(Note- This chapter occurs before Rudy travels back into the parallel world.)
Rudy was in the classroom, sitting at his desk, studying hard for the upcoming tests.
The school hours had already ended, but some of the students were still in the class to study for exams.
A teacher stood in front of the classroom door and called a group of girls for something.
Even though the students had stayed in the school to study, most of them weren’t studying. They were either using their phones or talking with their friends. But Rudy wasn’t.
Eric was sitting beside Rudy, using his phone. But suddenly, he got a message from his mother, asking him to cover a shift in one of her convenience stores as a manager for a day.
Eric had no other choice but to go, so he packed up his bag and turned to Rudy to ask him if he was interested in joining him. But he noticed Rudy was too focused on studying, so he chose to not disturb him, and left him alone.
Alice was also sitting next to Rudy, but she was studying and didn’t pay attention to her classroom. But she suddenly felt like taking a leak, so she went to the bathroom.
Of course, Rudy didn’t realize that either as he was too immersed in studying.
The group of the same girl, whom the teacher called earlier, came to Rudy and stood in front of his desk.
At first, he ignored them, but he couldn’t ignore them after they started kicking and slamming on his desk. He finally raised his head and looked up at the group of girls.
The girls were actually bullies, and one of the girls among them was Janet.
The girls wanted to bully Rudy, but Janet secretly tried to help him by taking the initiative. She placed her hand on Rudy’s shoulder and looked into his eyes before saying, “I have work for you.”
“…” Rudy kept his mouth shut as he knew that he would get more bullied if he spoke something. But Janet knew that she would be forced to physically abuse Rudy if she didn’t drive him out of the room.
“Are you listening to me?” Janet asked in an annoyed tone. “I said I have work for you.”
“….”
Rudy still didn’t say anything, and simply lowered his gaze to avoid eye contact with Janet or any of the girls.
“Go to this girl’s house and give her your class notes and everything,” Janet said.
“Didn’t the teacher ask you?” Rudy finally spoke, but he had a low voice.
The leader of the bully group stepped forward to punch Rudy, but Janet quipped and said, “I don’t want to go somewhere far away for no reason. Why should I care about a girl who never comes to school?”
“…”
Janet handed Rudy a piece of paper and said, “This is her home address.”
Rudy looked at the address and realized it was truly far away from the other side of the town that was openly connected by the forest.
Rudy decided to walk out of the room and pretend to go to the girl’s house, but he planned to go home directly. But then he saw a $50 note with the paper.
Rudy glanced at Janet and tried to open his mouth to say something, but Janet glared at him and said, “Now scoot!”
Rudy realized that Janet was trying to help him and even gave him $50 as compensation, so he decided to visit the girl, who was none other than Rias.
Rudy could have just taken the money and left the school without going to Rias’ house, but he felt obliged as he thought Janet gave him money to do her work.
He placed his books in his bag and left the classroom. On his way, he decided to go to the bathroom as he was going to walk for at least 30 minutes to reach Rias’ house.
He entered the washroom and stood in front of the urinal. After unzipping his pants, when he was taking a leak, a group of seven third-year students approached Rudy.
Rudy had already noticed their presence as they weren’t trying to hide the fact that they were waiting for him to finish.
‘Not again….’
Rudy zipped his pants and turned around to see the group of seven smirking at him. He quickly decided to leave without doing anything, but the group of boys had planned something different.
When Rudy was about to leave the washroom, one of the boys grabbed him by his backpack and pulled him back inside.
“Let me go!” Rudy yelled.
“Shut up, you piece of shit!” The boy kicked Rudy on the back of his knee, which caused him to fall to the ground.
“Argh!” Rudy grunted in pain, but he couldn’t do anything.
Even if he tried to fight the group despite knowing that he would be beaten up, he couldn’t possibly fight against all of them. He was a weak and non-athletic high school student who was below average in everything except knowledge, handsomeness, and his optimistic nature.
Rudy slowly got up and tried to leave the washroom, but another boy grabbed Rudy’s leg and pulled him, causing him to fall again, but this time flat on his face.
THUD!
Rudy’s head hit the floor, but fortunately, it didn’t bleed. But it was painful.
Because of that, the paper and the $50 slipped from Rudy’s hand and fell to the floor.
One of the bullies saw it and read the paper that had Rias’ address written on it.
“Oh, oh! What is this?!” he asked Rudy.
“…”
When Rudy didn’t answer, he kicked him on the stomach and said, “You are a piece of shit to the core!”
“Hey, look!” another bully pointed his finger at the $50 bill on the floor and said, “He got money with him!”
One of them immediately picked up the bill and asked, “How did you get this money?”
Rudy chose to stay quiet and uttered to himself: ‘Don’t worry, Rudy. This will end soon. Just endure for a few more minutes, and they will get bored.’
