A New Authority for the Class Placement Evaluation (1)

Beep—

A warning tone blared from the system.

The skill I'd activated was Throne of the Shadow Mirror.

Naturally, only items the system classified as mirrors could serve as material for that authority-forging skill.

Damn… these prices are filthy expensive.

Rain Weapons was a membership-only weapon shop — which meant the system treated it more or less like a luxury boutique.

"……"

A staff member in elegant attire stood at a polite distance, smiling with practiced courtesy. Even the way they carefully avoided pressuring the customer felt exactly like a high-end brand store.

So I stayed right where I was in the explosives section and kept using my authority at a leisurely pace.

Everything here was a specialized item containing purification magic stones, and because this was a members-only weapons shop, the performance of each piece was exceptional. Load them with mana and most of them could casually massacre mid-to-low-tier magic beasts. The catch was that even the cheapest disposable piece ran over five million won.

Being a membership shop, the item rarity is pretty high overall.

The reason I'd specifically come to the explosives corner was simple. With the skill Multi Mirror Summon, I intended to load an explosive attribute into the light mirrors it created.

Using an explosive-attribute authority as the base, that is.

Authorities gained through successive awakenings influenced one another. Just as An Yumin, who had first awakened to water and then second-awakened to wind, had produced ice-attribute skills — I planned to apply the same principle.

I continued appraising explosive items until, at last, I found one the system accepted as a mirror. Its outer casing was a sleek metal suitcase.

Just as I was about to check what authority I could forge from it, I noticed Jiyu scanning the street outside the shop with an uneasy look.

"What's wrong?"

"Th-that… Jeong Siu's crew… I think they're near the alley we came in through earlier… Ah, over there!"

I looked past the shop window. Not blonde-tanned punks like I used to be — a pack of thugs dressed in the latest delinquent fashion, all riding motorcycles.

Great. That's going to trigger Jiyu's PTSD.

Jiyu, the gloomy shut-in that she was, freaked out at the mere sight of delinquents. I picked out one of the riders — a muscular guy. Jeong Siu, a Theia cadet. I could feel him carefully casing the Rain Weapons storefront.

Our eyes met for a second.

Jeong Siu flinched hard, hastily looked away, and left with his crew.

Same as ever.

They were a fairly well-known delinquent pack even within Theia High. I'd seen them plenty during the re-exams. Their practical scores were decent enough, but true to form, their attendance and theory grades were garbage — which was why they'd been stuck retaking tests.

Still, in the original story, Jeong Siu had been a surprisingly useful character for a natural three-star. Especially when it came to gathering information. He was the one who'd tracked down Horror Hole — a place even the Hunter Association couldn't find — while still a high school student.

And he was also the only person who knew I was Unknown.

He's an underworld kid. He'll be useful later when I'm working with Choi Hana. He knows the weak points of underworld figures better than almost anyone.

The recruitment conditions and usage requirements were pretty demanding, but I'd already fulfilled them in advance. Having him know my identity was a risk, of course — but through the original story I knew Jeong Siu's personality inside and out. He was going to become a solid subordinate of mine. No — an ally.

"I'll take this. Ring it up."

For now, though, I needed to focus on my own business. I bought the item that had finished appraisal.

"Whoa… you're just buying something this expensive on the spot?"

Out of the ten million won left from my last part-time job, I was spending seven and a half million — but I didn't feel the slightest regret. Jiyu looked stunned, but the thing would be worth far more than that.

I parted ways with her and headed back to Theia's VR training grounds.

One section of Theia Academy had been developed into a massive commercial district — everything from ordinary shopping streets aimed at civilians to specialized commercial zones catering to the awakened. Both sides were booming, of course.

And off to one side of that commercial strip, in an alley that fed into the main road, a small group was clustered together smoking.

"Damn, still packed today. Heh. The chairman's raking it in. Ptooey—"

A young man squatting on the ground spat phlegm onto the pavement. Everything about him screamed delinquent. The men and women with him all had aggressive tattoos covering various parts of their bodies.

"……"

For all that, every single one of them was a cadet of Theia Academy — elites, by society's standards. Even under a pure meritocracy, though, the student body was carved up by complicated hierarchies and factions. Strictly speaking, their little family was nowhere near the mainstream.

Even this delinquent crap is getting old.

A male cadet sat astride a scooter that had been roaring since high school days. The leader of the pack exhaled a cloud of vapor from the e-cigarette between his lips.

"Hey! Jeong Siu! What kind of man smokes strawberry-flavored vape? Zero aura, bro! Haha!!"

A female cadet in a padded jacket and ponytail ground out her cigarette on the ground, laughing. But the words never reached Jeong Siu's ears.

It was early March in Seoul — cold enough to still count as late winter — yet Jeong Siu was dressed in a tight short-sleeved sports shirt and neon shorts. The muscular build was striking, and the tattoos covering his arms only made him look more dangerous. In short, he was the textbook image of a delinquent.

At this rate, even if I graduate from Theia Academy, my life is going to be mediocre as hell.

Most of the crew gathered here had parents who were either ordinary civilians or underworld figures. That alone put a massive gap between them and Theia's top ranks — the second-generation kids of famous hunters. In other words, even among the same year, the distance between them and An Yumin, the freshman representative, or her party members Song Sia and Ha Yeeun, was the difference between heaven and earth.

Talent, background — we're short on everything. Boring.

Graduating from Theia Academy still made it easy enough to land a spot in a major corporate guild officially registered with the Hunter Association. The real problem was their origins. Second- and third-generation awakeners came from completely different family backgrounds. Those kids got fast promotions and slots on high-level raid teams even inside the big guilds. Someone like Jeong Siu, with a weak family background, would end up grinding through the hardest, least-noticed work — or serving as meat shields — no matter how decent his skills were.

This hunter world is complete bullshit.

Plenty of people joined the unlicensed hunter guilds run by the underworld instead. But the underworld was no different.

Maybe if that legendary boss were still alive…

Jeong Siu's father was the boss of a mid-tier underworld organization. Even so, the work you did in the underworld was always the same. You cleaned up after higher organizations until some major incident blew up and you got tossed into an awakener prison. A thoroughly worthless life.

Boring. The hunter world. The underworld. All of it.

Both sides were rotten. The Hunter Association itself would do anything for power — in reality they were just as filthy as the underworld, if not filthier. There was a reason villains were more popular these days than the so-called heroes.

Even in the underworld, the low-level thugs who committed crimes got classified as villains. But high-tier villains were a different story. They weren't bound by the hunter world or the underworld. They used their power purely according to their own desires.

That's why I went crazy when Horror Hole showed up.

A-rank villain Horror Hole.

That bastard had been a genuine lunatic. Hunter or villain, no matter how high the target's rank — he killed them all without discrimination.

There are plenty of villains ranked higher than Horror Hole, but…

The sheer insanity of what he'd pulled off in such a short time put him at the absolute top. A nameless villain had climbed from C-rank to A-rank threat level in just a few months. His victims died with holes punched all over their bodies, and that trypophobia-inducing imagery made Horror Hole's notoriety even worse.

Either way, Jeong Siu had idolized him. A villain who was a villain in the truest sense. At first he hadn't known the man's identity, and watching that villain run wild without caring about either side's opinions had filled him with pure exhilaration.

But the real him…

Learning Horror Hole's true nature had been a crushing disappointment. No grand ambition to topple the Hunter Association. No plan to conquer the fractured underworld. Just a perverted sadist who got off on murder.

And Jeong ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Siu had figured out Horror Hole's identity faster than the reporters. He'd idolized the man so fanatically that he'd stalked him more obsessively than the Association's own people. His authority specialized in tracking, so it had been possible. He'd even witnessed the moment Horror Hole was killed by another villain.

By Unknown.

By a villain called Unknown.

That day, Jeong Siu had seen it — the inhuman, fraudulent strength of that man. And the instant Unknown killed Horror Hole, the sheer shock of that power had made him cheer out loud without thinking. That was how he'd ended up locking eyes with Unknown face-to-face.

He'd thought he was dead right there. But the merciful Unknown had let him live. In that moment, Jeong Siu had shouted:

A man with that overwhelming power — he had to possess some kind of conviction different from Horror Hole's. A special creed as a villain.

I wanted to stand with someone like that.

Life was too dull. This Seoul, this shitty city — its system was grotesquely unfair, yet structured so it could never be broken. Jeong Siu knew his own limits well. So whether it was someone who would change that system or someone who would shatter it, he wanted to stand with the person who would crack this stagnant, rotten board wide open.

Those words had been the most shocking statement of Jeong Siu's entire life.

Unknown left after saying them. Three years later, the Hunter ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Association still hadn't even identified him. That was how the villain name stuck — Unknown. A man wrapped in secrecy, exactly as the name said.

"Whoa… that couple over there — gold spoons? No, diamond spoons? They look our age and they're walking into Rain Weapons?"

"Oh, for real? Song Sia-tier rich kids? Or maybe second-year Vice President Scarlet tier."

That was when the crew started grumbling about a couple walking down the main commercial street. The female cadet standing next to Jeong Siu chimed in.

"Kids from loaded families, heh. Both the guy and the girl are good-looking as hell. Ptooey. Life's such bullshit~"

At those words, Jeong Siu turned his head — and the moment he confirmed the man's face, he nearly jumped out of his skin.

U-Unknown! No — Lee Junwoo!!

Of all people, Unknown was right there.

Well — Lee Junwoo had been famous at Theia High as a blonde-tanned punk, but aside from the rumors about chasing girls, he'd never really overlapped with genuine delinquents like them. And his practical scores had been so abysmal he was basically a useless awakener.

The blonde-tanned look was gone now. But Jeong Siu had spent three years both running from and idolizing that man. A slightly paler face wasn't going to make him unrecognizable.

As expected… Unknown is incredible. Did he already switch girlfriends again?

Meeting Lee Junwoo at Theia High had been a shock. Jeong Siu's authority dealt with sound — sonic waves. Once he heard a voice, he never forgot it and could always distinguish it.

"Oh my, you're a delinquent too? Wanna join our fam? Let's smoke together!"

Come to think of it, even back then the girl standing next to him now had called out to Junwoo — who for some reason had been sporting that blonde-tanned look.

"I don't smoke. And students smoking isn't a good look. Keep it moderate."

His crew had cursed Junwoo out after he answered like that and walked away. But the moment Jeong Siu heard that voice, his entire body had trembled on the spot.

W-why is Unknown at the high school academy?

It was unmistakably him. A powerhouse strong enough to one-shot Horror Hole. Why someone like that had enrolled in high school, Jeong Siu still didn't know — but Unknown had lived surprisingly quietly. Or rather, looking back, he'd lived busily.

Heroes loved beauty, as the saying went. At Theia High, he'd gathered three of the most famous pretty girls on ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠campus and started club activities with them.

The scale is just different!

First he'd seduced An Yumin, famous for being beautiful but ice-cold toward guys. Then he'd reeled in Song Sia, the rich-girl heiress, and Ha Yeeun, the gentle and pure nun. Even the blonde-tanned cosplay had a reason. It had to have been a declaration of will.

All three of them come from excellent backgrounds. He definitely seduced them for their connections, not just their looks.

Watching Aegis's ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠activities, Jeong Siu had pieced it together. Unknown was an extremely dangerous villain — but by naturally getting close to well-connected girls like them, he seemed to be building ties into the Hunter Association itself.

Unknown had told him clearly:

He pissed me off. So I killed him.

The Hunter Association was full of the most infuriating bastards alive. In Unknown's eyes, they had to be pigs more repulsive than any power broker.

So Unknown's planning to purge every last one of them!

But setting that aside — just walking around with those three famously beautiful girls was already impressive enough. Jeong Siu was a delinquent himself, but awakeners had a higher ratio of women overall, so being a thug didn't actually give you any advantage in picking up girls at Theia High. He glanced sideways at the girl next to him and sighed. Comparing her face to those three would have been an insult.

But Lee Junwoo's greatness didn't stop there.

Not long ago he seemed to have reeled in Choi Hana too.

Every delinquent here had taken the re-exam. That was where they'd seen Choi Hana. In looks she was on the same level as those three — or better, depending on taste. Especially famous for never talking to other cadets. There were rumors she mixed with underworld people, but as an actual underworld kid himself, Jeong Siu had never even heard of her. Obviously baseless gossip.

Either way, Choi Hana had been chatting with Lee Junwoo like they were the best of friends. That alone had left the male examinees around them green with envy for a while. And while Junwoo taking first place on the re-exam had been quite the topic among the examinees, Jeong Siu hadn't been surprised in the slightest.

If he went all out, people might figure out he's Unknown. He was holding back on purpose.

Still, the gap between a real powerhouse and ordinary cadets was unavoidable. Taking first place was only natural.

In that moment, Jeong Siu looked at the girl walking beside Junwoo.

Who's that one?

A sky-blue bob-haired girl who still had that freshman vibe. True to Unknown's taste, she was pretty.

He's seriously incredible! How does he cycle through that many girls? Peak alpha male energy.

The real reason he respected Unknown was the man's strength — but the talent for seducing women so easily was something he envied more than a little, too.

Anyway, they couldn't stay here. Unknown — no, Lee Junwoo — didn't like seeing his crew smoking. Catching his eye and souring his mood would be a massive breach of respect.

Still… Rain Weapons. Walking into that expensive membership-only weapons shop… he's definitely planning something big soon.

His heart pounded. If Junwoo showed his real ability, he'd obviously go to the High Class. But you never knew. Coldly speaking, Jeong Siu's own skill level pointed toward Middle Class. If they ended up in the same training group…

He wanted to volunteer as his subordinate — no. He had to get into his party.

"Hey. We're moving. Somewhere else."

"What, those gold spoons piss you off?"

"Shut up and move. Nothing to do hanging around here."

Jeong Siu hurried his crew away. He snuck one last glance past the Rain Weapons storefront.

For a second, his eyes met Lee Junwoo's. That savage gaze sent a full-body shiver through him.

As expected… Unknown is insane!!

Rain Weapons was notoriously hard to join. Underworld people, no matter how rich, couldn't even approach the place unless they were executives of a top-tier organization. That meant Unknown had already fabricated an identity and built himself a legitimate social foothold.

I need to work harder! If I want to become his subordinate! A delinquent… yeah! If I want to become a real delinquent like Unknown!

Once more, his respect for Unknown burned white-hot.

Time passed quickly.

The class placement evaluation was tomorrow.

And in Aegis's new club room — no, the special office Theia had provided — three people were gathered.

"At this rate, Aegis's hero activities are going to hit some serious problems. You all know that, right? So I recruited a new operator."

As she said it, Song Sia snuck a glance at An Yumin's expression.