Chapter 34
In the end, Ellen couldn’t bring herself to spit out what she was eating, so she forcefully swallowed it down. She gulped down several mouthfuls of water after that, probably due to the strong scent of the cheonggukjang that was spreading pleasantly.
“Why does it... smell like this...”
Ellen kept drinking water. Whatever the case, I continued to eat with gusto, and Ellen looked at me and at the surrounding men who were eating voraciously as if we were something monstrous.
After a little while, Ellen, who was watching me eat with such relish and the people around us feasting without restraint, scooped another spoonful with a dazed expression and brought it to her mouth.
“...”
Again, with an expression full of regret, she couldn’t spit it out. Instead, she forced herself to chew, and swallowed it down.
“Am I... the weird one here...?” Ellen murmured to herself, her lips trembling slightly in bewilderment.
She couldn’t understand how everyone else seemed to enjoy the dish while she simply couldn’t stomach it. It was making her question if there was something wrong with her.
‘That’s right. This food is meant to be like that! I also disliked it when I was younger!’
It was something that grew on you.
You’d continue to dislike it, then one day, suddenly you’d think of cheonggukjang, and crave it from then on.
It was the same for all my friends of the same age.
‘That’s how it starts, kid,’ I thought to myself.
Ellen wasn’t ordinary.
Eating while regretting each bite, she scooped one spoon, then another, seemingly questioning herself because everyone around her was eating so heartily. While she hadn’t finished it all yet, she’d already eaten about half of it.
Wow. She was something else.
She kept trying more and more of the dish, as if she thought that her next bite was going to make it taste better.
“Ugh...”
And inevitably, each time she ate, the same retching expression appeared on her face, which was just too funny.
What was it with this kid’s greediness for food?
The amiable-looking owner came by and marveled at how well young students like us were eating the cheonggukjang, and even gave us a discount on our meal as a bonus.
***
Ellen’s usual cool expression returned once we left the restaurant.
“I’m never eating that again.”
‘Oh is that so?’
“Uh, you say that, but you ended up eating the whole thing, you know.”
“The smell coming from my mouth is just... weird...”
“Smells like poop, doesn’t it?”
“...”
Ellen glared at me for a moment in response to my blunt statement.
Ellen narrowed her eyes as if she could smell her own breath.
Yeah, that’s how it usually went, and then suddenly, one day, it hit you out of nowhere, and you’d regret not having more of it.
“Why does it smell like this?”
Ellen seemed perplexed, lost in thought. She couldn’t understand why people would eat something that smelled so bad, and it seemed to spark an even more fundamental question in her mind.
“Is it something we’re not actually supposed to eat?”
“Hey, do you think they’d sell something you’re not supposed to eat, and that people would pay money to eat it?”
“... That’s true.”
“It’s edible, that’s why they serve it.”
‘Do I look like some kind of weirdo that would do that to you? I might write stupid novels, but I’m not a guy with a weird fetish like that.’
Then again, intentionally giving a seventeen-year-old high school girl cheonggukjang, something she’d never tried before, did seem a bit off-genre and sounded like what a weird pervert would do.
I guess it was basically like intolerable food torture. But hey, she’d eaten it all herself in the end, and it wasn’t like I forced her to. Although she had continuously retched, she did eat it on her own.
Regardless of whether I felt guilty or not, Ellen just nodded blankly. Her curiosity seemed satisfied, and for a while, she said nothing.
I started to worry if I had somehow shattered her character and personality...
But what’s the big deal if her character does unravel a little? The main storyline was already going to get shattered anyway.
“I’m going this way.”
After walking for a while, Ellen pointed to the tramline which she needed to take to attend her next class. I had to take a different one.
“Okay.”
Ellen pointed her finger at me as she looked at me.
“Take good care of your head.”
“Will do. See ya.”
She was referring to the head that she had demolished earlier.
And just like that, the seventeen-year-old high school girl disappeared, leaving behind the savory smell of cheonggukjang.
***
The next class was magic theory. Four Royal Class students were taking it with me: A-10 Kaier, B-2 Louis Ankton, B-5 Cristina, and B-6 Anna de Gerna.
As soon as Kaier saw me, he turned his head away as if he’d seen something he shouldn’t have, and I was not acquainted with the B-Class students.
That B-2 guy, Louis Ankton, was the prissy one with the tattle-tale attribute. He was the one who snitched to the teacher about the fight the day before.
I let it go, however. After all, getting into fights wasn’t exactly something I was supposed to be proud of. And besides, telling the teacher about a concerning matter wasn’t something bad either.
There were five students in my grade class that were majoring in magic. Three out of the four others in this class were majoring in it. Why only three when there are four attending, you ask?
Because B-2, Louis Ankton had no talent for magic. He was an odd one, someone who studied magic knowing full well that he could not become a magician.
I remember setting the novel up by writing that such people existed in the Temple.
People who couldn’t use magic, but still studied it as an academic discipline.
They were called the “magic scholars.”
Louis Ankton possessed the talent “Scholarship,” which was amongst the top tier in academic disciplines. He was physically inept, but had a top-tier intellect.
That was why he still studied the field of magic even though he couldn’t become a magician.
The magic theory class was quite different from what I had expected.
I thought I wouldn’t understand anything, but once I knew the proper nouns and technical terms, it wasn’t so difficult. Perhaps it was because the content of the class was around middle-school level.
Even the formulas, though somewhat challenging, were not completely beyond my comprehension.
Wait. Did that mean I could become a magician? Magic was supposed to be the discipline of geniuses, but maybe it seemed easier than it actually was because my mental aptitude had been adjusted or corrected somehow.
Now that I thought about it, that seemed to be the case.
Would I have been able to understand this with my original intellect?
Or did Ellen’s blow to my head have some kind of effect? It was confusing how I somehow understood this. If there was some sort of innate aptitude correction allowing me to understand magic, becoming a magician might not be such a bad idea after all...
“Of course, these are just the basics. Remember that as we move into applied theory, things will become much more difficult than they are now. You should be very careful when choosing to major in magic. Even those who have already been studying it as their major need to keep this in mind at all times. Many of those who major in magic end up dropping out.”
Oh, never mind.
Of course that made more sense.
Here I was, acing an elementary school exam and thinking I could breeze into Seoul National University.
Still, I wanted to try my best, and continued to take notes. I preferred using my brain over any physical activity.
And then, after a while...
The teacher began to explain that there were other systems of magic as well.
“... Demons are a prime example. The demons have a completely different mana activation system from us, and manifest magic in a completely different way. We still need to do more research on demon magic, but even if we come to understand this magic of theirs, we won’t be able to use it like they do.”
Hearing that made my head go blank.
What had I been doing up until this moment?
Come to think of it, even if I learned magic here, I wouldn’t be able to use it at all anyway. If I wanted to learn magic, it had to be from Eleris, and not here.
Why was I wasting my time in the wrong place?
“Um, excuse me? Where are you going?”
“Oh, I just don’t think magic is for me, Professor.”
Just like that, I made the decision to drop the class.
***
The next day came around, and with it, the first class of the day.
It was mana attunement training.
“Now, relax your entire body...”
I was lying on the mat with my eyes closed. I could just about hear the teacher’s faint voice.
—Now... the universe is within you...
‘What is this?’
—Take a deep breath... inhale... and exhale...
‘Is this some kind of chi healing?’
—Feel your mind getting more comfortable...
‘Did I sign up for a yoga class?’
—Your body becomes one with the universeeee...
‘Is this some kind of inner tranquility, or what? This sounds like some sort of cult ritual, no matter how I look at it.’
—Feel itttttt...
The teacher’s voice was drowsy, as if they’d had a bowl of booze in broad daylight. It was almost hypnotic, lulling my body into a blissful state of lethargy.
—Now... you are the world, and the world is youuuuuu...
'Uh oh.'
—Feel ittttt... the origin of the world... yeeearniiiiing...
'Oh no.'
—Embrace it with your whole bodyyyy...
‘It’s getting too comfortable...’
—Gradually... sink into your heart... deeeeeper...
‘Ah... this is too relaxing...’
—Consciousness... is fading... becoming distant...
And then, I fell asleep...
When the mana attunement training—which was led by a professor who looked just like the director of a yoga studio—ended, everyone looked like they’d just woken up from a good nap.
“That’s it for today’s class. Have a mana-filled day, everyone.”
Yet, the teacher didn’t say anything about us falling asleep, and simply told us the class was over and to leave.
This mana attunement class was an exclusive class for the Royal Class. In fact, the classes on Wednesday were typically filled with Royal Class-exclusive classes only, as it was populated with courses that were more effective when taught to a smaller class of students.
Aside from those majoring in supernatural and divine power, it was common for the rest to take mana attunement training. That was why, with a few exceptions, all the students from both Classes A and B were in the class.
“What was that about...?”
“I know, right?”
“Ugh, what was that...”
Everyone looked as though they had been bewitched, and had just returned to their senses. They all seemed to be talking about how they had fallen asleep during the lesson.
“I heard that this class is rated very highly in terms of student satisfaction, so I’m expecting something good to come out of it.”
Vertus, too, was yawning and giggling. It seemed like he had just woken up from a nap.
‘I suppose it’s only natural that a class in which you just sleep would be rated very highly...’
Whether this class had anything to do with actual mana attunement, I had no idea, but it was a blissful class, so it didn’t really matter.
***
The next class was meditation. It wasn’t specifically a class meant for those with supernatural powers, but many superhumans attended it because maintaining a state of calm was important.
Among my classmates, there were four superhumans:
A-3 Riana de Granz, Electrokinesis.
A-6 Heinrich von Schwartz, Pyrokinesis.
A-8 Connor Lint, Teleportation.
B-7 Evia, Telepathy.
In addition, there was one other who was not a superhuman, but attended the meditation class regardless. He was a skinny, almost pitiable guy with pale skin but a somewhat dangerous look in his eyes.
It was B-8, Dettomorian.
Talented in shamanism and Psychokinesis.
He came from a primitive tribe in the northern snowfields and had been accepted into the academy because of his talent in the ancient art of shamanism.
Despite this, it was unlikely that the Temple had a formal curriculum for the practical use of shamanism. Still, in the case of Dettomorian, he wanted to enroll in the Temple under the pretext of conducting some self-study in shamanism. He wanted to study shamanism in a safe environment where he would be well cared for.
Dettomorian had a sinister look to him, and was avoided just as much as Scarlett was. He also had the ability to see spirits.
In fact, he wasn’t in this meditation class to learn to control his mind, but to commune with the spiritual world.
Though there should have only been five students in this class...
“Charlotte de Gradias.”
“Present.”
Charlotte had also enrolled in the meditation class. Her name was also called during roll call, and since it was a class with only a few participants, her enrollment suggested the possibility that she might be a superhuman too. Since I didn’t have much contact with the Class B students, I still didn’t know what talent Charlotte possessed.
Of course, just because she was taking a meditation class didn’t automatically make her a superhuman, since I was taking this class despite not being officially a superhuman.
But then, there was the idea of trauma, and that superhuman abilities could be awakened in extreme psychological states or during trauma.
If Charlotte had any latent superhuman abilities, it was certain that they would have been awakened in the Demon King’s castle.
Yet Charlotte hadn’t used any supernatural powers, even in a situation that had been so dire that it wouldn’t have been weird for her to use them.
Or had she awakened them but didn’t know how to use them or was unable to control them?
Or, to begin with, was she even a superhuman at all?
The meditation class began, and these questions swam about in my mind as I tried to enter into a state of meditation.
-Thud!
“Ouch!”
“Focus, please.”
Of course, in that state of mind, there was no way I could properly meditate.
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