75. Keep Your Friends Close, Your Enemies Closer
75. Keep Your Friends Close, Your Enemies Closer
75. Keep Your Friends Close, Your Enemies Closer
Room Cafe.
After that day,
I couldn't bring myself to say the word "room" in front of Ban Ha-na.
It seemed that the room cafe remained the worst place for Ban Ha-na.
The academy hallway during break time.
The voices of passing students reached us.
"The dorm rooms are just studio apartments, so they feel kind of small, don't you think?"
"Yeah. They're okay for living alone, but they feel a little lacking."
Indeed, the dorms were suitable for one person.
But Ban Ha-na and I were in a kind of semi-cohabitation.
It was a bit cramped for two.
Ban Ha-na, who heard those passing students' voices,
freaked out and covered her ears.
"Eek... r-room! No way...!"
"...Sigh."
I sighed and glared at Yu Ha-yeon.
How did she make her like this?
Ban Ha-na, who freaked out at just the word "room."
The culprit of that incident.
Yu Ha-yeon answered my glare.
"Han Si-jun, do you want to go to a room cafe again today?"
"...No."
I wasn't as bad as Ban Ha-na, but I'd recently come to hate room cafes too.
Lee Seol-ha going on a rampage after seeing me shrunken.
Yu Ha-yeon forcibly locking me and Ban Ha-na up.
Two major incidents.
I had plenty of reason to hate that place.
"But why did the chairwoman call you?"
"Ah, about that."
The reason I was out in the hallway, even though I usually stay put during break,
was because of what Shin Si-hwa told me.
'Han Si-jun. You didn't cause trouble again, did you? The chairwoman asked you to drop by during break... You're really not up to anything, right?'
Shin Si-hwa glared at me with suspicion.
She was my homeroom teacher, but she didn't trust me.
The love triangle between me, Yu Ha-yeon, and Ban Ha-na.
The day Yu Ha-yeon kidnapped me.
Since she had witnessed that scene firsthand, it was only natural that she didn't trust me.
As I recalled memories of Shin Si-hwa,
Yu Ha-yeon got annoyed and asked me.
"No...! So why are you going to the chairwoman's office?"
"...I don't know."
"What...?"
Actually, I did know.
The reason the chairwoman had called me was simple.
Either the weapon she'd been preparing for me had arrived, or she'd caught the academy spy I'd told her about.
I gave Yu Ha-yeon a vague answer.
"Probably what I asked for last time arrived. That's why she called me."
"Hmm... Really? Then I wonder if she also granted my request..."
"...What kind of request did you make?"
"It's a se-cret!"
Yu Ha-yeon raised the corners of her lips, saying it was a secret.
Well, she probably asked for something meaningful in her own way.
I was confident she hadn't asked for anything needlessly weird,
so I headed to the chairwoman's office.
The chairwoman's office was a bit of a walk from the classrooms where students were.
Break time at Hero Academy was 25 minutes.
Having used up a fifth of it, I waved to Yu Ha-yeon and Ban Ha-na.
"I'll be back. Go to the classroom first."
"No, we're going to stop by the snack shop. Right, shorty?"
"...Si-jun. Get her off me."
Ban Ha-na was forced into a shoulder hug by Yu Ha-yeon.
She was glancing uncomfortably at Yu Ha-yeon's arm.
'What could happen?'
After pulling that stunt at the room cafe.
Is she going to crush Ban Ha-na's spirit again?
I believed in my childhood friend, Yu Ha-yeon.
"S-Si-jun...! Help—"
"Let's go! I'll buy you something tasty, shorty."
Yu Ha-yeon and Ban Ha-na headed off to the snack shop with the shoulder hug.
I watched them disappear, then immediately knocked on the chairwoman's door.
Knock knock-
—Come in.
A voice sounded after the knock.
I confidently opened the door and entered.
"Hello, Chairwoman."
"...It's been a while, Han Si-jun. You don't look well. Have you been having a hard time lately?"
"Hard time... Not particularly."
Yu Ha-yeon, Ban Ha-na, Lee Seol-ha, Na Yu-na.
The Hero Association, the club, Episode 3, and clearing the V. AGE world.
My current situation was overflowing with hardships.
But I couldn't say it was hard in front of Chairwoman Shin Hye-young, a former S-rank.
So I sat down as if nothing was wrong and faced her.
"That's good to hear, Han Si-jun."
A smile spread, revealing wrinkles on her face.
Despite her considerable age, she seemed to have fewer wrinkles than her peers.
'Money really is the best.'
As I looked at the chairwoman, she got down to business.
"Han Si-jun, you remember the request you made? You said you wanted a firearm imbued with magic power."
"Yes, I did."
It seemed the chairwoman had called me to give me the reward for clearing the gate.
With a benevolent smile, she placed a box from the floor onto the desk.
Thud!
Perhaps because it was meticulously packaged, the box looked quite heavy.
The chairwoman opened the box and took out its contents.
"If you use firearms, you must know this handgun."
"Of course I know. It's a revolver."
The Desert Eagle supplied by the academy is a semi-automatic pistol.
It's convenient for shooting and has the advantage of fast reloading.
'But its power is pretty lousy...'
Unfortunately, in the V. AGE world,
the Desert Eagle was the worst among modern weapons.
The upside to fast reloading is that you can fire in rapid succession.
But if you shot it at a villain or a Magic Beast, it wouldn't do any damage at all, because its firepower was weak.
It might be good in that other world, but in this world, it was utterly useless.
The chairwoman handed me the revolver she had taken out of the box.
The name of this revolver was one I knew.
'Colt Revolver.'
There are many Colt revolver models, but the one in my hands was the King Cobra.
A faint magic power was leaking from the revolver.
The chairwoman told me about that magic power.
"Look at the cylinder, and you'll understand."
"The cylinder?"
I immediately opened the revolver's cylinder.
The chambers were empty, but when I lightly held the gun, magic bullets materialized and filled the empty spaces.
'It's chargeable.'
It charges magic power and channels it into the cylinder.
Finally, it fills the empty spots with magic to create magic bullets.
A charging method that eliminates the need for reloading.
I marveled inwardly.
'This is totally made for me... isn't it?'
A revolver that seemed like it was born for me, someone without magic power.
Seeing my satisfied expression, the chairwoman spoke.
"It was incredibly expensive. I would have been better off with the gate reward money."
"Haha... Thank you..."
Indeed, this was far too expensive an item to give to a student who cleared an A-rank Gate.
Anyone who would customize an obscure revolver like this must have money to burn.
Even for the chairwoman, giving me something with such collectible value must have been a difficult decision.
I was curious about such generous compensation.
"By any chance, did you catch the spy I mentioned last time?"
"...You're frighteningly sharp about some things."
"I hear that often."
Though I'm a bit slow when it comes to women.
I could confidently say I was quite sharp about other matters.
"Yes. The information you gave about it being a woman in her thirties was correct. After investigating all of them, we found one who had been leaking information to the Association."
Chairwoman Shin Hye-young said with a bitter expression.
Even though she was a spy, she seemed to be someone the chairwoman had trusted considerably.
'She must be deeply hurt.'
Cutting out someone you trusted must be quite painful.
But if there's a rat, you absolutely have to get rid of it.
She had made a purely rational judgment.
The chairwoman continued as if nothing had happened.
"Ahem, anyway, thanks to you, Han Si-jun, we were able to catch the spy who had infiltrated the academy. I'm grateful for that."
However, despite her words, the chairwoman was eyeing me with slight suspicion.
It was suspicious for a mere student to know about a spy.
Her reaction was understandable, given someone she trusted had turned out to be a mole.
'...The Association won't be shaken by just this much.'
It dealt a blow, but unfortunately, the Association wouldn't collapse just from catching one spy.
They would attempt to insert another spy again,
and continue to act for their own benefit.
"Chairwoman."
"Yes, Han Si-jun. You may speak."
"I was thinking I could give you one more piece of information..."
"...I'll hear it first."
I could boast that my knowledge, gained from being a veteran player of V. AGE, was quite extensive.
The Association was expected to keep harassing Yu Ha-yeon and me.
I had to act to ensure they couldn't interfere with us properly.
So I revealed one piece of information about the Association to the chairwoman:
the fact that the heroes affiliated with the Association were doping,
and the identity of the drug and its supplier.
Upon hearing that, Chairwoman Shin Hye-young's eyes widened and she asked,
"How do you know this, Han Si-jun...?"
"That's..."
Because I know the future.
I couldn't say that, so I vaguely claimed I overheard it somewhere.
Knowing the future and acting on it was a tremendous advantage for me, who had fallen into this world.
***
Someone who knows the future and acts.
I might have to take that back after all.
"...What are you two doing?"
"Huh? What about?"
"..."
Yu Ha-yeon answered with a smile.
She had her arm slung around Ban Ha-na, who was sipping mint chocolate milk through a straw.
Yu Ha-yeon asked me.
"Why? Is it weird for us to be close?"
Of course it is.
Ban Ha-na looked uncomfortable.
But she was drinking her beverage without a word.
Seeing the slight twitch of her lips, mint chocolate seemed to be to her taste.
Yu Ha-yeon turned her head and said to Ban Ha-na,
"We've decided to become friends. Right, Ha-na?"
"...When did I ever say that..."
"Right?"
"...Yeah."
Ban Ha-na nodded with her lips pouting.
There was probably some coercion involved.
Looking at Yu Ha-yeon, I felt a chill run down my spine.
'Yu Ha-yeon. She was a scarier woman than I thought...'
Even though I'd known her since childhood, Yu Ha-yeon was a rather ruthless woman.
To show her superiority, she made me kiss another girl,
and she was trying to befriend Ban Ha-na, whom she considered an enemy.
Even by common sense, she was a ruthless woman.
'...There aren't any other sides of her I don't know about, right...?'
My childhood friend, whom I'd known for a long time.
Hoping there weren't any hidden sides to her I didn't know,
I stared intently at Yu Ha-yeon, who was laughing with her arm around Ban Ha-na.
It was a bright, innocent smile, as if she were plotting something behind the scenes.