A Person of Interest (1)
The pounding on my door started early, shattering the quiet of the morning.
The sudden appearance of an event like this put my guard up instinctively.
What kind of event is it this time?
Though, knowing my luck, it might not be an event at all — it might just be a crisis.
There was even a chance it was an assassin sent by Black Moon. After all, one of the executives involved in yesterday's abduction of Kim Isabel was still at large within the organization.
Not that the intel could have leaked through Yoon Selena, probably.
Even if Jin Soorin could cast hallucination magic from a distance, there was no way for her to know what happened in that underground tunnel that day. Not unless someone told her directly.
As of right now, the only people who knew what happened down there were me, Kim Isabel, Cha Eunju, Park Cheonho, and someone from the Chairman's side.
Still, even after everything — after the physical relationship we'd shared — I couldn't deny that Yoon Selena remained the most suspicious woman of the bunch.
"Student Lee Seonho! Are you not in?!"
"...Ah, yes! One moment, please!"
...Just in case, I slipped the SIG pistol into my pocket. I had no desire to get into a shootout in the dormitory first thing in the morning, but you never could be too careful.
-Click.
"...Sorry about that. Who is it?"
"Regarding the incident yesterday in the basement of the abandoned building on the academy's north side — the Chairman wishes to speak with you, Student Lee Seonho."
"......Pardon?"
"We will escort you to Cheonmu Hall. Please get ready and come out as quickly as you can."
...Oh. So it's just a summons from the Chairman.
That was what I thought, relieved — but it was too soon to let my guard down. After all, the most common method Black Moon used to abduct people like Kim Isabel was exactly this: luring them somewhere under false pretenses.
And if it really does mean a one-on-one meeting with Baek Young-ui, that's its own problem.
I wasn't exactly a villain... no, to be precise, I was only the villain of the original story — I wasn't running around committing villainy in this world. Even so, by ordinary people's standards, the things I got up to were plenty dangerous.
If Baek Young-ui, who displayed unnervingly sharp insight every time she appeared in the story, had specifically asked to meet with me, there had to be a reason.
"...Understood. I'll just change and be right out."
"Very well. Please hurry as much as possible."
Well, it wasn't as if knowing all that gave me the option to refuse.
Turning down the Chairman's summons because Baek Young-ui intimidated me would create problems of its own, so the right move was to follow along quietly for now.
Come to think of it, she looks like one of the secretaries I met with Baek Young-ui in the basement yesterday.
Hard to be sure, with the sunglasses on.
With those thoughts running through my head, I began getting ready for school a little earlier than usual.
⁎ ⁎ ⁎
As it turned out, the person who came to fetch me really was the Chairman's secretary.
The same expressionless face as Baek Young-ui's. The same personality that displayed no personal emotion whatsoever outside of business.
And above all, the car parked in front of the dormitory was, to anyone's eyes, Baek Young-ui's own. If Jin Soorin were really setting a trap for me, she would hardly have come rolling up in a flashy foreign luxury car that drew attention from a mile away.
"...Am I the only one going? Not the others?"
"The Chairman stated that since you are their representative, Student Lee Seonho, only you are to be summoned."
"...I see."
Was it truly just a matter of me being the group's representative?
Or was there some other reason she needed to speak with me alone?
While I turned the possibilities over, the black luxury car carried us to Cheonmu Hall at the center of the academy, and even after stepping out of the vehicle, I ascended to the fourth floor under the secretary's escort.
-Knock knock.
"Madam Chairman, Student Lee Seonho has arrived."
"...Tell him to come in."
-Click.
"You may go in."
"......Right."
Was the atmosphere deliberately engineered this way to make everyone who entered feel intimidated?
Stepping into the Chairman's office under that peculiar tension, my eyes landed on a blonde girl seated at the desk at the far end of the room.
-Tap, tap.
"......"
-Tap-tap-tap, tap.
She'd told me to come in, yet now that I actually had, she wasn't sparing me so much as a glance — completely absorbed in typing on the keyboard sitting on her desk.
Only when I carefully approached her seat did Baek Young-ui finally lift her head, slowly, and meet my eyes.
"So you're Student Lee Seonho."
"......Yes, Madam Chairman."
How should I put it — a serene surface, dyed through with madness.
Going by appearance alone, she looked like a little girl drowning in a suit far too grown-up for her body... but her eyes carried a savage charisma, the kind that made you certain she'd killed more than a few people.
...And in all likelihood, she genuinely had. Considering the terrorist organizations Baek Young-ui had exterminated in her prime, the body count probably ran into three digits.
"You were the representative of the students who distinguished themselves subduing the intruders in the basement of that abandoned building a while back, were you not?"
"That's correct."
"The intruders you subdued appear to have been a human trafficking ring that slipped in from outside the academy. It seems the crime was committed with the awakened abilities of Student Kim Isabel and Student Yoon Selena as the targets."
"...Is that so."
...So she isn't going to take anything at face value.
It wasn't as if she was being cagey just because I wasn't the protagonist. That was simply the kind of person Baek Young-ui was.
"You'll also remember that one of those intruders was conspicuously large."
"Ah, yes. I remember him."
"That individual was dangerous enough to carry a bounty on his head. The reward money generated from his capture will be deposited into your account, Student Lee Seonho, so you may fill out this paperwork later and submit it on the first floor of Cheonmu Hall."
"...A dangerous man, then."
"Yes. His awakened ability was of the type that reinforced his body by flooding his muscles with mana. Things could have gone badly if you hadn't kept calm and targeted his eyes, Student Lee Seonho."
...Is it just me, or did that last remark sound suspiciously like 'how exactly did you know to aim for the eyes alone?'
She was pretty and cute, sure — but meeting her gaze like this, just the two of us, she felt like nothing so much as a jar packed full of scorpions and centipedes.
Some strange instinct told me there was probably a lump of gold inside that jar... but reaching a hand in was the kind of thing only a lunatic would do.
"I'm glad I practiced my marksmanship, anticipating something like this might happen. Being in the Support Department, this is about the only way I can fight."
"I imagine so. This is the first year I've ever seen the second rank of the cohort come out of the Combat Support Department. The way the other students accept you as their representative without complaint, too... you seem to have quite a talent for drawing people in, Student Lee Seonho."
"...That's just because the others are kind."
"......I suppose that may be part of it."
Dangerous.
My instincts were screaming warnings in my head, nonstop.
Even if what I'd subdued were Black Moon terrorists, I had leaned a little too hard on my foreknowledge during the Jung Seokhoon incident.
It was only natural for the suspicion of someone of Baek Young-ui's caliber to turn toward me.
"Come to think of it, you also resolved the monster wave incident at Hanareum Park recently, didn't you, Student Lee Seonho?"
"Yes. I'd gone out with a friend and a friendly senior, and we happened to get caught up in it... fortunately, my senior and my friend had excellent abilities, so it worked out."
"And several days before your enrollment, you also contributed to purging a terrorist organization at Neverland."
"We happened to be heading there for a bit of fun with friends after the entrance exam. Thanks to some other friends we ran into by chance, we managed to come out of it without getting hurt."
"...I see."
...Judging by her reaction, she suspects me one hundred percent.
Even I had to admit I'd been doing far too many conspicuous things lately. And when the same pattern repeated itself three, four times over, there was no helping Baek Young-ui's suspicion landing on me.
Being in the Combat Support Department only made it worse.
If 'Seo Woo-jin' had resolved these incidents, they'd simply be the proud achievements of a solid Swordsmanship Department student wielding his awakened ability to the fullest. But when 'Lee Seonho' resolved them, the inevitable question became: how, exactly, did a mere support student know to respond the way he did?
I'd gone around poking my nose into everything as a throwaway villain character, so in a sense, this was only the natural result.
Right now, Baek Young-ui might be more dangerous than Black Moon.
It wasn't as if someone like Baek Young-ui would suddenly appear before me one day and casually slice my throat... but when it came to whether she had the capability, the answer was an unequivocal yes.
Even now, retired from the front lines, she steadily held her place on the National Hunter Ranking. Her achievements during her active years were simply that numerous.
Just as I was racking my brain over how to dispel her suspicion — how to appeal the fact that I was not a dangerous individual — mercifully, the words to move past this whole situation came out of Baek Young-ui's mouth first.
"You also subdued an Owl Bear alongside the other students during the entrance exam, didn't you, Student Lee Seonho."
"Yes. And if I may speak frankly now that it's all behind us — I genuinely thought I was going to die that day, Madam Chairman."
"......Pardon?"
"However much those monsters serve to differentiate the students, assigning the subjugation of a high-tier monster to children who don't even hold a provisional hunter's license yet strikes me as a bit excessive."
"......"
"For next year's entrance exam, I would recommend not fielding anything stronger than an orc. Not every student is a monster who can take down high-tier beasts before they've even enrolled at the academy, the way you did, Madam Chairman."
The moment the Owl Bear came up — out of Baek Young-ui's own mouth — I seized the opening without hesitation and drove my point home.
After all, the official record stated that the Owl Bear from the entrance exam hadn't been smuggled in by outside terrorists, but placed there by Cheonmu Hunter Academy itself to sort the students' capabilities.
It was a decision the academy had made to conceal the fact that its security had been breached and minimize the chaos — which made it all the more impossible to refute.
"...That's true. I will be more careful going forward, Student Lee Seonho."
And just like that, Baek Young-ui abandoned the attempt to corner me and delivered a flat apology.
Honestly, that single word of apology frightened me more than a hundred words of accusation ever could... but either way, I'd managed to wriggle out of the situation for now.
The aftershocks that would arrive later? Future me's problem. And come to think of it, an aftershock can only arrive if you have a future at all.
"I've taken up quite a bit of your morning. You may return, Student Lee Seonho."
"...Yes. Thank you for your time, Madam Chairman."
An hour that felt like ten minutes of one-on-one audience came to an end, and just as I exhaled a silent sigh of relief and turned to walk out of the Chairman's office—
"Ah, and one more thing. Your supervising professor has been changed to Professor Shin Youngjoo as of today. Do keep it in mind."
"...A supervising professor? I'm in the Combat Support Department. And isn't Professor Shin Youngjoo in the Martial Arts Department?"
"It is an exceptional measure, taken in view of your potential for growth, Student Lee Seonho."
"...I see. Thank you."
I barely swallowed the curse that sprang to my lips and managed a stiff nod.
...I know, on pure instinct, that she's someone you absolutely do not touch. But moments like this make it so damn hard to hold back.