Chapter 90

Red Tiger was bound in a red pillory for he had sinned.

However, while he was tied to it, he additionally carried the punishment of “foreseen hell” to shield Shin-lok Kim.

I was concerned about what Shin-lok Kim did.

Ho-gun Baek did not answer immediately.

‘Is it something so bad that he can’t tell me?’

Ho-gun Baek didn’t talk much, but he wasn’t the hesitating type when he did talk.

“If you can’t say, you don’t have to tell me.”

“It’s not that.”

So, it doesn’t matter if he tells me.

Then why is he acting like that?

“Of all the trouble the child has caused, I don’t know which one to tell first.”

White Tiger calls Shin-lok Kim “child.”

But they were both over 5,000 years old and had only a few decades of an age gap.

Even after all this time, once a baby is always a baby.

“I want to hear all of it, if possible.”

“It’s going to take too much time to say it all.”

Okay, he got himself into a bit more trouble than I expected.

“It’s okay if it takes a while.”

“It takes days just to summarize it.”

……Shin-lok Kim must’ve caused even more trouble than I could ever imagine.

Albeit curious about everything, I decided to listen to one incident.

“I want to hear about what led to Red Tiger being constrained by god of heaven.”

“Sure.”

Ho-gun continued in a calm voice.

The only thing left of Red Tiger and Bitan’s Woong-nyeo’s short-lasted marriage was their descendant.

At the time, there was disagreement within the Tiger clan over the disposition of Kim Shin-lok.

However, after Red Tiger got voluntarily tied up in a red pillory, and three of his friends, the Mythological Tiger clan members, White Tiger, Golden Tiger, and Blue Tiger defended Shin-lok Kim, he was accepted as a Tiger clan descendant.

‘Seems like Blue Tiger was still with them at that time.’

Shin-lok Kim grew up believing he was an Original.

Shin-lok Kim was a troublemaker that even the Tiger clan members couldn’t handle, but he was smart as, if not smarter than, most of the Tiger clan.

He wasn’t as good as Mythological-class Tigers, but he was certainly better than clan members of low class.

“Red Lake was very similar to when Red Tiger was a child. He was a clever and bold kid.”

Then one day, Shin-lok awakened his powers and realized that he wasn’t in fact an Original, but a descendant.

He figured out who his parents were, and where Red Tiger was in a short period of time.

Shin-lok found the red pillory and saw the disastrous condition Red Tiger was in.

Shin-lok saw the curses and wounds covering Red Tiger’s body, and just lost it.

“Shin-lok Kin used the Tiger clan’s Holy Treasure on Red Tiger.”

Tiger clan’s Holy Treasure?

I recalled an item that was only described in the trivia book.

I asked to make sure if that was the one.

“Isn’t that an item made only once every thousand years or so, in the realm of gods, and is at least UR class or higher?”

“Yes. It hasn’t come out in the last 2,000 years.”

Yeah, Shin-lok Kim messed up big time.

“Red Tiger was healed by the Holy Treasure, but tied himself to the red pillory again, asking the god of heaven for a heavier constraint to defend Shin-lok Kim.”

Since Red Tiger volunteered extreme punishment, the Tiger clan didn’t blame Shin-lok any longer.

Anyway, as a result, Shin-lok’s actions led Red Tiger to bear a heavier punishment.

‘Shin-lok Kim……’

I thought of Shin-lok’s blank expression and eerie demeanor.

I couldn’t imagine him being a mischievous or clever kid.

Perhaps Shin-lok Kim changed because of those incidents.

‘Shin-lok didn’t call Red Tiger father, he called him ‘Red Tiger’ stiffly.’

Considering the background story, it may be natural for them to be distant, but seeing Shin-lok stole the Holy Treasure and all, it’s not like he hated his father.

‘Red Tiger said not to tell Shin-lok Kim……’

However, basically, I was on my playable characters’ side in this world.

When both are playable characters, you have to choose the side that you emphasize more to.

I have never been a father, but I have been a son, and I wanted to be on Shin-lok Kim’s side this time.

‘Let’s contact Mr. Shin-lok Kim.’

Red Tiger said to keep a secret, but he only asked Golden Tiger to, not me.

I wrote a text and sent it to Shin-lok Kim right away.

“Ui-shin Cho, that expression······.”

When I finished sending it, Ho-gun spoke to me.

Don’t tell me my ultimate playable character thinks my facial expression looks suspicious and weird, too.

“······.”

Ho-gun turned his head away.

‘Is my expression weird enough to make him not speak his mind? He usually does speak his mind!’

That hurt.

Whimper…….

Olmu was standing between me and Ho-gun.

She leaned against my knees, meaning to lift her up if we’re not walking anymore.

We did start to walk again, but I picked her up regardless.

My hurt feelings stabilized right away.

*    *    *

My dorm room.

The room was so small compared to Myung-ho Hwang’s mansion, but oddly, it seemed so spacious.

I felt I was truly alone.

Before anything silly came into mind, I opened my device and activated the hologram.

The first thing I checked was the chat screen with Shin-lok Kim.

‘The message I sent him is on read.’

Shin-lok checked the message that Red Tiger has been seriously injured.

No reply came, but I decided not to ask him what he intends to do, now that he knows.

I also checked other chats.

‘I got the most texts from the chat room with Nam-wook Jang and Sang-hoon Yoo.’

As I expected, Nam-wook Jang, who had luncheon time with the generals during the weekend, was out of his mind.

[Nam-wook Jang] So many stars······.

[Sang-hoon Yoo] ?

[Nam-wook Jang] Stars in front, stars next to me, all stars······.

[Sang-hoon Yoo] Ya gone crazy?

I wondered how many generals attended the luncheon, but I decided not to ask for the sake of Nam-wook’s mentality.

The next thing I checked was the general gossip bulletin board in the Eun-kwang High School web community.

‘I’m curious about the Teacher’s day reviews about the second grade and third-grade class 0.’

The bulletin board was rapidly coming up with reviews of Teacher’s day.

However, no matter how much I searched, I didn’t see the reviews of the 0 class seniors.

Instead, other writings stood out.

‘What, this post with a lot of comments is…… our class review!’

Of the countless Teacher’s Day reviews, the most commented post was about first-grade class 0.

The author is Yuri Kim, the class president.

‘Yuri wrote a review. But why are there so many comments?’

When I checked the post, I saw pictures of flower baskets and refreshments picked by my classmates.

We did pick them out with care, but compared to other classes, ours were normal.

‘Maybe it was too normal that it got popular? No, that isn’t it.’

I scrolled further down, and I saw the answer.

‘Oh, it’s because of this.’

Among the attached photos was a picture of a wild carnation painting by Green Min.

The picture of the painting hung up on the classroom wall was posted.

Comments were almost all about Green’s carnation painting.

[Whoa, well drawn.]

[An unfamiliar painting is as good as artist Kyung-bok Hong, OMFG]

[They’re having a quiet party…… I can’t believe I expected some crazy reviews]

I was proud to see my playable character’s picture being praised.

But that went on only for a short moment.

The latest comments came from people who claimed they knew something about art.

[This looks like artist Green Min’s work.]

[It’s literally the same? They copied everything, from pressure to brushwork. Haven’t you heard of copyright.]

[It’s been quite a while since artist Green Min was active, but everyone who knows traditional art recognizes this. If you imitate someone’s work, you have to give credit.]

[It’s a bad copy tho]

[I know Green Min’s work but that painting isn’t even an imitation, it’s so sloppy lol]

[Why pretend the imitated painting is theirs? The future of first years are so dark SMH]

In the midst of the accusations, there were some Eun-kwang high students, graduates, and faculty members who shielded us.

Soon a keyboard battle broke out between the shielders and the critics.

[It’s just a painting the kids drew for their teacher. It’s not a biggie Some seniors are Karens;]

[People take everything so seriously SMH SMH this is why Korea’s so dull these days]

[A faculty here. We are always grateful to the students in first-grade class 0- they are so well-behaved. Please continue to be good at least until 3rd-grade class 0 guys graduate. I’mma go ahead and press like.]

[I am a Ji-ik council member. This year’s class 0 first years are angels. None of the first-grade facilities were smashed. This is a miracle in the history of the Ji-ik council. If they become bad due to all the mean comments, y’all gonna take responsibility for dat? If any dorm facilities get smashed imma find you guys and kill you.]

[Fuck, you tryin to defend kids who plagiarized an artist for not smashin stuff? When I was in school……]

[I bet those know-it-alls are graduates or Non-regular workers whose contract is about to expire. It doesn’t matter to them if class 0 kids become devils or not.]

[Why are Karens on fire? lol they have a lot of internalized anger. Got removed permanently from player’s association or sth? Heard there were Dream auction trashbags among our graduates. Could it be….?]

[No, you guys. It’s just an innocent drawing for teacher’s day. why y’all overreacting?]

It was a battleground with hundreds of other comments.

‘Plagiarism or not, Green Min drew that herself.’

It was pretty hard to guess a prodigy artist entered a player’s exclusive school, not to mention in class 0.

As I was scrolling down for a while, I saw a comment with the ‘writer’ badge.

[I have official permission to reveal this information! The carnation painting IS artist Green Min’s work, and Green is in our class^▽^♡]

Yuri’s comments changed the whole atmosphere.

[?]

[OMFG……]

[The unexpected truth revealed LOL]

[Since when did Min Green go there?]

[All the Karens have nothing to say LMAO]

[This is why you gotta be careful when writing comments lol y’all are ROASTED]

[(Satisfaction)]

[Looking for Karens that said the painting was a sloppy fake.]

With Yuri’s confirmation, the comments cooled down.

However, there were still useless disputes.

[This is the head of the art club. Please DM me. Please.]

[↑This is the Asian art activity group leader. ignore the comment above and DM me please!]

[↑↑ I just texted you. Check your device, you bastard]

[↑↑↑ Nope. f you]

People who seemed to be in the art club and Asian art activity group commented.

They replied and commented again dozens of times, but no one cared about their arguments.

‘They’re bound to come to our class some time, so I better talk to Yuri about it.’

Sang-hee Yoo seemed to be struggling with the dispute between art-related clubs.

I could guess what was going on by the comments.

When I closed the bulletin board, I received a new message in the chat room of all first-year newspaper club members.

[Saeron Moon] I’m at the association with Jegal teacher.

[Saeron Moon] We might have to delete all the news and interview files about grade 2 class 0 T.T

[Saeron Moon] I’ll delete the files we shared in this chat room. If you’ve downloaded it, I think it’s best to get rid of that too.

What the hell did second-grade class 0 do!

If the association intervened, it means it’s a big incident.

‘Third-grade class 0 worries me too.’

They were attention-seekers publicly sent the challenge the day before Teacher’s day. They weren’t the ones to skip reviewing.

‘The penalty is an open declaration of surrender. They love getting the spotlight. Why don’t they post reviews?’

There is no mention of Ms. Yeon-hwa Lim declaring surrender in front of the main gate’s clock tower or that Grade 3 class 0’s students have been seen.

Then, the impossible came into mind.

‘Are they still battling!?’

It’s Sunday night today.

They started battling on Friday, Teacher’s day.

Class 0 and teacher Yeon-hwa Lim may actually be battling for 3 days, or maybe even 3 days without sleep.

‘It’s Monday soon, which adds another day.’

Let’s hope a review comes up tomorrow.

In a few hours, it’ll be monday, and a whole new week will start.

‘I’ve got a lot to prepare.’

On the weekends, a party on board is happening and the Pig clan is waiting for it, so I have to be prepared for it.

But before that, an important schedule was waiting for me.

Next to the bed, a chess set that had not even been opened was in sight.

Next week, the on-campus chess tournament will be held.