episode_0067

Lager, turning his back on Yooju and distancing himself. Yooju, with a vacant expression, arms hanging limply by her sides without a word.

I hesitated for a moment, unsure whether to comfort Yooju or follow Lager.

“I’m sorry. I know you must be hurting too….”

I couldn’t bring myself to say that it was the consequence of her actions.

Before following Lager, all I could do was gently pat Yooju’s slumped shoulders, feeling powerless.

Yooju didn’t seem to expect anything. In fact, she seemed to want to be alone.

Maybe she needed time to loathe herself, I thought.

As we passed through the alleys and onto a main street, a grim scene unfolded. Thanks to the reinforcements from the instructors and trainees, further casualties were prevented, but about 10 out of the initial 50 responders had already lost their lives, leaving only about six of us, including me and Lager, unscathed.

The streets were littered with bodies, severed limbs, and the stench of blood and death.

In the midst of it all, a woman walked towards us. It was the female instructor who had scolded me earlier.

“Aeil Cloi.”

“Yes.”

“Where have you been?”

I knew she wasn’t really asking out of curiosity.

So, as I was about to apologize and say “I’m sor…,”

With a crack, a flash of light, and a sharp pain, my head snapped to the side.

…It hurts.

I could taste blood in my mouth from the force of the blow.

But the instructor didn’t give me a chance to react, grabbing my collar and viciously slapping the other side of my face. With another crack, my head turned the other way.

As if that wasn’t enough to enrage me, she twisted my collar tighter, taunting me.

“Stop it.”

Lager raised his hand to stop her from hitting me.

The instructor chuckled, looking around.

“Look at this. If you have eyes, you should see this clearly.”

“It’s not Aeil’s fault.”

“If someone who came to fight runs away from the battlefield, isn’t that a fault?!”

Lager doesn’t know that I’ve become powerless.

Due to my fragile nature, I was too vulnerable in the chaotic battle, and with the mission of “survive for 15 minutes,” I had to choose a rational approach.

Lager held onto the instructor’s arm, standing his ground and glaring at her.

Despite being taller than her, the instructor didn’t show any signs of backing down, mocking me.

“Let go.”

“Are you going to hit me again?”

“Do you need my permission every time you want to hit a trainee?”

“The situation is over, we need to know why you’re assaulting trainees.”

“Are you out of your mind?”

No matter how much Lager has grown recently, the instructor is still his superior.

At least a Black Tier.

Even if the purple trainee roars, he is no match for the tiger in front of him.

So I had no choice but to intervene.

“Stop.”

Both of their gazes turned to me for a moment.

I wiped the blood from my split lip with the back of my hand, bowing my head.

“I’m sorry. I was wrong.”

It’s a difficult situation to explain. Bowing my head was much better than recklessly confronting and breaking.

The instructor looked at me coldly and pronounced.

“You will be reported to the disciplinary committee immediately. Deserting the battlefield won’t be taken lightly.”

“Yes.”

Discipline is just about receiving it and that’s it. People in life sometimes get falsely accused and things like that, so I’m not too upset about it.

But the problem comes after that. It’s the days ahead, living as a member of the academy in this world after the discipline.

How am I, who can’t do anything, supposed to live?

I thought about asking Lager for hints even now, but Lager never even conceived the character ‘Ail Cloie’. If he says that the method of implementing through the tablet is no longer valid, then there’s no sharp solution there either.

I don’t want to cling to him.

I don’t want to be a cowardly person who only seeks him out when needed.

As I thought about this, biting my lip.

“Hasn’t one of the cowards come back yet? Where is your cowardly friend?”

Huh?

I didn’t understand what the instructor meant, so I made a puzzled expression. It couldn’t be referring to Lager right next to me. Lager also seemed clueless about what the instructor was saying.

Then who…

No way.

“Where is Yooju Taylor?”

…What?

*

For this reason, this awkward trio was formed again.

“Uh…. So, do I just follow to the academy?”

Yooju asked Lager with a puzzled expression, not understanding the English while squatting and sniffing.

I also couldn’t understand how this situation came about at all.

“What happened?”

“I don’t know.”

“It wasn’t something you did?”

Lager was just as puzzled as I was.

Suddenly today, a stranger was thrown into this world. In a strange state, feeling his way around.

This guy’s true nature must be a monster.

– Cowards seem to get along well with each other. Since neither of you will escape disciplinary action, be prepared.

The instructor, beyond knowing Yooju, instructed her to call her as if she had always been a student at the academy.

What happened?

“Earlier, the instructor said ‘Shin Yooju’ instead of ‘Yooju Taylor’, so there might be someone with the same name.”

I suggested that theory, but Lager immediately denied it.

“No. They checked the number of people several times before calling her, so it’s right to look for her.”

“How did the creator of another world naturally become a character in this world?”

“I don’t know. Should we take her with us for now?”

“Well, there’s no other way.”

Since there was no other way, Yooju reluctantly got up and joined us on the way back to the academy.

“You arrived quickly. Yooju Taylor. Aren’t you embarrassed?”

The ‘Yooju Taylor’ the instructor was looking for turned out to be ‘Shin Yooju’. Moreover, there was no sense of caution at all, as if she had just faced a stranger until a moment ago.

“You should be ashamed.”

The instructor spat out words of disdain and went into the portal first. Yooju, with a bewildered expression, glanced at me and Lager for a moment before asking.

“Is it really okay for me to go with you…?”

There was no reason, no justification to say no.

Even after arriving at the academy, this astonishing change continued.

In the dormitory, as if she had always been there, her picture and name were boldly displayed in ‘9th floor, room 919’, and in room 919, her uniform and student ID were placed.

Moreover, the students passing by, the students she met on her way to eat, didn’t ask who this strange foreigner with a stick on her head was.

Everyone just naturally accepted her as if she had always been with Yooju.

“…It’s a strange thing.”

With a skeptical expression, Yooju diligently moved the cane around while eating her hamburger, much to Lager’s disgust as he waved his hand in annoyance.

“Hey, can’t you handle that cane properly?”

At Lager’s sharp comment, Yooju shrugged her shoulders and moved her body back to prevent the cane from facing Lager.

“Is it… okay now…?”

“Yeah, it’s fine. It’s okay.”

Tsk tsk, Lager shook his head disapprovingly and picked up his hamburger again. It was pitiful to see Yooju cautiously taking small bites of her hamburger, constantly glancing at Lager.

“Stop it. If you wanted to live as a monster forever, it’s a shame, but now we have to live together as students at the academy. Are you going to keep acting like this?”

“Just don’t bring me along.”

“Who said I would?”

“My heart did.”

Without a word to Lager, I stood up and smacked Lager on the back of his head with my tail.

“Ow, what was that for?”

“I don’t know. My tail just doesn’t listen. What should I do about it?”

Growling at Lager, I handed the cola to Yooju.

“T-Thank you.”

Yooju crouched down and sipped the cola through a straw, more resembling a squirrel with a cane than a cute girl.

Why did this adorable girl say such mean things in Lager’s novel and end up in this world?

Lager, looking displeased, kept glancing at Yooju, then forcefully crumpled his hamburger into his mouth and gulped down the cola before getting up from his seat.

“That temper, that stubbornness. Ugh. He’s all grown up, he’s all grown up.”

With his macho smell and arrogance, not to mention his temper and stubbornness, I began to worry that Lager was turning into a stubborn old man.

After Lager left, Yooju focused on eating her hamburger again.

She’s cute. Honestly, she’s so cute that it’s hard to believe she’s a bug-human.

Unconsciously, I raised my hand to pat Yooju’s reddish-brown hair.

“But I’ve always been curious, why do you two fight like this?”

Yooju asked as she moved the cane, her head tilted.

I mumbled while poking at my hamburger, “We used to fight a lot.”

“If Chloe-nim treated you a little more kindly, you might not fight as much.”

“No. How many times has she started an argument! …By the way, what do you mean by that? From the reader’s perspective, am I always the cause of the fights?”

“Uh, not really…”

As Yooju hesitated to choose her words, the cane above her head moved busily in the air.

“Feeling like you’re deceiving yourself by picking a fight and fooling your own heart?”

“What nonsense is this kid talking about? Didn’t read the novel properly.”

Come to think of it, how much does Yooju know? Does she know the reason why we no longer see each other as rational beings after I rejected Lager’s confession and we drifted apart?

If I bring up the topic first, she might misunderstand again, so I kept my mouth shut.

However, my efforts to maintain a nonchalant expression were in vain.

Yooju suddenly straightened the cane and emphatically emphasized in a creeping voice, “No, it’s… definitely…”

“Do you still love him now?”