WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Chen
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◈ Incarnation of the Malevolent Star ◈
Chapter 65: Part 1 - Whispers of the Dark Brother (65)
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#65.
The maximum period a teacher could serve at a single school was five years.
Even so, Eun-jeong had already worked at this remote school for six.
It was an exceptionally unusual case.
Most teachers assigned to rural schools deep in the mountains struggled to get out even a year sooner, but Eun-jeong had voluntarily applied for a transfer deferment, extending her own term of service.
Even the physical education teacher who had arrived at the same elementary school in the same year as Eun-jeong had transferred out at the end of last year.
That was the very teacher who had complained of frustration and unfairness because of a certain boy who hid his strength in every PE class.
Not just anyone could apply to defer a transfer.
So many teachers wanted to remain as long as possible at schools in desirable areas with good living conditions that transfer-deferment regulations came with all sorts of restrictions.
Still, it had not been difficult for Eun-jeong to apply.
The personnel committee that reviewed deferments was shocked and deeply moved to see a female teacher willing to remain at a remote school nobody wanted to go to.
「Good heavens! A true teacher like this actually exists! This is the first time I've seen someone apply to extend their term under Clause 8! And she's even a female teacher!」
Clause 8 of the provincial education office's personnel-management guidelines for transfer deferments applied to schools on islands and in remote mountain areas.
「Teachers serving at schools for which there is no competition, or teachers deemed necessary to continue serving for educational reasons, may apply for a transfer deferment.」
Schools for which there was no competition.
In other words, teachers were free to apply for deferment at schools in backwater villages where nobody wanted to apply.
Still, teachers who actually used the clause to defer their transfers were rare.
Normally, it was a rule the education authorities used when trying to hold on to teachers who wanted to leave remote schools, appealing to their sympathy.
Like this.
「Sob... Teachers. You know how it is. We don't have enough people. Please stay for just one more year. Build up more transfer points there, and next year we'll definitely send you to a top-tier school in a major city.」
It was even rarer for a female teacher to use that rule.
What was more, Eun-jeong's current school had been her very first posting after becoming a teacher.
New teachers could avoid assignments to remote schools under personnel regulations, but when she heard that the school was struggling to operate because it had no teacher to fill a vacancy, she volunteered without hesitation.
「What did the children do wrong? If I'm acceptable, please send me. I'll go.」
If Eun-jeong's case were compared to the military, it would be something like this.
「What?! Company Platoon Sergeant Kim Trump Kitten Jr., a U.S. citizen who volunteered to enlist, has voluntarily postponed his discharge because he wants to take part in the Hoguk Exercise this time too?! Why?! Is he crazy?!」
Ordinary high school girls in this country who had completed military service could easily understand the shock and how deeply moved the personnel committee felt.
Yet transfer deferments were handled one year at a time.
If Eun-jeong did not apply again, she had only one semester left at this rural school.
That unsettled the county and provincial assembly members whose constituencies included her school.
「I was happy to think my constituency's lifespan had been extended by even a little after so long... and now you're saying that effect might disappear after this year? Are you kidding me?」
Few things were as cruel as giving hope and then taking it away.
Constituencies only about a thousand people away from falling below the population threshold for consolidation desperately needed even an influx of a few dozen residents.
Under the pretext of visiting a successful educational site as members of local assembly education committees, local lawmakers had met Eun-jeong before even the member of the National Assembly had.
Once they learned about the prospect of her transfer, they began quietly competing with one another.
It was nothing more than a petty squabble among small fry.
If Eun-jeong moved schools through an internal transfer within the jurisdiction, the constituency whose representative smiled in triumph could easily change.
An internal transfer within the jurisdiction might be personnel rotation within the same region, but in this case, the “same region” meant the entire area under a single education office.
「This teacher, Lee Eun-jeong, is worth as much as dozens of public rental homes with 10,000-won monthly rent. She has great potential for further development too.
She's too valuable to hand over to someone else. If possible, I'd like her to come to my constituency...」
The hidden reason local assemblies in areas at high risk of extinction had recently worked so hard to create public rental homes with monthly rent of 10,000 won was to preserve their constituencies.
Lawmakers who needed to protect their own positions and number of seats were pouring money into them without holding back.
The lawmakers who wanted the female teacher to stay and those who wanted to bring her into their own constituencies kept sending aides and asking after her, their quiet rivalry leaving the teacher caught between them flustered.
The worst situation the local assembly members could imagine was Eun-jeong making an external transfer, to another province or metropolitan city entirely.
Uncomfortable with the kindness of lawmakers who clearly had their own motives and with the contest of wills between them, Eun-jeong had not given a definite answer about her transfer.
“Um... I'll think about it positively. There's still quite a bit of time left.”
It had only been an instinctive act of self-defense.
She had no desire at all to leave this place, where her most cherished student and the grave of the person she loved remained.
But the local assembly members, unaware of her true feelings, wanted to hear her answer as soon as possible.
Their patience had worn away long ago.
The local lawmakers finally sent messages to the district's member of the National Assembly, a sort of middle manager in their faction, urging the lawmaker to press for an answer.
When one looked beneath the surface, politicians too were only ordinary people.
They were simply ordinary people pursuing common desires with uncommon power...
#
Eun-jeong caught the underlying meaning in the district lawmaker's overture and let out a sigh without realizing it.
Then she answered in a calm voice.
“...Unless something unusual happens, I'm planning to stay. As you know, I have work I'm doing here.”
The lawmaker smiled upon hearing her answer.
“Ho ho. Continuing to work in such a remote, underdeveloped place can't be an easy decision. Your sense of responsibility is truly admirable.
If there's anything I can do to help, please don't hesitate to tell me.”
“No. There isn't really anything I need help with...”
“Perhaps not now. What I mean is that you should contact me if you need something later. You never know what may happen tomorrow, do you?”
“...That's true, but...”
“When I said ‘anything,’ I meant it literally. It doesn't have to be a work-related difficulty.
Of course, it would be best if you never had cause to seek help of that kind in the first place, but as I said, you never know what may happen.”
“...”
At the mention that it did not have to be a work-related difficulty, the female teacher unconsciously glanced sideways again.
Toward the police officers standing with miserable faces, people bound to her by an unpleasant past.
Naturally, Lieutenant Seo Mun-seok, trapped in his sense of persecution, interpreted even that look from the teacher as hostile.
‘Ah, there's no doubt about it. This means she plans to screw us over for good.’
He had instincts honed through his long years in the police organization.
Seo trusted those instincts.
They rarely failed him when he dealt with people inside his organization and other powerful figures.
His heart had already sunk when the bad-tempered female teacher said she would remain in this backwater village.
‘Responsibility, my ass. It makes no sense. Who in their right mind would want to stay in a place like this out of responsibility?
Isn't it obvious from the way female officers desperately avoid coming here?’
Seo Mun-seok himself desperately wanted to work at headquarters if he could.
Even if he were lucky enough to become a captain, only his salary and rank insignia would change. The work itself would remain exactly the same...
Every aspect of life would only become more inconvenient in this region as it aged day by day.
So, in his eyes, a female teacher who had come from a distant big city must have made an extraordinarily grim resolve to remain in this backwater village.
The inconvenience she would have to endure was not limited to everyday life.
Then what was driving that grim determination?
A grudge. He could think of no other reason besides conscience and resentment.
‘...I have to settle that grudge.’
Seo Mun-seok thought the female teacher's grudge was terribly unfair.
But he was someone who had seen, heard, and experienced countless injustices throughout his police career.
The weak should not dare question the wrongdoing of the strong.
Wasn't the privilege of the strong the ability to behave unfairly toward the weak whenever they pleased?
The female teacher was now strong enough to bring serious hardship upon a mere lieutenant with a single complaint to a member of the National Assembly.
In the dark future the lieutenant imagined, the member of the National Assembly roared.
「What? Something so awful happened? This won't do. Disciplinary proceedings, Push It Through!」
The moment the member of the National Assembly's powerful command spell struck the higher office like lightning, some insignificant lieutenant from the sticks would surely go flying with a “Waaaaah!”
‘Even a minor disciplinary measure would be dangerous...!’
The public tended to take a reprimand, the lowest level of disciplinary action, lightly.
Yet even a reprimand would derail his promotion to captain.
Officially, the promotion restriction following a reprimand was six months.
But with an enormous backlog of officers waiting for promotion to captain, there was no way it would end after only six months.
Even if he somehow received his belated promotion, for a very long time afterward... perhaps until the day he took off his uniform for good, he would be doomed to ride around in a patrol car, pitifully making night rounds.
He could not accept a future like that.
So he had to soothe the female teacher's feelings.
He had to receive her forgiveness.
And in the police organization, where military culture ran strong, there was an established way to soothe an upset superior.
‘There's nothing to do but keep showing sincerity until I'm forgiven!’
According to his own “common sense,” Lieutenant Seo Mun-seok decided to “show sincerity” toward the female teacher, Lee Eun-jeong.
Unfortunately, the common sense accepted within the regional police organization was far removed from the common sense of ordinary people.
Senior officers in a closed society generally possessed the ability to alter the common sense of their subordinates.
After having their common sense altered in that way, Seo and his colleagues became stalkers in police uniforms.
#
Getting from Onik's village to Seoul was truly difficult.
Even if he used only public transportation and timed his departure exactly to the bus schedule, the one-way trip would still take at least six hours.
In terms of accessibility alone, Onik's village was farther away than Osaka or Tokyo for people from Seoul.
So when his beloved grandfather said he needed to go to Seoul to attend an event held by the Vietnam War Veterans Association, Onik agonized over the decision.
‘Shouldn't I... go with him?’
Onik knew his grandfather was much healthier than other elderly people his age.
He clearly remembered Grandfather beating a fake young man of fifty-six without mercy.
He also knew that his grandfather's ability to use IT devices was well above average for his age.
Onik's grandfather was a modern elder who could skillfully operate the Lotteria kiosk, a cutting-edge IT device and symbol of modern scientific civilization, and use map, rail reservation, and lodging reservation applications on his smartphone.
Still, Onik worried about his grandfather.
These days, he felt more keenly with every passing day that this world was full of ordinary but dangerous things.
At another time, he would not have worried this much.
But because of Teacher Lee Eun-jeong's situation, Onik was especially on edge.
“If I'm beside him, we can avoid most accidents and dangerous people!”
Onik's grandfather, Jo Jeong-ho, had planned to leave his grandson behind.
Considering the time he would spend attending the event and talking with his old comrades afterward, a day trip would be too difficult. If he brought his grandson, Onik would have to miss school for two days.
Jo Jeong-ho belonged to a generation that considered perfect attendance extremely important.
Even as a modern elder, it was impossible for him to escape entirely from the values particular to his generation.
Those values were rooted in the life he had lived.
When Jo Jeong-ho had been a student, perfect attendance was not something anyone could achieve.
Children from families without much money had many days when they had no choice but to miss school.
Those were difficult days when they had to help with the family business, including farming, or earn money themselves.
That was why elderly people of his generation saw enabling their children to maintain perfect attendance as a great virtue in a guardian.
If Onik had been an ordinary child, and there had been no other adults willing to care for him if something happened, Jo would never have considered leaving him behind.
But Onik was an extraordinary child in every respect, and there were several adults Jo trusted to look after him.
That was why Jo Jeong-ho decided to travel alone to the distant city.
Still, when he saw his grandson fidgeting before him like a puppy that needed to poop, his heart softened.
So he decided to ask what his grandson wanted, just once.
“...If you really want to come, tell me. It wouldn't be bad to see Seoul in advance while you have the chance.”
Since he would be showing his grandson around Seoul anyway, he could also arrange for Onik to meet his old comrades.
His extraordinary grandson had been earning very good money lately.
If those earnings continued, Onik could probably afford even a newly built one-room apartment or an older two-room apartment in Gangnam, the district with the best school zones.
Even so, the old man still considered a boarding arrangement for his grandson his first choice.
It was not emotionally healthy for a minor to live alone in Seoul.
A trustworthy adult of good character needed to watch over him nearby.
Still, after thinking it over carefully, the old man did not feel that moving to Seoul with his grandson and living together in a one-room or two-room apartment would be the best choice.
He thought to himself.
‘What work could I possibly do in Seoul after farming all my life? I'd probably do odd jobs that even shriveled-up old men could manage. And if I couldn't even do that, I'd go around collecting scrap paper!’
In the end, if he moved to Seoul with Onik, he would have to rely on his grandson's income for most of their living expenses.
Even considering the additional income he could receive by entrusting his remaining farmland to someone he knew or to the farmland bank, that would not change.
‘That would be shameful for a guardian... And what authority could an adult living off a child who attends school possibly have to discipline that child?’
Jo Jeong-ho's era had been an era of household patriarchs who staked everything on supporting one family.
Educated elderly people of Jo Jeong-ho's generation were especially stubborn about things like this.
Few adults were as ugly and hopeless as those who lived on the money their underage children earned while demanding authority for themselves.
Adults like that should not exist in the world. (They were acceptable only in games.)
What was more, Jo Jeong-ho was the most senior elder of a clan association.
Having long stood at the center of the clan association, he possessed the straight, unbending pride of bamboo, the kind that would break before it bent.
Lastly, he wanted to remain a grandfather whom his grandson could respect forever.
It was a conviction he could never abandon, even if it killed him.
His worthless son, who had run away instead of being a father, had only made that conviction stronger.
His desire to save as much of the money he had gathered as possible came from the same place.
Jo Jeong-ho's era had also been an era of adults who considered it shameful to have nothing to give or leave to their children.
No matter how well his grandson earned, paying his university tuition and preparing a large sum for him were the duty and dignity of a father from the older generation.
For an elder of a clan with a long history, that duty weighed even more heavily.
In other words, the amount of money was not what mattered.
What mattered was that Jo himself would fulfill the role of a father for his grandson.
That way, his grandson would feel his father's absence a little less.
“Our Onik should receive at least one more of the things other children naturally receive from their parents. Having that experience or not can change a person...”
That was why boarding remained a high-priority option for the old man.
If he could find a suitable person among the comrades who had shown kind character on the battlefield, where human nature revealed itself most fiercely, that would be the most practical choice.
If he could not find someone among his comrades, the next best option would be to look within the clan association.
‘That way, they won't complain even if I visit often.’
Just as Onik planned to return to his hometown every weekend if he lived in Seoul, Jo Jeong-ho also planned to travel up to Seoul as often as possible if his grandson lived there.
He believed that was necessary for his grandson's education and emotional stability.
It would be quite tiring.
But the old man considered it trouble he naturally had to bear as the guardian of a child.
“So, what will you do?”
At his grandfather's question, Onik, who had been agonizing over the decision, shook his head with obvious reluctance.
“...Have a safe trip. I'll stay here.”
Onik gave up going to Seoul because he wanted to protect someone he worried about even more than his grandfather.
The frightening boy was deeply worried about his teacher.
Footnotes:
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