Chapter 19 : Admission Evaluation (3)

“Eeeeeek…”

“Tsubaki-nim, no, Tsubaki-ssi, I caught it, so stop making such a fuss.”

“Um, Tsubaki-ssi? Can we talk for a second?”

“Y-yes? T-talk?”

Even though Sunhee’s hammer had killed the Small-Horned Rabbit, Fuyuno Tsubaki was still cowering and trembling, which turned the seed of doubt in the two girls’ hearts into certainty.

Their minds had already reached the stage of conviction, so all that remained was confirmation.

The two, who had changed their honorific from -nim to -ssi without her noticing, exchanged glances and nodded.

Sukhee, who wielded the hammer, asked Fuyuno Tsubaki, who was still shuddering from the lingering fear.

“Um, Tsubaki-ssi. Don’t misunderstand me, okay? I’m just asking because I’m really curious. Tsubaki-ssi is from the Fuyuno family, so why are you so weak?”

The Small-Horned Rabbit was such a weak monster that it could practically be considered bonus points, yet she couldn’t even muster the courage to fight it and just ran away. 

The two couldn’t understand Fuyuno Tsubaki’s actions logically.

Seeing that she was strangely weak, not befitting the name of Fuyuno, they were convinced that something unusual was going on with her. 

“W-well, that’s…”

A voice filled with conviction contained the power to intimidate the other party.

If that party was as fragile as Fuyuno Tsubaki, the effect was amplified even further, so she had no choice but to tremble and confess the truth to their scolding-like questions.

Being scolded by the two was harder to endure than breaking the mood.

“T-the truth is… I have so little talent that I was abandoned by the family for fear of tarnishing the Fuyuno name. 

But thanks to being born from the bloodline of the former head of the family… I wasn’t stripped of my surname….. 

B-but you won’t be able to get what you want from me… I-I’m sorry.”

Fuyuno Tsubaki was sweating profusely and even bent over 90 degrees to apologize, which left the two speechless for a moment.

Not because their hearts were touched by the sincerity in her apology, but simply because it was so damn absurd.

They were at peak happiness, thinking they could leech off a member of the Fuyuno family, but it turned out she was a kite with a broken string, offering no nourishment at all.

They had been beating the drum and playing the flute all by themselves, getting ahead of themselves and drinking kimchi soup by the bucketful, but anyway, feeling like they had been deceived, the two sighed deeply and began to show their original swaggering attitude again.

“Wait, now that I think about it, I saw an article about it once. That there was a woman who was practically abandoned by the Fuyuno family.”

Then suddenly, the memory that Sunhee had forgotten came to mind at Fuyuno Tsubaki’s words that she had been abandoned.

“The real reason wasn’t because of your pathetic talent, was it? Um, uh, oh, that’s right! You devoured your mother at birth…”

“Ugh…!”

“Huh? What’s with that face? Doesn’t it look like a face someone who’s sorry would make?”

The moment the word “mother” came out of her mouth, Sunhee strode towards Fuyuno Tsubaki, who had suddenly raised her back and frowned.

Now that she knew that she was weaker than a Small-Horned Rabbit and a husk with no backing, Sunhee had no reason to hide her true nature.

“Why are you glaring like that? It’s not like I said anything wrong. You are a traitor to the Fuyuno family, who devoured her own mother at birth.” 

Sunhee annoyingly poked Fuyuno Tsubaki’s collarbone with her fingers and recited the contents of the comments on the Fuyuno family article she had read in the past.

“T-that’s…”

Fuyuno Tsubaki’s nose tingled with a sudden change in attitude and mother-shaming that made her doubt her ears.

She had thought that she had become numb enough to all the contempt and oppression she had received from the Fuyuno family until now.

But this kind of sudden, unexpected mother-shaming was too sharp for even her numbed senses.

“Anyway, now that we know we can’t get any crumbs from the Fuyuno family, you’ll have to repay this favor yourself, right? We’re still the saviors who saved your life, aren’t we? Tsubaki.”

Sunhee said with a bitter smile, casting a shadow over her face.

The Rough-Shelled Turtle they had caught was just tough and terribly slow, so there was no danger if they just ran away, so the expression “savior” was wrong.

Besides, they didn’t even know that Fuyuno Tsubaki was there when they caught the Rough-Shelled Turtle, so it wasn’t an intentional rescue.

They just caught the monster, and then Fuyuno Tsubaki, who was nearby, appeared and thanked them. 

Her relationship with the two was nothing more and nothing less than that.

“Aren’t you going to answer? Am I wrong?”

But that fact wasn’t important to Sunhee.

She already thought of herself as Fuyuno Tsubaki’s greatest benefactor in her life, and even thought that she had been backstabbed by Fuyuno Tsubaki for hiding the fact that she had been abandoned by the Fuyuno family.

She was truly a shameless person who justified all her actions and thought that all the blame lay with the other party. That was the superhuman Sunhee.

“U-uh… Y-yes…”

And Fuyuno Tsubaki was too weak, mentally and physically, to stand up to such a shameless person, so she had no choice but to lower her head and submit even in front of the bitch who had brought up her mother.

“Right? Then let’s work hard to repay our kindness from now on. 

You’re a disgrace to the Fuyuno family who’s good for nothing, but you’re still a pretty good toy to play with during our boring academy life. 

Right, Jinsuk?”

“Yeah, I think so too. The headmaster is Go Yeoryeong, so we might get burned if we mess with ordinary people, but we don’t have to worry about that with this bitch, right? 

Who would worry about the young lady of the Fuyuno family?”

The two smiled maliciously as they looked at Fuyuno Tsubaki, the toy that had luckily rolled into their lives.

‘Why, why did it turn out like this? I just said thank you…’

She had barely escaped the terrible Fuyuno family and come to an academy in another country, but as soon as she entered, she became a toy for bullies.

From the moment she was born, she was constantly oppressed, and Fuyuno Tsubaki could only be dazed because there was nothing she could do.

‘Yeah, my life is always like this… But it’ll be easier to endure being bullied by those two than living in the family and being treated like a traitor who killed the head of the family every day…’

She had become accustomed to resignation and giving up, so even though she was in a truly unfair situation, she didn’t even think about resisting and just accepted her situation.

“Well, then, let’s test the loyalty of our new toy first. First of all, I didn’t like that look in your eyes earlier. So as a light punishment for that…”

Sunhee, who was born into a prestigious family and had spent her school days in ordinary educational facilities, had a lot of experience doing this kind of thing to commoners, so she naturally opened her mouth to use Fuyuno Tsubaki.

But before Sunhee’s light punishment could be specified, another sound came out first and interrupted her.

Crack-! Crackle! Crackle Crackle Crackle!

“Uh, uh? Why is the sky like that…?”

“What… is that?”

There was no one in this world who would get angry at something for interrupting them while the sky was cracking.

The cracks, which at first looked like fine lines, gradually widened and increased in size, giving off a sense of oppression that would make even a superhuman’s hair turn white, which wasn’t strange.

Besides, modern superhumans had been taught very well since childhood what cracks were and what kind of consequences they could bring to this world.

So it was inevitable that their bodies would stiffen like prey that had met its natural enemy.

“A c-crack, is that really? I-isn’t that too much to come out in the entrance exam?”

“I heard that the atmosphere of Daptcheon has changed since the headmaster changed… B-but changing this much is crossing the line…!”

Ordinary humans lose their sense of reality and cannot make proper judgments when a disaster that they cannot dare to cope with occurs right in front of them.

Sunhee and Jinsuk were superhumans, but they were ordinary humans, and so the two were just spouting nonsense without even thinking about running away.

Even though the crack that had poured out the natural enemy of the past human race was opening right in front of them.

“W-we have to run! That’s not an entrance exam or anything!”

It was thanks to Fuyuno Tsubaki, who was the only one who was sane in this place, that the two were able to come to their senses.

She sensed a very ominous mana flowing from the crack.

A heavy, ominous, and terrifying mana that humans could never imitate, a mana that only the natural enemies of humans possessed.

“Get a hold of yourselves! We’re all going to die if we stay here!”

Fuyuno Tsubaki had lived her whole life receiving murderous intent mixed with anger and resentment, so she had become able to smell death.

The mana flowing from the crack was full of that smell of death, and the moment she felt that, she spoke of fleeing.

“Huh?! That’s right! Run! We have to run! I’m not going to fight something like that, whether it’s an entrance exam or not!”

“Y-yeah, Sunhee! Let’s go quickly! Knowing your place is important!”

The two, who had come to their senses at Fuyuno Tsubaki’s courageous cry, quickly turned their backs on the crack.

‘Okay, good. I have to run away quickly too…’

Fuyuno Tsubaki was too weak.

She was someone who couldn’t just stand by and watch someone die, no matter who they were.

That’s why she made the two come to their senses, and only after the two turned around could she run after them.

“Ugh?! Why are you following us!”

Bang!

“Huh?”

But suddenly, Sunhee turned back and pushed her, causing her to lose her balance and fall on her butt.

“We saved your life! It’s only natural that you have to save our lives! Don’t think it’s unfair! You’re just repaying the debt you owe!”

Fuyuno Tsubaki could only sit there blankly as she watched the two walk away without looking back, leaving behind such ridiculous nonsense.

*

Thud. Thud. Thud.

“Hmm, the crack opened well. And there’s even a snack that fell out. I’ll eat this as an appetizer and then start the job properly. 

Now, you guys do your assigned tasks. I’ll just satisfy my hunger and follow you.”

Fuyuno Tsubaki blankly watched the monsters of disaster, commonly known as demons, pour out of the fully opened crack and scatter at the command.

She had already given up on living from the moment she was pushed and fell by the person she had helped to come to her senses.

‘Why? Why is it like this? Why is my life always like this?’

All Fuyuno Tsubaki could do after giving up on life was to repeat the meaningless questions that she had been asking all her life but had never been able to answer.

But even these endless questions that had plagued her mind for so long would end today.

“Well, then. I’ll enjoy the meal.”

Because the demon with purple hair, who had the strongest smell of death among the demons that had poured out of the crack, was opening its mouth and baring its fangs as it approached her neck.

‘Is this… the end? Like this? Really? Can there be a life like this?’

Death was approaching right before her eyes, but Fuyuno Tsubaki didn’t tremble in fear.

She was just so dumbfounded that she wasn’t even angry at this miserable life, as if all the world’s injustices were clinging to it.

“…Hah.”

Just as Fuyuno Tsubaki was about to accept death with a hollow, self-deprecating laugh, someone walking behind the mid-level demon caught his eye.

Hair as black as night, skin as white as snow, a face so handsome that even the most beautiful members of the Fuyuno family couldn’t compare, and a physique as sturdy as a beast that contrasted with his face.

A man with looks that could make him dream of hope if he were a woman was walking toward Fuyuno Tsubaki.

The man looked at him with jet-black eyes and opened his mouth toward the mid-level demon.

“Hey! Get your straw out of here, you filthy mosquito bitch!”

His speech was far too gangster-like, in stark contrast to his perfect appearance.