The Regressed Chaebol Grandson Finds It Hard to Forgive - Chapter 7

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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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Episode 7. A Sudra’s Clever School Life (1)

At Cheonghwa High School, I belong to the Sudra slave class.

The Republic of Korea’s constitution prohibits discrimination based on social status.

It’s clearly written that way, but this place doesn’t apply to that.

A caste system exists here in earnest.

Children of chaebol families who belong to the Brahmin class.

Children of politicians, generals, and high-ranking civil servants—the Kshatriya class.

Children from families of small- and medium-sized enterprise owners, judges, prosecutors, accountants, doctors—the Vaishya class.

I am a commoner who can’t fit into their world.

“Your soul was so pure back then. Heh-heh.”

Today’s me mocked the innocent version I used to be.

I’d foolishly thought back in middle school that good grades and regular attendance meant friendship.

I’d naively believed we could interact freely.

On top of that, Cheonghwa High School was coeducational with strong arts and athletics programs.

For an all-boys middle school graduate like me with decent grades, it was the perfect environment to harbor illusions.

Reality crushed them.
I learned painfully, and not long after, that my fantasies could never become real.

In the early days after enrollment, my height and good looks made me a brief conversation partner.

But once word spread that I was a Sudra, everything changed.

Classmates I’d naively thought were my friends avoided me like a lie.

The moment the Sudra label stuck, it was instant ostracism—no exaggeration.

The teachers were no different.
All but a handful treated me coldly and distantly.

I got as far as I did only because my grades were good.
If my academics hadn’t held up, I wouldn’t have survived until graduation.

I tried, despite knowing better, to reach out to them several times.

Each time I was treated like I didn’t exist.

The cold treatment from my own family had toughened my mental resolve; it was the only thing that let me endure.
In my pre-regression days, I had not a single friend during my entire high school years.

Three years of high school wallpapered with dark memories and trauma.

“Grandmother! This time, I’ll live differently!”

School during this period had squeezed the life out of me.

Without my parents’ attention, I wouldn’t have survived.

Second year.
Five Sudra-classified students had enrolled with me.

By second year, only two remained.

I was called stubborn as a mule and stayed to the end, walking away with a diploma.

Those high school days had remained a complex for me.

It seemed Grandmother had sent me back to this point so I could heal my own past.

“Looking at it now, that natural grass is insane. How can a place like this exist in the middle of Gangnam?”

To the right of the main gate stands a golf range.
At the center, the three-story old main building.

To the left sat the New Building, a five-story structure.
It housed an Olympic-standard underground swimming pool.

Above ground: the third-year cafeteria, an indoor gymnasium functioning as a grand hall spanning two and three stories, a third-floor with third-year classrooms, study halls, and important club rooms, and so on.

Behind the main building stood the two-story Arts Hall, elegant and understated.

The presence of an autonomous private high school occupying expensive Gangnam land.

People said the land alone was worth trillions.

On top of all that, the foundation also operated an equestrian center in Yongin.

In the past, I hadn’t enjoyed any of this grandeur at all.

Unlike me, who’d grown up ordinary, these kids had been building fundamentals in horseback riding, swimming, and golf since childhood.

I’d spent my days with my head down, eyes fixed on the floor map alone.

But now, things were different.

My shoulders were squared.

Walking toward the classroom, I felt the soft, cushioned elasticity of the new seats.

“That’s right. Money is everything.”

Cheonghwa invested massive funds every year to improve the school environment.

On the surface, buildings were covered in ivy.

Inside, they maintained that classical feel while innovating the facilities.

Systematic air conditioning, heating units, and air purifiers ran by default.

All necessary resources were supplied through informal parent gatherings.

“Now that I look, every rich kid’s slippers are designer brands too.”

Nike and Adidas? Nowhere to be seen in the shoe racks.
The second-year shoe rack by the main building entrance.

Almost exclusively designer shoes and slippers.

Most are brands ordinary people have never even heard of.

I’m the only one with a cheap stationery-store three-striped slipper.
Still.

“Nana~♫”

A tune slipped out on its own.
In the past, I’d had to take deep breaths before entering the classroom.

Now I felt no need for that.

Bounce, bounce.

Right now, some seven-baby short-seller altcoin is trading in combat!

Just wait a month.

Then there won’t be anyone richer than me in this whole school.

Quiet confidence wrapped around my entire body.

Step, step.

I arrived at the classroom entrance.
Even the hallway floors had been replaced with marble recently.

“My body remembers everything.”

My steps remembered the classroom precisely, like a formula etched in memory.

And there it was—the classroom.

“Class 2-3…….”

Conflicted emotions rose unbidden.
My time, carved into this space in the past.

Difficult and painful memories surfaced one by one.

I entered through the open back door.

The classroom scene I was seeing again.
Twenty students.

Large TVs for learning and electronic whiteboards.
And ergonomic desks and chairs, all replaced at great expense at the same time.

Every semester, desks and chairs are provided in sizes tailored to each student’s build for learning efficiency.

Of course, each classroom has air purifiers and system temperature-control units as standard equipment.

“What did you do over the weekend?”
“What else? Took a ten-hour special lecture with Choi Hyeon-seok.”
“What?! Choi—the top Korean instructor?”
“Yeah.”
“Wow! They say it’s hard to get him—how’d you manage?”
“My mom’s intense about this stuff.”
“I’m jealous…….”
“He’s doing another session this Saturday. Want to come?”
“Can I really?”
“Well…… if you want…….”
“Min-ju! Love you~”

Two female students were playing that push-pull game.

Choi Hyeon-seok, Gangnam’s top Korean instructor—I know that name too.

A famous Gangnam instructor who pulls in hundreds of billions a year.

Kang Min-ju, bragging without admitting it.
With a fox-shaped face and a bob cut that suited her perfectly, she was a genuine beauty.

Her grandfather had been director of a general hospital, and her father now runs a cosmetic surgery clinic in Gangnam.

Rumors had it they raked in money hand over fist.

Of course, she was one of the kids who’d completely ignored me in the past.

Now, our eyes had met as I came through the back door, and she’d quickly looked away.

She’d gotten cosmetic help from her father as she grew, and her face had been refined into the typical look of a surgical beauty—irritating.

That Kang Min-ju was radiating a pale pink aura.

It was exactly the kind of light that suited a fox.

I took my seat.
The least popular spot in an academically competitive classroom: the back row by the window.

Impressed by a top-tier instructor? Not at all.

As long as the Butterfly Effect causes no unexpected ripples, I can maintain whatever grades I want.

I already know all the problems that will appear not just in second-year exams, but in every exam ahead.

The college entrance exam? Heh-heh-heh.

No need to say more.
I can’t just predict the future—I can state it as fact.

It’s both an opportunity and an unfair advantage.
It’s a sweet deal.

“Min-ju, me too!!”
“Any spots left?”

Students sitting in the middle of the next row quickly rushed over.

They all had their lives on the line for the college entrance exam a year away.

Their parents had great expectations proportional to what they’d invested in them.

Just seeing this atmosphere made it clear the upper class didn’t maintain itself for free.

People criticize golden-spoon kids, but these kids grind pretty hard too.
I’d never heard them say they’d gotten to bed before midnight.

If they took a top-tier instructor’s class on weekends too, the pattern was clear.

Video games? Entertainment? Otaku hobbies?

These kids back then had none of that.

“I don’t know…… I’d have to check with Mom first.”

I could already see where this was going.
Political maneuvering by a high schooler.

Everything Kang Min-ju does is calculated.

It’s a strategy her mother cooked up.
Min-ju’s mother is a fairly well-known mid-career actress.

The roles she’d taken were mostly sharp-witted, arrogant upper-class wives.

The one whose hand Kang Min-ju had extended to—Oh Yun-seo—had high-ranking civil servant parents.

Her mother is a director at the Ministry of Health and Welfare; her father is a director at the Ministry of Economy and Finance.

On top of that, the other kids she’d asked to join weren’t slouches either.

I scanned the classmates Kang Min-ju had targeted.

I was checking whether the specific kids her mother had mentioned were sticking around.

She was quite the fox.

In the past, I couldn’t read the atmosphere at all.

Of course, I understand it now.
The insight of someone with experience was operating.

A spark.

Our eyes met again in that instant.

Smirk.

I didn’t look away and gave her a slight smile.

“……!!”

Kang Min-ju’s eyes flared—clearly annoyed.

In the past, I would have immediately dropped my gaze.
In fact, I couldn’t have raised my head at all.

But now, I’m not the intimidated Ha Tae-woong from back then.

Your foxish games!
I see right through them!

I fixed my stare on Kang Min-ju, pouring meaning into my eyes.

“Hmph!”

She snorted and turned away.

Yeah, sure. You’re something special.

“Hey.”
“You’re early today?”

One by one, more students arrived and exchanged greetings.

The atmosphere was different from a typical ordinary high school classroom at arrival time.

No common profanity or casual cursing.

Gaming and otaku culture weren’t even on the radar.
Waving hands and wearing practiced, cultured smiles was the baseline for seeming friendly.

Of course, I was the exception in every category.

They wouldn’t make eye contact with me.
They’d greet each other, sit down to study or chat with people at their level.

Isolated like a lone island in the middle of this special classroom.

“Tae-woong, you really did live an honest life.”

A space that remained trauma.

Here I was.

A cold smile at my lips, I observed the classroom with objective eyes.

The one billion from Grandmother!
Without that money, even coming back wouldn’t have changed anything.

Then this would be catastrophe, not opportunity.
But now there’s much more to try.

Click.

The closed front door of the classroom swung open.

8:20 AM.

Still too early for the homeroom teacher.

“Hey.”

A figure appeared with short, sporty hair and a black backpack slung over one shoulder.

About 170 centimeters tall.
Small frame, but lean.

Small-headed, solid-looking like a rock—that’s Oh Gwang-jun.

That cocky smile at the corners of his mouth was exactly the same as before.

That fearless, self-assured expression.

A dark aura flowed from Oh Gwang-jun.

“Welcome back.”
“How was the holiday?”
“Me? Always fine. Haha.”

He let out a hearty laugh and walked toward me.
Then our eyes locked.

Grin.

He was smiling with that cruel twist.

Ah, that smile!
I remembered it as clearly as if it were yesterday.

That bastard demon who’d trapped me in dark trauma!
And now we were meeting again.

He’d behaved differently from the other classmates who treated me as invisible.

The only one who’d ever pretended to know me.

Stare.

Our eyes clashed again.
I didn’t flinch.

In all my past memories, I’d never let my eyes meet anyone’s—always head down, always doing problem sets.

But this morning was different.

Step, step.

His seat was right next to mine.

The smiling bastard was truly evil.
His stare bore into mine without shifting.

Over a decade had passed since graduation.

“Are you out of your mind?”

Classmates whispered to each other.
Shocked by my unexpected response.

Cheonghwa High School officially claimed to have no school bully gangs.

Instead, a strict hierarchy existed.

Oh Gwang-jun’s family occupied something between the Vaishya and Kshatriya classes.

This bastard’s father had been reassigned from a provincial post to serve as deputy chief prosecutor at the Seoul Eastern District Prosecutors’ Office.

A deputy chief prosecutor at Seoul District—even among prosecutors, his teeth were starting to bite.

Naturally, the son had puffed up his chest too.

He especially had a gift for targeting Sudras like me.

Thump.

Then.

No matter how strict the rules, there was always an exception for Sudra targets.

Smirk.

Then.

“You look down, you bastard~”

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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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