Night Dungeon Expedition (1)
“Ah, ahh… Nnngh….”
They had returned to the dormitory after the battle in the Collapsed Root Cave.
Unlike Lee Seonho or Do Yoonchae, who were both relatively composed, Han Sora had buried her face in her blanket the moment she got back, groaning into it.
“Ahh, what am I supposed to do….”
How on earth was she supposed to face Seonho starting tomorrow?
Just the thought of having to walk into the same classroom for their Teamwork and Strategy class the very next day had Han Sora's head spinning.
I mean… even if Seonho did something weird to me, it wouldn't really be a problem.
Whether he hypnotized me and did something strange, or something lewd… it doesn't really matter, does it.
“Uaaaaagh!! Uwah, ngyaaaaah?!”
No matter how hard she tried to forget it, the memories from just a few hours earlier kept resurfacing in her mind.
Granted, it had been an impulsive act in the middle of an already frazzled state of mind — but that did nothing to spare her the embarrassment that hit once her head finally cooled down.
Rolling around in her tangled emotions on the bed, cocooned tightly in her blanket, Han Sora whimpered.
“S-Sora…? Are you feeling unwell…?”
“U-Uh?! N-No, not at all?!”
“I see…? Then why were you suddenly screaming….”
“I-It's nothing…. It's just, um… it's n-nothing at all…!”
Unable to properly answer even her roommate Cha Eunju's concerned questions, Han Sora just fidgeted awkwardly.
Perhaps it was precisely because the person asking was Cha Eunju that she felt all the more self-conscious. In a certain sense, the two of them were rivals, competing over the same man.
Come to think of it, how close is Eunju with Seonho, exactly…?
Surely it hadn't gone as far as kissing… probably not.
Given the girl's timid personality, she wouldn't be the type to push her lips onto him first, and Seonho wasn't the sort to close the distance on his own either.
Even today's kiss had only happened because Sora herself, swept up in the moment, wanted to show Seo Woojin. Ordinarily, such a thing even occurring would have been out of the ordinary.
In a way, she had taken things far further than she did back when she merely pretended to be hypnotized and flashed her chest. After all, her feelings had been conveyed to him without a shred of ambiguity.
I feel… a little sorry toward Eunju.
She had probably fallen for him before Sora did.
It left a slightly bitter taste in her mouth, as if she had stolen Seonho right out from under her. …Not that she had any intention of stepping aside.
They say love belongs to whoever has the courage to claim it. Sorry, Eunju, Sora thought to herself — if you keep cowering like that, you'll never make any real progress at all.
…Though if you asked whether being proactive meant everything would work out, that might not necessarily be true either.
Come to think of it, I was too much of a mess to hear Seonho's actual answer….
How he felt about receiving that kiss from her today.
And if he took it as a confession, what kind of answer he'd give in return.
He probably won't reject me, she cautiously predicted. It was a little embarrassing to say about herself, but she was pretty, and Seonho did have feelings for her.
He got so worked up during their hypnosis training that he pitched a tent, or asked to see her body… judging from things like that, it was certain he wasn't without feelings for her either.
But with everything that had happened, she couldn't just come right out and ask, leaving her with nothing to do but stew in her own confusion.
Ugh, I don't know…. I already blurted out a confession out of nowhere, so demanding an answer on top of that would be weird, wouldn't it….
Clutching her smartphone quietly beneath the blanket, just in case a message from Lee Seonho might arrive —
“Ngyaaah?!”
The moment she saw the CocoaTalk message that had really, truly flown in from Lee Seonho, Han Sora shot up with a startled cry, flinging her blanket aside.
⁎ ⁎ ⁎
As a rule, Academy dormitory students were not subject to any particular nighttime curfew.
To be sure, there were strict rules requiring prior permission to leave the Academy grounds, and no one could go off-campus without a legitimate reason — but at least within the Academy itself, moving around posed no real problem.
After all, most Academy facilities were open around the clock for the sake of students' personal training. The library, the training grounds, even the dungeons.
As long as you could prove through the entry logs that you'd spent your night properly studying or training, you wouldn't be docked points for breaking curfew. Granted, holding drinking parties out in the open park was another matter entirely — that was an automatic penalty.
And so, accepting that risk willingly, that night I once again set my feet toward the Border Hall.
When we headed back to the dungeon to take care of unfinished business, a senior with jade-colored hair — apparently already waiting for us — sauntered up in front of me with leisurely ease.
“Hmmm, Seonho, my junior. Summoning me to meet you all alone at this late hour — how positively wicked of you.”
What character was she playing tonight? Lim Yujin approached me in quick little steps,搭配 a polite register that somehow suited her all too well.
The sight of her vaguely brought to mind one of those colorful wind-up chicks, and I fought down the smile that almost escaped, responding as evenly as I could manage.
“It's not going to be just the two of us. I already explained everything over CocoaTalk earlier, remember?”
“You can never be too sure, though. Say the friend who was originally supposed to come suddenly backs out, giving you the perfect chance to have me all to yourself — and since aimless nighttime excursions are forbidden, you make up an excuse to drag me into the dungeon and then start doing… strange things….”
“…Haven't you been watching a bit too much anime, Senior?”
Apparently that was the concept she'd committed to today.
Rather than point out the sudden formality of her speech, I decided to just play along quietly. For whatever reason, the polite register actually suited Lim Yujin better than her usual casual banter anyway.
Clearly pleased with herself for landing her little jab at just the right moment, she gave me a knowing grin, prodding me playfully with her eyes.
“But of course, that was a joke. Nobody knows better than I do that a diligent soul like you, Seonho, would never treat a woman carelessly.”
“If I were planning something sketchy, you wouldn't have come out at this hour in the first place, Senior.”
“Oh…! Sharp as ever, Seonho. That's the insight worthy of my hand-picked disciple.”
Polite speech, same old energy. Truly a package deal.
Frankly, she was the kind of senior I'd be a little embarrassed to introduce to my friends… though tonight's business wasn't exactly an introduction.
It gave me a convenient pretext to call Han Sora out this late at night, and a golden opportunity to use her to stoke a spark of curiosity about men in Lim Yujin.
“Seonho…?”
“Ah, there you are.”
While I'd been exchanging appropriately inane banter with her, Han Sora had crept up right behind us unnoticed.
The moment she took in the sight of me and Lim Yujin together, the look on her face turned unmistakably flustered — plainly visible for anyone to see. So too was whatever had gone through her mind when she answered my summons at this hour.
She'd probably assumed I called her out to talk about the kiss from the dungeon earlier. I'd deliberately left the CocoaTalk message vague on purpose, precisely to invite that misunderstanding.
“Let me introduce you, Sora. This is the Combat Support senior I mentioned earlier.”
“Hello there, I'm Lim Yujin. It seems our junior here is always in your debt, hmm?”
“Uh, um…? Ah, I'm Han Sora…. First year, Archery Department, and Seonho's friend….”
Lim Yujin offered her hand with a greeting brazen enough to put me to shame, while I made the introductions as naturally as breathing.
Still completely lost as to what was going on, Han Sora stood there flustered — so I explained why I'd called her out at this hour.
“Is that the club senior you told me about, Seonho? Why is she here?”
“It seemed like you weren't too comfortable skinning the Poison Spike Wolf hides back in the dungeon, so I wanted to give you a chance to learn properly from her.”
“…THAT'S why you had me come out in the middle of the night?”
“Yep. Remember on the way back, all those monster materials Woojin's group left behind because they couldn't finish harvesting them? That's got to be worth more than a pocketful of change — better to secure it before it rots away.”
“…….”
Han Sora stared at me with a face that seemed to have a great deal it wanted to say.
Meeting those eyes, I put on a show of thinking it over, then — as if the realization had dawned on me a beat late — cautiously averted my gaze and opened my mouth.
“…Ah, s-sorry! Now that you mention it, I never told you beforehand that I'd need you for harvesting the materials….”
“…Yeah.”
“Was it a burden? I-I just thought this would be a good chance for you to get more used to dissecting monster materials…. If we do it together, we can split the proceeds too….”
“N-No…. It's not really a burden or anything like that….”
When I made a show of looking contrite, Han Sora panicked instead, scrambling to reassure me with furtive glances.
Not that she had any way to refuse my proposal. After what had happened in that dungeon, Han Sora's conscience must have been positively buried in guilt toward me.
She'd kissed me out of nowhere without even asking consent. She'd needlessly provoked Woojin and made him come charging at me. And she'd probably vaguely figured out that it was her own doing that dragged Woojin into that dungeon in the first place.
“I-I was actually thinking they looked like a waste too! I-I'd been wanting to learn how to skin them properly anyway…!”
“…That's a relief. I was worried I'd made a mistake with you, Sora.”
Belatedly, Han Sora forced a smile as if this had been what she'd wanted all along, chiming in dutifully.
Anyone could see how awkward the agreement was, but I played blind and let it slide.
“B-But are we really allowed to harvest them without getting the hunt team's permission?”
“I got their permission when I dropped them off at the Church. Condition was we hand over twenty percent of whatever we make from the materials.”
“Ah, twenty percent….”
“For the record, the twenty percent goes to them. We keep the rest.”
“…Is that even okay?! They're the ones who did the hunting.”
“They agreed to it, so it's fine.”
After all, if they didn't go harvest it now, they wouldn't even get that twenty percent. Haggling for a better split would obviously leave them with nothing — of course they'd agree.
More than anything, negotiating with the man who had saved their lives would have been an affront to their pride in itself.
Of the three of them, Yoo Ahrin seemed the sharpest, so a light jab at her ego to steer her toward the answer I wanted had hardly been difficult.
“Ahem. Shall we wrap up the chitchat and get moving, juniors? The Poison Spike Wolf carcasses we need to process are decomposing in real time even as we speak.”
“Done with the polite-speech act already, Senior Yujin?”
“Figured I'd try out a concept since you said she was your friend, but it's too stifling — I can't keep it up. And the reactions are just so-so compared to what you give me, Seonho.”
“Your commitment is awfully weak, Senior. A true concept is something you see through to the bitter end.”
“Gah, forget it! And you should've played along, Seonho! Any normal person would be flustered if their senior suddenly started talking to them all formally! Where's the fun in stonewalling me like that to the very end?!”
“I was just curious how long it'd take you to give up, Senior.”
“You're genuinely rotten, you know that?!”
And so Lim Yujin traipsed along beside me, chattering away in that speech pattern straight out of a Japanese anime.
“…Mmmm.”
Han Sora looked back and forth between me and my senior with an expression that had gone distinctly strange, a peculiar hum leaking out of her.