Ch.8379 – Rival

“Huh? What are you kids doing there?”

“Come sit with us.”

“Woaaah!”

After chatting with her friends and taking a quick bathroom break, Nurido returned.

“We’re missing one person?”

“I’ll bring someone. Hey, Yoon Si-hoo, come join us quickly. We’re doing a 4v4 team game of gonggi.”

“What? Stop pulling me, you’ll stretch my clothes!”

Si-hoo had been quietly sitting and reading a book.

Somehow, eight children ended up sitting in a circle to play gonggi.

Just as sparrows can’t pass a mill without stopping, children who saw something interesting were drawn to join our group as if hypnotized.

The team gonggi game began with Yuna and I on different teams.

The rules were simple: if one person failed, another teammate would take over at the same stage and continue.

We started the first round with a target of 30 years.

If I played seriously, I could go for hundreds or thousands of years, so I stopped at 5 years. But Yuna immediately succeeded for 9 consecutive years, tilting the game in her favor.

The final score was 31-26, with Yuna’s team winning.

“Yaaaay! We won!”

“That was too easy, NoName.”

“Let’s change the rules.”

“Should we go for 50 years?”

“No, from now on, the opposing team can freely change the weight of the stones.”

It wasn’t for nothing that I made these gonggi stones with condensed mana inside.

You could say I had a grand plan all along.

“These stones change weight depending on the mana concentration around them. If I inject a large amount of mana here—Yuna, try picking this up.”

“Whoa! This got super heavy!”

“The weight of the stones changes constantly.”

Simply increasing the years would make the game too loose.

Also, since it’s a team game, it takes quite a while for your turn to come around.

“Want to try ‘catching’ too?”

Yuna picked up five stones and tossed them into the air.

“Woah! What’s happening?”

When thrown with the same force, the lighter stones went much higher while the heavier ones fell quickly.

“This way, the opposing team can change the weight of each stone to interfere. Shall we start with 30 years again?”

This makes it a true team gonggi game where everyone can participate.

After all, what’s more fun than messing with someone who’s trying their best?

“Jeon Nuri, I thought you were going to the bathroom. What are you doing here?”

A sharp voice came from above me. Lee Ha-ru was standing over us with her arms crossed.

“This is super fun! Come join us.”

“What is this?”

Ha-ru crouched down, pointing at the unremarkable plastic pieces.

We’re at 4v4 so the numbers don’t match.

I had no choice but to stand up and get Ha-ru to join the game.

“NoName, where are you going?”

“We have an odd number now. I’ll sit this round out. Ha-ru will join our team instead.”

Yuna suddenly asked me to come closer and whispered in my ear.

“I don’t like her. Ha-ru always talks behind my back.”

“Maybe this is a chance to become friends?”

“…I’m not sure about that.”

Ha-ru seemed just as bewildered.

“I never said I would—”

“Here, sit next to Yuna.”

Somehow squeezed between Yuna and Nuri, Ha-ru made a sad face and asked to at least learn the rules.

“I don’t know how to play at all.”

“A fun game~ you learn~ while drinking~”

“Huh?”

“Oh right, we don’t have drinks. Just watch the others and follow along. It’s not that difficult.”

I tried to lighten the mood with a lame comment, but seeing everyone’s confused looks, I got embarrassed and spoke seriously to Ha-ru.

Taking care of kids is such hard work.

Today I was particularly craving a drink.

I should go to the bathroom.

* * *

Rivals can be seen as evenly matched competitors, but that’s assuming both parties see it that way.

While Si-hoo was just someone Yuna considered a rival, Yuna’s true rival was actually Ha-ru.

The eyes of the two girls burned with intensity as they looked at their mortal enemy.

They were both consumed by the thought that they absolutely must not lose to this person, no matter what.

However, Yuna had the advantage in this game since she was the first to learn gonggi from NoName.

“Yes! 3 years! Only 2 more to go?”

Cheers erupted from one side, gasps from the other.

“Hey, you can’t just make them all heavy! Seo Yu-na is catching them too easily.”

“I didn’t use any mana this time. Ha-ru, you must be bad at controlling your strength.”

“Hehe, I’m getting used to this now. We might finish first at this rate.”

Yuna was boasting confidently, but her words became meaningless when she immediately dropped a suddenly lightened stone at the next stage, giving up her turn.

“Go Ha-ru!”

“Watch carefully, Seo Yu-na. Your turn won’t come back.”

Ha-ru could say this because she had figured out how the stones became heavier.

The fact that weight changed according to mana concentration meant she could reverse-engineer and counter it.

It was already difficult to throw and catch the stones, but controlling mana simultaneously was truly challenging.

But to beat Seo Yu-na, this was a sacrifice she was willing to make. Ha-ru gritted her teeth and focused all her attention on the stones.

‘The yellow stone is heavy, while the blue one is too light.’

Ha-ru had developed a strategy to decrease the weight of the former by dispersing mana and increase the weight of the latter by concentrating it. Finally, she threw the stones.

At that moment, Yuna’s eyes flashed red.

She created a small mana storm that instantly made the light stones heavy and the heavy stones light.

“Ah…!”

Just as a bicycle with reversed steering is impossible for the human brain to ride, it was too much to adapt to suddenly inverted concepts in such a short time.

One stone bounced off Ha-ru’s fist and fell to the floor.

Taking over from the stunned Ha-ru, Si-hoo caught two stones without a single mistake, bringing the second team match to an end.

“Kyaaaa! Yoon Si-hoo, you’re amazing! I knew I could count on you!”

“Get off me, Seo Yu-na!”

“We won! We won! We won!”

Ha-ru, disgusted by the sight of that annoying outcast celebrating, stood up.

“Where are you going?”

“Bathroom.”

“Want to go together?”

“No, I can go alone. Nuri, you just went earlier.”

Ha-ru touched her cheeks. She left the classroom, planning to splash some water on her heated face.

Classes B through D were having different lessons, so the atmosphere was generally quiet.

Ha-ru walked down the hallway and entered the bathroom at the end.

“I’m never playing that childish game again.”

Her hand was red and swollen from the suddenly heavy stones.

She thought soaking it in cold water from the sink might help.

But the lights in the girls’ bathroom were already on when Ha-ru entered.

Since they were sensor-activated lights, it meant someone was already in the bathroom.

*Thud*

‘Who’s there?’

A door closing sound and rattling noise came from the last stall near the ventilation fan.

But Ha-ru remembered clearly that the last stall didn’t have a toilet.

The cleaning staff wouldn’t be here in the afternoon, so who could it be?

While washing her hands, Ha-ru’s body instinctively moved toward the back of the bathroom.

The door wasn’t locked.

“Is someone there?”

“…”

There was no answer. But Ha-ru could clearly hear someone’s presence.

Could it be a squirrel that came through the window? What if it’s a mouse?

After a brief deliberation, Ha-ru decided to carefully open the door.

*Creeak*

“Kyaaaaa! What the—NoName…?”

When did the child who was just playing gonggi come to the bathroom?

Thinking back, Ha-ru realized that NoName had disappeared at some point.

She must have come to the bathroom while taking a break from the game.

But NoName was in a ridiculous position, precariously standing on a small chair.

When the door opened wide, a sweet apple scent spread throughout the bathroom.

“What’s that smell…?”

“*Cough* Oh, it’s Ha-ru. You startled me.”

“What? Why is smoke coming from your mouth?”

Small wisps of smoke rose from NoName’s mouth as she coughed lightly.

The smoke swirled around before rising to the ceiling and being sucked out through the ventilation fan.

Ha-ru had heard from her high school sister about this.

Bad kids would sneak into bathrooms and smoke cigarettes in front of ventilation fans.

This was to prevent the smoke smell from sticking to their clothes.

But why would this transfer student be doing such a thing? Ha-ru was puzzled.

“Ha-ru, can you come here for a second?”

“No…? Why should I?”

“Since it’s just the two of us, I thought we could chat.”

“No, I’m going back to the classroom.”

Startled by her words, Ha-ru backed away, trying to leave the bathroom.

The desire she once had to become friends with NoName vanished in an instant.

NoName was unlike Yuna—small in height and build with nothing intimidating about her.

So Ha-ru couldn’t understand why she felt afraid.

It was just an instinctive movement to avoid getting involved with someone like that.

[Casting: Rotational Movement]

*Click*

Like a scene from a horror movie, the manual lock on the bathroom door rotated 90 degrees.

There was no way an 8-year-old child’s hand could reach that height.