When everyone was waiting for the attendance to start,
“Hello.”
Kwon Jae-in, who was appointed as an honorary teacher, appeared with a short greeting.
The students were surprised, and they greeted her in a hurry.
Kwon Jae-in smiled and replied to each of their greetings.
“What brought you here, teacher? Mr. Ham Geun-hyeong is not here yet…..”
“I have something to give you guys.”
I could see some kids getting nervous at her words.
Their reaction was normal, considering the excessive gifts that Kwon Jae-in had given them in the past.
“I happened to have some extra ones. I’ll give these to you guys.
Kwon Jae-in took out nine beautifully packaged boxes from the shopping bag she was carrying. No matter how many times I looked, it didn’t seem like she was handing out the extra ones she happened to have by chance, but gifts she had prepared carefully.
“They all have the same thing inside. Just choose any of them.”
“Ah… If you don’t mind, may I ask what’s inside these boxes?”
“The hairband that I wore for the recent album cover.”
Is she talking about that ‘Kwon Jae-in hairband’?
I leaked the story that Kwon Lena and her friends failed to buy the hairband, so it seemed like she came here to give them as a present.
“….Are these really for us?”
“If you guys don’t like it, I will buy you guys something different.”
Didn’t she just say that she happened to have extra ones by chance?
There were a lot of strange things as well as the fact that she even bought those hairbands for the high school boys, including the 5,000 years old leader of the Tiger Clan. The students were confused, but instead of questioning, they tried to understand the situation and reminded themselves that Kwon Jae-in has always been like this.
“Ah.”
Kwon Jae-in stopped talking as if she belatedly realized that there was something wrong with the situation.
“I forgot to prepare one for Mr. Ham Geun-hyeong.”
….It seemed like Kwon Jae-in still didn’t realize what was wrong.
Even if she gives the lace hairband to Mr. Ham Geun-hyeong, he will only struggle thinking about what to do with it.
“Thank you. I love it….!”
“…..Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
Kwon Jae-in seemed happy with the words of appreciation from the students. She was especially happy to see Kwon Lena, who seemed to be the most delighted among the other kids in the class.
When she saw me, she seemed to be appreciating me for giving her advice. But from today, how students in class 0 perceive her would change from a ‘little odd person’ to a ‘very eccentric person’. I don’t know if she would be pleased with that change.
After she came and left like a storm,
“Should I give this to Lee Ho?”
“Where can I even use this for?”
“Won’t it be nice to use this when your hair grows longer?”
“Why are there only seniors and teachers with missing screws in this school?”
Unlike the male students, the female students were hyped.
“Oh, oh my god! This is not even a replica, it’s the same as the one that Kwon Jae-in wore!”
“We’re so lucky! We went around so many malls in Seoul last time but couldn’t buy it.
“Let’s try it on.”
“I will bring the comb!”
When they dragged a chair in front of the mirror and began to brush each other’s hair,
“….Should I try it?”
Min Green, who was in her hoodie, spoke hesitantly.
“Of course.”
“Green, come and sit here!”
Kwon Lena and Kim Yuri stopped what they were doing and made Min Green sit on the chair.
Receiving the full attention of her classmates, she carefully took off her hoodie.
Her hair pressed under the hoodie was noticeable, but as Kwon Lena and Kim Yuri diligently moved their hands with combs and hairpins, her hair became neat in a flash.
Her impression was quite different when she wore a hairband on her neatly combed hair that fell down to her collarbone.
“It looks good on you!”
“Although Green is a bit short, her face is also small…. So you really look good with a hair accessory.”
It really did fit well with her as they said.
Min Green seemed to be feeling a little awkward seeing herself reflected in the mirror, but she didn’t put on her hoodie back.
“You look good, Green.”
“Ah…..”
Song Dae-seok lowered his body and spoke as he made eye contact with Min Green.
It seemed like he did that to see her a little closer.
Hearing such a compliment right in front of her nose, Min Green was embarrassed, then she grabbed the hairband in Song Dae-seok’s hand and put it on his head.
“It looks good on you too.”
She did that to avoid embarrassment but to others, it was seen as an act of showing love.
“Thank you.”
Song Dae-seok responded softly even while wearing the clumsy hairband. There was only Min Green and himself in his world.
Mr. Ham Geun-hyeong froze when he saw Song Dae-seok wearing the hairband, but he soon understood when he saw Min Green wearing the same one.
“….Is he going to wear that thing throughout the whole day?”
“Just pretend like you don’t see it. It’s fun seeing him going around with that hilarious thing.”
As if they couldn’t hear Maeng Hyo-don and Hwang Jiho talking, Min Green and Song Dae-seok wore their hairbands throughout the whole day like a couple.
* * *
“…..I lost.”
Park Seung-hyun spoke as he removed the king.
“You seem to have improved from our last match. And it looks like your style changed a bit.”
“Is that so?”
“To say it positively, you seem to have gained composure, but to say it negatively, the number of you using suspicious methods has increased.”
It was just as he said.
The headaches and chills still didn’t go away, but I got used to the rush of chess games. As a result, I made fewer drastic moves to get things done quickly but rather made moves predicting the following consequences. After reviewing and exchanging opinions for a while, we got up.
“Let’s go for dinner.”
“Okay. For dinner, we have Dolpot Yukhoe Bibimbap for Korean food, and hamburger steak for Western food.”
Usually, we had a match in the Stalemate’s room, but today we used the Ji-Ik Hall recreation room.
We went straight to the Ji-Ik Hall dormitory cafeteria.
‘Yeom Jun-yeol and Cheon Dong-ha must be playing in the stalemate room now.’
This year was the year with the largest number of objection judgments among the exams in Eungwang High. And before the announcement of the final rankings for the final exams for the first semester of the second year, there was news that the famous player, Cheon Dong-ha, and the star player, Yeom Jun-yeol, were going to have a chess match. Because of this, there was an explosion of inquiries from students regarding the game.
Some even talked about renting a gym, but the two refused, so the number of spectators for the game was limited by receiving reservations. Still, it was decided that their match will be broadcast live through the school community website.
I also wanted to see their match but I had a match with Park Seung-hyun. So I was only going to check out the result.
“Is class 0 going on the treat with class 1 and 2? Where are you guys going?”
“Seongmodo.”
“My class and your class are going on the same date, but the location is different. It must have been difficult to make a group reservation for a player accommodation facility.”
Throughout the retreat, I won’t be seeing Park Seung-hyun who belongs to class 7.
In addition to the retreat, we talked about the dinner menu, the match we just had, and the expected rank of the final exam that will be changed due to the grade correction.
When I came back to the dorm, the first thing I did was to check the match result between Cheon Dong-ha and Yeom Jun-yeol.
The match time between Cheon Dong-ha and Yeom Jun-yeol was doubled the time that Park Seung-hyun and I spent for our match, although both of us started almost at the same time.
‘Did their match continue even when I was having dinner? The result is…. Cheon Dong-ha won.’
They fought passionately in a situation where the match wasn’t going easy and there were only three or four black and white pieces left on the chessboard. By a narrow margin, Cheon Dong-ha succeeded in calling a checkmate.
‘It was a great match. I wouldn’t have been surprised no matter who won.’
While I was admiring their match,
Ding dong.
There was a message alarm from my phone.
The sender was Hwang Jiho.
[Hwang Jiho] You’re in the dorm, right? Come to my mansion now.
Now?
When I looked at the clock, it was slightly over 8:00 PM.
It wasn’t too late, but it wasn’t a good time to go out.
When I was about to send a reply telling him to contact me later if it’s not an urgent matter,
[Hwang Jiho] Elixir for the divine animal has arrived.
[Me] I’m going.
Without saying anything further, I got ready to go out.
* * *
As soon as I opened the door of Hwang Jiho’s mansion, a power wave was poured onto me.
“Hayap!”
“Yap!”
The power wave simply circulated me for a while and scattered.
The three siblings, who looked at the remnants of the power wave, looked sad.
“We failed…..”
“But we prepared so hard!”
I couldn’t understand what they’ve prepared for.
“We planned to give a surprise blessing to Eui-shin oppa.”
“I thought it will work.”
“To-yeon told me that Eui-shin hyung rejected Mr. Hwang Ho’s blessing. So I thought that you would reject our blessing too if we were to ask beforehand….”
I was thankful. But, can’t the juniors give a blessing in the first place?
And it was also impossible to give the blessing without the permission of the one receiving it.
There were several restrictions on the blessing that higher beings and the Black Tortoise Clan could grant.
‘Blessing is not about power or force, but about planting and engraving your own ‘presence’. No matter how strong the power one has, it would be impossible without a ‘presence’ to be recognized as a god and the Black Tortoise Clan.’
Hwang Jiho, who was looking at the three siblings from the back, was pressing his forehead.
“….That’s not how you give the blessing. And you guys are juniors, you can’t give any blessings.”
“We might become the first juniors to succeed in giving the blessing!
“We decided to give a little blessing secretly since Mr. Hwang Ho might stop us.”
These juniors seem not to know the meaning of ‘little’ and ‘secretly’.
But I didn’t understand why they suddenly did this to me.
No, come to think of it again, I think I knew where this idea came from.
“Was the idea to give a ‘little blessing secretly’ from the mountain spirit?”
“Ah, how did you know?”
Hwirik!
The mountain spirit, floating above the living room and watching the front door, began to spin happily.
But soon, he stopped moving after getting caught by Baek Ho-kun’s gaze and Hwang Jiho’s sight skill.
“I think the mental training wasn’t enough.”
“Baek Ho, do it perfectly next time.”
Hearing that, the mountain spirit began to tremble in fear. In the meantime, I was focused on something else.
I couldn’t see Olmu.
“Where’s Olmu?”
Euho’s juniors acted as if they didn’t hear my question while Hwang Jiho was getting ready to laugh.
Before I could ask again, Baek Ho-kun responded.
“He’s hiding in his house.”
“Why?”
“He might come out if you go see him.”
Without knowing what the reason was, I went to where Olmu was.
I could see a whitish cotton ball hiding in the corner of the living room.
“Olmu?”
Bark!
As soon as I called him, Olmu came out in a hurry and jumped into my arms.
“What’s wrong? Did something happen?”
Kknng….
When I saw Hwang Jiho as I moved to the drawing-room, I could feel Olmu stiffen.
“Are you the one who made Olmu like this?”
“Hahaha!”
Instead of saying anything, Hwang Jiho burst out into laughter.
‘That’s suspicious.’
Soon, I saw a trunk on the table in the drawing-room. Inside the trunk, there were bags of weird-looking liquids that I’d never seen before.
“Here, Jo Eui-shin. These are the elixirs for the divine animal that you’ve asked for!”
This many?!
Hwang Jiho looked a little different.
“These are good for Olmu, right?”
“Of course. When I mentioned the divine animal, the leader of the Deer Clan prepared himself. They struggled a bit because the divine animal’s body and power are different from that of humans and the Black Tortoise Clan.
“How much did it cost? I will pay.”
“No need. This is an elixir that the benefactor of the Tiger Clan asked to make for the divine animal of the Tiger Clan. This is something I have to pay as the leader.”
This time, Hwang Jiho looked very different.
But he seemed like he was about to burst into laughter.
…Bark? Bark Bark!
Olmu was looking up at me with eyes filled with feelings of betrayal and shock.
It was my first time seeing Olmu looking at me like that so I was worried.
“Um? What’s wrong, Olmu?”
Olmu escaped from my arms and jumped to the floor.
He never got down first until I put him down.
Olmu was gone, leaving me in great confusion.
When I was lost in confusion seeing Olmu leaving,
“Hahahaha!”
Hwang Jiho started laughing.
Then, I heard a voice behind his laugh.
“Divine animals are very sensitive to smell and taste.
Hearing Baek Ho-kun, I felt as if I was hit by a thunderbolt.
I didn’t consider the terrible taste of the elixir that Olmu had to endure…!
Why didn’t I consider that when myself has experienced that terrible taste before?
In addition to lamenting over my foolishness, I was angry at Hwang Jiho for not giving me a word of advice.
“….All of you are here.”
When Hwang Jiho continued to laugh while I froze in mental breakdown, Jeok Ho appeared.
“Hahahaha! Great timing! Do you know what Jo Eui-shin did….. What’s wrong, Jeok Ho.”
Hwang Jiho’s voice changed.
“Did you get hurt? You don’t look okay.”
Hearing that, I also looked at Jeok Ho carefully.
As Hwang Jiho said, Jeok Ho’s face looked worse than when his body was pierced by a prong.
“I identified their target.”
“First-grade students in Eungwang High?”
“There’s more.”
The darkness had more targets other than the sacrifices.
Jeok Ho’s voice trembled as he was reporting.
