WeTried Translations x Flame Comics
Translator/Editor: Hydrogen B
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Chapter 124: Side ep. Winter Is the Season for Kimjang (2)
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* * *
Ivan was usually thoughtful and warm-hearted, but when it came to self-awareness, he was a man of unmatched clarity.
He knew he was not a good teacher. He could never teach students the way Enrika did.
“Kill... me...!!”
“Don't say that. You won't die.”
“You monster...!! I’m... dropping this course...!!”
“Felix von Esbil, second son of Count Esbil of Tilles. You live at 21, District 3, Seongha Boulevard. Three maids, one butler, one valet, and two horses. You write home once a week, but the recipient is Irilda, a commoner girl in Esbil County. Is that right?”
“...Eek?!”
“There is no early withdrawal from my class. So focus.”
Ivan had personally experienced the advanced educational curriculum of the twenty-first century. And twenty-first-century Korea was a developed country that provided modern general education.
Enrika’s method was closer to an apprenticeship system. Knowledge was passed only to the worthy, from one teacher to one successor. She carefully selected her students, then earnestly poured every piece of knowledge she possessed into them.
General education was different. The quality of the students did not matter. Its purpose was to raise the average level of all students through a sufficient standard of education.
Korea operated a social welfare system called compulsory education. It meant providing equal educational opportunities to all students, regardless of what they wanted.
He had already issued more than enough warnings during orientation. To Ivan, it had been an unimaginably kind declaration of war. The Annihilation Unit did not issue declarations of war before carrying out an operation.
Therefore, every student who enrolled in his course had effectively signed an agreement accepting every risk that might arise during class. A fine attitude toward learning.
Ivan had decided to become the sort of teacher who provided educational opportunities to motivated students and those who wanted to learn. Since he had already memorized every student's personal details, it was not difficult.
Humans were imaginative creatures. They often mistook even a minor truth for a threat.
From Jean-Jacques Rousseau to Pestalozzi, the brilliant educational philosophy of the twenty-first century would illuminate this uncivilized premodern society.
“Aaaah!! My arm, my armmm...!!”
“Shh. Screaming does nothing for survival. Recall the [Human Anatomy and Mana] course and respond accordingly. Remember how to provide emergency treatment when the nerves in an arm are severed, then reconnect them.”
“Gaaah...!!”
“Your nerves are not severed. They are only paralyzed, and the pain you feel is no more than phantom pain. Focus. Slowly.”
Ivan’s teaching method had already proven its usefulness many times. Mostly while training recruits on the battlefield.
The spirit of compulsory education, raising performance to a uniform standard regardless of individual talent, was not all that different from military training if one looked at it another way.
At least in that field, he was better than Enrika. No, he was confident that no one in this world could match him. That was how well Ivan understood himself.
“Grrrk...”
“This one is broken. Patricia, please.”
“I really can’t bear to watch this.... I didn’t become the head of the Theology Department to see things like this.... If it weren’t for your request, Brother, I’d have no reason to do this! Do I look like a school nurse to you?!”
“You look like the Saintess.”
“...!!”
After replying briefly, Ivan looked around. Around fifty students had collapsed in poses as distinctive as their personalities.
It was fine. They had only just begun survival training. These students were definitely going to receive an excellent education. There were no F grades in his class.
Only one thing bothered him.
If Ivan’s teaching style had become somewhat, very slightly, harsher, it was because even Eugene’s Status Window had failed to identify the “demonfolk spy at the academy.”
‘Was I wrong?’
Ivan considered it for a moment, then dismissed the thought entirely. That could not be true.
Since the academy festival attack led by Pavel, Pritchenkaya’s domestic intelligence network had become denser than at any point in history. The leader of the rebels had become an ally, so every known weakness had been addressed.
According to the common sense of this world, no threat could remain in this city now, unless the Demon King or one of the Seven Dragon Generals appeared in person.
The thief from the Hero Party controlled the back alleys, the Counterintelligence Command held the domestic intelligence network in a tight grip, the Crown Prince faction had fallen, and every administrative department had sworn loyalty to the Princess.
Since the united front with the dwarves, even the Northern Army had become favorable toward the Princess. The rewards she had personally handed them were substantial.
In this situation, who could possibly send a spy into Pritchenkaya, and how? That was common sense for the people of this world.
Naturally, it was not modern common sense. There had to be a spy at the academy.
The students every potential enemy state would covet most, the children of the Hero Party, were gathered in one place despite their different majors.
There were three classes like this. They were elective liberal arts courses unrelated to the students’ majors, making infiltration even easier. Under such conditions, it would be stranger if there were no spies.
‘If they’re all classified as human, then one of the humans must be working with the demonfolk.’
And since the culprit could not be from Krasilov, that narrowed things down.
Ivan sighed as he looked over the foreign nobles among his students. There were easily more than twenty suspicious people. This would not be easy.
“Uncle!!”
As he was leaving after class, one foreign noble ran up to him. Soon, the others surrounded him as well.
Isabelle looked up at Ivan with blazing eyes, the same eyes the Hero had worn in the previous era, when the Hero formed a party and set out to defeat the Demon King.
The Hero Party members, their determined will burning fiercely, surrounded Ivan. He slowly looked them over.
“Professor.”
“Pardon...?”
“Use the proper form of address at school.”
Otherwise, it might send other students the wrong signal that he favored certain students. That violated the educational philosophy of general education.
Isabelle snorted at Ivan’s words.
“What does that matter between us!”
“Between us, huh.”
Like all professors, Ivan remembered the student to whom he had given an A+. Especially if that student had received an A+ and still written in the course evaluation that it was the worst class ever.
Ivan was warm-hearted, so he was not easily hurt by such things. He was simply rational. He replied gruffly, with perfect rationality.
“So, what is it?”
“What are you doing tonight?”
“Preparing for class.”
“Nothing else, right? You don’t have anything to prepare anyway. You’re just doing the same thing you did to us!”
Isabelle laughed and proudly lifted her chin.
“Come have dinner at our house tonight! All right?”
“I cannot.”
Ivan was a man of principle, so he did not extort money or gifts from students who approached him for grades. That violated the principles of general education....
“Even if we’re making kimchi fried rice?”
“....”
The Counterintelligence Command was a curious organization, and its principle was to resolve any question that arose.
Unable to hide the intense curiosity stirred by the words that had come from Isabelle’s mouth, Ivan nodded.
* * *
The smell.
“Enjoy your meal!”
“No, why does this look delicious?”
“What did you do? Is this cabbage really the same one from back then?”
“Wow. This is completely different food.”
It smelled familiar.
-Clink.
Ivan carefully lifted a spoon. It felt strange. Even holding utensils felt strange. Most of his meals consisted of roughly cooked porridge from a mess tin, swallowed straight from the container, or Nutrient Bars chewed in place of a meal.
At its core, eating was no more than replenishing necessary nutrients. It was not much different from basic weapon maintenance to preserve the body’s performance.
-Swish.
The bubbling stew, with large chunks of meat and potatoes, crumbled softly against the spoon. It had been simmered for a long time and prepared with care.
As Ivan smelled the steam rising from the stew in his bowl, his nose twitched without him realizing it.
It was not as though he did not know the taste of food. It was not as though he could not tell one flavor from another.
Taste preferences were ultimately a kind of nostalgic stimulus formed by one’s environment and the common human palate. And in this world, there was nothing that could stir his nostalgia.
Which meant...
-Slurp.
The hot, textured slide of stew down his throat. The tender, well-boiled brisket crumbling softly on the tip of his tongue. The vegetables, fried long enough for their sweetness to emerge.
The spicy seasoning layered between them, the lime mixed in just right to balance the acidity, and the final touch of sour cream.
It had been altered somewhat, but this was, to some extent...
“How is it?”
Isabelle watched him with sparkling eyes. Her hands were folded over her chest, proud but cautious, anxiety lurking in her gaze.
A brief silence followed. Ivan silently moved his tongue, swallowing every last trace of food in his mouth.
Kim Seonwoo lowered his head.
“It’s delicious.”
Snow fell beyond the window. Krasilov’s season was always winter. Unlike other countries, which had four seasons, Krasilov had only winter.
Ivan moved his spoon again and took a large mouthful of stew. Mechanically, without stopping, endlessly.
At last, clink, the tip of his spoon lightly scraped the bottom of the bowl.
“Would you like more? I made a lot.”
“If possible.”
“Anytime. As much as you want.”
Isabelle rose from her seat with a warm smile. There was pleasant energy in her steps as she hurried toward the kitchen.
Slow, gentle conversation spread across the table.
The Hero Party and the transmigrators. A combination that did not fit together at all. The “protagonists.”
The people who would lead a different story, the story of this generation.
The kids continued their meal, joking about trivial things, playfully complaining, and grinning at one another with familiarity.
Ivan quietly looked out the window among them.
‘This is unexpected.’
Kim Seonwoo whispered quietly. Ivan briefly agreed. It was unexpected.
Feeling nostalgia in this uncivilized world was not logical.
Still, sometimes, things that made no sense weren’t so bad.
“This is nice.”
In a rare soft voice, Ivan quietly murmured as he watched the first snowfall outside the window.
He had never expected a cloudy sky filled with falling snow to remind him of anything other than the Northern Front.
“Uncle just...?”
“Big Brother just said... it’s nice...?”
“He knew how to say something like that?!”
“Is this a fragment of the Hero’s talent...?”
As the table noisily regained its liveliness, Ivan looked down at the new bowl of stew placed before him.
Isabelle carefully slid it toward him and smiled brightly.
“Eat up!”
Ivan smiled back.
Side ep. Winter Is the Season for Kimjang.
Footnotes:
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