The Information Guild's Expert
"Congratulations, Cadet Lee Ho-yeon. Stage 10 in nine seconds — that's a new record. First place in this live monster combat training is as good as yours."
"...Thank you."
She looked even happier about it than I was. What a genuinely kind professor.
"As expected of the Academy's rising star. Keep it up!"
"Yes..."
I climbed down from the arena floor with the professor's encouragement still ringing in my ears. To think that dummy had been the Nightmare of Hamel. It had looked unnervingly familiar, in hindsight.
"Ho-yeon! What the hell was that?!"
"H-Ho-yeon, that was amazing!"
The moment I stepped down, Lucy and Rumi were waiting to greet me.
"I got lucky. The matchup worked in my favor."
I would have won no matter what came out, of course — but I never would have posted a nine-second record. A monster specialized in mental attacks had been randomly selected, and a perk whose effects I barely understood turned out to grant immunity to mental attacks. There was no other word for it but luck.
"Even so, amazing is amazing!"
"She's right... I was celebrating just clearing Stage 8."
"You two will get stronger soon enough. We're all done — want to head out?"
All three of us had finished our exams. There was no reason to stick around the testing hall.
"Ehh? We're not gonna watch the others?"
"Uh... watch?"
"Obviously! Watching other people fight is the best part!"
Honestly, I couldn't have cared less. Then again, I didn't have anything else to do if I left early. Might as well play along.
I was about to say yes when Nam Da-eun caught the edge of my vision. The moment our eyes met, her pupils trembled. She spun on her heel and bolted from the exam hall.
Should I go after her?
Her face had gone deathly pale. She didn't look well at all...
"Come watch with us, okay?"
"S-Stay with us..."
"Uh..."
Lucy hooked her arm through mine and clung on, while Rumi gingerly took hold of my sleeve. With both of them asking, it was hard to say no. Besides, Nam Da-eun was long gone. I'd never catch her now.
"Alright. Let's watch together."
"Yay!"
She was probably just going to call her little sister anyway. She wasn't so fragile that something like this would break her. She'd held on just fine in the original story.
The moment Nam Da-eun arrived at Lee Ho-yeon's arena, reality stared her in the face.
The stopwatch glowing above the arena floor read nine seconds, and the cadets around her erupted in cheers at the new record.
"First place in the practicals might actually change this time, huh?"
"No kidding. Lee Ho-yeon's looking way too good."
"Nam Da-eun's strong, don't get me wrong... but she's not improving, you know?"
She paid no mind to the cadets' careless slander. She'd long since passed the point of caring about that kind of talk. The problem was that the professors were singing Lee Ho-yeon's praises too.
"Measured at Stage 8, and he's that strong..."
"His mana reserves are low, but his control is exceptional. That means his growth potential is enormous."
"The internet's going to explode again."
"I'm more worried about the guild scouts coming to observe tomorrow's one-on-one duels. Hah..."
"We'll have to leave that to Professor Kim Jin-hyeok."
Nam Da-eun's exceptional senses picked up every word the professors were exchanging in the distance. She turned her head this way and that, wrestling with an emotion she'd never felt before — and her eyes met Lee Ho-yeon's.
Lee Ho-yeon had just posted a record like that, and there he was, laughing with his friends as if nothing in the world could touch him.
And my life is riding on this exam.
Nam Da-eun burst out of the exam hall. Jealousy toward Lee Ho-yeon flooded every corner of her mind.
He was born with just as much talent as I was. So why does he look so happy? This talent is the reason my life is like this. How can he wear an expression like that? I wish everyone were as miserable as I am...
The dark thoughts piled on, one after another.
Slap!
Nam Da-eun struck her own cheek with her palm, scouring the ugly thoughts away.
"Hah. Don't stoop to ugly jealousy."
These pessimistic thoughts had been coming more often lately. Which was exactly when she needed to push herself even harder.
Nam Da-eun turned on her smartwatch and sent a message to her hospitalized little sister. Her only source of healing. The one place her heart could rest. Her sister, Nam Daehee.
Ever since she'd video-called without warning and gotten scolded for interrupting a bathroom trip, she'd always sent a message first.
The instant the reply came through, Nam Da-eun placed the video call.
"Sis! I missed you!"
"Yeah, me too. What'd you do today?"
"I drew a picture! Wanna see?"
Nam Daehee held up a drawing of two wobbly figures holding hands and smiling.
"It's you and me. Pretty, right?"
"...Yeah. It's beautiful. You've got a talent for drawing too, huh?"
Watching her little sister grin behind the sketchbook, Nam Da-eun refused to let the tension slip. If she loosened her grip even a little, the tears would come.
Every time she called Nam Daehee, her chest ached. Watching her baby sister — who should have been running around an elementary school playground with other kids — wither away in a hospital bed all day was agony. She hated herself for being able to do nothing. She hated this world.
And yet she kept living, one day at a time, for that child. She couldn't leave that girl behind and go on alone. If her sister wished it, she would slaughter every last member of the Buyer Guild at any moment and die right there beside her. That the thought came so naturally told her just how close she was to breaking.
"Sis! You're gonna get first place again, right? I'll draw a picture in advance!"
"...Yeah. Of course. First place, no matter what."
"Okay okay! Oh, the nurse is here. I'll call you back later, okay?"
"Alright. Send me a message."
"Love you, Sis! Mwah mwah."
"Yeah, I love you too..."
A dull disconnect tone cut through the line. The screen flickered to black, and Nam Da-eun hung her head.
"I have to take first place. I have to..."
To protect that face, she would do anything.
Nam Da-eun started tearing at her hair again.
Elise was in a foul mood. She hadn't broken through Stage 10 today either.
If I'd just drawn that magic circle a little faster at the end, I would have won...!
Stage 9 was always manageable, but the difficulty spiked so sharply at Stage 10 that she kept hitting a wall. Nam Da-eun had cleared Stage 10 in thirty seconds again, and when Elise checked Everyday from the car, she found that Lee Ho-yeon had cleared it in nine. The stress only piled higher.
On the bright side, she'd lost more narrowly than last time. That meant her odds of winning next time had gone up.
"Hahh..."
She was savoring the aroma of her wine, using it to bleed off the stress, when Sebas Chan spoke up from the driver's seat.
"Miss. I have an interim report on Cadet Lee Ho-yeon."
"...An interim report? Is there that much to investigate?"
She'd told him it was just a hunch and to keep it casual. Wasn't he taking this a little too seriously?
"Well, I got rather carried away once I started. The more I dug, the more there was. A bottomless well of a young man."
Sebas Chan kept his eyes on the road, both hands on the wheel, and continued his report without missing a beat.
"Before I begin, I must confess something rather embarrassing... I let my guard down during the investigation and was discovered. My apologies. A bodyguard has been assigned to him ever since."
"...You got caught by Lee Ho-yeon?"
Was that even possible? A mere cadet detecting the stealth of an Iris Guild executive...?
"Whether that was Cadet Lee Ho-yeon's own ability remains unclear. He may have had a collaborator from the start. What is certain is that he has backing."
"Hmm... And?"
Having a backer wasn't strange. A man of that caliber would have attracted someone's attention by now. Given his closeness with Mun Su-rin, the Academy itself was the most likely candidate — though it could just as easily be an individual like Baek A-young or Lim Sol looking out for him. Or an entirely different guild.
"First, I obtained information that he meets with the Saint on a regular basis for treatment."
"...Does he have some kind of chronic illness?"
If he needed to see the Saint regularly for treatment, how severe was the condition?
"Hard to say. They were already quite close before she was appointed as the school nurse. The relationship has been ongoing for about a month. And around the same time his relationship with the Saint began, Cadet Lee Ho-yeon changed his career path from swordsman to mage."
"A career change... that was just a publicity stunt."
Elise had seen the sudden career change herself. She'd dismissed it at the time, having no idea what kind of talent he was — and most cadets would have ignored that version of Lee Ho-yeon too.
"I agree. There's no way someone who'd only been studying magic for a month could demonstrate that level of ability. And yet his mana reserves appear far too low for someone who'd been practicing magic all along."
"True. Everyone's assuming it's because he only recently started magic."
"Yes. But that assumption doesn't hold up to begin with. Additionally, I discovered that he's been purchasing top-grade mana stones with funds from an unidentified source."
"Top-grade mana stones...? Why would a cadet buy those? They're less efficient than mid- or low-grade stones and far more expensive."
Unlike the mid- and low-grade mana stones used in daily life, top-grade stones were reserved for research and artifact crafting. Even active hunters rarely had occasion to handle them. They were hard to obtain, so supply was limited, but demand remained relatively constant — which meant the price kept climbing.
"The quantity is too small to be a market speculation play, and too large to be for personal research. And regardless of the price, he purchases them consistently — about once a week."
"I can't make sense of it at all."
A casual investigation she'd tossed his way had become this complicated. She was starting to regret digging into something she shouldn't have. She took a sip of the wine in her hand and waited for Sebas Chan's next words.
"This is merely my conjecture, but... as you well know, Miss, mana stones are used not only for artifact crafting and research, but also to treat mana disorders."
"Wait. Then, don't tell me..."
At Sebas Chan's words, a single diagnosis flashed through Elise's mind.
"Given that he consistently purchases mana stones, that his mana reserves are extremely low relative to his magical ability, and that he regularly meets with the Saint for treatment..."
"Congenital Mana Disorder..."
It was the same illness Elise suffered from. A condition in which the body was born unable to store sufficient mana, requiring mana stones to supplement any magical use.
"Correct. I believe Cadet Lee Ho-yeon was born with the same rare condition as yourself, Miss Elise."
"I never would have imagined. Impressive, Sebas Chan."
Piecing together scraps of seemingly insignificant information to arrive at a conclusion like that. It was the skill of an information guild executive, through and through. Sebas Chan's claws hadn't dulled in the slightest, no matter how many years had passed.
"Thank you. And, well..."
Sebas Chan hesitated over whether to mention Lee Ho-yeon's relationships with women. But ending it here felt incomplete. Decades of accumulated instinct were screaming at him. There was more. Lee Ho-yeon was hiding something enormous.
"Is there something else?"
Elise found herself eager for whatever Sebas Chan would say next. Learning one of her rival's weaknesses was already a coup. And there was more?
"No. Nothing I'm certain of yet. I'll investigate thoroughly by this weekend and report again."
"Alright. Do your best."
"Yes. I won't be discovered this time. You have my word."
"Yeah, yeah."
Elise felt a strange sense of kinship with Lee Ho-yeon.