Don't Feed the Professor! - Chapter 74

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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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“This is our house address. It’s like a village settlement, but it’s well-known around here, so you shouldn’t have trouble finding it.”
“…….”
I found myself taking the paper without thinking. It looked like the address of a village somewhere in Gangwon Province.
Momo smiled brightly and spoke.
“If you tell them you’re the fourth granddaughter of Great-Grandmother, they’ll know it’s me right away. So if you feel like it, come visit sometime.”
That evening, we chattered away until the lights went out.
Beyond our difficult temperaments, we had quite a lot in common—especially the fact that we had no friends in the outside world.
I asked her.
“If you could, would you come back to the Fortress?”
I thought she’d recoil, but Momo seemed to be genuinely considering it.
“I was lucky this time. It took a while to meet the conditions, but in the end, I got out with all my limbs intact. Still……there was something fun about it.”
“Fun?”
When I reacted in disbelief, Momo laughed as if embarrassed.
“Don’t get the wrong idea. It’s just that outside, I was always left out, always an outsider. But here……it felt like I belonged somewhere. Like it was okay for me to be me, you know? That sort of thing.”
I found myself nodding.
Because I was actually feeling exactly the same way.
Momo continued.
“See, I don’t think coming to the Fortress was just bad luck or karma the way people say. Of course, I wish I’d never known about it in the first place, but since I do know now, the fact that I could endure this much is because of who I am.”
“So are you coming back?”
“Are you insane? I wouldn’t spit in this direction!”
We burst out laughing, dropping every last shred of wariness toward each other.
At least for today, it felt like things could be okay.
* * *
Around the same time, Bibi was peering through a small telescope at the lit windows of the Administrative Office from the balcony of the Lecture Hall Building’s fourth floor.
Kwon Tae-hyun, and a suspicious man whose face was hidden.
[If your head hurts, you should go to the infirmary.]
Bibi mouthed silently along with Kwon Tae-hyun’s lip movements. His exaggerated gestures and drawling speech made it easy enough to catch the gist.
This wasn’t their first clandestine meeting, Bibi thought as she watched the unidentified hooded man accept and swallow the pill Kwon Tae-hyun had handed him.
Something had felt off from the start.
Gwangnyeong University had an unusually high number of long-term residents.
Most had entered without permission, but as they clashed with each other, an unspoken set of rules had emerged, and they seemed to avoid conflict among themselves.
As a result, The Agency didn’t bother putting much effort into rooting them out. The Administrative Office actually supported the students’ survival, and the students cooperated with The Agency in good faith.
A kind of neutral zone—there was no real need to assign a new agent.
Why had someone as green and new as herself, despite being an internal operative, been stationed here?
Bibi’s superior had never explained it directly. Instead, they’d given her advice on several occasions.
‘Watch your surroundings carefully,’ they’d said.
[If he’d been smart, he’d have stuck to some family and just sucked them dry.]
Watching Kwon Tae-hyun’s sneering expression, Bibi sighed silently.
In any case, he was an irritating adversary. Sometimes it was harder to read the patterns of those who were simply human.
People who reacted only to immediate profit had no principles and couldn’t be pinned down. And yet they weren’t entirely harmless either. There was still something sinister about them.
“What on earth is he going on about.”
Watching Kwon Tae-hyun shake his head and wave his hands, Bibi murmured to herself.
Then, with an expression of utter depravity she’d never seen on him before, Kwon Tae-hyun spoke.
[Don’t you think Chairman Song would make a move if he saw you?]
A jolt.
‘Who……?’
[Why don’t you come clean first? What’s Kang Woo-jin after with our sweet Amelie?]
Crunch. Bibi’s hand tightened on the telescope.
But she couldn’t panic. She had to secure as much information as possible, no matter what.
Bibi increased the magnification on the binoculars with one hand. She was confident in her lip reading, so she thought she’d be able to grasp the conversation more accurately.
Bibi focused intently on Kwon Tae-hyun’s chattering words.
Unaware that the gaze of another figure—the hooded man—was slowly shifting toward her.
* * *
After the weekend passed, Lee Ha-young reached out to me through the hotline for a private message.
As expected, ’12th Floor Has People’ was Lee Ha-young’s chat handle.
Lee Ha-young sent an apology, saying she’d have to decline the cover model shoot.
Now that it had been revealed that Kang Woo-jin was alive inside the Fortress, Jusija wouldn’t allow him to be exposed to the outside world.
[12th Floor Has People: I’m sorry I couldn’t be of help. I feel embarrassed for being so bold about it.]
[Goldiracks: No, I thought it was a lot to ask of you too.]
[12th Floor Has People: Still, it’s a shame. It would have been a decent opportunity for me.]
[Goldiracks: An opportunity?]
[12th Floor Has People: I don’t think you know about this, Amelie, but as I’m sure you’ve heard, Higher-ranking Entities aren’t supposed to interfere excessively in the human world.]
[Goldiracks: Yes, I’ve heard something like that.]
[12th Floor Has People: If multiple Higher-ranking Entities recognize me, then my individual importance grows proportionally.]
[Goldiracks: Importance?]
[12th Floor Has People: At the very least, within the Fortress, my existence would become an Observation Intersection Point that can’t be easily erased.]
I don’t quite understand all this talk of Recognition and Observation, but I think I get what she’s saying.
If multiple Higher-ranking Entities recognize me simultaneously, my existence becomes something that can’t be easily extinguished.
Of course, that also brings more variables, but conversely, it means no one can interfere with my existence carelessly.
Either way, it seemed like pretty decent insurance.
And that same day, Morrison reached out to me under the name Goldiracks. He’d already figured out everything about the proposal I’d made to Lee Ha-young and how Jusija had rejected it.
So all that talk about being a networking expert wasn’t entirely bluster.
“It’s a shame, really. Canaria from Nest Building would’ve made quite the splash.”
“Yes, I suppose so…….”
I rolled my eyes while holding the order form. Morrison seemed to have already noticed my discomfort.
“Still, since this is supposed to be ‘Today’s University,’ shouldn’t the first cover model be a Gwangnyeong student after all?”
“Well…….”
“Surely you weren’t planning to just back out after making such confident statements…….”
“Hmm…….”
“Even for a university’s PR department, work has procedures and schedules. If we go like this, it’ll be, you know, a cancellation. A complete cancellation.”
“Ah, who said I wasn’t going to do it? I’ll do it!”
What’s the big deal about being a cover model anyway? You just stand there and they take your picture.
“Oh! You’re making a Promise?”
“Just don’t change your story later. If the cover ends up looking bad and the magazine doesn’t sell, that’s not my fault.”
“Amelie.”
Morrison suddenly looked at me with a serious expression.
“Believe in your talent.”
“My talent.”
“And more than anything, believe in me. Once my hands touch something, even a pebble rolling around becomes premium goods.”
“So I’m a rolling pebble?”
“Ah, I just mean it as a figure of speech!”
I was about to turn away in exasperation when a thought suddenly occurred to me.
“About the shoot—can you wrap it up by next Thursday at the latest?”
“Well, there’s nothing that can’t be done, but……. Are you taking a vacation or something?”
“You could call it a vacation, I suppose.”
Though it’s more like a leave of absence. Or maybe it’s dropout.
“Well, I understand. I’ll do my best to accommodate that. Oh, and about those two people you mentioned last time.”
I turned around again and stopped.
“Did you find them?!”
“As for Kang Woo-jin, well, I have some casual acquaintance with him, but……currently, his whereabouts are a bit difficult to pinpoint, one way or another.”
I looked at Morrison with suspicion, but he either didn’t notice or was pretending not to, showing no particular reaction.
In any case, Kang Woo-jin had been circling around me all this time, so eventually his trail would turn up.
Sooner or later.
“What about ‘Young Master’?”
I asked without much hope. I’d made the request, but how was anyone supposed to find someone when I didn’t even know their name or age?
Morrison answered.
“Ah, he seems to be somewhere quite nearby, actually.”

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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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