On weekends, I want to sleep in, so I donât set an alarm, but for some reason, I wake up at the same time as I do on weekdays.
Moreover, on weekdays, I feel like I could fall back into a deep sleep immediately after turning off the alarm and pulling the covers back over me, but on weekends, for some reason, once I wake up, I canât fall back asleep even if I try.
I hate my body for stubbornly adhering to the law of average sleep time conservation...
I took out a serving of bean sprouts, had breakfast, and then flopped back onto the bed.
Since I wasnât going to school, I had nothing to do.
But I quite enjoyed zoning out.
Even though I wasnât doing anything, I could do it more intensely and thoroughly.
If I could reach that level, I could achieve something incredible that ordinary people couldnât even imagine.
For a moment, I became a heartless person, devoid of blood and tears, and diligently cut timeâs throat.
âYou cruel bastard, youâll pay for this someday!â
The dying time screamed.
But I wasnât the one to worry about such things.
After all, the price would be paid by my future self.
For now, I was just enjoying the moment...
By the time the slaughter was over, it was already lunchtime.
Since I wasnât going to school, I had to eat lunch at home, so I was taking out a serving of bean sprouts when I felt a sense of unease.
I wasnât going to school.
I wouldnât see Sylvia.
At that moment, an exclamation mark flashed in my mind.
Why did I only realize this important fact now?
On weekends, I donât go to school.
If I donât go to school, I wonât see Sylvia.
In other words, on weekends, I wouldnât see Sylvia, but I wouldnât have to pay the friend fee either!
There were 8 weekend days in a month.
8 days of friend fees amounted to a whopping 24,000 gold.
Combined with the 6,000 gold I had left for living expenses, it was a huge sum of 30,000 gold.
Thanks to that, my living expenses had increased by a factor of 5.
So, what I had to do was clear.
I quickly finished off the remaining bean sprouts and swallowed the macaron pieces in the fridge without hesitation.
With 30,000 gold in assets, I no longer needed such trivial things!
Tonight would be a bean sprout party!
I arrived at the discount mart to go shopping.
Indeed, a fat wallet makes the heart feel at ease. Now, even if Yun Siwoo smiled and greeted me, I could respond calmly without ignoring him.
âScarlett! Youâre here to shop too?â
Crazy, cancel that.
How could I run into him the moment I thought about it?
If this happened in a novel, it would be criticized for lacking plausibility.
...But then I remembered that I had also run into him on my way to school last time.
He probably lives nearby, so I should be more careful in the future...
I sighed inwardly and nodded at Yun Siwoo.
âYou must be running errands. Scarlett, youâre such a good daughter.â
Good daughter, my ass. Iâm fire-attribute, but thatâs beside the point.
I replied quietly to Yun Siwoo, who was smiling brightly.
âMy parents arenât around.â
For some reason, it felt like I had said this before.
Yun Siwoo suddenly fell silent, his mouth slightly open, frozen in place.
Whatâs with this guy?
Did I accidentally use a magic spell, like âStop!â without realizing it?
â...Sorry. I didnât know.â
Yun Siwoo, who had been frozen for a moment, soon apologized to me with a somber face.
Why are you so down?
âDonât worry about it. Neither of us has parents, right?â
I said this to Yun Siwoo without much thought, fearing that he might sink into a deep depression if I left him like that.
âHuh? How did you know? That my parents arenât around. Did I ever mention it?â
I realized I had made a mistake when I heard Yun Siwooâs words.
My spine tingled.
I couldnât tell him that I knew from the novel where he was the protagonist.
It was entirely my fault.
I had spoken as if it was a given that the protagonist of an academy story is an orphan.
Of course, in stories like [The Holy Sword of the Academy], the protagonist often discovers something about their parents or the orphanage, and the plot advances.
But of course, thatâs not in [The Holy Sword of the Academy]!
Feeling like I needed to make an excuse, I just blurted out what came to mind.
âYou just... look like it.â
Yun Siwoo muttered, âOh, really?â and looked confused.
Thinking about it, it wasnât a wrong statement.
If his face had that kind of ability, he wouldnât have parents, right? For balance!
Moreover, that guy had a lot of money because the ego, Lucy, of the Sword of Humility, had told him the location of ruins filled with valuable items.
Compared to me, it suddenly felt unfair.
I donât have parents either, so why do I have no money and only mediocre abilities?
It seems that in this world, I really donât have parents.
How incredibly unfair.
How are people who canât even hold a silver spoon in their mouths supposed to live?
Feeling bad, I waved my hand at Yun Siwoo, who was still staring at me blankly, signaling him to go away.
Yun Siwoo looked at me with a puzzled expression for a moment, then paid for the items in his cart and left the mart.
Looking at the items in his cart, which seemed to total more than my monthly living expenses, I felt a sense of relative deprivation, but I shook my head to regain my composure.
Donât be envious, Scarlett!
Youâre flexing, not shopping!
I forced myself to look away from the meat that was calling out to me from afar and picked up the items I intended to buy today.
First, a small 500ml bottle of cooking oil.
Having cooking oil changes the variety of dishes you can make.
In short, without cooking oil, you can hardly make any dishes.
It was necessary for todayâs cooking.
The price was 1,500 gold.
And the thing I most wanted to buy today.
A small 300g bottle of oyster sauce.
Oysters are a very divisive ingredient, but for some reason, oyster sauce is almost universally liked.
The rich flavor it adds makes even simple dishes feel gourmet.
However, itâs a bit expensive.
The price was 3,500 gold.
Then, I picked up one, no, two 300g bags of bean sprouts.
I thought, âIâm not just a person who trembles at 1,000 gold anymore!â but my hands were still trembling as I picked up the bean sprouts.
...It canât be helped.
For someone who had planned to survive on 7,000 gold for a month, spending 7,000 gold in a day feels like an enormous overspending.
But today, for the sake of the bean sprout party, I was willing to pay this much.
Since tomorrow is also the weekend, itâs fine to buy a bit more.
Bean sprout flex.
I coolly took out my student ID with my index and middle fingers and paid for the items.
With 7,000 gold spent, I had 23,000 gold left for living expenses.
If I only ate bean sprouts for the rest of the month, this would be a substantial sum to live on.
I wouldnât have to worry about going hungry for a while.
Back home, I took out the items I had bought and prepared to cook.
I put one bag of bean sprouts in the fridge and opened the other.
I scooped up a handful of bean sprouts from the bag, washed them thoroughly under running water, and drained them.
I turned on the gas stove, placed a pan on it, and poured in the cooking oil.
Next, I added the drained bean sprouts.
As the heat rose, I stirred the bean sprouts with a spatula.
The savory aroma of the bean sprouts sizzling in the oil.
Even this alone was already better than blanched bean sprouts, but the real magic was about to happen.
I added my secret weapon, the oyster sauce.
As the oyster sauce soaked into the stir-fried bean sprouts, my mouth watered from the smell.
It would be even better with a bit of sesame oil, but this was enough to make it delicious.
I served the finished dish on a plate.
Stir-fried bean sprouts with oyster sauce.
Those who have tried it know that this is a real rice thief.
Of course, since I didnât have rice, it was just a thief.
I took a large bite of the glossy, stir-fried bean sprouts coated with oil and oyster sauce.
The crunchy texture of the bean sprouts, even after stir-frying, and the salty, savory taste filled my mouth.
If I had to describe it in one word, it was a nostalgic flavor.
My mother often made this dish because it was cheap and in large quantities.
When I first tried it, I said it was delicious, and from then on, she made it so often that I complained I wanted to stop eating it.
Honestly, I thought I was a bit tired of it, but now that Iâm in this situation, it was the first thing that came to mind.
One bite.
Two bites.
While eating the stir-fried bean sprouts and thinking about this, a drop of water suddenly fell onto the plate.
Thinking, âWhatâs this?â the moment it happened, water started to fall onto the plate in a steady stream.
First, I thought I had to protect the stir-fried bean sprouts, so I quickly cleared the plate.
I noticed that the water was coming from my eyes.
It was streaming down like a faucet had been turned on.
âDamn, what the hell...â
I tried to stop it, but my taste buds must have been overwhelmed, as the tears wouldnât stop.
I couldnât help but laugh at the absurdity of the situation.
The first thing I thought of while crying was to protect the stir-fried bean sprouts.
Fortunately, I had quickly cleared the plate, so not too many tears had fallen into it.
Since the tears wouldnât stop for a while, I sniffled and hiccuped, and slowly ate the stir-fried bean sprouts, which had become a bit saltier.
It must have been because it was so delicious that the tears came.
So delicious.
Authorâs Note:
???: You just... look like it.
A sudden burst of flames engulfs Yun Siwoo for no reason!