Chapter 55

Waking from sleep, I finished a simple breakfast and stepped outside the dormitory at the appointed time.

The bench on the walking path where we had talked yesterday was where I was to meet Seoa. After waiting there for about five minutes, Seoa appeared, neatly dressed in casual clothes.

“…Did you wait long?”

“No. I just got here.”

And so, after logging our departure, we headed outside the Academy together.

After about three hours of switching between trains and buses, plus a considerable walk on foot, we finally arrived at our destination.

It was Hanlim Orphanage, located in Daejeon.

“This way! The car’s over here!”

“I said not there!”

On the small playground, children were running around, and behind it stood a fairly large, old-fashioned building.

As Seoa and I approached, the children soon noticed us and began swarming over with delighted faces.

“It’s Oppa and Unnie!”

“Nuna!”

After barely managing to exchange greetings while grasping at non-existent memories, we headed inside the orphanage to see the director.

“Oh my, Kangyoon is here! You’ve grown even more handsome since I last saw you.”

Along the way, some of the childcare teachers recognized me and greeted me, but still, no memories surfaced.

“Director. Oppa and I are here.”

The person we met was a middle-aged woman whose hair was already beginning to thin and turn gray.

She, too, wasn’t in my memories, but perhaps because my body remembered, a subtle feeling welled up inside me for some reason.

“Yes, make sure you all eat well, and don’t overdo it,”

“Don’t worry. I’ll take good care of Oppa too.”

After talking with the director for a while, we began to freely wander around the orphanage.

Although I suffered some distress from meeting children I had supposedly lived with, I managed to get through it somehow.

Partly because I roughly knew Han Kangyoon’s personality through my knowledge of the original work, and fundamentally, Han Kangyoon and I had quite a lot in common.

Seoa, perhaps because various memories came to mind after visiting the orphanage together for the first time in a long while, kept talking to me with a reminiscent expression.

“Remember this place? Everyone was so happy when the beds first arrived here.”

“…Yeah. That feels like such a long time ago.”

Whenever I heard such things, I felt strangely stifled.

And simultaneously, forgotten doubts began to surface one by one.

What on earth happened to the previous Han Kangyoon?

Did he really die for some reason before I entered his body?

I subtly asked the director various things to learn about Han Kangyoon’s past, but even the director didn’t seem to know anything definite about Han Kangyoon’s birth parents or origins.

However, it seemed that when they found me abandoned, there was a single earring left with me that appeared to be a parent’s belonging.

‘Among Han Kangyoon’s belongings, there was definitely no such thing.’

I brushed it off by saying I was keeping it safe for now, but it was an issue that couldn’t help but remain questionable.

Yet, coincidentally, I was able to get my hands on that item not long after.

“…Hyung, over here.”

A boy who looked to be around middle school age, with tousled, curly blond hair. It was Henry, the mixed-race American.

“What’s up?”

“Here, this. Actually, I saw you that day, and I ended up bringing it with me.”

What Henry handed me was a single earring engraved with a peculiar pattern.

“I saw you throw it into the mountains yourself, but since it’s a cherished keepsake, I just couldn’t leave it there…”

No wonder it wasn’t among my belongings. It seemed Han Kangyoon, for some reason, had tried to discard the earring his parents left him in the mountains.

However, that wasn’t the important part.

Staring intently at the earring, I was soon engulfed by a massive shock.

‘…Why is this here?’

At first, it was just a simple sense of incongruity, but upon closer inspection, I could be sure. I definitely knew the identity of this earring.

And no wonder, because this was an item worn by an important character in a side story of the first volume of Exorcism Academy.

“Hyung? What’s wrong? Are you hurt somewhere?”

“…No. Thanks for keeping it.”

Taking the earring from Henry, I swallowed hard and trudged my steps toward the outside of the orphanage building.

‘How can this be? Is it possible?’

If this really was an item left by Han Kangyoon’s parents, honestly, I couldn’t help but be flustered.

This earring belonged to Joo Woon, an Exorcist who was a hero of the first Night Parade of One Hundred Specters but ultimately met his end as a heinous villain.

And that Joo Woon was the very one who killed the parents that the protagonist, Yoo Haon, desperately searched for.

On the way back to the Academy, I don’t really remember what conversation I had with Seoa.

Honestly, I wasn’t in the state of mind for it, and it wasn’t a situation where I could have been. An utterly abrupt truth had revealed itself before me.

‘Is Han Kangyoon’s father really Joo Woon?’

In the original work, there was never any mention of Joo Woon having children.

But precisely because of that, countless possibilities naturally remained.

Meaning, it was entirely possible that Han Kangyoon was indeed Joo Woon’s son.

If that were the case, honestly, it wouldn’t be a pleasant matter.

I had once smugly advised Yoo Haon, who couldn’t let go of his attachment to his parents, to live in the present.

But then, it turns out I might be the child of the very person who killed them?

‘This situation is taking a strangely twisted turn…’

Even if Han Kangyoon and I were distinctly different beings, it wasn’t something I could readily dismiss.

As my thoughts multiplied, I felt quite stifled and slightly grimaced.

“Oppa, are you okay? Are you hurt somewhere?”

“…No, I just feel a bit unwell.”

It would have been better not to know. But the moment I became aware of that fact, I couldn’t possibly ignore it.

No matter how much I pondered, I couldn’t reach a conclusion. In the end, I had no choice but to return to the Academy with a troubled heart.

“…Go in and rest well. Do you have any medicine on hand?”

“Yeah. Don’t worry, it’s fine. You go in first.”

Still feeling unsettled, I sent Seoa back to the dormitory and walked alone around the Academy’s internal walking path.

However, I soon regretted that choice. Of all places, at the lakeside where we had talked before, I encountered Yoo Haon, the last person I wanted to see right now.

“…Hello. Were you taking a walk?”

Feeling unnecessarily uncomfortable, I hid Joo Woon’s earring deeper inside my pocket. And I began to talk with Yoo Haon.

“I couldn’t sleep yet.”

“What a coincidence. Same here.”

Yoo Haon, who had been gazing at the night sky for a moment, shifted his gaze to the stars reflected on the lake and spoke again.

“I learned a lot last time.”

“…About what?”

“Various things. Combat methods in real situations, mindset… Thanks to that, I think I was able to set my goals a bit more clearly.”

The more we talked, the more troubled I felt inside.

If the information I had just learned was true, then even receiving such praise from Yoo Haon might ultimately become a form of deception.

Suspicions linked one after another, gradually taking concrete shape and becoming reality in my mind.

Han Kangyoon’s current age is eighteen. Considering he’s an orphan, there might be some margin of error, but timing-wise, it aligns quite well with Joo Woon’s whereabouts.

While the possibility of it not being true certainly exists, all circumstances support the information I’ve learned being factual.

In the end, unable to suppress this indescribable emotion, I replied to Yoo Haon.

“…That’s too high praise.”

To accept it as simple goodwill, my heart just isn’t at ease right now.

“It feels sufficiently impressive to me.”

“……”

I know pondering it is meaningless, but I can’t help being concerned.

What if Yoo Haon, right before me, confirms his past within the story and, through some route, learns of my origins?

‘…That’s an assumption I don’t even want to think about.’

From that point on, on the surface, I would simply become the child of his enemy. A natural and simple fact.

‘If that happens, the relationship would become extremely complicated.’

Of course, from my perspective, it would be an unfair situation, but frankly, my possession of Han Kangyoon is entirely my own circumstance. Meaning, no matter what, it’s no excuse to others.

‘I don’t think that would ever happen, but…’

You never know. Things might get tangled and twisted, and someday that information might even reach Yoo Haon.

I cautiously tested the waters, posing a question as if probing Yoo Haon.

“What if I’m actually a person burdened with great sin?”

“…Did you do something wrong?”

“Maybe.”

To my muttering, Yoo Haon smiled slightly as if I were saying something strange.

“You don’t seem that way to me.”

“Such things are actually meaningless.”

“If you assert it so definitively, I don’t have much to say, but…”

Yoo Haon, sitting by the lakeside and tracing circles on the water’s surface with his finger, continued.

“At least from what I’ve experienced and felt, you’re a sufficiently good person.”

Hearing Yoo Haon’s words, I felt a bit more at ease somehow.

Simultaneously, I resolved on a new determination.

Even if Han Kangyoon truly is Joo Woon’s son, the things I must do ultimately won’t change.

Therefore, I will definitely make Yoo Haon the protagonist and bring this entire story to its conclusion.

The deviations in the story, or the variables of Hell Difficulty—I must somehow handle them all and pave the way forward.

That is what I must do here.

After resting in the dormitory for the remainder of the weekend, fortunately, my thoughts became somewhat organized.

‘Although I feel unnecessarily uncomfortable, ultimately, if I just keep my mouth shut, there’s no problem.’

And so, Monday arrived, and now it’s time to focus on what lies ahead again.

Pulling myself together, I headed toward the A-Rank assembly point.

“And so, two new people will be joining A-Rank. Seo Jian from B-Rank and Han Kangyoon from D-Rank.”

The professor in charge of A-Rank was a woman with a quite familiar face. It was Baek Jieun. Originally in charge of the lower division of Comprehensive Combat Practice, it seemed she changed positions after the Yeongwoldo Incident.

“It’s Kangyoon~ Hi!”

Sophia greeted me with her characteristic beaming smile, while conversely, Cheong Haram made a disgusted face and sharply turned her head away.

As for the reactions of the other cadets, most wore expressions of surprise.

Well, suddenly being promoted from D-Rank, which is practically the bottom, to A-Rank would naturally be astonishing.

“…Fell from A-Rank all the way to D-Rank, and now back up to A-Rank,”

“Like stocks.”

As expected upon rising to A-Rank, quite a few cadets who appeared in the original work were visible.

Jeong Hansol and Shin Sora, talents next to the top and second-ranked.

Grace, Sophia’s best friend and childhood friend.

Adrian, whose abilities aren’t particularly outstanding but who unexpectedly appears frequently in the story and is called a civil servant, and so on.

All of them were beings who could sufficiently cause significant or minor variables in the story.

Confirming the faces of such students, I once again recalled the events to come in my mind.

Quite annoyingly, it’s a foregone conclusion that all of them will, as if taking turns, become involved in incidents one after another.

After all, second-year students in the Exorcism Academy Series have always held that position.

Naturally, I too am sufficiently likely to become unintentionally involved in incidents or stand at the center of the story someday.

‘How things will flow, only heaven knows.’

And among them, the first scheduled major event of Story Chapter 2, the public presentation.

That’s the starting point.

There, I will make a past figure, a hero of the first Night Parade of One Hundred Specters Crisis, into an ally.