Chapter 124. Schadenfreude
Monday.
I leaned against the wall of my studio room, scrolling through my phone.
On the screen, a post caught my attention.
[Title: I report the school bullying I suffered from Kim Gi-ryeo Hunter.]
Let’s see, so Kim Gi-ryeo was the perpetrator of school bullying.
“Bullying, injury, threats…”
This post, which went up 24 hours ago, listed a variety of offenses.
Strangely, though, I didn’t feel the seriousness of the situation.
My flawed body couldn’t recall any memories that led to this point.
“Was Kim Gi-ryeo this kind of guy?”
However, I couldn’t just dismiss the contents of the post as false based solely on my lack of memory. There were a few points to consider.
① Kim Gi-ryeo is a smoker.
② Kim Gi-ryeo dyed his hair.
Now, this seems pretty normal, right?
③ Kim Gi-ryeo has motorcycle driving skills.
But once you add that in, the vibe gets a little weird.
I had just learned not too long ago that…
“I realized when I moved Kang Chang-ho’s motorcycle, which was lying there unconscious. This body knows how to ride a motorcycle.”
It turned out that this body had a pretty high competency when it came to handling motorcycles.
Smoking. Dyeing his hair. Riding a motorcycle.
Honestly, making moral judgments based on such fragmented information is impossible.
I know it’s a narrow interpretation.
“Hmm.”
But without any other basis for judgment, it’s unavoidable to feel uneasy about it, right?
“Could that guy, Kim Gi-ryeo, really…?”
I tilted my head, imagining the past of the body I inhabited.
At that moment,
A new notification popped up on my phone screen.
[Ahn Yoon-seung☎]
– Hyung! I was worried because a bunch of articles are pouring out since this morning. Are you okay?
However, I didn’t really have anything to say in response to the following question.
– By the way, that post is all fabricated, right? There’s no way you’d do something like that in school, right?
I held my phone and went silent for a while.
‘Well, I can’t say for sure. I don’t remember.’
To say I didn’t remember was pretty shameless from a victim’s perspective.
*
Korean netizens are currently outraged over a common theme.
A day ago,
A post like this was uploaded online.
————————————
I report the school bullying I suffered from Kim Gi-ryeo Hunter.
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
I live each day like hell.
First of all, I want to clarify that this is absolutely not false.
I am a classmate of S-Class Hunter Kim Gi-ryeo, whose face you can see easily in various media.
But these days, it’s tough for me to see that face on TV.
Especially when that Hunter is being portrayed as a hero for the citizens, I just couldn’t take it anymore.
Do you know what Kim Gi-ryeo was like in school?
He was a punk. A so-called bully.
And in my third year of middle school, I was targeted by him and ended up having to drop out of school after a hellish year.
I couldn’t overcome the mental scars.
Yet, the person who did this to me got lucky and awakened, and now he’s brazenly being lauded as a hero.
Honestly, I understand that Hunters are not obliged to be morally innocent.
Even if I write this, that Hunter will keep making money and living well anyway.
But at least I wanted people to know what kind of human being he is.
————————————
Someone dropped out of school because of Kim Gi-ryeo.
The continued content consisted of harassment so severe it made me grimace.
Upon reading closely, it makes you wonder if such things could be the acts of a student.
————————————
Other kids would rejoice when the school bell rang, but for me, that sound was the scariest.
Because after school, I was dragged off to be bullied by him.
Have you ever been punched right below your collarbone?
A place where your rib cage is felt and there’s almost no fat.
When you get hit there, it really takes your breath away for a moment.
It’s hard to breathe, and it hurts so much that you might cry. Strangely enough, it doesn’t leave much of a mark.
Unless they hit really hard, it doesn’t bruise easily, and it’s a spot that isn’t visible when wearing short sleeves…
So I would get hit there whenever I had the chance.
During those moments, I had to hold my breath and keep my posture straight.
If I bent even slightly, Kim Gi-ryeo would hit me several more times for not standing straight.
————————————
But it wasn’t just assaults.
Extortion. Threats. Framing others, and so on.
The past exploits of Kim Gi-ryeo as described by the writer made the term “garbage” seem too mild.
He ruined a person’s entire school life.
————————————
If you ask why I didn’t seek help from adults, I can’t really say anything.
In hindsight, there seemed to be better, more sensible solutions than just enduring it…
But at the time, I was just too scared.
There was a time when Kim Gi-ryeo held art room scissors on my desk and said, “If you tell on me, I’ll take care of you and your family.”
How could I even think of rebelling in my head?
————————————
After detailing his lengthy suffering, the writer attached evidence to prove his words at the bottom of the post.
First, there was a proof of his former school’s uniform.
And the other was two photos.
‘Photos?’
The photos posted by the writer showed a female student crying as a male student dragged her roughly.
The female student’s face was slightly mosaic-blurred, making her identity unclear.
However, the male student was quite recognizable.
“Oh, he had black hair back then?”
It was Kim Gi-ryeo.
In other words, this was a scene of past Kim Gi-ryeo dragging someone away.
————————————
It turned out that the targets of school bullying were not limited to one gender.
He even made demands on the girls that were hard to speak of.
These photos were impulsively taken just in case one day they would need to report him.
————————————
With concrete evidence now presented, can you imagine the atmosphere that followed?
Citizens shocked to confirm the exposure post.
Moreover, about an hour later, testimonies from other alumni poured into the comments section.
[In our neighborhood, nobody doesn’t know him. I’ve been itching to say something all this time~ lol]
[Gi-ryeo, remember? You caused a ruckus at my grandma’s store when you were trying to smoke, and when my grandma asked for your ID, you brought your friends along to bully an old woman. You cursed at this weak old lady, creating quite a spectacle. At first, I wondered who did that to my grandma, but later I checked the CCTV and found it was you. That look you had while glaring at her.]
As a result, a tower of someone’s hard work collapsed in an instant…
*
Reflecting on it, I realized I hadn’t deeply considered what kind of person Kim Gi-ryeo really was.
More than anything, no one was looking for him. So I had no urge to imitate the real ‘Kim Gi-ryeo.’
Yet, to find such an enormous landmine hidden in the gap of my neglected memories…
“Hmm.”
To conclude, I was doomed.
The image I had been building while smoothly stacking cases involving the Sirens and D-Class interns was crushed entirely.
“Eh?”
“Look over there.”
“It’s Kim Gi-ryeo…”
Ignoring the voices I heard from behind, I walked ahead.
By the way, this was a dungeon materials collection point in Seogyo-dong.
Honestly, I didn’t want to be out and about at a time like this, but it seemed the loot from Mermaid’s Cove was all items that would spoil if not preserved properly.
“Hunter 61~”
“Yes.”
Crackling noises.
I disposed of unnecessary items all at once, like Siren scales.
Of course, the gazes still followed me at this moment.
The Hunter world is filled with young people, which means they were all familiar with the internet.
Rumors would probably spread even faster as time went by.
‘Damn information age.’
I was pushing that it was baseless to reporters, but how long would that hold?
Thinking of the grim future, I started towards home, thinking my business was done.
“Hyung!”
But then it happened.
Suddenly, a voice called from behind.
“Oh, Yoon Seung-ah.”
“Hello! It’s so nice to see you here!”
When I turned my head, there stood the familiar A-Class Hunter.
Seeing her with an Item Box in hand, it looked like she came to sell something as well.
“Wow, why is the weather so cold today?”
Swish.
I ignored the chatter of Yoon Seung and scanned my surroundings.
Then I caught the expressions of other Hunters.
– Ah… Come to think of it, Ahn Yoon-seung said she was close to that S-Class guy.
Whispers.
Sure enough, now that she was approaching me, Yoon Seung seemed to have found herself in the rumor mill too.
“Oh, right!”
I was taken aback.
Without caring about the atmosphere, Ahn Yoon-seung casually spoke to me.
No, she seemed to be even more confident now.
“Giyeo hyung! By the way, what are you planning to do about that?”
“What do you mean?”
“The internet post. Honestly, I know you’re the type who doesn’t care about small stuff… But I still think you should definitely file a lawsuit against the spread of false rumors. People who do that will keep causing trouble if you let them!”
Ahn Yoon-seung said with conviction.
In fact, she had gathered materials for the lawsuit, thinking that I might be busy.
She said she could call a lawyer whenever I wanted.
“Really?”
But all of this was only possible if I was truly innocent, right?
“…”
I rolled my eyes in the air and quietly spoke.
“Ahn Yoon-seung.”
“Yes?”
“What if that post is true?”
What followed were short hypotheticals.
“What if I really did garbage-like things when I was a student and I’m hiding that now, pretending to be a new person?”
But still…
It was obvious what conclusion would come from that.
From what I had seen so far, this Ahn Yoon-seung was quite principled…
Yeah, he must have that altruistic gene.
‘Someone who ruined another person’s life wouldn’t interact with me even for a fortune. This could be problematic. This Earthling has been quite helpful.’
I grew anxious about the bond I had worked hard to build crumbling away.
However…
I never expected him to respond like this.
“I don’t worry about that.”
A moment later,
Ahn Yoon-seung said with certainty,
“Human nature doesn’t change. Well, I haven’t lived long, but from what I’ve experienced, that’s how it is.”
“….”
“Those who flaunted their strength when we were students tend to behave similarly as adults.”
There was no wavering in his gaze.
“Someone who lived so selfishly in school wouldn’t personally save an A-Class left alone in front of a Golem.”
“….”
“And when some Gate pops up, I doubt they’d push someone out of the light to save them.”
“….”
“So I believe in you, hyung.”
Apparently, this Earthling trusted me.
“I believe in your present.”
So firmly.
‘What an ideal foreign neighbor…’
I felt a wave of emotion listening to Ahn Yoon-seung, but just then, a loud alarm rang from someone’s pocket.
Ding!
Ahn Yoon-seung hurriedly pulled out his phone.
“Oh, it’s a keyword alert! I actually set it to notify me whenever your name gets mentioned to prepare for the lawsuit.”
Keyword…?
I didn’t quite understand the internet terminology he mentioned but let it slide.
But somehow, Ahn Yoon-seung didn’t look so good. What on earth was he looking at?
————————
Title: Kim Gi-ryeo lol
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
(Attached photo)
He used to walk around like this in high school, what is ‘neutral gear’ lmao.
————————
I leaned in to sneak a peek at the phone screen Ahn Yoon-seung was looking at.
What I saw was a picture attached to the post.
‘This time it’s a blond guy?’
More specifically, it was a photo of the former Kim Gi-ryeo crouched down in a narrow alley, smoking.
I don’t know why he looked so pitiful crouching like that, but whatever.
After checking the post, Ahn Yoon-seung said in a thin voice.
“Do you smoke…?”
To which I replied,
“I’m trying to quit.”
