Conquering the Academy with Just a Sashimi Knife (Novel) - Chapter 99 - Resolution (2)

Chapter 99 – Resolution (2)

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Translated by Jinmu

Read only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net

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Late at night.

Moonlight drifting in through the window sank into Saki’s forehead. In the dazzling moonlight, her eyelids slowly opened.

“Ugh……”

A short groan escaped Saki’s lips. The moment her eyes opened, the numbness in her body faded and a heavy pain came rushing in all at once.

Biting her lower lip, Saki slowly raised her upper body. As if it had been waiting for that moment, an elated voice hit her ears.

“Oh! You’re awake, Saki!”

“…Weapon?”

Weapon sprang to his feet to greet her. Bewilderment spread across Saki’s face.

Before the question of `Where is this, and why is he here?` could even fully form, the mouth of Speed Weapon, lover of explanations, started moving like a sparrow’s beak.

“Holy-shit, do you know how many days you’ve been lying there? Nearly three whole days!”

“…Wh-what, th-three days?”

“Yeah. You sleep like that all the time and still want to sleep more?”

Saki’s pupils went blank for an instant. At the same time, the horrors of the finals came back to her.

She had been ambushed by Erio, and then paid her back in kind.

She returned exactly what she received. That was Saki’s true nature.

‘…But.’

Saki pressed her fingertips to her brow and retraced her memory. What was this ticklish feeling in her chest? It felt like she had forgotten something important.

As her thoughts dragged on, Weapon sat back down in the chair and casually spoke.

“Saki, you owe the president your life. I heard it from Rachel, but Geom-ma gave you and Leon first aid right away. I didn’t know the president had healing-type blessings too, but according to the doctors, the treatment wasn’t anything normal. They were totally clicking their tongues in amazement.”

“……?”

Saki’s pupils shook violently, and her face flushed red in an instant. Because the actions and words she had shown that day suddenly came rushing back.

As she had buried herself against Kang Geom-ma’s chest.

-`Let me stay like this a little longer.`

She had actually blurted out something like that.

‘…Ah.’

Saki’s mind went blank like a clean sheet of paper for a moment.

“Uaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh!”

And she let out a scream she had endured even through the heavy pain. Her feet kicked the blanket over and over. Her hands and feet were curling in on themselves beyond just stiffening up.

“…S-Saki!? What’s wrong with you all of a sudden!”

Weapon asked urgently, eyes wide and round. Without answering, Saki dropped her head low. A stream of cold sweat ran down her spine.

‘I’m insane.’

Those two words perfectly summarized the current situation.

After saying something that unbearably cringeworthy, how was she supposed to look Geom-ma in the face? Goosebumps rose on her forearms at her own actions.

It felt like her skull was about to split open. Not figuratively. Literally.

No, rather, wouldn’t it be nice if it really did split open just like this? If she injured her head and got amnesia, then at least she could pretend not to know.

But her brilliant brain, close to total recall, told her that what had happened then was far too vivid to deny.

Saki roughly clawed at her hair. Her pupils spun round and round like whirlpools. Watching her quietly, Weapon muttered with a worried face.

“…Is this… what they call post-traumatic stress disorder, PTSD……? If even she, who always acted so lofty, ended up like this… then what the hell actually happened during the finals……”

Weapon rambled to himself for quite a while, then his shoulders suddenly trembled. At his reaction, Saki shot him a sharp glare.

“And why the hell are you here in the middle of the night making a racket!? What, did you come to watch, huh!?”

It was just taking her temper out on him. But if she didn’t do even this much, it felt like she would cough blood from sheer embarrassment. Saki deliberately sharpened her tone.

At the sudden shriek, Weapon flinched and stepped back. While Saki had been bedridden, the club members had taken turns staying by her side. Since she had been deeply entangled with the villains, it was only natural.

And just so happened, tonight was Weapon’s turn, so he had stood silent watch without complaining. Yet now she was baring her teeth at him right in front of his face.

‘Why’s she suddenly acting like this!?’

He had no idea why. He could only assume that her behavior was the result of severe mental shock.

Weapon stretched out one hand and hurriedly fumbled in his pocket. A block of sweet bean jelly came out in his hand.

“H-hey, look! I even bought you the fancy kind of yanggaeng that you like! So, calm down a little!”

Weapon gently set the sweet bean jelly down on the bed and raised both his hands. It was a sign of surrender.

Saki stared blankly at the sweet bean jelly resting on the bedsheet. Then she lifted her eyes slightly and stared straight at Weapon.

“……”

Silence sank over the hospital room. The air mixed with the smell of medicine tasted bitter. Then, at last, a vein rose at Saki’s temple.

Pak.

A pillow tightly rolled into a solid cylinder slammed straight into Weapon’s face.

“Kaak!”

“What, did you think I’d go all slack and happy just because you gave me sweet bean jelly!?”

Until a moment ago, she had merely been venting her temper. But now Saki was genuinely pissed off at Weapon for treating her like some kind of puppy.

When she grabbed another pillow, Weapon waved both hands frantically and ran for the door.

“Y-you’ll regret this!”

Pointing wildly into the air, Weapon slammed the door shut behind him and ran out. Saki stared blankly at the door for a moment.

“…Haa.”

She let out a sigh. A small sense of guilt crept over her one beat late.

“…I really took it out on him for nothing.”

It did annoy her that he had tried to placate her like he was handling a dog with sweet bean jelly.

But it still felt like she had been too harsh to someone who had stayed late into the night for her.

‘I’ll apologize properly later.’

As the excitement that had flared up gradually calmed down, Saki shifted her gaze slightly. The sweet bean jelly Weapon had flung down before running off was resting neatly atop the bedsheet.

“……”

After staring at the sweet bean jelly for a long while, Saki’s hand shot out like lightning. Then, just in case anyone might see, she rapidly shook her head and looked all around her.

Only the pale moon was shining down on her. There was no sign of anyone else. After confirming that, Saki swallowed and took a huge bite.

A taste so intense it made her jaw tingle wrapped around her tongue.

“…This is ridiculously good.”

Saki wrinkled her nose as she tried to hold back her tears, then stuffed the sweet bean jelly into her mouth.

Only the midnight full moon stood witness to the scene.

* * *

The hospital was steeped in dim shadows.

Step, step.

I was crossing through the darkness of the hallway. Tonight Weapon was the one on night watch, but I couldn’t sleep, so I had decided to go keep him company.

‘The guy talks so much already. If he’s by himself, imagine how itchy his mouth must feel.’

I let out a small chuckle and kept walking toward the hospital room.

Three days had passed since the finals.

Because of the villains who had appeared without warning, Ryozo and Leon had both been gravely wounded. Looking back on the situation at the time, both of them had been in a condition where it wouldn’t have been strange if they had died at any moment.

Fortunately, by manifesting four blessings, my gamble to heal them succeeded, and the two of them survived.

The backlash nearly made my own consciousness snap clean off too…. Still, thanks to the pain reduction rate, I managed to avoid ending up hospitalized.

Rachel and Choi Seol-ah had each taken one of Saki and Leon onto their backs, and we left the special wing in that state. Senior Hana had supported me when my knees gave out.

‘At least the other three were still okay.’

After finishing those horrific finals, we headed straight to the hospital.

Right after I was admitted, Media came looking for me and asked for an explanation. Under her barrage of questions about what had happened, I did not answer immediately and postponed it for the time being. Looking after the two injured people had been the top priority.

I asked Media for a one-week grace period. It had been over the phone, but her voice had carried two conflicting emotions at once: anxiety and fury.

Another unpleasant incident had happened during an exam. They had already taken the midterms as a lesson and moved the test location inside the academy, yet two cadets still returned hovering between life and death.

Judging from Leon’s and Saki’s injuries, Media already seemed to have some idea of what had happened.

No matter how harsh the environment of the special wing was, it wouldn’t break bones and gouge flesh out.

The sight of Media muttering with her voice trembling in anger was still vivid in my mind.

Of course, I was no less furious than she was. Furious enough to want to gather the villains right now and lay down a board for slaughter.

But because I knew that aggravated emotions only ruined things, I ground my teeth hard and swallowed it down.

The time for revenge was drawing closer anyway. The club members were already moving busily, turning suspected figures over from top to bottom.

I drew in a deep breath. As the chilly night air flowed into my nose, my mind cleared.

Before I knew it, I had shifted my gaze toward the hallway window. I looked up at the night sky thick with dusky gloom. The stars were hidden by the moonlight.

“……”

Lost in thought as I kept walking, my feet had somehow already brought me right in front of Saki’s hospital room. Just then, a small commotion came from inside, and then.

Bang!

Weapon came rushing out in a fluster. He caught his breath once, then, perhaps sensing my gaze, turned his head this way.

“Huh? President. What the hell, why are you here at this hour?”

To Weapon, who asked in surprise, I scratched my jaw and answered:

“I just couldn’t sleep. I figured you might be bored, so I came to at least keep you company.”

“President……”

Weapon put on a deeply aggrieved expression. Seeing a grown man with watery eyes was strangely unpleasant. Weapon rubbed his dampened eyes and then spoke in a low voice.

“President, Saki woke up.”

“……!”

“…From the look of it, thanks to you, her body’s more or less fine. But the problem is……”

“Problem?”

When I asked back, Weapon, who had been letting out a low groan, continued:

“…I think she got PTSD. She suddenly started screaming her head off, then throwing pillows and everything. Her personality was trash to begin with, but her mouth’s gotten even filthier. I even tried handing her some sweet bean jelly to calm her down, and she rejected it on the spot. Things look pretty bad, President.”

“……”

Looking at Weapon as he let out a pained sigh, I thought:

‘…What the hell is wrong with this idiot?’

This was the guy who had once gotten beaten to hell by Ryozo hard enough to kick up dust, and now he was sticking out his lip and grumbling because a pillow hit him.

If what Weapon said was true, then Ryozo’s attitude toward him was no different than before. If anything, it seemed gentler now.

And as for why she had refused the sweet bean jelly, it was probably because she didn’t appreciate Weapon trying to smooth things over with that half-baked approach.

And yet this idiot Weapon had diagnosed it all as PTSD and was clicking his tongue in pity all by himself.

If I were Ryozo, I would’ve knocked his teeth out on the spot.

‘…No wonder he doesn’t even realize Ryozo likes him when he’s this dense.’

Still, the concern he felt for her was admirable enough that I didn’t bother opening that line of conversation.

I only felt a quiet sympathy for the suffocating frustration Ryozo, the anti-frustration character herself, must be feeling, and inwardly offered my modest support and encouragement.

‘That aside.’

Something occurred to me that I needed to say. The past few days had been so hectic that there had been no proper chance to talk. And now that Saki had opened her eyes too, the timing was right.

I asked Weapon:

“So, where are we with the villain roundup?”

The finals period was already at its tail end. And with vacation just around the corner, if we delayed any longer the whole plan would go crooked.

Perhaps guessing what I meant, Weapon nodded and answered:

“Not just the club members, but Rachel jumped in halfway too, and we’ve narrowed the suspicious staff down to around five people.”

“Do those people seem certain?”

At my question, Weapon nodded in confirmation. Considering how carefully he thought things through and how cautious his personality was, it was practically a definite answer.

‘Five, huh….’

In truth, there were definitely well over five. But if we picked out just those people, there was a high chance the rest would come tumbling in like potatoes on a vine.

I sank into thought for a moment, then turned my gaze back to Weapon. He looked like he was waiting for my lips to part. Lightly patting him on the shoulder, I said:

“Weapon, if you’ve got time tomorrow after class, come with me somewhere, alright?”

“Uh, I’ve got time. But Saki just woke up, so shouldn’t we bring the others here together after class tomorrow?”

“…You stick that close to her and still don’t know her personality? Does Ryozo look like the kind of person who’d be happy if a whole crowd came swarming in?”

“…Ah.”

Only then did Weapon nod as though he understood. I sighed at his lack of perception. He was the first person I’d ever seen more hopeless than me, and I’m a guy who was never even dated.

When I stared at him with narrowed brows, Weapon tilted his head and asked:

“But where are we going tomorrow?”

I gave him a bright smile in response.

“The headmaster’s office.”

It was time to put the old saying into practice: strike while the iron was hot.

In the few days before the closing ceremony, I was going to beat those villain bastards into the ground.