For Whom the Bell Tolls
The bell would toll. #052
Mari, Juhwan, Chaeyul. His grandchildren were scattered in every direction. Normally they would have been at home or at the academy, but his last announcement had changed everything.
It was a bet disguised as a declaration, intended to make them get their act together. The announcement that the person who graduated most successfully from Palaestra Academy while receiving the least family support would be granted ten percent of the company shares had been more than enough to spark real change. No—the idea of handing over shares he had guarded so jealously was an irresistible temptation. To Cheon Mari it was a birthright she refused to surrender. To the rest, it was a jewel they had never even been allowed to glimpse.
Juhwan and Chaeyul’s parents in particular were convinced this was their only chance to obtain any shares. After all, they knew they were hopelessly outclassed by their nephew.
That was why their children now endured far heavier training than before. Their practical experience, too, had to be completed with as little outside help as possible. They scarcely had time to breathe. It was brutal. Exhausting.
Cheon Donghyuk regarded the sight with satisfaction. The extreme measures had at least reduced their spending and forced them to quit drugs.
I’ll need to observe a little longer, but…
Effort now did not guarantee the same results once they entered the academy. He had no intention of judging them on their current behavior alone.
First, the youngest daughter, Hong Chaeyul. She was practicing her bow in an open training field. She looked like any ordinary archer, but recent reports claimed she could already clear F-rank dungeons without difficulty.
She should pass without issue. And she’ll probably do fine once she’s inside.
Next, the second son, Cheon Juhwan. He was leaving the library after finishing his note-taking. As a pure magic major he had neglected physical training, which left him somewhat lacking for safe dungeon runs.
He’ll probably pass. Whether he can adapt once he’s there is another question.
Finally, the eldest daughter, Cheon Mari. She sat on a bench, quietly sipping coffee. It looked lazy, but after years of relentless effort she had earned the right to rest.
Soon Kang Sian emerged from one of the buildings. Cheon Mari smiled and said something to him. Whatever it was, it made Kang Sian grab both her cheeks and stretch them. She must have said something strange again.
No real need to worry.
They would be attending the academy together anyway. Given the terms of the bet, their rivalry would likely mellow rather than intensify. And if Cheon Mari’s personality improved even a little, he would be satisfied. In truth, the bet had been aimed at her from the beginning.
Of course, it would be good if the other grandchildren improved as well. At least then no one could call them a hopeless family.
“I pray you all learn something at the academy.”
Here, the bell would toll only for those who overcame themselves. Cheon Donghyuk sincerely hoped that day would come for every one of them.
The night was dark. The world glittered like a sea of stars, everything stretching up to touch the sky.
Lim Hana and her friends stood in the sky lounge, gazing out at the cityscape. The view of this hometown she had grown tired of looked like something that could only be described as a mecha born of magic engineering. The magic stones hunters brought back generated endless wealth, and that wealth supported all of Hwanghae Province and the surrounding regions. Before long, Lim Hana and her friends would become the pillars holding up their corner of the world.
They should have felt good.
Yet Lim Hana, gnawing mechanically on Madness Herb, felt anything but bright. No—her mood was downright horrific. It was as if she had realized she had made a fatal mistake. As if memories she was supposed to forget had clawed their way back to the surface. An overwhelming sense of alienation flooded her.
This had been going on for months. Even here, in a place where she was supposed to be enjoying herself, the feeling refused to leave. She had tried chewing even more Madness Herb, but the result was the same. The mental agony was constant, and the drug’s resistance seemed to rise without limit.
In the end she clutched her head and buried her face in her arms.
“Something wrong?”
A sleek-looking young man approached. His name was Kim Yujae—Lim Hana’s longtime friend and current boyfriend. Dressed with almost nauseating neatness, he offered her a drink. She shook her head, clearly in no mood.
“Nothing’s wrong. I just… feel off.”
“Don’t tell me it’s because of that guy again?”
That guy. There was only one person in the world Lim Hana ever referred to that way.
“Kang Sian?”
“Well… yeah.”
“I knew it.”
“I keep getting suspicious, so whenever I have time I try to get close and check on him. But the moment he sees me he runs away.”
“Huh.”
“I heard he’s trying to become a hunter… I’m worried he might try to get revenge on us later.”
“Don’t worry. Didn’t I already tell you? That guy has no talent for it.”
And honestly, he didn’t even seem to have the will. It might sound baseless, but there was clear evidence. The people secretly monitoring Kang Sian had provided it. Although they had hired a cheap detective agency because of the cost, the information they sent was enough to convince Kim Yujae completely.
Kang Sian could never be their rival.
“He enters gates with dozens of Nartika hunters and comes out without a single scratch. It’s obvious.”
A minor hunter should have been injured at least once while fighting monsters. Unless Kang Sian possessed some special talent, that was how it had to be.
“But they say he’s training at Nartika…”
“I thought so at first too, but that wasn’t it. Inside, he doesn’t train at all. He just lounges around.”
Rumors said he only watched movies. Or he would open a laptop and peck at something. It was obviously just games. In short, he was a lazy, degenerate human being who didn’t even make an effort.
“And that bitch he hangs around with—what was her name, Cheon Mari? Anyway, it doesn’t look like their relationship is all that great.”
“It’s not?”
“Swearing is the baseline, and they fight like crazy, apparently.”
It was obvious. Kang Sian clinging to Cheon Mari, and Cheon Mari abusing her authority over him. Since Kang Sian desperately needed to become a hunter, he endured it all. A classic parasite latching onto a rich friend.
“If anything, he’s basically her errand boy.”
“Yeah, given that crazy bitch’s personality, it makes sense.”
Her family had gone to great trouble to arrange a blind date, only for her to deliver a chair shot in under a minute. Claiming it was a White Christmas and spraying a fire extinguisher all through the school hallway. Challenging a hunter aspirant who had badmouthed one of her company employees to a duel and beating him half to death. Getting caught bribing teachers because she wanted to be student council president and being disqualified. Snapping the spines of the drug-using teenagers who hung around her neighborhood.
Cheon Mari’s notoriety was fairly well known. Rumors even circulated in secret that some nameless chaebol heir and hunter aspirant was running around doing insane things. The only saving grace was that most people didn’t realize the culprit was Cheon Mari. Only those who had done proper background checks knew the truth hidden behind the curtain.
“And how much of an errand boy is he? They say he drags her to a hotel every couple of days.”
“Ha, what a fucking criminal.”
Lim Hana wrinkled her face in disgust. She never once questioned whether everything they were saying was actually true.
“Even if none of that were true, he’s still just Nartika. Their guild can’t even compare to ours.”
“True, that much is right.”
Kim Yujae turned to look at the far edge of the city, toward the massive industrial complex beyond it. Nartika’s headquarters stood there. The radiance of that giant conglomerate and multifaceted corporation was like a colossal lighthouse. It dwarfed the guild run by Kim Yujae’s parents. Naturally the money they earned was on a completely different scale.
Yet Kim Yujae felt no intimidation. On the contrary, he took pride in the fact that even a corporation like that was disastrously incompetent in one particular field.
“They’re just potion shop people. Even if both of them become hunters, they won’t be able to touch us.”
It was mockery rooted in the fact that Nartika had begun as a neighborhood potion store. At the same time, it was a roundabout jab at how Nartika’s hunter division couldn’t even compete with startups. How could a major corporation record worse operating profits in the hunter sector than a certain baseball team famous for proving there was always a floor beneath the floor? It was a pathetic reality that even the heads of small, barely viable guilds could laugh at.
In a situation like this, if the drug dealers of Yakpari Park and their drug-friends joined forces? Then they could reduce Nartika to nothing in the hunter field. Of course, if Nartika really fell that far, the company’s desperate retaliation would probably turn Yakpari Park into Futaba Park as well… but such reactions from a giant corporation weren’t given much consideration.
This was nothing more than an anesthetic to soothe his girlfriend’s mind. Reality or not, it was merely pretty rhetoric meant to help her escape the present. Some might call it psychological interference. Others would call it natural gaslighting. Kim Yujae was fully prepared to dismiss any outside criticism as slander from hostile forces.
In his mind, a true man was someone willing to say anything to comfort a woman’s heart. At least that was how Kim Yujae saw it, and that was why he considered Kang Sian—who had fed Lim Hana “nonsense”—a cheap, low-class man.
That damn gigolo bastard.
The moment the face floated into his mind his mood soured, so the insult came out in a slightly softened form. He gently reassured the anxious Lim Hana.
“Once we enter Palaestra Academy, we won’t even have to think about them.”
“……”
“The distance alone is huge, and they’ll be in another country.”
Palaestra Academy spanned American territory in Puerto Rico and the world of Shareltea. There was no way someone with Kang Sian’s pathetic talent could ever make it there. If he did somehow get in, it would mean everything had been wrong from the very beginning.
But did that even make sense?
What, he actually had talent as a hunter and they were real friends, not just him leeching off her? Ha, no chance.
Kim Yujae laughed at the memory of the boy who had beaten him long ago. Though his pride had been trampled and he had been forced to swallow his rage, he had ultimately become the victor by winning Lim Hana as his girlfriend. They had not yet gone all the way, but if they entered the academy together that would soon become reality. Once he achieved his goal, he would make sure to rub it in Kang Sian’s face and stamp him with the label of loser for all to see.
Kang Sian had failed to achieve anything. He himself stood on the verge of obtaining everything.
A middle-class family with nothing but a name should pay the price for daring to touch a rich household.
A smile crept across his lips. He looked at Lim Hana, whose eyes had grown less cloudy, and stroked her pink hair.
“Our era begins now.”
Kim Yujae believed it without the slightest doubt. He did not see that it was nothing more than the empty delusion of a drug addict.