NOVEL NEXT Chapter 43
“Uh, um, until now, Kim Deok-Sung… I sincerely… apologize for all the… rudeness and trouble… I’ve caused…”
Nishizawa Eri, wearing a dog collar, stutters in a voice filled with fear.
I can see Nodoka beside her, diligently clicking away with a camera.
With her arms crossed.
Right now, Nishizawa Eri looks completely out of her mind, drenched in fear.
I roll my eyes.
Anyway, this is enough humiliation for her.
Nodoka has taken so many photos that it’s only a matter of time before she ends up plastered all over the Academy channel and even gets a spot on a national cringe YouTube thumbnail.
“Get up.”
The moment I speak, Nishizawa Eri awkwardly gets to her feet.
Her forehead, flushed red, is covered in dirt.
“I don’t even want to see you, so get lost from my sight now.”
I wave my hand dismissively.
Nishizawa Eri’s eyes widen.
She bites her lip.
“… Aren’t you going to do it?”
Nishizawa Eri asks.
“Do what?”
“Like… put a leash on this collar and… take a stroll in the nude or something… Aren’t you going to force yourself on me? I thought you bought me as your slave… I’m—I’m your slave now… so I shouldn’t have the right to refuse…”
Nishizawa Eri rambles nonsensically.
Her orange eyes tremble back and forth without a pause.
Ugh.
This is really raising my blood pressure.
How can her thought process be so consistently bizarre?
What a rich imagination she has.
Before the disgust of her words sets in, anger wells up.
Has this crazy woman really lost it?
“Hey, Nishizawa Eri.”
She flinches at the mention of her name.
“I wouldn’t even want someone like you. I don’t want to see your face. So just get lost.”
No matter how pretty her face is, what does it matter?
Her personality is trash.
I don’t even want it if you offer it.
She can just roll around like a slave in the final boss battle.
“W-what? You wouldn’t even take it if I offered… That’s ridiculous…”
Nishizawa spits out a nauseating monologue.
This is getting really old.
“Hey, Eri. I think you’re getting a bit too full of yourself just because you have a pretty face. No matter how pretty you are, I wouldn’t want a crazy woman like you. Just looking at your face makes me want to vomit. So cut out the self-importance and delusions, and just shut up and get out of my sight. Right now.”
I wave my hand again.
Nishizawa Eri, with a shocked expression, slowly turns and leaves.
I cross my arms and narrow my eyes.
This is enough humiliation for her in a kind world, but I’m not done yet.
“Olivia.”
“Yes, what do you need?”
“Go over to Nishizawa and deliver this.”
I pull out the summons for a disciplinary committee that I received from the President and pass it to Olivia.
If Nishizawa’s idol, Olivia, personally hands her the summons and mentions the possibility of expulsion, it’s only natural that her mental state would crumble.
Olivia’s blue eyes darken as she looks at the summons.
She gently places her hand over her chest.
“…Alright. As your loyal servant, I, the noble French princess Olivia Napoleon Bonaparte, will handle this perfectly.”
Ugh.
Could she please use her turn signal when coming in for a landing?
There are still a few cadets gathered around.
“Why would you put your honor on the line for something like this?”
“Seriously, it’s better to just act like usual and be tsundere.”
My face is burning.
“······Fine. Just go.”
“Hehe, you can look forward to it!”
Olivia, with a proud expression as if something great is upon her, disappears with the summoning ticket in hand.
I sit back down on the bench.
Round one is over.
It’s time to head to round two, the Disciplinary Committee.
*
Shuo Hero Academy.
Beach Park.
Nishizawa Eri sits on a bench overlooking the wide horizon of Tokyo Bay.
Around her neck is a collar engraved with Kim Deok-Sung’s name.
“Unbelievable…”
A trembling voice escapes from Nishizawa Eri’s lips.
She had already resolved to face defeat with the collar and the dog tag.
She had accepted the fact that Kim Deok-Sung would publicly ridicule her.
But there was one thing she had not prepared for at all.
“I…I can’t stand him…”
Nishizawa Eri’s hands tremble.
Thoughts of her recent encounter with Kim Deok-Sung swirl in her mind.
“Unbelievable… All men are… just…”
Beasts and wolves.
From childhood to now, not a single man has looked at her, the most beautiful girl in the prefecture, without some ulterior motive.
It’s just a matter of whether they reveal their dark intentions or hide them.
Kim Deok-Sung was no exception.
Actually, the fact that he accepted her wager with such eagerness made him the worst kind of man, the one who openly displays his dark intentions.
That’s what she thought.
“He should be a beast…”
If he demands her body, she, who has fallen into slavery, has no right to refuse.
She assumed Kim Deok-Sung would naturally demand her.
So she braced herself for the worst-case scenario.
But that wasn’t the case.
Even in front of a galaxy-ranked beauty that every man in Japan coveted, there was not a spark of lust in his eyes.
As he spat insults at her, his gaze was filled only with disgust and hate.
Having been accustomed to the lustful eyes of men more than anyone else, she could tell.
Kim Deok-Sung had no dark intentions toward her.
“Then what on earth have I been… mistaken about…?”
Nishizawa Eri’s hands tremble uncontrollably.
She had treated him under the assumption that he was the worst man with hidden intentions.
But today, that premise completely crumbled.
“What on earth…?”
The world surrounding Nishizawa Eri collapses.
Her mind flashes back to the beginning of everything, that conversation with Olivia after school.
[He is certainly a foolish, stupid pervert, a scoundrel without manners, etiquette, or any decency, the most obnoxious and awful man in the world, but…]
[…he’s still a man qualified to have the noble French princess as his personal maid.]
A qualified man.
If that statement, which she deemed absurd, might actually be true.
If everything had been a misunderstanding from the start.
If it were all her fault.
“Ughhhhh…”
Just then, as Nishizawa Eri is tearing at her hair, a chilling voice pierces her ear.
“You. What a coincidence that you’re here…”
Nishizawa Eri turns her head.
There stands Olivia, with an icy expression, glaring at her with eyes as cold as glaciers.
All my fault.
Olivia pouts her lips.
To be in the very place where she forged her bond as his personal maid.
She can’t articulate it, but it makes her feel worse.
Olivia thinks this way.
“Y-Your Highness…”
Nishizawa Eri’s voice trembles.
“After the cherry blossom festival, I did some digging on you. I looked into your family background and everything you like. It’s unfortunate about your troubled childhood. It’s sympathetic. But…”
Olivia cuts her off coldly.
“That doesn’t justify your rudeness, irresponsibility, and burdening others with your misfortune. Your behavior that day was a clear act of disobedience. A disqualifying issue for a hero.”
Olivia’s words stab at Nishizawa Eri’s heart like daggers.
My chest is being torn apart.
Nishizawa Eri’s hands tremble.
I had already heard that at the cafe in Inokashira Park.
However, realizing that she had completely misunderstood a person named Kim Deok-Sung was enough to shatter Nishizawa Eri’s mental state.
“That is…”
“I don’t want to hear any pathetic excuses. You have no right to speak to the lowest and worst of humans who don’t even qualify as a hero.”
“…”
Tears well up in Nishizawa’s eyes.
“What’s so worthy of crying about? It’s pathetic.”
Olivia’s eyes grow icy.
“Also, we need to address the reason why you challenged Kim Deok-Sung to a duel.”
Olivia places her hands on her hips.
“Did you even ask the party involved? Who do you think you are, that you think you can overturn a decision made by me, Olivia Napoleon Bonaparte, the Noble French Princess, as if you have nothing to do with it?”
Cold fury seeps into Olivia’s voice.
She couldn’t understand.
The decision to become Kim Deok-Sung’s personal maid was entirely her own.
It was not something a completely unrelated person could interfere with.
This was also tied to Olivia’s pride.
Who would dare try to overturn a decision made by the Noble French Princess?
“That is…”
Nishizawa Eri lowers her head.
The reason she challenged him was all the embarrassing rumors circulating about Kim Deok-Sung and Olivia.
But were those rumors actually true?
Could that man, who showed nothing but disdain even with her right in front of him, actually have done such things?
“It must be due to the vulgar rumors going around. Like me going for a walk at night in a maid outfit… or calling him ‘Master’ on the bed…”
Mentioning the rumors makes Olivia’s face turn red.
“Of course, I can’t say I haven’t thought about wearing a maid outfit as his personal maid… and maybe how it might be okay to hold hands… but…”
Olivia takes a deep breath to calm her racing heart.
“At least none of those twisted fantasies could have happened. The rumors are all baseless nonsense. If you don’t believe me, I’ll confidently state here on the honor of the Bonaparte royal family that nothing happened between us.”
Olivia’s voice turns cold again.
Nothing happened.
It’s clear that if the proud French Princess is willing to stake the honor of the Bonaparte royal family on it, it’s definitely true.
Nishizawa Eri, who admired Olivia, understood just how heavy that weight was.
‘Then what have I been doing all this time…?’
It was all a misunderstanding, her own fault.
That fact had just begun to dawn on her.
But when the one confirming her demise was none other than Olivia, Nishizawa Eri felt a wave of dizziness.
“Even if you won the duel this time, there was no way I would have given up my position as his personal maid. Because…”
Nishizawa Eri’s trembling eyes turn toward Olivia.
“It was decided by none other than Olivia Napoleon Bonaparte herself. And there is no one else in this academy who qualifies to have me as their personal maid.”
Olivia’s hands tremble.
She bites her lip.
“But how dare you, who do you think you are to…!! You don’t qualify as a hero, and you don’t even qualify as a human!”
Nishizawa Eri exclaims with a shaking voice.
“It was all… my fault…”
Nishizawa Eri has finally recognized her own mistake.
Due to a misguided prejudice that all men are bad, she made a huge mistake against him.
The fact that she had crossed a river that couldn’t be undone.
The fact that it was far too late.
Regret and remorse flood in like a burst dam.
Tears flow from Nishizawa Eri’s eyes.
“Are you finally recognizing your mistake? It’s pathetic to see you cry.”
The corners of Olivia’s mouth tremble.
She pulls out an envelope from her chest and throws it onto Nishizawa Eri’s lap.
She tosses it onto her lap.
Thud.
Through her tear-blurred vision, Nishizawa Eri notices the characters written on the outside of the envelope.
“Disciplinary Committee, summon······.”
“The academy has decided to convene a disciplinary committee regarding your failure to comply with on-site directives. The punishment will probably be expulsion. Before leaving, how about sincerely apologizing to him?”
Expulsion.
Hearing that two-letter word from none other than Olivia, Eri’s vision begins to darken.
No, it can’t be.
Not that, at least······.
Even thinking of her mother, who struggled alone to raise her, or the joy on her mother’s face upon receiving the acceptance letter to Shuo Hero Academy.
She cannot face expulsion.
But the mistake she made is far too significant to plead for leniency.
There is not a shred of shame, reason, or justification to advocate for mercy.
“Ugh···.”
Tears mixed with the bleak future ahead, regret, loss, self-hatred, and a sense of despair pour down her face.
“If you want to prove at least that you’re not just a beast in human skin, then…”
Having said her piece, Olivia casts a contemptuous glance and leaves the beach park without looking back.
Left alone, Nishizawa Eri lowers her head.
The collar around her neck, engraved with Kim Deok-Sung’s name, glints in the sunlight.
*
The next day.
After arriving at school in the morning, I log onto YouTube on my smartphone.
[K-Hero Kim Deok-Sung! Shaking the Japanese archipelago once again! The secret behind K-Hero Kim Deok-Sung’s perfect victory is that it’s actually kimchi he eats every day? Is kimchi all the rage in Japan now? An in-depth analysis of the surprising reason behind Kim Deok-Sung’s victory!]
[Kim Deok-Sung! Victories in consecutive Japan-Korea matches! After Shinozaki Rin and Ishihara Daiki, Nishizawa Eri also kneels before Korea! Nishizawa Eri declares her surrender in the humiliating dogeza! Japan’s archipelago sinking with consecutive defeats! President of the Japan Hero Association: “Why don’t we have hero candidates like Kim Deok-Sung?” Furious reprimand! Why did Nishizawa Eri, who ranked third in entrance exams at Shuo Hero Academy, suffer a complete defeat to Kim Deok-Sung?]
Today, I welcome this chaotic thumbnail with open arms.
Seeing the thumbnail on the nationalistic YouTube channel with a picture of Nishizawa Eri’s dog collar in dogeza, it feels as though the curry rice I had for breakfast has digested perfectly.
It’s about time to nibble on the bait thrown by the news team.
I also check the academy channel.
[(Breaking News) Academy Idol, Nishizawa Eri! Referred to the Disciplinary Committee for failing to follow on-site orders! Expected punishment: Expulsion!]
[Nishizawa-chan getting expelled? Really? (⊙ᗜ⊙)(⊙ᗜ⊙)]
[>> Just look at what Nishizawa did www. Failing to follow orders, lol totally the worst ww]
[>> Are you a Nishizawa fan? ww Don’t be so defensive ww]
[>> I’m not a fan, just curious]
[Thinking she deserves to be expelled ww Considering all her bad behavior, it’s sickening]
[Failing to follow orders, totally disqualified as a hero ww]
[Shuo Academy’s disgrace ww]
[This time, I want to side with Kim Deok-Sung ww]
[I’ll be cheering for Kim o((*^▽^*))oo((*^▽^*))o]
[The dog collar is justified ww]
[Get expelled!~~ (´• ω •`)ﾉ(´• ω •`)ﾉ(´• ω •`)ﾉ(´• ω •`)ﾉ]
Under Nodoka’s article that came out yesterday, there are nothing but hate comments.
As I predicted, not a single student stands up for her.
The more popular someone is, the bigger the backlash when they fall.
Let alone Nishizawa Eri, who was already a polarizing figure at the academy due to her typical attitude.
“They were just silent because of her beauty and fandom.”
This disciplinary incident triggered an explosion of long-suppressed public opinion like a volcano.
I glance at the empty desk next to me.
Nishizawa Eri hasn’t arrived yet.
Her desk is in tatters, slashed with a knife, and covered with graffiti labeling her the worst, lowest, a disgrace to the academy, and telling her to go away, with spoiled milk sprinkled on top.
Truly a display of the original country of bullying etiquette.