Advance Reconnaissance (3)
If several dozen students—not two or three, but dozens—went swarming through the Downtown together, there would be no way to avoid drawing every eye in the district.
Worse still, if every one of those dozens happened to be a member of the Thief Club, it would amount to standing on a corner and announcing, We're suspicious characters! We've come here to do suspicious things!
And so we had split into small groups and agreed to converge on our destinations separately, which was how I naturally ended up traveling with Dang Gyu-young and no one else.
We were walking side by side when she asked, "So? What do you make of it now that you've had a look around?"
"I can tell they've prepared thoroughly."
No fewer than five graduate mentors involved in the operation, security measures layered two and three deep—last year's Black Market may have ended in outright failure, but it seemed they'd spent the intervening year sharpening their knives for this one.
That said, the Disciplinary Committee was hardly going to be a pushover either. They would be preparing their own countermeasures to throw sand in the gears, and who would be laughing when the dust settled remained to be seen.
"Was it worth watching? Does it look fun to you?"
"It's fascinating, actually."
"Heheh. Knew it was a good idea to bring you along."
Pleased with my answer, Dang Gyu-young smiled brightly. The primary goal of letting me tag along today had been to pique my interest, and she seemed satisfied that the expectation had been met at least to some degree. Then, as if in passing, she tossed out a proposal.
"Want in?"
She meant whether I'd be willing to join as a hired hand, the way I had during the Temporary Confiscation Storage break-in. I was interested, obviously—but it seemed wiser to hear the whole arrangement out before deciding, so I asked, "What exactly would you have me do?"
"You know that senior with the punchable face? Stick to him."
From Dang Gyu-young's perspective, "the senior with the punchable face" was, one hundred percent, that slouch of a graduate. Which meant the job matched his role in the plan as well: hold position as reserve manpower and lend a hand if anything unexpected cropped up.
"Hm, that might be asking a bit much of me. I'm hardly qualified to go toe-to-toe with second- and third-year Disciplinary Committee members."
"Who said anything about fighting? Just get in the way a little, then slip out. That's your specialty, isn't it?"
Obstruct and retreat. It was, admittedly, precisely the kind of play I excelled at. And as a mere first-year, expectations of me wouldn't run especially high anyway—I'd only need to intervene up to a reasonable line.
"Then I'm in. What's the compensation?"
"You're collecting banned items, aren't you?"
"Of course."
Most of the sellers at the Black Market were graduates. Which meant that compared to the Temporary Confiscation Storage at the start of the semester, the listings would be far more numerous—and far higher-graded. There was no better opportunity anywhere to get my hands on banned items.
Dang Gyu-young grinned, as if she'd seen this coming from a mile away. "Tell me what you're after. The moment it shows up in the listings, you'll be the first to know."
In the course of connecting sellers with buyers, the Thief Club got a clean, unobstructed look at every banned item changing hands. The idea was to exploit that advantage to the fullest—secure the listing I wanted and give me first claim on the deal.
Exactly what I'd been hoping for.
The EX-rank Regeneration Quest had replaced most of the cast, and their possessions would naturally have changed along with them. Which meant there was no telling what might surface at this Black Market. I would have needed to pound the pavement in every sense of the phrase—but if the Thief Club did that legwork on my behalf, the savings in time and effort would be substantial.
And the category of banned item I was after was the same as during the storage raid: elemental penalty items.
The haul from back then had consisted of two things—the Inferno Fist skill book, and the Heart Thunder Jade, which was still sleeping peacefully in a corner of my dorm room. Each carried a massive elemental penalty on use, but in my case, S-rank Elemental Resistance nullified nearly all of it. In effect, I took the upside at no cost, which made it the best available choice for the time being.
So I handed Dang Gyu-young a slip of paper. "These are the ones I'm looking for."
"Seriously? You've already got a list made?"
"I was planning to ask you for exactly this, so I'm truly grateful you offered first."
"……"
Dang Gyu-young eyed me with open suspicion for a moment, but apparently decided the list could wait no longer; her gaze dropped to the slip of paper. And the further down it she read, the deeper her brow creased.
"……Kim Ho, is this really the list?"
"Yes. Absolutely certain."
"What is this, a shopping list for dark martial arts? How do you always manage to hunt down the most murderous things in existence? Inferno Fist was bad enough."
"It's all in service of world peace."
Smash everything standing in the way to pieces, and peace is bound to follow.
Dang Gyu-young wore the expression of someone who had given up on ever figuring me out. "Uh-huh. Sure it is. Anyway—you'll use these shrewdly and discreetly, right? Without kicking up any major trouble?"
"You know me. I never take on more than I can handle."
"Fine, got it. I'll see what I can dig up."
We kept walking, hashing out the details of the Black Market as we went, and before I knew it the number of people passing around us had swelled sharply. We had entered the Downtown.
The district was maintaining the same liveliness as last week. The vendors in their long rows, the street performances—nothing much had changed. The Masked Gentleman who had once handed Seo Ye-in his playing cards, for instance, was still working his magic show on that very corner. The first time I saw him, I'd wondered what an event boss was doing popping up in a place like this; watching him now, I genuinely suspected he'd come to Dungeon Island for the magic show and nothing else.
But neither Dang Gyu-young nor I had any particular interest in street performance, so we kept our eyes ahead and quickened our pace.
Our first stop: the rendezvous point.
A member who had arrived ahead of us was standing at an ice cream cart, drawing out one tool after another and setting up shop. He greeted our approach with a sly, knowing smirk.
"Welcome, welcome."
Dang Gyu-young stared at the soft-serve machine for a few seconds, then turned my way. "What flavor do you want? Vanilla? Chocolate?"
"Half and half, please."
"Then half and half for me too."
At that, the member took out a cone and began dispensing the soft serve with brisk confidence—except the finished product was an utter catastrophe, and Dang Gyu-young couldn't help herself. "You'd better get some practice in."
"……My apologies."
The stall was only a front, but a front that couldn't manage even its own basics might invite precisely the suspicion it existed to prevent. A trivial flaw—but the fewer of those, the better.
After a couple more attempts, the member produced two noticeably less mangled cones, wrapped each in a napkin, and handed them over.
As had been mentioned at the meeting: the napkin was the actual item.
Looked at closely, it was two thin napkins layered together. The outer surface was as ordinary as could be, while the inner face was densely etched with an intricate magic array. And in one corner of the outside, an arrow—drawn so naturally it might have been part of the original print.
The moment we left the ice cream cart behind, the arrow tilted like a compass needle and settled on a single direction. A sidelong glance at Dang Gyu-young's napkin confirmed the same heading. Follow it faithfully, and the next stop would appear: the Exchange.
So we kept moving, ice cream in hand. Dang Gyu-young, careful not to draw the eyes of passersby, kept a hand raised near her mouth as she traded transmissions with Chae Da-bin at the control tower.
"You can see us, right? Mm, nothing in particular standing out? Got it. Heading straight for Exchange A."
The Exchange A we arrived at turned out to be a building much like a small shopping arcade. In front of it, the woman with the teardrop mole and the older graduate sat at their ease, watching us—apparently intending to verify, with their own eyes, how the formations, the Throughwalk, and the napkins performed.
So, giving them exactly what they wanted, we moved to approach the building—and just then, Dang Gyu-young's fingers closed around my napkin. Wondering what she was up to, I loosened my grip, and she slid it away in one smooth motion.
Mischief was written all over the eyes that met mine, so I asked, "And why, might I ask, are you confiscating my napkin?"
"Try it without. Just once."
With that, she pointed ahead. Walk a little further and we'd be knee-deep in formations.
"You want me to get through the formation with no guidepost?"
"Yep, yep."
"And what exactly do you get out of this, senior?"
"Oh, nothing. I'm just curious how you'll manage."
Looking again, there was anticipation mixed in with the mischief. Apparently she wanted to watch me blunder around in there, flailing with whatever half-baked plan I could scrape together, until I finally got myself thrown out. Unfortunately for her, that wish was not going to come true.
"Sorry, senior, but you won't be seeing any of that."
"You're telling me you'll be fine without a guidepost?"
"If I do it properly, yes."
At that, the two graduates—who until now had been enjoying the show like a sitcom—inserted themselves into the conversation. The teardrop-mole woman spoke first.
"Now that's not something I can simply let pass. That formation was laid down with my own personal care and attention. It will not be punched through so easily."
She wore the same gentle smile as at our first meeting, but there was something distinctly frosty beneath it. My words must have grazed her pride.
I answered with careful courtesy. "I had no intention of slighting your skill, senior. Only that my instincts happen to run a little sharper than most people's, so I thought I might manage to find my way through this time as well."
"……"
The teardrop-mole woman said nothing, merely watching me as if turning something over in her mind. At our first meeting, I had seen through her the instant she vanished into her Transparent Ghillie Suit, so she seemed willing to grant the sharp-instincts claim some measure of belief. Whether I could neutralize a formation she had installed with full confidence, however, still struck her as an open question.
Next to speak was the older graduate. His role in the Black Market was applying Throughwalk to the building itself, raising it into a maze. He tipped his chin toward his handiwork—Exchange A.
"If your instincts are that good, do you think you could make your way around in there without a guidepost?"
"I suppose we won't know until I try."
"You're not the type to say you can't, I notice."
The older graduate laughed, visibly amused. Before long, the two of them put their heads together in quiet consultation—and the sidelong glances they kept throwing my way said, one hundred percent, that the topic was me.
Shortly, they seemed to reach a conclusion, and the proposal came. "Then here's what we'll do. We'll be waiting for you inside that building. Come find where we're sitting—no guidepost allowed."
"And if I succeed, what then?"
"If you succeed, I'll get you anything you want. Any one item that turns up at this Black Market—your pick."
It was a mouthwatering offer. What Dang Gyu-young had promised me ran only as far as securing the listing and brokering the deal; actually purchasing the banned item was a separate matter entirely. The only trade-worthy valuables I possessed were the chunky ruby from Hong Yeon-hwa—and gem-type items would have any number of uses down the line, so the thought of parting with it had been nagging at me. Now, if I succeeded, they would buy the expensive banned item in my place.
And failure would cost me nothing at all. I had no reason whatsoever to refuse.
I bowed my head politely. "I accept your test, seniors."