Hero, Go To School! - Chapter 27

Once planted, the grim thoughts spread like an infection through my brain. Luongi, Mom, Dad. No matter how filthy I felt, I’d clenched my teeth and saved every won of my hard-earned salary through dogged endurance. My savings, my deposits, all the things I’d left behind kept surfacing in my mind.

I brushed my fallen hair behind my ear and gave my head a small shake. Filling my brain with useless thoughts wouldn’t help anything.

Focus on getting into the academy. Just that. I had to somehow reform that bastard Ian and make sure he got in. Everything else could wait until I found a clue. It wasn’t too late.

I forced myself to rally and threw my body onto the bed. The soft blanket caught me, wrapping me up in warmth. But even that warmth couldn’t calm the unrest stirring in my chest.

I pulled the blanket over my head and shut my eyes tight. I took a deep breath and told myself,

“Just sleep. Don’t think. Just sleep.”

But no matter how long I kept my eyes closed, the sounds I heard scraped against my nerves.

Rustle-, rustle-.

The sound of grass brushing in the wind was far too clear. I tried to convince myself it was just the breeze passing by, but even that faint sound stirred the unease inside me.

The fear wouldn’t go away easily. As I tossed and turned, trying to soothe myself in the quiet darkness, my consciousness gradually began to fade.

That night, when I struggled to fall asleep from anxiety, I dreamed.

Luongi was crying, waiting for me in front of our darkened home. Endlessly, endlessly.

***

A deafening roar split the air as the ground heaved beneath me.

My heart dropped, and my mind went completely blank. I couldn’t even register what sound I’d just heard until I was already sitting upright in bed. But the tremor that followed hit with such force, it knocked the breath out of me.

“What the…?”

I instinctively ran toward the window. The moment I shoved the frame up and leaned out to look below, my entire body froze.

The garden… was completely wrecked.

Just yesterday it had been neatly trimmed and lovely, but now the lawn was riddled with deep craters, and the flower beds looked like they’d been bombed. Trees lay uprooted and scattered, and the servants were collapsed all over, groaning. The whole scene looked like a battlefield.

There was no question who had done it. Ian. There was no way the garden could end up like this overnight unless it was him.

He had a history of causing chaos like it was second nature, but this time he’d gone too far. I couldn’t begin to understand what had possessed him to do something like this.

“Ian!”

I shouted his name as I ran down the hall. A crowd of servants had already gathered outside his bedroom, murmuring nervously. I pushed through the ones lingering at the door in fear and stepped forward.

“Miss!”

The servants’ faces lit up with relief when they saw me. But I said firmly,

“Move.”

I didn’t have time to wait for them to clear the way. I forced my way past them and threw the door open.

Inside the bedroom, Ian was sitting on the bed. But the moment I saw him, I was once again struck speechless.

He was still naked, but it wasn’t like usual. His entire body was covered in dirt, his hair tangled with grass and mud. His face was so filthy I could barely make out his original skin tone. He looked like he had rolled through a pit of muddy water.

Even so, his eyes were strangely clear.

Even in the dark, those blue irises glowed faintly, glaring at me with a sharpness like a cornered wild cat.

I took a step toward him. The cold air in the room brushed against the back of my neck.

“You… what the hell did you do?”

Ian’s eyes flickered slightly. But what came back was a voice low and cold.

“Don’t come any closer.”

“…What?”

I froze for a second.

“I said, don’t come any closer.”

He scooted farther back on the bed. The pure white sheets instantly turned filthy with the dirt clinging to his body.

“Can you at least tell me what’s going on? What happened to the garden, and why do you look like this?”

“I said don’t come near me!”

His voice rose. For a moment, his eyes grew more savage, and the air in the room seemed to grow sharper, more hostile. He pressed his back against the bed’s headboard, his entire body radiating tension.