School security positions generally required one to have 'completed training¹' in many cases.
Only after receiving roughly twenty-four hours of education from a specific institution and obtaining a completion certification.
Only then could one be deployed as a new security guard and respond to countless various incidents and accidents, or so the reason went.
"You don't need that for a stopgap--!! While someone's out sick for three days, pay daily wages for a temporary fill-in--!!"
"You can just cover it with day labor, so why insist on hiring for over a month and handing over labor contracts and industry-standard pay?"
The period Kim Chomok had to cover wasn't even a month; it was an ultra-short term of merely three days.
It wasn't like an audit would happen during that time, so wasn't it enough to briefly plug the hole?
On top of that, it wasn't as if they were guarding state secrets; at best, they were guarding a school.
How often would a situation requiring expert personnel even arise that they would spend that money?
"There's nothing that big for us to do; just record the cars coming in properly and catch anyone acting suspicious."
"I've seen this somewhere... writing the base entry log!? Ah... my PTSD is flaring up..."
They said people with extensive military experience adapted quickly even without training, but it wasn't as if there was any education exemption benefit.
"Well, you're only in charge from after school until ten at night when this school completely closes, so..."
Usually, the security system ran on three rotating shifts, covering morning, day, and night in rotation.
Right now, with one person missing, it was a situation where Kim Chomok—who was doing this for the very first time—had suddenly been thrust in.
Would they assign a beginner to a place where truly exhausting work was spread out in this kind of situation? Ridiculous.
The morning shift, where teachers poured in endlessly, could see the school gate control break down with even the slightest delay, causing a huge fuss.
"You're just a stopgap. The night shift is comfortable since there are no people... but how angry do you think we'd be to pay a stranger 1.5 times?"
"Ack, this discrimination hurts to the bone!"
The night shift, which brought in the most money until the next morning, was structured so that everyone took turns covering it.
It would be awkward for a complete novice like Kim Chomok to slip in, make a quick buck, and slip back out.
"So, just check whether all the teachers' cars have left before ten o'clock... that's all you need to do."
"Kya, this is the true aesthetics of stopgap work."
At that simple explanation—that he could take off his gear and go home afterward—Kim Chomok broke into a broad smile, and...
"Mister, what are you looking at? Is it your first time seeing someone smoke an e-cigarette²? There's no cigarette butt to throw away, so mind your own business?"
"Ah, this is called a vitamin² stick. I'm trying to quit gradually; you should be praising me instead of picking a fight."
"......Ha, shit. Yeah... that's how all service jobs are."
And not long after, Kim Chomok ruminated over what he had said, his face deeply furrowed.
He had to realize the obvious truth—that actual labor intensity and mental labor intensity don't always correlate.
***
In every group, there are definitely some insane specimens mixed in.
In human cells, potential cancer cells that have undergone mutations are mixed in.
If you start up the world's most famous political game, there is definitely a potential bomb mixed in among them.
Then, what of a high school in Seoul that is quite famous and has a fairly decent university placement output?
To what extent would potential bombs be mixed in, quietly waiting for their moment to detonate?
"What are you standing around stupidly nagging for? Go watch the CCTV and kill time."
The answer is, 5-10%. In an era where classes hold thirty students, that means two to three are mixed in.
What can you do when those three are right in front of his eyes, openly acting smug? He had to issue an expulsion order.
What the guys secretly smoking behind the guard post at the back of the main gate—where he had been sitting—had overlooked,
was that even a school that cares about aesthetics doesn't bother maintaining the grass and weeds in places that can't be seen.
Rustle...
Considering his already enlarged internal battery capacity, it was only enough fuel to pool slightly at the bottom, but
even by ability user standards, it was monstrous strength—enough to drag across the ground morons who clearly never exercised.
"Except for designated areas, the entire campus is a non-smoking zone. Go outside and smoke."
Drag, drag...
"Huh...huh?! What the hell, what are you doing to a minor...!! It's my property! Let go of this?!"
Grabbing the collars of those steam-engine brats spewing health-damning smoke and throwing them outside was a problem, but
it wasn't as if he had forced them to clutch their e-cigarettes with such longing faces.
Whether sweat had flowed in the teenagers' palms as they were dragged, or whether their grip strength had given out entirely.
Crash, bang!!
"Ack! Ah, my head!!"
"I-it's my property, you damn security bastard!! Give it back here..."
"Hrrrrgh...!!"
Into the eyes of one teenager who lunged back like a mad dog to retrieve his personal property, a miracle entered.
Fwhiiiiing....!!
Piercing through the layers of air, the object formerly known as an e-cigarette disappeared high into the sky as if whistling.
"Go pick it up and use it. Now get lost quickly and quietly so you don't appear before my eyes again."
At that point, even teenagers whose eyes were clouded with rage could sense it.
—If he had swung at their cheeks with that brute strength, they would be the ones flying through the air right now.
The gender ratio of delinquent students: 100% male.
Their 'track record of having desperately used violence to raise their standing' was also 100%.
The moment the opponent's violence overwhelms the maximum violence they can use, that becomes order.
The hierarchy that all men establish in secret—the moment Kim Chomok quietly ascended to the apex of that pyramid.
"Ha...hahaha, y-yes. W-we have to smoke outside... absolutely right...!!"
"Ah...farewell!! We need to get home quickly..."
"We're sorry!! We won't use this place as a secret smoking spot again...!!"
They could only pray that those fangs would never be bared at them.
***
Deciding to urgently evade a mad dog in haste was fine and all, but
since they had fled so frantically, the dignity of the three teenagers who usually lived off their 'gao' was in complete shambles.
"D-damn it! That damn security bastard really!!"
"Those old guys never even cared, so why is the new guy like that?!"
The self-loathing felt the moment someone who had once risen through violence tucked their tail to greater violence was greater than expected.
With both their dignity and faces thoroughly distorted, they had two main choices.
Bow their heads and conform to that order while waiting for the next opportunity to attack...
Or, even if they tucked their tail to an overwhelmingly stronger opponent, take comfort in the fact that there were those beneath them.
If they couldn't choose the former—where their heads might fly off immediately, next attack opportunity be damned—
"Hey, you. Come here."
"...Huh...huh?!"
What remained was the latter. Immediate oppression of the 'lower class' to salvage their crushed dignity!
Thud! Thud!
"Ack! Ugh! Stop! Stop hitting me...!!"
"You bastard, did I ask for anything huge?! I just asked to borrow some money!!"
Cases where crushed superiority is refilled by trampling others were not rare.
"You think I'm funny?! Huh?! Do you think I'm a joke too!!"
It was extortion they usually committed anyway, but unlike when they'd just smack the kid on the back of the head and let him go even if the money was somewhat short.
Perhaps they didn't know why the words "I don't have money" grated on them so much today... but the foot had already stepped down.
Cough...cough, cough!!
After taking a blow to the diaphragm, inside the wallet of the glasses-wearing student trembling in pain.
Realizing there wasn't a single bill worth anything, the teenagers suffering from nicotine withdrawal spat on the ground.
"Ugh, dammit. He's broke, he's broke... Let's go! My mood's already shitty."
"Should I ask a hyung I know to take me for a ride on his motorcycle? Riding electric kickboards all the time is getting kinda lame."
The lack of results despite the increased labor intensity left a foul mood, but they too had places to be.
They hurriedly left, abandoning the fallen victim to finish tonight's schedule.
"...Ugh, ugh... How long. How long do I have to live like this..."
The posture of lifting both arms and both legs to block the kicked wounds as much as possible.
Not to mention the extortion victim, who could only finally relax that posture after everyone had left.
Even the bright perpetrators in the distance, mulling over what to do for fun today, did not know.
From inside the body of the student who, crying, hurriedly packed his belongings back into his bag.
— ...
That something deep, and dark in color, was crawling up.
"If only those bastards weren't here, I could have attended school a bit more comfortably..."
And that dark something, all the words spoken by the victim wiping his glasses with his dirty school uniform shirt.
That it had heard them all with its two formless ears... he hadn't known either.
***
The next afternoon.
"Wow!! If I just come to school tomorrow, then I won't have to come for two whole days!!"
"Is that a good thing?! My life going to academies even on weekends is legendary, seriously."
Everyone, within the pleasure of after-school time, praising the weekend that wasn't far off.
While emitting brightness and energy like the sun, they hurriedly moved their feet toward their next destinations.
—Hey, moron. I don't think this is the time to be leisurely putting your feet up on the desk.
"...What, did this damn Black Ox bastard just curse into my ear?"
Kim Chomok, his face haggard, heard the voice spreading from inside his body.
It hadn't said anything worth mentioning all this time; why had it suddenly developed an ego?
—I entered power-saving mode because you never use your ability. Always keep it charged to at least 5% or higher.
'...Are you a smartphone? Why in the world is there even a function like that?!'
Kim Chomok was briefly dumbfounded because the answer was far too realistic, but
—This is no time to be cracking jokes. Slowly, even to your eyes and senses... can't you feel it?
Within the crowd of students emitting positive energy like blazing suns, this ominous presence gradually made itself felt.
From the body of the glasses-wearing boy in the distance, his head swiveling as if searching for something.
That wavering haze of energy slowly seeping out was...
"...An ability user? No, it doesn't seem like a complete ability user yet."
—Yes, it's a chick in the 'Jul' (啐) state, tapping from inside the eggshell.
It resembled the privates and private first class he used to see frequently in the ability user unit he had been attached to for some time.
"If even the slightest external factor intervenes from outside... that kid will get dragged away too. Tsk, poor thing."
To the poor teenager who would likely be dragged to some unit he too knew and made to suffer.
Kim Chomok—a man who had already been dragged there and barely escaped—offered a silent prayer.
Probably, while he worked this temporary stopgap job, that thick eggshell wouldn't have any reason to break.
After roughly half a year, when that eggshell broke, that's when it would begin.
It ends when you start saying 'What is this?' upon seeing your ability for the first time, then gradually grow accustomed to using it.
The sequence of collapsing while clutching your neck at the notorious reputation of the unit you were assigned to seemed to flash through his mind.
Smaack!!
"Hey! I told you to come earlier; why didn't you come, and what's with this shit?! I've hated this bastard since yesterday, seriously!"
But in the process of a chick breaking its egg, sometimes the egg luckily loses balance and crashes into the ground.
Or external factors, such as the mother hen pecking (啄) at the egg from outside, often occur as well.
After most of the students had disappeared, the relieved glasses-wearing boy was heading toward the main gate with quick, anxious steps.
When he was struck on the back of the head by the nicotine-deprived extortionists who had kicked him yesterday.
"You want to die?! Huh?! You're not going to live at school forever; what guts?!"
"Hiiiik...!!"
It was an unwanted collaboration from the host's perspective, but for the chick on the verge of hatching inside,
where else could one find such a Jul-Tak-Dong-Si (啐啄同時)³?
They had only today's perpetrators—whose IQs happened to rival a chicken's—to thank.
Swoooo...
The black and grey haze that had barely flickered around his body slowly, like fog.
And soon, like smoke rising to the sky, it billowed around the glasses-wearing boy.
—The chick has started insisting that it's time to be born; what are you going to do now?
"...Shit, I'm going crazy. Why me, and why now of all times?"
Kwaaang!
Kim Chomok—a man who wondered why his bad premonitions always came true—slammed the door open and rushed out.