We Decided to Use It as a Coffee Cup

The golden sphere's power was devastating.

Since it was a spell the D-rank boss had cast by pouring out its very life force, one entire section of the wall was blown clean apart, and the temple itself shuddered violently, as if an earthquake had struck.

I shrugged.

As long ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠as it doesn't hit me, who cares.

I could bend the sphere's trajectory slightly with Distortion at any time, but if I used it carelessly, the priest would simply redirect the thing and send it flying right back at me.

So I'd kept running, boosting the sphere's speed all the while, then used Distortion to knock it off course at the perfect angle to slam it into the wall instead.

"This is impossible... How could this..."

Of course, to the priest—who knew nothing of the machinations behind it—it must have looked entirely different. As if I had pretended to be a hair's breadth away from being struck, only to wave the sphere away with a single flick of my hand.

His eyes brimmed with nothing but disbelief and despair.

"My deepest condolences."

"Impossible..."

The priest kept choking out "impossible" over and over until his breath finally gave out.

Moments later, his body crumbled into dust, leaving behind a golden dagger and two chests where he had stood.

Rumble...

The vibration trembling through the ground beneath my feet grew steadily stronger. Partly it was the aftermath of the sphere's blow to the temple as a whole, and partly it was the omen of the dungeon collapsing now that its priest had been slain.

So I made straight for the temple's exit.

The first thing that came into view was Go Hyeon-woo's back. And below, where his gaze was fixed, a literal hellscape spread out before us.

His sword aura had swept past so many times that an entire floor had been sheared away, and the shredded wreckage left behind was stained a deep, dark crimson.

Go Hyeon-woo, who had been about to unleash another merciless wave of sword aura, stopped himself and turned toward me.

"I take it you are finished, Brother Kim."

"That's right. You held out well. Made things easy for me."

"I'm glad I could be of help."

"Let's head out, then."

The moment we emerged through the portal, Shin Byung-cheol released his stealth and came to greet us.

"Well, look who's back! How'd it go? You cleared it without any trouble, right?"

"Nothing worth mentioning."

"It was a fairly productive outing, I'd say."

We started making our way back toward the surface. Somewhere along the way, Shin Byung-cheol uncomfortably began closing the distance between ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠us, then flashed a wide, beaming smile—straight out of the Han So-mi playbook.

He was clearly expecting something.

I pulled one of the random boxes from my inventory and held it out.

"Here you go. Your fee."

"Ohhh! Thank you, valued customer!"

He held out both hands reverently, ready to receive it.

Typically, guiding students through the underground floors was paid for with items purchased from the student store, or with a share of the dungeon rewards. Since the clear reward for this Feathered Serpent Temple run was random boxes, I was handing over one of them.

That said, a D-rank random box was rather excessive compensation for the first-year-level guiding service Shin Byung-cheol provided, so the balance had been struck by having him take on a few more unpaid requests down the line.

Still, I checked one last time before handing the box over.

"You know if this one's a dud, that's that. No regrets?"

"What kind of question is that? A man goes all in on one shot. You win some or you go home, am I right?"

"Fine, then."

Well, if he insisted that much, who was I to stand in his way?

The moment I let go, Shin Byung-cheol bobbed his head in repeated bows as he accepted the box with both hands. Then he asked,

"Hey, can I open it right now?"

He really was terribly impatient.

I nodded without much ceremony.

"It's yours. Do what you like with it."

"Okay, here we go! Come on, golden rainbow! Show yourself!!"

"..."

"..."

Shin Byung-cheol froze solid on the spot.

See? Told you a dud means a dud.

Go ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Hyeon-woo patted his shoulder with an expression that said he understood completely.

"I own that very wooden cup myself. It makes a rather fine tea cup, actually."

"..."

Somehow, though, that did not seem to be much of a comfort.

The next day, after lunch, we settled into a quiet spot out of the way.

Go Hyeon-woo had taken only the random boxes dropped by Fatty and Skinny and then departed.

His reasoning was that, in his presence, an F-rank wooden cup had now popped out not once but twice. As far as I could tell there was no connection whatsoever, but if it made him uneasy, who was I to argue?

And so Seo Ye-in and I sat facing each other, just the two of us, and opened our inventories.

"Time for our unboxing session, right on schedule."

"Wow—"

Seo Ye-in gave a silent round of finger applause.

But before we got to the unboxing, I turned my head over my shoulder and spoke.

"Feel free to watch up close, if you'd like."

At that, Ahn Jung-mi abruptly rose up from a nearby patch of bushes a little distance away from us.

Aside from matters relating to my mentoring, she was the Future Strategy ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Office team leader and butler first and foremost, so she was always lurking nearby like that, marking Seo Ye-in's location. Though she concealed herself, since her presence might unsettle the other students.

Ahn Jung-mi recognized the random box at a glance and asked,

"Have you been to the underground floors?"

"Yes, last night."

I had deliberately revealed it just to gauge her reaction, and as expected, Ahn Jung-mi showed no real inclination to make an issue of my having gone down there.

"Strictly speaking, it is a violation of the academy rules—but insisting on principle over everything is not my way. I would merely like to offer one piece of advice, as a senior who once studied at Dragon Slayer Academy herself."

"I'm all ears."

Ahn Jung-mi spoke in a grave tone.

"Based on the disposition I've observed in you over our short acquaintance, Kim Ho-nim, I have no doubt you entered that dungeon with the utmost confidence. Even so, I implore you to exercise extraordinary caution whenever you set foot in an underground dungeon. There is a reason this Dungeon Island was once counted among the forbidden lands."

Over a thousand dungeons existed in the underground floors, and their varieties were enormously diverse.

The Advent of the Feathered Serpent series and the Black Snake Gang were dungeons where events unfolded along a set storyline, so anyone who thoroughly mastered the strategy could consider them half-cleared from the start.

By contrast, there were countless dungeons that were random from start to finish, where strategy played almost no part at all. In places like those, you had to claw your way through on raw strength and sheer improvisation.

Of course, knowing this, I only picked the straightforward ones to enter—but even in dungeons with a clear established strategy, the possibility of a variable always existed.

Go Hyeon-woo and Shin Byung-cheol running into the hidden boss White Snake in the Black Snake Gang was one such case.

Short of catastrophically terrible luck, that boss should never have appeared—and yet, right before their eyes, it had.

In short: unless you constantly planned for the worst-case scenario, the moment you slipped up, your life hung by a thread.

For all these reasons, I judged Ahn Jung-mi's advice to be perfectly sound.

"I'll keep it in mind. Thank you for the advice."

"Can I go down too?"

When Seo Ye-in asked, Ahn Jung-mi's face went stern, and she answered with unwavering firmness.

"Absolutely not. You and Kim Ho-nim are different, Agassi. You must only challenge dungeons that match your qualifications."

"..."

Seo Ye-in stared at Ahn Jung-mi in silence for a few seconds, then shifted her gaze toward me.

She'd already let it go in one ear and out the other, hadn't she?

Sensing this too, Ahn Jung-mi emphasized her point again.

"Agassi, it is not permitted. If anything were to happen to you in the underground floors, a great many people—including myself—would be heartbroken. If you have even the smallest regard for us, I ask you to restrain yourself."

And apparently an entire department wing might get blown away, too.

After layering admonition upon admonition upon admonition, Seo Ye-in slowly nodded her head up and down.

"...Okay."

Only then did Ahn Jung-mi let out a silent sigh.

I suspected that little exchange just now had shaved a few months off her lifespan. Come to think of it, was being a butler not the most grueling hidden profession of all?

"Now then, shall we open them?"

I steered the conversation back to its original topic to clear the air, and handed a random box to Seo Ye-in.

"Want to do it again this time?"

"Yeah."

It would be her third time serving as my proxy opener. Just like before, not a trace of nervousness could be found on her.

She flipped the lid open with perfect nonchalance, and—

A short while later, as the light died down, what remained was a tightly rolled magic scroll.

A B-rank again?

Seo Ye-in's absurd luck had already been confirmed through her two previous proxy pulls. Pulling a B-rank cushion from a D-rank random box, then an A-rank Ten-Thousand-Year Cold Iron from a B-rank ingot chest—she was a veritable expert.

Still, I hadn't imagined she'd pull another B-rank this time too.

And to top it off, as if deliberately sniping for Seo Ye-in specifically, out came yet another living-convenience item.

She already owned the Feather Cushion (B) from her earlier pull. For a mere cushion, it was loaded to the brim with every option imaginable for a luxurious napping lifestyle—accelerated fatigue recovery, increased resistance to status ailments, skin beautification, and so on.

According to Ahn Jung-mi, it was being put to very good use, too.

The only flaw was that the cushion's design was rather plain for its performance—which was precisely why this scroll had popped out, practically proposing, 'Then why not change its appearance!'

"..."

Seo Ye-in, unsurprisingly, showed tremendous interest. Every time I playfully moved the scroll this way and that, her eyes tracked it. Then she stared straight at me with an expressionless but sparkling gaze.

The legendary "give it to me" look.

I let out a wry smile and held the scroll out to her.

"Sure, it's yours. Living-convenience items don't mean much to me anyway—and besides, with my luck, I'd never have pulled it in the first place."

"Thank you."

Half of this was me giving a friend a gift in good faith—but the other half was pure calculation.

Because her butler is watching right now.

When we'd first met, Ahn Jung-mi had said she wanted to repay me for aiding Seo Ye-in's growth. And when I'd made plans to go out to the commercial district with Seo Ye-in over the weekend, she'd promised my time would not go unrewarded.

With her emotional debts to me steadily piling up like this, there was no need to put a price tag on a single scroll.

As predicted, Ahn Jung-mi was watching us with eyes full of quiet emotion.

Amid this heartwarming atmosphere, I pointed at the second random box.

"Shall we open the other one, then?"

"I suppose so."

Seo Ye-in placed her hand on the lid.

But some thought seemed to have struck her, because she hesitated mid-motion. Tilting her head as she studied the random box, she then passed it to Ahn Jung-mi instead.

"Butler opens it."

Ahn Jung-mi's pupils wavered at the sudden pass.

"Me...? You mean me?"

"Yeah."

Ahn Jung-mi took on the expression of a new hire suddenly handed a massive company project.

This random box was mine, and being D-rank, the odds of something absurd popping out were fairly high. Which meant the odds of an awkward situation being staged were fairly high, too.

With my eyes alone, I made an intense appeal—this is very burdensome, I need help—but—

"It's quite all right. Whatever comes out, I shan't mind in the slightest."

—I only doubled her burden with a kindly, genial smile.

Judging by everything so far, Seo Ye-in's extraordinary luck didn't seem to trigger twice in a row. What remained was me and Ahn Jung-mi, and odds were the odds would be similar no matter who pulled.

In that case, wouldn't it be more entertaining if the butler did the honors?

"...Very well."

Ahn Jung-mi seemed to finally resign herself to her inescapable fate.

Then, with more tension than I had ever seen from her, she carefully opened the box.

Her complexion turned the color of ash. No—the color of a wooden cup.

Instantly, her bow bent to a full ninety degrees.

"I sincerely apologize."

"It's fine. Really, it is."

"How can I ever atone for this..."

"I told you, it's fine."

Even with me repeating that it was fine, Ahn Jung-mi could not lift her head for a good long while.

The wooden cup was destined to be used by Ahn Jung-mi as a coffee cup.