Chapter 78

Chapter 78

Spendthrift Necromancer (78)

Second Arrangement (4)

Leaving the whispering students behind, he sat down beside Merhen.

“Th-Thank…….”

“You eating that weird lunch again today?”

“……

Pardon?”

“You know. The one where you pack a single whole potato and nothing else. Are you eating that again?”

Merhen's face flushed bright red.

“H-How do you know about that……?”

“I saw it. By accident.”

There was a cafeteria, but she always hid somewhere to eat.

So he'd followed once and taken a look.

Watching her force down nothing but one whole potato had been pretty pitiful.

“Eat with me today. I'll buy.”

“No, I'm fine…….”

“Tsk. People need to eat properly. Just come with me.”

She stammered for a moment.

Then quietly followed him and stopped before the cafeteria.

Models of countless dishes stood around the menu board.

“Pick something. At least five silver.”

One silver felt roughly like ten thousand won.

Fortunately, Kern had quite a lot of money.

Even if he hadn't, it wouldn't matter.

Minwoo could just pull junk from his inventory and sell it for silver or gold.

Since nobles were the main customers, meal prices became terrifying the higher you went.

Even so, few nobles ordered anything cheap.

It was practically part of maintaining their dignity.

“I-I'm really fine…….”

“You like meat, right? How about that?”

He pointed toward a beef stew model filled with huge chunks of meat.

Gulp.

He heard her swallow.

As expected.

He'd met very few people who disliked meat. Merhen was no exception.

He ordered the meal. After a short wait, a stew loaded with meat just like the model arrived. It even came with a generous serving of vegetables for health.

“Eat.”

Minwoo took the first spoonful.

A rich, tender flavor of meat filled his mouth.‘Good.’Watching him, Merhen hurriedly began spooning stew into her own mouth.

A happy smile appeared on her face, so apparently it suited her tastes.

Well, it was a hundred times better than a plain potato.

When they were almost finished, Minwoo asked.

“Is Academy life difficult?”

“Slurp! Y-Yes?”

“I asked whether it's difficult.”

“I-I'm fine.”

“Doesn't look fine to me.”

“…….”

She fell silent, staring at the stew.

Then Merhen raised her head and asked.

“Is this why you helped me?”

“What do you mean by this?”

“……

What you're doing to me right now. Buying food like you're giving charity to a beggar, so you can mock me?”

“I'm not mocking you.”

“……

Then why ask something like that?”

The bright eyes that had been happily eating stew a moment ago had grown utterly gloomy, as though the earlier expression had been a lie.

“If I tell you I'm struggling, does anything actually change?”

“Yes. Quite a lot.”

“No. Nothing changes. I'm still just a half-baked failure who can't even get the sponsorship everyone else receives.”

Sponsorship.

Minwoo had heard that Academy students could activate sponsorships.

Usually, the higher their parents' noble rank and their own talent, the more sponsorship money poured in.

Seen that way, there was nowhere sponsorship could possibly come from for Merhen.

A commoner and a half-baked Mage.

It would be no different from throwing money into the street.

“You're half-assing everything.”

“……

What did you say?”

“You don't hold your pride high, and you haven't completely thrown it away either. You haven't given up on becoming a Mage, but you aren't burning passionately for it either.”

“…….”

“I may not know much else, but there's one thing I know for certain. Someone who stays stuck between two choices ultimately becomes nothing.”

Merhen bit her lip and asked.

“What do you know about me……?”

“If you'd thrown your pride away, you'd have asked people to help because you're struggling. If you wanted to preserve it, you wouldn't have accepted a meal from me in the first place.”

She seemed completely lost for words.

“If you'd given up on becoming a Mage, you'd have already left or found some other path. If you were truly burning for it, you'd be risking your life trying to manifest magic. But you aren't doing any of those things.”

It was behavior typical of someone her age.

Half-hearted at everything.

In other words, unable to choose and focus.

“……

That's a pretty expensive price for one meal.”

“No. If anything, I'm the one paying you right now.”

Kim Minwoo spoke with a serious expression.

“You care just enough about what others think to drown yourself in debt, let yourself get pushed around without properly fighting back, and cling half-heartedly to your dream. Has your life gotten any better than before?”

“Then what do you want me to do?! I'm just a talentless half-baked commoner! You want me to resist nobles? Give up the Academy I finally got into?”

“If I were you, I would've already manifested magic or died trying. And I would've fought those nobles a long time ago.”

“Ha. Easy to say.”

“That's exactly why you have to do it. Because it isn't easy. Why do you keep letting them walk all over you? Because you're a commoner? Because you have no talent? They're all excuses.”

“I told you. I can't use a single spell.”

“You can still fight, can't you? Am I wrong?”

Merhen's mouth snapped shut.

“If you fight back, are those bitches going to kill you? Risk getting expelled from the Academy just to ruin some commoner? No. If they're sane, they won't. At worst they'll break an arm or a leg.”

“…….”

“Don't you think a crazy bitch who loses it and fights back is better than an idiot who just stands there taking everything?”

“You're a noble too, so you know. If I resist, my family could be in danger…….”

Kim Minwoo snorted.

“Were you really staying quiet because of that? Not just because you were scared?”

“……

Why are you so sure? What if that really was the reason?”

“If you were truly enduring everything for your family, you wouldn't have lived this stupidly in the first place. People like that have desperation burning in their eyes. You would've risked your life trying to manifest magic.”

Merhen bit her lip.

In truth, Kim Minwoo knew too.

Expecting that kind of initiative from a girl Merhen's age was extremely difficult.‘So what?’There was no reason he had to indulge that.

Helping Merhen?

It was actually absurdly easy.

Shower her with sponsorship money, pamper her, stop all the bullying, become her friend and play with her.

That was all.

An easy path.

But would a good reward really be waiting for something any random person could do?

At least Gate Hunter wasn't that kind of unfair game.

You earned what you suffered for.

That was the rule of this world.

The easy path and the hard path.

Kim Minwoo was the kind of gamer who chose the latter whenever possible.

This time too.

Pampering her wouldn't change the root of anything. Once Minwoo disappeared.‘That happiness would vanish like foam.’If Merhen truly wanted to change, she ultimately had to change herself rather than relying on someone else.

She needed to build her own self-worth, think for herself, and act on her own initiative.

That was how she could become genuinely happy.

To change things from the roots, he first had to shake up what was inside.

That was why he was being harsh.

“Look only at your current situation. Is this really the time for you to keep weighing one thing against another? I don't think so.”

“……

Thank you for the meal. I'll be going.”

Merhen abruptly stood and left the cafeteria.

He didn't bother stopping her.

He'd already thrown out the first question.

Now it was time to watch what happened next.* * *Merhen strode forward.

She'd bitten her lip so hard that blood was beginning to run.

Kern.

He really was unbelievably rude.

But what made her even angrier.

Was the pathetic sight of herself, unable to offer a single proper rebuttal to anything he'd said.

When had her life become this twisted?

When she'd been born a commoner rather than a noble?

When she'd taken the aptitude test in her village?

When she'd failed to manifest magic and fallen into the abyss?

When she'd begun borrowing money and overextending herself to protect her flimsy pride?

She didn't know.

One thing was certain.

Somewhere along the way, her life had become so tightly tangled that she couldn't even imagine how to begin undoing it.―You're half-assing everything.

Kern's words stabbed into her heart like a knife.

He was right.

She truly stood nowhere.

Just a commoner girl who'd gotten lucky enough to win the lottery once. Nothing more and nothing less.

Then she'd realized that good fortune had been an illusion and collapsed all at once like an idiot.

Had she worked hard enough to die?

No.

She'd simply attended the same classes as everyone else and struggled through books in the library.

You could call that effort.

But certainly not enough to attach the words ‘to the death.’―Not just because you were scared?

Yes.

She was scared.

Her family?

Born as the fifth child, she'd been pushed aside by the others and barely treated as a daughter at all.

She'd been nothing more than a tool to be sold off.

Her tenant-farmer father had been desperate to sell her to an elderly noble.

Her mother was the same.

If she hadn't taken that aptitude test, Merhen would probably already be some potbellied nobleman's concubine.

She'd endured for her family?

Merhen smiled bitterly.‘What an idiot.’Honestly, she'd simply blurted it out.

As if to say, I wasn't that pathetic.

I had my reasons.

Kern had seemed to see straight through her heart, and she'd felt compelled to make at least some excuse.

She'd known she was already at rock bottom.

Today had merely forced her to stare at it again.

Yet she couldn't understand why her heart hurt so much.

Then.

“Hey, halfwit.”

A familiar voice came from somewhere.

She spun around and saw familiar faces.

Dolores.

And the noble girls who followed her.

Five women approached.

Dolores's eyes in particular looked completely unhinged.

“If you can't use magic, just keep your head down and disappear. You're almost getting expelled anyway, so now you're planning to wag your tail at a man and latch onto him? Huh?”

“Oh, my lady, you already know. Lowborn blood doesn't change, does it?”

“Exactly. Looks like she wants to catch herself a man and turn her life around, but he's famous, isn't he? We all know how that's going to end.”

The noble girls pretended to restrain Dolores while cleverly egging her on.

Dolores soon walked right up to Merhen and jabbed a finger into her chest over and over.

Each time, Merhen was pushed helplessly backward.

Of all times, they'd found her when she was already in the absolute worst mood.

Really.

Nothing was going right today.

Everything pissed her off.

Dolores in front of her, and the stupid noble bitches screeching beside her too.‘What am I even enduring this for?’She couldn't use magic anyway and was probably going to get kicked out of this place soon, just like that woman said.

Was her life really that important?

The moment she left the Academy, a gutter of a life would be waiting for her anyway.

Thinking carefully, there wasn't a single reason left to endure this.

No.

If she simply endured all of this and then got expelled, she felt like she'd regret it for the rest of her life.

“You lowborn bitch. What are you going to do about my hair? Want me to kill your whole family? Huh? All I have to do is tell Father…….”

“……

Do it.”

“……

What?”

“If you're going to do it, then do it. Kill all of them. You fucking bitch!”

Grab!

Merhen seized Dolores's newly shortened hair in a death grip.

She began shaking her arm violently. Dolores's head whipped around like an inflatable doll.

“Aaagh!”

“My lady!”

“You crazy bitch! Have you lost your mind? Let go!”

Every woman there was a Mage.

Yet not one even thought to use magic.

Partly because none of them had ever imagined that Merhen, who'd remained quiet as a mouse for so long, would suddenly pull something this insane.

And partly because using manifestation magic against another person outside class was forbidden.

The noble girls had grown completely accustomed to that rule.

So in the end, the most familiar weapons came out.

Their hands.

They grabbed Merhen by the head, neck, shoulders, and arms, pinching and twisting her.

Merhen ignored all of it and clung stubbornly to Dolores, never releasing her hair.

“Die, you fucking bitch!”

“Let go! Aaaaaagh!”

Six women tangled together in a filthy brawl.

Students and professors began flooding toward the commotion almost immediately.