At 5:20 a.m., Taejin woke to the sound of rain tapping against the window.
“Ah, it’s even raining now... Perfect.”
Forcing his sleepy eyes open, he grabbed a towel and his toiletry bag and stepped out into the hallway. Students who had apparently stayed up all night were emerging after washing their faces in cold water, staggering along unsteadily.
“Oh! Seoha’s out too.”
Even Seoha, whose wake-up time was usually consistent, looked tired.
When Seoha held out his fist as if to encourage the swaying zombies, everyone lightly gave him a fist bump and passed by. Taejin also tapped fists with Seoha and headed toward the shower room.
[Shower in 3 minutes flat!]
The warning sign was still posted as before, but someone had crossed out the “5” with a marker and written in a “3.” Perhaps thanks to that, the line in front of the shower room felt shorter than yesterday.
“Hey, if you use my shampoo, I’m seriously not letting it slide.”
“Why would I use that?”
“Then why does it feel like there’s less of it?”
“Must’ve evaporated.”
It was a joke, but no one laughed. Laughing took too much energy.
Throughout his shower, Taejin kept staring at himself in the mirror and repeating the same words over and over.
‘Hold out. I have to hold out.’
When he went down to the cafeteria, the menu had switched to exam mode.
They served chicken porridge high in protein and easy to digest, seaweed soup, bananas, boiled eggs, and salad. Taejin got his food on a tray and found an empty seat.
“Sleep well?”
“Do you think I did?”
After exchanging warm greetings with his friend, he began eating.
Taejin looked around. Everyone looked the same. They spooned food with one hand while holding printouts in the other. Everyone was reading the same material.
「Lord Duck’s Solution Compilation (Latest Edition V.2.4)」
Seoha, who was eating chicken porridge beside him, looked puzzled as he saw the printouts in his classmates’ hands. Then he carefully spoke up.
“Are those printouts really that helpful? I’m a little worried they might end up being a waste of time.”
At that moment, the eyes of the students reading the printouts all turned toward Seoha at once.
Clack.
A student from the class next door set his spoon down roughly.
“What did you just say? Are you saying you don’t trust Lord Duck?”
“That’s right! Even if it’s you, Seoha, you can’t say that about our Lord Duck. That person has already transcended humanity.”
“If it weren’t for Lord Duck, things would be way harder than they are now. The exam range is too broad.”
Seoha’s eyes went round at the students’ fierce reaction. Watching him, Taejin calmly opened his mouth.
“There are versions organized by subject too.
But when I read it, I understood. That thing is basically a high-difficulty past-exam workbook. And it’s gathered only the kinds of problems we’d struggle with. How could it not be helpful?”
“Exactly. There’s nothing better for final review, you know? You can figure out what you don’t know right away too.”
“I can’t prepare for exams without this now. Last year’s old exam files don’t match this year’s range.”
At the students’ explanations, Seoha awkwardly nodded. Then he hurriedly finished his meal, picked up his tray, and stood.
Someone called after Seoha as he left.
“There’s a 2.5 update today, so make sure you get it too, Seoha!”
For some reason, the tray in Seoha’s hands felt heavier.
‘Update?’
He had only answered questions, yet before he knew it, his answers had been printed out and were even being version-controlled.
He returned to the dormitory and turned on his laptop.
When he accessed the intranet, the situation had already spread beyond control.
[Lord Duck’s Solution Compilation: Chemistry Edition V.2.1]
-Uploading this because there were many requests to divide it by subject. I’ve also organized it by unit. Please report typos to the email below. There were comments asking if I’m not studying, but editing this automatically turns into review.
Also, unauthorized updates are prohibited. If you’re going to do it, don’t use the official version and write your own name on it. If versions start popping up everywhere, it becomes hard to organize.
└What would we have done without the editor?
└Automatic review, for real. I ended up memorizing everything just by reading it.
└Now Lord Duck’s grace has reached chemistry too ㅠㅠ
└Is V.2.5 a simultaneous math and physics update?
└Are there no Korean or English versions?
└Ahem, how insolent! Lord Duck only appears where there are numbers and symbols.
Most of the science textbooks at the gifted high school were university major textbooks.
As such, there were no commercial workbooks available on the market. So the students had no choice but to cling to organized materials like past exams and old files.
To them, “Lord Duck’s Solution Compilation” was as precious as rain in a drought.
Seoha resolved that from now on, whenever he answered, he would write solutions with a little more responsibility.
* * *
Drip.
Drip.
Blood from her nose fell onto the book.
Sujeong was not surprised by it. She merely picked up a tissue as if it were a nuisance and plugged her nose.
Her hair, washed but not properly dried, had been tied roughly with a rubber band.
On her desk, printouts, notebooks, a calculator, pens, empty coffee cans, and the remains of energy drinks were piled up like a collapsed castle.
“This nonsense is almost over now.”
Her regret was that she had not been able to graduate early because of her IMO preparations.
She went to the bathroom, removed the tissue, and washed her hands. When she looked in the mirror, there was an unfamiliar face there.
The skin under her eyes had sunk into dark shadows, and her lips were dry and cracked.
“What beggar wandered in here?”
She was usually told she was pretty to the point of being sick of it, but the person in the mirror hardly looked like herself.
Sujeong gave a faint laugh, pulled off the rubber band, wet her hands, and tidied the stray hairs sticking out. Maintaining first place in the whole school here was by no means easy, even for her.
Sujeong rolled up another tissue, plugged her nose again, and washed her hands.
Fatigue, self-loathing, pride, and sheer spite.
Those were the emotions holding Sujeong up even in this situation.
‘I wonder if that kid is doing all right?’
Suddenly, she thought of Seoha.
A boy who had entered a gifted school at a young age and was retracing the path she had once walked.
That child must surely be lonely and struggling too. This school was not so easygoing that it would allow the person in first place to enjoy a happy school life.
Sujeong recalled when she had first entered this place.
She had no friends she could trust and no adults she could rely on. It had been a time when she simply had to endure, without wavering. She had become immune to it now and was fine, but back then, she had truly felt like she might die.
“He must be just like me.”
Once her thoughts reached that point, she could not stay still.
Sujeong replaced the tissue stuck in her nose with a fresh one. In front of the mirror, she pressed her hair down with her palm and straightened her clothes.
With just that much, she became presentable enough.
“Right. I’ll just go and ask him to eat with me.”
Sujeong opened the door and left the reading room hallway.
As she went down the stairs, the rain had already stopped. The scent of rain and wet earth mixed together, making it a pleasant afternoon.
As she walked, laughter came from the direction of the field in the distance. Several boys were walking together, cackling as if something were terribly amusing.
“Huh?”
Sujeong rubbed her eyes.
Seoha was there. Surrounded by students.
The kids, who seemed to be in the same class as him, were playfully poking at Seoha. Then Seoha laughed cheerfully and shrugged his shoulders.
‘What is this?’
It was not the image she had imagined.
She had been certain that, like her, he would be exhausted by solitude and loneliness.
Sujeong’s heart sank with a thud.
Seoha turned his head and spotted Sujeong. Then he quickly smiled brightly and waved.
“Sujeong noona!”
Unlike Seoha, who was delighted to see her, the group beside him flinched.
“Hey, hey, it’s the Demon King senior.”
“Why Demon King?”
“That noona’s been first in the whole school this entire time. They say the older guys formed a hero party to subjugate her, but they kept failing.”
Hearing the whispers, Sujeong let out a small sigh. But anger surged up in her chest.
‘I’m not your noona, you brats! I’m the same age as you!’
She was not a queen, much less a witch.
A joke the boys in her grade had made among themselves had somehow spread like this.
“Hyungs, go on ahead.”
Sensing that Sujeong’s expression was unusual, Seoha sent the group ahead first.
“Noona, what’s wrong? Are you sick?”
Before she knew it, Seoha had come closer and was examining Sujeong’s complexion.
“No, I was just passing by.”
She felt pathetic. Sujeong thought she needed to get away from this place quickly.
“Wait! Do you maybe want a snack?”
“Huh?”
That was what she had been about to say...
As Sujeong stood there blankly, Seoha approached and took her hand. Sujeong let herself be led by Seoha to the cafeteria, pretending she had no choice.
Clack.
Seoha brought over warm cocoa and cookies.
“Here, have some. They’re Seoeun’s favorite things, and she says eating them makes you happy.”
But Sujeong had something she wanted to ask first.
“H-how... how can you have friends?”
She was so shocked that the words would not come out properly. Sujeong’s face looked wounded, as if she had suffered a terrible betrayal.
“Huh? Don’t you have a lot of friends too, noona?”
He calmly said something hurtful. Sujeong’s tightly clenched fist trembled.
“I can’t believe this... I thought you were a comrade walking the same path.”
Sujeong picked up a cookie and bit into it roughly.
Sip.
After drinking the cocoa too, her body warmed a little.
“There’s no such thing. I don’t need them either. I thought you were the same.”
Even if she made friends, they would only be jealous behind her back. Sujeong had realized that long ago.
At Sujeong’s cold words, Seoha quickly drooped.
“But I thought you were a precious friend too, noona.”
Seeing him lower his head like a puppy caught in the rain, Sujeong felt guilty.
‘Have I lost my mind because it’s exam season? Honestly, what am I doing to a kid?’
“N-no, what I meant was that I can endure alone even without friends. I wasn’t saying I don’t need you.”
Seoha’s face brightened at once.
“Really? I’m your friend too, right, noona?”
“Yes.”
‘The world really is unfair.’
If she was the Demon King, then the boy before her should be something like the Great Demon King or a demon god, so how was he able to get along well with others?
Sujeong, who had grown used to being the target of jealousy and criticism, felt comfortable in front of Seoha for the first time in a long while. After all, this child was surely far removed from such emotions.
“Seoha, where are you going to go for university? Maybe America?”
“No, I think I’ll go to KAIST.”
“Hmm. I see.”
The corners of Sujeong’s mouth lifted slightly.
She drank the rest of her cocoa.
After eating the cookie too, she felt as if she had the strength to study again.
“But why did you think I’d have a lot of friends?”
He probably had not meant it maliciously. It likely meant he had really thought so, but it was the first time in her life anyone had ever had that kind of misconception about her.
“Because, noona, you’re the kindest and bravest person I know.”
Sujeong had always worried about Seoha.
And she was also someone who confidently forged ahead on an unknown path.
“...You’re the only person who thinks that.”
Sujeong’s voice choked as she answered.
Even a Demon King was nothing more than an adorable creature before a demon god.
* * *
Anonymous Board,
[Exam Week Notice]
-1st period begins exactly at 09:00. Enter 20 minutes early.
-Shower and change your clothes. You must not cause discomfort to others during the exam.
-Calculators, cell phones, and all electronic devices are prohibited.
[Lord Duck’s Solution Compilation V.3.0 Final Release]
-This is the editor. At last, the final version is being distributed.
-Math, physics, and chemistry integrated + special commentary from Lord Duck added.
-Lord Duck is not a student. In any case, that’s how it is. If you want to safely receive materials for the next exam as well, do not commit blasphemy.