Cute Revenge (3)
With Yoo Ahyoung as the last piece, the Red Mercenaries and Blue had now used up all of their effective right of first negotiation.
There was still one card left in Blue’s hand, of course, but the problem was that they didn’t feel any pressing need to use it.
They knew it would be rude to keep the other guilds and clans waiting any longer, so they had no choice but to open the transfer market at once.
It was only natural that clans and guilds already worked up into a frenzy would come pouring into the training camp the instant it opened.
From my point of view, this batch of newcomers only had middling potential at best, but perhaps because of the perception that they had been directly trained under the Red Mercenaries’ supervision, the response was surprisingly enthusiastic.
They are all in pretty good shape, after all.
To a mid-tier guild like Blue, the Red Mercenaries, the Black Swans, or the Magic Guild, they might not look like much, but for smaller clans it meant they could actually walk away with trainees worth taking. No wonder everyone was in a good mood.
The treatment for those who clearly had no future was still the same as ever, but at the very least, the treatment for anyone who could swing a sword had improved quite a bit.
Thanks to that, the training camp run by the Red Mercenaries was causing an unprecedented boom in guild enrollment.
The Red Mercenaries opened up information about the training camp and the trainees to other clans and guilds, and likewise shared information about those clans and guilds with the trainees inside the camp.
Guild brochures and pamphlets began circulating among the trainees, and it became a common sight to see them debating during breaks or agonizing over two different catalogues spread out in front of them.
Information that had once been almost completely controlled was now being released all at once.
There had been some concern that the training camp might become too noisy and interfere with training, given how many pieces of information were being let loose while the program was still underway, but nothing of the sort happened.
To keep from missing the eyes of scouts who came by several times a day for tours, the newcomers who still hadn’t received any offers had to grit their teeth and throw themselves into training, while those whose enrollment had already been decided were also forced to do their best to raise their own value.
In truth, with the graduation ceremony right around the corner, things did feel a little loose outside of training hours, but there was a strange competitive atmosphere hanging over everything.
Of course, the trainees weren’t the only ones competing.
The clans and guilds themselves were getting so heated that I couldn’t help wondering if they were taking it a little too far.
The real recruitment war had begun.
They were handing out gifts to prospective members, badmouthing rival clans, and trying every trick they could think of to swell the size of their own organizations.
It started with the tiniest things.
For example, guild masters or scouts showing up dressed just a little more elegantly than usual.
Or arriving with a carefully trained elite guard to flaunt their power and wealth.
Or boasting about the guild cafeteria.
Talk about the clan’s welfare, the guild’s budget, even the quality of the dormitories and the prospects for future growth became more and more common.
It seemed surprisingly effective, but Blue didn’t bother joining their competition.
They didn’t even hand out guild catalogues, so there wasn’t much else to say.
The reason was obvious.
There’s no need to advertise.
Blue’s recruitment had, in effect, ended with Lee Changryeol and Yoo Ahyoung.
They had decided there was no need to recruit anyone else, so there was no reason to bother preparing some tedious presentation and promoting the guild.
Even without that kind of hassle, rumors would spread anyway.
Information had been leaking nonstop inside the training camp.
Once the market opened, this place was no longer a sealed-off location.
The newcomers reading documents containing guild offers and recruitment information, while talking with scouts from each guild, gradually came to understand just where Blue’s Kim Hyunsung and Lee Kiyoung stood in the world, and naturally, news of that sort settled into the camp at lightning speed.
I didn’t even need to ask what was happening, because I could already tell the way people looked at me had changed completely.
Deputy Guild Master of Blue, the man slated to become the Empire’s Eighth Seat, Honorary Bishop of the Holy Empire—and as a bonus, the lover of the Empress of Mercenaries.
I had no idea how many of those rather glorious titles the trainees actually knew, or how well they understood what they meant, but the truth was I never even bothered wondering.
Just looking at me recently would have given them more than enough to think about.
Sure enough, whispers began drifting up from here and there.
“Is that a griffon…?”
“Is that for Instructor Lee Kiyoung?”
“I heard there are only four in all of Lindel…. One belongs to the Red Mercenaries’ guild master, one to the Black Swans’ guild master, and the other two belong to Blue’s guild master and deputy guild master….”
“Who told you that?”
“One of the clan sisters….”
“Ah…. So she really did join Blue?”
“Yeah. I heard a lot of things thanks to that, and honestly, it did make me think you really can’t judge people by appearances.”
“This is no joke. You can at least put a price on a car. Apparently, something like that is hard to even assign a value to….”
“He’s the man who was chosen as an Honorary Bishop of the Holy Empire, after all. That much would be normal, I guess.”
“What?”
“You think that’s all? Ah, this still isn’t confirmed, but….”
More or less, that was the shape of things.
And what I was showing off wasn’t just a white fur coat.
This world had luxury goods too. Until now, I’d been moving around in little more than a shabby alchemy lab coat, but now that we were approaching the finish line, I could afford to wear something that looked expensive on sight.
I didn’t think the trainees could actually tell the difference, but there was still such a thing as a high-class atmosphere, and I could enjoy the way people looked up at me because of it.
Classes are nearly over anyway….
In fact, there wasn’t even any training scheduled for today.
Since I’d come to the camp for personal reasons, dressing like this didn’t feel out of place at all.
Once I’d taken up a suitable spot in front of the main gate, trainees were coming and going in my field of vision—some heading back to their lodgings, others leaving the camp for their own errands.
If I focused a little mana into my ears, voices drifted in from everywhere.
“Looks like it’s today too.”
“I’m jealous….”
“I’m not jealous at all.”
“Liar. Isn’t it common here for someone to have more than one spouse anyway…?”
“There’s no love in that.”
“If you’ve got money, love appears out of nowhere, you idiot. This place is dangerous anyway… Going into Instructor Lee Kiyoung’s arms would be a thousand times happier than living with some worthless guy while chasing after love. Let me put it in extreme terms.”
“What?”
“I’m saying that, for me at least, being Mansur’s third wife sounds better than being with some capable Romeo.”
“Weirdly, I can kind of see it….”
“It’s not like you’d just be some nouveau riche’s third wife. It’d be Mansur’s third wife….”
To the students who greeted me, I answered with a simple lift of my hand.
The trainees who clung to me familiarly were almost nonexistent. I hadn’t exactly created that kind of atmosphere in the first place.
The female trainees sneaking glances at me already knew who I was waiting for, so it was only natural that they wouldn’t try to strike up a conversation.
After a short wait, I could see Yoo Ahyoung slowly walking this way, somehow looking cheerful.
What is this, the parting of the Red Sea?
The trainees heading out through the main gate were parting around her in an instant.
Unlike before, Yoo Ahyoung’s expression was now quite self-assured. The days when she felt burdened by the attention and jealousy flooding down on her were already behind her.
Seeing how much she seemed to enjoy the attention, I couldn’t help but smile.
There had been plenty of changes in the way people saw her, but I suspected she had changed even less than I had.
For one thing, her appearance itself was different.
Most of the things Yoo Ahyoung wore were luxury goods. No one would ever look at her and think she was just another trainee receiving the same training.
She opened her mouth slightly, clearly aware of the looks being thrown her way, and then answered me at once.
She really does look like a princess….
All around us, people were staring at her with openly envious eyes, so there was no need to say more.
“Shall we go, then?”
“Yes, Instructor Lee Kiyoung.”
Her bright smile didn’t seem the least bit fake.
And naturally, most of what she was wearing had been a gift from me.
Even the rings on her fingers were the same. Thinking back to the first time I gave her those presents made me smirk.
What had been amusing wasn’t Yoo Ahyoung’s reaction, but the reaction of the people around her.
Officially, Yoo Ahyoung was still continuing to reject Blue’s offer of enlistment.
At first, there had been some speculation that gifts like those were just a small bribe from Blue, but as time went on, stories began to circulate that maybe what was being sent to her went beyond the meaning of simple gifts.
Of course it did.
Maybe they could have thought that the first time, but after the second or third, and especially after the sixth, even an idiot starts to change his mind.
It was only natural that strange rumors began to spread through the training camp.
Starting with rumors like, Instructor Lee Kiyoung is interested in trainee Yoo Ahyoung.
And then there were stories along the lines of, He brought her into Blue because he wanted to keep her by his side.
But it wasn’t as though every gaze on her was favorable.
As for me, there were already rumors going around that I liked women, so it didn’t matter much, but there was no denying the uncomfortable looks being sent at the girl who had suddenly become a princess.
Of course, it took less than a few days for those uncomfortable looks to curdle into jealousy.
Her level had risen too high for anyone to denounce her as nothing more than a petty target of envy.
Even expressing that kind of low-minded emotion requires a certain standard of status.
From the trainees’ perspective, Yoo Ahyoung’s existence had flown so high she was now out of sight; all they could do was look up at her.
No slave ever envies a conglomerate chairman.
What they usually envy is the slave with the bigger chains, not the person standing above them.
I held out a hand, and she took it before climbing onto the griffon. By now the gesture felt familiar.
When I let out a laugh at how different she looked, her voice came back at once.
“Is it… really not a good fit?”
“No. It’s just that you’ve become too natural at it.”
“Hearing something like that is embarrassing in its own way.”
Even as she said that, I could see her sneaking a glance downward.
“How do you feel?”
“Honestly? Pretty good. I was a little doubtful at first when I actually did it, but I was surprised by how much better it felt than I’d expected.”
“That’s a relief. Was there anything unusual today?”
“Yes. A few people asked whether it was true that you and I were dating. They also asked pointless things, like what was going to happen with Instructor Jung Hayan. When I told them we weren’t actually dating yet, they looked really shocked.”
“I see.”
“Oh, and that person….”
“Yes?”
“He said there was no need for him to meet you anymore.”
“Looks like he’s getting anxious. Haha.”
“Yes. He didn’t say it directly to me, but he’s definitely uneasy. He even started trying to get physical in ways he never did before…. Of course, I said it was annoying and that it hurt, then came out of there… pfft. It’s funny, really. He was the one who said it would be fine to get a little closer at first, and now that things have come this far, it seems he’s scared of being abandoned. Lately, every time he tries to come up to me, it just irritates me.”
I could picture the situation pretty clearly in my head.
Without a doubt, the bastard who’d been saying it would be fine to get close to Instructor Lee Kiyoung until just before the gift offensive began had now suddenly told her not to meet me anymore because his anxiety had climbed all the way up to his throat.
It’d be weird if he wasn’t anxious….
Of course he’d be thinking that way if some rich, capable man kept trying to grab hold of his lifeline.
I was no different.
If some smart, sharp bastard started clinging to Kim Hyunsung, I could say with certainty I wouldn’t be able to sleep from the anxiety.
“Do you know what else he said? He told me I seemed different these days and asked whether I was really the Ahyoung he knew, then snapped at me instead. Honestly, I was so dumbfounded I wanted to rip his head off.”
“You should have hit him.”
“Is that really okay? In the plan you told me about….”
She seemed to be talking a little more than usual.
She’s having fun with this.
I’d thought she was just enjoying herself at the moment, but apparently she liked it even more than I’d expected.
“Anything you want to do, you can try it. Honestly, the ‘plan’ is just me sketching out a picture anyway… the most important thing is that Ahyoung feels better.”
“Ah… yes!”
Her voice came back bright and clear.