S-Classes That I Raised to Devour - Chapter 32

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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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Chapter 32. The Tortoise and the Hare (2)
“I said bring lunch, not cafeteria food, didn’t I?”
“But the cafeteria food is nutritious and well-balanced, and it tastes good too…. The instructor would definitely prefer the cafeteria food.”
At the Training Facility’s dining hall, Lee Min-ji and Kim Yeo-ul were at odds.
“You’re disrespecting convenience store kimbap? This is delicious.”
“I’m taking cafeteria food even if I’m late. You go first.”
“Ugh, you fool. Are you going to run up a mountain carrying a food tray? It’s not even flat ground—it’s a mountainside. You’ll get dust all over it.”
“I can just cover it with plastic….”
“That’s it. I’m going ahead.”
Lee Min-ji dashed off to the convenience store, and Kim Yeo-ul sat down in an empty chair at the dining hall.
Across from her was a mirror with some text written at the top. Kim Yeo-ul read it aloud without thinking.
“The person in the mirror is the one who knows you best and the one you must trust most.”
Then the Kim Yeo-ul in the mirror spoke to her.
―Stop doing stupid things. You don’t need to learn from anyone.
It wasn’t an auditory hallucination. It was Yaksha within Kim Yeo-ul’s inner self speaking.
Chae Mu-jin’s first piece of advice was to try conversing with the Yaksha within.
Since then, Kim Yeo-ul had consistently tried talking to Yaksha, and recently she’d been able to have conversations with her.
It wasn’t possible at any time. She needed her own face reflected back at her, like in a mirror.
“Stop telling me to stop. I’m weak. I need to learn.”
―There’s no need to learn. You have me. Don’t you remember? Who saved you when you were in danger?
“I’m grateful for that. But I want to accomplish things with my own strength.”
―I am you. My strength is your strength.
“If you really want to help me, then trust me and cheer me on, will you?”
―Can’t trust you? I’ll prove it. How strong I am, and how weak those things you believe in really are.
“What are you scheming? Don’t do it.”
The Kim Yeo-ul in the mirror said nothing more. Then, she felt a presence behind her. When she turned around, the Cook flinched.
“Excuse me, are you alright?”
“Oh, yes…. I was just waiting for lunchtime.”
“It’s lunchtime now, actually.”
“What?”
She checked the clock—it really was noon. She thought she’d only had a brief conversation, but time had slipped away.
“Is takeout possible?”
“Normally we don’t do that… but I’ll make an exception for you.”
The Cook lacked the courage to refuse the request of someone who’d spent two hours talking to herself in front of a mirror.
* * *
Running up the mountain with a packaged food tray proved harder than she’d imagined. The true hardship began at the foot of the mountain, on the steep slope.
“Climbing a mountain is this difficult?”
Kim Yeo-ul, who’d only ever seen mountains and never climbed one, couldn’t understand the appeal of hiking as a hobby.
The uneven ground exhausted her feet, and the fallen leaves were treacherously slippery.
And the path was so rugged that whenever a cliff blocked the way, she had to take a detour.
‘It’s harder because I can’t use my hands.’
Both hands were occupied gripping the food tray, so she couldn’t maintain balance—she had no choice but to move forward more carefully and cautiously.
“How much time has passed?”
In the dense forest, her sense of time dissolved.
One moment she thought night was falling, but sunlight streamed through the branches; the next moment there seemed to be light, but after moving a little farther, darkness returned.
She checked her phone—it was already four in the afternoon. Lunchtime was now far behind her.
And the fact that she couldn’t even tell if she was going the right way filled her with despair.
Yet despite this, Kim Yeo-ul didn’t stop moving. As long as she reached the Summit, she’d be able to find Jin Tae-jin. That hope drove her forward.
“I can’t see ahead very well.”
She kept moving forward, but night had fallen without her noticing.
She wanted to stop. She wanted to sit down, grab her phone, and make a call.
She wanted to ask Lee Min-ji where she was now, and to ask Chae Mu-jin for advice on what to do in this situation.
“…Fireball.”
She lit some branches ablaze with a small Fireball. That would handle the immediate darkness.
“I used to manage fine on my own.”
It was only after meeting Chae Mu-jin that she’d begun to rely on others so heavily. Kim Yeo-ul already possessed the ability to stand alone.
After moving further still, the thickets and trees thinned, and soon only rocks were visible. A sky full of stars came into view.
She’d finally reached the Summit.
“Ah….”
Kim Yeo-ul gazed blankly up at the stars in the night sky, but then her gaze shifted downward.
A small light appeared below. It was a faint light, but in the darkness it stood out clearly.
“That must be it.”
There were no other lights around, so she followed the light and soon arrived at her destination.
“You finally came.”
A house made from a converted container stood before her. In front of it, Jin Tae-jin was poking at a campfire. His face was flushed—he’d apparently been drinking.
“I… brought it, though it’s gotten quite cold….”
“Mm.”
Jin Tae-jin took the tray and removed the plastic wrap, then grabbed a sausage and ate it.
“That was good. Now head back down.”
Eight hours of grueling mountain climbing, only to be told to go back.
To show he wasn’t joking, Jin Tae-jin lay back in a hammock and covered his face with newspaper.
Thud-thud.
Kim Yeo-ul didn’t leave as instructed. Instead, she walked toward Jin Tae-jin, who lay still and pretended not to notice.
When she was directly in front of him, she spoke.
“Didn’t Min-ji come?”
“…She came and left four hours ago.”
“Good. Then I’ll see you tomorrow, sir.”
“You’re coming back tomorrow too?”
“Yes. Tomorrow I’ll make sure to bring both lunch and dinner.”
“Wait. That girl Min-ji said she’d come back down with you.”
“With me?”
“She said you might’ve gotten lost in the mountains.”
Jin Tae-jin was curious. What choice would Kim Yeo-ul make?
Would she push her tired body forward into the darkness to search for Lee Min-ji again? Or would she just ignore it and head back to her quarters?
Kim Yeo-ul hesitated for a moment, then stretched both arms toward the sky.
“Fireball.”
Whoosh, boom!
A Fireball shot up into the air and exploded like fireworks.
“Now Min-ji will know I’m here, right?”
“So you’re waiting here until that woman shows up?”
“Yes.”
“She might’ve gotten tired searching for you and just headed back to her quarters.”
“I’ll wait and see, and if she doesn’t come, then I’ll head back.”
“If I were you, I’d burn the whole forest down. That’s the most certain method.”
“Why would you burn the forest? The animals might die.”
“That doesn’t sound like something a fire mage would say.”
Jin Tae-jin, who’d been lying down, suddenly stood up and linked arms with Kim Yeo-ul.
Kim Yeo-ul swallowed hard without realizing it. It wasn’t Ultra-high Speed Movement or teleportation.
Without a single breeze, he was suddenly linking arms with her. It meant that if Jin Tae-jin had wanted to kill her, he could’ve done it hundreds of times over.
‘I probably wouldn’t even realize I was dead.’
Crunch.
Without warning, Jin Tae-jin pried open Kim Yeo-ul’s mouth and examined the inside.
“Hmm-hmm.”
“Wh-wh-what are you doing?”
“Based on my experience, you’re a rare specimen. I’m figuring out what kind.”
He poked her cheeks, opened her eyelids to check, and finally took her wrist to feel her pulse.
“Your exterior and interior are completely different. It’s as if one body contains two souls.”
Kim Yeo-ul desperately tried to deny it, but Jin Tae-jin smirked.
“Strong denial is affirmation, didn’t you know? Besides, it doesn’t matter what reaction you show. If I say that’s what you are, then that’s what you are.”
Chae Mu-jin only learned Kim Yeo-ul’s secret after witnessing it firsthand, but Jin Tae-jin discerned it simply by looking.
However, he was not as merciful as Chae Mu-jin.
“Let’s see then. Show me your real power.”
“…I don’t want to.”
“Huh? Oh, that wasn’t a question.”
Snap.
Kim Yeo-ul’s right arm shattered. Before she could feel the pain, a devastating pressure crushed down on her body.
“Next will be your neck, not your arm.”
This man didn’t lie. His next attack would truly target her neck, and if she couldn’t block or dodge it, she would die.
And Kim Yeo-ul couldn’t block or dodge his attacks.
Certain death. The moment she accepted that fate, Kim Yeo-ul’s eyes turned crimson red.
* * *
Bang!
A massive boulder shattered to pieces with the explosion.
It wasn’t dynamite packed inside and detonated. It wasn’t heavy machinery with a drill.
A fist—a human fist—had destroyed a house-sized rock.
“Quite vicious. An S-rank Skill, perhaps?”
Yaksha’s attacks were swift and primal, but Ma-jon simply sidestepped with his hands in his pockets, unhurried and composed.
An observer might have thought it was a choreographed performance—Ma-jon anticipated every target of Yaksha’s assault.
Yet Yaksha didn’t back down.
She accelerated her attack speed further, mixing kicks between her punches, varying her approach.
“This evasion is getting tedious.”
Thud!
Finally, Yaksha’s fist connected. Only because Ma-jon allowed it.
“Hmm, now that I’ve felt it, I understand your Skill roughly. You steal life force temporarily, and if you kill, you steal it permanently, yes?”
Ma-jon raised his hand in a flicking gesture.
There was no way Yaksha would let that land. She moved swiftly to get behind him—
“Did you think you dodged?”
In fact, she was already sent flying by the flick.
Ma-jon’s attack was faster than thought itself, and Yaksha had briefly lost consciousness, dreaming that she’d evaded. A dream that she’d blocked the blow.
“Your endurance suggests you haven’t absorbed much life force.”
Ma-jon, holding Yaksha’s wrist as she flew, simply stood there.
“Raaaagh!”
Yaksha screamed and mercilessly struck the stationary Ma-jon.
He didn’t dodge a single blow, and spoke:
“Has your reason left you? Pathetic mental fortitude.”
Flick.
The second flick struck Yaksha’s forehead, and she immediately slumped, head bowed. There was no boom, no shockwave, but with that single strike she lost consciousness.
The first flick had been a blast that spread impact outward; the second flick was a bullet that concentrated all its force into a single point.
Ma-jon stared intently at the unconscious Yaksha’s palm, at Kim Yeo-ul’s hand.
“So it is the Star of Heavenly Killing. I thought it seemed familiar.”
The Star of Heavenly Killing is cursed to be a mad murderer, destined to kill countless people and plunge the world into terror.
Jin Tae-jin himself was a Star of Heavenly Killing, so he knew well. Life itself is marked by misfortune, violence, and murder, and one becomes a murderer without choice.
Ma-jon lifted his gaze to observe the stars above, but soon his brows furrowed.
“The Star of Heavenly Killing is… blurred?”
Kim Yeo-ul was a Star of Heavenly Killing, yet she’d escaped that fate. That was impossible.
“The natural order is twisted.”
A Star of Heavenly Killing cannot be identified until awakening. And even then, eliminating one is far more difficult. Fate protects them.
But harder still is finding a Star of Heavenly Killing beforehand and freeing them from their destiny.
“Even the half-gods dare not tamper lightly with Causality.”
One might say it’s good that a future murderer has vanished. But such words come from ignorance of Causality.
“A Star of Heavenly Killing must continue the path of slaughter until death. Because I escaped that fate, the omen of the next Star of Heavenly Killing was destined to grow darker.”
Can a void exist in the air? Can a void exist in space?
The more something empties, the stronger the force that acts upon it. This is Causality.
Jin Tae-jin had already punctured the Causality of the Star of Heavenly Killing once.
What emerged from that puncture was Kim Yeo-ul, a Star of Heavenly Killing. But Kim Yeo-ul didn’t seal the hole—she’d made it larger.
“It is not this child’s fault. A Star of Heavenly Killing cannot overcome their destiny alone.”
Just as Cheonmu-jong had intervened in his own fate, someone had intervened in Kim Yeo-ul’s.
Who that someone was, was crystal clear.
“Chae Mu-jin.”
He didn’t know how Chae Mu-jin had found Kim Yeo-ul and freed her from the Star of Heavenly Killing’s destiny, but the result was that the world had drawn closer to ruin.
‘A future where a million die has become a future where ten million die.’
Of course, the future wasn’t set in stone. If someone had the will to prevent it, they could.
But the difficulty of doing so had increased tenfold—and that was the problem.
“Chae Mu-jin. Are you God’s proxy? You couldn’t find a Star of Heavenly Killing in advance without being divine.”
Ever since becoming a Licensed Hunter, Ma-jon had merely been alive, unable to die. But today was different.
He was curious about Chae Mu-jin’s face. What did he look like? What was his profession? What was his childhood? How had his parents raised him?
Like the days when he lived as a Star of Heavenly Killing, blood surged in his veins. He wanted to find Chae Mu-jin immediately and dissect everything about him.
“But I cannot.”
Jin Tae-jin was bound by two constraints in exchange for survival.
He could not kill a person, and he could not enter Seoul.
Which made finding Chae Mu-jin impossible.
“Then I’ll have him come to me.”
Just as Kim Yeo-ul had sought him out.
* * *
Lee Min-ji was descending the mountain to search for Kim Yeo-ul. She saw the Fireball explosion and came back up, only to find the situation already concluded.
“What on earth happened?!”
She stood wielding a Giant Hammer, glaring at Jin Tae-jin.
“Let go of her.”
“I’m not even holding her. Besides, I can’t harm anyone anyway.”
Jin Tae-jin took a step back. Lee Min-ji hesitated for a moment, then approached Kim Yeo-ul’s side to check her condition.
Even without being a professional doctor, Lee Min-ji could see that Kim Yeo-ul appeared to be merely unconscious.
“We’ll be heading down now.”
“Before you go, show me your palms.”
“Don’t do anything strange.”
“If I intended to, I wouldn’t ask.”
When Jin Tae-jin examined the palms Lee Min-ji offered, he shook his head.
“A sparrow dreaming a phoenix’s dream, I see.”
“What?”
“You don’t know your place. Because of that, you’ll die miserably.”
“We’ll see.”
“Tell Kim Yeo-ul that next time she comes, bring some coffee-flavored peanuts.”
“I’ll bring them.”
“No, you don’t need to come.”
“Thank you. I was getting tired of this anyway.”
Lee Min-ji didn’t look back or plead. Just as she was about to carry the unconscious Kim Yeo-ul down the mountain—
“Still, I can’t send the child who sought me out empty-handed. Take this.”
Something flew toward her. She caught it instinctively—it was an old, worn book.
―《Dae-ryok Mu-hon Manual》
“What is this?”
“A secret manual to change your pathetic fate from death into merely death.”
“Thank you. I’ll make good use of it.”
If it meant growing stronger, Lee Min-ji could bend her pride however much was needed. She descended the mountain, cradling the secret manual.
Jin Tae-jin returned to his dwelling and lay back in the hammock.
“Lee Min-ji. You will definitely learn the Dae-ryok Mu-hon, and Chae Mu-jin, being a sharp one, will realize what I’ve done.”
I cannot kill a person.
Trusting this, Chae Mu-jin must have sent these youngsters to me.
“But there are many ways to kill without actually killing.”
He closed his eyes and imagined. What does Chae Mu-jin look like? How would he react in anger?
“Such a pity. A real shame.”
The situation itself was endlessly fascinating and amusing—the former Star of Heavenly Killing instructing the next one, and the emergence of an existence that twisted Causality.
That’s why he felt the regret.
“I shouldn’t have glimpsed a future where I die.”
Jin Tae-jin had only one year left to live.

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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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