episode_0043

043.

Sigh.

As I opened the rooftop door and entered, there was Yoo Seolhyun, with her bright blonde hair softly brushed to the side, glaring at me askew.

Judging by the slight raise of her eyebrows, she didn’t seem to be in a particularly good mood.

But I nonchalantly brushed it off as if it didn’t bother me at all.

“Oh, what’s this? You’re here first?”

“The cafeteria food today wasn’t that great.”

Today’s menu was pork cutlet, you see.

“You don’t like pork cutlet? It’s pretty good.”

“Whatever.”

Cutting me off casually, Yoo Seolhyun crossed her arms firmly and continued speaking with a hint of arrogance.

“So, why did you call me?”

Was she calling me to inquire about what happened in the morning?

Yoo Seolhyun seemed consistently in a bad mood.

Well, she did call me to inquire about it, partly.

“You know. What happened in the morning.”

“What, you were defending yourself earlier, but now you think I ordered the kids to do it?”

Yoo Seolhyun furrowed her brows a bit more, her lips pursed in discontent, but I just shrugged my shoulders and calmly replied in a cool voice.

“No.”

“Huh?”

Yoo Seolhyun blinked quietly.

“I told you in the morning. I don’t think you orchestrated it. I trust your words.”

“Oh, really?”

“You’re not the type to lie about something like that, and you’re not that kind of person in the first place.”

The Yoo Seolhyun I knew had a temper but still had her own boundaries, not to the extent of openly committing crimes like having kids throw rocks in the yard.

…At least until she turned into a villain.

“Besides, we made a promise.”

“To not bother Jin Soyeon in exchange for helping with dungeon conquests?”

“Yeah. Since you made a promise, I don’t think you’d do something like that to Soyeon.”

“Hmm.”

Yoo Seolhyun looked at my face as if surprised, then chuckled.

“I don’t know how to put it, but it’s surprising. You trust me even when you doubt Isiwoon, who can be considered a childhood friend.”

“Isiwoon?”

We weren’t as close as Soyeon and I, but Yoo Seolhyun and Isiwoon were on friendly terms, like childhood friends.

‘…Maybe that’s why you’re more suspicious of me?’

Isiwoon has a record, after all, a record.

But I didn’t say it out loud.

No need to stir up trouble.

“But you seem strangely confident in what you’re saying. Is it because of your abilities?”

“It’s not necessarily that.”

I don’t blindly believe in Yoo Seolhyun’s character setting alone.

Based on everything I’ve seen while spending time with her for the past few months, I believe in the personality and temperament of Yoo Seolhyun as a human being.

If I knew Yoo Seolhyun, she wouldn’t do such a thing.

Well, actually…

The fact that I already know the culprit is someone else was a bigger reason.

“Just because I’ve seen you for a while, I don’t know how much you can say that.”

It’s been quite a while, even if you count our past lives.

“Anyway, I called you because there’s something I need to ask you to do and something I need to hold you accountable for.”

“Accountable?”

“Yeah.”

I nodded firmly.

Yoo Seolhyun’s eyebrows twitched slightly.

It seemed like the word ‘accountable’ didn’t sit well with her.

“What do you mean by accountable?”

“You know about the incident where someone threw rocks at Soyeon’s house. I’m talking about that.”

“I said it wasn’t me, didn’t I?”

“Of course, it wasn’t something you did.”

I hesitated for a moment before speaking up suddenly.

“The possibility that it was done by one of the girls in your group is high.”

“Oh? Are you sure?”

“I’ll ask the opposite. You had a suspicion of who it might be, right?”

“Well? There are a few who like Lee Siwoon.”

“Don’t beat around the bush. Even if she had a crush on Siwoon, there aren’t many in our class who would do something as extreme as going to someone’s house in the middle of the night to throw rocks.”

“….”

There weren’t many girls in our class with such a strong personality to go to someone’s house in the middle of the night to throw rocks just because the guy they liked liked someone else.

And the girl with that kind of temperament was part of Yoo Seolhyun’s group.

“Kang Yoojung. The one who threw the rocks is probably Kang Yoojung.”

“….”

“You didn’t have any evidence that Kang Yoojung was the culprit, and there was no need to dig into the flaws within the group, so you were just pretending not to know, right?”

“….Hmm.”

Yoo Seolhyun shrugged her shoulders slightly without adding any excuses.

“So, what do you want from me?”

“Take responsibility in your own way.”

“How exactly?”

“Just question Kang Yoojung. Even if there’s no evidence, if you question her strongly, she’ll eventually confess.”

Upon hearing that, Yoo Seolhyun’s lips curled up slightly.

“Why me?”

She added casually.

“If you answer ‘…,’ that’s quite a shameless answer.”

Are you even conscious?

“If Yoojung really did something like that, I would be quite disappointed as a friend, but….”

She looked at me with a stretched-out tail of her words, seemingly curious about how I would react.

“Regardless of that, do I really need to take responsibility? It’s not something I asked her to do, and she did it on her own. Just because she’s associated with me…. Me?”

Despite being part of Yoo Seolhyun’s group or faction, Kang Yoojung was just one of Yoo Seolhyun’s many friends(?).

It’s about individuals.

She didn’t know if Yoo Seolhyun had to take responsibility just because Kang Yoojung did something wrong.

…Really, if she had nothing to do with it at all.

“You pretended not to know even though you knew, but honestly, I didn’t really think Yoojung was the culprit? It was a bit suspicious, but I didn’t want to unnecessarily doubt my friend.”

Hey, when did you start thinking of your group as friends?

“But don’t you think it’s a bit much for you to talk about responsibility?”

Yoo Seolhyun, who smiled slightly and ended with a light tone, was there.

From Yoo Seolhyun’s perspective, it didn’t matter whether she questioned Kang Yoojung or not, but she realized that she was curious about how I would respond.

That nasty personality doesn’t go away.

In any case, if you say something nice, she won’t listen.

“Of course, you should take responsibility.”

“Why?”

“Because you planted the seed.”

Yoo Seolhyun tilted her head for a moment.

“Me?”

“You secretly instigated rumors about Soyeon. The one who was most affected by that was Kang Yoojung.”

“Is it just a guess?”

“You promised not to harass Soyeon anymore.”

“Ah, so I was trying to make sure no more bad rumors spread because of me.”

“By suddenly stopping what you subtly instigated, Yoojung might have felt more rebellious, don’t you think?”

“That’s a bit of a vague thought.”

Well, there’s someone else who instigated Yoojung.

“Seolhyun. You have a lot to exchange with me in the future, right?”

There were many things to do with Yoo Seolhyun based on future information.

Like getting important information for conquering the Yeongdeung Mountain dungeon.

“The foundation of everything is trust, in my opinion. Because of what you did in the past, Soyeon suffered because of the deal you made not to bother her.”

“…Hmm.”

“But if you act like it doesn’t matter, it’s hard for me to trust you.”

“…”

Yoo Seolhyun fiddles with her sleeve for a moment before smiling lightly.

“Hehe. Okay, got it. Why are you so serious?”

“I wasn’t serious.”

“Well… I guess so.”

Yoo Seolhyun smiles subtly.

“You take good care of Jin Soyeon?”

“Of course. She’s my childhood friend.”

“And also your ex-girlfriend.”

Unnecessary details.

“Anyway, do we just need to get a confession from Kang Yujung? Then what, hand her over to the police?”

“No need for that, just make Soyeon apologize separately. The real culprit is someone else.”

“The real culprit?”

“Actually, it’s a bit ambiguous to call them the real culprit, but there’s someone else who manipulated Kang Yujung secretly. We need to catch that person.”

There was someone who used kids with negative feelings towards Soyeon in the game to harm her and gradually make them rely on him, like a creepy stalker.

It was a thought that a normal person would never have, wanting to torment and degrade someone they like to make them dependent on them.

“That’s interesting. So we just need to interrogate Yujung to find the real culprit?”

“No, Yujung probably won’t know.”

“Huh? Why?”

“That guy isn’t stupid. He was just subtly manipulated.”

Hatred is easily drawn to gravity.

Just a slight push from behind can make someone fall endlessly into the abyss, just like the true nature of the emotion of hatred.

“Yujung probably really hates Soyeon. Especially since you’ve been monitoring her to prevent any strange comments about Soyeon. He must have built up quite a bit of resentment. And he probably used that to keep provoking her.”

“Hmm.”

“But… well, it’s just speculation. Not certain. So I’m trying to gather evidence to be sure.”

“You asked me for a favor, is it related to that?”

“Yeah. Can you introduce me to a good private investigator?”

“…Okay. I don’t need to know what you’re going to do, I won’t pry.”

I don’t have any strange intentions.

I just want to secretly secure some items from his house.

“So, who do you think manipulated Yujung?”

“Probably Choi Changwon.”

“Choi Changwon? Him? Didn’t he help Jin Soyeon find the culprit in the morning?”

“Yeah, he did.”

Choi Changwon is ranked 34th among freshmen.

He may seem fine on the surface, but he’s a rotten guy inside.

Oh, of course, I’m aware that the game and reality can be different.

That’s why I plan to hire a private investigator to confirm that he’s the culprit.

In the game, we didn’t find the culprit this way, but whatever.

Let’s catch him quickly without dragging it out.

“By the way, Yoo Seolhyun doesn’t seem to doubt what I say.”

She probably thinks she has future foresight. It was good that I didn’t have to convince her one by one.

“If we can secure evidence that Changwon is the culprit, I’ll try to interrogate him with Ishiwoon.”

“Ishiwoon? Why him? Aren’t you enough on your own?”

He’s ranked 34th, right?

What if he goes wild?

I wanted to report to the police out of frustration, but I was afraid that I might end up being investigated because obtaining evidence illegally is risky.

Also, reporting to places like the academy or the police won’t lead to a heroic scene where Ishiun catches the culprit.

I’m preparing for an increase in intimacy between Ishiun and Soyeon.

“By the way, Jinhyuk, didn’t you mention earlier that Ishiun would help when you asked for help in the morning?”

“Oh, did I?”

“Why do you insist on involving Ishiun?”

“Um…”

I hesitated for a moment.

Should I be honest?

But eventually, as the work progressed, Yuseolhyun would figure out my intentions anyway.

It wouldn’t hurt to reveal it first before getting caught.

“Well, even though Yuseolhyun and Ishiun are in a relationship similar to an engagement, they don’t take each other seriously. So, it’s okay to mention it at this point, considering the future.”

Both of them are aware that it’s not a romantic relationship.

Isn’t Ishiun openly showing interest in Soyeon?

Yuseolhyun was only bothered by Soyeon because Ishiun, who was supposed to be engaged to her, fell for a commoner, not because she was his fiancée. Of course, it might not feel good in various ways if your fiancé starts dating someone else, even if it’s just a superficial relationship. So, it was necessary to mention it directly to Yuseolhyun at this point.

“Honestly, from your perspective, it might seem a bit understandable, but I just want to help Soyeon and Ishiun to get along better through this incident…”

I scratched my chin for a moment and cautiously spoke.

“…I want to help them get along better.”

“What?”

Yuseolhyun questioned as if she couldn’t understand.

Fortunately, she didn’t seem upset.

Her pure curiosity and interest were evident.

“Why are you doing this?”

Yuseolhyun tilted her head slightly and smirked.

She seemed puzzled about why I was doing such a thing.

Well, it’s understandable.

After all, he was my ex-boyfriend.

What should I say?

Just saying, “It doesn’t matter because it’s a fake relationship,” doesn’t seem right.

It’s not convincing and hard to believe.

Oh, right.

Should I say this?

This kind of excuse is subtly convincing, probably.

“Because I liked Soyeon a lot.”

I murmured slowly, pretending to be bitter.

“So when I saw Soyeon dating a good guy…”

I finished my sentence with a wry smile.

“…I wanted to quickly get rid of this foolish attachment.”

Suddenly, I heard a noise from the door.

‘Uh, huh?’

What was that?

Yuseolhyun didn’t seem to hear it.

Was it just my imagination?