“That’s interesting…”
Eliya watched as Judas Defecit grew.
Though she skipped through time a few times, she was able to observe his gradual growth.
His small build soon sprouted up.
It was partly due to his growth spurt, but originally he was just skinny, not because he had fragile bones.
He was built wide and sturdy.
As he exercised, flesh and muscle quickly adorned his body.
He did odd jobs like cleaning the gym and washing uniforms to earn a bit of money, which he invested in his diet.
“So this is how Judas grew…”
Eliya grew up alongside Judas.
Of course, she remembers that too.
But seeing the other side of Judas’ growth, away from her, was quite mysterious.
There was a certain pleasure in watching him flourish.
“He’s kind of… cute.”
At the same time, she felt a sense of kinship.
“We have a lot in common.”
Judas Defecit was always alone.
She felt the walls he erected around himself.
His immersion in judo was a defense mechanism to avoid opening up to the outside world.
Eliya had fought back fiercely through studies after learning her mother had died.
Judas, though not having done anything wrong, threw himself obsessively into exercise after being pointed at by everyone.
There were just so many similarities.
Their lives reflected like images in a mirror.
There were differences too.
Unlike Eliya, who held memories of her mother, Judas knew nothing of his parents.
He was abandoned as a newborn in a subway station locker.
“A train running underground… That means it won’t affect the roads above, right? But how can such space not collapse…? Is it similar to the principle of cutting into a mountain?”
Someone heard his cries from the locker, and he was soon moved to an orphanage to grow up.
The fact that he had no parents spread through the school without him realizing it, and before long, he suffered from the baseless stigma of having killed them.
After all that suffering, he eventually became an adult and entered a university.
Yongho University.
It was the top physical education university in South Korea, known for producing athletes.
“The Olympics? So they have a big sports festival here too, huh? Just like the one held in Judeca. I wonder if Judas aims to be a gladiator or something.”
Freshman orientation.
True to its name, the atmosphere was anything but welcoming.
Freshmen lined up in a row.
Everyone was stiff as a board.
Except for Judas Defecit.
The expressions of the upperclassmen standing in front of them fell into two categories.
Either grim and menacing, or excited at the thought of tormenting their juniors.
The former crossed their arms and glared at the freshmen, creating an intimidating atmosphere.
The latter were pouring various drinks into a large container.
Seeing that scene, Judas felt conflicted.
“Should I spill it, or not?”
Violence disguised as military discipline.
It was especially severe in physical education universities.
He knew this before entering.
He didn’t want to endure it, though.
In fact, until he faced such a situation, it didn’t feel real.
Could something like that really happen to him?
It was all very vague.
And now, that challenge stood right in front of him.
If he was alone, it wouldn’t matter.
But he had classmates who might get hurt too.
“I should endure it.”
This too was a type of challenge he had to overcome.
It was his first time dealing with alcohol, but he just had to get through today.
Even if it was someone else’s spit, even if the drink had been stepped on.
“Hey, you there! Start stripping from the left.”
“Y-yes?”
“Did you just say ‘yes’?”
“Strip when I say to! If you listen now, it’ll be easier in the future.”
Judas changed his mind.
“Let’s not hold back.”
The moment he resolved it, he took action.
“…What’s he doing?”
“Hey, hey! You there!”
Judas just stripped right there.
He walked toward the entrance of the pension without a care.
Naturally, they wouldn’t let him go easily.
Someone approached and roughly grabbed him by the nape of his neck.
“Have you lost your mind? Who do you think you are? Why are you trying to run away?!”
Judas looked up at him with indifference.
A taller figure than him.
With the same round face as his.
He suddenly wondered.
Was this senior always like this from the beginning?
Judas shrugged off his hand.
The senior tried to hold on, but couldn’t.
The grip he felt from that soft hand was beyond a person’s strength.
Judas sighed, feeling stifled, and said,
“I came to this university to train, not to play your seniority games.”
The moment all eyes turned toward him.
He spoke calmly, but the atmosphere was anything but receptive.
If anything, it became more menacing.
He could feel the senior attempting a technique on him.
His expression twisted in anger.
He was being dragged away.
Judas scoffed.
This was reality.
Their bullying and pressure had no real benefit.
If it were to be known outside, they would be the ones pointed at.
Yet, they willingly carried it out.
They could, because they were allowed to do so.
Humans tend to act like that, even if it’s irrational and illogical.
Eliya added a thought.
“Self-esteem. Pride.”
Just as the words imply.
Those were the feelings a person uses to feel alive and confirm their existence.
Most of human behavior, which lacks real benefit and is even irrational, is executed for that little self-esteem and pride.
There are more complex reasons, but for now, she decided to focus on remembering.
Judas quickly recognized the senior’s move.
“Ankle sweep. Quick and simple. A classic in surprise attacks.”
So simple, yet easy to counter.
Above all, the opponent was agitated.
He wasn’t adhering to the basics of judo, called ‘leaning,’ and rushed into trying to execute a technique.
Leaning means tilting the opponent’s center of gravity in the desired direction.
Attempting a technique relying solely on strength without a proper lean is quite difficult.
As the senior grabbed Judas’ collar, Judas shifted the center of gravity slightly forward.
The moment the opponent tried to sweep his outer leg.
Judas used an even stronger force to sweep his leg and pushed forward.
“Return sweep.”
He countered with the same technique.
It was the larger senior who fell over.
-Thud!
A loud noise.
A sprawled figure groaning.
And all the others watching.
One of the seniors said, “Catch that guy.”
Judas made a decision.
“I have no choice.”
Twisting the fallen senior’s wrist, he threatened,
“If you come closer, I’ll break this.”
“You crazy…!”
And for a while, they got into a tussle.
The disturbance finally fizzled out after the adjacent pension called in a report.
It was a first.
A ‘tradition’ for welcoming freshmen being broken.
*
That incident created large ripples.
The violence disguised as a welcoming ceremony at a prestigious physical education university.
The bad practices that had survived under the name of tradition found themselves under media scrutiny.
There was even a freshman secretly filming the scene; he released the footage.
Thanks to that, Judas not only escaped punishment but also became an overnight celebrity.
The righteous physical education student.
However, he had no interest in lofty concepts like righteousness.
He was just fed up with the reality that everyone knew was wrong yet ignored, and wanted to train fairly.
Contrary to worries, the freshmen of his year supported him.
They were even grateful.
If he hadn’t stepped up, they all would have suffered helplessly.
It wasn’t that bad.
At least not until then.
Public interest quickly waned.
They needed a target to chew up for a while, not genuinely wanting to eradicate that injustice.
As the attention faded, the internal movements to rectify the situation also dwindled.
The traditions and power structures built up over many years couldn’t be toppled overnight.
Yongho University, renowned in the physical education world, remained intact.
What occurred during the welcoming ceremony was neatly wrapped up as a personal issue of that cohort.
The professors who had ignored the events remained unscathed.
Even the peers who had initially supported Judas and sought help began to distance themselves from him as soon as their athlete lives were affected.
In this field, if you wanted to continue your training, you had no choice but to act that way.
Slowly, as Judas became more isolated, he exposed other failures in the athletic world to the media.
He revealed how, during the selection trials for entering the player’s village, he was ostracized while attempting to win the approval of seniors and coaches.
In the national representative selection, he brought to light issues related to gaining opportunities through blood relations and local connections, along with the sexual assaults imposed on young athletes by those in authority.
The sports world was once again turned upside down, and Judas was expelled from the Central Judo Association.
Permanent disqualification from athlete eligibility.
He could no longer compete as a national representative.
Predicting this, he voluntarily withdrew from the selection trials and dropped out of the university.
The repercussions were much larger than before.
The faculty was overhauled, and once the collusion with the association was exposed, a large number of association staff were also swapped out.
For a gamble he took with everything on the line, the result wasn’t too bad.
Thus, he quit his athletic career.
Before he started working as an instructor at the gym.
During a brief break while staying holed up in his room due to stalking outside,
Judas came across a game.
“Oh man, what the heck… What am I even supposed to do with this?”
In there, he learned about a person named Eliya.
And as Eliya watched all of this unfold, she found herself staring blankly at the same screen as Judas.
On that screen was…
[Eliya de Bevel]
‘…Me?’
Eliya was killing Judas’ character in the game.
‘No matter how I look at it, it’s me…’
Computer, game, graphics.
After quickly grasping the difficult concepts, she accepted the reality seen by Judas.
A world rendered in the virtual.
A fictional character within it.
Eliya.
She realized she was that person.
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