Says He Came To Catch A Snake

“Hello.”

The chairman’s secretary looked surprised for a moment when she saw Ro-un, then immediately slipped back into the manner of a diligent secretary and greeted him.

“Hello, Student Council President Lee Ro-un. What brings you here?”
“I’d like to see the chairman. Is he in right now? Ah. And I’m quitting as student council president. From now on, please call me Lee Ro-un.”
“Ah.”

At Ro-un’s words, the secretary, who had seemed like an iron wall, faltered for a moment before smoothing her expression.
Ro-un studied her face closely and thought,

‘She’s probably thinking of brushing me off because it’d be a hassle.’

She was with the chairman to begin with.
There was no way she was a decent human being.

‘Taking everyone here together, there isn’t a single decent one among them.’

The students were all problem children, and the faculty were people far more obsessed with siphoning off money than teaching students.
Ro-un wanted to get out of this bug-infested hole as soon as possible.

“I’m sorry, but the chairman is out right now.”

Just as expected.
Ro-un tilted his head crookedly.

“Really?”
“Yes. The chairman is currently out due to a meeting with the chairmen of the other academies.”
“That’s strange. As far as I know, Jiri Academy was left out of the academy chairmen’s gathering.”
At Ro-un’s rebuttal, the secretary’s eyes shook as if an earthquake had hit.
But she soon returned to a shameless face, as if to prove she wasn’t by the chairman’s side for nothing, and answered,

“My apologies. I was mistaken. He went out for a meeting regarding cooperation with the Awakener Association.”
“Ah, is that so? That’s strange. If it’s something to be discussed with the Awakener Association, there’s no way I wouldn’t know about it.”

At that statement, which laid bare the reality of Jiri Academy’s Lee-Ro-un-only meta, the secretary’s fingertips trembled.
“The chairman… is inside, isn’t he?”
“…The chairman is out.”
“Is that so?”

When Ro-un pretended to accept it and eased back a step, the secretary spoke a little faster.

“If you wish to meet the chairman, please make an appointment.”
“I’m sorry, but I don’t have time either. Once the meeting is over, he’ll come back to the academy, right? I’ll wait inside.”
“What? Excuse me, wait!”

Dragging the protesting secretary along behind him, Ro-un went inside.
True to a chairman who left every troublesome thing to his secretary, the door opened automatically when he approached it together with her.

“Student Lee Ro-un!”

As Ro-un stepped inside, the secretary cried out.
In that moment, Ro-un quickly swept his eyes over the room.

‘So he already ran.’

Tch, did the homeroom teacher snitch to the principal?
Or did the secretary signal the chairman from outside?

“There, you see, Student Lee Ro-un. The chairman is out right now.”
“Yes. I saw. When will the chairman be back?”
“He has a business trip scheduled after his meeting with the Association.”

A lie.
At this time, the chairman never went on any business trips.
Ro-un saw right through the secretary’s lie, but for now he stepped back.

‘It’s not as if today is my only chance to get the chairman.’

If it came to it, he could even shove the chairman out.
Thinking dark thoughts, Ro-un left the chairman’s office.
Only after watching with her own two eyes until Ro-un left the building did the secretary return to the chairman’s office.
After closing the door, confirming that the barrier strong enough to withstand even an S-rank otherworld passage opening was active, and turning on the soundproofing equipment as well, the secretary finally spoke.

“Chairman. You can come out now.”

At those words, the desk in the chairman’s office rose upward, and the chairman appeared from a space like an elevator.

“He’s gone?”
“Yes. He’s gone.”
“Hoooo.”

The chairman, his fat wobbling all over, crawled out of the secret space on all fours.
The secretary helped up the chairman, who had apparently been holding his breath and listening to the conversation in the evacuation space.

“I’m getting out of here for a while.”
“It seemed Student Lee Ro-un already knew everything.”

The secretary offered her honest opinion, but the chairman hurriedly sent a message somewhere and got into a car while avoiding other people’s eyes.
And from a distance, Ro-un was watching the whole thing.

“As expected, he was inside.”

Meeting, my ass.
Unlike the other chairmen with real standing, he had no ability, no money, and no backing.
Mocking the waddling chairman as he fled, Ro-un turned away.

‘I’ll have to replace my guardian with another human.’

My guardian was the person holding the title of ‘Chairman of Jiri Academy,’ not that pig running away over there.
Unaware that his fate had just been decided, the chairman fled down the mountain, sweat pouring off him.

After the <Otherworld Invasion>, Earth underwent an enormous tectonic shift.
The seas grew deeper, and the mountains grew taller.

Jiri Mountain was no different.
Everest, once known as the tallest mountain, had been 8,848 meters, hadn’t it?
At 9,457 meters, Jiri Mountain now easily surpassed the highest height Everest had recorded before the <Otherworld Invasion>.
At the midpoint of Jiri Mountain, 9,457 meters above sea level, someone walked out through the academy’s main gate.

“It’s high.”

Looking at the upper reaches of Jiri Mountain, hidden by clouds, Ro-un raised a hand to shade his eyes.
Ugh, my eyes.
Ro-un’s eyes turned toward the summit hanging higher than the sun.

“Good thing I don’t have to go all the way up there.”

It was March right now.
Far too early to be climbing a summit over 9,000 meters above sea level.
After glancing toward the summit, Ro-un slowly lowered his gaze.

“Let’s see. Where was it that those bastards caused trouble again?”

Ro-un mapped out Jiri Mountain in his head.
Thanks to the otherworld passages that had opened frequently on Jiri Mountain over the past three years, as if they had been targeting the barrier, Ro-un, who had come and gone through Jiri Mountain like it was his own home, found his destination.

“The side with the item is over there, I guess?”

The reason Ro-un had left the academy.
Ro-un had come outside the academy to secure an item that had ended up worthless after falling into someone else’s hands.

“Looks like I’m hiking a mountain again for the first time in a while.”

Ro-un climbed Jiri Mountain.
How long had he been walking?
From somewhere, he heard the sound of water.

…Trickle, trickle.

Along with the sound of flowing water, noisy voices drifted over.

“…Hahaha!”
“Ah, shit! …Hey!”
“Puhahahaha…!”

Ro-un frowned.

“These little bastards, seriously.”

Skipping class during class time?
If I go there, I ought to catch them and give them demerits!

“No. Why the hell would I give them demerits? They can mess around or not, whatever.”

Why am I bothering with something annoying like demerits?
I’m quitting soon anyway.

“Are they stupid or brave? Playing in the water in the middle of the mountains, and at a spring of all places?”

Long ago, there had been a woodcutter who threw an axe into a spring and summoned a mountain spirit, but after the <Otherworld Invasion>, there was no brave soul left who would toss an axe into a spring.
Because there was no knowing when or where a resident of the otherworld might be watching for a chance to go for your throat.

“Newly awakened idiots are always overflowing with reckless bravado. That’s the problem.”

Ro-un clicked his tongue like some old Awakener.
Those kinds were always the ones to bawl during their first raid.
One shove into a passage was usually enough to knock that easygoing attitude out of them and make them swear they’d never do it again.
Thinking like an old fart, Ro-un strode forward.

Rustle!

Ro-un stepped on the snowmelt-soaked ground.
Still, for all that they were Awakeners, the punks who had been noisily playing lowered their voices and took up fighting stances at the sound Ro-un made.

“What the. Who is it?”
“Hey. Wasn’t no one supposed to come here?”
“Is it a resident of the otherworld?”
“Hah. I’ll butcher it in an instant with my black knife!”

The hot-blooded delinquents drew their weapons.
Exercising an Awakener’s privilege, they pulled weapons from their inventories and aimed them at the brush.
They had taken up fighting stances like Awakeners, but as befitted the lowest-ranked academy in the world, their postures were laughably sloppy.

‘They’d collapse at once if they ran into even a Grade 1 otherworldly resident.’

Mocking the delinquents’ sloppy stances, Ro-un pushed through the brush and stepped out.
The moment they saw Ro-un emerge from the brush, the delinquents hurriedly put away their weapons and straightened up.

“P-P-P-P-President.”
“President, what brings you here?”
“We didn’t do anything today!”
“Hey. He’s the same age as us. And we’re skipping class right now.”
“Oh.”
“Right.”
“…In front of the president’s fists, being the same age doesn’t mean jack.”

I can hear all of that.
Ro-un gave the stiff, frozen delinquents one indifferent glance and walked right past them.
I can’t waste my precious time on idiots like those.
The delinquents blinked as they watched Ro-un pass them by.

“?”
“?”
“What was that?”
“What the?”

Whether they babbled behind him or not, Ro-un reached the spring, looked around, and picked up a suitable stone.
Stone in hand, Ro-un spotted a fish swallowing a fallen leaf on the water’s surface.

Gulp, gulp.

“Looks like it’s still fine.”

Watching the fish rise to the surface to breathe, Ro-un tossed the stone with an indifferent expression.

Splash!

Startled by the ripples made by the stone, the fish that had come up for air darted down beneath the spring.
Watching from behind, the delinquents froze in place, only their eyes rolling around.

‘What’s the president doing right now?’
‘How should I know.’
‘More importantly, how long are we supposed to stay like this? Should we just bolt?’
‘Don’t you know he hits three times harder if you run? Stay put.’

While they could neither do this nor that, Ro-un took off his school uniform jacket and tossed it nearby.

Flop!
Jolt!

At the sound of the jacket dropping, the delinquents’ shoulders popped like popcorn.
Then, shocked by Ro-un’s next move, they gaped with every hole in their faces hanging open.

Splaash!

“Gah!”
“What the!”
“What’s going on!”
“H-H-H-H-He!”
“The president jumped in!”

The delinquents shouted as they stared at the violently churning surface.

“So why the hell did the president go in there?”
“How would I know?”
“Why isn’t he coming back up? Don’t tell me he drowned—”
“Don’t talk nonsense!”
“That stubborn bastard isn’t the kind of guy to die in a place like that!”
“If it’s the president, he’d probably come back out as a ghost even if he died.”
“True.”

The delinquents, who had ended up waiting around the spring for Ro-un, fidgeted and babbled while Ro-un stayed under the water and didn’t come back out.

“But wasn’t the president kind of weird? He just walked right past us.”
“Do you think something’s wrong with him?”
“I told you not to say stupid shit!”
“Yeah! If he dies, we’re heading straight to the Association’s underground prison!”
“No way it’d go that far.”
“You idiots don’t know anything. I overheard it before. If the president dies, our academy gets shut down immediately.”
“What?”
“Why?”
“Why do you think? Because we’re all useless trash.”

The delinquents scrunched up their faces and fell silent.
Useless trash.
That was what people from other places called the students of Jiri Academy.

“Honestly, isn’t the president the only one who even talks about reforming us?”
“Hey! The president sees us as trash too!”
“Even so, he still sees us as ‘humans’ that can be reformed.”
“You’ve lost your mind just because the president didn’t beat you up earlier.”

While the delinquents were babbling, the water suddenly surged upward.

Splaash!

“Eek!”
“It’s a water ghost!”
“Idiot! It’s the president!”
“Then why’s his hair so white that it scares the life out of people?”
“Hey. Don’t talk about livers in the mountains. You’ll summon a fox.”

From between his wet hair, Ro-un’s sharp eyes stared at the delinquents.

‘Eek!’
‘Eek!’
‘I pissed myself….’
‘The president is scarier than a ghost.’

The delinquents, their mouths clamped shut, rolled only their eyes around.
In the meantime, Ro-un pulled himself fully out of the water.

Splosh, splosh.

After climbing completely out of the spring, Ro-un wrung the water from his clothes, picked up the jacket he had taken off before jumping in, and walked past the delinquents.
The smell of cold water lingered behind Ro-un as he headed back toward the academy.

“…Hey.”
“What.”
“Did you see?”
“What.”
“The president. There was something wrapped around his neck just now.”
“It’s probably a scarf.”
“Was it? There was definitely something white.”
“Wasn’t it just the president’s hair?”
“What are you talking about hair? It was a snake.”

A snake?
What snake?
One of the delinquents, blinking blankly, spoke with a stupid look on his face.

“What the. Then did he jump into the water to catch a snake?”

That was the best conclusion the delinquents, who had failed to notice the otherworld passage inside the spring, could come up with.

When Ro-un jumped into the spring and slipped beneath the clear water, he found a passage at the clean bottom of the spring, dark energy slowly seeping out of it.

‘Looks like there isn’t much time left until the passage collapses.’

Looks like I came at just the right time.
Ro-un immediately jumped into the passage.
As he was sucked in as if caught in a whirlpool, Ro-un came to his senses and lifted his face above the surface.

Splaash!

“Cough, hack. Ugh. I think some got in my mouth. [Purification]”

Faced with a violet liquid that looked dangerous to anyone, Ro-un used the Purification skill to cleanse not only his mouth but the liquid splashed on his body as well.
Perhaps because he poured in an abundance of EX-rank Holy Power, the violet liquid was purified not only off Ro-un’s body but even out of the pool he had been submerged in, turning it clear and transparent.

Splosh, splosh!

After crawling out of the pool, Ro-un pulled out a robe from his inventory and draped it over himself.
Aside from the automatic cleaning function placed on it, it was just a robe that looked flashy on the outside, so he used to wear it often during public appearances.
It was also made of a material that could fit into his inventory, so he often wore it when his school uniform got soaked with a resident of the otherworld’s blood or the filth from a passage.
After straightening his clothes, Ro-un looked around the passage.

“Just like the records said. There’s nothing here.”

It was his first entry into an otherworld passage since regressing.