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I had clearly closed my eyes in the darkness just now, but there was the feel of someone shaking me along with a bustling sound. A dim light shone through the gaps between my closed eyes. I wanted to keep sleeping, whether that was happening or not, but someone kept tapping me on the shoulder.
“…dent, student, wake up.”
I lifted my stiff eyelids, but my vision was blurry. Something colourful flashed past my eyes. What was that? I closed my eyes again and opened them. Only then could I clearly see what was in front of me. Shoes of various types were moving in front of me. I sat up and looked around my surroundings, and I realised I was sleeping on a sidewalk. The sun was high in the sky, and someone had kindly placed a thick cardboard box on top of me. Even though it was spring, it had to have been cold at dawn, but I was passed out sleeping and unaware of the cold thanks to that.
“Student, have you been drinking? You can’t sleep here.”
It was a police officer who woke me up. I reflexively jumped up when I saw the police uniform. Police. Was it alright for me to interact with a police officer?
“I’m sorry.”
The cop grabbed my arm as I tried to evade the area as if running away.
“You’re a runaway, aren’t you? You’re still a student, right?”
“No, that’s not it.”
I didn’t graduate from high school, nor was I able to go to university, so I wasn’t a student. Runaway wasn’t the right word for it either. I was a kidnap or abduction victim. So why was I running away? I couldn’t even report anything to the police. Suddenly, I felt a kind of injustice again, but I had to get away first. However, the police officer wouldn’t let go of someone trying to run away. Because that was their job. Still, I couldn’t let myself get caught like this.
“I’m not a runaway. I’m over twenty years old, and… I slept here because I was tired…” I said as I shook their arm off, but the officer just smirked.
“What do you mean you’re not? You’re from Cheonwol, right? Hey! You’ll have a real hard time if you leave home. Let’s go and have a little talk with your parents.”
There was a police car in front of me. The police officer tried to pull me into the car, but I pushed them away with all my might. Then I ran. I threw up, but at least I ate something, and even though I was on the street, I felt a little better than yesterday since I had some sleep. However, I didn’t make it more than a few metres before I was caught by the police officer.
As I sat dazedly on a chair in the police station, I saw a pair of black loafers in front of me. A flat and business-like voice pierced my ears, one I had heard not too long ago.
“You’re really stupid. You get good grades, but you can’t work your head? You got caught by the police in just one day? This is a disgrace to the S.E.”
Even I thought it was embarrassing. I hadn’t planned on running away in the first place, but I didn’t think I’d get caught in such a useless way after getting this far. Because I wasn’t an ability user. Even an ordinary high school student would be able to run away for at least three days.
Still, she was wrong about me being a disgrace to the S.E. I never agreed to be part of the S.E., so my disgrace couldn’t be a disgrace to the S.E. However, logical reasoning didn’t work on the humans of S.E., including her. Maybe it was because they were a group of ability users, but I didn’t know why their common sense transcended reality. I closed my eyes, knowing that I wasn’t going to be able to communicate with her. The option that S.E. had given up on me was gone. It just seemed like they were watching to see how I frolicked around. There were several different ways to play with people.
I had no idea why they were treating me, someone who was worse than the average person, so harshly. I didn’t even have the bare minimum of abilities, but when I actually left S.E., my future looked bleak. I’d heard that in the military, they’d make bad jokes like “Close your eyes, that’s your future,” but I had no idea that this would become a reality for me. Until recently, I had only seen S.E. in the news or in articles, but I was just a high school student who worked hard to come to Korea because I wanted to go to university in Korea and live a decent life after graduation, so why did my options suddenly become S.E. or nothing?
Still, since I had come this far already, I thought that I should at least try something, so I slowly opened my eyes and took the gun out of my arms. However, I heard a small chuckle coming from above my head.
“Shoot.”
“……”
From the weight of it, I could tell with a heavy sense that it wasn’t a toy gun. I clutched it awkwardly, but I couldn’t carry out the following actions.
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
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I walked in time with the people helping me up from the side. I could feel the stares around me. I felt like a criminal. What crime had I committed? The crime of not accepting my impending situation?
I was put into a big, black car. The car door slid shut, and the car began to move. The woman in the front seat said, “Combining the three days you couldn’t complete and ninety days for desertion, you’re going to have to stay in military prison for ninety-three days. You’re cute, so I let some things slide and cut it short.”
“…Ninety-three days… Why don’t you just kill me?”
“Don’t worry, I’ll bring you back to life when you’re on the verge of dying.”
“…And him?”
“Who?”
“The person who helped me escape…”
“Oh, Jung Haekyung?”
So his name was Jung Haekyung. I nodded, and the woman said, “There’s no point in putting him in prison, so he’s been sent to a conflict zone for terrorist suppression. He’ll have to rot there for half a year.”
“……”
“You don’t think you’ll make the ninety-three days?”
I nodded slowly. The woman slid a piece of paper behind her chair without even turning around.
“Sign it.”
The ballpoint pen she threw landed on my thigh. I read the document. I didn’t really understand since there were many complicated words, but basically, it said that the government would take no liability if I died in a mission or training, and that they could deny my existence if I was taken as a prisoner… It was like something out of an espionage film. My father’s signature was already on the guardian’s signature line. I wasn’t strong enough to coolly sign it like the protagonist of a movie. However, I had no other choice now.
“Don’t be intimidated by the word no liability. Though that’s what it says, we wouldn’t abandon precious human resources.”
“……”
“I’m saying this for a second time, but the salary is good, and there’s substantial compensation if you die. You get a lot more vacations than you think, and we’re much freer than other forces. Do you know how serious youth unemployment is these days? Civil service jobs are so popular. You’re still young, so you don’t know the ways of the world yet.”
“……”
“Well, you’re at the age to go to university, right? Anyhow, you’re an army recruit, so just think of it as going to university. You’ll learn lots of interesting things. You don’t know how to shoot a gun, do you? You can try shooting every type of gun that exists. Do you have a licence? We’ll teach you to handle most modes of transportation. If you’re smart, you can learn things like decoding as well, but you seem kind of stupid.”
“……”
“With all of this, we should be getting paid, but we’re even giving money. It’s all taxes. Blood-like taxes. Do you know how much it costs to turn an ability user into something useful? If you’ve invested that much, isn’t it natural to expect returns? Really, I can’t understand those who call it a violation of human rights.”
“……”
“What are you doing by not signing? Are you going to sign it after ninety-three days have passed?”
I picked up the ballpoint pen and wrote my name. Kim Euijin. I wrote my name with my own hand, but this wasn’t of my own will, it was a threat. Contracts signed through threats weren’t effective, were they? However, it seemed that the judicial authority that could determine the legality of this contract was in league with S.E.
I returned to S.E. in just one day. Since the contract had been legally filled out now, I was given a short explanation. Although the order and procedure were a mess, I was officially a member of S.E.
The woman who pestered me constantly was the medical director of S.E.’s Science, Technology, and Medical Acceleration Research Institute, not an ability user but a doctor. I couldn’t believe she had taken the Hippocratic Oath. Her tired, drooping eyes, hair haphazardly tied into a ponytail, and pale face without a touch of makeup made her look both young and old, making it impossible to gauge her age.
As Director Baek had said, S.E.’s training centre was similar to a university. It was also similar to the military. I hadn’t been to either, but S.E. was a rough mix of the two. It was similar to the military I had heard about through rumours, with everyone having to live in dormitories, move according to a designated schedule, wear uniforms, and report every little thing. Of course, there were differences from the military or a military academy.
First, as Director Baek had said, the salary wasn’t bad. When Director Baek, who spoke indifferently about the basic salary based on years of service, rank, ability rank, various performance bonuses, special allowances, risk allowances, holiday allowances, and even tax and deduction details, dragged her words out with a “However—”, I gulped, feeling somewhat nervous.
“You have a record of desertion, so you’re excluded from that.”
“What?”
“Your pay will be cut for a year.”
“By how much?”
“100%.”
“……”
“We’ll provide you with food, shelter, and even clothes, so what’s the need for money?”
She said that they’d let me go out or take a vacation as long as I had a good reason.
“You have a record of desertion, so you’re excluded from that.”
“What?”
“You’re prohibited from going out for a year.”
“……”
“Anyhow, you don’t have anywhere to go, do you? You don’t have money either, right? And don’t you know how embarrassing it’d be if we ended up seeing each other at the police station again because you decided to sleep out in the open?”
She said that there was no work to do on the weekends.
“You’re excluded from that.”
“Because I have a record of desertion?”
“No, this is repayment for our meeting at the police station.”
“……”
“It seems like you don’t… know that we have a bad relationship with the police. Anyway, if something similar happens again, you won’t have free time on weekdays either. I’d rather you be caught by some criminal. It’d be fun saving you.”
“……”
“Stop by the research lab every weekend. Since you’re such an amazing case, there are so many experiments I want to try.”
“…Isn’t that a bit much?”
“Then, do you want to complete those ninety-three days?”
Who the hell was I running away for? I vowed never to leave S.E. without permission again. Now, I had to somehow adapt and live here. So, I tried my best to dig for any advantages S.E. offered. They let us do whatever we wanted with our hair, we didn’t have to use military talk, the command and discipline didn’t seem all that strict either, and the food was made buffet-style… I tried to forcefully pull out some advantages before I realised that, just three months earlier, this was how I naturally lived. I couldn’t believe I was raking in what were originally normal things in the outside world as advantages.
Suddenly, I felt the injustice of it again, and I threw the croissant I was eating. There was no one in front of me, so it didn’t hit anyone. Only the brown bread crumbs flew through the air. Not only in front of me, but the seats besides me were empty as well. The table I sat at was the only one empty. Even though it was currently lunch time!
Apart from Director Baek, no one even cast a glance at me here. If it wasn’t something concerning work, they wouldn’t talk to me either. If I initiated a conversation, they would mumble a short answer before leaving. If I tried to sit next to someone, they would openly put on an uncomfortable expression and avoid me.
Was I being outcasted right now? Why? Because I didn’t have any abilities? They couldn’t act any cheaper than they already were. Was it my fault my abilities were lousy? I was the one who said that I understood and wouldn’t join. How could they ignore me like this after forcibly dragging me here?
Nearly every year, I had to follow my father and move countries, so I didn’t really have any friends, but I had never once been ostracised or turned into an outcast. Rather, with my reasonably developed social skills, I managed to get along well almost anywhere. In the beginning, I hadn’t approached anyone first because I thought this place was shit, but as I decided to accept the situation, I spoke to my roommate.
“Where are you going this weekend?”
I didn’t like Fridays because I knew I would be meeting Director Baek in the lab again over the weekend. Seeing as how my roommate was packing up his stuff, I wondered if he was planning to stay out overnight and asked him a question, but that bastard’s face turned pale. I mean, it wasn’t as if I had asked him out on a weekend date, right? I was just asking him where he was going. However, my roommate didn’t answer me and stopped packing his bags, leaving them there as he crawled into his bed and covered himself with a blanket. Did using informal language upset him? Was he older than me? Then he should’ve just told me not to use informal language. I pulled the blanket covering my roommate’s face and asked again, “Why are you ignoring me?”
“…Sorry.”
My roommate turned to lie facing the wall. I felt strange. Up until now, I had felt that I was the one disconnecting from this place, but that didn’t seem to be the case. So, the next morning, I brought my tray to the table where a guy from the same shooting team as me was eating. I sat down in front of him and spoke in a very casual way, “Do the sausages taste good?”
“……”
However, not only did that guy ignore what I was saying, but he suddenly started scarfing down his food at the speed of light before instantly getting up and leaving. Not only he, but all the guys at that table disappeared as well. It wasn’t as if I had asked them for a sausage, and even if I had, there was a whole mountain of sausages stacked up. I was baffled, so I just ate my steamed eggs.
This situation continued until now. It was just that I hadn’t noticed before because I had been eating all alone. Come to think of it, it had always been like that. Being alone by my own choice and being alone because people were avoiding me were different.
“That’s seriously so damn cheap of them. Just how great do you think you are? Shit.”
Sitting alone at a table, mumbling to myself, I truly looked like a fucking outcast. Ever since I turned twenty, everything that had happened to me had been unfair.
orcinus comments:
The raws of the novel will no longer be available to purchase after august ends due to contract expiration, so if you want to support the author, do it now!!
On the other hand, the author said it’ll probably be up again some time next year (and that the current extras will probably be revised into the novel’s timeline, but I’ll figure stuff out when we get there)
Finally, Euijin’s name has been revealed, so I no longer have to keep writing MC to avoid spoilers…
Why are people avoiding our MC?😓
Probs cuz of the pretty dude in the beginning the one who melted the heavy door and crushed the cuffs. Maybe just a thought.
Director Baek is officially on my shit list, if we ever met it’s on site (◕ᴗ◕✿)