Chapter 48: Cousin
Chapter 48: Cousin
Mark landed on the school roof with Dona in princess carry, and his wings contracted behind him. He kept a note of his surroundings with his Soul Sense.
Sometimes, a person can feel when someone is looking at you from the back. The Soul Sense was a way more potent version of this 6th sense.
It was not as clear to visualize things it saw as it was to visualize with your eyes. It was not as audible in terms of noise when compared to his ears, and it was not nearly as good as the skin in terms of understanding texture and temperature.
But the Soul Sense was somewhat very special. It was more of a complimentary sense to all of his other senses. It couldn't move into walls or see through opaque objects like he would have liked, but it could enter through holes and see things.
His current Soul Sense could stretch as far as 92 meters from him.
Standing on this school's rooftop, he could sense a squirrel in the woods near the school. It was an overpowered trait of his now.
When he first awakened Soul Sense, he had been indeed worried about the World Will having an adverse effect on it. But in the end, the Soul Sense didn't have any physical presence of its own—it was more or less like a gaze.
If the World Will could burn Soul Sense, it should have also been capable of burning his eyes for having a field of vision. His senses pierced into the school building through many windows and air holes.
Other than the eery silence, he could also hear some faint murmurs—The school wasn't completely empty. Cram schooling, supplementary tuitions, and many such things were going on inside.
Some classes were bustling. In fact, a young man was even getting forced on top of a bench by his male classmates. He had a really blissful expression.
Mark raised both his eyebrows and shook his head.
His innocence was gone.
Stopping his jests, Mark grew serious.
This was Sangrok Sports High School, the very same school where he first appeared the first time he arrived in this world. It was the place where the Trio Hunters—Fulan, Maki, and Shiden—bullied a classmate named Seo Jin Hu into suicide.
He hadn't come all the way to this place for no reason. Mark had been keeping an eye on the Trio Hunters and using online data. He had acquired the base amount of details regarding each of them. Today, he was here in search of a particular student.
He was going to try using his new demonic trick.
Indeed, he is here.
A devilish grin grew on Mark's face.
***
KILL! KILL! KILL! KILL!
Sitting near a window inside a silent classroom, a young man, his black hair as unruly as a crow's nest, kept scribbling in his notebook with a pencil. The teacher who was giving the cram lectures was a sweet old woman, and at this moment, they were on a small break.
She suddenly smiled and addressed the class. "This class is actually very blessed, to be honest. It produced three Hunters, and apparently, all three are very special. I am rather proud to be teaching this class."
The boy paused and tightened his hand. The pencil's tip pushed against the paper, and it broke. Without a word, he stood up and left the classroom with his bag.
The teacher was stunned and called out to him, but the youth spat at the class, slammed the door shut, and walked away into the corridor outside.
The teacher asked with a pale face, "Did I do something wrong?"
"No, teacher. That is Seo Ran Hun. He is the suicide victim, Seo Jin Hu's cousin. This is kind of a sensitive topic for him…"
"… I see."
The youth stormed into a nearby bathroom and, for a second, just stared at the mirror before him.
"The noble Trio Hunters?" the youth sneered. "The saviors of humanity, my ass."
He clenched the wash basin and stared at his cold black eyes in the mirror.
True, actual bullies who had bullied a classmate to death were being treated like victims and heroes. It sickened him.
The Trio Hunters were living the best lives they could have ever hoped for—the world's veneration, incredible powers that only kept growing stronger, and an amazing mentor.
He clenched the band of his bag for a while before the anger inside him just burst. Feeling like shit, he threw his bag into the toilet and gave it some kicks, and flushed the toilet repeatedly. The bag didn't drown in it, but it was a pathetic sight.
"True fucking criminals are the pride of the class?!" he snapped, "That bitch doesn't know what's good for her!"
Fulan, Maki, and Shiden had joinedly bullied his cousin Seo Jin Hu and made him die. But instead of villains, those three were called heroes. They were pictured as fucking children who made mistakes.
Poor people are so sad because they unknowingly ended up killing their classmate.
How. Fucking. Convenient.
Mistakenly took lives!
How… preposterous.
He gritted his teeth so hard and clenched his hand so tightly. Yet, then, he calmed down and sighed. Looking at the bag, his eyes became lost, and putting his hand into the toilet, he began to salvage what he could.
In the end, he couldn't fail his classes, and he was not like the Trio Hunters. He was just a simple human. He needed the certificates.
"Sorry, Jin Hu…" he sighed as a dripping bag was pulled out. "I can't take revenge for you."
***
Mark had used Heart Input on the teacher to make her talk about the Trio Hunters at that exact moment. Still, even he hadn't expected this strong of a reaction. That was just all the better for what he was here for.
Jumping into the school building through a window with Dona fast against his chest, he walked near the bathroom silently and smirked as he looked at the youth before him.
Seo Ran Hun had a lot of resemblance to his dead cousin, whose photos Mark had only seen on the internet. The youth was trashing the bathroom and cursing out all sorts of obscenities.
About the Trio Hunters being called heroes, Mark himself had some guesses. Maybe the government wanted to paint such a pure picture to give the masses some hope. After all, the mega-dungeon was a huge threat.
A simple psyop to make everyone believe a young gang of Hunters was growing heroically was nothing bad if it could increase the collective morale of all Hunters.
Reaching near him, Mark looked at his defeated back and smiled. This guy was going to become very valuable to him, hopefully.