Chapter 97
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 97
Chapter Title: Teaching Assistant
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"No, why would you do something so stupid..."
So-hyang stared at the teaching assistant from the Wonryu School professor with eyes full of disbelief.
A talent the professor himself publicly acknowledged as outstanding, with real achievements solid enough to advance to graduate school at the Academy.
Even her looks were exceptional.
A beauty whose fatigue-dulled glow could pass for decadent charm.
Why would anyone with such a bright future embezzle and misappropriate funds?
"-Gambling debts, they said. You have no idea how absurd I felt when I first heard it."
A disciple who showed creative ideas and brilliant proofs in the lab by day, but come night, eyes bloodshot, lost in frenzied gambling.
"And not even at a casino tolerated by the Imperial Family, but in the shadows' illegal dens...! I thought my gut would burst and I'd drop dead..."
"...My goodness."
So-hyang gazed at him with pity.
Even now, a storm of emotions played across his wrinkled face. Betrayal, disappointment, doubt, anger, sorrow... every kind of regret.
The disciple he'd raised with true sincerity, the one he'd boasted could surpass him and even teach him one day, had plummeted into ruin in a heartbeat.
"...She must have been thoroughly worked over, huh?"
"Cunning bastards. At first, they just ramped up the stakes and let her enjoy the pure thrill of the game. Then little by little, they mixed wins and losses to worm into her pleasure centers."
That electric tingle when victory came by a hair's breadth, hands shaking uncontrollably.
The satisfaction from sorcery breakthroughs and research triumphs, the master's approval and praise, the sense of superiority from society's admiration...
All of it reduced to 'whatever' by that heart-exploding rush of ecstasy.
Naturally, the thought creeps in.
Just once more.
No one stops you. No one holds you back.
Convinced it's your own choice for something so trivial, you sit back down at the table... and from there, no turning back.
An intangible deadly poison, perfectly diluted with tension, the thrill of victory, and a sense of accomplishment.
For intellectuals like her, it's far more effective than blatant debauchery—something they'd actively guard against.
They fool themselves into thinking they control the situation, that it's just harmless fun within self-imposed limits... which only makes them more vulnerable.
Composure hits rock bottom bit by bit, and by then, the money won from gambling hardly matters.
The soul-rending euphoria takes over, and when she finally noticed something was wrong, the debt was already far beyond what she could ever repay.
"Th-"
"...Hm? Il-ho, got something to say?"
Il-ho, who'd been listening quietly at her side, finally voiced his curiosity.
"Um, could I ask just one question?"
"Of course, ask away."
The professor nodded readily. Professors lived for questions, after all.
And her small frame, chubby cheeks, and bright eyes probably helped melt the old man's heart a bit too.
"First off, doesn't it take scamming that teaching assistant somehow? Fooled by regular gamblers with those sorcerer's eyes..."
Il-ho's skepticism seemed perfectly reasonable at first glance.
Sorcery was the art of dissecting reality, calculating flows, manifesting phenomena, and bending laws.
A master of sorcery.
Not some undergrad—this was a grad student, publicly acknowledged as future doctorate material. A high-level sorcerer.
In martial terms, like a peak expert on the cusp of transcendence.
Il-ho himself was a genius who'd reached peak mastery young, a seasoned assassin who'd cut down all sorts.
He'd faced plenty of skilled sorcerers and knew their tricks well.
Her combat reflexes might lag, but in a static setting like this, her analytical prowess likely outstripped even his.
For a mere gambling den crew to dupe her? Il-ho couldn't buy it.
"Well, pros are scary."
Before the professor could respond, So-hyang chuckled softly and patted Il-ho's head as she answered.
"Guess it's better to show you."
She grabbed some scrap paper nearby, sliced it into cards with her fingers, numbered them in sequence to make a play deck, shuffled the stack, and held it out.
"Where's the one card?"
"Hmm, thirty-second from the top?"
She hadn't moved her hands all that fast, so Il-ho just answered what he saw.
"Nope, right on top."
"-Eh?"
Il-ho's eyes went wide.
This time, she split the deck in half and restacked them with the order swapped.
"Where's the one card?"
"...Middle?"
"Haha, sure looks like it. But it's on top again."
"Wha?"
So-hyang burst out laughing at his dazed expression, question marks practically popping over his head. She took his hand and slipped the one card into it.
"Where's the one card?"
"...Huh? Didn't you just give it to me-"
"Nope, on top again."
"???"
The card that should've been in his hand suddenly reappeared in hers. Now his brain flat-out refused to process it; he couldn't even string words together.
"No way, this is... uh... illusion...?"
"Nope, pure sleight of hand. Fooled you with just fingerwork. Nothing profound."
Human vision is more flawed than people think—even for warriors or sorcerers.
A fundamental limit in how it processes reflected light, unrelated to acuity or precision.
"Spotting a skilled gambler's hand tricks just by watching... isn't easy."
It wasn't easy for So-hyang either.
Unless she watched arm muscles flex, facial tics, heartbeats, or reflections in the eyes, pure hand movements were hard to read.
Of course, hearing or ki sense could pick up anomalies—but sorcerers block that too.
If they're dead set on fooling you, you're done.
"Ugh, eeeee...?"
Il-ho flapped the cards around, flipping them frantically while making weird noises.
"See? Our sweet Il-ho shouldn't ever gamble. It's scary stuff... right?"
"Y-yes, noted...!"
"Good boy."
So-hyang nodded, deeply satisfied.
-----
The debt was astronomical.
It had piled up slowly like clothes soaking in drizzle, ballooned with snowball interest, riddled with vicious terms that exploited her clouded judgment.
The moment she realized, every savings account, every property... even her organs were collateralized. They knew exactly how to stab at the gaps in a fall from grace and bury you to the bottomless pit.
A sum no lifetime of professor salaries—or even a landmark research breakthrough—could repay.
So naturally, her creditors never expected cash repayment.
"...A common black market play. They turn you into their long-term pawn."
Slap a leash on someone with a bright future, hold their prospects hostage, and commission dirty work.
Overlook a minor scandal, turn a blind eye to small graft, whisper secrets that mustn't leak.
Revulsion at first, but gradually seduced by the payoffs.
Filthy yet dazzling gold.
Thrills and pleasures unavailable in the light.
Before long, the one dragged unwillingly becomes a tail-wagging mutt begging for more...
The perfect dirty high-society lapdog.
"...So why the embezzlement then?"
So-hyang voiced her doubt after listening quietly.
Gambling debt or not, just fulfilling the black market's 'requests' should've covered it without repayment.
No reason to skim off an amount rivaling a small kingdom's annual budget.
"Knew her since undergrad, but she was one proud girl."
"Mm, yeah."
"Couldn't stomach taking orders from black path scum she saw as beneath her."
"Ah, so she planned to pay off the huge sum and cut ties...?"
But embezzlement as the method? Figured if she wasn't caught, problem solved?
"No."
The professor's tone dripped with exasperation, as if even that would've made more sense.
"Her life was already neck-deep in the underworld. She decided to flip the script—bury the organization that saddled her with debt."
"Hmm...?"
"What came after was even more ridiculous."
If you're in the black path now, why be a dog lapping scraps on orders? Aim straight for the top.
Lost at sea? Don't turn back—conquer a new continent. Utter madness.
"The embezzled funds? Her war chest."
She invested in a historic capital underground outfit, leveraging her genius brain as chief strategist.
Passed over the smart ones, sacrificed the fools, recruited, cajoled, merged... then betrayed, waged shadow wars, ran rampant.
Backed factions, exposed weaknesses, shattered trusts to splinter powers.
From a handful of big orgs to dozens splintered across the capital.
Numbers swelled, but power diluted, intel crumbled. By the time they sensed the black curtain pulling strings, they lacked the means to chase it.
The fractured groups couldn't sustain themselves; in the underworld, weakness equals death.
To survive, they became point organizations, executing the black curtain's orders for scraps of cash.
The capital's shadows—all forms of puppets dancing to one hidden hand.
They moved by the noose around their necks and gold in their palms, dubbing their unseen master with fearful reverence.
Night's Ruler. Underworld Lord. Black Money's Core.
"-Yeah, some 'consultant' or whatever? Total nonsense..."
-----
"...Sounds like she nearly pulled it off. How'd she end up like this?"
So-hyang wasn't all that shocked.
Private crime consultants.
Her past life had its share—most just mass-produced prime targets for her blade. Some even worse monsters than her, come to think.
Still, curiosity piqued.
Divide and conquer, feared and revered near-legend... how'd she wind up soul-sealed and crawling as a slave?
"...Tch. Answer for yourself."
The professor squeezed his eyes shut like he hated even saying it, then kicked the assistant's shin.
Cracked, fatigue-chapped lips parted, spilling a hoarse reply.
"Didn't... pay taxes..."
"-Aha?"
Dozens of underworld upheavals and skirmishes had actually masked her identity.
Typical point-org chain: the rioters just followed orders, relayers got theirs from higher up.
Chaos became the curtain, blood the fog.
Capital Guard investigators snagged leaves and twigs, missing roots entirely—total dead ends.
Taxes? Naturally ignored.
Fund flows splintered into hundreds of streams from the start—impossible to track fully, let alone tax.
Yet the Finance Ministry's Tax Administration Office traced every thread to the root.
Somehow nailed flows even she didn't grasp. And they did.
Even pinpointed the origin: Academy research funds.
Smashed in the lab door, droned the deadline in flat tones, then vanished.
With bonus leads on the originating crimes.
"Wow..."
So-hyang nodded, a mix of absurdity and reluctant conviction on her face.
Spookily competent tax hounds existed in every world, huh?
Sunflowers zeroed in on taxes alone, crime syndicates or cash flows be damned...
So-hyang's past life had its taste too.
Not deliberate evasion—just hopping nations for hits meant skipping filings here and there...
"Ay, still gives me chills..."
Back then, late prime: skills at their zenith, body rebounding to peak and beyond.
Barely felt life-or-death from most threats... yet getting a tax bill shoved at her from 5,000 meters up?
Even she was genuinely startled.
Hesitant to kill officials, stuck to blade flats or bone-cracks; even as an old pro, it was a hassle.
Subdued them all, trudged to HQ, paid up the arrears... done.
A rare thrill of mortal peril after ages. Good memory.
"...Death sentence ironclad. I petitioned it down to life. That's the story."
"Wow, specially awful in the worst way."
So-hyang gently patted Il-ho's head, urging him to learn from such follies.
"Now, what should you do?"
"G-gambling is scary...!"
"And?"
"Pay taxes on time...!"
"Good boy."