Rank 0 of the Awakener Special School - Chapter 9

Rank 0 of the Awakener Special School

Chapter 9

Screaming near the school building at this hour?

Ji-woo turned her head toward where the sound came from.

“Ah, what the hell. Why are you tripping and falling, you bitch.”

Near the entrance.

Voices could be heard from beyond the corner.

Moving away from the shoe racks, she stepped a little closer to where the voices were coming from.

Perhaps they had taken quite a tumble, as someone was sprawled out on the floor. Books and items from their bag were scattered all over the place.

Ji-woo narrowed her eyes and examined the scene closely.

A black bag.

Black socks and shoes.

It was a girl with a somewhat gloomy vibe, her dark purple hair braided low.

‘I think that kid is in my class.’

Thanks to carefully observing the appearance of her classmates all day yesterday, she could recognize her.

But…

Why is she lying there?

The moment that question crossed her mind.

“Hey, aren’t you going to apologize? You tripped over my foot on your own and got my shoes dirty.”

She snapped to attention at the sharp voice that suddenly struck her ears.

Someone else was standing next to the fallen girl.

…Fluorescent-head.

It was that guy with piercings dangling all over his face.

He was bellowing at the girl who had fallen over.

“S-sorry…”

“Say it louder. Did you shove a bug down your throat or something? Huh?”

Ji-woo watched the scene with a flustered expression for a moment.

‘What the? Wasn’t he only bullying Ji-hyo?’

She had thought it was quiet all day yesterday, even though Ji-woo had attended school.

…Did he change targets while Ji-hyo was taking a break?

Or is he just the type of guy who bullies others whenever he’s bored?

‘What should I do?’

Standing blankly at the corner, Ji-woo hesitated for a moment.

Is stepping in right now really a good choice?

Absolutely not.

Between the running in P.E. class and the incident with Kim Yeon-hee, she had drawn quite a bit of attention yesterday.

Furthermore, the existence of the watcher her grandfather planted hasn’t been confirmed yet.

As expected, she couldn’t rashly cause a scene.

Ji-woo calmly took off her shoe.

Whoosh!

The shoe in her hand floated up and flew off as fast as a bullet.

“Argh?!”

Straight at the back of that bastard’s head.

“Fuck, who is it!”

Ji-woo quickly hid her body behind the corner.

…It couldn’t be helped. If she just let it slide here, she didn’t think she’d be able to sleep tonight.

She could feel him picking up the shoe and looking around.

She peeked just her eyes out to observe him.

Perhaps because the shoe had hit the top of his head, Fluorescent-head seemed to think it had fallen from above, as he was glaring toward the school building windows.

“Which bastard wants to die!”

The moment he turned his body, huffing and puffing, to find the owner of the shoe, the girl who had been lying on the floor quickly grabbed her bag and stood up.

“Hey! Where are you going!”

The girl ran away in a hurry.

“What are you doing, Gu Min-jae.”

“Retard.”

Another group nearby approached Fluorescent-head, giggling.

‘Gu Min-jae?’

…That seemed to be the name of that Fluorescent-head.

“How long are you going to hold onto that dirty shoe?”

“You know you look like a total idiot right now, right?”

“……Shut up.”

Meanwhile, Ji-woo, watching them from afar, narrowed her eyes.

‘Are they in the same group?’

Perhaps one of the guys who bullied Ji-hyo was mixed in there.

Most of them seemed to be classmates, but…

‘I can’t see well.’

It was too far away to see their facial features, let alone the accessories they were wearing.

She wanted to check from a bit closer, but if she did that, she would get caught.

Meanwhile, Fluorescent-head, Gu Min-jae, glared fiercely at Ji-woo’s shoe.

“Fuck, I don’t know who it is, but I’ll find them.”

“It looks small just by looking at it, isn’t it a woman’s shoe?”

“It’s a size 240. It’s probably a woman’s.”

“But how are you going to figure out whose it is with that? Are you planning to go find Cinderella or something?”

The Gaon Special School had designated shoes.

However, unlike the school uniform, they weren’t mandatory, so not all students wore the same shoes.

In other words, the owner of this shoe meant it was ‘probably’ a female student among the current Gaon students who happened to be wearing the designated shoes.

There were no other clues.

“Hey, just throw it away. You’re not seriously going to keep carrying that dirty thing around, are you?”

“Shut your trap. I’ll handle it.”

Gu Min-jae gripped the shoe as if to crush it and strode away.

The group of male students with colorful, flashy hair swarmed away.

…With Ji-woo’s shoe.

‘Ah, my shoe…’

Ji-woo looked at the shoe moving away in the distance with a hollow feeling, then eventually hopped on one foot back to the shoe racks.

It’s fine. She could just consider the shoe lost.

According to the orientation on the first day of school, school uniforms or shoes could be exchanged or provided as new items at any time.

Having changed into indoor shoes, Ji-woo headed to the classroom with a calm mind.

‘Was the supply room on the first floor of the dormitory?’

She could just go back to the dormitory as soon as classes ended today and get a new pair of shoes.

Anyway, she would be inside the school building during class, and she could just live in indoor shoes, so there was no prob…

“Today, as previously announced, is the day for group projects. Don’t dawdle, everyone get on the bus quickly.”

…Like hell it is.

She was screwed.

Today was the day for ‘that class’.

[Core Application].

It was Gaon’s signature class, literally a class designed to help young Awakeners apply and strengthen the cores they possessed.

‘There’s a high probability that the day Ji-hyo entered the Narak in the video was also this class.’

Anyway, unlike general subjects like Korean, Math, Science, Social Studies, and English, it was a main class that lasted all day from the first period until the afternoon.

But of all things, they had to move by bus. It meant it was an outdoor class.

It meant they might enter the Narak again today…

‘Wait, what about my shoes?’

What do you mean, what about them? She had no choice but to get on the bus barefoot.

Why barefoot? She thought that would be better than wearing just one shoe.

“Ji-hyo, what happened to your shoes?”

The teacher asked as soon as she boarded the bus.

“I lost them.”

“How?”

“I don’t know. I think someone hid them.”

“Hid them?”

“It’s fine. It happened often.”

Although Ji-woo hadn’t actually experienced it, for Ji-hyo, who had been bullied, this kind of thing must have been commonplace.

So she just brazenly made up an excuse.

“I’m planning to get new shoes from the supply room after class today. I have no choice right now…”

“O-okay, then wear these for now.”

The teacher handed Ji-woo a pair of spare slippers he had.

“Thank you.”

Ji-woo changed into the slippers and stepped inside the bus.

……

……

The classmates’ gazes turned toward Ji-woo.

Fluorescent-head… no, Gu Min-jae was staring at Ji-woo with a stiff face.

Behind him sat Kim Yeon-hee, with whom she had had a run-in in the hallway yesterday.

“……!”

Kim Yeon-hee hurriedly looked away as soon as their eyes met. Was getting covered in cola that much of a shock?

Looking around the seats, Ji-woo found a suitable empty spot.

“Ah…”

It was next to the girl who had been bullied by Gu Min-jae in front of the school building this morning.