Cha Woodan said he had gone to have a conversation with the club faction’s leader, the ponytail girl. He expressed his opinion that what the ponytail girl and her faction were proposing didn’t sound too bad to him, so let’s go together—of course he would follow my opinion, but listening to the story at least wouldn’t be a losing proposition.
Since it was none other than Cha Woodan saying so, I couldn’t not move. Like that, held in Cha Woodan’s arms, I arrived at the club room, and as soon as the door closed, what I faced was countless survivors lined up.
Of course, it wasn’t enough people to actually express as “countless.” However, counting the number of survivors who remained alive within Hanul High, they were relatively definitely a very large number.
I couldn’t tell if all of them belonged to clubs or if other survivors were mixed in. I just couldn’t adapt to the out-of-the-blue scene and only moved my lips, when they began to open their mouths in turn and started babbling their respective apologies.
They weren’t all together saying “sorry,” making formal apologies while saying “there were circumstances,” making excuses. The sight of each person laying out apologies with various expressions and sentences looked bizarrely strange at a glance.
In the first place, I had never wanted an apology from them, nor did I particularly have the mind to forgive them, so this was close to meaningless time-wasting. As soon as Cha Woodan put me down in a chair, I expressed my displeasure telling them to stop, and the ponytail girl sitting in the head seat quickly signaled with her eyes. With just that, the survivors standing in a row moved in perfect unison.
That sight was really… if they had just been wearing the white cloaks that Lee Gojun was wearing, they would have looked quite like a severely harsh pseudo-cult.
As if mocking my thoughts, there were several gazes staring at me with obsessive eyes while exiting the club room. Since the door was open, even though my vision was covered by Cha Jeoh’s hand, they were things I could feel clearly. I had seen people obsessively avoiding and running away from me, but this was the first time seeing people sending such gazes. As if… like second and third Lee Gojuns.
I suddenly recalled hearing that Lee Gojun and Lee Geonwoo were holed up in the auditorium all day doing strange things, but I deliberately erased it from my mind. To reaffirm, I didn’t want to be deeply involved with the Church of Hayoung that arose regardless of my opinion.
After all the survivors except the minimum number of people left, the door closed again, and my vision opened as well. Leaving me silently waiting for the talk to begin, the ponytail girl, who had been hesitating for a long while, brought up the story with determination.
What I heard like that was the out-of-the-blue statement that “the person who will become Hanul High’s new leader is no one but you, Kim Hayoung.”
“…Why wouldn’t there be people? There’s Lee Gojun.”
“Are you serious? You know full well how fanatically he follows you.”
There must not be an existence holding greater power above the leader. At least if such a thing happened within one group, the system would collapse, and division among themselves would be inevitable. It would be like an emperor who should have the world beneath his feet failing to fulfill his role and being swayed by a duke.
If one becomes the leader of a group, they must be an existence that can completely reign.
“Then Lee Geonwoo….”
“That younger brother isn’t a student of our school. He’s also still kind of young.”
“What does it matter that he’s not a Hanul High student? How long are you going to cling to the name of a school that’s already ruined?”
“Even if it doesn’t seem like it, a sense of belonging is surprisingly important. Also, the survivors who survived here are in a situation where it’s difficult to expect… the survival of their families or other friends.”
Since she was presenting sufficiently understandable answers rather than pushing with illogic, I had nothing to say. I, who had been moving my lips, slowly continued speaking.
“You said it has to be someone with outstanding power. What I awakened isn’t a combat-type ability.”
“So what if what you awakened isn’t a combat-type ability? You have two human weapons with you.”
“Human weap… And where do you see me having compassion?”
“I told you. We need someone who’s not completely devoid of compassion. You sufficiently meet that condition.”
The ponytail girl, who had been refuting each point, carefully read my mood. Since my slightly furrowed brow showed no signs of smoothing out, her tone became even more anxious.
“I’m not saying we’ll dump everything on you and leave it to you. We’ll handle most matters entirely, and you just need to give your opinion only when important incidents occur.”
“If you need someone to use as a puppet, look somewhere else.”
“If we needed someone to use as a puppet, we wouldn’t have asked you, Kim Hayoung. You’re not someone we can treat that way just because we want to.”
I stared at the ponytail girl and let out a quiet sigh.
“I don’t like getting involved in needless things. My goal is to survive safely and long on my own.”
Feeling two pairs of gazes sharply piercing into my back, I belatedly changed my words.
“…Now it’s not just me alone, but together with these guys, the three of us.”
“Right, you three together harmoniously. Wouldn’t it be great to stay at this school?”
The ponytail girl, thinking this was her chance, tried to subtly change the flow of the conversation. I didn’t know if she was trying to persuade me in a different way, or if she had wished from the start for me to remain at Hanul High itself.
“The hassle of moving luggage, moving food, moving drinking water. No matter how strong the twins are, to move all of that they’d have to move at least two or three times.”
“……”
“I know you haven’t decided yet where to make your base after leaving Hanul High.”
“That’s right. It’s hard to find a suitable place.”
Cha Woodan, who naturally interjected, added his words. When I looked up at him with a gaze tinged with faint absurdity, he just bloomed into a bright smile.
“And Kim Hayoung, if you want, we can control all the entrances and passages of the entire school building for you.”
“…Control all the entrances and passages of the entire building?”
“Yeah. I heard from Cha Woodan that because of the ability you awakened, you receive a penalty if you open your eyes in a space judged to be outdoors.”
When I turned my head again to stare at Cha Woodan, the arc at the corners of his lips deepened. It seemed he had appropriately hidden and packaged things about my ability and informed her under the name of penalty. Since the ponytail girl had faced me many times until now, she would have been suspicious about my behavior in various ways, so preempting like this seemed to be a better method.
“…So you’re saying you’ll control the main building itself of Hanul High?”
The ponytail girl nodded firmly.
“So you can walk around with your eyes open even in the corridors. We’re planning to properly plan later about periodic ventilation issues and movement through entrances.”
“……”
“There won’t be people arbitrarily criticizing or cursing you guys anymore either. Even if there are, they won’t be able to remain here intact.”
It was quite an alluring condition and proposal. However, I also couldn’t help but think “why bother?” It felt like excessively weak content for the twins, who had wanted to leave Hanul High more than anyone, to change their minds and instead try to persuade me.
‘Cha Woodan had gone to have a conversation with the ponytail girl before me.’
Then there was a high possibility that the ponytail girl had additionally presented another condition to Cha Woodan. Cha Jeoh, who hadn’t hidden his dissatisfied face while coming to the club room together but was belatedly staying quietly, must have changed his mind after hearing the condition the ponytail girl secretly offered.
From the current atmosphere, it didn’t seem like the ponytail girl, or the twins, would answer if I asked what that condition hidden only from me was. But I could be confident. The twins couldn’t have agreed to anything that would threaten me. Rather, there must have been a part that was beneficial enough to offset everything from before, so they must have accepted and changed their attitude.
I fidgeted aimlessly with my hand placed on the desk, then slowly opened my mouth.
“I’ll do it.”
“…Huh? You’ll do it? Really?”
The ponytail girl asked again in disbelief. When I remained silent in response, she stood up abruptly, striking the desk not too hard.
“Thank you. Thank you, Hayoung-ah!”
I stared at the ponytail girl like that, then got up. Cha Woodan, who naturally approached my side, lifted me up, and I leaned into his embrace familiarly.
“Hayoung-ah, really…!”
As expected, the ponytail girl and her faction seemed to have been more desperate for me not to leave and remain here than for me to take on the role of Hanul High’s leader or representative. That way the twins would remain here together, and in a situation where the number of survivors had already decreased, they would become excellent military strength.
It was a rather meaningless thought now that I had already decided everything.
When I closed my eyes, Cha Jeoh carefully wrapped a white blindfold over my eyes. It was a soft and smooth texture, completely different from the blindfold made improvisationally by just tearing a white shirt. It was something Lee Gojun had newly brought through that person in charge of making the Church of Hayoung’s cloaks, the survivor who had awakened an ability to handle cloth and thread.
I waited until Cha Jeoh painstakingly finished tying the knot, then fiddled with the blindfold. The texture wrapping around my fingers also had no irritation.
“Shall we go?”
I nodded at Cha Woodan’s asking voice. He, who had been standing still for a moment, moved his steps again as if he’d been waiting. Cha Jeoh also followed us without distancing himself from our side.
