Became an American Retro Novelist - Chapter 206



Only Noblemtl

206.

Escondido Elementary School, right next to Stanford.

Members of the Pulp Fiction Club, including myself, would visit there twice a week, on Mondays and Fridays, and return after doing our assigned tasks for two to three hours.

As this event continued for about a month, sharing stories about what happened there while everyone was there became an essential part of the event.

Through that conversation, I learned that everyone was having fun working in their own way.

First, Rebecca Wong, who helps with the rest of the after-school studies at the library.

“The teachers said that all the kids who study after school are problem kids, but they’re cuter than you think. When you talk to them and teach them some study tips, they make a gesture that makes their eyes dazzle, and I guess you could say it’s fun to hit them one by one.”

I don’t know what’s so cute about it.

“Because kids who don’t know anything yet are just doing that to get attention. If you push them like that, they’ll get really angry, but if you teach them a math problem they couldn’t solve, they’ll all be amazed, saying that it’s the ability of an Asian who’s mastered the principles of yin and yang. They’re cute. It’s like looking at a young primate that hasn’t evolved yet.”

“Yin and Yang? What is that?”

John Smith, sitting in the passenger seat, looked back through the rearview mirror and asked.

And for some reason, Ms. Kate Moore pushed up her glasses and answered.

“It’s a branch of Eastern philosophy. Simply put, it’s the idea that all things are made of light and darkness.”

“Oh······ That’s right. Rebecca?”

“Huh? I don’t know. I just said what my father always said, pretending to be cool. That must be true.”

“······.”

“······.”

John and I glanced at the confident Rebecca, slightly dumbfounded.

Naturally, Kate took over the conversation.

“I also have fun. I counsel students who have problems in each classroom and help them solve them. Surprisingly, the kids have a lot of worries about trivial things. Like fighting with a friend. Losing their homework.”

“Wow, Kate Moore’s advice session.”

“In that case, I’ll tell you this. Friendships are relationships that will disappear in no time. You can always do your homework.”

“······.”

“······.”

Kate Moore, a villain who has a negative influence on the students of Escondido Elementary School.

“Joe, John. How about you?”

“Oh, I was transferred to the place where the next day’s lunch ingredients were prepared. I became friends with the cafeteria staff and chatted with them, so I was having fun. And I learned about a huge mystery that was lurking in this school. It was that the kids didn’t eat their vegetables.”

Oh, why don’t kids eat their vegetables? That’s really interesting.

Keep up the good work, Detective John.

“Is God still doing odd jobs?”

“I am······.”

I have a friend who follows me around and asks me to take him as his disciple.

I can’t even bring myself to say those words.

Rebecca in the library, Kate in the hallway, John in the cafeteria, and finally me outside the school.

Because everyone worked in different positions, all kinds of different stories were bound to come out.

I pulled into the parking lot of Escondido Elementary School, parked my car, and got out.

Then we went straight to the school hall, met the staff who came to greet us, exchanged greetings, and then went about our respective tasks.

The person who ordered me to do the work was Murphy, the school janitor.

Murphy, a skinny black man, was a blunt person, but he had a philosophy that he had to do his own work, so he didn’t ask me to do too much.

When we first met, he told me that I could kill time by walking around the school grounds as long as I finished the assigned tasks. Thanks to him, I could spend the rest of the time leisurely after doing things like moving things or taking the trash and leaves that were piled up here and there to the incinerator.

The security situation around here isn’t particularly bad, and since my parents worked nearby, it was common for us to wait until they got off work and then go back together.

What this means is that there are many cases where children stay at school after school.

Usually, no matter how busy I was, I would have some free time around that time, and then I would use my height to help pull something out of a tree or pull a ball out from under a car, and I would receive thanks from the younger students.

From this I learned two things.

······First of all, there was a group of superheroes in this school.

Starting with the ‘Batman’ boy I first encountered, I recently saw friends dressed in all sorts of superhero costumes, including capes and tights. They were all running around the school in shabby superhero costumes that they had made at home by sewing or taping together.

Looking at that sight, I thought.

‘Kids sure are crazy about superheroes.’

Indeed, there is something about the world of superheroes, full of easy stories, flashy costumes, and simple yet stimulating settings that children would like, that touches the desires of young children.

Superheroes and comics, which appeared in this world to provide people with vicarious enjoyment and to forget the dark realities of the Great Depression and World War II, have become the perfect content for children to enjoy in this day and age.

Because it’s cheap and easy to read back and forth, it’s good for building rapport with others.

Even as they went through many huge events such as government censorship, changes in people’s consciousness, the Cold War, and the Vietnam War, each comic company somehow survived by adding variations to their stories and settings, and they are still very popular today.

So it wasn’t particularly strange that elementary school students here were pretending to be superheroes.

The problem was that as the time I spent volunteering here grew longer, an annoying guy started following me around.

“······.”

“······.”

Look, I’m following you again today.

On the way out, I leave the ladder I used for ceiling repair work in the warehouse at Murphy’s request.

I noticed something suspicious on the tree standing before my eyes, but I tried to ignore it and turned to the side.

A truly ninja-like technique of drawing a tree trunk with crayons on a piece of paper large enough to cover one’s body, spreading it out, and hiding behind it. A gust of wind blew from somewhere, causing the ends of the paper to flutter, revealing the tips of one’s hands and feet.

But if you look at it and pretend to know, you will immediately get this answer.

‘As expected of a ninja!’

A third grade girl attending Escondido Elementary School here.

A little boy with black hair tied up in a ponytail and a lively look.

Her name was Ashley.

The kid who suddenly asked me to be his ‘master’ on my first day of work still kept following me around even though I politely refused to do it.

He showed off all sorts of techniques, saying he was studying to become a ninja himself, but they were all so poorly done that it was catastrophic.

But sometimes, innocent discrimination can leave people with greater scars.

I tried hard to ignore Ashley, who followed me around like a squirrel stalking someone in search of a stolen acorn.

“Ako!”

Ashley trips over a tree root while moving between trees and falls.

“······.”

I couldn’t pretend not to see it until then, so I turned around anyway.

And then he said, narrowing his already narrow eyes even further.

······Damn, is this self-discrimination?

“Are you okay?”

“Huh, how did you know?!”

“You made a noise.”

“You’re a ninja, right?! You’re a ninja, right?!”

I can’t avoid it any longer.

Now people are asking if I’m a ninja just by breathing, when all I do is climb trees, jump over flowers in a flower bed carefully so as not to step on them, and grab a basketball hoop and kick the ball.

······Oh, this looks like a ninja to children.

No, that could certainly be the case. Children find anything adults do to be amazing.

I asked Ashley, thinking we should have a proper conversation.

“What did you see that made you think that? The sight of you climbing a tree?”

“You’re Asian!”

This racist little brat who does such racist things······!

“I saw it in a ninja movie! The main character goes to the East and asks the master for teachings! Please teach me how to become a ninja!”

“Hey, I’m not a ninja.”

“no?”

“No, I just know how to climb a tree.”

“That’s enough! Please teach me!”

“Because of that bloody revenge thing you mentioned before?”

“Yes! I must get revenge!”

“What, revenge?”

“My parents······were murdered by villains.”

“······yes?”

In front of me, whose mind was in a state of confusion due to the shocking remark, the girl clenched her fists and continued talking.

“I swore revenge! To somehow gain strength and fight against evil! To take revenge on evil!”

“There······The United States is a country where private sanctions are prohibited, so how about reporting it to the police?”

“The police are incompetent. They have no power in this small community called school.”

“······?”

“Justice has fallen to the ground. Everyone thinks only of themselves and acts selfishly, not of each other. Like cutting in line during lunch. Or reading comics to themselves. I will definitely grow stronger and take down the guy who threw this school into chaos, and tell those villains that I will not give you any mercy.”

“······Is this a setting?”

“Oh? Yeah, the setting. Every superhero has a tragic backstory, right?”

“You should have said that first······.”

I answered, feeling the energy drain from my body.

So, the story was like this.

Ashley, a tiny third grader, dreams of becoming a superhero, despite the tragic background of losing her parents to villains.

I asked cautiously, recalling the images of ‘awkward superheroes’ I had seen while working at the school.

“There are a lot of superheroes in this school, right? But there’s such a big problem?”

“That’s right. They’re all stuck together. They’re all fighting amongst themselves. They all like different comic book franchises. Based on the division between DC and Marvel, all sorts of third parties are fighting amongst themselves, claiming to be the real superheroes.”

“Oh, those are capitalist superheroes.”

“I want to unite them and fight against evil. Can you help me, Master?”

“······.”

I scratched my cheek as I looked at Ashley, her eyes sparkling innocently.

Likewise, it gave me a capitalist feeling.

‘Maybe it will help you with your writing?’

Young children are creating their own superhero groups and playing around in the school. I was curious about how boys and girls of today understand superheroes and use them in their play.

I smiled as I recalled that the reason I came to volunteer at this school was to gain such inspiration.

“Okay, let’s make this clear. I’m not a ninja.”

“Yes! That’s okay! Please teach me something! ······There has to be a setting like that so that the kids will include me in their play.”

Kids these days are really precocious.

“And second, don’t play it safe. Okay?”

“So you’re saying to be careful that what you learn from the Master isn’t used for evil! Got it!”

“······Okay. Then.”

Having said that, I fell into a dilemma.

But what do you teach?

How to climb a tree? But do I, a fully grown adult, know how to do it and act accordingly? I just find a good gap between the trees, put my foot on it, and climb once to move on to the next step. If you teach this to a child in a clumsy way, it is very likely that an accident will occur.

Anyway, what do I know that I need to play ‘superhero’?

“Hmm.”

“Oh, I see you’re having a hard time. What should I teach a beginner who doesn’t know anything?”

Ashley misunderstands on her own.

It was that very moment.

“Hiyaaaaah-!!”

“Kyaaaaah-!!”

Running towards them from afar, making a tremendous noise······ Three boys wearing roughly made black masks with holes in them and wearing black clothes of uneven material.

He even had a plastic toy Japanese sword in his hand.

“Be careful, Master! They are the minions of evil!”

“what?”

“Hahaha! It’s too late! Ashley!”

“He is always watching you!”

Three ninja boys surround us.

······Oh my. Not only is he seeking revenge for his parents’ murder, but he’s also being pursued by some evil group.

This setup is really fun. It doesn’t feel a bit complicated though.

Three men circled us, swinging their swords threateningly.

I quietly watched the boys acting intoxicated by themselves, and soon Ashley, who bravely stepped forward in front of me, let out her suppressed anger.

“Shut your mouth!”

“······.”

“······Shut up. That’s too harsh.”

“Yeah, that’s not a good thing to say, Ashley. The teacher told me not to.”

“Oh, right. Then······ Be quiet! Why won’t you leave me alone!”

“I can’t tell you that! I can’t help it. If you won’t follow me, I’ll take your master with me.”

“What?! I won’t leave it like that!”

“It’s too late! Chaaaaat-!”

The boy who had been shouting until then rummaged through his pockets, took out a small bean bomb, and threw it out.

Ppaang-!

······Then the masked boy spoke to me politely.

“Excuse me, uh, sorry… Could you please lie down? This is our special device that contains a sleep-inducing drug, so if you detonate it, you should fall asleep.”

“Hoo.”

From a story perspective, I don’t think the composition is particularly bad.

After experiencing the death of her parents, Ashley wanders around the school in search of a teacher to seek revenge. She finds someone who can become her teacher. However, the moment they establish a relationship between teacher and student, the villain’s henchmen who have been chasing her kidnap her teacher.

It was a more full-fledged ‘superhero play’ than I thought.

I decided to go with it for now.

“Oh my! I’m sleepy!”

Pick, fell to the floor without any pain.

“······.”

“······.”

There was a brief silence again, and then the boy spoke.

“Oh, I’m sorry… I don’t think we can carry it.”

“He, can you come with me yourself······.”

“I apologize for the inconvenience.”

I stood up awkwardly and started walking after the boys.

And just as I thought I had fallen a little, I heard Ashley’s shout from behind me.

“Ma, mamama, master-!!”

Oh, you speak quickly.

······But what happens to me now?

***

I was just walking down the hallway.

[Oh my! I’m sleepy!]

Kate Moore looked out the window without realizing it when she heard a voice from somewhere. She opened her eyes wide in surprise when she saw God lying on the lawn.

‘What’s going on?’

As she was about to open the window, wondering if something serious had happened, she saw boys wearing black masks and black clothes surrounding Shin, scratching their heads and saying something in embarrassment. Shin stood up with a red face and followed the masked boys.

And then one of the black-haired elementary school students who had been left behind knelt down and shouted.

[Ma, mamama, master-!!]

A voice that rings out loud.

“······.”

Kate Moore, who had been watching until the end, closed her eyes and turned around.

‘Let me just do my job well.’

There were still many classrooms left.