No Dark Secrets In This Book

Episode 170

Damyeon thought he would go crazy.

He should have just died back then when he was captured by Demillang and used as an experimental subject, instead of enduring.

‘Rather than seeing such a dirty sight.’

Now that he’s all old and worn out, belatedly reflecting on the past…

‘How dare he utter a word like regret…’

The boy he couldn’t call his disciple in his younger days had grown into a young man before he knew it. 

In fact, nothing had changed between them. Cassice had fallen off the cliff and Demillang’s internal conflict had been revealed to the world, but Cassice Demillang was cold as always, and Damyeon was lost as always. It was just that Damyeon had not predicted the passage of time. It was just that Damyeon had aged so much that the bygone days were spiteful.

No, perhaps the yoke of guilt he had been avoiding all this time had begun to strangle Damyeon’s neck with the weight of time.

Anyway, Cassice Demillang was a consistent person.

As always, he easily bet his life. So coldly that Damyeon wanted to die in his place.

So in the end, Damyeon couldn’t acknowledge his affection for Demillang’s descendant, and he never wanted to choose to save Demillang with his bony limbs stripped of all flesh and bones…

Just for that damned reason, he watched a child get ruined, and sometimes even pushed him in with his own hands.

With what face, with what damn face…

Such thoughts ate away at Damyeon, rotted him, and finally made him want to die. Damyeon had no real intention of getting better. He didn’t feel it was worth clinging to his tattered body and patching it up to endure. He felt there was no meaning in him being alive. As Damyeon fell ill and withered away day by day with the feeling that his very existence was sinful, one day, he received a letter.

“To Teacher Damyeon,

From your disciple who likes you to death.

If I have one wish, it’s for you to die from overwork. Not from this measly demon core. 

The timing is good. I also plan to create a force.

Join under me. I’ll let you taste overwork that would make you rather die.”

He really lost his temper. To be comforted by this kind of letter. He really lost his mind. Seriously.

Damyeon thought so and sobbed a little, and felt a little relieved. Anyway, Cassice Demillang personally told him to live. That was enough. The only thing he was worried about was Cassice Demillang’s health, but Ryuseong, who came to deliver the letter to Damyeon, looked bright. So Damyeon decided not to ask anything. There would be no problem with Cassice. Otherwise, Ryuseong wouldn’t look so relaxed. Damyeon was convinced of that.

It was Ryuseong who made the choice that Damyeon had hesitated all his life and eventually couldn’t even try.

‘Jumping together.’

Even if he didn’t know what was below.

Even if he might fail to save you, just throwing his body off the cliff with the will to be together.

Damyeon thought he should internally protect Ryuseong because he was Han Idal’s son, a child several generations down the line. So he was shocked when Cassice Demillang’s public relationship was revealed. The reason he got angry at Cassice when he heard the news that Cassice Demillang was dropping out was also because he thought Hanrapa’s descendants, rather than Demillang’s, were the ones he should protect.

But the relationship between the two was much heavier than Damyeon had assumed.

He inwardly thought lightly, what could be so heavy about a love between twenty-year-olds? It was an error that could be made sufficiently from the perspective of not knowing the circumstances of regression or possession, but Damyeon took this misunderstanding as an opportunity to vow to become a better adult with determination.

Not to arbitrarily judge the growth limits of children, and not to draw lines according to the environment they were born and raised in…

It’s a very unfortunate thing, but the principal’s old-fashioned preaching words stemmed from that very resolution.

‘The kids will grow up faster if they hear these words too.’

So Damyeon was the type to nag less at children several generations down the line, and only pour out nagging at those who seemed to be in a position of an adult in their own way, like Han Idal. But the realization he gained from Cassice Demillang and Ryuseong was ‘not to judge the growth limits of children’, and Damyeon reached the bizarre conclusion at that very moment that ‘if you teach them well, even children can learn a lesson!’.

“This happened about sixty-eight years ago from now. That summer was truly sweltering…”

That’s right. Damyeon himself knew that he had an old-school type of extreme teaching method.

So he had been living with the belief that rather than teaching growing sprouts and young children with his own teaching method, he should go after adults who have things to take responsibility for.

─Until now.

“So what’s the point of what I’m saying…”

In other words, Cassice Demillang and Ryuseong had unintentionally unleashed the seal of a monster.

***

‘I want to go home.’

Capone Jones thought so, staring blankly into the air with eyes as dry as dried pollack, without focus. 

Considering Jones’ current family situation, it was an inappropriate thought. The Jones family was at a loss as to what to do after Demillang’s internal conflict. Capone Jones, who was forced to bet her life on the young clan leader because of the battle at Hoan Cliff, was somewhat excluded from the complicated power struggles of the Jones family.

As such, the space called home could only be the middle of a deadly battle where Capone could be assassinated by enemies at any time and place, but nevertheless, the desire to go home was rising strongly, so it seemed that the principal was indeed giving a great preaching speech. To the point where Capone, who had caught the ‘abnormality’ with her sharp eyes, gave up on analyzing and lost her mind.

In fact, today’s preaching words were unlike Teacher Damyeon. It wasn’t just the old-fashioned way of speaking that was unlike him. It shouldn’t be overlooked that reporters who received permission to enter for the Academy Competition were flocking to this place right now. The very fact that Damyeon, who used to run away and pass on the work to other teachers whenever an event where he had to show his face to the outside world took place, deliberately stood on the podium was what it meant.

Generally, there is consistency in a person’s words and actions. This is because every human being lives according to their own standards. For example, if you ask a person who likes chocolate to choose between candy and chocolate, they will choose chocolate. A person who loves their family will give a bouquet to their family if you ask them to give it to either a stranger or a family member.

And Damyeon loved his country.

A person who has something to protect moves within a predictable range of actions. That’s why Capone Jones could guess Damyeon’s intentions to some extent.

Of course, no one can fully understand a person unless they are the person themselves.

To put it simply, Damyeon’s position was as follows.

Damyeon lived in an era when the country was taken away. He struggled.

An existence like him has too much symbolism just by being alive.

But Damyeon was afraid, knowing Demillang well. He didn’t want to tell young people to walk the path of defeat, where they would surely suffer the same cruel fate as him.

Ah, of course, in Damyeon’s era, everyone threw their lives away like straw, and that was Damyeon’s pride, but…

He matched one death to one star. He counted one handful of blood for each star.

He spent too many nights like that.

‘If I tell you to go out and die on the battlefield for the country, would that make me a teacher?’

In Damyeon’s eyes, the students were lumps of blood. The graduating students had grown up and had shaggy beards and all, but they were still lumps of blood. He had sent off so many people that he didn’t want to do it anymore. That was his sentiment.

Anyway, Damyeon truly wanted to protect the Republic of Korea, and so he erased his own existence. He put a ban on his name being mentioned among civilians. It was possible thanks to the ancient magic and skill-like magical abilities that were hung in Areah Academy.

Therefore, the public did not know who the principal of Areah Academy was. They knew about Damyeon, the independence activist, because they had learned about him in history, but the fact that he was still alive and serving as the principal of Areah Academy was not known.

In other words, the public doesn’t know. What kind of things Damyeon suffered at the hands of Demillang.

Because Damyeon struggled to protect the children of this land.

But this was the very point that Capone Jones found strange.

‘Why would someone who tried so hard to hide himself act so old-fashioned like that?’

There must be a purpose. The purpose of stalling time with nonsensical preaching words…

‘Could it be that he’s preparing for Cassice Demillang’s return?’