The Heretic of Cleric Academy-Chapter 52

Satan worshippers are fast. They have very large builds and move without any unnecessary motions. At the very least, they’re not clumsy enough to fall on the street. Their build is also similar to mine.

However, the woman who had fallen ahead was much smaller than me, ran slowly, and was overall clumsy in her movements.

Only then was I convinced she wasn’t a Satan worshipper, but it felt awkward to just pass by, so I extended my hand to her. However, she didn’t move at all and just lay there fallen.

"Excuse me?"

Even when I called again, there was no answer. Passersby were looking at the fallen woman and murmuring.

What should we do, isn’t she unconscious? I think we should call 119. I could hear various voices of people worrying about the woman.

[She doesn’t seem dead. She’s breathing.]

"Can you get up?"

Even I could see she didn’t seem dead. She just seemed to be lying there embarrassed, but it wasn’t a very good decision.

As time passed, more people were gathering, and some were seriously considering calling 119.

Fortunately, she seemed to sense that the situation was about to become serious, as she got up and brushed off her knees.

"Oh, I’m not hurt. I’m fine. Thank you anyway."

She pressed down her disheveled hood and bowed her head slightly. I caught a glimpse of brown hair. Her voice was also familiar somehow.

Actually, it wasn’t just familiar, but a voice I’d heard so often it was familiar to my ears.

"Jeong In-ah?"

"What? That’s not me."

She answered. Her voice was a bit rougher than before. It seemed like she had deliberately roughened her voice to avoid being recognized.

Doing that might change the pitch of her voice, but she couldn’t change her natural tone. The voice tone was exactly Jeong In-ah’s, and the unconscious habits were also typical of Jeong In-ah.

"What do you mean it’s not you. Did you come grocery shopping?"

I spoke casually. More precisely, I pretended to be casual.

When I saw Jeong In-ah, I thought of Jeong Yun-ah who had become a zombie, and the sound of bells and iron bars rattling echoed in my ears.

My chest felt heavy as if a stone had been placed on it. It could be called guilt, but I thought it was a heavier and stickier emotion than that.

But I didn’t show it. Not expressing emotions through facial expressions or tone was my specialty.

"Oh, yeah. Grocery shopping. But there’s nothing to buy, so I’m thinking of just going home."

Jeong In-ah pulled off her hood and lowered her mask to her chin. I had been worried she would continue pretending not to know me or try to run away again, but fortunately she didn’t seem to have such intentions.

The face revealed beyond the mask overall lacked vitality. There was a slight reddish tinge on her cheeks, her eyes were sunken, and her lips were parched. Her cheeks were also hollow.

She had always been thin, but she seemed to have gotten thinner over the past few days.

Since I had been staring at her face for a while, Jeong In-ah quickly pulled up her mask to cover her face.

The redness that had been on her cheeks rose up to around her eyes. She seemed embarrassed.

"What. Why are you looking at me like that?"

"Just. If you’re going home, let’s go together."

The direction was the same anyway, and since we were going the same way, I thought it would be better to go together than alone.

Separately from that, I also had things to talk about. They weren’t important things, just miscellaneous stuff.

"Should we, uh. Should we do that...?"

However, Jeong In-ah didn’t seem very pleased.

I understood that she would feel uncomfortable with me from her perspective. I didn’t show it, but I also couldn’t treat her completely comfortably.

I understood it intellectually, but I couldn’t help feeling hurt inside.

Unable to do this or that and just hesitating, I spoke first to Jeong In-ah.

"If you don’t want to, we’ll just go separately. If it’s uncomfortable."

"Uh... Huh? No, it’s not that I don’t want to. Let’s go together."

Jeong In-ah flustered. She was speaking incoherently today.

Her eyes were focused but occasionally became blurry. Her tongue also got twisted sometimes. She seemed distracted.

I could guess the reason. It was probably because of her younger sibling.

"Then that’s fortunate. Anyway, let’s go."

I said, trying to suppress my complicated feelings. The shopping bags in both hands were too heavy. Heavy enough to make me want to collapse on the ground.

* * *

The sky was terribly dark. It was because clouds were blocking the moonlight. Only the streetlight illumination scattered throughout the alley was the sole light source.

We walked through the alley as if following that light. It was a desolate alley no matter when you looked at it.

"...."

Jeong In-ah was unusually quiet today. Her expression seemed like she was thinking about something, but also like she wasn’t thinking about anything at all. Her walking was also very slow.

I walked two or three times slower than usual to match her pace.

"What did you come to buy?"

If I didn’t speak first, Jeong In-ah wouldn’t say anything. The heavy silence and awkwardness were suffocating, so I opened my mouth first to break the quiet.

Usually in times like this, it was Jeong In-ah who would speak first, but this time our positions were reversed.

Jeong In-ah just pretended to listen while continuing to walk.

"Are you listening?"

"Huh? Oh. Uh... what did you say?"

"I asked what you came to the mart to buy."

"Ah..."

Jeong In-ah hung her head and looked at the ground. I also shifted my gaze accordingly.

There was nothing on the ground. The streetlight was illuminating the darkness, but the gray asphalt ground was still only black.

"That thing. Bamboo... bamboo shoots."

"Bamboo shoots?"

When she lied, her eyes would shake and her shoulders would stiffen.

Anyway, she hadn’t gone to the mart to buy bamboo shoots, and I suspected she had probably gone to buy porridge. I didn’t know why she was trying to lie to me about it.

"Yeah. Bamboo shoots."

"Did the hospital tell you to eat porridge? Is it gastritis?"

"Yeah. ...Huh? No. It’s not gastritis."

Jeong In-ah looked at me with surprised eyes and waved her hands lightly. Her pupils were still shaking.

This was also a lie. It was a clumsy lie that was too transparent, but she seemed to think she was deceiving me very well.

"Really? Then what did the hospital say?"

"...A cold? And I’m not sick. I was faking illness because I didn’t want to go to school."

"What about food."

"I ate."

This was also a lie.

"Did you eat yesterday?"

"Of course."

"You haven’t eaten anything yesterday or today?"

"I ate, I’m telling you!"

No wonder her face looked gaunt and her arms and legs were skinny - it seemed she hadn’t eaten anything for two days.

When you have gastritis, you vomit not just food but even water, so she probably couldn’t bring herself to eat anything.

"You have to eat even when you’re sick."

"What am I supposed to do when I vomit if I eat... Oh, no. I ate, I keep telling you!"

"Why do you keep lying?"

When I stared at her intently, she quickly turned her head away to avoid my eyes. Jeong In-ah had a habit of avoiding eye contact when hit where it hurt.

"...What did you buy so much of?"

After turning her head away and avoiding me for a while, Jeong In-ah looked at the shopping bags in both my hands and opened her mouth.

"Food."

"All of it? All of this is food?"

"I eat it quickly."

I do eat a lot, but considering what I needed to feed Jeong Yun-ah as well, I needed to stock up this much.

Jeong In-ah looked at me somewhat puzzled, then shifted her gaze to the shopping bags and suddenly extended her hand.

"Give me one."

She meant she would carry it.

"It’ll be heavy."

"It’s okay. I can carry it."

"Give it back if you can’t carry it."

I readily handed her a shopping bag. Jeong In-ah struggled for a while, then put the shopping bag down on the ground in less than 5 seconds.

She tried to pick it up again, but seemed unable to lift it due to lack of strength. The shopping bag looked like it was stuck to the ground.

"I told you it was heavy."

"I can, I can carry it. It’s not heavy."

"Just give it to me."

I took the shopping bags in both hands again. They were still heavy, but at least not to the point where I couldn’t carry them.

We walked like that for quite a while without saying anything.

As if the streetlight shining down formed a thin barrier blocking between us, only silence flowed endlessly.

"Did you go to the Holy Knight Order?"

This time too, I opened my mouth first. The shopping bags in both hands were heavy, and the floating air was murky, making it difficult to breathe. Everything around was heavy and sticky.

If I kept my mouth shut, that weight felt even more intense, so I decided to just say anything first.

When I saw Jeong In-ah’s focus gradually becoming distant as she hung her head, I realized that I had said something unnecessary.

I suddenly regretted it, but I couldn’t take back words that had already been spoken.

"I went, but my sibling wasn’t there. ...It would have been better if I hadn’t had expectations at all."

"Sorry."

When I suddenly apologized, she looked at me with surprised wide eyes, then took off her mask and put it in her pocket. And she smiled. It was a weak, bitter smile.

"What are you sorry for? I was just getting excited over nothing."

"Still, just because."

"It’s fine. Why would you worry about such things? That’s how it is sometimes, between friends."

Jeong In-ah said with an awkward smile. It looked like her mouth corners wouldn’t go up well because it had been too long since she smiled.

I quietly looked at her face. The words "between friends" sounded very strange.

"Between friends?"

"Yeah. Between friends. ...If we’re not friends, then why, what are we?"

Jeong In-ah spoke as if getting annoyed for no reason. She wasn’t really annoyed. It was a habit that came out when she was trying to hide her true feelings or when things got awkward for no reason.

I looked at Jeong In-ah silently.

When I looked at her, my chest churned. I heard the sound of bells and iron bars rattling, and the image of Jeong Yun-ah screaming came to mind.

An emotion stickier than guilt slowly swallowed my body. I couldn’t breathe.

Whenever I stood in front of her like this, my heart ached and hurt with indescribable emotions. I was no different from a sinner standing before a judge.

Jeong In-ah was the judge, and I was the sinner. It was too deformed a relationship to call friendship.

"We must be friends."

"Of course! ...Not ’must be,’ we are."

"I understand, I understand."

I appeased Jeong In-ah, who was subtly glaring at me. The same silence as before flowed, but the atmosphere wasn’t particularly awkward.

There were different types of silence, and among them was silence that wasn’t awkward but natural.

Jeong In-ah’s house could be seen in the distance.

It was always a nice house. It was small but had a yard, and it was even two stories. I wondered how much a house like that would cost.

"You’ll be able to find your sibling soon."

I said while looking at her house.

Jeong In-ah looked at me puzzledly, then hung her head as if resigned.

She hung her head frequently today. It looked like her neck lacked the strength to support her head.

"...Isn’t she dead?"

She continued in a small voice as if muttering.

"It’s already been 6 months, there’s no contact, and there’s no progress in the investigation... so she’s dead, she must be dead. Waiting is stupid..."

"She’s alive."

"What?"

"You’ll find her soon."

I said soon, but I don’t know exactly when it will be either.

But someday, definitely, Jeong In-ah will meet Jeong Yun-ah. By whatever means necessary, I will make it happen.

I just hope Jeong In-ah’s heart doesn’t break before that time comes.

"Thank you."

She smiled. It was still a weak, drooping smile, but at least it wasn’t bitter.

I raised my head. Her house, which had seemed distant just moments ago, was already right in front of us. Before she went into her house, I opened my mouth.

"Will you come tomorrow?"

"Oh, school? Hmm..."

Jeong In-ah pretended to think while touching her chin.

"I have to go. I’ve already missed 3 days and I’m already behind on the material."

"Then see you tomorrow. Go in and eat and rest a bit."

"Hey, what am I, a child? Why would you worry about such..."

Clang.

The sound of iron bars rattling.

Goosebumps rose up my spine to the back of my neck and all the way to the top of my head. It felt like all the hair on my body stood on end. My heart sank and made a dry sound.

My vision became slightly distant, so I bent forward and caught my breath. When I had regained my composure, I raised my head.

"Hey, why are you like that?"

Looking carefully, Jeong In-ah had fallen on the ground. She seemed to have tripped over the threshold.

"Get up. Don’t keep lying there again."

This time too, she seemed to be continuing to lie there from embarrassment. I extended my hand to her as I spoke. But there was no answer.

I approached closer and examined her condition. She seemed to be breathing, but she didn’t seem conscious.

"Jeong In-ah. Stop joking and get up. Hey. Hey!"

Even when I shouted, there was no reaction.

This time it was really fainting.