Chapter 86
Chapter 86
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 86
Chapter Title: The Sixfold Commission
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"Could it be that the chairman leveled up? It looks like they all got struck by lightning together."
Once the examination was finished, the doctor applied burn ointment and injected mana, and the team members' charred skin began to slowly regenerate.
Jae-hyeok let out a quiet sigh of relief and gave an awkward smile.
"No way."
"Well, if it had been the chairman leveling up, the media would have been all over it first, so I couldn't have missed it. Then what? Did you run into a Thunderbreath Whale?"
The Thunderbreath Whale was an A-rank elite monster that occasionally appeared along the coast.
It was the beast Jae-hyeok went out of his way to avoid every time he went hunting for tuna.
"We're not foolish enough to carelessly step into a danger zone."
Mindful of his grades, Jae-hyeok laid it on thick.
"Hmm, did a bolt of lightning strike from a clear, cloudless night sky?"
"Yes."
"I see. Got it."
The doctor, wearing an incredulous expression, jotted something down on the chart.
Jae-hyeok wasn't particularly worried about what would be passed along to the administrative office.
If a real thunderbolt had struck in Lion's Castle, the Martial Force would have reacted swiftly.
Moreover, students who encountered a Thunderbreath Whale couldn't possibly survive.
People would doubt Jae-hyeok's claim of being struck by lightning out of a clear sky, but they'd have no choice but to believe it.
'Still, this can't happen too often.'
If suspicion grew, he'd end up on a watchlist, which would be a hassle in all sorts of ways.
At this point, pushing through lightning response training with the team members was foolish. Jae-hyeok judged that building at least enough lightning resistance to avoid ending up in the infirmary was the priority.
"Go on, get out of here."
"What about the kids?"
"Let them rest here for the day. The emergency treatment went well, so the wounds aren't severe, but their mana circuits took a shock, so the mental trauma will be significant. They probably won't be able to open their eyes for a few hours."
"...Please take good care of them."
"Yeah, don't worry about it."
Who would have thought a single fake thunderbolt would keep their eyes shut for hours?
'I was too hard on the kids.'
He had thought too positively. He needed to accept that the kids were still fragile.
Feeling a faint pang of guilt, Jae-hyeok politely bowed to the doctor and left the infirmary.
Left alone, the doctor muttered to himself.
"These kids... what am I going to do with them..."
***
"Looks like the quiet means they're all fortunately still alive?"
Kim Jin-rae, who had been anxiously waiting in front of the infirmary for Jae-hyeok, breathed a sigh of relief.
When Jae-hyeok had told the blackened people slung over his shoulders to follow him.
Jin-rae had tensed up, thinking they were off to bury corpses.
But the place they ended up wasn't a nearby mountain—it was the infirmary.
'Really fortunate.'
It was true that the Archery Club members had done something rotten.
Jin-rae resented them for turning his father into the victim.
But he didn't think they deserved the death penalty.
Moreover, he didn't want Jae-hyeok becoming a murderer on his account.
Jae-hyeok looked at the relieved boy in disbelief and sat on a nearby bench.
"Tell me the details of the situation."
"Yeah, you probably already know the gist, Jae-hyeok..."
Jin-rae's story was straightforward.
The Archery Club had supplied black rock tuna to a certain restaurant, causing major damage to Daeyang Shipping's chain operations, which in turn put his father in a tough spot at work.
"Wasn't it their fault for opening a chain store right in front of a local sushi joint to begin with?"
Jae-hyeok responded indifferently.
He hadn't dreamed that a classmate's father was involved, but he didn't feel particularly sorry for Jin-rae either.
"Uh...? That sushi place was there first?"
"Not just first—it's a 50-year-old establishment that's been in the same spot all that time."
"R-Really?"
Jin-rae was dealt a huge shock.
From his father's perspective.
More precisely, from Daeyang Shipping's perspective, he hadn't grasped the true nature of the incident.
Now he finally realized something was off.
Reading the boy's pure reaction as genuine kindness, Jae-hyeok softened his tone.
"Is your father an executive at Daeyang Shipping?"
"Ah, no."
"Was there anything different from usual when he contacted you?"
"Hmm... Everything was different from usual. It was the first time he'd ever talked to me about company matters. And after I enrolled in Lion's Castle, he never initiated contact first, worried it might disturb my classes... That's why I was even more worried about him."
The questions and answers continued.
Jae-hyeok started with minor details like the date and time of the call and went all the way to the exact contents of the conversation; Jin-rae answered honestly.
'The company pressured him.'
Kim Jin-rae's father, a department manager at a company the size of Daeyang Shipping, wasn't an idiot.
He wouldn't have expected his freshman son to wield influence over a club.
He was probably worried about putting himself in an awkward position.
Yet he deliberately gave his son a difficult task?
Was that really voluntary?
'I'll find out soon enough anyway.'
Jae-hyeok nodded at Jin-rae.
"Call your father and tell him the Archery Club is behind it. Make sure to add that No Jun-yeop, the club president, has such a nasty personality that your request didn't get through at all."
"Daeyang Shipping is the one who messed up by opening a chain next to an old shop— is it really right to tip them off about the Archery Club? If Daeyang Shipping finds out they did something bad, it could spell big trouble for the club. Especially for Senior No Jun-yeop, who didn't do anything wrong—we can't falsely accuse him..."
"Thanks to you, we now know Daeyang Shipping is targeting the Archery Club, so it's fine. We can prepare in advance. And No Jun-yeop's reputation is so bad already that he's perfect as an excuse."
"Ah, I see... Wait, but Jae-hyeok, what's your connection to the Archery Club?"
Jae-hyeok let out a hollow chuckle.
"Who knows. Maybe fate brought us together."
Daeyang Shipping's parent company was Daeyang Guild.
'Yeon Ho-rang.'
Jae-hyeok's eyes gradually cooled to an icy chill as he recalled the old monster who founded Daeyang Guild.
***
"Manager Kim, your son pulled it off."
Yeon Ho-rang, president of Daeyang Shipping, flashed a broad grin.
The Archery Club.
Now that he knew the identity of the punks who dared screw him over, it felt like a lifelong toothache had finally been pulled.
"He... says he couldn't persuade them."
"Ah, yeah, I figured. I didn't expect much to begin with. What could a first-year lightweight do against a club?"
Yeon Ho-rang replied indifferently to Manager Kim, who was watching his reaction carefully.
Manager Kim felt a surge of resentment inwardly.
Did that mean he'd knowingly dumped the job on him despite knowing his son's position?
"Who the hell do you think you are, grinding your teeth like that?"
It was a misunderstanding.
A 20-year company man like Manager Kim wouldn't fail at managing his expression in front of his boss.
But Yeon Ho-rang read his inner thoughts plainly and hurled the nameplate at him.
"Urk!"
Blood trickled from the cut on his forehead from the sharp edge. Yeon Ho-rang tossed a few checks at him and spoke to the executive standing beside him.
"Any way to drag those arrogant brats out of the school?"
"Do we really need to? Why not use the personnel active in Lion's Castle?"
As befitting a major guild, Daeyang also held a significant stake in Lion's Castle.
They had plenty of eyes and ears among those operating in Lion's Castle.
The executive meant to use them.
Veins bulged on Yeon Ho-rang's forehead.
"Hey, you idiot! If I was going to borrow the guild's power, I'd have done it from the start—why would I drag in some no-name punk?"
A few directly operated stores were on the verge of ruin.
From Daeyang Guild's perspective, the damage Daeyang Shipping suffered because of the Archery Club was utterly trivial.
Requesting guild help for something this minor?
It would only expose his own incompetence.
He wanted to handle this incident as quietly as possible.
"President, have you heard the rumors about the uproar at Gugang International Hotel recently?"
"I'm your president—think I wouldn't know?"
Recently, signs of a Gate had appeared inside the Gugang International Hotel building.
Daeyang Shipping operated a Japanese fine dining spot right there, so he knew all about it.
"Clutching at straws, it seems—they even commissioned the Lion's Castle Archery Club. But they got rejected."
"Oh...?"
Yeon Ho-rang showed interest in the executive's explanation.
"Why? Did they offer too little commission?"
"Looks that way. They probably thought students would be easy to deal with."
"If we throw in some money, problem solved?"
"Yes, and we even have the pretext of protecting the fine dining spot, so Gugang won't suspect our intentions."
"Good. Get it done right away. Time to get a look at those brats' faces."
Punks dumping black rock tuna practically for free at a competitor.
What was their intent?
Even if it was done without a second thought, they deserved to face consequences.
'I'll teach them how scary society can be.'
A sharp aura rose from Yeon Ho-rang's body like a heat haze as he grinned slyly.
***
"Just how many zeros is that?"
The Archery Club was in an uproar.
[Commission to Prevent Gate Emergence at Gugang International Hotel]
The request they had rejected the day before had arrived again at the club.
But overnight, the commission fee had jumped nearly sixfold.
It was top-tier pay comparable to an active A-rank player.
"Don't be tempted. For an amount meant to lure in Palace Fortress, this is still ridiculously low!"
"But the added clause in the request says there's absolutely no need to involve Palace Fortress."
"You believe that? They'll subtly leak rumors to provoke Palace Fortress, obviously."
Some said they should accept the request, others said no.
The Archery Club members' heated debate dragged on.
Seeing no end in sight, the members began subtly glancing at one person.
Not Baek Do-jin, naturally, but Kang Jae-hyeok sitting right beside him.
No Jun-yeop asked.
"Hey, Jae-hyeok. You planning to reject this one too? The amount's too huge to turn down."
"Do you have the ability to complete the request?"
"......"
At Jae-hyeok's counterquestion, No Jun-yeop and the pro-acceptance faction fell silent.
So he was rejecting it after all.
The members, reading Jae-hyeok's intent, sighed in slight disappointment.
Even those in the opposition faction clicked their tongues.
Realizing they were about to miss out on an enormous commission fee brought a wave of regret.
"If No Jun-yeop and I teamed up, it might be doable."
"Uh...?"
Jae-hyeok slowly rose from the sofa.
Pulling out sunglasses and a mask from his pocket.
"J-Jae-hyeok!"
"Woooaaah!!"
The Archery Club members' faces lit up visibly as they cheered.
The entire club erupted just because one freshman had decided to head out.