Saving My Favorite in a Doomed World – Chapter 60

Author: rolypoly

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Jeong Mueum was an orphan.

To be precise, he was an orphan who carried the memory of having been thrown away.

It wasn’t that he had no memories of being sad because he was an orphan. There were no mom or dad who would come watch him at sports day, and during art class he could not draw the faces of his parents. Those small misfortunes slowly pressed down on Jeong Mueum.

Even so, what allowed him to endure were the existence of the ‘orphanage’ and ‘school.’ At the orphanage there was the director, and friends his age; at school there was a ‘group’ that accepted him.

But the Gates took all of that away from him. The struggling orphanage was eventually designated as a ‘Gate Danger and Protection Zone’ and had no choice but to close its doors. His friends scattered in all directions.

After he became Awakened, he could not even properly attend school. He finished compulsory education at the Education Center, but Mueum had nowhere to return to.

The boy had to become an adult. Faster than everyone else.

What was expected of the boy who had become a hero was far too much. He always had to put others first. Then they would smile at him. They would praise him.

Every time that happened, Mueum’s insides rotted away into blackness. Why? Others might ask why.

Even after becoming S-rank and having everything he wanted.

Even then, Mueum still had nowhere to return to. It felt like drifting alone in the vast sea. In a place where no one would rescue him, Mueum kept moving forward. Beyond a horizon with no end in sight. He thought that if he kept heading toward that end, there might be at least one island meant for him.

Even if it were just another place crawling with people fighting one another.

But today, for the first time, Mueum felt as though he was standing on solid ground.

– There’s nothing for you to be sorry about.

– When a kid messes something up, it’s the adults who finish it.

Not a place that locked him in, where fighting dogs tore into one another.

But a firm place he could return to at any time.

***

“Where do you want to go after today?”

“F*ck, you’re asking that now? Forget it, what else can I expect from a bastard who’s one foot in the grave.”

“Do you talk with a rag stuffed in your mouth?”

“Do you? ….And who’s this guy?”

Mueum tossed an unsorted can into the trash bin. The gathered students’ gazes turned in one direction. A sallow-faced boy with a deeply furrowed brow kicked the ground and asked,

“Hey. Who’re you?”

“Do you know him?”

“No, never seen him. First time.”

Mueum looked at Lee Suho, crouched among them. Of course, to the others it must have seemed like he was speaking to empty air.

“Hey, Lee Suho.”

Lee Suho turned around as if startled. The daytime Lee Suho didn’t seem to remember Mueum. It didn’t matter.

“You going to keep staying here?”

“Huh?”

“You said you had to go find your notebook. …That what you’re holding right now is a notebook, right?”

Mueum gestured with his chin toward it. It was a clean, almost new-looking green notebook—neater than the one he had seen at night.

“….What, is he a psycho?”

“That’s scary as shit. There’s nothing there, you lunatic.”

“Is this some new kind of bullying?”

One of the three finally moved first.

“Hey, hey. Let’s just go. Getting tangled up with someone like that is exhausting. We learned that with Lee Suho.”

“…Yeah. Fine, stay there muttering to yourself. Fuck, are we avoiding him because we’re scared? No, it’s ’cause he’s filthy.”

…Idiots. You’re not avoiding him because you’re scared—you’re avoiding him because he’s filthy, aren’t you.

Mueum, giving them a pathetic look, gazed back down. The boy was still crouched there. Mu-um reached out a hand to him.

“Come with me. Let’s go do homework. I’m Jeong Mueum. I’m… a first-year, like you.”

“…Uh, that.”

***

I’ll take him to the science lab. When we came down earlier, it looked empty.

Saying that, Mueum simply headed upstairs.

“What do we do now?”

Jin shrugged both shoulders. His shameless expression was a bonus.

“Our youngest is smart. Let’s leave it to him for now.”

“….”

Cha Jaeha leaned against the wall without a word. Arms crossed, he seemed to be contemplating something deeply. Hwashin had a feeling he knew what the protagonist wanted.

How could he not! He had read the book several times.

A fundamentally righteous protagonist.

Though he maintained composure inside dungeons, if there was one episode where that composure wavered the most—

‘Without a doubt, it’s this School Ghost Story.’

It was a dimension closest to the reality Cha Jae-ha lived in. It would have been easier for him to empathize. Perhaps the reason Cha Jae-ha chose revenge was because, to him, it was the most ideal solution.

‘I don’t think it was the best one.’

Even so, that didn’t mean—

“Shall we at least go do that, then?”

Hwashin looked between the two of them. Jin blinked blankly. “Do what?” his eyes asked.

Cha Jaeha seemed to grasp the meaning in that unusual look and pushed off the wall.

Hwashin smiled brightly.

“Revenge.”

***

Violence begets violence.

Therefore, one shouldn’t try to solve problems with violence.

“Here, ‘Boy’ means male—”

Bang—.

“Hello.”

Hwashin knew that much quite well. Yet though people know such maxims, there are times when they still resort to violence.

That is when they cannot hold back rising anger.

Besides, Hwashin was a mage who didn’t know how to endure! In this great archmage’s dictionary, there was no such word as restraint! Especially not in a situation like this.

With silver hair and an appearance that clearly violated school rules. The old teacher who was teaching English widened his eyes behind his glasses. It looked as if his eyeballs might pop out from his squinting eyes.

“Mm, this is the last class, though—”

“There they are.”

“They’re right there!”

Ah! Right. He smiled brightly.

The student who locked eyes with Hwa-shin saw that smile and thought,

‘He’s f*cking handsome.’

That was all. With a face like that, there was no way he would have forgotten it. If he’d hung around that hyung, school life would’ve been easy. But it was a face he had never seen before. Where had he come from? Did he fall from the sky or something? Of course not. How would a person fall from the sky?

“You three.”

The handsome senior he had just seen for the first time pointed at him. The trio blinked, looking back and forth at one another.

“Us?”

Since he couldn’t look easy, he crossed his legs once.

“Yeah, you. You know Lee Suho, right?”

In an instant, the atmosphere of the entire classroom turned cold. Several students’ eyes flicked toward an empty desk.

The excitement that had filled their expressions faded just as quickly. The trio’s faces twisted. One of them went completely pale.

“…Lee Suho? Of course we know him. He was in our class.”

“I see. Then, 「Would you follow me?」”

Huh. Why are our bodies suddenly—

“What, what is this!”

“I don’t know either.”

At the sight of the students being dragged out, the old man’s eyes widened again. The black-haired male student standing beside the silver-haired one bowed in apology this time.

“I’m sorry.”

“N-No. Just what is going on—”

“Thank you for your time~.”

After a brief commotion, it was over. Huhh. Just what in the world was that? The teacher stared at the classroom’s front door long after they left, mouth wide open. Creak. His jaw felt as if it might dislocate.

Even after leaving the classroom, they were being noisy in the hallway. So he locked their mouths. Hmm-hmm. Jin stood close to Hwashin, who was walking ahead humming a tune.

“…Is that your ability too, Hwashin-ssi? It works even on non-Awakened people? What’s the skill name? Rank? S-rank, obviously, right?”

“Hahaha, that’s a lot of questions.”

“You don’t need to answer.”

“Cha Jaeha-ssi, please step aside?”

“I don’t want to.”

Did these two have something happen between them in a past life? They didn’t agree on a single thing. No wonder the Overseas Cooperation Department had such a small role in the original work.

“Mmmph!! Mmfff!!”

The three students shuffled down the hall making muffled noises. Since they couldn’t stop walking and couldn’t speak, it was a natural result. The place they were finally able to talk was inside the sports storage shed in a corner of the field.

“W-What are you doing? Y-You’re seniors, right? Did we do something wrong?”

“Why did you drag us all the way here? If there’s something we need to apologize for… y-you could’ve just talked to us.”

Even so, it seemed they relied on each other since there were three of them. Seeing how the words flowed so smoothly even in this situation. Furthermore, right in front of Cha Jaeha’s furious face.

Before Hwashin could speak, Cha Jaeha stepped forward first.

“You. Do you know Lee Suho?”

“…No, I mean we know him—”

“Not as a classmate.”

“…”

A deep furrow formed between Cha Jaeha’s brows.

“Is that even a human face?”

“A goblin, maybe? A goblin.”

Jin and Hwashin whispered behind him. He ignored the ‘goblin’ comment.

“I’m asking whether you know Lee Suho personally.”

“…Well, if he’s in the same class, of course we know him personally… right?”

Their voices grew fainter. The three glanced at one another. At the way they seemed to be pushing responsibility around, Cha Jae-ha stepped closer, arms still crossed.

“I’ll ask again.”

“…Uh.”

“Is there any personal connection between you and Lee Suho’s death?”

The three students’ faces turned deathly pale. Hwashin watched quietly from behind.

In the original, Cha Jae-ha’s act of revenge was described like this:

「 It’s fortunate this is inside a dungeon. If this got out, he might be expelled for life, Jeong Mueum thought. And besides. Why was that person so angry instead of himself? It was a little difficult to understand.

‘…Not that I feel sorry for them, though.’ 」

Ah, and here Jin muttered under his breath,

“…..He’s an evil spirit, an evil spirit. Ooh, how scary.”

At that mutter, Hwashin smiled in satisfaction. It was a shame he hadn’t brought his phone. If he had, he could’ve recorded a video.

He framed Cha Jaeha between his hands like a picture frame. Looking at it this way almost made it feel like filming.

“Even so, he’s a really kind kid.”

At that, Jin let out a hollow laugh.

“You know that Yoo Hwashin-ssi is the only one who talks about Cha Jaeha-ssi like that, right?”

“Hahaha, I guess everyone else has their eyes attached to their feet.”

To be precise, in this situation, Cha Jaeha wasn’t actually hitting them. Perhaps because Mueum was doing something elsewhere, he seemed intent on finishing this mildly.

When Cha Jaeha struck the wall, a dent in the shape of his fist formed. The students, seeing that, snapped to attention in unison.

“Repeat after me.”

“…We, we will never!”

“Bully a classmate again!”

“Again.”

“Never again! Will we! Bully a classmate!”

It did seem like he was scaring them a looooot. Quite a looooot indeed. Let’s refrain from going into too much detail.

After all, someone watching might report that a hero was beating people.

‘I wonder if our Mueum is doing well.’

And Ha Cheongwon outside as well. He had his part to handle too.

“Are you done?”

Hwashin asked, looking at the kids collapsed on the floor, exhausted. Though looking at his angry face, it seemed his fury was still there.

Hwashin bent his knees and made eye contact with the three. One of them, seemingly letting his guard down at the eyes that were softer than Cha Jaeha’s, grabbed Hwashin’s hand.

“P-Please. Help us. We really reflect, we really do.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really. Truly.”

Violence begets violence.

Therefore, one should not try to reform people through violence.

Hwashin knew that maxim. But still. A saintly smile formed on his gentle face.

“So what?”

“Huh?”

“Whether you reflect or not, that’s none of my business.”

These guys aren’t the ones who bullied our Mueum. Because the reason Mueum suffered wasn’t this.

Even so, he couldn’t help being angry.

Hwashin lightly raised one finger.