No Dark Secrets In This Book

Episode 9

The students who finished the “Dormitory Assignment Ceremony: Confronting Trauma” were gathered on the first basement floor. Some asked what the hell this was all about, but the staff members, with natural movements ingrained in their bodies over decades, simply handed out instruction papers to those who protested. 

The papers contained various explanations written in tiny letters. Explanations of the dormitory assignment ceremony that functions through ancient magic, and that everything seen inside will not be revealed to anyone, and that the secrets of the assignment ceremony cannot be disclosed to anyone who is not a member of the academy.

In summary,

‘Your seniors all did this too! If you have complaints, take it up with the ancient magic!’

—The problem was, in their world, ancient magic was absolute.

Those who lost the strength to refute the claim that the primordial era when the World Tree pulsated was at work, sat down one by one in the cozy rest area with sofas and cushions placed here and there like a children’s library. Some burst into tears belatedly.

As more students crossed over, protests and resignation repeated, so the sound of crying continued to circle around the rest area like a round song.

“Huu huu huu. I was so scared.”

“Oh dear. What came out that made you like this?”

When someone asked such a question, various answers came back. People with different stickers attached to their arms by the staff were sobbing.

“Gho-, ghosts. Ghosts, in a group……”

—They said things like that.

The stickers on their arms were the symbolic colors and Chinese characters of the Four Gods. Wood (木) was blue, Fire (火) was red, Metal (金) was white, and Water (水) was black.

Various colors flashed before their eyes.

Hae Yuna, who received a black sticker, was comforting them. Then suddenly, in passing, people who knew her face dropped a remark.

You must not have had a severe trauma. I’m envious.

Lee Hyang glanced at Hae Yuna every time she heard such words, but Hae Yuna brazenly gloated.

“Ahem! I have a strong mental fortitude!”

“……”

Trauma is different for everyone.

It’s only natural. They have lived different lives and experienced different events. For some people, a lifetime trauma might be a ghost actor they first saw in a horror movie as a child, but for others, it could be a murderer who killed their parents before their eyes. It could be a grandmother who sarcastically remarked at the funeral of the dead parents that they shouldn’t have neglected their martial arts training.

It could be the emotion itself that they had no choice but to love that person because they were the last remaining blood relative, the only person who could protect them.

It is a fortunate thing.

That there exists a life where one can scream, cry, and wail, but when asked what came out, they can say it was a zombie.

That a person can live in such a way.

That not everyone is broken and can keep living, it must surely be a fortunate thing.

“Huh? Lee Hyang, why are you staring at me like that? Did you fall for me?”

“Don’t talk nonsense……”

Lee Hyang covered Hae Yuna’s face with his palm and pushed it away, sighing for who knows how many times. Just the memory of what he saw was driving him crazy, so he couldn’t even imagine what Hae Yuna must have seen to come out. How could he understand the feeling of laughing like that afterwards?

“…… You won’t even tell me.”

Hae Yuna was chatting with others again. Laughing brightly. Hiding her bleeding heart, once again. Lee Hyang must be going through puberty again. Sigh, I’m the only one who can take care of this prickly guy. I’m worried we’ll be in different dorms. He got a red sticker befitting a Vermilion Bird. But I really don’t know how to marry off this guy. He just raises his claws at anyone like an untamed cat……

“Hae Yuna. Do you want to die?”

“Your sister is working hard to find a marriage partner for our Hyang, so why are you being ungrateful?”

“You die, I die.”

“Ugh ugh.”

While the two were bickering and grabbing each other’s collars, the sound of someone else coming down the slide was heard with a thud.

Lee Hyang hoped that whoever it was, they wouldn’t provoke Hae Yuna. It would be nice if it was a stranger who wouldn’t even talk to them. He just wanted them to shut up and go sit in a corner.

Unfortunately, only half of Lee Hyang’s wish was granted.

“Oh, Ryuseong-ssi! Our superstar, here……”

A familiar person had shut up and was sitting in the corner with an expression that was not just scary, but ominous. Under the face that looked like he had killed someone, there was a white sticker.

In a manner that abandoned the blue coat of the past that no one knew.

***

At some point, Ryuseong knew that his trauma had become ‘him’. Probably since right after the regression, when he thought he had to kill ‘him’.

Because all his screams originated from him, nothing else could become Ryuseong’s trauma except Cassice Demillang.

And Cassice Demillang.

Was tenacious enough that he couldn’t finish him off until hundreds of people completed confronting their trauma after going in first.

Just like when he destroyed the world.

The only fortunate thing was that, unlike back then before the regression, the trauma wasn’t a living person. He was able to win, albeit tenaciously, against a fantasy that was merely a reproduction of memories. But ridiculously, even at the moment of death, he didn’t break down.

He died with a graceful face, blood flowing, without enthusiasm, like someone who never wanted to desperately survive even for a single moment.

So Ryuseong shattered his head.

With a splat.

He was planning to enter the White Dormitory anyway. The glory of the blue he upheld before the regression, it all turns to pieces when the world is destroyed. He would have to enter the same dormitory to keep an eye on Cassice, so perhaps trampling and crushing the trauma was an appropriate measure……

‘…… It was excessive indulgence.’

Ryuseong, who finally acknowledged the truth, clenched his fists as if wanting to crush them.

Mocking a corpse was unlike him. Especially a human. Unlike the past when he never killed people, he killed him but didn’t bother to go out the exit.

He trampled and crushed him.

‘…… Stop thinking about it.’

Ryuseong desperately tried to change his thoughts. If he kept thinking, he might get caught up in it. It was something he might get swept up in by desires he hadn’t even established for himself yet.

So the plan. Let’s think about future plans. He had told them in advance to arrange for them to share a room if they were in the same dormitory, so by now, Cassice would have obtained that information through the Demillang’s intelligence network.

The Cassice he knew might take the bait. He might keep him by his side to at least inquire about the reason for his suspicious behavior.

It wasn’t certain.

But it was a gamble worth taking to stand out.

‘I’ll be seen as suspicious anyway, if I recklessly approach him saying I want to be friends.’

At the very least, it will elicit a different reaction than before.

Ryuseong thought that was enough. Ryuseong, who had decided not to kill Cassice, didn’t intend to act hastily as much as possible.

In this life, he was an observer watching every situation. This was already a dead world to Ryuseong. It didn’t mean he had let go because it was already dead. Ryuseong did his best even before the regression. Yet he only lost everything. Therefore, Ryuseong decided to do his best to bring about change.

The gear that will flow towards destruction if left alone.

He decided to loosen even a single screw attached to it.

‘If signs of destruction begin, I will kill you first.’

If you think it’s a world that’s already dead anyway, you become convinced that whatever you do will be better than the past.

So let’s struggle with all our might.

If the person who will destroy the world is you, won’t a single change directed at you as an individual come back as a huge flow? That was the thought. Already, didn’t it make Cassice Demillang say things he wouldn’t have said in the past?

‘—Though it was excessive bullshit.’

Starting today from a place swarming with reporters like a swarm of fruit flies.

Ryuseong was sincerely curious if he was crazy.

Even if you talk bullshit, you should bark in moderation. What are you trying to do by talking such crap? Is the intention to eat shit together and make a huge scandal? Because he had no idea what kind of crap his future self would hear, he only thought this.

‘Father will be worried.’

Ah, he wasn’t a father now. Ryuseong laughed weakly. Even though he thought of him as family all his life, he couldn’t accept him for fear that his existence would be a burden. He threw a tantrum asking to be called father just once, but he couldn’t even do that for him. He only cried out endlessly at a grave without even a corpse.

‘This time will be different.’

As he resolved himself and put strength into his fists.

“……”

“……”

The surroundings that were full of sobs suddenly became quiet. A terrible silence settled between them. Ryuseong had expected it, so he just raised his head and calmly looked straight ahead.

There stood Cassice.

With the face that always smiled brightly slightly furrowed.

‘So that’s why it got quiet.’

How terrifying is it that everyone falls into silence just because one person frowns?

But he was like that, not only because of the Demillang name, but also as an individual named Cassice. A beauty who makes you want to imitate even the action of furrowing his brows like a poem, and a poisonous and captivating existence like a concubine.

Despite his vicious nature that doesn’t place the slightest value on manipulating and destroying others, he was a beautiful person.

‘…… Were you also someone who knew how to suffer from your own trauma?’

He recalls his appearance before the regression when their eyes met. He himself went through the ceremony later than him, so he didn’t know if he had suffered.

Then, did you also suffer in the past?

Did you, who destroyed the world, also know pain?

***

At that moment, Cassice was unconsciously furrowing his brow. It was because there were so many people that he couldn’t tell where Ryuseong was.

Fortunately, the kind friends stayed quiet, so he was able to quickly find the bright blue eyes. He walked towards him without hesitation. Without even imagining what Ryuseong might be thinking at this moment.

‘Now, shall we start a conversation?’

Will you marry me?

No, no. Will you fake date me?

—That’s what he was thinking.