The Regressed Chaebol Grandson Finds It Hard to Forgive - Chapter 11

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

Episode 11. The Sadaeja’s Clever School Life (5)

“What the—? A good harvest?”

O Seora looked up, taken aback by the words that had slipped into her ear.
The male student who’d caught her eye was.

Ha Tae-woong?

O Seora’s reason for coming to the Cafeteria was simple: Park Ji-woong.
A free window to torment him.

Soon, the second semester midterms would begin.
Stress was already piling up relentlessly.

If she didn’t vent it in bits and pieces, she’d go mad.

Park Ji-woong had become her personal garbage dump for emotional waste.

She’d naturally fallen into the routine again today.

There was no need to look around.

No one in the school was easier prey than Park Ji-woong.

Only the Sadaeja served as outlets for her emotional purging.

The boys especially could take a beating.
The girls usually dropped out before the end of first year, first semester—indifference alone was enough to break them.

Park Ji-woong was ideal: easy and durable as a punching bag.

The urge to snap those who endured only grew stronger.

Besides, Park Ji-woong had decent grades too.

Without cram school benefits, he kept himself in the top ranks.

O Seora’s father was a real estate magnate in Gangnam.

For her, who lacked nothing material, Park Ji-woong was a reflex object of contempt.

The school kids wrote it off—they treated her as new money.
You didn’t need them to say it outright. You could feel it.

Behind Park Ji-woong’s glasses, his eyes were always indifferent.

His stubbornness in enduring all manner of insults was less impressive than pathetic.

He was like a weed—trampled and crushed, but always raising his head again.

Her recent steady harassment was showing results.

You could see cracks forming in Park Ji-woong’s mental state.

Keep pushing a little more and he’d throw up his hands and drop out.

And now, at this crucial moment, Ha Tae-woong suddenly barged in.

Ha Tae-woong, whom she’d overlooked while narrowing her focus solely on Park Ji-woong as her target.
She’d completely forgotten he existed.

“Well, well, the Three Losers—how nice to see you all.”
“……!!”
“L-losers?”
“Hey! Ha Tae-woong!!”

O Seora’s parasites, Yang Mi-jin and Kim Min-ji, screeched with wide eyes.

“You ever look in a mirror? Even if you completely rework your faces, there’s nothing you can do about those big heads and short legs.”

Ha Tae-woong fired back with a nasty smile, still sitting.

Shiver.

The three girls’ faces flushed scarlet.
Everyone knew the truth, but no one ever said it aloud.

All three had nagged their parents into cosmetic surgery from an early age.

Their parents’ genes alone hadn’t been enough to arm them with beauty.

Fortunately, modern surgical techniques had delivered better-than-expected results.

They’d managed to make the impossible beautiful through surgery.

The problem was exactly what Ha Tae-woong pointed out: the oversized heads and short limbs.

They’d seriously considered limb-lengthening surgery.

But the risk was too high, and their parents wouldn’t allow it.
Somehow Ha Tae-woong had pinpointed that exact sore spot and twisted the knife.

“You f—ing bastard, Ha Tae-woong!!”
“What the hell are you talking about, you asshole!”
“Stupid Sadaeja bastard! You want to die?”

All three unleashed a torrent of profanities without waiting.

Their eyes alone looked ready to shred Ha Tae-woong to pieces.

“And that psychotic temper of yours can’t be fixed with surgery either, can it? Such a shame. Tsk.”

Ha Tae-woong had finally crossed the line.
He didn’t even blink at the girls’ collective vulgarities.

“You……. Do you know who we are?”

O Seora, the leader of the trio, dropped her voice low.
Her eyes glinted with cold, frosty rage.

“Sure do. Class 1, second year—O Seora. And her two leeches.”
“Why are you stepping up? Am I easy to you?”
“Yeah, extremely so.”
“What??”

Steam rose from the crown of O Seora’s head.

This crazy bastard!

Ha Tae-woong must have taken something today—she was sure of it.
O Seora had noticed Ha Tae-woong a few times before.

Not out of interest.
Just that his model-tier height and visuals had caught her eye.

It was a shame he was a Sadaeja.
If his background were different, he’d be among the school’s most popular boys.

What was strange was that his aura felt slightly different from other Sadaeja.

To O Seora, he carried the presence of a higher-tier species than herself.

Since she couldn’t figure him out, she found him unsettling, and so she’d targeted Park Ji-woong instead.
Ha Tae-woong, on the other hand, had O Gwang-jun marked as his target.

Now today had blown up.

Ha Tae-woong, who’d been taking it from O Gwang-jun just as much as Park Ji-woong.
He’d crushed him completely.

The rumors were true.
He’d gotten involved in the Park Ji-woong situation.

The atmosphere flowing through here was different from usual, somehow.

Why are these commoners acting up like this!!
Did they eat rat poison or something?

O Seora’s anger burned even hotter.

One Park Ji-woong was easy.
But with Ha Tae-woong mixed in, the atmosphere had shifted strangely.

“Is O Seora getting called out right now?”
“Ha Tae-woong seems way over the line today.”

Murmur, murmur.

The Cafeteria without the third-years.
The tangled gazes of first and second-year students using it all converged to one point.

“You’re not seriously thinking that he and I are lower-tier lives, are you? That’s a very wrong idea.”
“……!!”
“Vulgar.”

Ha Tae-woong had seen straight through O Seora’s thoughts.

Thump-thump.

In that instant, O Seora’s heart began to race.

She couldn’t back down now!

O Seora stared directly at Ha Tae-woong and bit her lip hard.

She could never hear it said that she’d lost to a Sadaeja.

If rumors spread like they had about O Gwang-jun, she’d be in far worse straits.

She might not even be able to keep attending this school.

“Ha Tae-woong……. I’m warning you—if you want to graduate, don’t get involved from this moment on!”

O Seora issued the warning with as calm a voice as she could muster.
But.

“Seora. Come on, Seora.”
“……!!”

The nickname O Seora despised more than anything.
It tumbled from Ha Tae-woong’s lips.

“You bastard!”

O Seora’s eyes flipped in an instant.

Crack!

In the blink of an eye, she raked her palm hard across Ha Tae-woong’s cheek.

“Huh!”
“D-did you just hit him?”

O Seora’s powerful slap—no one had seen it coming.
The Cafeteria was engulfed in shock.

An act of violence in broad daylight, in the Cafeteria with classmates watching.
The first incident of its kind since Cheonghwa High School’s founding.

“Ji-woong.”

Ha Tae-woong, his cheek stinging from the slap, called out to Park Ji-woong.
His eyes smiled, but his gaze was cold and chilling.

“Wh-why?”

Park Ji-woong answered, caught off guard.

“You going to put up with this?”
“……??”
“I’m not.”

Whoosh.

Ha Tae-woong stood quietly from his seat.

The height of O Seora, who’d just slapped him while sitting, was around five-foot-two.

Standing, Ha Tae-woong now loomed over her, facing her directly.

“I don’t hit women. But……. animals are an exception.”

Before he’d even finished speaking.

Whoosh-crack!

Bang!

“Ahhhhhhh!”
“S-Seora!!”

The moment Ha Tae-woong’s palm contacted O Seora’s cheek.
She staggered backward and crashed hard into a nearby table.

Just one blow.

“…….”

The Cafeteria fell into silence.
Ha Tae-woong then swept his blank gaze across the students.

Most students averted their eyes and turned away.

“Ji-woong.”
“……. Yeah.”
“You want to be a sucker your whole life?”
“……. No.”
“Then bite.”
“……??”
“If they act like dogs, you bite too! Don’t hold back—sink your teeth into their throat! That’s the message!”

Ha Tae-woong’s tone announced the opening of a full-scale war.
His moderate, measured voice struck Park Ji-woong’s heart with weight.

“Hic……. Waaaahhhhh!”

O Seora, struck and knocked down, burst into childlike tears.
A vivid handprint was visible on the cheek she held.

“Especially the ones without manners—bite harder and tear them apart!”

Ha Tae-woong glared at O Seora as he gave his counsel to Park Ji-woong.

“…….”

The Cafeteria remained deathly quiet.

Only the kitchen area showed any movement.
The noise from the prep room kept them oblivious to what was happening beyond it.

Students watched the scene play out in silence.

Ha Tae-woong’s warning, weighted with intent, struck their ears with lethal clarity.

“Friend.”

Ha Tae-woong looked directly at Park Ji-woong and called to him.
And then.

“This life, get yourself properly examined by a prosecutor once.”

Ha Tae-woong’s words, utterly mismatched to the situation.

“If you keep going like this, you’ll become nothing but a thug.”
“…….”

Then.

“Hehehehe!”

Laughter erupted from somewhere in the crowd watching.
A sound that broke the silence.

Eyes turned toward the source.

* * *

The situation had gotten too big, unintentionally.
A lunch-period incident had spiraled completely out of control.

I’d only wanted to be a conscientious cafeteria monitor.
But the circumstances wouldn’t allow it.

I’d ended up getting involved when I saw what Park Ji-woong was enduring.
Because of the dangerous wavelength that he was radiating.

A crimson hue symbolizing death blended with bright azure.
He was emitting it from across his entire frame, perfectly split in two.

I couldn’t just watch passively as the colors kept mixing and shifting.

The only other Sadaeja classmate left at school.
But that wasn’t the only reason.

Memories from about a year ago, at this same point in time, had surfaced.
A massive incident that had shocked the entire nation of South Korea!

That incident had turned South Korea upside down.

A bizarre murder and solicitation of murder by an MZ Generation organized crime boss!

The Organized Crime Group boss who’d set up coin and stock tip rooms and embezzled enormous criminal proceeds.

The detained MZ Organized Crime Group boss had brutally murdered a provincial prosecutor, high-ranking police, and the leader of a rival organization based in Seoul.

And what became an even bigger issue was the series of disappearances and deaths of individuals from Cheonghwa High School who’d attended the same years as the MZ Organized Crime Group boss.

It was no coincidence—the disappearances didn’t end with just one or two people.
There were over a dozen of them.

The MZ Organized Crime Group boss became a person of interest in the investigation, but there was no evidence.

He’d operated a major Junkyard, and while the circumstances were highly suspicious, no evidence was ever found.

There were tips that his organization used hydrochloric acid and sodium hydroxide, along with Junkyard machinery, for disposal—but no trace was discovered.

A betrayal by a subordinate the MZ Organized Crime Group boss had favored became the breakthrough in solving the case.

If the person who sought protection from the Prosecutor’s Office and betrayed the boss hadn’t existed, the crime would have remained unsolved.

The murders and evidence had been disposed of so perfectly.

The protagonist of that incident, the MZ Organized Crime Group boss, is…….

Park Ji-woong, right now taking a beating from O Seora and her cronies before my eyes.

“Hehehehe!”

I’m currently saving a man who will become a serial killer in the future.
Laughter breaking the tension at such a crucial moment.

From the sound of it, that side was also trying to hold it back.

But because of the quiet Cafeteria air, it came through all too clearly.

I turned my head to check the source of the laughter.

One person, sitting by the wide windows.

“Kang A-ri…….”

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