The Swordsmanship Club (5)
Jegal So-so poured her own share of the tea and tossed a question my way.
"Shall I pour you a cup as well?"
"Thank you—I'll gladly have some."
I accepted the teacup without demur. A deep, mellow fragrance rose from the warm porcelain.
I took a slow sip and nodded. "An excellent tea."
"It's a Longjing, grown and blended by my clan."
"The depth of flavor certainly shows it. By the way... is the lady over there not joining us?"
"......!"
When I flicked a glance toward the wall as I asked, Jegal So-so flinched, and her soft smile crumbled for the barest instant.
But it was, quite literally, a passing slip—gone almost before it registered.
For sheer composure, she outclassed everyone I had met to date.
"...How long have you known?"
"Something felt subtly off from the moment I stepped into the room."
Jegal So-so's formation art was third-year caliber, and no doubt laced with the secret techniques of the Jegal clan besides.
But I was the sort of veteran who had already unraveled formations laid by academy graduates.
I couldn't tell exactly what kind it was, yet deducing that a formation had been laid from the faintest hint of wrongness was no great feat.
And at this point, the only thing she could possibly want to hide from me was a person—so I had surmised that someone stood beyond that wall.
The look Jegal So-so gave me sharpened at its edges.
"Impressive. I'd heard about you in advance from President Dang Gyu-young, but you truly don't disappoint."
Jegal So-so then walked over to the wall and shifted the positions of a few furnishings arranged nearby.
The formation released, revealing a hidden door—and through it, a female student stepped out.
Her first impression was fierce, and as if to mirror that fiery temperament, a massive saber hung across her back.
"......"
The problem was that the gaze she fixed on me betrayed hostility past mere displeasure—so that, I thought, was why they'd had me talking in a sealed-off secret space.
But with the three of us now face to face, what was done was done.
Jegal So-so made the introductions.
"This is Paeng Mi-ryeong. A third-year like me, and—"
"We raided the Black Snake Chamber just recently. I was the party leader."
Paeng Mi-ryeong cut in, laying pointed emphasis on the words party leader.
She was, after all, the direct victim of the Black Snake Chamber break-in.
Raking me over with her eyes, Paeng Mi-ryeong said with a sneer:
"My teammates and I spent weeks prepping hard before going in, and what do we find? The inside trashed and the Chamber Master flying berserk. We had a real fun time, thanks to you."
From the Swordsmanship Club's standpoint, the Priority Bidding Right—a stake of their faction's interests—had indeed been trespassed upon, but that was strictly the position of the collective.
Judged coldly, she was closer to a third party in all this.
Angry as she might be, how could that compare to the fury of the one who had personally set foot in the dungeon?
The fault was mine at bottom, so I gave a respectful bow.
"I apologize, Senior. I understand your anger completely."
"If it were up to me, I'd overturn the whole thing, but for Soso's and Dang Gyu-young's sake, I'll hold off for now. I hear you brought something grand. If it's nothing, you'd best brace yourself."
"You won't be disappointed."
Paeng Mi-ryeong glowered at me with dissatisfaction, then asked:
"So what exactly did you break into the Black Snake Chamber for?"
"I needed materials."
"Materials?"
Instead of answering, I drew out Root.
Black-lustrous metal composed a short rod—an alloy of Ten-Thousand-Year Cold Iron and Black Mithril.
Paeng Mi-ryeong examined it closely, and a gleam of unusual color entered her eyes.
"Cold iron... no, wait. Ten-Thousand-Year Cold Iron?"
"That's right."
Paeng Mi-ryeong and Jegal So-so traded a glance.
"The Black Snake Chamber drops an ingot?"
"This is the first I've heard of it."
"If you look carefully in a corner of the boss room, you'll find an ingot box."
"......?"
Paeng Mi-ryeong's face soured a little.
She clearly didn't follow even after hearing me out, so I pulled out my Black Snake Chamber strategy guide.
The thing was decently thick, so I flipped straight to the section covering the approach for entering the Chamber Master's boss room.
Reading it, Paeng Mi-ryeong's eyebrows climbed upward.
"...There was something like this in there?"
"You didn't know?"
"How would anyone know that?"
The [Chamber Master's Black Chest] sat shoved into a deep corner even of the boss room, lacquered black from head to toe—genuinely difficult to discover without truly meticulous observation.
Jegal So-so considered for a moment, then spoke.
"Then they never carried the ingot box out in the first place."
"...Probably not."
If so, accusing me of stealing their reward grew rather murky.
Even if that reward was only one part of the issue at hand.
Perhaps for that reason, Paeng Mi-ryeong's anger seemed to have eased, if only a touch.
Besides, rather than keep tearing into me, her attention had fastened entirely on the strategy guide.
Learning that hidden elements lay scattered throughout a dungeon she'd already cleared would pique anyone's curiosity.
She flipped rapidly from page to page, scanning this place and that, letting admiring murmurs slip out half to herself.
"This detailed... who wrote this?"
"I did."
"You. Be honest with me."
"It was me."
For a first-year who'd barely enrolled to have a Deep Layer dungeon mapped out from head to toe—disbelief was the healthy response.
She probably assumed someone stood behind me.
Jegal So-so's perspective, on the other hand, seemed slightly different.
How I'd found it out, or whether anyone stood behind me or not—those were questions for later.
What mattered right now was—
"Do you have strategy guides for other dungeons as well?"
"Yes. Right here."
Next I handed over my [Feathered Serpent Altar] guide, and the two of them read through that one too with keen interest.
Then Jegal So-so and Paeng Mi-ryeong exchanged a glance that seemed to confirm each other's intent, and nodded.
"There are several dungeons we ourselves are preparing to raid. If you will write guides for them as thorough as this one, we will let the matter of the Priority Bidding Right rest as it is."
It was not a bad offer.
The strategy for every clearable dungeon on the Underground Floors already lived in my head.
Handing over one or two of them was nothing.
But I answered with a gentle smile.
"That would be fine, but I believe what I've prepared will whet your appetite considerably more."
I had already brought a powerful card; there was no reason to conduct the negotiation with anything lesser.
At my words, the two once again traded a sly glance.
"Let's hear it, then."
"What I've brought is a Treasure Map."
From my inventory I produced Treasure Map Pieces A and C.
Jegal So-so received them and studied the pieces.
"They are indeed Treasure Map Pieces. But from these alone, I cannot judge their worth."
The level of the final reward naturally varied depending on which dungeon's Treasure Map it was.
A middling D-rank or E-rank dungeon's hidden treasure, for instance, would amount to very little.
Of course, this too was an anticipated question.
One piece would have sufficed to prove the point—I had gathered two precisely in preparation for this moment.
"Stack them together and ignite the Samadhi True Fire, if you would."
Jegal So-so aligned the two pieces as I instructed, and golden flames billowed up from her hand.
Fwoooosh—
Though wrapped in the fire, the Treasure Map Pieces did not burn in the slightest, holding their shape perfectly.
Before long, Jegal So-so withdrew the Samadhi True Fire; the two pieces lay fused as one, with a faint map hovering above them.
"This is..."
"Can you place it?"
Which dungeon's map was this?
Nothing seemed to surface for Paeng Mi-ryeong; she glared at the Treasure Map with her eyes narrowed to slits.
Jegal So-so, by contrast, seemed to have realized something, her gaze shifting subtly.
"Gathering of Evildoers. Am I right?"
"You read it perfectly."
Dungeon No. 88. B-rank.
Gathering of Evildoers.
Its keyword was [Boss Rush]—the objective was to put down every evildoer prowling the region, every one of the infamous demonic fiends.
Each of them was a named fiend in their own right, and some even cooperated with one another, making them anything but easy opponents.
Hence its fame as one of the most punishing B-rank dungeons in existence.
"And the reason those fiends all gather in a single place—"
"—is this Treasure Map, is it?"
"Precisely."
The word demonic fiend inherently carried the sense of a criminal record in the murim.
The moment their traces surfaced, masters would be on their heels—so for them to flock together densely enough to be called a "gathering," there had to be some reason behind it.
And the incomplete Treasure Map held in Jegal So-so's hand was proving exactly that.
"......"
"......"
Jegal So-so and Paeng Mi-ryeong sank into brief thought.
Unlike Jegal So-so, whose expression had barely changed from the start, Paeng Mi-ryeong's face was undergoing quite a transformation.
Her irritation and anger toward me had all but vanished, their place seized by immense interest and craving.
Understandable—a B-rank dungeon's Treasure Map and the hidden piece it pointed to would be no ordinary haul.
Moreover, the hidden piece inside this Gathering of Evildoers was, to this day, entirely unknown.
If they could claim it first—
—then the trespass on their Priority Bidding Right and the disruption of their raid could be shrugged off as nothing, and in return they would be granted honor of staggering magnitude.
That said, this Treasure Map was incomplete.
Only a hazy outline of the map had surfaced; exactly where to head did not appear.
Jegal So-so asked:
"Bringing A and C means you have a way to obtain the last piece as well, doesn't it?"
"Of course."
Clearing three dungeons in a single week had been a bit of an overreach, so I had rushed through only the Daeeung Escort Bureau–Daeeung Escort Mission linked pair.
Two pieces were also enough to prove the Treasure Map's worth, so there had been no need to strain myself.
"When do you intend to go after the rest?"
"I will have it settled within the next raid week."
At that, Jegal So-so asked Paeng Mi-ryeong:
"Well? Can you wait?"
Next week was midterm exam week; the week after, PvP assessment week; and only the one after that was the raid week.
Nearly three full weeks would pass—long enough to chafe for anyone kept waiting.
Yet Paeng Mi-ryeong nodded without a moment's hesitation.
"Fine. I'll wait."
A little patience would put an enormous opportunity in her hands, after all.
Jegal So-so nodded in turn.
"Very well. Let us put your ability to the test."
I now had three weeks to secure the final Treasure Map Piece.
"Rank Up (D)" has been used.
The rank of "Amplification" has increased. (D → C)
The [Rank Up] that had dropped from the Daeeung Escort Mission's random box went to [Amplification].
It was the hardest thing in the world to raise in rank and the most useful besides—the destination had been decided from the very beginning.
Next I took the [Sealing Demon Box] out of my inventory and pressed the [Purification Talisman]—drawn for me by my lucky mascot Seo Ye-in—firmly onto it.
At once, the pristine-white talisman began to blacken, starting from its edges.
As it purified the demonic qi, the talisman itself was being steadily consumed.
I watched no further and tucked the Sealing Demon Box back into my inventory.
It could sit like that for a good while.
Naturally, a single Purification Talisman could not purify all of the condensed demonic qi inside the box.
But my goal had never been "purification" to begin with—it was "neutralization."
Even a partial neutralization would bring it down to a level I could wield without real strain.
And that neutralized demonic qi—
was destined to fuel the refinement of demonic arts.
Back during the Black Market recon, I had drawn up a list of the banned items I was after and handed it over to Dang Gyu-young, and this was the reply she sent back: