WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Chen
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◈ Incarnation of the Malevolent Star ◈
Chapter 82: Part 1 - Whispers of the Dark Brother (82)
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#82.
There was probably no one in the world who would dislike being handed free money.
Unearned income was the dream of every worker in the world, was it not?
Im Seong-eung, the physical-education teacher who had majored in art, did not dislike the extra allowance he was receiving for nothing.
Still, he could not shake his anxiety.
What if this became a problem later?
‘As far as I know, the disciplinary action for improperly receiving a special-duty allowance is pretty severe...’
Under the Provincial Office of Education's policy, allowances for teachers supervising school sports teams were classified as special-duty allowances and overtime pay.
If it came to light that someone had received them improperly, the punishment would not end with recovering the full amount.
On top of that, all additional allowances would be suspended for an entire year.
‘My long-service allowance, long-service bonus, teaching allowance, position allowance, remote-area allowance, family allowance, overtime pay, research funds, vacation pay, performance bonus... every last bit of it would be gone...’
He could suffer enormous losses over a single allowance for supervising a sports team.
He had not wanted to become a supervising teacher in the first place, but could he not still end up being disciplined?
For example, if someone claimed that he had failed to do his job, or that he had kept quiet while benefiting from an administrative error.
The principal's piercing gaze also made the art-major-turned-PE-teacher uncomfortable.
So Im Seong-eung had not simply been sitting around doing nothing.
First, he cautiously asked the principal.
“Um... Principal. What exactly is an archery coach supposed to do?”
The principal replied, eyes narrowed to slits.
“How would I know? Shouldn't the person concerned find that out?”
That was why he had asked, to find out for himself...
Im Seong-eung felt wronged by the principal's gaze, which seemed to treat him as an allowance thief already.
But because he was timid by nature, he could not voice that grievance openly.
Unable to get an answer from the principal, he called the Provincial Office of Education.
“I'll do it because I was told to, but... what am I supposed to do? I really don't know.”
The staff member's answer was extremely brief.
「There's a manual on the Office of Education website.」
“What manual?”
「The physical-education work manual for school sports team supervisors. Read that and you'll know.」
So he read it.
‘...I still don't know.’
The well-organized manual ran to hundreds of pages, and it did contain many things he was supposed to do.
He had to prepare and manage a supervisor confirmation ledger, write opinion letters when student athletes under his care advanced to high school, hold mandatory monthly counseling sessions with every student athlete registered to the sports team, process tournament participation through NEIS, the Education Administration Information System, according to the schedule, and submit the appropriate application to the organization hosting the tournament...
All right. Fine, but...
‘...Don't I need an athlete to supervise before I can do any supervising work? What is the point of making a sports team and leaving it at that?
Do they mean I'm supposed to recruit athletes myself? Is that it? But... can I even do that?’
His worries did not end there.
‘Even if I can, what about equipment? Am I supposed to buy it with my allowance? The allowance is far too small for that.’
Of course not.
Korea's educational administration did not operate quite that carelessly.
That was only Im Seong-eung's timid imagination at work.
And while the allowance for supervising a sports team was a sweet deal from a teacher's perspective, it was nowhere near enough to buy serious athletic equipment.
Even if he saved it for a year, he would struggle to outfit one athlete.
‘Should I tell the student to prepare everything themselves? What if that causes a problem later? How does a school set aside a budget for this?
Isn't this the principal's responsibility, not mine? And where are we even supposed to train? They should tell me things like that. It isn't in the manual!’
That was right. Im Seong-eung had once again become a victim of K-administration.
The Local Extinction Response Task Force, which reported directly to the governor, had borrowed the governor's authority to make only one demand of the Provincial Office of Education's Sports and Health Division.
「Create an archery team at ○○ Middle School.」
That was all.
They had not explained why.
Not because they had deliberately withheld it. The thought simply had not occurred to them.
Strictly speaking, then, the Sports and Health Division was not the culprit but the first victim.
They did not know that the archery team being created at a certain middle school was for one student alone, Jo Onik.
「If we're told to do it, we do it. The governor specifically ordered it.」
An administrative system that operated mechanically according to rules and procedures produced a result no matter what.
And the gears turning in the middle neither asked about nor judged the intentions of the person with the authority to turn them.
As long as they turned as instructed, they would not be responsible if something went wrong, and they would be paid regardless of whether the outcome was good or bad...
But Im Seong-eung could not think that way.
In his view, he was not one of the gears in the middle. He seemed to be the final gear that produced the result.
And the final gear was liable to become the lizard's tail when trouble came.
In other words, it would be made to take responsibility and cut off.
He did not think he would truly be fired, but Im Seong-eung was afraid of suffering unfair and painful disadvantages.
So he made calls whenever he had time and submitted inquiries through the system as well.
He made a nuisance of the staff in the Sports and Health Division. He believed that if he kept bothering them, one day a proper answer would come back.
(Leaving behind evidence that he had diligently made inquiries would also help him avoid responsibility if something happened.)
At the same time, he tried to familiarize himself in advance with the features in NEIS for teachers supervising school sports teams.
So that he could begin the work immediately if the need arose.
“God, this stupid system. Where am I supposed to find the menu?”
The fourth-generation NEIS system, developed with astonishing sloppiness, was regarded by teachers as a horribly tangled electronic maze.
They called it an intelligent system, but no one could tell what was intelligent about it. Its nickname, the borderline-intelligent system, suited it perfectly.
It was a product of malice and incompetence worthy of K-administration's despair edition.
He also began studying archery little by little.
His knowledge was only superficial, but he thought that was better than knowing nothing at all.
‘At least it'll help when I have to write lesson plans or reports...’
Lastly, he needed a prospective athlete.
By sheer blind luck, Im Seong-eung hit upon the answer.
‘...Honestly, isn't Onik the only choice?’
The model student and most popular child at the middle school where he worked.
An invincible boy whose exploits seemed worthy of a title beyond Strongest in Town, perhaps Strongest in the Province or even Strongest in the Country.
An endlessly powered machine wearing the skin of a middle school student.
There was no other child capable of competing as an athlete besides this extraordinary one.
What else could anyone expect from a rural middle school with fewer than thirty students in the whole school?
‘Onik is a successful internet broadcaster, so he must have enough money. It wouldn't be difficult for him to get his own equipment.’
Jo Onik, who was nearing one million subscribers, was the pride of the school and the pride of the town.
He had been born and raised in the village across the way rather than in town, but people here considered it all their local area anyway.
It would be fair to say there was not a town resident who did not think of Onik as one of their own.
(The townspeople's affection for Onik also had something to do with the steadily rising profits from sales of local specialty products. Naturally, that was the hunter's work.)
He had heard that the town chief was already preparing banners to celebrate Jo Onik and Jo Cheol-sang reaching one million subscribers.
Im Seong-eung could guarantee that similar banners would soon hang at the middle school where he worked and the elementary school across the street.
Im Seong-eung also enjoyed watching Onik's broadcasts. It would not be wrong to call him a fan.
At first, he had watched out of curiosity after hearing that one of their students had become popular through internet broadcasting. Now, watching the broadcasts had become one of his daily routines.
So he already knew that Jo Onik was an astonishingly skilled archer.
He had not thought of Onik first for no reason when considering prospective athletes.
‘When I watched without knowing anything, I only had a vague sense that he was good at shooting... But once I studied archery a little, I understood right away how completely insane his skill level is.’
For an art major like him, archery had once been a sport he only watched briefly when the Olympics were on.
Even then, he knew none of the detailed rules.
Nine points meant nine points. Ten points meant ten points. That was all.
Now it was different. He understood how absurd it was to hang an Olympic archery target at the distance used for traditional Korean archery and hit nine points or higher every time.
It was too unbelievable to seem real, the sort of skill that only made sense in an old war tale or a founding myth.
‘Traditional Korean archery and Olympic archery are quite different fields, but...’
If a child who could shoot like that with a horn bow that had no sights could not shoot an Olympic recurve bow, Im Seong-eung would be surprised.
If Onik showed even a little interest, then at least the principal would not see him as an allowance thief.
As he thought about the mythical archery of his only prospective athlete, he again stumbled onto the answer by pure blind luck.
‘Wait. Could it be... did they suddenly decide to create an archery team because of Onik? So they can persuade him to enter some sort of competition.’
The more he considered it, the more plausible the theory seemed.
Having studied archery to some extent and read the school sports work manual, he knew that a student athlete needed an affiliated team and a supervising teacher in order to enter competitions.
If they had intended to create a team merely as a formality for an athlete who no longer needed teaching...
Then the outrage inflicted on him by K-administration's despair edition made sense.
But there was a hole in that theory.
...Jo Onik himself seemed to know nothing about it.
At present, the archery team under his charge existed only on paper.
The only people at the school who knew of its existence were those responsible for administrative work.
Naturally, since not a single instruction had come down telling them to do anything.
Logically, if the archery team's creation had been for Jo Onik alone...
‘Shouldn't they have at least given Onik some sort of hint, or tried to persuade him first?’
Then Onik should have approached him first and asked something.
‘But he hasn't asked.’
Im Seong-eung, who had been worrying alone, eventually thought of Lee Eun-jeong, the English teacher at the elementary school across the street.
The moment he remembered Eun-jeong, it felt as though a light had flickered on in his mind.
‘Right! There is Teacher Eun-jeong!’
Almost everyone in town knew that important people such as county council members and National Assembly members had come looking for English teacher Lee Eun-jeong.
Among the local council members who had visited her were people with the title of member of the county council's Education Committee.
And that Education Committee also had influence over the Provincial Office of Education.
If Eun-jeong had connections to such important people, she seemed capable of helping once she heard about his awkward situation.
‘It's not like I'm trying to ask for a favor regarding personnel matters. I just want to understand the situation.
Why did the people above suddenly appoint a complete novice like me as an archery coach? Why does this school need an archery team? That is all I need to know.’
Even if they worked at different schools, the teachers in town generally knew one another.
The elementary, middle, and high schools stood clustered together with only one road between them, and rural schools with so few students often held outside activities and events together.
It saved money through economies of scale, and helped them gather enough people when they were short-staffed.
They also interacted frequently for student management.
In rural schools, the bond between each student and their teachers was deeper than it was in urban schools.
That bond did not immediately end when a student graduated.
Though cases as close as Onik and Eun-jeong were rare.
Of course, from Eun-jeong's point of view, his request might be burdensome.
Not only because of the request itself, but because they had never had a reason to see each other outside official business.
Neither even had the other's contact information saved on their phone.
‘Still, she cares about Onik an incredible amount.’
If he said it seemed related to Onik, would she not look into it for him?
Once he had thought that far, he immediately went to see her.
What could be difficult about it? He only had to leave the middle school gate and cross one road to reach the elementary school where Eun-jeong worked.
But when the teacher who also handled physical education met Eun-jeong, her response differed from what he expected and left him flustered.
He had naturally considered that Eun-jeong might feel troubled. He had even prepared himself to be refused.
He had come to her thinking it would be good if she helped, but he had nothing to lose if she did not.
Yet the sad and dark emotions that passed over the kind teacher's face were far too deep and complicated to dismiss as simple reluctance.
Something felt very wrong...
#
The first emotion Eun-jeong felt upon hearing the middle school's PE teacher's request was depression.
It was almost a reflexive response to thinking of the student she cherished most.
It had little to do with the request itself.
Guilt followed her depression, and after guilt came sadness, doubt, and skepticism.
The emotions and thoughts that had come first tangled chaotically with those that followed.
And so, a dark swamp formed in her heart.
It was a deep mire that had held her mind captive for several days already.
She had tried hard not to show it, but there was a shadow she could not fully hide even before her most precious student.
Eun-jeong forced herself to pull herself together.
Then she managed a smile for the middle school PE teacher, who was watching her carefully.
“I will look into what you mentioned. I cannot promise it will work out, though.”
“Ah, yes. I am grateful for even that...”
“Is there anything else you need?”
“Pardon? Ah, no, there isn't. Um, thank you for helping me. I should be going, then...”
Leaving behind a timid farewell, Im Seong-eung quietly withdrew.
All while wondering, What was that? Did I do something wrong?
His modest hope that he might naturally get Eun-jeong's number this time, and perhaps build a personal friendship with Onik as a shared topic, crumbled away sadly like a sandcastle before the waves...
Footnotes:
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