The Swordsmanship Club (1)
Jegalous Soso and Dang Gyu-young stood facing each other for a moment, and then their expressions slowly brightened.
They soon stepped toward each other, clasped both hands together, and—
"Kyu!"
"Ppu!"
"Kyu-Kyu!"
"Ppu-Ppu!"
—started hopping up and down like little children.
Jegalous Soso and Dang Gyu-young.
The two of them were childhood friends, having maintained their friendship since the tender age of five.
The fact that they were childhood friends was more or less public knowledge, but almost no one knew they got so excited at reunion they'd hop around like kids.
Besides, both were third-years holding positions that demanded a certain degree of leadership.
So they kept others away and made sure to meet alone for the sake of their public image.
Conveniently, it also let them talk about private matters.
It was Dang Gyu-young who stopped hopping first.
She kept hold of their joined hands and immediately started to whine.
"Kyu, why haven't you contacted me at all lately?"
"Sorry, I've been swamped. I'll message you more often."
Jegalous Soso answered with a wry smile.
It was something Dang Gyu-young, as a club president herself, could well understand, so she didn't press further.
Running even a mid-tier club like the Thief Club was busy enough as it was—imagine being the vice-president of a superpower like the Swordsmanship Club.
For a while, the two exchanged updates on this and that.
Then Jegalous Soso's face turned serious as she got to the point.
"Actually, I came here to ask you about something."
"Yeah? What is it?"
"A few weeks ago, we priority-bid on a certain dungeon..."
A dungeon the Swordsmanship Club had claimed using a Priority Bidding Right.
The Black Snake Chamber.
Jegalous Soso held up a photograph.
It showed the scenery near the Black Snake Chamber.
Every single hall had collapsed and burned—an absolute wasteland, as bad as wastelands get.
Dang Gyu-young felt a bead of cold sweat slide down inside.
'We really did leave one hell of a mess behind.'
She'd heard about it from Kim Ho in advance, but the state of the place was worse than she'd imagined.
"Someone went in ahead of us. I wanted to ask if you knew anything about it."
The Black Snake Chamber was B-rank—in other words, a deep-layer dungeon.
Breaking through the严密 security of the deep layer to slip inside would demand a very high level of stealth ability, so nine times out of ten, the Thief Club had to have been involved.
The Swordsmanship Club was moving on a guess that amounted to near-certainty.
Dang Gyu-young decided not to dodge and simply came clean.
She sighed quietly and answered.
"We did do it, yeah."
"Even with a priority bid on it?"
"Yeah. We tried to stop the client too, but they were stubborn about it."
"Figured as much. So who's the client?"
Jegalous Soso's tone as she asked was casual, but her eyes gleamed sharp and bright.
This was the point where trouble usually arose—when someone pressed for a client's identity.
The Thief Club wanted to keep their clients' information confidential whenever possible, while the Swordsmanship Club had to catch the rat who had trampled on their interests.
And if the Thief Club kept stonewalling, they'd have no choice but to bring force to bear.
As someone who had real friendship with Dang Gyu-young, Jegalous Soso hoped it wouldn't come to that.
That was why she had come in person, intending to mediate carefully.
Contrary to her expectation that she'd have to persuade for a long while, Dang Gyu-young spilled the client's identity right away.
"He's a first-year. Kim Ho, from Class 3."
"You're just telling me that?"
"Yeee~rs, we were told to toss everything onto him. Says he doesn't want me catching any fallout. And I figured, no harm in asking you for a little help, right?"
Dang Gyu-young's lips jutted out in a pout.
At that sight, Jegalous Soso's eyes sparkled once again.
'Something's going on here, isn't it?'
Her instincts tingled.
The tone carried too much feeling for how she usually talked about clients.
That bit about 'not wanting her to catch fallout' made it clear there was more than an ordinary rapport between the two.
And at the end, there was even a wistfulness, as if to say, 'I wish he'd lean on me a little more...'
Something occurred to her, and Jegalous Soso tossed out a probing question.
"A first-year—you mean that one? The one who's been hanging around you lately."
"What? Who's saying that? We're not hanging around together."
"You know it too, Kyu. It's all over the place."
Jegalous Soso was still fishing, but she wasn't exactly wrong.
As vice-president of the Swordsmanship Club, the rumor had simply reached her early—spreading through the entire third year was only a matter of time.
And the most likely source of that rumor went without saying—
"That toad bastard, I swear..."
—the recently despondent Kim Gap-du.
Thinking about it seemed to give her a headache, because Dang Gyu-young pressed a hand to her forehead.
But judging by what a childhood friend could see, Dang Gyu-young wasn't actually all that angry.
It could be interpreted as her having some measure of affection for that first-year, Kim Ho—be it big or small.
'Well, this just got interesting.'
She'd come to discuss club business, only to stumble on a romantic comedy.
The corners of her mouth began to creep upward, so Jegalous Soso naturally opened her fan to cover it.
Then she steered the conversation back to where it had derailed.
"If he was confident enough to tell you to toss everything onto him, I suppose he's got some kind of countermeasure prepared?"
Picking the Swordsmanship Club's priority-bid dungeon out of all the dungeons in the academy meant there was something worth gaining, even at the cost of conflict with the Swordsmanship Club.
And by extension, it meant he had already factored in some way to defuse that conflict.
Dang Gyu-young nodded as if her guess was right.
"I'd assume so, probably."
"Probably? He didn't tell you what it is?"
"Our dear junior is a man of mystery. Full of secrets."
Though it seemed even Dang Gyu-young didn't know exactly what Kim Ho had prepared.
'And it doesn't worry her at all, apparently.'
No matter how skilled a mover and shaker that first-year Kim Ho was, he was still just a first-year.
There were clear limits to what he could possibly bring to the bargaining table.
There was a very real chance that he'd prepared something he was confident about, only for it to turn out to be next to worthless.
And if the negotiation fell apart like that?
Kim Ho would have to bear the full weight of the Swordsmanship Club's fury.
As far as Dang Gyu-young was concerned, it was a situation more than worth being curious or worried about.
All the more the closer she was to Kim Ho.
And yet she herself seemed perfectly unbothered, maintaining the attitude of a spectator.
Jegalous Soso turned two possibilities over in her mind.
Either Kim Ho's ability was so exceptional that even this level of danger stirred no worry,
or that much trust had already been built between Dang Gyu-young and Kim Ho.
'One of the two—or maybe both.'
Her interest kept growing.
Jegalous Soso snapped her fan shut.
She had asked her various questions, but in truth, how she would act going forward had been decided the moment Kim Ho's name came up.
"I'll meet him and have a talk."
Jegalous Soso was curious now.
Just what kind of solution Kim Ho had prepared to break through this situation.
"So what part of him got you so hooked?"
"Kyu, not you too!"
* * *
The Swordsmanship Club.
Jegalous Soso was in her office, reviewing and approving various documents alongside her cousin and aide, Jegalous Yeongyeong.
The two of them were deep in concentration over the paperwork when—
Thud. Thud.
Someone pounded on the office door.
It was unmistakably a knock, but the impact was heavy and weighty.
Jegalous Soso spoke softly, her eyes still fixed on the documents.
"Come in."
The door swung open and a second-year male student entered the office.
A solid, burly build, his whole body packed with muscle, a roughly-trimmed beard, and a menacing scowl to top it off.
He looked like a passing Green Forest bandit dressed up in a school uniform.
Second-year Green Forest bandit, Mak Daewoong, asked:
"You called, ma'am?"
"Yes, I called because there's something I need you to do."
Of course, it was phrased as a request, but it was as good as an order.
As a member of the Swordsmanship Club, how could anyone refuse the vice-president?
Yet Mak Daewoung just shrugged as if it were no big deal.
"Give it to me."
"Kim Ho, first-year, Class 3. I'd like to meet him and have a word."
"You want me to bring him here?"
"Yes—but you are not to use coercive means."
"Yeah, yeah, got it."
Mak Daewoong gave a small nod, shut the office door, and left.
Jegalous Yeongyeong watched his retreating back with a disapproving eye.
"He'll just scamper back to them and report everything."
"Probably."
"You really can't trust the Black Way, I swear."
The Swordsmanship Club was the largest force in Dragon Slayer Academy, which meant it had its share of internal factions.
The most notable example was the divide by background between the Black Way and the White Way, and as could be inferred from Jegalous Yeongyeong's tone just now, the two factions were on terrible terms.
Mak Daewoong was a member of that Black Way faction.
Then why would she go out of her way to entrust a task to a member of the opposing faction?
Such a question was written in Jegalous Yeongyeong's eyes.
Jegalous Soso asked with a gentle smile.
"What do you think?"
"No need to even check—he'll use 'coercive means' anyway."
"Right?"
Mak Daewoong would certainly bring Kim Ho to her as requested,
but he'd let the warning about 'coercive means' go in one ear and out the other.
True to the Black Way, his temperament was rough, and he'd handle things the way 'those people' instructed him to.
For instance, he might use force first and then try to weasel out with 'well, it wasn't exactly coercion.'
But with all due respect to her own title as chief strategist, did Jegalous Soso fail to anticipate that?
Jegalous Yeongyeong mulled it over, and soon something seemed to dawn on her, her eyebrows shooting up.
"Sister, do you expect Mak Daewoong to fail?"
"I'm certain of it."
Jegalous Soso was actually hoping Mak Daewoong would disobey her instructions.
And she was firmly convinced that he would use 'coercive means' and fail.
If so, then in the end, the White Way would be handed one more pretext to tear into the Black Way.
That Mak Daewoong had defied her orders, acted on his own, and even failed.
And that the Black Way faction had put him up to it.
Jegalous Yeongyeong had understood everything up to this point, but she still looked somewhat uncertain.
Because one variable remained.
"But... what if that first-year can't hold up?"
What if Kim Ho's ability fell short of expectations, and the coercive approach actually worked?
Then the Black Way could turn around and crow, 'See? Our methods work better, don't they?'
Which would only be doing them a favor.
This time, too, Jegalous Soso smiled gently.
"You don't need to worry."
Her conviction rested on very clear grounds.
Seeing the burned remains of the Black Snake Chamber had brought back her memory of an incident from early in the semester.
The break-in at the Thief Club's Temporary Confiscation Storage.
The identity of the masked figure who had lent a hand there remained unknown to this day.
That masked figure had mastered Inferno Fist, defeated the second-year Disciplinary Committee's Gwak Seung-jae in a head-on fight, and then calmly slipped out of the encirclement—so the story went.
And by a most curious coincidence, the Black Snake Chamber that Kim Ho had entered was burned to the ground.
His ties to the Thief Club also appeared quite close.
Add to that the evasive attitudes Dang Gyu-young had shown whenever Jegalous Soso asked a few pointed questions about Kim Ho.
Stack it all together, and only one conclusion emerged.
'That boy is the Inferno Fist user.'
In which case Mak Daewoong could throw a truckload of men at him and it wouldn't even matter.