chapter 30
30 – Cleanup – 1
Wilhelm immediately took a leave of absence. He saw the back of my college classmate who had an accident at a drinking party and took a leave of absence from school. Maybe he was so drunk that he cursed at his seniors. He didn’t feel very sorry or sympathetic. It’s a mistake, but who is to blame?
Besides, Wilhelm seemed to have lost his senses until the end, and he showed no remorse or shame for what he had done. He seemed to be taking a leave of absence just because he was frustrated that Seol-ah was taken away from me. Until the end, the eyes looking at us were not very good.
The entire academy buzzed with his sudden declaration of leave of absence, but only three people, Hestia, Seol-ah and I, knew the exact reason. We decided to keep it tight. Getting caught up in a big scandal like this isn’t a very good option. There is no need to gossip about someone who has taken a leave of absence and has nothing to see for the time being.
Of course, applying for a leave of absence does not mean that the application will be accepted on the same day. Take a leave of absence as soon as you apply! This academy is too big to run the system this way. However, Wilhelm, who had already made up his mind, did not care about the trivial process. He immediately took all his belongings out of the dormitory and didn’t even leave the academy. Perhaps he has already returned to the imperial palace and is gnashing his teeth. I am a person who will take a leave of absence anyway.
While I was roughly solving the case inside, Hestia, who was stomping outside, smiled brightly as she saw me coming out safely without any injuries. However, I couldn’t hide my embarrassment when I saw Seol-ah, who appeared after me with swollen eyes as if she had cried quite a bit, and Wilhelm, whose face was swollen from being hit by me several times after that.
As I roughly explained everything, Hestia’s face turned into contempt. Since she thought it impure to even mention Wilhelm’s name, she began to refer to him as ‘the criminal’. Is it Voldemort?
“Lady Adamas, today was a big day. I will help you, so feel free.”
Hestia must have been very worried about her victim Seol-Ah, so she declared that she would take care of her. Thanks to that, she had no time to talk to Seol-ah.
In the end, I avoided Hestia’s eyes and had a very short conversation with Seol-ah. And as a result, I decided to just meet her today. Originally, I wanted to have more time to organize my thoughts, but there were a few things I needed to talk about right away. So we decided to meet at the place we always met at the time we always met. 8 O’clock, behind the auditorium.
“Are you late today?”
“It’s ten minutes before eight. I always feel it, but how soon did you come and wait?”
Today too, Seol-ah came first and was waiting for me. I also kept 10 minutes before the appointment time, but every time I saw her, she came before me and was bored digging the ground with her feet or nailing her nails. She seems to be coming out a long way before me, who came out 10 minutes ago.
“30 Minutes?”
“Then just make an appointment for 7:30.”
“Then I will be waiting for you at 7 o’clock again?”
“What is that?”
“That means I want to see you sooner.”
I pretended not to hear her sudden jab.
“Do you have a little more to say today?”
First of all, I needed to sort out why she avoided me, what the original plan was, what to do now that Wilhelm took a leave of absence, and how she felt about me.
“Yes, I have a lot to say.”
“First of all, why did you avoid me?”
I was most curious about this. Why did she suddenly avoid me?
“Did you mind that I was avoiding you like that?”
“Don’t even think about fooling around with jokes.”
“Did I get caught?”
At my question, Seol-ah laughed like a fool.
“Actually, I fought with you last time and changed my plans. I was thinking of speeding up the development of the original story.”
“Why?”
She twisted her body as if she was a little shy to speak.
“Do I have to tell you?”
Are you saying that now? I stared at her without saying anything.
“Well, you said you liked your fiance better. So I thought I’d just quickly slow down the story and see the ending, send you home or change your mind.”
Unable to win my gaze at her, she barely opened her mouth. I was dumbfounded by her answer. I don’t know how many courses flew in the middle. The gap she shows between when she is thorough and sly and when she is stupid and blunt is too large.
“Ha…. There seems to be a mountain of points I want to point out. First of all, didn’t I tell you last time? Is there any basis for the hypothesis that you will be sent back home if you see the ending?”
“… No.”
Her voice creeps in.
“And why did you think I would change my mind after seeing the ending?”
She started stuttering to release her thoughts to her self.
“Are you too transcendent? What should i call it god? World? Anyway, have you ever felt that that drives our actions?”
Hearing her words, the first thing I thought of when I saw Seol-Ah’s face was my heart beating helplessly. But I couldn’t tell her that. I came up with more examples instead.
“There have been cases where swordsmanship or dance that I have never learned came out naturally as if I was accustomed to it, or my way of speaking was naturally corrected.”
I remembered something like tongue correction, which doesn’t work very well these days.
“Yes! Something like that So do i. Wilhelm, her tongue just moved on its own when she dealt with that crazy bastard or you. No matter how much you lie, it’s never awkward. Do you know what all these phenomena have in common?”
“What is it?”
“The fact that it leads us in the direction of the original. I was only able to plan complex conspiracies and fool people naturally only when the original story was progressing. When I make a plan for something that has nothing to do with the original work, it doesn’t come out as well as Lily.”
Seola’s words were more plausible than I thought. Above all, it was the best way to explain her condition, where the gap between being sloppy and being insidious is vast.
“Then it must be Seol-ah, not Lily, who was kidnapped by Wilhelm this time?”
“Yes. So you’re completely screwed.”
“Are you laughing now?! What the hell would I have done if I hadn’t found it?”
She lost her mind and laughed bashfully. I was dumbfounded. Doesn’t this woman know what she almost did to her now that she knows?
“But you found it in the end.”
She answered as if nothing was wrong. I was speechless.
“To be honest, I was really worried about what if you didn’t even think about looking for me. At the end, we had a strange fight and broke up, and I kept ignoring them. But in the end you found me and I’m standing here fine. Isn’t that what happened?”
“What does it mean to become?”
“Anyway! Originally, my plan was to cut off your attention and convince Wilhelm. In the original story, the kidnapping case takes place after Wilhelm confesses to me. Then, the more confident Wilhelm is of my heart and the faster he confesses, the faster the kidnapping will happen, right? Then the progress of the story won’t be fast.”
Seola cut off her complaints within her and recited her original plan of her own.
“So what?”
“In the original story, of course, as the story progresses, Mikhail falls deeply for Lily. So here, too, I thought that the more I proceed with the original story, the more you will come over to me.”
“Is that the end?”
“That’s it.”
“The end?”
I was astonished at her plan, which was more flimsy and flimsy than I thought. Nothing is certain about her plans. It’s plausible, but it’s a strategy that uses her body as bait for the fact that it’s all just her hypotheses. Even using it as bait eventually failed and was in danger.
Memories of Hestia, thinking what the hell she was thinking, flashed through her head. It was all meaningless.
When she read my expression, she started making her excuses.
“I told you. This isn’t Lily’s plan, it’s mine. As I said before, most of the smart and down-to-earth aspects of me you’ve seen are those of Lily. A human who knows Han Seol is an ordinary person who has only done hidden cameras to her friends in her lifetime.”
“Then tell me that….”
“Chaigo.”
I couldn’t say it directly in front of someone who had been dumped, so I chose my words as best I could. She picked out her words right away, overshadowing my consideration.
“Yes. So, for the sake of an uncertain return and my change of heart, you carried out a dangerous operation using your body as bait, and without any notice to me and Hestia, did you execute it without permission?”
“Sorry.”
She immediately apologized. After arranging it like this, it seems that he wanted to be a little harsh even if he thought about it. I decided to stop taking her anger out on her over this. It’s strange that I’m not her guardian and I’m not saying anything more here. Still, you should get an appointment to prevent a recurrence.
“Okay. Under… , really. From now on, don’t do that. I thought I was really losing my liver.”
“Okay, okay.”
There was a brief lull in the conversation. In the meantime, I listened to her earlier and asked what I was curious about.
“Then the images you showed me so far were Lily?”
“Well, isn’t it kind of funny to make such a clear distinction? I heard you’ve been through it too.”
Come to think of it, yes. When I was dancing with Hestia or when I was swinging her sword, I was definitely closer to Mikhail, the other world, than the earth, the river and the sea. However, the two cannot be completely separated.
“Well, I was influenced by Lily. As I said before, I was a completely normal person on Earth, so I couldn’t have flirted with a guy I didn’t know very well, right?”
You must have been aware that you were wagging your tail.
“Then what about now?”
“Now?”
“Well, you tried to kiss me on the lips earlier, right?”
I felt somewhat guilty about using the word kiss with another woman over Hestia, so I refined my expression as much as possible.
“Are you trying to kiss me?”
“What kind of kiss is that? I was just trying to make my lips collide.”
I tried to avoid the word kiss. Whether she knew me or not, she used a very blunt expression, saying it was just a kiss.
“Why should I stick out my tongue?”
“Oh, really. Because I have a fiancée. That is s*xual harassment.”
“This is very tricky. Are you a man?”
“This is a gender discriminatory statement.”
Somehow, it feels like the s*xes are reversed.
“Anyway, that kiss had no effect on Lily. It is completely my will.”
Seol-ah spoke confidently without the slightest hesitation.
“I heard you couldn’t flirt with a guy you just met.”
“But it’s a different story if the only man around is him and he even saved me from danger. Every woman dreams of a prince on a white horse for herself. And from the time she was captured by Wilhelm, she couldn’t be like Lily no matter what she did?”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Did I tell you earlier? Originally, Wilhelm kidnapped me after he confessed. So, I was going to ask you for help when I confessed. But before he confessed, he kidnapped me. Do you know why that bastard did that?”
“Why did you do that?”
“They saw my eyes and realized that I was lying. The look in my eyes when I looked at you and when I looked at myself was so different. That’s why I kidnapped you to do something about it when you and I were separated.”
Yeah, but is the main character the main character? How did you notice that just by looking at his eyes?
“It was discovered that what I had shown to Wilhelm was a lie, so no matter what I did, I couldn’t act like Lily. Maybe it’s because the original work was ruined at the time I was caught?”
“So from now on, you’re not Lily, but 100% pure Han Seol-ah?”
“Perhaps? But again, you never know. In an original story involving you, Lily might pop out.”
“I’d like to say no. I’d rather be a sloppy but average Seol-ah than a clever and sneaky Lily.”
Sometimes she looks like a snake, for example, when she first clings to eat together, she looks a little goofy now, but her normal look is 100 times better.
“Thank you.”
She suddenly expressed her gratitude to me.
“Suddenly, what are you thankful for?”
“It’s just that. He said that Seolah Han was better than Lily. Come to think of it, I think he didn’t say thank you for helping me.”
I was about to give an answer, but I just turned the ball over to Hestia.
“Thank you to Hestia, not to me. After all, it was Hestia who found the building where Seol-Ah was locked up. If Hestia wasn’t there, I couldn’t find it either.”
“You can do it to him too. Right, come to think of it, how did you find me?”
Her eyes twinkled as if she was curious about Seol-ah.
“After confirming that Seol-Ah was absent, I immediately made plans with Hestia. I will follow Wilhelm and check the building where Hestia has recently changed hands.”
“It seems that Wilhelm’s tailing failed.”
“I didn’t fail, but I didn’t come here right away.”
“What are you talking about?”
I didn’t want to speak of Wilhelm’s obscene behavior with my own mouth. Sorry for his tongue
“Have you not heard from Wilhelm? That practice….”
“Ah.”
Seol-ah must have remembered something she had forgotten, and she exclaimed.
“Yes. I went to places like that, not here. I know when it will come out and I am waiting for it. So I just joined with Hestia. After that, Hestia was looking for some of her buildings that she recognized, and she happened to see the back of the bastard and followed him.”
It is to her Hestia’s credit that we were able to rescue her in her time. In that short amount of time, she has no idea how she’s researched so perfectly. She said she wrote little of what she said she had learned from her family.
“Rather than that, does Wilhelm do something like that in the original work?”
I was genuinely curious. His thoughts were in a category that I couldn’t possibly understand with my brain. The heroine of the novel I was reading is practicing with other men under the pretext of wanting to satisfy the main character? Just thinking about it is terrifying. Comment windows may burn and writers may be physically hung.
“There are descriptions that I practiced with other women, but there is no story that I went to such a store.”
“Wow. Anyway, it sounds like you practiced as a different woman in the original work.”
I see you like that? I looked at Seol-ah with a smile. She, too, must have felt my gaze, and hastily started making excuses.
“No, what is that? I don’t know about men, but women naturally like a man who has a lot of experience and can lead, so…. No, not that I am! Other readers say they like it….”
“Oh yes.”
Where would a man with no experience and no lead live?
“Really! I hate that kind of man like a flirt!”
Seol-ah screamed as if she was taken aback when she saw my attitude.
“You don’t like flirts?”
She found words in her speech that were offensive to her.
“Yes!”
“After.”
I sighed very loudly.
“Why do people say they hate flirts?”
What? Don’t like flirting? Do you really have no conscience?
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