Don't Feed the Professor! - Chapter 18

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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“Professor…?”
Mallo removed his ridiculous 3D glasses. He’d apparently been wandering around the arcade himself.
“You were watching the whole time?”
To my question, Mallo answered as though it were nothing much.
“You seemed pretty focused. Must have been fun.”
At his casual tone, I felt a small pang, but I suppressed it quickly.
Whether I’d been tricked by Gomtal or not, it was I who inserted the coin and pressed play—so there was no use crying over it. If anything, I should count myself lucky it wasn’t worse.
“Ugh.”
At the strange hiccup sound, I turned to see Gomtal’s man with a face that had gone ashen in an instant, staring at Mallo. Cold sweat dripped down his forehead, and his lips trembled without color.
“So, what is it?”
Mallo looked at the man and asked.
“I… I…”
“Speak. Did something happen to my student?”
Standing behind my back, Mallo asked again. I could feel the man’s face turning whiter than a blank sheet of paper.
In a voice like his throat was being wrung, the man barely continued.
“The… the Rules…”
“Hm? What rules?”
“If… if anyone clears a game under certain conditions…, they must become the Tagger…”
“Ah, so that’s what it was?”
Mallo spoke playfully and looked at me. I flinched. Surely. Surely he’s not going to side against me here? After all that talk about me being his only student?
“That’s strange, though…”
Seeing me frozen in place, Mallo laughed.
“My student here said he didn’t have a single coin to his name. So how exactly did he play a game?”
“I…”
I looked at Gomtal’s man. His pupils wavered. It seemed like he was trying to send me some kind of signal, but I couldn’t make sense of it.
Was he hoping I’d make some excuse for him?
“So… this person said that first-time visitors get one free coin, and…”
At my words, Mallo tilted his head.
“Does Goldilocks have a rule like that?”
It was then that the man crumpled, dropping to his knees.
“I’m… I’m sorry.”
With a thud, he pressed his forehead to the ground with all his might.
“My heart grew impatient and I resorted to cheap tricks. Please… just once, show me mercy…”
Mallo bent forward slightly and whispered to me like a joke.
“I have no idea what he’s talking about. Who’s he apologizing to, exactly?”
Just as Mallo said—the man wasn’t apologizing to me. The one he was begging forgiveness from was probably Seongchae.
A flyer he’d been carrying slipped from his grasp and landed at my feet.
I noticed the text written in the corner—
“One free coin for first-time visitors~!!!”
—had a peculiar difference in font and weight.
It was as if someone had printed a new line separately over an already-printed flyer.
Ah, now I understood.
Gomtal had clearly been trying to draw me into the game from the start. That was probably his “role” as assigned by Seongchae. When circumstances didn’t cooperate, he’d resorted to a shallow deception against me.
And then he’d had the audacity to try physical force. On top of that, he’d looked at me with eyes begging for my defense.
The moment I felt nothing but indignation, the jukebox music cut off with a click.
I glanced around at something unsettling in the air. It wasn’t just the music. The quiet chatter of other customers that had been filling the space vanished.
Everyone was staring at us.
The grandmother in the magnifying glasses, the man in the necktie, even the small child in the stroller—all of them had their eyes wide open, fixed on us. Or more precisely, on Gomtal’s man.
The unnatural horror of the scene sent chills down my spine.
Gomtal, whose empty eyes had been fixed on me, began slowly backing away.
Watching him, I simply swallowed hard and dry. One careless movement, and I might fall out of Seongchae’s favor.
Gomtal probably thought the same. One step, two steps—he backed away into the arcade’s darkness with awkward shuffles.
“Shall we sit for a moment? You look quite shaken.”
Mallo gestured toward a nearby table. I sat down across from him, but my gaze kept being drawn to the bloodstain on the tile floor.
‘…I’ll pretend not to see it.’
My heart was heavy, but if the man had truly broken the Rules, there was nothing I could do about it.
And if “must become the Tagger” meant what I thought it did… I might have been sucked into Bad City instead of wearing the helmet.
As that thought crossed my mind, the jukebox music started playing again.
The customers who’d been watching us returned to their meals one by one. They exchanged quiet gossip or laughed as if nothing had happened.
The speed at which the atmosphere returned to peace made my skin crawl.
“That’s why I told you not to accept things from strangers.”
At the sudden comment, I looked up. Mallo was watching me over the top of the menu.
Had he ever said something like that to me before?
“How was I supposed to know it would come to this…? That flyer looked perfect at first glance.”
“Not that.”
I quickly realized he was referring to my Baby Food Encyclopedia. I’d carelessly left it on the table.
“If you gave that away in exchange, it seems like you made a poor trade.”
“I’m sorry? What do you…?”
Mallo rested his chin in his hand and looked at me. I soon understood what he meant.
It seemed Mallo had noticed that I’d given Band-Aids to Bibi.
Or had he known from the start? If so, how much did he know?
“It wasn’t like that. The encyclopedia was just a gift…, and the Band-Aids… they weren’t payment, they were… I guess you could call it gratitude.”
“Hmm.”
But why do I have to explain myself like this? If I gave something, that’s the end of it. What difference does it make to him what I do with it or who I give it to?
“But why do I have to explain this? If you gave it to me, that’s that. What I do with it or who I give it to—what business is it of yours, Professor?”
Still reeling from the shock of moments before, I let the words pour out without thinking. I regretted it immediately.
At my outburst, Mallo simply pushed the menu toward me.
“You’re… buying, right?”
I asked hopefully. Just as Mallo had said, I didn’t have a coin to my name, and I hated being caught in an awkward situation later if we hadn’t agreed beforehand.
Mallo’s long eyes curved softly.
“You’re so suspicious, yet you keep eagerly accepting things from others. Why is that?”
“I’ll have the Rocket Launcher Burger. Deluxe combo.”
A blonde female employee in uniform came to the table to take the order. She was a very ordinary and kind employee.
The uniform she wore had the same green stripes as the vest Gomtal had been wearing earlier.
But what happened to Gomtal in the end? What was that apology all about? Was Gwon Taehyun right—that Seongchae was always watching us?
I looked at Mallo. For some reason, I couldn’t bring myself to ask him about any of this.
No matter how much he claimed to be my only student, I didn’t know him. All I knew was that he was dangerous enough to make The Organization fear him.
“Are you looking at my face right now?”
Still smiling, he asked.
As I scrambled for something to say, he reached out and pulled the blind cord. Orange sunlight filtered in through the slats.
“Why…?”
“Look properly. You like it, don’t you? Or not?”
“No…?”
As I tried to protest, my gaze was stolen by his gleaming golden eyelashes. His cool gray-blue irises had something reptilian about them.
Yet they were so beautiful that without care, one could lose oneself simply staring.
“That is… today…”
My voice cracked inopportunely, and I cleared my throat awkwardly. Waiting quietly for me to continue, I gathered myself and asked Mallo,
“Was it really just coincidence that we ran into each other today?”
Mallo’s eyes rolled slightly.
“Why does that matter?”
“Are you going to answer every question with a question?”
The hamburger arrived at just the right moment. At the sight of the burger and fries on the red plate, my mouth watered involuntarily.
“Enjoy your meal.”
The blonde employee bowed slightly and smiled kindly at me. That’s when I noticed her name tag.
Goldilocks
“Ah…?”
Before I could say anything, she spun around and returned to the kitchen.
“Student.”
Mallo picked up a golden french fry with his fork and held it out to me.
“It’s good to be curious about things. After all, I’m your teacher too. But it seems like there’s a real question you want to ask me.”

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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