WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Hydrogen B
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
Chapter 19: The Status Window Opened on My First Day of School (3)
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* * *
“Senior, honestly, running into each other in places like this puts me in a bind, you know? The orphanage is good. We should meet somewhere like that. Why do you think I became a regular donor at your orphanage?”
“It’s urgent.”
“Tch... If it’s urgent enough for someone like you to come here, then it must be. And why did you beat up those guys again? Seriously. You could’ve just sent word.”
Grumbling, Dmitry led Ivan to a nearby café.
The second floor was crowded with citizens waiting for the entrance ceremony to end.
At least, that was how it looked.
The moment Dmitry led Ivan up the stairs, the noisy café fell silent.
“Everyone, get back to what you were doing. Act normal.”
At Dmitry’s casual wave, the agents filling the café returned to pretending to be ordinary citizens. Only a table in the center, carefully positioned outside the sight lines from both the windows and stairs, stood empty.
“Have a seat. Hah, this was such a prime spot, but I can’t use it anymore. Do you know how hard it is to make a safe house right in the middle of Pritchenkaya?”
“My apologies.”
“Forget it. So, what did you bring that has you acting like this?”
Dmitry smiled and held out his hand. Ivan took three small explosives from inside his coat.
The expression vanished from Dmitry’s face. The instant Ivan saw Dmitry’s hand smoothly slip into his sleeve, he spoke.
“I removed the fuzes.”
“You should’ve said that first! Damn it, you nearly gave me a heart attack!”
“If you were going to be this suspicious, you shouldn’t have hired me in the first place.”
“Why say something so hurtful? I have a job where I’m supposed to suspect even my own parents.”
Dmitry shrugged and examined the explosives. As he rummaged through them, a dark smile gradually spread across his face.
“Interesting. These were inside Saint Yansk University?”
“Yes. The work of a professional.”
“I can tell at a glance. Three of them. Judging by the amount of mana, they weren’t meant to blow up a building or assassinate someone important. This was a distraction, right?”
“Yes. There was likely a separate infiltration team.”
“We haven’t missed anyone on our side. It definitely wasn’t the Crown Prince’s faction. We’ve tagged so many of their people.”
Dmitry beamed as he clapped his hands.
Soon, an agent disguised as an ordinary middle-aged woman approached.
“Send these to the magic division at headquarters.”
“Yes, Lieutenant Colonel.”
“And the documents? Are they ready?”
“Yes.”
She took a thick stack of papers from her shopping basket. Dmitry accepted them, gave them a quick look, then pushed them toward Ivan.
“What you asked for, Senior. I really sweated getting this ready in such a hurry. If His Excellency weren’t so serious about supporting you, whew.”
“Thank you.”
“It’s nothing. Oh, His Excellency said he wanted to see you sometime. Do you have time?”
“Not for the foreseeable future.”
Ivan gathered the documents and stood.
As he tucked them under his arm and turned away, a voice called from behind him.
“Senior.”
“Yes.”
“Your eyes have gone a little wild. You know that?”
“...”
When Ivan turned around, Dmitry was looking up at him with a serious expression.
His eyes glimmered beneath the shadow of his hat, fixed squarely on Ivan.
“Calm down. This isn’t a battlefield.”
“...Right.”
“Well, it may be a little rich coming from someone who dragged a retired man in to do work, but relax your shoulders and take a look around once in a while. Neither Her Highness the Princess nor I expect you to be perfect.”
Without answering, Ivan gave a slight nod and walked away.
Dmitry snorted and tilted his head.
“That’s why people need to date. He stays cooped up without even seeing sunlight, and look how gloomy he’s become. Right?”
“Colonel Petrovich... Truly, ‘Little’ Ivan. His reputation was no exaggeration. Incredible.”
“I nearly wet myself the first time I saw him too. How can someone who spent four years sitting around doing nothing turn out like that? Anyway.”
Dmitry tapped the table and continued.
“Put someone on him. Don’t leave that senior alone.”
“Should we stop him if his actions cross the line?”
“What are you talking about? Do you want to die? Just report it. Watch him from very, very far away.”
How far could he possibly go?
Dmitry didn’t know why Ivan was angry, but he probably intended to personally search for the agents who had planted the explosives.
At most, he would scare a few students. Was there any need to provoke an already angry Ivan?
As Dmitry was thinking that,
Ivan was taking out an axe and a healing potion in the director’s office.
* * *
He could not tell anyone.
He could not tell them that this world might actually be nothing more than some kind of game, operated by an intricate system.
So he had to do it himself.
Ivan sincerely believed that as he spread Dmitry’s report across the table.
- Faculty and staff list.
- New student roster.
- Personal information for all undergraduate students.
A little over three hundred new students had enrolled that year. Saint Yansk University had a three-year program, so the total number of undergraduates was close to a thousand.
Then there were faculty and staff, including professors and teaching assistants, guards, administrative workers, and admissions officers.
If he also included the unfortunate undergraduates who had gone on to graduate school, along with students whose graduation had been delayed due to leaves of absence and other reasons,
The total came to 1,733.
“One more thing.”
He needed to look at the families of students who had the authority to attend the entrance ceremony.
Anyone with a plausible reason to set foot on campus that day could be included among the suspects.
That meant accounting for foreign dignitaries and every student’s family.
The total came to 2,429.
“I know you are among them.”
Ivan pressed down heavily on the piles of documents sorted by category.
“I do not expect it to be easy to find you.”
Arrogance was the sharpest dagger that killed agents.
“But it will not take long. I promise.”
Academy transmigrators could never live quiet school lives.
That was common sense.
They would stop attacks, monopolize fortuitous encounters, and acquire secret arts from somewhere.
Academy stories, by nature, followed the standard head-patting formula. They had no choice but to. Who would enjoy a story about someone attending school normally and graduating?
Therefore, if this bastard knew the original work,
Then he would surely imitate the protagonist’s path in it. Every transmigrator lived that way.
Even when Kim Seonwoo had first transmigrated, his first thoughts had been to monopolize fortuitous encounters and introduce modern inventions.
All transmigrators were therefore terribly selfish, full of variables, and capable of any unexpected behavior.
After the war that the NPCs had fought so desperately came to an end, they probably wanted to enroll in an academy and enjoy a pleasant game-transmigration story.
They would neither know nor understand the lives of all those people reduced to blocks of background-setting text.
It would simply be fun. Like enjoying a well-made theme park.
Ivan already understood that this was just venting, hatred with nowhere to go, perhaps even petty jealousy.
-What is that, Santa Claus?
It was only an offhand remark, but it made clear how that bastard viewed other people.
That one remark, spoken without even trying to hide the fact that he was a transmigrator, spoken by someone treating all this as entertainment, had stirred Ivan’s heart into a mess.
That one remark, as though he saw others as nothing more than objects.
-“Colonel! Did you see that? Wow, I was fucking amazing, right? I stopped all Seven Dragon Generals, no less.”
-“Do not speak.”
-“I think I could do it again if I had to. What a shame. I keep thinking that I should’ve turned the shield a little farther to the right back then.”
-“Cherenovika. Do not open your mouth.”
-“If I had, maybe I could’ve saved Sasha, that idiot. It really is a shame, Colonel. Really.”
-“We’re almost there. Almost there. Hold on a little longer. Just a little longer.”
-“I’ll let Sasha hit me once I get there. At least we won’t be lonely. We managed our connections well, whether it’s heaven or hell.”
-“Please. Be quiet. Your blood will cool faster. Cherenovika. Please.”
-“Live a long time, Colonel. Come as late as you can. If you come too early, I’ll mutiny.”
Their stories were not background lore.
Ivan was having a nightmare amid the scattered stacks of documents.
It was a memory from long ago.
-“Do not mourn those who went ahead.”
-“For I stand in the same ranks as them.”
Their stories were not background lore.
-“We survived in place of the finest men of our age.”
-“All of us did.”
Their history was not some scenario.
It could not be.
In his nightmare, Ivan slowly murmured.
As Kim Seonwoo’s voice comforted him, like a hand patting him on the back.
-Kimchi stew, tteokbokki, nachos dipped in cheese, spicy pork stir-fry, rice bowls topped with raw fish, Sokcho mulhoe, warm ramen.
-Hometown, home, Korea, Seoul, rooftop room, parents.
-Subway stations, convenience stores, night streets, hometown. I have to go back. Steel yourself, do not waver, look straight ahead.
-It is all right. We are not alone.
He listed the things that calmed him, without any order.
Until the night ended.
* * *
After the semester began, Aesidis found herself in quite a difficult situation.
No one wanted to eat with her.
At a school filled with nobles from all over the world, the title of royalty naturally could not be a reason for ostracism.
But seeing a royal’s bodyguard, a middle-aged mountain of muscle carrying an axe and glaring at everyone, was a great burden for students barely past twenty.
“Uncle, you’ve completely ruined my life!”
“That’s my fault? Isn’t the real problem all those people trying to flirt with my niece?”
“Then why are you stopping the girls too?”
“Your uncle has already heard those girls talking badly about you behind your back.”
“Aaaah... My college life... My life... Dad... I hate you...!”
The strongest music department student ever, now an outcast on her first day, ran off sobbing.
Footnotes:
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