Awaiting soft rains(An extra's novel)-Chapter 94: A Plan

The boy collapsed to the ground immediately, clutching his stomach in pain. Rowan and Alexa took that as a signal to tackle their own guys to the ground. The bullies, still shocked by what was happening, had no chance to react properly.

Soon enough, we were all brawling on the floor. Well, it was less of a brawl and more of a beatdown.

The others faced no trouble demobilizing and restraining their captives. Although I wasn’t as strong as either of them, I also faced little trouble with my opponent. Three good slugs to his sensitive gut were enough to make his eyes roll back. I did panic a little when it first happened, but I breathed easily once I found that he still had a pulse. Plus, the bastard got a pretty good hit on me as he went down.

My ribs still ached from his elbow. Massaging them, I carefully stood back up, leaving the fainted cadet on the ground. The other two were still very conscious, though their states were somehow even more pitiful than the knocked-out cadet. Both lay pressed against the ground, somewhat bruised and restrained in different ways by Alexa and Rowan. I nodded at the both of them before bending down with a hand still on my ribs, and giving the fainted bully a lazy pat-down. Carefully standing up, I removed my hand from my ribs while straightening my posture to present a semblance of dignity.

"Well—Ow... Uhm. Everything seems to be in order then; the credit card isn’t here."

The class was dead silent now. Even Alexa and Rowan, both somewhat used to my antics by now, couldn’t help but join them. I could feel a dozen gazes on me. Unfortunately for them, I’d since grown past the point of caring.

"Since I am in a rather good mood today, I won’t take note of or report your resistance from earlier. All three of you are free to go."

Although restrained, the two conscious bullies instantly fumed.

"You—"

"Mothe—"

"Is that resistance I hear?"

That doused their anger instantly, and they were back to trembling in Alexa and Rowan’s grasp. For the first time, I saw it: fear in their gazes.

’What are they afraid of?’

Shifting my focus from them, I turned to face my partners.

"You can let them go now."

Rowan and Alexa let go of their captives, both immediately backing towards a wall the moment they were free.

"You’re free to go now. Though, depending on your behaviour, there’s always a chance we might come back for further... inspections."

They nodded their heads frantically, to which I responded in kind with a satisfied nod. Standing beside me, Rowan gave Gustav a thumbs-up. The boy mouthed in response.

’Thank you.’

"Ow!"

Rowan nudged my ribs, motioning toward Gustav.

’Fine.’

I tossed the boy a thumbs-up as well.

’Thank you too.’

Gustav mouthed his reply to me as well, but in his eyes, I once again found that burning sense of admiration. It was beginning to make me a little uncomfortable.

’Weird kid.’

Either way, we were just about done here. I turned to face the still-silent class, then clapped once.

"Nothing to see, folks. Just official business; we’ll get out of your hair now."

The class erupted into murmurs, each I assumed spawning a new rumor and adding to my infamy. I paid them no mind, hurrying Alexa and Rowan to follow me out of the class. Perhaps as a result of that hurry, the door clipped against my ribs on the way out.

"Fuck."

"Pfft... ha ha..."

Rowan burst into laughter behind me. Glaring at him only made the fool laugh louder.

"Stop laughing."

"Ha... Ha... Sorry, I swear I’m not laughing at you. It’s just—Pfft—"

He couldn’t even form a proper sentence. The boy rested against the wall, just right when I thought he’d come to his senses. He burst out again the moment he saw my crouching figure. Even Alexa, terrified old Alexa, was smiling. Smiling!

’Are you kidding me?’

"You too?"

She turned her face away the moment I called her out, not daring to look me in the eye. But I could tell her smile had grown wider. Her shoulders were shaking.

’Why’re you trying not to laugh...’

Rowan’s hand landed on my shoulder; the boy was still recovering.

"You’re right, it’s not—"

I slapped his hand off before dragging myself upward using the boy as support. Perhaps feeling a smidge of guilt, he didn’t push me off. By the time I was on my feet again, Alexa had already recovered. Her smile from before was nowhere to be seen. But her eyes weren’t hovering around; they lay on me.

’At least some good came out of this.’

I was sure her sister’s ghost was probably roaming somewhere around here, but seeing her stable was good. Almost enough that I could forgive her for laughing at me. Almost.

"Come on. We’re done here." 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝚠𝚎𝚋𝗻𝗼𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝚘𝐦

---

The second day turned out to be a bust as well. It was lunch break once again. I lingered in front of the cafeteria, Rowan and Alexa hanging by my side. I’d only been able to check one more suspect later in the evening. Sadly, he wasn’t the suspect either.

Now I was down to the last day, with still four different suspects roaming around. Worse still, none of them moved in groups, so I had to investigate each separately while still running diversionary harassment to throw the skinwalker off.

’At least it’s just four left.’

I knew I wouldn’t be able to go through them all today. But even if I couldn’t find the skinwalker today, Alice would only need to capture at most three. Which would cause much less suspicion than ten. Even so, I wasn’t going to relax. I couldn’t. I wanted to be the one to find it. I had already come so far.

Quite fortunately, I’d been drumming up a new plan to flush out the rat. It was something I’d noticed over the past two days. At first, I chalked it up to coincidence, but the more I thought about it, the more things clicked. Throughout our campaign, every time Alice sent me a map of the suspects and their positions, there was always one that stood out to me.

Chang-min Suk.

He was always either the furthest or the second furthest from me. It hadn’t struck me as that odd at first, but then I realized. Regardless of what I did to throw the skinwalker off, even if I wasn’t suspicious, the monster was bound to be cautious. Cautiousness meant staying away from any big events or controversies in the school. Right now, that was me. It was bound to avoid me as much as possible.

And so, I only needed one more thing to start making moves. Right then, a message popped up in front of me. From Alice.

I couldn’t stop a grin from crawling up my face.

Once again, Chang-min Suk was farthest from us.