[2] Solo Leveling

Chapter 253 | Side Story 10

5. Your daily routine (5)

Woo Jin-Cheol led Jin-Woo to the end of the school corridor. He only stopped walking once they got to a distance far away from the classroom where their conversation wouldn't be overheard by someone else.

Jin-Woo, quietly following behind the detective, also came to a stop as a result. He sneaked a glance towards the classroom.

For some reason, this sense of distance he felt by being a student that was looking into the classroom from the outside seemed rather large.

Perhaps Woo Jin-Cheol was conscious of that too, because the first thing he did was to apologise to Jin-Woo who was still looking back at the class.

"Sorry about dragging you out in the middle of class like this."

"No, it's fine."

Jin-Woo held back the words of 'I wanted to escape from there anyway because it was so boring', in consideration of the teacher doing his best to teach the classroom full of kids.

Rather than say anything, Jin-Woo looked up at Woo Jin-Cheol, instead.

The detective was young.

Since Jin-Woo had changed his physique to match that of a high school freshman, Woo Jin-Cheol was now actually a good head taller than he was, with much broader shoulders, as well.

'A guy who looked like he'd give a gangster a run for his money was actually working as a detective.'

A smile abruptly bloomed on his face after seeing a friend's face in what felt like aeons.

It had been years – no, decades actually, if he added the time spent wandering around the gap between dimensions – since he last saw the Association President Woo Jin-Cheol.

Even though Jin-Woo didn't want to show anything outwardly, there was not much he could do about his expression betraying him with a hint of happiness.

'......?'

However, Woo Jin-Cheol was immediately beset with confusion after discovering the smile on the student's face.

There would be only a handful of people alive who'd remain unflustered after suddenly being visited by a cop, and not only that, a detective with such a threatening face like his.

More than that, was there a reason to say anything else when the person in question was just a high school student?

However, this kid in front of his eyes was actually smiling.

'This boy.... Something's different about him.'

Woo Jin-Cheol felt it the moment he stepped into that classroom – this kid was different.

Thanks to his job being what it was, he had run into his fair share of murderers who killed many people, or gangsters that lorded over the backstreets with iron fists.

However, not even once had he meet anyone with a pair of eyes as calm as this boy.

'How can a student possess eyes like that?'

Gulp.

Unbeknownst to him, Woo Jin-Cheol swallowed back dry saliva from all this tension in the air. Starting from the moment he saw the boy, his heart was still violently pounding away for reasons unknown to him.

To dissolve the many questions swirling and circling inside his head, Woo Jin-Cheol pulled out his memo pad and began looking into it.

"By any chance, Shadow... no, wait. Ants...."

Woo Jin-Cheol was looking at the contents of his memo pad, but no matter what he did, he just couldn't form any coherent sentences. So, he pulled out a pen from his inner pocket, instead.