I’m Dropping Out.

The leadership of each nation gathered to deal with the residents of the otherworld who kept appearing and to establish a new world.
While acknowledging the existence of Awakeners, they created various laws for the coexistence of citizens and Awakeners, and, recognizing the need to foster trained personnel, decided to build academies.

“And one of them is right here, is that it?”

Ro-un said indifferently as he crossed the campus toward the school headquarters.
Baekdu, Geumseol, Bukhan, Jiri, and Halla Academy. Of the five academies in South Korea, the one Ro-un attended was Jiri Academy.
Each one was located midway up Mount Baekdu, Geumgang-Seorak, Bukhan Mountain, Jiri Mountain, and Halla Mountain respectively, so they were named after those mountains.

“…Or so I thought.”

Now that he had even regressed, he knew.
The academies were named after the places where the cores of the barrier were located.
Those who had stopped and driven back the otherworld invasion at the time used the spiritual veins to cast a barrier over the Korean Peninsula to prevent this land from once again filling with negative energy and strengthening its connection to the otherworld.

“When was it that I found that out again? During the Association President’s ‘health checkup,’ was it?”

Ro-un twisted his lips as he recalled the times he had been dragged around under the pretext of giving the important people their ‘health checkups.’

‘Hahahahaha! What are the chances a barrier that’s lasted over a hundred years would start shaking now? Repairs? There’s no need for that. Hahahahaha. Don’t worry. I’ll give you a strong push when they pick the contractor this time. Hmm? Ah, don’t mind this. He’s not the kind of guy who’d go around carelessly blabbing about something like this.’

Just how far had they toyed with people?
No, that wasn’t it. Those people never saw someone like me as a person in the first place.
That was why they had casually babbled confidential matters that only the Association President should have known right in front of me.

“Forget it. The Association President was on the replacement list anyway. Maybe I’ll just weaken him a little.”

Ro-un, who had clearly engraved the Association President’s name in his mind among the list of those who had to be saved and those who had to be killed, arrived in front of the school headquarters.
Having arrived at the building that would collapse and be gone in three years, Ro-un twisted the corner of his mouth and stepped inside.

Murmur murmur.

“Lee Ro-un?”
“The student council president?”
“I heard he hadn’t been coming to class these past few days, so what’s he doing here?”

The staff members who recognized Ro-un gathered in twos and threes and began murmuring.
It was because Lee Ro-un, who had caused such a spectacular incident at the entrance ceremony, had shown himself again for the first time in a while.

“But was the president’s face always like that?”
“Somehow, he looks kind of scary, doesn’t he?”
“I never noticed because he was always smiling, but the president looks scary when he goes expressionless.”

Somehow, he was scary.
People who remembered the usual Lee Ro-un tried to approach while picturing the angelic president they knew, only to be blocked by his cold expression.

‘Nice. No one’s coming near me.’

Meanwhile, Ro-un was thinking it was convenient that, in a place he already disliked and among people he disliked, they were not approaching him first.
If he had known it would be like this, he should have kept a straight face around those bastards too.
As Ro-un mulled over that belated regret, his steps had already carried him toward the academic affairs office where he could apply to drop out.

Whirrr.

When Lee Ro-un stood in front of the door and pressed the button, the staff room door opened automatically.
Since it was class time, most of the teachers were away from their desks, but the person Lee Ro-un was looking for was seated there.
The person Ro-un had come looking for widened his eyes when he saw Ro-un walk in.

“…President?”

Ro-un’s lips twisted at the title used to address him.
Being called by his position instead of his name felt as if responsibility and duty were being forced onto him.

“It’s been a while, Teacher.”

The person Ro-un had come looking for was his homeroom teacher.

“Uh, right. So, has something been going on lately? I heard your health hasn’t been good since the entrance ceremony.”
“My body is in better condition than at any other time right now.”

Now that he had neither , , nor , it was no lie to say he was in good condition.
Ro-un’s homeroom teacher was flustered.

‘Was this kid always like this?’

Somehow, he had the kind of aura that made him hard to approach, like a high-ranking combat-type Awakener.
Of course, Lee Ro-un’s trait was an SSS-rank trait that the whole world would pay attention to, but since he had not yet fully awakened his talent, his Awakener rank should still have been no more than A-rank.
They said even that alone made it hard for ordinary people to approach him easily, so how could Lee Ro-un, a support-type whose presence should have been weaker than Awakeners of the same rank, have this kind of bearing?
Feeling the disconnect between the student council president who usually smiled like a pushover, granted every request, and took the lead in unpleasant tasks, and the president standing before him now, the homeroom teacher opened and closed his mouth before finally managing to speak.

“So, um. Student council president? Did something happen—”
“I’m not the president anymore. I’m going to drop out.”
“What?!”

The homeroom teacher shot up from his seat.
What did I just hear?
Who said they were going to do what?

‘You’re telling me what he said at the entrance ceremony wasn’t nonsense?’

What do I do?
If Lee Ro-un leaves, the school’s operating funds will run short immediately.
That means I won’t be able to siphon money off so easily like I do now.
Imagining the impact Lee Ro-un’s words would have, the homeroom teacher urgently tried to grab Ro-un’s hand, but failed.

“Physical contact without consent is unpleasant.”
“Uh, uh. Sorry. No, that’s not it, Student Council President!”
“Not president. Lee Ro-un.”

Ro-un corrected the teacher and drew his brows together.
When displeasure showed on that cold face, the homeroom teacher flinched.

‘He wasn’t like this before.’

Back then, he had been a good student who would say “Yes, yes” and agree to anything an elder said without question.

‘No! If Lee Ro-un drops out, what happens to my emergency fund?! The principal won’t leave me alone even before that!’

Honestly, what was there to see at Jiri Academy?
The chairman spent the operating budget like it was his own money, and the principal bled the academy dry through contractor kickbacks and funneling work to businesses under his family’s names.
Seeing that behavior, the other teachers also quietly dipped their hands into the school’s operating funds.
With one person after another skimming money off the top, things had reached the point where the operating funds provided by the government and the Association were no longer enough.
In truth, Jiri Academy was surviving mostly on Lee Ro-un’s donations and the sponsorship money that came in through him.
Imagining the academy collapsing completely, the homeroom teacher turned deathly pale and pleaded with Ro-un.

“Hey, Presi— no. Ro-un.”
“Please call me Lee Ro-un.”
“R-right.”

The homeroom teacher, who had been trying to act familiar by casually using his name, shrank back.

“Lee Ro-un. Did something difficult happen? If so, how about trying the counseling office?”
“This is a decision I made after giving it plenty of thought. And even if I went to the counseling office, wouldn’t the counselor still be me?”
“Ah.”

Right. That was true.
He remembered how, to save the cost of hiring the counselor they were required to have, they had shoved that duty onto him under the pretext that “If he’s the student council president, then he should hear the students’ concerns himself on site and help them.”
“Then the school nurse—”
“As I recall, I was the one handling that temporarily until you hired one.”
“That’s right.”

Saying that a healer treated the injured and sick… and so on… they had shoved the job of acting school nurse onto Lee Ro-un too.

‘At this rate, won’t this place really go under if Lee Ro-un quits?’

His sense of crisis rang out in warning.
Though he did not possess the outstanding instincts of a high-level ability user ranked B or above, as a D-rank Awakener working in Jiri Academy, where there was not a single proper person around, he had become uncannily good at sensing anything that would work against him.

If Lee Ro-un quits, this place is done for!

To an outsider, it would have been a shocking question whether to be amazed by the faculty’s behavior in gnawing away at the foundations so badly that the academy would collapse without him after only two years, or by the fact that Lee Ro-un had held up such a rotten academy all by himself, but the homeroom teacher only cared desperately about his own crisis.

‘What do I do? How do I— ah!’

The homeroom teacher racked his brain as desperately as if he were facing a Grade 5 resident of the otherworld, and then a good idea struck him.

“Lee Ro-un! If you’ve already made up your mind to drop out, then I won’t stop you any further.”

Suspicion rose in Ro-un’s eyes at the sight of his homeroom teacher surrendering so readily.
There was no way that bastard would give up so easily.
Lee Ro-un, who had already lost all faith in people through regression, was never going to take the words of a petty little schemer at face value.

“But!”

Of course.
There was no way he’d just let him go.

‘In that case, I should threaten to expose the homeroom teacher’s mistress and—’

Just as Ro-un was about to seize on his teacher’s weakness and threaten him, the teacher burst out loudly.

“But!”
“But?”
“You’re still a minor. By procedure, you need a guardian’s consent. You know that too, right? By the rules, minors need their guardian’s consent.”

Ro-un faltered at his homeroom teacher’s logical words.
Seeing that his move had worked, the homeroom teacher smiled triumphantly to himself.

‘Got him! I’ll throw guardian consent at him like this and buy some time first!’

Ro-un saw straight through every one of those thoughts.

‘So you’re trying to buy time. Even back then, whenever there was something you didn’t want to take responsibility for, you’d drag things out by hiding behind procedure. You haven’t changed.’

He had dragged things out under the excuse of one procedure or another, then, after all the people in charge had fled, abandoned the students and ran from the academy.
He was truly the same sort of person then as he was now.

‘As if I’d let things go your way.’

He had already planned for a case like this.
Ro-un forced down the corner of his mouth that was about to lift.

Flinch!

‘What’s with him?’

Did he realize I was about to sneer?
Ro-un found his homeroom teacher’s reaction odd, but the teacher was thinking something else entirely.

‘I must’ve offended him! Even looking at it again, the president’s expressionless face is scary. Can even a high-level support-type Awakener leak killing intent like that?’

With that subtle misunderstanding hanging between them, their gazes met in midair as each made his position clear.

“Understood. Guardian consent. I’ll go get it.”
“Uh, right? Y-yes.”

After giving his homeroom teacher a brief glance, Ro-un left the staff room.
As the tension left him, the homeroom teacher slid down in his chair.
The few teachers who had remained all rushed over to his side.

“What did he say? Is the president really dropping out?”
“You should’ve stopped him. Why didn’t you stop him?”

Worries about what would happen if Lee Ro-un quit, worries about their own safety, and resentment toward the homeroom teacher for failing to stop him all burst from the teachers’ mouths.
The avoidance-prone homeroom teacher fumbled with his D-Watch panel, cold sweat pouring down him.

“H-hurry and tell the principal about this, no. I need to tell him myself.”
“Hurry and go.”
“Move.”
“Before the president goes to see his guardian, hurry!”
“R-right, right.”

The homeroom teacher was practically shoved out of the staff room.
Thrown out into the hallway, the homeroom teacher forced strength into his trembling legs and moved toward the principal’s office.

“Principaaaal…!”

After leaving the school headquarters, Ro-un headed somewhere with confident steps.

“I knew the homeroom teacher would try to stall for time.”

Good thing he had looked into the dropout procedure beforehand.
To drop out, he had to go through the following procedure.

[Fill out dropout application form (guardian consent attached)] → [Homeroom teacher counseling] → [Principal counseling] → [Chairman’s seal] → [Submit dropout application] → [Interview with the Association President and approval]

The most important part was the last step.

[6. Interview with and Approval by the Association President]
: Academy students are those who must, in the future, protect the nation, its people, and even the world. To seek to drop out during one’s academy years, a time in which one learns the required curriculum and tempers both mind and body in order to face the residents of the otherworld, is something one would only do after resolving to shoulder that level of responsibility in advance.
Those who wish to enter society a little sooner and fulfill the duty of protection have the obligation to meet with the President of the Awakener Association and confirm whether they possess sufficient ability and judgment. Therefore….

It was a long-winded way of putting it, but in the end it simply meant they would verify whether he had enough ability to work as an Awakener.

‘So in the end, it means I’m supposed to persuade(physically) the Association President, is it?’

What was the Association President’s ability again?
A man planted there through political connections was never going to try to persuade me himself.
He would probably put up a proxy instead.

“If it’s just a proxy at the Association’s current level, I can handle it well enough. I should drop out before the Association President gets replaced.”

As Ro-un laid out his plans one by one, he arrived at the next building.

“This place is still as flashy as ever.”

Unlike the other buildings, which had problems cropping up here and there because they were not properly maintained, this one was as lavish as a palace.
The inside would be even gaudier.
This was where the chairman worked.

“Today was one of the chairman’s office days.”

If Ro-un’s guess was right, the chairman would be in his office.
There was only one reason Ro-un was heading to the chairman’s office.
After his parents died, Ro-un’s guardian, while he was still a minor, was the chairman of Jiri Academy.