Chapter 19: I Just Tried To Be Kind (2)
I guided Yumir, the blonde, blue-eyed foreigner of unknown origin, who might even be an extra in the original work.
“Have you eaten yet?!”
“…Hmm?”
“If you haven’t eaten yet, would you like to have lunch together? I’ll treat you!”
I was invited to lunch by Yumir.
What was this?
Had this woman realized my identity and approached me?
Was she trying to subtly threaten me with a meal, saying, ‘I know you’re the Goblin, so buy me lunch every day’?
Or was she just an outgoing person?
This was a situation that I couldn’t fully understand. Therefore, I had only one choice since I had been invited for a meal.
“Sure.”
Eating together like this would become a new and beneficial experience. Beats conjuring a pizza and eating it alone.
“Do you like pasta? There’s a very famous pasta place. I’ve never been there. Would you like to go together?”
I needed to let her know how dangerous it was for one’s wallet to buy a meal on Sejong Island.
“Never…?”
“Yes. I’ve only been here for a week.”
“Oh, you’re a new faculty member.”
“That’s right. I’ve just started working as a librarian.”
“Hehe, so it’s your first time too?”
“…Teacher?”
“Yes. Librarian teacher. Aren’t you one as well?”
“It’s a little different, but there’s not much difference, so it shouldn’t be a problem. Call me whatever you feel comfortable with, Yumir.”
It felt odd to my conscience to be treated as an ‘oppa’ by a blonde, blue-eyed foreigner.
Someday, if we built a friendship, I might hear such words, but I wondered what was the point of becoming friends with a student like Yumir.
‘She looks like the kind of student boys will be interested in.’
Just like the protagonist, many extras were infatuated with foreign girls.
This trend was due to many foreign magnates and power holders saying, ‘A Korean A-class young man in his early 20s?! Become my son-in-law immediately!’ thus, the academy’s male students tended to target foreigners.
It was a sad truth, but male and female extras positions were quite different.
If a female extra went overseas, there’s often the perception that she ‘caught the eye of a foreigner and ran away to another country’, but if a male extra went abroad, the strong perception was that ‘A capable man was being treated well in his daughter-in-law’s country’.
It seemed unfair and a vague situation that seemed to be a measure intended to protect female extras in their home country.
“Yumir, you must be quite popular among the academy students.”
“Huh? Oh, thank you. It seems like you would be popular too, librarian-teacher. Ah.”
Yumir covered her mouth with her hand, surprised.
“Is your girlfriend not upset that you’re dining with me?”
“Fortunately, I don’t have a girlfriend, student.”
“Ah…Really? I see. Hmm.”
What’s this?
Yumir’s gaze sharpened for a moment, like a hunting dog targeting its prey.
Could she be plotting to take advantage of the fact that I didn’t have a girlfriend?
“Well, since there’s nobody to say anything, let’s go to the place you mentioned.”
“You can follow me this way. It’s a bit of a walk. Is that okay?”
“Yes. I like walking. Ah. Can I first go to the dormitory to put down my luggage?”
“Of course.”
Yumir headed to the dormitory, carrying her suitcase at a trot.
There seemed to be some murmuring because a man had come to the women’s dormitory, which was like a no man’s land, but people weren’t likely to suspect or question me.
There were other men here, after all.
“Oppa, have you been waiting?”
“I didn’t wait long. Where should we go, darling?”
“Hmm, where would you like to go, oppa? I’m okay with anything.”
“…….”
So, this was the place where guys gathered in front of the dormitory, waiting for their girlfriends.
I was not particularly waiting for a girlfriend, but the road was bustling with people who came out to pick up girls before mealtime.
“Oh, over there!”
Someone pointed to one side.
I was expecting some long-awaited girlfriend to show up, so I thought I should ignore it…
“Snow White!”
At someone’s exclamation, the men’s gaze - even the eyes of those who just met their girlfriends - turned toward the direction of the sound.
“Wow…”
From afar, a limousine, one often seen in front of a hotel in an American movie, began to approach.
As soon as the limousine stopped, suit-wearing women with sunglasses came out and started to use walkie-talkies. When they opened the door from the outside, a white-haired woman in a suit emerged.
“Snow White.”
Despite it being the weekend, the woman in the suit came out carrying only her smartphone and no other baggage.
Correction.
She didn’t need to carry any baggage herself.
The women in suits that followed her, probably bodyguards dispatched by the country - or perhaps it would be better to call them supporters - took out the luggage from the trunk and carried it to the dormitory.
“So, Snow White is also going to stay in the dormitory without any hesitation.”
“I heard that the staff apartments are full this time. But isn’t the dormitory section for graduate students?”
“Do you really think that’s the reason? It’s probably a dirty trick to stay close to the girls who are following Snow White and try to lure them to Korea.”
Everyone began to spread conspiracy theories about why Snow White chose to settle in a part of the student dormitory instead of a staff apartment.
‘This will be tough.’
An S-class superhuman, and not only from overseas but also one who received the support and admiration of many female superhumans in Korea, it didn’t seem she would be able to comfortably stay in the academy.
“Huh?”
From far away, my eyes briefly met with Snow White’s as she was just about to enter the dormitory.
Was it a hallucination?
It didn’t seem to be a hallucination, so I discreetly took out my smartphone, pretending to answer a call, unnoticed by the others.
“Oh, it’s been a while. Only a week, right? Have you been well?”
Snow White gave a faint smile as she saw me pretending to take a call.
“Look at that! Snow White saw us and smiled!”
“She really is a celebrity among superhumans. Wow, she really is beautiful.”
“I want to marry her.”
I could understand why the guys were drooling.
She was a cool-beauty girl with white hair, had a generous’ magic pocket’, and was even an S-class hero. Every man would harbor envy in their heart.
“You’re really having a hard time, aren’t you?”
She must have had a hard time receiving such gazes from people since she was young.
Even though she was a character in a novel, I felt like I had come to know the discomfort of a top-tier celebrity in this world, albeit indirectly.
“Who are you talking to?”
“Oh, have you arrived?”
I put my smartphone away at the sound of Yumir’s voice from behind me.
“It was a friend.”
“A friend….”
“What’s with that suspicious look in your eyes?”
“It’s nothing. More importantly, shall we go? I’m a bit hungry right now.”
“Sure. Shall we go this way?”
I guided Yumir out of the dormitory.
Something…
I felt a chill behind me, and it gave me goosebumps, but it might just be the disgusting jealousy of the guys around me since I was going to eat with a beauty like Yumir.
‘But I don’t want to eat alone.’
Eating together with a beauty who was paying for the meal vs. eating alone at home.
“By the way, wouldn’t your boyfriend mind if you had a meal with me?”
“I’ve never had a boyfriend, so I’m not sure?”
“……”
Eating together with a (forever-alone) beauty who was paying for the meal vs. eating alone at home.
For me, it was a win-win.
Plop.
Snow White threw herself onto the bed in her suit.
Although it was much more cramped than her house in Busan, the room and the bed were quite spacious, perhaps because they had converted three dormitory rooms into one room.
She was going to be dealing with many people for the next year.
She had come to the academy under the pretense of rest. Still, it could be more mentally challenging than living as a hero in Busan, not knowing when she might be called into action.
But the thing cluttering her mind now wasn’t about her life at the academy.
“…Who could it have been?”
Snow White scrutinized the photo she had taken earlier with her smartphone.
It was far away.
Beyond the crowd, a man was walking away with his back turned.
And a blonde girl was walking beside him.
“…What the heck, do they know each other?”
The girl was smiling brightly, slightly leaning her body towards the man.
It wasn’t just them walking shoulder to shoulder. She was slightly leaning towards the man and looking at him.
The man was looking ahead, and the woman was looking at the man’s face.
“… What’s this?”
Something in Snow White’s heart began to rise fuzzily.
That peculiar feeling.
“……Hmph.”
Snow White tried to forget it as she reviewed tomorrow’s script for the entrance ceremony.
“What’s this? Palpitations?”
Snow White raised her hand to her chest and looked blankly at the ceiling.
She then reached for her smartphone to call the number she had frequently contacted recently, but…
“…….”
For some reason, her hand froze, unable to make a call or send a text.
A moment later.
“Oh, how lucky. Just in time, there’s one seat left in a perfect spot.”
“I guess so. Haha, it might be thanks to me?”
Yumir put her index fingers on her cheeks and smiled brightly.
“My luck is really a lot better than others.”
“Luck?”
“Yes. Luck. Meeting you like this is also my luck.”
“I’m just an ordinary librarian.”
“Is that so?”
Right now.
“In my eyes, you don’t seem like an ordinary librarian.”
What was she trying to say with this build-up?
“You are….”
Yumir stared at me and quietly opened her mouth.
“A handsome librarian.”
“…….”
[Your affinity with Yumir has increased by 10.]
The source of this c𝐨ntent is fre𝒆w(e)bn(o)vel