The Match Begins
Early morning. Staggering out of bed, Gemma scooped up her underwear from where it'd been tossed carelessly on the floor and wrapped herself in a gown with her disguise arts. Kim Taeyang lay sleeping soundly, a smile on his face. Probably dreaming something nice.
She planted a light kiss on his cheek and stepped out onto the balcony.
How had last night's bout ended? She couldn't even remember. She recalled clashing up to the fourth round from Taeyang's count—or the seventh from hers—before passing out and losing consciousness entirely. Blame Taeyang's offense, tuned up by Baek Je-in; it had been way fiercer than before.
The lingering afterglow still filled her spirit body to the brim. Just recalling those dizzying moments dried out her gums. The sensations from last night flooded back into her mind.
"Hnn."
Gemma glided over to the small plastic bottle by the TV and picked it up. She'd found the soap bubble solution poking around the house before heading to Shin Sua's mansion. She opened the window, dipped the plastic straw inside, pursed her lips, and blew gently. Tiny bubbles floated up into the sky.
She stuck the straw between her lips to ease the boredom, and a smile crept onto her face for no reason. It had become a recent routine. Something in her empty mouth steadied the trembling in her chest.
Seducing Taeyang last night had been embarrassing, but it worked like a charm. No matter how much Mun Hee-jeong cozied up to him, Gemma had already gone all the way twice. That fact filled her with a thick sense of superiority.
She wasn't about to let him get stolen away. Taeyang was already hers.
Gazing at the drifting bubbles, Gemma let out a small laugh.
But then...
Was she really allowed to have him? What right did she—a spirit, not a living human—have to bind the heart of someone who walked under the sun with flesh and blood?
A guilt she'd never once felt during her days as a phantom thief stabbed into her chest like a thorn.
If only Taeyang were an ancestor spirit like her. Yeah. What if he'd lost his body and become a soul?
Irritation bubbled up for no reason.
She'd never thought of it as loving Taeyang, not really. Their relationship was just for satisfying desires. She'd always told herself that.
So why did it eat at her—the fact that girls his age would keep growing year by year alongside him? She hated her spirit body, forever stuck at nineteen, unchanging. It drove her mad.
<......>
She couldn't kill him and swear eternity together. An orphan with no descendants like Taeyang would just dissipate as an ancestor spirit, with no one to perform rites for him.
Unless someone bore his child, and that child kept offering sacrifices to both him and her—
<Huh?>
What if she tricked him into knocking up a suitable girl? She'd have to swallow her possessiveness for a bit, but then she could savor ancestral offerings with him forever after he died.
Economically speaking, Shin Sua would be ideal. But she was chaebol royalty—might just steal Taeyang outright.
That left Mun Hee-jeong, who didn't hide her feelings for him at all.
<What kinda nonsense is that?>
Gemma slapped both her cheeks hard enough to sting.
No matter how much she wanted to stay with him, letting another woman bear his child? If she wasn't suddenly losing her common sense, she was definitely crazy.
<...But those two seem to like each other anyway, so maybe no guilt? Oh, right.>
Mun Hee-jeong's face popped into her mind, jogging a forgotten memory. Gemma left the balcony and returned to the room, opening her bag.
Inside were the gloves Mun Hee-jeong had gifted Taeyang. She'd meant to check them last time but missed the chance. No clue what prank that big-boobed tailor had pulled, but she'd clearly messed with Taeyang using these.
She'd played dumb at the dorm in case they came in handy for blackmail, but better safe than sorry.
<Let's see...>
To uncover the secret, Gemma turned the gloves inside out, lining facing outward. Both left and right.
And then she saw it.
The inner linings were densely embroidered with the crudest, most vulgar words imaginable—carefully selected for maximum perversion.
The left glove detailed what she wanted Taeyang to do to her. The right, what she wanted to do to him.
<......>
Fearing Taeyang might wake and see, Gemma silently flipped them back. Scary girl.
Shivering at the hidden lust in that gift, she crawled back into bed and rubbed her face against Taeyang's firm abs. After encountering Mun Hee-jeong's madness, only his body heat could soothe her now.
<Haa... so happy.>
Regaining her peace of mind, Gemma pulled the covers over and drifted back to sleep.
The three second-year representatives gathered at Park Myeong-gwan, where the teachers waited. Excluding Chairman Alexis Zorbas's granddaughter Xantia Zorbas—who didn't need a standard medium for her Spirit Lord Transformation—they'd come to retrieve items from the second-year exclusive safe, managed by their grade head.
"Halt right there."
Waiting for the trio in Park Myeong-gwan's B1 were Heo Gu-jang, the second-year head wearing a baseball cap. He jammed the baseball bat he held into one of three holes in the wall, and bright green light beams traced outward from it across the surface.
-Rumble.
The wall split open like a sliced cake, revealing the vault beyond stocked with all manner of relics.
"All clear. Come on in."
At Heo Gu-jang's signal, Igabi, Seo Jeon-jeom, and Almira filed inside one by one.
Many relics used by the current second-years—the so-called Emperor Generation—were national treasures, stored here to prevent theft. Even the top and vice-top students' weren't exempt.
"Excuse me, then."
Igabi stopped before a drawer labeled Jeonju Lee Clan Great Unity Ancestral Hall and pulled the handle. Out came King Gojong's Homi-gak Palace Bow in its unbound, relaxed state—along with the tonga tube for short half-arrows.
Not quite on par with Yi Seong-gye's horn bow, but no finer weapon existed for invoking the layered blessings from his Jeonju Lee ancestors through rites.
Igabi pulled out King Gojong's silver cup from the drawer's depths and nodded in satisfaction.
"You really need to pull that out against first-years?"
"Can't be too sure. Better safe than sorry."
Igabi grinned at Seo Jeon-jeom's question.
"And you're no slouch yourself, talking like that."
Igabi's finger pointed to the item hidden behind Seo Jeon-jeom's back.
In addition to his usual ornate gold-bronze crown symbolizing the Baekje royal family—with its hawk motif—he carried a flat, black go-stone case adorned in silver.
"Can't afford to lose this match."
Igabi smirked faintly, recognizing Seo Jeon-jeom's prepared counter to his weakness. Ever since getting that reply from his graduated senior promising to watch, Seo Jeon-jeom burned with resolve to win.
It showed in his determination to deploy his trump card and crush the first-year vice-top, no matter what.
"Skinny weaklings. What could those little things possibly do."
Scoffing at the pair, Almira hefted just a single massive sword.
Its ivory Persian shamshir-style hilt and double-edged tip marked it as the Ottoman Empire's signature military longsword, a Kilij.
-Shing.
Golden Turkish script gleamed on the blade she'd drawn from its sheath. Almira caressed the vine-patterned fuller inlaid with hardened gold, sighing in rapture.
"Don't swing that around—it's dangerous. Put it away nicely."
Only after Seo Jeon-jeom's scolding did Almira grunt and sheathe the longsword.
A pint-sized girl barely 150cm tall wielding Mehmet II's 126.5cm ceremonial longsword as her Spirit Lord Transformation medium looked comical, but Almira's strength was the real deal.
Reminding himself they'd need her prowess to handle the first-years smoothly, Seo Jeon-jeom tried to steady his nerves.
Yang Gong-jin. 34 years old. Lower Deck researcher involved in developing prototype androids powered by ancestor spirits.
That was the profile known to those living in Argo's underbelly.
But it was just a facade to hide the truth. His real identity shone through in the conversation he now shared with the white-suited man in Argo's hidden lair.
"You know you're partly responsible for Yeom Jin-gwan's failure, right?"
The British man asked, and Yang Gong-jin nodded with a sullen face.
"I'll overlook misjudging Object-X's location due to false intel. You did earn some credit, after all."
The man reassured him gentlemanly. He hadn't killed Yang Gong-jin on the spot thanks to the small memory stick just handed over.
Design schematics for humanoid weapons possessed by ancestor spirits. Mass production might be tough right away, but with the blueprints, the Yuan Table could erase their greatest weakness against high-grade vengeful spirits and deploy them in combat.
"Hm. You seem fidgety. Worried about something?"
"Th-that data's only half complete."
The gentleman's satisfied smile twisted moments after Yang Gong-jin's response.
"I told you I've secured an escape route."
"Can't relax till I'm out. The other half's hidden in the Lower Deck—I'll hand it over once I'm safely away."
"Tch."
The lowly researcher was getting clever, suspecting he'd be discarded as a pawn. Naturally, the ruthless realist had anticipated this.
"Fine. But make the 'cleanup' clean."
Yang Gong-jin's face paled at the bag's contents the British gentleman handed over with those words.
"This is..."
"You know the absolute law of capitalist markets?"
Aiming at the speechless Yang Gong-jin, the man's eyes gleamed reptilian.
"Items no one else can have—ones I monopolize—gain true value. No matter what they are."
Yang Gong-jin closed the bag with trembling hands and nodded.
"Is this really okay?"
"We have no choice. Thanks to Yeom Jin-gwan, we can't get Bastards' cooperation anymore. They're outright hostile to the Yuan Table now. One branch already got raided—we have to accelerate the plan."
His tone was firm.
"You're doing it. Today."
The order—for assured escape—was a bolder atrocity than anything Yang Gong-jin had done for the Yuan Table so far. Part of him considered confessing he'd orchestrated Baek Je-in's incense theft and begging Argo for protection.
But he clutched the bag and headed to the Lower Deck anyway. For one reason: defying the man terrified him more than death.
"Keep your promise, and nothing happens."
The British man murmured low, watching Yang Gong-jin vanish.
"Straight to the point: I couldn't figure out the second-years' close-combat countermeasures. Sorry."
1:30 PM. Jeong Da-un spoke up as he led the gathered first-year representatives toward the stadium's participant lounge.
"Who knows. They might ditch melee altogether and just overwhelm with firepower."
Jeong Da-un scratched his head at my reply.
"Wouldn't that be nice."
"It's just a friendly spar—why so intense?"
Shin Sua muttered sarcastically, while Gong In-myeong showed zero tension.
<Business as usual for them.>
"Yeah. Am I the only one stressed?"
<That forehead girl's shaking hard too, y'know?>
As Gemma said, Seol Romi's face was stiff with nerves. Her trembling was just her sore-loser personality, but I had a lot riding on this match—hope Gemma got that.
"Anyway, good luck."
"Give it your all, results be damned."
Thirty meters from the lounge, Jeong Da-un and Jang Han-nam stopped. Their faces radiated encouragement: we'd prepared our best, now go show what we could do.
Truth be told, approaching this lightly was impossible.
For me, racing toward a happy ending, this match was an unexpected boon. Summer break ended, and Argo-targeted terror would kick off in earnest. Starting tomorrow, I'd be scrambling to block the spies' escape.
Win here to catch the chairman's eye, earn his trust to lay the foundation against Yuan Table plans. Getting picked as that weapon's tester for control was a bonus.
If things went to plan, main story progress would be smooth sailing.
"Hoo."
I sliced through the chaining thoughts.
First things first: win, no matter what.
Focus, Kim Taeyang.
"We'll be off."
Seol Romi stiffly greeted on our behalf, and the two teachers waved silently.
"We're winning this."
<Damn right.>
Steel resolve one last time, and I pushed open the athlete lounge door.