The Wager, Handled with Care (1)
Lee Jun rose from his seat first, leaving the two men to slowly come back to their senses.
Go Seok-gu, who had been sitting relatively farther from Freya, seemed to have gotten off comparatively lightly. He spoke with a voice drained of every last ounce of strength.
"Ugh, my bones… Now where are you going?"
"Well, this happened too, didn't it? People are going to come flooding in any minute. I'll head out first."
"Urgh… right, I need to pull myself together before they get here…."
"No, don't. Just stay like that. It gives your veto a little more credibility."
"…You're even using this situation?"
"What would you call it if not improvisation?"
While pretending to tidy up the scattered belongings, Lee Jun swept up the pristine business card Go Seok-gu had received along with the scattered cube fragments. Having tucked the evidence safely into his Pocket, he hurried out of the chairman's office.
At the entrance, he ran headlong into staff members rushing toward the office, but he didn't so much as throw them a hint. Explaining the situation would have made things less convincing, not more.
And so Lee Jun slipped out of the Association building in a flash — as if running away.
Everything that followed would unfold exactly as he intended.
"So. The Association veto's been invoked. How's it feel?"
"Hard to say. I'm more surprised you actually know Hunter Law by heart."
"Ha, I am a vice-guildmaster. Isn't this much just basic competence?"
If it were so basic, I wouldn't have suffered through all that back when I was in the field.
"Anyway, whatever doubts you harbor or whatever you decide to do, that's not really Seolwon's concern."
"Oh, but it absolutely is. If this keeps making headlines and stirring up noise, my strike team gets mentally exhausted. What if something goes wrong mid-raid because of it? Are you going to take responsibility for that?"
"……."
Wow, listen to that tone.
"You do know it's been twenty-two days since the gate spawned, right? Four days left until the raid begins. Are you really not going to share your strategy?"
"Normally, yes — you pool your methods and come up with something better together. But we're in a rather special situation here, aren't we? Your guildmaster did throw down the gauntlet, after all."
Lee Jun glanced over at Yoon Seol, who sat in silence.
Even now, with that expressionless face of hers… she was staring at nothing but the handle of her teacup.
What exactly are you doing…?
"Our side has its survival riding on this too, you know. If we don't want to be absorbed, we have to do everything we can."
"Oh dear, not confident, are we?"
"Isn't it obvious? Think about it — is Seolwon even in a weight class worth fighting?"
Lee Jun declared this with utter confidence.
Seolwon was a mega-guild, one of the so-called Four Great Guilds of South Korea. How could a two-man small business ever hope to compete?
That would be the ordinary assessment.
But this time was different.
Lee Jun was certain.
The wager's in our favor anyway.
The hidden piece of this gate: The Shadow That Finally Awakens.
And it wasn't even an artifact — it was a skill.
The value of a skill obtained through external means was beyond imagination.
For one thing, a skill could never be stolen, and unlike an artifact, it required no equipping or carrying. Because of that, a skill gained as a simple gate reward was often worth more than an artifact pulled from a hidden piece.
Skills came in two varieties — passive and active — and the true jackpots were the passives.
And The Shadow That Finally Awakens was none other than an S-Class passive skill.
Better yet, it's a passive that can be used like an active.
Any hunter would recognize its worth at a single glance.
There was one point of concern, though… the terms of victory Yoon Seol had laid down.
Because the format leaned so easily into subjectivity, if the other side started playing dirty, things could get a bit tiresome.
Of course, even then, he only had to hold his ground. The odds of Seolwon actually absorbing them were zero percent.
Even if he failed to get Styx's Shard, running an S-Class gate on near-autopilot was a clear win. The true purpose of this raid was the hidden piece; everything else was incidental.
"Oh dear, the former vice-chairman's gotten terribly stingy. Weren't you the type who never nitpicked like this before? I suppose people really do change with age."
"So what do you want me to do about it? My position changed, and my circumstances changed. I can't stay the same as I was."
Lee Jun played up just enough anxiety and impatience to be felt.
For now, it was time to take a low stance. Only then could he orchestrate the most dramatic reveal possible — and land a single, devastating blow on that eyesore of a woman.
There was, however, one matter he absolutely had to address first.
"Also, you're the older one between us."
"……."
Ha. Nothing to say to that, is there?
Lee Jun was twenty-three. Lee Hyeon-ah was twenty-six.
Bring up that topic, and she detonates herself.
"Mm, that's right. Hyeon-ah, you are three years older."
"Un…nie…!"
Lee Hyeon-ah strove mightily to manage an expression that could not be managed. But her trembling, twitching lips betrayed everything.
Still, she too was a professional. She soon composed herself and spoke with her usual poise.
"Hoo… Fine. I've known you so long I simply misremembered, that's all."
"Known each other? We haven't even hit two years."
"It's just a figure of speech, a figure of speech."
Lee Hyeon-ah ground her teeth into a smile. Lee Jun answered that smile with a smirk of his own.
Her personality made him want to spew curses on the spot, but Yoon Seol sat right there — he couldn't quite bring himself to. So he simply kept smiling and said:
"…You're as rude as ever, aren't you?"
"Says the one who wasted her years?"
"……."
Lee Jun was suddenly reminded of the first time he'd met Lee Hyeon-ah. Back then, they had at least used honorifics with each other. Then her corruption scandal broke, she proceeded to pester him with one administrative headache after another, and things had devolved into this.
"Anyway… fine. Fine. Let's just prove it with results when the time comes. Which of us was right."
"About the age thing?"
"That's—! Why…! Do you… keep… bringing… that… up…?!"
She raised her voice, then swallowed it; she spat out a curse, then swallowed that too.
So even this Lee Hyeon-ah could hold herself back in front of her own guildmaster, huh. Though of course, none of it stayed hidden — it all leaked through her expression, which was hilari… no. It was going according to plan, so it was satisfying.
And yes, this too was all strategy. The more that woman got riled, the further she drifted from rational judgment.
So no, he was absolutely not doing this for fun.
…Well, he couldn't deny the fun came as a bonus.
"In any case. Today's meeting agenda is finished, isn't it? Why are you still keeping us here?"
"…Only now you ask?"
"I tried to think of why you'd drag this out, and honestly I couldn't come up with anything. Hence the question."
The strategy meeting had wrapped up ages ago. In the end, both sides had decided to pursue separate routes, and they'd firmly agreed there was no need to share their raid methods.
Which was exactly why everyone else who'd attended had been sent out, leaving only three in the conference room: Yoon Seol, Lee Hyeon-ah, and Lee Jun.
"What kind of scheme are you cooking up this time?"
"Nothing much. When our victory is already a foregone conclusion, why would I bother with scheming? I just wanted to hear what's going on inside that head of yours — what could make you so confident."
Though there's nothing particularly grand in there, I'd wager.
With that parting remark, she sipped her coffee.
Ah, I'd love to poison that cup.
"Man, I'd love to poison that."
"…What?"
"Sorry, words slipped out. I meant to say I was only thinking it."
"…You really are dead set on ending today in a bloodbath, aren't you?"
"Hardly."
At that point, Lee Jun finally acknowledged the gaze he'd been feeling for a while now.
Right beside Lee Hyeon-ah. Yoon Seol was watching him with what could only be described as interest.
"Are you perhaps a little curious about me?"
"Mm. I suppose I am."
She hadn't uttered a single word throughout the entire meeting. Like a doll that matched her appearance all too well.
Her teasing of Lee Hyeon-ah moments ago had been the first thing she'd said since the meeting began. Apparently, watching the two of them spar was far more entertaining than any idle round-table discussion.
Either way — he had her attention. That was all that mattered.
"Then… allow me to show you something a little more interesting."
With those words, Lee Jun drew a single coin from his Pocket.
A jester performing tricks atop a ball — that precarious figure was engraved on the silver coin. It was his emblem, the one he and his comrades had settled on long ago.
"That's a beautiful token."
"A faded emblem, is what it is."
Letting her words slide past him, he moved his hand, casual and unhurried.
"Now, watch this carefully."
He mimicked the handwork of someone he remembered all too well.
The coin traveled from left to right. From above to below. He set his palm upright and let it flow down across his fingers, like a ribbon of falling water.
Tik— tik— tik—
The coin rolled beautifully across the four fingers of his left hand, then vanished behind his thumb without warning. And then — the coin that had been in his left hand a heartbeat ago appeared in his right.
It performed a flourish there as well, and finally…
Tak—
"There. Which hand is it in?"
"……."
Two fists hung suspended before Yoon Seol's eyes.
Left. Right.
Where was the coin?
"…Hm."
She pondered the question with surprising seriousness. And to that Yoon Seol, Lee Jun posed another question.
"What are the odds the coin is in my left hand right now?"
"Fifty percent?"
"Hard to say. That depends on how I moved it, doesn't it?"
"That's an interesting answer."
"Then the right?"
"Likewise… fifty."
As if she'd discovered something far more fascinating than a teacup handle, she threw herself into it earnestly. So he asked her.
"Then tell me. Where is the coin?"
"Hm. I don't know."
It was a simple answer.
Of course she doesn't.
By pure intuition, it would be the right hand. After all, no one had seen the coin cross from the right hand to the left.
Yoon Seol doubted he possessed sleight of hand fine enough to slip past her dynamic vision. So she answered:
"The right… hand."
The right. And at the same moment, she shifted her gaze from his two fists up to his eyes — and quickly corrected herself.
"Or is it the left?"
"You do use your instincts well."
Lee Jun opened his right hand, as if admitting defeat. Just as she'd predicted, it was empty.
"Your sleight of hand is remarkable. Before you awakened, did you work in this line?"
"Before I awakened, I was a student."
"Mm. What a pity."
"I think so too. For all of us… what misfortune could be worse than that?"
And that, too, was something he'd learned only after that hellish tutorial unfolded — back when frivolities like this were the closest thing to play anyone had.
"But you know, why do you think I showed you that?"
"……?"
Yoon Seol stared at Lee Jun with wide, round eyes. If she'd been an elf, her ears would surely have perked straight up.
"Because I wasn't paying attention, so you decided to entertain me?"
So she was aware of it.
"That's not not a reason… but there's a more important one."
Lee Jun then…
opened his left hand.
"……?"
No coin there, either. The coin had never been in either hand to begin with.
"In this case, what were the odds the coin was in my left hand?"
"Zero… percent, I suppose."
Exactly.
This kind of situation.
In other words — when your opponent is capable of sleight of hand, things happen that ordinary probability cannot account for. That is why you can never assign percentages to the actions of another person.
"Seolwon's vice-guildmaster declared one hundred percent certainty. But what I do happens above that."
"Then… the odds can't be calculated at all?"
"No. Far above that."
We will.
Without exception.
Win.
"Hm."
Yoon Seol seemed to have grasped the words Lee Jun left unspoken, and fell quietly into thought. Then she lifted her teacup and brought it to her lips.
"That's interesting."
Tak—
As she set the cup back down… a faint smile — one he had never once seen on her — hung at the corner of her mouth.
And inside the teacup… the coffee, frozen solid, trembled pitifully in place.
"I'll be looking forward to it."
Yoon Seol set down her cup and rose from her seat.
Click— click— click—
Listening to the sound of her heels fading into the distance… Lee Jun slowly turned his head.
"……."
Lee Hyeon-ah. She who had sat right beside Yoon Seol was staring, white as a corpse, at her guildmaster's retreating back.
Unable to sense mana, Lee Jun had no way of knowing exactly what had just happened. But judging by that reaction…
Is she angry?
She had smiled, sure — but a person's surface could never be trusted as the whole measure of them. Lee Jun, of all people, who made a career of keeping everything beneath the surface, knew that better than anyone.
Besides, Lee Hyeon-ah's reaction… only made it seem as though Yoon Seol's feelings had been hurt.
Yet Lee Jun's instincts whispered a different possibility.
"…Looks like she's having fun."
True to her own words, she seemed to be anticipating it — the day, four days from now, when she would face Lee Jun inside the gate.
And that feeling was entirely mutual.
Just you wait and see.
Who exactly gets the last laugh is a matter for later.