1154. Academy's Savior
Makina, still in her spirit form, asked, What do we do now?
I looked around the musty warehouse. The interior was bare and empty. Through the window, a man kept watch on us.
My mana was sealed—the cuffs' doing. That meant I couldn't even materialize Makina.
Can you get outside the barrier?
I'll try.
Makina flew toward the window, only to bounce off as if something solid blocked her. She pounded at the barrier with her feet and fists before giving up and drifting back to my side.
No good. We're completely trapped.
They set the barrier up pretty thoroughly.
In less than an hour they'd raised something strong enough to keep a spirit out. Typical academy instructors.
Are we just going to die like this?
...You sound weirdly cheerful about it.
I never once thought I'd be free if you died!
If I die, you don't get out of this dungeon either. You vanish right along with it.
Makina's face went pale.
F-for real?
I didn't actually know. In the original, the player just restarted after dying. It never explained what happened to anyone left behind.
Wh-what do we do? We can't actually disappear like this... There's a new game coming out next month that looks amazing... Hey, Seong Yujin! Get up! This is no time to be sleeping! Wake up!!
Makina made a racket. At least she wasn't materialized—she couldn't actually touch me.
I squeezed my eyes shut.
Just like the last dungeon, this one would collapse eventually too.
Creeeak.
"Sleeping pretty peacefully, aren't you."
The one who opened the door and walked in was Seong Ha-ri. Spear in one hand, she strode over with confident steps, pulled a key from her skirt pocket, and unlocked the cuffs.
Auntie! I knew you'd come save us!
Makina, who'd been dozing beside me, bounced into the air. Seong Ha-ri smiled and waved at her.
"How'd you get in? The instructors were guarding the entrance."
I rolled my stiff wrists as I asked.
"I told you earlier today. Pure combat power, I'm stronger than the instructors."
I glanced toward the entrance. A man lay collapsed on the floor—she'd knocked the instructor out cold to get inside. And standing at the doorway was another female student.
"I still don't understand. Did it really have to go this far?"
A woman with long dark-brown hair. Kang Jiyoung—the one who would eventually become principal of Maruhan Academy. She looked exactly like the Kang Jiyoung I knew.
Looking closer, she's shorter and her chest is smaller.
Still, that solid, commanding air of a strong-willed woman was the same.
"Thanks for the help, Jiyoung. I'll take full responsibility. I was planning to quit the academy anyway. Figured I'd cause one last incident before I left."
"...This isn't just 'an incident.' What you did is a clear crime. The Hero Association could put a bounty on you."
"If they want to, let them."
Kang Jiyoung let out a sigh. She looked at me as I got to my feet, then turned away.
"Your choice. Do what you want."
"...Thanks, Jiyoung."
"......"
Kang Jiyoung vanished without another word.
"Where's Ryu Hana?"
"Ryu Hana? Oh, the girl who was next to you, oppa? No idea. Don't you know?"
"...Let's get outside first."
We left the warehouse, stepped past the unconscious instructor, and headed for the rear mountain.
"You managed to break the barrier."
"Jiyoung helped. She's not great at magic, but she's good at analyzing and dismantling barriers. She got the cuff key too. She's also really good at planning operations."
"Not great at magic? She just dismantled the warehouse barrier."
"She says dismantling barriers has nothing to do with actual magic skill."
"...If she says so, I guess that's how it is."
Once we reached the rear mountain I activated Spirit Eye and Heavenly Eye, piercing the darkness as I searched for Ryu Hana.
With her personality she'd probably stick close by... but I don't see her.
I spent more than ten minutes looking and still found nothing. I scratched my head.
"Oppa. Start figuring out how we're getting out. Once time passes the teachers will track us. Going out the front is impossible."
"Climbing the wall won't be easy either. There's a barrier."
"Right. You already know."
I sent Makina to scout the academy. With Spirit Eye I could share her vision. We combed the place thoroughly, but Ryu Hana was nowhere to be found.
Did she leave the academy? For her that might've been the rational choice...
Staying would have risked capture.
"Hana's gone. Doesn't look like she's at the academy."
Makina returned and, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, latched onto Seong Ha-ri's shoulder.
I nodded and summoned a spatial transfer scroll. With a scroll on hand, leaving the academy was trivial.
"You're really coming with us?"
"If I wasn't planning to, I wouldn't have rescued you, oppa. You're not thinking of ditching me here, are you?"
"...What if I left you behind?"
"I'd chase you down. Then beat the crap out of you until you regretted it."
"Just imagining it gives me chills."
I handed her a spatial transfer scroll.
A week had passed. I was still inside the dungeon.
Now I needed a way out.
Laplace. That bastard's the mastermind. To escape the dungeon I have to find him.
Finding him was no easy task. Unlike the previous dungeon, this time he stayed perfectly hidden and never showed himself.
Ryu Hana vanishing is probably his doing too. What happened to her?
Had Laplace killed her? Or had she finished her trial and left? There was no way to know. The former was more likely, but I hoped for the latter.
"Uuuugh. Using your palace... using your palace like that, you little shit..."
Makina mumbled in her sleep beside me. A machine spirit dreaming about gaming, apparently.
I sat up and looked around.
A motel.
I was a fugitive now. We never stayed in one place long, drifting from spot to spot.
Click!
The door opened and Seong Ha-ri walked in.
"Oppa! The sun's high in the sky. Still sleeping... oh, you're up."
She came in wearing a white T-shirt and jeans. She had a wanted notice on her too. My head carried a one-billion bounty; hers was two hundred million. Unlike me—who could die without consequence—hers came with the condition that she had to be taken alive.
The silver lining was that they hadn't announced the warrants on TV or radio, so daily life wasn't too disrupted. Ordinary people didn't go around hunting wanted posters.
"What's got you in such a good mood this early?"
"I got a job from the broker. We don't have to worry about running out of money."
Seong Ha-ri sat on the bed and pulled out a document. I'd thought it was a request form, but it wasn't—just instructions on how to make contact with the client.
"This one's an escort job. Guard the client for a week. Pay is a hundred million a day, seven hundred million total. Insane, right?"
"They're giving a job like that to us? Feels fishy."
We'd only met the broker five days ago. No trust, nothing.
"Even he acknowledges our skills. Broker's cut is twenty percent. What actually lands in our pockets is only eighty million a day."
"...Split two ways that's forty million. Now that I think about it, not that expensive... Who's the client?"
"Some gangster based up in North Hamgyong. Apparently stuck between Chinese and Russian mafia and having a rough time."
"Any other info?"
"None. We're supposed to meet the client in person and talk it out. If it feels off we can just refuse. If we take it, we have to be in North Hamgyong by eight tonight."
Seong Ha-ri spoke with a strangely excited edge. First time getting a hundred-million-level job—she was hyped.
I stared at her as she chattered and checked her favorability.
Fifty-five was the level where romantic feelings kicked in.
I hadn't done anything special, yet her favorability had climbed this high. Strange.
"Oppa? Why've you been staring like that? Still half-asleep?"
I grabbed her shoulders and pulled her toward me. The distance vanished in an instant; our breaths mixed. Seong Ha-ri's face flushed red. She didn't resist—not because she couldn't, but because she chose not to.
"......"
"......"
We traded quiet looks.
Her eyelashes fluttered. She closed her eyes and tilted her chin up slightly. What she was waiting for was obvious.
She's waiting like this... of course I have to give it to her.
I set a hand on her firm waist and kissed her. My tongue pushed past her soft lips and into her mouth. Tongues tangled. I marked the inside of her mouth with my saliva.
The hand on her waist slid to her right side and stroked her. Seong Ha-ri flinched. That was all.
...Right. The Seong Ha-ri in front of me is a fake.
The real one would have reacted far more intensely. Feeling a strange sense of disappointment, I reached for her ass. Through the jeans I felt a well-shaped, springy curve.
"Hik?!"
Seong Ha-ri broke the kiss and scrambled back. Her face was red enough to burst, lips glistening wet.
"What's wrong?"
"Ah, no. That just felt a little... not right."
I caught the hand of the Seong Ha-ri trying to flee. Rising from the bed, I pushed her down onto it instead. She blinked up at me from her back.
I climbed over her. In that pinning posture our lips drew close again.
I kissed her before she could speak. My hand went to her waist, fingers already hooked under the hem of her white T-shirt, ready to lift.
"Haaahm... You've been so noisy since earlier... Huh? Are you two having sex?"
Makina rubbed her eyes as she sat up and asked with pure innocence. Startled, Seong Ha-ri shoved me off and shot upright.
"I-I should go get lunch! I'll grab takeout. Wait here!"
Seong Ha-ri fled.
I clicked my tongue and glared at Makina. If she hadn't woken up, Seong Ha-ri and I would already have been tangled together.
"You clueless little—"
"What? Why? What!"
Makina acted completely unbothered.
"If you'd just stayed asleep we would've already had sex. Couldn't you hold it a little longer? Is that so hard?"
"Why do I have to pretend to sleep?! I'm the one who's wronged here! You two could just do it somewhere else!"
"Not even a shred of reflection, just talking back."
Thwack!
"Ack!!"
I flicked her on the forehead. Makina's eyes welled up; she shot into the air and threw a kick at me. I raised a hand, blocked it, and grinned.
"Rebellion? Fine. Let's go."
"Die, Seong Yujin!!"
Makina and I scuffled until Seong Ha-ri came back.