceremony: Confronting Trauma’ were gathered on the first basement floor. Some of them questioned what in the world this was all about, but the staff members, with movements that had become natural over decades, simply handed out information pamphlets to those who protested.

On them, various explanations were written in tiny print. Explanations about the dormitory assignment ceremony that functioned through ancient magic, and that everything seen within it would not be revealed to anyone, and that they could not disclose confidential information about the assignment ceremony to anyone who was not a member of the academy.

In summary,

‘Your sunbaes all did this too, you punk! If you have a problem, take it up with the ancient magic!’

—The problem, perhaps, was the fact that in their world, ancient magic was absolute.

Those who lost the strength to argue at the mention that the primordial age when the World Tree pulsed was at play, began to sit down one by one in the cozy rest area where sofas and cushions were placed here and there like a children’s library. Some of them burst into tears belatedly.

With each new cadet arriving, protests and resignation were repeated, so the sound of crying had been circling the rest area like a round until now.

“Huuueeeong. I was so scaaaaared.”

“Oh my. What came out?”

When someone asked this question, different answers came back. People with different colored stickers that the staff members had put on their arms, sniffling.

“Gho-ghosts. A whole horde of ghosts……”

—they would say something like this.

The stickers on their arms were the symbolic colors and Chinese characters of the Four Guardian Gods. Wood (木) was blue, Fire (火) was red, Metal (金) was white, and Water (水) was black.

All sorts of colors flashed before their eyes.

Hae Yuna, who had received a black sticker, was comforting them. Then, in passing, acquaintances of hers would casually remark.

Your trauma must not have been that bad. I’m envious.

Every time Lee Hyang heard such words, he would glance at Hae Yuna, but Hae Yuna would brazenly preen.

“Ahem! It’s because my mental fortitude is a bit strong!”

“……”

Trauma is different for everyone.

It’s a natural thing. The history they have lived is different, and the events they have experienced are different. For some, a lifelong trauma might be the role of a person in a ghost costume from the first horror movie they saw as a child, but for others, it could be the murderer who killed their parents in front of their eyes. It could be the grandmother who jeered at their dead parents’ funeral, saying they shouldn’t have given up martial arts.

It could be the emotion itself of having no choice but to love that person because they were the last remaining blood relative, the only person who could protect them.

It is a fortunate thing.

That there exists a life where, even after screaming and crying, one can say that zombies came out when asked what appeared.

That people can live on in that way.

It must surely be a fortunate thing that everyone can live on without being broken.

“Huh? Lee Hyang, why are you looking at me like that? Did you fall for me?”

“Stop with the bullshit……”

Lee Hyang covered Hae Yuna’s face with his palm and pushed her away, letting out a sigh for the umpteenth time. His own mind was in disarray just from the memories he had seen, and he couldn’t even begin to guess what Hae Yuna might have seen. How was he supposed to understand her feelings, smiling like that.

“……She won’t even tell me.”

Hae Yuna is again chatting with others. Smiling brightly. With a bleeding heart hidden, yet again. I think Lee Hyang’s puberty has hit again. Sigh, I’m the only one who can take care of this prickly kid. I’m worried because our dormitories are separate too. He got a red sticker, befitting a Vermilion Bird, you see. But I really don’t know how I’m going to get this kid married. He just raises his claws at anyone like an untamed cat…….

“Hae Yuna. Do you want to die?”

“Your noona is working hard to find a marriage prospect for our Hyang, so why are you being so ungrateful?”

“You die and I’ll die with you.”

“Uhak-hak.”

While the two of them were grabbing each other by the collar and bickering, a thud was heard, and again, the sound of someone coming down the slide was heard.

Lee Hyang, not knowing who it was, just hoped that they wouldn’t provoke Hae Yuna. He hoped that it would be someone he didn’t know, so they wouldn’t even talk to them. He just wanted them to shut up and hole up in a corner.

Unfortunately, Lee Hyang’s wish was only half-fulfilled.

“Oh, Mr. Ryuseong! Our superstar, over here……”

An acquaintance, with an expression that was not just terrifying but downright ominous, shut up and holed up in a corner. Below the face that looked like someone who had just killed a person, was a white sticker.

In a state of having abandoned the blue durumagi of a past that no one would know.

*

Since sometime, Ryuseong had known that ‘he’ had become his trauma. Probably from the moment right after he regressed, when he thought he had to kill ‘him.’

Because all of his despair stemmed from him, nothing other than Cassis de Millang could become Ryuseong’s trauma anymore.

And Cassis de Millang was.

So tenacious that he couldn’t be dealt with even after being the first to enter and until hundreds of people had finished confronting their traumas.

Tenacious.

Just like when he was destroying the world.

However, if there was a silver lining, it was that the trauma, unlike back then before the regression, was not a living person. Against a mere illusion that was a reenactment of memory, he could, albeit tenaciously, win. But ridiculously, even in the moment of his death, he never broke.

He died with a refined face, bleeding drop by drop, without any passion, as if he had never once in his life wanted to survive fiercely.

So Ryuseong smashed his head in.

With a kwajik.

He had intended to enter the white dormitory anyway. The glory of the blue that he had elevated before the regression, all of it would turn to ashes if the world was destroyed. To monitor Cassis, he would have to enter the same dormitory, so perhaps crushing the trauma was a reasonable measure…….

‘……The force of my hand was excessive.’

Finally admitting the truth, Ryuseong clenched his fists as if he wanted to crush his own hands.

Mocking a corpse was not like him. Let alone a person. Unlike in the past when he had not killed people, once he had killed, that should have been the end of it, but he did not go out the exit.

He stomped on it and crushed it.

‘……Stop thinking about it.’

Ryuseong desperately tried to change his thoughts. If he kept thinking about it, he might get caught up in it. He might be swayed by a desire that he had not yet established even for himself.

So, the plan. Let’s think about the plan for the future. He had already told them in advance to arrange for them to share a room if they were in the same dormitory, so by now, Cassis should have obtained that information through de Millang’s information network.

The Cassis he knew might take the bait once. He might keep him by his side, even if only to question the reason for his suspicious behavior.

It’s not certain.

But it’s a gamble worth taking to stand out.

‘Since I’m going to be considered suspicious anyway, if I recklessly charge in saying I want to be friends.’

At the very least, a different reaction from before will emerge.

Ryuseong thought that would be enough. Ryuseong, who had decided not to kill Cassis, planned not to move too hastily if possible.

In this life, he is an observer of all situations. This was a world that was already dead to Ryuseong. It didn’t mean that he had let it go because it was already dead. Ryuseong had done his best even before the regression. It was just that he had lost everything despite it. Therefore, Ryuseong decided to do his best to bring about change.

A cogwheel that, if left alone, will flow towards destruction.

He decided to try loosening even a single screw on it.

‘If the prelude to destruction begins, I will kill you first, though.’

If he thinks of it as a dead world anyway, he becomes confident that whatever he does will be better than the past.

So let’s struggle with all our might.

If you are the one who will destroy the world, won’t a single change directed at you as an individual return as a great current. That was his feeling. Hadn’t he already made Cassis de Millang say things he wouldn’t have in the past.

‘—Though it was excessive bullshit.’

Saying it’s day one for us in a place swarming with reporters like a cloud of fruit flies.

Ryuseong genuinely wondered if he was crazy.

Even if you’re going to spew bullshit, you should bark in moderation, what’s the point of throwing a fit. Is the intention to say screw you all and have a big scandal together. He, who couldn’t even begin to guess what kind of bullshit his future self would hear, only thought this much.

‘Father will be concerned.’

Ah, he wasn’t his father now. Ryuseong let out a weak, wry laugh. He had lived his whole life thinking of him as family, yet he couldn’t accept it for fear that his own existence would be a burden. He had begged him to call him father just once, but he couldn’t do that one thing for him. He had only cried out endlessly at the grave that didn’t even have a body.

‘This time will be different.’

As he made that resolution and clenched his fists.

“……”

“……”

The surroundings, which had been full of sniffles, suddenly became quiet. A heavy silence had descended upon them. Ryuseong, having expected it, just raised his head and calmly looked straight ahead.

There was Cassis.

With his face, which was always beaming and smiling, slightly furrowed.

‘Is that why it became quiet.’

How frightening it is that everyone falls silent just because one person frowns.

But not only because of the de Millang name, but also looking at Cassis as an individual, he was like that. He was a beauty who made you want to imitate even the act of frowning like Xi Shi, and a toxic and fascinating being like an opium poppy.

Despite his venomous nature of not placing any value on manipulating and breaking others, he was a beautiful person.

‘……So you too were a person who could suffer from your own trauma.’

He recalls the pre-regression version of him, whose eyes met his. He had gone through the assignment ceremony later than him, so he didn’t know if he had suffered.

Then, in the past, have you ever suffered?

Did you, who destroyed the world, also know pain?

*

At that moment, Cassis was unconsciously frowning. It was because there were so many people bustling about that he couldn’t tell where Ryuseong was.

Fortunately, his good friends were quiet, so he was able to quickly find the pair of bright blue eyes. He walked toward him without hesitation. Without even imagining what Ryuseong might be thinking at this moment.

‘Now, shall we start the conversation?’

Will you marry me?

No, no. Will you contract-date me?

—This is what he was thinking.