WeTried Translations
Translator: Coughing Baby
Editor: Coughing Baby
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
Chapter 53: Confession
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“You orphaned bitch, if you don’t like it, why don’t we settle this in a fight?”
I’d finally dropped the bomb.
Every eye in the auditorium turned toward me.
They looked stunned, as if they couldn’t believe their ears. Everyone’s eyes had gone wide.
Ignoring them, I dryly finished the rest of my speech with, “Thank you,” then stepped down from the podium.
“......”
A dazed silence hung in the air.
I calmly returned to the Class E waiting area and sat down.
When I glanced over, the top student of Class B was glaring at me.
She’d looked dumbfounded while I was onstage, but it seemed she’d only grasped the situation a few seconds later.
“Hehe.”
I gave her a light wink and a wave.
Of course, the wink probably hadn’t come through because of my mask.
As the silence deepened, the professor acting as host hurriedly wrapped things up.
[Th-Then, that concludes the ceremony.]
[All students may now leave.]
The host was cleaning up after my little rampage.
I almost felt sorry for them, but I decided not to think about it.
I was viciousness itself right now.
Mean mode.
Mean Viktor mode.
When I was like this, I tended to bite people’s heads off.
‘They dragged a tired person here, then couldn’t even keep their students’ mouths in check.’
I’d been trying to let it slide, but that thought twisted the fuse inside me.
I’d forced myself out here when I should’ve been at one with my blankets.
If this was the treatment I got, of course my temper would flare.
‘Let her have a taste of it.’
It wasn’t as if I was angry or felt wronged.
The noise had just gotten on my nerves a little.
There was no way I’d be provoked by something so basic.
I was only being a little spiteful.
“Ahem.”
My mood had brightened a bit.
Once the ceremony ended, the students began filing out of the auditorium.
Every one of them gave me a glance as they passed.
“......”
“......Hm?”
One person in particular.
The top student of Class A had been staring in my direction for quite a while.
Deep-colored eyes blinked between strands of blue hair that had fallen over her face.
‘What? What’s her problem?’
Rin Glacia.
The girl who currently reigned as the overwhelming top student among the first years.
“......”
“......”
Had my speech really left that much of an impression on her?
She kept staring at me from a distance.
So I stared right back.
Our staring contest ended when Rin turned her back on me.
‘Yes, I won.’
I watched her blue hair recede, then quietly headed out of the auditorium myself.
As I crossed the long corridor, two voices reached my ears.
“Sir Viktor!”
“V-Viktor, sir...”
A blonde girl and a black-haired girl.
I smiled lightly as I greeted them.
“Miss Ranne. Miss Alice.”
Had they both been waiting for me?
The two hurried over to my side.
Come to think of it, this was the first time I’d seen either of them since leaving the infirmary.
I’d had a lot going on outside, and once I returned to the academy, I’d spent my time sprawled out in bed.
‘Though it’s only been a few days...’
I pushed aside that stray thought and greeted them.
“Did you both have a good break?”
“Mm! Nothing happened.”
“M-Me too...”
Ranne was as lively as ever, while Alice answered hesitantly.
We stopped for a brief chat.
Then a group of students pushed through the crowd toward us.
“Hey.”
The voice practically bubbled with hostility.
I turned my head and saw a shock of bright yellow hair.
Just as I’d seen from the podium, she had bronze skin and the fierce look of a delinquent.
“Fuck, what the hell are you?”
It was the top student of Class B.
Her name was Caitlin, or maybe Caitlin the Dentures, something like that.
The girl strode up to me, radiating a murderous aura.
I tilted my head at her imposing approach.
‘What is this? A public confession?’
It was a perfectly reasonable guess.
I looked over the girl’s profile from my memories.
Well, calling it a profile was a stretch. There was little in it beyond her appearance.
Her name was Caitlin Lettus, the top student of Class B, and her defining trait was that she was a delinquent girl.
“I asked what the hell you are, you bastard.”
The girl looked furious.
This was our first real meeting, so why was she so hostile toward me?
I put a hand to my chin as if considering it, then soon found the answer.
It seemed the provocation I’d thrown at her during my speech had bothered her.
‘Maybe I went a little too far.’
I opened my mouth to apologize.
“The top student of Class B... Miss Caitlin, was it?”
“Yeah. That’s me. Answer the question.”
“I’m sorry. What I said during my speech. I called you an orphaned bitch, didn’t I?”
“Ha, this bastard’s funny. What, are you shaking because you’re so scared...?”
“I overlooked the fact that you truly didn’t have one.”
“...What?”
“No, honestly. I... didn’t realize you really didn’t have one.”
“W-What are you...?”
“Parents, I mean. Most people have one of each... But I heard, Miss Caitlin, you’re missing one of yours. It’s supposed to be a set, but one part is gone. Would that make it a defective product...?”
Caitlin had probably come over to start a battle of wills with me.
If not that, she’d come to crush me outright.
Her rough, intimidating presence was fairly oppressive.
She’d probably been able to overwhelm other students with that attitude for a long time.
‘But.’
Caitlin had overlooked one thing.
Where I came from.
A beautiful land of splendid rivers and mountains, ringed by sea.
A place so full of dark undercurrents that battles of will were part of everyday life.
Children born there held a calling in their tiny hands.
‘We...’
We received early training from a very young age.
Years of war to protect our honor, fought in front of an idiot box thick with cigarette smoke.
Because that honor belonged not to us, but to our parents, we fought all the more desperately.
At times, we fought middle-aged men, boys and girls our own age, even younger children. We fought foreign invaders, Japanese raiders, northern tribes, Western devils, and barbarians, all with guns, swords, and magic pointed at one another.
We defended the front lines with our voices and our fingers.
That was the spirit and joy our land and our people had preserved.
That’s right.
Back then, we were all child soldiers.
Children clutching guns to protect our fathers and mothers.
‘And.’
Knowing how to protect something meant knowing how to attack.
You, who knew nothing of the wars fought underground inside twenty-four-inch frames.
We had killed things you wouldn’t dare imagine.
Our threshold for killing rose like the rings of a tree with the years of our lives, and eventually there was nothing left we couldn’t kill.
And this was one of the basics.
The first thing you killed when attacking someone.
‘Their parents.’
Our country’s name was the Republic of Korea.
We were children raised in the land of “your mom” insults.
“Anyway, if I’d known beforehand, I wouldn’t have committed defamation by stating the truth... I’m so sorry, I don’t know what I should do.”
“Y-You... Fuck, you bastard...!”
Clench.
Caitlin finally balled up her fist and rushed at me.
Her classmates stopped her.
“Caitlin, stop. The professors are watching.”
“Let go! Look at the way that bastard talks...!”
“You can do it next time. Officially.”
“Fuck...!”
“Hold it in. There’ve always been rumors that the top student of Class E isn’t right in the head.”
It took four Class B students clinging to her before she finally held back her fist.
Not that they’d subdued her. She seemed to have chosen to restrain herself.
The professors watching from a distance must have bothered her.
Caitlin swallowed her rage.
“Haa... A Class E worm like you.”
Sparks were flying through her bright yellow hair.
Her ability, Electric Shock, was leaking out without her meaning to.
Cuntzzzt, cuntzzzt.
“You... Just you wait.”
Caitlin shot me one murderous glare.
Then she led her classmates out of the auditorium in long strides.
‘Who told you to pick a fight with me?’
I shrugged.
After that, the auditorium ceremony came to a splendid conclusion.
* * *
A few more days passed, and the roughly week-long break from classes came to an end.
It was time for academy life to return to normal.
Nothing much had happened during that brief period.
‘Though Caitlin is a little concerning.’
Class B was a class I’d have to clash with someday anyway.
In the original story, they often acted like villains, so I ended up opposing them now and then.
It might not be a bad idea to put them in their place, like I’d done with Class C.
‘No need to seek them out first, though.’
The top student of Class B, Caitlin Lettus.
She had a truly awful personality.
Being humiliated like that and doing nothing about it wouldn’t suit her temperament.
‘At the earliest, two days. At the latest, within a week.’
She was bound to come.
I could educate Class B then.
Having settled my thoughts, I decided to focus on what I needed to do first.
‘Set that aside for now...’
I peered through the classroom doorway.
A few Class E students had already taken their seats.
I recalled the promise Javert had made me before.
-I’ll also compensate you for the tailing incident.
-For the rest of your academy life, if there’s anything you want, tell me one thing.
The wish she’d given me.
I intended to use it without hesitation.
When I entered the classroom, I saw the professor arranging materials on the podium.
Softly tied red hair, and green eyes cradled within it like stems among flower petals.
“Professor Javert.”
“...Ah. Student Viktor.”
Her eyes were as impassive as ever.
I approached her with a broad grin.
Once I was close enough, I extended my hands.
“...?”
“Professor.”
Slide.
I gently wrapped both of Javert’s hands in mine.
Professor Javert looked at me as though asking what I was doing all of a sudden.
I asked the woman whose defining feature was her monochrome air in a playful voice.
“You remember, don’t you? You said you’d grant me one request, whatever it was.”
“Of course. I couldn’t have forgotten a promise after only a few days.”
“Ahem, I’d like to make that request now.”
“Right now?”
Javert tilted her head.
I tilted mine in response.
“Is that not allowed?”
“No. There’s no reason it can’t be.”
Javert leaned in, ready to listen.
The Class E students who had been chatting among themselves were now looking our way too.
They seemed curious about what was happening.
“Hehe, my request is simple.”
I slowly moved my fingers.
My fingers interlaced with her rough hands.
A rose-like scent briefly settled over the bridge of my nose.
Her ever-impassive eyes wavered for a moment.
Without missing that moment, I looked directly at her and spoke.
“Professor Javert.”
“......”
“Will you go out with me?”
In the classroom, with every other Class E student watching, I’d said it publicly.
“...?”
Everyone froze for an instant.
The next moment, the classroom erupted.
Footnotes:
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