A Whoosh and a Thud (3)

I was still in the middle of plugging the holes in the side wall when I saw the main gate's defense give way, and I moved at once.

First, I cast Wind Force through the Memorize stored in Root and slammed it down into the earth. Wind Force was a quick-cast spell to begin with, so I could have used it as-is, but I had deliberately routed it through Memorize—

Because that way, I don't take the penalty.

The idea was to make the system recognize that the one wielding the skill was not 'me' but 'Root,' so it would never dream of applying the [Close Combat] penalty.

With the side defense settled for the moment, I moved in beside Song Cheon-hye, lending her support so she could cast her large-scale spell and buying her all the time she needed.

There was another purpose here as well, beyond simply stacking damage onto the Beheader as fast as possible.

Because I ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠had a trait to copy.

Crown of the Wise King. A trait every mage alive would give anything to have. It was also the trait that had done a great deal to earn Song Cheon-hye her reputation as a mana monster.

Like the [Blessing of the West Wind] I had acquired, it bore no rank of its own; its effects were a bonus to all mana-type skills and traits, plus a reduction in mana consumption.

The very moment I copied it, my [Core] had climbed from C-rank to C+, and since my roster of mana-type skills was only going to keep growing, it promised to be enormously useful in the long run as well.

I had steered Song Cheon-hye into casting her large-scale spell precisely so that this trait's activation would stand out where I could see it. Even a mana monster would burn through a hefty chunk of mana unleashing something as powerful as [Summon Lightning Storm].

And just as I intended, while Song Cheon-hye assembled her grand spell and poured mana into it by the boatload, I was able to spot the blue crown floating above her head and copy it.

The quest came off without a hitch, too.

This week's sub quest, too, had cleared the top-reward threshold of 90 percent.

I had no use for it at this very moment, but the items I meant to craft down the road—equipment, consumables, and everything in between—were practically endless. Every selection ticket meant one less errand spent hunting down materials, so the more I stockpiled, the better.

And that wraps up this week.

The unexpected windfall, though...

...was the wish tickets that had multiplied to three thanks to my wager with Song Cheon-hye.

"Fine, let's bet. But if you fail to hit 90%, how about two?"

When she threw out that counter-offer, my first thought was that something was off. Outwardly, she must have come on that strong out of sheer certainty that I could never possibly reach 90 percent—but was that conviction really solid enough to raise her own stakes? Or was she, in truth, the Lamp Fairy, duty-bound to grant wishes three at a time?

It was beyond me.

The Disciplinary Committee room was quiet. As it happened, everyone seemed to have stepped out at the same time.

Song Cheon-hye sat alone at her desk, picking up the paperwork she'd been working through the day before, but before long she set it aside. Then she walked over to the sofa and sat down, prim and proper.

"..."

For a while she simply stared blankly ahead. Then she leaned back against the sofa, slid slowly down it, and—

"Uwaaah!! Why did I do that! Why did I do that! Why! Why did I do that!"

—began flailing her arms and legs.

Any joy she might have felt at closing out the conquest with an excellent score had been buried long ago. She had handed over three whole wish tickets. To Kim Ho, of all people!

Right up until the conquest began, she had been absolutely certain she would win the wager. Common sense said that a record holding steady at 70 percent all week could not possibly jump by 20 in a single bound.

And so she had overlooked one thing: that even that slippery snake of a human would have a conviction of his own when he placed his bet.

And losing was one thing, but—

What kind of confidence made me bet two?!

Even she couldn't explain why she'd done it. The moment the memory surfaced—herself making the counter-offer, and Kim Ho watching her with surprised eyes—her flailing grew even more violent.

If only there had been a blanket, she would have kicked it until it tore clean through; she could only lament that this was the Disciplinary Committee room and not her dorm. If the memory came back to her again tonight before bed, an actual hole might get torn.

And so, while Song Cheon-hye spent a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠good long while repeating why did I do that like a parrot—

"Why did I do that! Why! Why did I—"

Krrrrrumble...

A wooden door abruptly rose up in one corner of the Disciplinary Committee room.

Song Cheon-hye shot up from the sofa, smoothed out her somewhat rumpled clothes, and squared her posture. Then she bowed her head politely to Gwak Seung-jae as he stepped through the wooden door.

"You're here, senior..."

Gwak Seung-jae answered with a slight dip of his chin, then crossed the room.

Song Cheon-hye kept stealing glances at him from the corner of her eye.

Did he hear that just now? He couldn't have... right? He couldn't have.

"..."

Gwak Seung-jae poured himself a cup of coffee from the pot and settled onto the sofa. Then, after one sip of the coffee and then a second, he spoke.

"Now then. Tell me—why did you do it?"

"!!"

He heard everything!

Song Cheon-hye's face went scarlet in an ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠instant. As she stood there at a loss, face burning, Gwak Seung-jae took another sip of coffee and added, perfectly even.

"It was a joke."

"..."

All the wind went out of Song Cheon-hye at once. Coming from a senior who seemed like a solid crystallization of earnestness, somehow the joke didn't quite land as a joke.

Fortunately, the awkward air didn't last long—Gwak Seung-jae changed the subject first.

"You're here early. Did you finish your conquest?"

"Yes, I posted my score today."

Gwak Seung-jae seemed to mull it over for a moment, then fired off another question.

"Your partner this time was Kim Ho, if I recall."

"Yes, for this week only."

"Anything unusual to report?"

There was no hard proof that Kim Ho was the masked man he had encountered during the break-in at the Temporary Confiscation Storage, but in Gwak Seung-jae's eyes, far too much about the boy didn't add up.

Barely a month and a half into his enrollment, he had grown close to Dang Gyu-young—with whom he'd had no contact whatsoever before—at a speed that defied belief. Despite unclear origins and affiliation, he possessed the skill to play a perfect game against a golem refined by a third-year club head. And for all that, almost nothing about him had surfaced publicly.

These suspicions had only hardened the night he apprehended Kim Ho and the Thief Club crowd in the underground floors and caught sight of faint burn marks on the boy's hand.

And so the task of keeping watch on Kim Ho had fallen to Song Cheon-hye—a Disciplinary Committee member and his classmate. Whether by coincidence or not, mentoring had placed them in the same group as well, giving her the chance to observe him at close range—and today, one more 'unusual item' had been added to the list.

"He changed weapons."

"A weapon... As I recall, he never carried one until now."

In the replay records, Kim Ho's weapon had been the E-grade [Staff of Earth]. It offered a modest bonus to earth-attribute and support-type magic, and even that performance was so abysmal it might as well have been a plain wooden stick. Toward the end, apparently finding even carrying it a bother, he had gone entirely empty-handed.

Given that Kim Ho was a mage, the absence of so much as a single decent magical weapon had been decidedly odd—and then, out of nowhere, he had produced a short spear that looked to be of a considerably high grade and started putting it to use.

Naturally, no such high-grade item simply drops out of the sky, and Song Cheon-hye had a suspicion.

"The duel with the Emerald Magic Tower had the [Crafting VIP Ticket] riding on it. I believe he used it."

"That is the most likely explanation."

"...We could make inquiries with the Blacksmith Club."

If their guess was right and Kim Ho's short spear had been crafted at the Blacksmith Workshop, then nine times out of ten a record of which metals went into it would be kept there. Obtaining that information and working backward from the materials' origins was a valid approach. If Kim Ho had been entering dungeons in pursuit of a specific metal, it might narrow the search considerably—after all, the dungeon that yields [Black Iron] and the dungeon that yields [Mithril] are two different places.

Gwak Seung-jae's reaction, however, was skeptical.

"They are unlikely to share information of that importance."

"...Why not?"

"Because we would have no grounds."

They were students still, and a mere club at that—but they were craftsmen all the same. Kim Ho had committed no offense, and nothing was wrong with the short spear; what artisan would carelessly leak information about his client? Such craftsmen ought not to be pressured for information in the first place, and even under pressure they would not budge an inch.

That was precisely why the Blacksmith Club's standing at Dragon Slayer Academy was nothing to scoff at.

"Even so, it is worth an attempt. But if you are refused, commit no rudeness—withdraw at once."

"I'll be careful."

"Regarding the Inferno Fist matter, official notices have been circulated to every club."

In other words, without naming Inferno Fist directly, the notices requested that anything suspicious observed during a conquest be reported to the Student Disciplinary Committee.

"By the next conquest week, some manner of result will surface, one way or another."

Take the day Kim Ho and Dang Gyu-young's crowd were caught in the underground floors as the reference point: a considerable portion of the dungeons bid on before that day would see their conquests concluded this week, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠while the dungeons that had been bid on and were still waiting their turn were beyond counting. Lives rode on those runs, so thorough preparation was essential, and schedules had to be juggled around academics and club activities.

Even so, two weeks from now, within the next conquest week, the conquests of every bid dungeon would be complete.

There was no guarantee, however, that a finished conquest would necessarily draw a response. The odds were low, but Kim Ho and Dang Gyu-young's crowd might truly never have set foot in the underground dungeons; the dungeons they did enter might have had nothing to do with the bids; and even if a conquering party noticed something suspicious, the other side might make the first move and buy their silence.

"Of course, when that time comes, we too will have to move more aggressively."

Weekend morning.

I was waiting at the meeting spot near the dormitory when I spotted Seo Ye-in making her way toward me from far off, slow as anything. When I waved in greeting, she waved back—a lazy little flutter—as she came on.

By the time the distance had closed to something reasonable, I asked in a teasing tone.

"Shall we be off, my lady?"

"Yeah."

To the downtown district.

[110] The Support Ate It All