The Grade 3 Calamity #3
After receiving a commendation from the big shots at the police station and earning a promotion to the Knight Brooch, I would finally gain the right to enter the Treasure Hall and borrow tools on a semi-permanent basis.
I’d heard the place was packed with all sorts of bizarre bogu that senior Awakeneds had collected while exploring the Great Labyrinth. Since I could only choose one, I needed to be extremely careful.
What kind of treasures are waiting for me?
While my heart was pounding with anticipation, the classroom door slid open with a rattle. Someone wearing a police cap stepped inside. It was a woman in ridiculously short hot pants, a white t-shirt, and dizzyingly high heels. A bunch of handcuffs jingled at her waist like fashion keychains. Every boy in the class, myself included, lost the ability to speak and simply stared.
“Wow, it’s been a while since I’ve been in this classroom. Nice to meet you all. I’m a third-generation graduate, your senior, and a Grade 3 Awakened. Anyway, let’s skip the boring stuff. Will the students receiving commendations today please come forward!”
Her tone was incredibly casual. So this big sister was the ‘important person’ sent from the station to hand out the awards?
“First up, the freak Ha Namjin! Freak, though? What kind of call sign is that?”
“Yes, I’m DiCaprio Ha Namjin.”
“Thanks to you kids, we successfully crushed one corner of the headache-inducing criminal group known as the Villainers! The only problem is that Samajun and Yeomhun were slaughtered by the Judge this morning!”
…Huh? What did she just say?
That was an incredibly important piece of information dropped so casually. While the whole class stirred, the female police officer pulled a sheet of paper from her bag and held it out to us.
“Blah blah blah, we hereby commend you! Anyway, you guys are seriously amazing. Not even graduated yet and you took down a Grade 3 Awakened and his underlings! I honestly got goosebumps! Everyone, give them a round of applause!”
Clap, clap, clap—.
At the policewoman’s playful encouragement, the students clapped along—clap clap clap clap—either having already forgotten the bombshell she’d dropped or desperately trying to.
Honestly, being the center of attention always felt good. It never got old.
“What should I do? It’s been so long since I’ve gotten applause like this!”
“T-to be honest, I feel a little embarrassed.”
“…I want to hide…”
Unlike me, who was thrilled to be in the spotlight, the other members of No Leftovers Day couldn’t genuinely enjoy the praise and simply looked awkward. They were still just kids.
“Still, it was dangerous. Thanks to this incident, the school is reconsidering sending students into real combat. Super villains are simply too risky, so from now on, don’t recklessly approach bad guys, okay?”
If the school was starting to reconsider sending students into actual battles, that meant the future where Yu Yeoleum suffered a fatal wound from super villains during a mission had grown just a little more distant.
But was it true that Samajun and Yeomhun had been slaughtered by the Judge?
Before I could ask, the policewoman unleashed another verbal storm.
“Also, this morning we received a missing person report for Seo Gaeul, a student from Class F.”
“Missing?”
“What’s she talking about?”
The classroom stirred again. Then came an even more shocking statement.
“And I, Inspector Jin Rihyeon, believe the mastermind behind Seo Gaeul’s disappearance is right here in this school. What I’m asking is simple—please don’t turn yourself in. I want to be the one to beat you half to death and arrest you personally.”
Crack.
When the woman cracked her knuckles, baring sharp fangs in a grin, the name Jin Rihyeon suddenly flashed through my mind. Chief Kim Jangdong had once told me, “I’ve got a subordinate who can detect lies like it’s nothing. Hiding my preferences from that kid is harder than you’d think.”
A Grade 3 Awakened who could see through lies. For me, she was literally a walking disaster who had just crashed into my school life.
A genuine female calamity!
Why was I so unlucky?
“Ha Nam-jjin! What should I pick from the Treasure Hall? Huh? When I get home today I’ve gotta brag to Mom that I got a commendation! Our furniture’s been seized lately so everything’s been depressing, but a commendation is totally lucky-bikini!”
— For outstanding contribution in the subjugation of the Villainers —
Ha Namjin and members of No Leftovers Day are hereby commended.
When break time arrived, the news that students had caught a Grade 3 special criminal spread like wildfire. Kids swarmed the No Leftovers Day team, turning the classroom into a noisy marketplace.
A lot of them gathered around me too.
“Namjin, I heard you fought the Grade 3 Awakened by yourself to buy time! How’d you do it? Did you flash your panties again?”
“What kind of panties are you wearing right now? Show us.”
“Hey, Kim Jin! What are you saying?! Asking to see his panties! Kyahaha!”
The girls’ squealing laughter sounded pretty nice. They say every man experiences one peak of popularity in his life. Was this mine?
“It’s too loud, I can’t sleep! Everyone back off!”
Whoosh, whoosh—.
Baek Yeoul, who had been lying face-down next to me, swung her frying pan Misfortune Rod at the girls.
“Ah, what the heck, Baek Yeoul.”
“Just sleep if you’re gonna sleep. Why are you throwing a fit all of a sudden?”
The flashy girls led by Kim Jin seemed startled by Ppang-daeng-i’s ferocious attack. They clicked their tongues and slowly backed off.
Apparently unsatisfied, Ppang-daeng-i turned to me.
“Ha Namjin! You said you liked Seo Gaeul! You even made a wedding invitation! With Seo Gaeul missing, you’re over here giggling with other girls? Is that all your feelings amount to?”
I never expected Baek Yeoul to hit the bullseye like that. I had no idea how the public revelation of Seo Gaeul’s disappearance would change my daily life. The biggest variable was that policewoman now patrolling the hallways.
“…Inspector Jin Rihyeon is a third-generation graduate. Her call sign back in her student days was Sixth Sense. She has an unusually sharp intuition…”
During lunch we gathered on the athletic field and ate bread from the school store. Deoksuni, who seemed to know a little about everything, proudly shared what she knew about the policewoman.
A woman with good senses, huh.
She had indeed declared that the mastermind behind Seo Gaeul’s disappearance was inside this very school.
“Do you think it’s true that Yeomhun and Samajun… d-died?”
Baek Yeoul tilted her head. Choi Changsik lifted his custom academy smartphone, searched for a while, then shook his head.
“There doesn’t seem to be anything about it online. It might be under an embargo.”
That Yeomhun, dead. He was a bastard who deserved to die, but in the ruined future he had once single-handedly rekindled the flames of a collapsed thermal power plant and saved countless people from a brutal winter. I still didn’t understand why he’d done something so altruistic, but I had to acknowledge that many people survived because of him.
That was exactly why I hadn’t killed or crippled him. I believed the punishment that suited him more than the death penalty was to become ‘human coal’ for all eternity. I had planned to drop by and beat him up whenever I was bored.
And someone killed a guy like that?
I didn’t know who this Judge was, but I didn’t like how frequently they were interfering with my plans.
Clap—.
At that moment Geum Taeseong clapped his hands.
“Let’s stop talking about gloomy stuff. You guys are going to pick your bogu this afternoon, right? There was one thing in the Treasure Hall I wanted too. Ah, I should’ve just skipped my part-time job. I’m seriously jealous.”
Geum Taeseong was part of our team but couldn’t join the operation because of his job. To be honest, I was pretty disappointed too. If we’d had someone with the Reversal concept, our entire strategy would have been different.
“T-Taeseong, the thing you wanted… was it the World?”
Deoksuni’s unusually loud voice drew everyone’s eyes to her. Her face turned bright red and she quickly added, “N-no, never mind!”
A massive auditorium had been built beneath the academy. More accurately, it was a bunker—a nuclear fallout shelter. But what lay inside wasn’t an evacuation facility.
“Don’t stay in there too long. All kinds of concepts are mixed together in there, so it’s bad for the mental health of Awakeneds like you. You can only take one item out.”
Following Captain Kang Cheolmin’s warning, we walked briskly into the Treasure Hall. It felt like stepping into an enormous library.
“It reminds me of when I went to the British Museum on a family trip…”
Baek Yeoul offered a rather sophisticated comparison. The British Museum? As expected of a natural-born bourgeois like Ppang-daeng-i. It suddenly made me a little jealous.
“Ouch! Why did you pinch my butt!”
“Just because.”
While Baek Yeoul glared at me and huffed, I noticed a porcelain doll stored inside a glass case. It was the kind little girls in romance-fantasy stories would love. A note was attached to the shelf.
◈ Warning: This doll has been granted the Possession Lv.2 concept.
◈ Do not stare at it for prolonged periods.
The doll waved at me.
“What kind of cursed doll is this?”
The Treasure Hall was full of items like this. I was tempted to look around, but I had already decided on the type of bogu I wanted before entering, so I didn’t want to waste time.
It would be nice if there were items imbued with concepts like Deception, Lie, or Disguise. That way I might be able to slip past the policewoman’s sharp senses.
While wandering around with that thought in mind, a familiar object caught my eye.
It was a short Japanese-style sword. The reason it stood out was the maple leaf pattern inlaid on the scabbard—it reminded me of the one Seo Gaeul had worn at her waist back at the shack. This was Seo Gaeul’s blade. Or more precisely, the blade future Seo Gaeul had carried.
“Concept unknown…”
Did that mean even tools that revealed concepts couldn’t identify it?
I stared at it for a long time, wondering if my Appraisal eyes could see something. Letters floated up.
Name: Maple - Wakizashi
A blade crafted by a master swordsmith of the age. Every owner of this blade has met a horrible death.
Possesses: 《???》 — Your Appraisal level is insufficient to view this information.
So that’s how it was. Seo Gaeul had a 《???》 concept too. It was probably a higher-grade concept than my Appraisal level, which was why I couldn’t see it.
Even so, the blade was clearly a good tool. Otherwise future Seo Gaeul wouldn’t have used it.
“But I’ll pass.”
It wasn’t what I needed right now.
That was when I heard a groan.
“Ughhh— Just a little more—”
There was a giant Ppang-daeng-i. Or more accurately, I could see up Baek Yeoul’s skirt as she climbed a ladder and reached for something high.
“Ppang-daeng-ah, white today?”
“Kyaaak! Don’t loooook—?!”
Clatter, clack—.
Baek Yeoul tried to cover herself, lost balance, and fell off the ladder.
Thud, crash—!
Clink clatter—.
It was total chaos. Unfortunately, I ended up cushioning her fall with my body—specifically, her butt landed right on my face.
“Guaaaak!”
“Huk! S-sorry! But at least it didn’t get messy! Lucky!”
Lucky my ass. The coins that had been stored in the Storage jar had all spilled across the floor.
“This is insanely unlucky.”
“It’s your fault!”
While we stood up, dusting ourselves off and picking up the coins, something else ended up in my hand instead.
Clink.
A round something.
It was round but had a hole in the center, so it wasn’t a coin. It was also completely transparent, nearly invisible.
What is this?
As I frowned at the strange phenomenon, letters appeared.
Name: Seed — Ring
The ring the Fairy King of the Great Labyrinth tried to hide until the very end. It does not reveal itself easily.
Possesses:
《???》 — Your Appraisal level is insufficient to view this information.
《Deception Lv.2》 — Secretive like a clown. It mixes small amounts of chaos into the owner’s words and actions.