I Guess I Really Am Drunk
I guess I really am drunk.
AcaNet was on fire, and before long the sparks started flying in completely the wrong direction.
The more the story spread, the faster the disciplinary committee referral came through.
That night.
Kang Hyun's quarters in the faculty wing.
Kang Hyun and Lee Se-ah were going over the attendance list for the disciplinary committee.
Chair: Choi Byeong-gil (Dean of Academic Affairs)
Member 1: Oh Seong-hoon (Student Guidance Professor)
Member 2: Park Tae-su (Professor of the Party's Major)
Medical Officer: Hwang Ye-rim (Professor of Martial Arts Medicine)
Party Involved: Kwak Do-jin (18th Batch)
Victim: Hwang Min-woo (19th Batch)
Witness: Baek Yu-yeon (19th Batch)
"This roster is just designed to expel Cadet Kwak Do-jin," Lee Se-ah said.
"That so?"
"Yes. Oh Seong-hoon and Park Tae-su—both of them are Taewang people. I looked at the previous disciplinary records, and those two ran every single one."
"Proof they're Taewang people?"
"They're getting tens of millions of won every month under the name of guild consulting fees."
"Hmm."
Seated on the sofa with his eyes closed, Kang Hyun rolled the whiskey around his mouth and asked, "Is it illegal for a guild to pay consulting fees to a professor?"
"No. It's structured as perfectly legal sponsorship that carefully skirts the law. They're even paying taxes on it properly."
Lee Se-ah let out a long sigh.
A guild the size of Taewang was never going to be sloppy about something like that.
"The consulting fees are just packaging. The real payments came separately—cash, gold bars, spirit medicines, whatever."
"So no evidence, then?"
"Not yet."
"You're the Bureau's top agent, aren't you?"
"Th-that's… Even so, I can't exactly get a search warrant and raid Taewang Guild's vaults in a single week."
"I only got my hopes up because you said you had ability."
"I-I'll report to the Director right now and coordinate an investigation with the National Intelligence Service."
"Forget it. No need to go that far."
Glug-glug-glug!
Kang Hyun poured the amber liquid into his rocks glass.
An investigation over kids playing house? Please.
The way people tangled themselves up and power rotted from the inside was no different here than anywhere else.
If anything, the Murim had been worse.
Here they at least dressed their bribes up as legal transactions inside the framework of the law. Back there, if things went sideways, you put on a mask, paid a visit, and cut a throat—that was just Tuesday.
A world where silencing witnesses by murder was as natural as breathing.
"Chick. Use that head of yours a little."
"Sir?"
"Looking at that list, who do you think is the biggest thorn in their side right now?"
Lee Se-ah thought it over.
The professors were almost certainly bought. Kwak Do-jin's expulsion was already decided.
So then…?
"Baek Yu-yeon, maybe?"
"That's right."
The sole eyewitness who knew the full story of the incident.
"If you were Taewang Guild, what would you do first?"
"Uh… try to coax or threaten Baek Yu-yeon?"
"Good. You get it. The evidence is sitting right there in plain sight—why dig around somewhere useless?"
"B-but."
Lee Se-ah still couldn't quite follow.
Even Baek Yu-yeon wouldn't know how much bribe money the professors had taken, would she?
"If you want to catch a rat, you don't dig up its hole. You sit next to the rice jar and wait."
"…!"
"It'll crawl out on its own two feet and try to bite you anyway. Why bother hunting it down?"
Behind the women's dormitory.
A middle-aged man stood in front of Baek Yu-yeon, a Taewang Guild badge pinned to his chest.
"Have you given it some thought?"
"…"
"The terms we're offering are simple. Just go in as a witness and don't say a word."
The middle-aged man bent at the waist to meet Baek Yu-yeon's eyes.
"Kwak Do-jin is getting expelled no matter what this time. You know that too, don't you?"
"Yes."
When Baek Yu-yeon nodded, the man smiled with satisfaction.
"Right. He's getting expelled anyway, so running your mouth in there won't do you any good—and it especially won't do Kwak Do-jin any good. Our Min-woo's been waving that exclusive contract around and threatening you, right? The company will handle that part so it doesn't bother you anymore."
The man was both a Taewang Guild executive and Hwang Min-woo's uncle by marriage.
That was why Baek Yu-yeon wavered.
If I just keep my mouth shut…
Hwang Min-woo would stop his stalking, and Kwak Do-jin wouldn't face retaliation after the expulsion.
Everything would be over.
Besides, her senior had already said he was walking out on his own two feet, hadn't he?
Kwak Do-jin had begged her as well.
Go in as a witness and don't say anything.
Help him get expelled cleanly.
Kwak Do-jin's voice still echoed in her ears.
Think only about myself?
That meant choose for my own sake… but which path was truly for me?
Covering up the truth and submitting to these people—was that really the path for me?
She knew it in her gut.
Giving in here is what would ruin my life.
Because it would brand her a coward for the rest of her days.
Because she would have to live the rest of her life carrying the debt she owed Senior Kwak.
Baek Yu-yeon did not want that.
"I'm sorry."
Baek Yu-yeon bowed her head.
"I must decline."
"…What?"
The kindly light in the middle-aged man's eyes went cold in an instant.
"Tomorrow at the committee, I will say exactly what I saw and what I heard. That Hwang Min-woo threatened me first with a fifteen-year contract, and that Senior Kwak hit him trying to stop it."
"Haha. This student still doesn't know how the world works."
The man let out a dry laugh.
"Fine, let's say you make a scene. You think the committee will believe you? Do you even know who the members are?"
"Professor Oh Seong-hoon and Professor Park Tae-su."
A year ago.
The same men who had buried the truth during the dungeon practicum and handed Kwak Do-jin a disciplinary mark.
At Baek Yu-yeon's clear answer, the man's eyebrows twitched.
"Professors bought by Taewang Guild."
"What? What kind of dangerous talk is that?"
"Did I say something wrong?"
"Puhah!"
The man barked a laugh of pure disbelief.
"Listen, kid. Having a rich imagination is fine, but if you go around saying things like that, you're going to get yourself in real trouble. You could end up on the hook for defamation all by yourself."
"If I have evidence, that should be enough."
"Evidence?"
Baek Yu-yeon's pale blue eyes flashed for a moment.
"March 15th last year. Thirty million won deposited into Kim Deok-su's account—Oh Seong-hoon's proxy account. April 2nd the same year, one box of the highest-grade spirit pill, Purple Dawn Pills, delivered to Professor Park Tae-su's lab. And in July, two percent shares each in a research institute under Taewang Guild transferred under the names of both professors' family members. Am I wrong?"
"…"
The man tried to keep his smile, but he couldn't stop the muscle in his cheek from twitching.
How the hell does that girl know that?
The process of handing over bribes was an ultra-classified matter shared only among a handful of core executives even inside the guild.
And this wasn't some vague knowledge either.
Dates, pretexts, items, quantities—even the name on the proxy account.
She knows every last detail without a single mistake?
Information you could never obtain without looking directly at the guild's internal ledgers.
"…Was it that idiot Min-woo?"
The man knew it instinctively.
This is that stupid Hwang Min-woo's doing!
He must have flashed his cards while waving the contract around and making threats.
That the Academy professors were all in his pocket.
That she had nowhere to run.
That absolute moron!
The man wanted to tear his nephew to shreds on the spot.
Trying to pick up one girl and he blabs the entire lobby ledger?
Cold sweat ran down his spine, but the man was still an A-rank hunter who had weathered every storm Taewang had to offer.
"Tsk tsk. Fine, let's say Min-woo spouted that nonsense. Even if he did, what changes?"
"Pardon?"
"When Min-woo wakes up and says he never said any such thing, that's the end of it. Don't get the wrong idea, little girl. The memories in your head don't count as evidence. Not unless you've got solid video or an audio recording or some—"
He cut himself off. His eyes flashed like a snake's for a single instant.
His gaze locked onto the pocket of Baek Yu-yeon's outer coat.
Her right hand, which had been sitting awkwardly inside that pocket the entire conversation.
"Don't tell me."
Snap!
An A-rank hunter's movement was far beyond anything a student like Baek Yu-yeon could react to.
"Ah!"
The man's rough hand plunged into Baek Yu-yeon's pocket and wrenched her phone free by force.
On the screen, the words [Voice Recording in Progress — 05:12] stood out in sharp relief.
"Ha. For crying out loud."
The man's face twisted into something demonic.
So that was why she had recited the corruption details right in front of him.
She had been trying to manufacture solid evidence out of his own reaction.
"I've never seen such a brazen little bitch."
He smashed the phone straight onto the ground.
Shattered fragments sprayed across the dirt.
"Ah…"
Baek Yu-yeon's face went paper-white.
The one lifeline she had counted on had just been destroyed right in front of her eyes.
"I tried to settle this nicely with words, but I can see that won't work."
An oppressive aura erupted from the man's body.
Under the murderous intent that squeezed her throat, Baek Yu-yeon trembled and stumbled backward.
"Listen carefully. If Taewang feels like it, crushing your lives is nothing. You're on scholarship, right? Should we put pressure on your foundation and cut off the funding first? Think you can cover the tuition? And that Kwak Do-jin—you think expulsion is the end of it? We can bury him so deep in this industry he can't even work as a porter. You understand?"
"…Hic."
"This is reality."
The man crushed the broken phone under his dress shoe.
"So keep your mouth shut at the committee tomorrow, or else—"
Right then.
A lazy voice drifted down from the top of the wall.
"Aigoo."
"…?!"
The startled middle-aged man's head snapped upward like lightning.
Baek Yu-yeon's eyes went wide as well.
Atop the wall.
A man sat crouched with the moonlight at his back.
Messy hair, open shirt collar.
A whiskey bottle in his left hand, a phone in the other.
Anyone could see he was filming.
Wh-when did he…?
Kang Hyun spoke toward the stunned middle-aged man, reeking of alcohol.
"I guess I really am drunk. Standing right in the middle of the Academy and threatening a cadet—and I got to watch the whole thing."