Expelled from the Party
Did they really need to book a party room just to drop one person?
After class let out, the place Yoon Seoa had summoned me to was a small party room in the Third Student Hall. One long table, four chairs, a wall screen for pulling up training records — and on the far wall, even a storage locker for personal equipment.
We'd used this same room when the four of us first registered our party. Back then we'd been short on chairs, so Harin had fetched a folding one from her room, and Serin had perched on the tabletop until Seoa scolded her for it. To be precise, the chairs weren't actually the problem — too many people had tagged along to celebrate.
Today there were only the four of us. Every chair was filled, not one left empty.
Even the seating was different from before. The first time we came here, Serin had claimed the chair beside mine the moment she climbed down off the table, and Harin had begged me from across the room to trade seats with her. Seoa, busy quieting those two down, never managed to sit at all.
Today, Seoa and Serin sat side by side in front of the screen. Harin sat across from me. Nobody had assigned the arrangement; it had simply fallen that way, in the order we'd walked in.
"If everyone's here, I'll get started."
When Seoa lit up the wall screen, last semester's practical evaluation records and this semester's party formation requirements appeared side by side. Even without zooming in, the letters beside my name were easy enough to read.
Kang Hyunwoo. Support. E-Rank.
The other three were all A-Rank or above.
"Starting this semester, we're changing up the party composition a little."
Seoa spoke to the screen. Whether she couldn't look at me or simply wouldn't, there was no need to ask.
"You're cutting me?"
Seoa's finger stopped at the bottom of the screen. Serin, who had been toying with the handle of her teacup, let go and turned her head toward the window. The tea hadn't been touched once since she'd carried it in. Only Harin was looking straight at my face.
"Did you have to put it like that?"
Serin turned from the window toward me.
"Is there a better way to say it?"
"There is. You could say we're adjusting roles, or trying out a new lineup just for this one evaluation. You don't have to open by making it sound like you're throwing someone out."
"So he'd only be sitting out this one evaluation?"
Serin's hand, still resting on the teacup handle, slowly dropped away.
Seoa switched off the screen. With my rank gone, the darkened glass reflected the four of us — Seoa and Serin pressed close against it, Harin and I mirrored apart across the table.
"Hyunwoo. We have to start thinking about our grades too, you know."
"That's fair."
The practical evaluations scored everything: how fast we cleared the monsters, how many of us came out injured, whether each member had performed their assigned role properly. There wasn't much on that list I could earn points for. I hauled the gear, memorized the routes, gathered up the equipment the three of them dropped. Booked the treatment room once the fighting was done. It was work a party needed, sure — but nothing that strictly required an E-Rank awakened.
Even the support role I did hold had gone murky sometime last semester. Ordinary attacks were blocked on their own by Serin's Barrier, and Harin bounced back quickly even when she took a hit. Sensing danger before it arrived was Seoa's job. The stronger the three of them grew, the less there was for me to do. More and more often they came home without a scratch — so no, I had no complaints.
"What about the new person you found?"
"A B-Rank support type. We're set to test our coordination at the training ground tomorrow at four in the afternoon. I already sent over the basic tactics, and they said they're fine with everything."
Seoa was always quick about this kind of thing. She hadn't merely filled the spot I was leaving — she'd already prepared for the problems that would come with someone new stepping into it. The new support student's record from last semester had been floating in the corner of the screen just moments ago. Their support evaluation and mock-battle scores both sat higher than mine. While I was carrying luggage or memorizing routes, that student would be lending direct aid to the three of them mid-fight. There was no need to ask why Seoa had picked them.
"If it's already decided, then it doesn't matter."
Below the roster were two names besides Seoa's. Serin's signature line had been filled in. Harin's box was empty.
"When did you two hear about it?"
"Yesterday."
Serin answered. Harin, without so much as a glance at the roster, rubbed at the end of her bandage.
"This morning. Seoa brought it over and asked me to sign."
"And you didn't."
"No. Not yet."
This meeting had never been called to ask my opinion. No matter how many more days the three of them talked it over, would my rank on that roster change?
"Still, if it bothers you—"
"We'll be seeing each other in class anyway. What's the big deal."
When I laughed, Seoa shut her mouth. I hadn't meant it as a jab. It truly didn't matter. Getting dropped from a party wasn't grounds for quitting school, and honestly, a new support type tiptoeing around me would have been the more awkward arrangement.
The roster in Seoa's hand crumpled, just slightly.
"When you say it like that, it makes me out to be the bad guy."
"Seoa."
Serin called out, low.
"What? Did I say something wrong? Hyunwoo knew too. He knew exactly why our party got points docked in last semester's evaluation."
"I know."
Seoa flipped over one of the papers she'd prepared, then laid it back down.
"You steer us clear of dangerous paths with your Foresight, Serin raises her Barrier, and Harin holds the front line. That's all it takes. Bring in a proper support type on top of that, and our clear times will drop even further."
"That's not what I meant — that you couldn't do it…"
"But that is what it means."
"Hyunwoo."
Seoa's voice rose a notch.
"I'm not trying to pin this on you. I'm saying we should keep the reason the four of us travel together separate from the party's grades. I didn't want to be the one saying this either. But somebody has to, so I am."
When she finished, Seoa let out a short breath. Would it have been any different coming from someone else? In the end, somebody was always going to say those same words.
"I think we could've just kept him."
Harin said it, and the room went quiet.
Harin, speaking up for the first time, was pressing a fingertip against the end of the bandage wound around her arm. A wound from morning class. It hardly warranted a bandage — the instructor must have ordered her to wrap it.
Seoa turned to her.
"Why?"
"Just because."
"There's no such thing as 'just because.' This isn't about disliking Hyunwoo. Starting this semester, higher-tier dungeon evaluations are factored in, and party scores count toward individual scholarship selection. If you have a reason we should keep him, say it."
The finger on the bandage dug in a little harder. Harin looked at me for a moment, then at Serin, and finally down at the roster laid out in front of Seoa.
"We've always been together."
Seoa pressed a hand to her forehead.
"That's not a reason."
"Why isn't it a reason?"
"Then until when? Until graduation? After graduation, when we join guilds? Are you going to drag him into dangerous dungeons because we've always been together?"
Serin didn't come to her aid either. The gaze that had drifted back to me at some point fled to the window the instant our eyes met.
Once upon a time, Serin would have stepped in before Harin ever could. No — we might never have ended up in a room like this at all. Before anyone could breathe a word about cutting me, she'd have fought Seoa over it, or messaged me first to start looking for another party.
When had that stopped? I couldn't remember.
Around last summer, Serin used to wait outside my dorm room in the mornings. By autumn, the days she answered late outnumbered the days she reached out first. After winter passed, even when the four of us went to the cafeteria together, Serin and Seoa would talk about classes while Harin and I just ate in silence across from them.
It had been the same last week. By the time I reached the cafeteria, the three of them had already ordered. Harin pulled out the chair beside her for me, but nobody asked what I wanted to eat. I sat at the end of the table and ordered alone while their conversation rolled on without a break. There was a time the three of them used to squabble over a single menu choice, shoving their plates in front of me to win me over.
Nothing dramatic had happened. The three of them had simply gotten busier and stronger. I was the only one who'd stayed the same.
"Got it."
At the scrape of my chair, Harin lifted her head.
"What?"
"I'll drop out. You brought the whole formation plan with you — it has to be settled today anyway, right?"
"Don't decide just like that. We could talk it over a little more, just us."
"Talk about what?"
"That's…"
Should I offer up a reason in her place? Nothing came to mind.
Seoa wasn't wrong, and Serin hadn't told me to leave. Harin had told me to stay — but even she didn't know why.
"We have to register new parties by next week, don't we?"
Seoa nodded slowly.
"Yeah. By Friday."
"Then take care of it today. Don't push it back on my account."
I pocketed the dorm key I'd left at the edge of the table and picked up the bag standing beside my chair. I hadn't even unzipped it — what was there to pack?
Once I was on my feet, the room felt smaller than I'd remembered. Five steps past Seoa's chair to the door.
"Kang Hyunwoo."
At Serin's voice, I turned back, hand still on the handle.
Her lips parted and closed, searching for words. Then she nudged the teacup a little in my direction. It didn't come close to reaching the seat where I'd been sitting.
"At least have some tea before you go."
"It's gone cold."
Serin withdrew her hand.
"So it has."
When I opened the door, students fresh out of class were streaming through the corridor. It was loud, nothing like the room behind me. Voices booking their next training slots, bickering over what to have for dinner. One door away, it was an evening no different from any other.
Before crossing the threshold, I glanced back. Seoa was holding the roster. Serin had drawn the cold teacup toward herself, and Harin was still watching me, her finger pressed to the bandage on her arm.
"Thanks for everything."
Not one of the three answered. I closed the door.