Chapter 13
The weekend has arrived.
Do you know that feeling?
When the weekend comes, you want to sleep in, so you don’t set an alarm, but for some reason, you end up waking up at the same time as on weekdays.
Moreover, during weekdays, if the alarm goes off, you usually shut it off and pull the blanket over you to drift back to sleep, but on weekends, for some reason, once you wake up, you just can’t fall back asleep no matter how hard you try.
I resent my body’s stubborn adherence to the law of average sleep time conservation…
I pulled out a portion of bean sprouts for breakfast and threw myself back onto the bed.
With no school to attend, I had nothing to do.
But I quite enjoyed zoning out.
A state where I’m not doing anything, yet I could do nothing even more intensely.
If I could reach that level, amazing feats unimaginable by ordinary people would be possible.
That is precisely, killing time.
The cruel time murderer on the bed.
That was another name for me, Scarlett Evande, the Time Slayer.
Ah, this is what it means to [kill] something.
In that moment, I became a merciless person, devoid of blood or tears, diligently striking at the neck of time.
‘Such a cruel bastard, you will pay one day!’
The dying time screamed.
But I’m not the one who needs to worry about such things.
After all, the price will be paid by my future self.
For now, I simply revel in the amusement of this moment…
As the slaughter of time came to an end, lunchtime had arrived.
Since I wasn’t going to school, I had to eat lunch at home. While pulling out the amount of bean sprouts I would eat, I suddenly felt a sense of unease.
I’m not going to school.
I won’t meet Silvia.
In that moment, an exclamation mark flashed in my mind.
Instead of just taking out a bit of the bean sprouts from the fridge, I pulled out the entire container.
I was preparing to indulge in a luxury that I would have never imagined until now.
But I had no hesitation in this moment.
I grabbed a large handful of bean sprouts.
And then, I stuffed them all into my mouth at once and bit down!
Crunch, the refreshing texture flooded my mouth!
The violent and intense stimulation I couldn’t feel when I was slowly tasting one stem at a time made my body shiver.
Unconsciously, my mouth slightly opened, and a deep, satisfied sigh escaped me.
How could I have missed something so good until now? I’ve lost half (three days) of my life!
At this moment, I truly felt alive.
I was foolish.
I was really foolish.
Why did it take me so long to realize such an important fact?
I don’t go to school on weekends.
If I don’t go to school, I can’t see Silvia.
In other words, I can’t see Silvia on weekends, but I also don’t have to pay the friend fee!
There are eight weekends in a month.
The friend fee for those eight days totals a whopping 24,000 gold.
Combined with the 6,000 gold I had left, that gave me a total of 30,000 gold.
Thanks to that, my living expenses had multiplied by five.
So, the next step was clear.
I quickly finished the remaining bean sprouts and devoured the pieces of macarons from the fridge without a second thought.
As someone with assets of 30,000 gold, I didn’t need to bother with these trivial things anymore!
Tonight, it’s a bean sprout party!
I arrived at the discount mart to go shopping.
Indeed, having a thick wallet brings a sense of comfort. I felt like I could greet Yoon Si-woo with a smile and casually brush him off.
“Scarlett! Are you here to do grocery shopping too?”
Crap, cancel that.
What are the odds of running into him right after thinking about it?
If this happened in a novel, it would be criticized for being contrived.
…Come to think of it, I ran into him last time on my way to school as well.
He probably lives around here, so I should be careful from now on…
I sighed inwardly and nodded at Yoon Si-woo.
“You seem to be running errands. You’re quite the dutiful daughter, Scarlett?”
Dutiful, yes, but perhaps a bit fiery.
I quietly replied to Yoon Si-woo as he smiled brightly.
“I don’t have parents.”
Is it just me, or does it feel like I said this not long ago?
Suddenly going quiet, I looked at Yoon Si-woo, who was frozen with his mouth slightly open.
What’s up with this guy?
Did I unknowingly cast the spell “Stop!”?
“…Sorry. I didn’t know.”
After being stunned for a moment, Yoon Si-woo apologized with a downcast expression.
What brought that gloomy mood on?
“Don’t worry about it. It’s not like we’re the only ones without parents.”
I said that thoughtlessly, as he appeared close to hitting rock bottom.
“Huh? How did you know I don’t have parents? Did I mention it?”
And then I realized, thanks to Yoon Si-woo’s words, I had made a mistake.
A chill ran down my spine.
I couldn’t say I found out because I read it in the novel where he was the main character.
It was entirely my fault.
In academy stories, it’s a rule that the protagonist is usually an orphan, so it had slipped my tongue in such a natural way.
Typically, it goes something like, “Oh? The protagonist comes from an orphanage, then realizes something happened between his parents and that orphanage, and they form a bond,” right?
Of course, [The Holy Swordsman of the Academy] doesn’t have that kind of story!
Feeling like I had to make an excuse, I just said the first thing that popped into my head.
“It just looks like that.”
Yoon Si-woo muttered, “Really?” as he looked confused by my reply.
Thinking back, that wasn’t entirely wrong.
With a face like that and those abilities, it would make more sense if he didn’t have parents!
Moreover, that guy was loaded because Lucy, the ego of the Sword of Humility, had told him where to find ruins filled with valuable treasures.
Comparing myself to him, I suddenly felt queasy.
I also have no parents, so why am I broke and mediocre?
It seems that really, the ones without parents are in this world.
What an infuriating injustice.
How are people born without a silver spoon supposed to live?
Getting annoyed, I waved my hand in a gesture telling Yoon Si-woo to shove off.
He looked at me with an expression of confusion for a moment before paying for the items in his basket and leaving the store.
Just looking at the items in his basket, it seemed like what he bought was more than my monthly living expenses, so I felt a relative sense of deprivation, but I shook my head to regain focus.
Don’t be jealous, Scarlett!
You’re on your own shopping quest, not a duel!
I forced myself to turn my gaze from the meats that were alluringly calling to me from afar and began picking up the items I intended to buy.
First up, a small 500ml bottle of cooking oil.
Having cooking oil on hand makes a huge difference in the variety of dishes you can prepare.
To put it plainly, if you don’t have cooking oil, you really don’t have many cooking options.
It was absolutely necessary for the dish I was making today.
Price: 1500 gold.
Next, the item I craved the most today.
A small 300g bottle of oyster sauce.
Oysters are quite polarizing, but for some reason, oyster sauce hardly seems to have any haters.
Add it to dishes, and it makes even the most trivial food taste gourmet.
That said, it is a bit on the pricey side.
Price: 3500 gold.
Then I grabbed a bag of bean sprouts weighing 300g, not one, but two bags.
I thought I wasn’t a person trembling at the thought of spending just a thousand gold anymore! But my hand was trembling as I picked up the bean sprouts.
…What can you do?
For someone who was trying to survive on 7000 gold for a month, spending 7000 gold in a day was a huge deal.
What I was doing obviously felt like outrageous overspending.
But just for today, I decided it was worth it for the bean sprout party.
After all, tomorrow is also the weekend, so it’s fine to buy a little extra.
Bean sprout flex.
I coolly pulled out my student ID with my index and middle fingers and paid for my items.
Having spent 7000 gold, my remaining living expenses were 23000 gold.
If I only ate bean sprouts from now on, I could live comfortably for a while.
I didn’t have to worry about going hungry anytime soon.
I returned home, unpacked my purchases, and prepared to cook.
I stored one bag of bean sprouts in the fridge and opened the other.
I took a handful of bean sprouts out of the bag, washed them clean under running water, and drained them.
I turned on the stove, placed a pan on it, and added the cooking oil.
Next, I tossed in the drained bean sprouts.
As the heat caused the bean sprouts to wilt, I stirred them with a spatula.
The rich, nutty aroma of the frying bean sprouts sizzling in the oil was already a promise they’d be better than just blanched sprouts, but the real delight was just beginning.
I added my secret weapon, the oyster sauce.
As the sauce soaked into the fried bean sprouts, I couldn’t help but salivate at the enticing smell.
A bit of sesame oil would have been a nice touch, but this would be plenty delicious.
I plated the finished dish.
Stir-fried bean sprouts in oyster sauce.
Those who have tasted it know that this is a true rice thief.
Of course, since I didn’t have rice at the moment, it would suffice to say it was just a thief!
I picked up a shiny, well-coated bean sprout with my chopsticks and popped it into my mouth.
Even though they had been fried, the bean sprouts still had a satisfying crunch, and the salty and savory flavor enveloped my palate.
If I were to sum it up in one word, it was a taste of nostalgia.
It was a dish my mother made often because bean sprouts were cheap and plentiful.
When I first said they tasted good, she started making them so often that I eventually complained and wanted her to stop.
Honestly, I thought I had grown tired of it, but being in a place like this made it the first thing that came to mind.
One bite.
Two bites.
While lost in thought, suddenly a drop of water fell onto my plate.
What was that? Just as I wondered, more drops began to fall onto the plate.
Before anything else, my first thought was to protect the bean sprouts, so I quickly pulled the plate away.
It turned out the source of the water was my eyes.
Tears streamed down as if a faucet was turned all the way on.
“Damn, what is going on…”
I tried to make them stop, but for some reason, the tears just wouldn’t quit.
This absurd situation made me want to laugh.
How ridiculous that while crying, my first thought was about saving the stir-fried bean sprouts.
Fortunately, by swiftly moving the plate, not too many tears fell into it.
I just felt like my tears wouldn’t stop for a while, so I sniffled, giggled, and slowly munched on the stir-fried bean sprouts, which seemed to have a slightly stronger flavor now.
I guess it was so delicious that it made me cry.
So delicious.
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