Downtown Market (1)
The next morning, in front of the shuttle bus stop bound for downtown.
Unexpectedly, the first to arrive and wait was Seo Ye-in. She stood there quietly, staring off into empty air, but her beauty shone so brightly that this alone was enough to gather the gazes of everyone around her.
“......”
The moment I approached, Seo Ye-in noticed me at once, turned her eyes this way, gave a little wave, and came walking over. I waved back in greeting and opened my mouth.
“How are you the first one here?”
“Woke up early.”
“You did head in early yesterday. How much did you sleep?”
“A lot.”
“What's your battery percentage?”
“......80?”
Seo Ye-in answered with her head tilted slightly to one side. Sleeping that much and only recharging to eighty percent seemed like dreadful mileage to me, but since the important thing was that she wasn't drowsy now, I let it slide.
“Brother Kim, Lady Seo.”
“Oh, you made it.”
Go Hyeon-woo came over trailing his greeting, glanced back and forth between the two of us, and let out a chuckle.
“It seems today it's you who's arrived last.”
“Last of the three of us, maybe. But I'm not late.”
There were still five whole minutes left before the appointed hour.
While we traded such idle chatter, two shuttle buses pulled up one after the other, and together with the other waiting students we swarmed aboard.
— Murmur, murmur...
A few weeks ago, the students riding this bus had numbered barely ten, sparse and scattered — and aside from me and Seo Ye-in, every last one of them had been a second- or third-year. Now, by contrast, it was packed so tight that finding a seat was a struggle, and first-years made up a sizable share of the crush. Most of them, I suspected, were heading downtown for the very first time today, just like Go Hyeon-woo.
Conversations drifted over from the neighboring seats.
“Bakery, you're going down. The bread's getting wiped out today.”
“You absolute pig. You're going downtown to eat bread?”
“To eat it, obviously. What else would I go for?”
“Aren't you prepping for the midterms?”
“Prep for what? I don't even know what's on them.”
“Even so, you should at least be building up your specs.”
Just so, half the students had come to play, eat, and rest, while the other half had come to pad their credentials. Our own goal sat closer to the latter — though Go Hyeon-woo, catching snatches of the chatter, looked to be growing a little tempted.
“Indeed. It is a rare chance to indulge in some fine dining, after all.”
Seo Ye-in, for her part, began tugging gently at my sleeve.
“Game center.”
“Let's have the both of you calm down first.”
We could decide what to do once we actually got there.
A short while later we reached the downtown district, where the crush of people made the shuttle bus seem like nothing at all — a veritable flood of humanity. Go Hyeon-woo gave a wry smile.
“I'd hoped to stroll along at a leisurely pace and take in the sights, but it seems there will be no room for that.”
“Can't be helped, with this many people. Let's do the market first.”
“Very well. Let's be off.”
Go Hyeon-woo took the point while I steered from just behind him, and Seo Ye-in trailed along after, clutching the hem of my sleeve near my forearm.
“Where are we headed first?”
“The nearest place, to start.”
The academy had sanctioned the market in exactly two locations. One was the upperclassman sales zone, where second- and third-years and their clubs raised their stalls; the other was the Graduate Sales District, where departing seniors gathered. And of the two, the closer one was—
“The upperclassman side.”
We pushed through the sea of people to the second- and third-years' sales zone, where a broad, sprawling building like a shopping mall came into view. But just as we drew near it, Go Hyeon-woo, out in front, spotted something and stopped short.
“Hmm.”
“Long line, isn't it?”
A line as long and winding as an earthworm. With only two places to shop and students numbering in the hundreds, it had been foreseen from the start. Joining the tail of the worm, Go Hyeon-woo remarked,
“It seems we should have come a little earlier.”
“Coming early wouldn't have changed a thing.”
Even had we waited from the early morning, before the gates opened, there would still have been a line. We were hardly the only ones with that idea.
“And coming early isn't automatically better, either.”
“And why would that be?”
“If the sellers haven't put their goods out yet, you can't buy anything no matter when you show up.”
“Hmm. That does hold water.”
From a seller's standpoint, the market ran all day long, so there was no need to schedule one's wares for the morning hours. Plenty of listings went up leisurely around the afternoon instead. So whether you arrived early or late, unearthing a good item came down to nothing but luck.
“In any case, it seems we have no choice but to wait our turn.”
“Looks that way.”
Unless, of course, you happened to have connections to some super-club.
But right then—
“We meet again.”
A soft, mellifluous voice drifted over from behind us. I turned my head to find Jegal So-so, vice president of the Swordsmanship Club, standing there. She greeted us with a light flutter of her fan, and I bowed at the waist in return.
“Good day, Senior.”
“Come to browse the market?”
“That's right.”
Jegal So-so smiled serenely and turned her back to us.
“Follow me, please.”
I caught her intent at once and flicked a glance at the bewildered Go Hyeon-woo and Seo Ye-in. Moments later, the three of us abandoned our place in line and fell in behind her.
“Will you introduce the two friends who came along as well?”
“This is Go Hyeon-woo, and this is Seo Ye-in.”
Jegal So-so studied the pair with interest, and her gaze settled on Go Hyeon-woo. She had asked me for the introductions, true — but with the vice president's intelligence network, there was no chance she didn't already know a talent of his caliber.
“I've heard a great deal about you. They say you possess a most remarkable sword aura.”
“You flatter me.”
“I do hope you'll pay the Swordsmanship Club a visit whenever you find yourself with a free moment.”
“I shall be sure to do so.”
Jegal So-so soon guided us to a separate entrance leading into the upperclassman sales zone, and there she held the door open for us with a brief explanation.
“It's a club privilege. Simply put, think of it as an invitation.”
“Thank you. But are you certain it's all right to spend it on us?”
Bypassing the line to admit people into the sales zone was a club privilege of the same order as the Crafting VIP Ticket or the dungeon Priority Bidding Right. Even the vice president of the Swordsmanship Club couldn't scatter such things about carelessly. By rights they ought to go to fellow club members, or to juniors she was personally close with — and yet she was spending one on the three of us, just like that?
It was more than enough to raise a doubt or two. Jegal So-so answered with a gentle smile.
“Because I expect we'll be seeing a great deal of each other from now on. I wanted to earn a few points with you in advance.”
On the matter of seeing each other often, I could hardly disagree. The Treasure Map Piece B was at stake as we spoke, and there was plenty more I'd be wanting to trade with the Swordsmanship Club besides.
“And what, precisely, do you mean by 'earning points'...?”
“......”
Jegal So-so answered only with an unreadable smile. Then, with a light wave of her hand, she turned to go.
“Enjoy your browsing, then.”
“Thank you.”
I offered my thanks again and again to her retreating figure, and Go Hyeon-woo looked at me in open admiration.
“So you had connections to a super-club all along.”
“Apparently so.”
Somehow, connections had piled up without my ever quite planning it. What she might be keeping behind that smile, I couldn't yet say — but that was a puzzle for later. For now, we set about browsing the market.
The upperclassman sales zone made use of an entire shopping-mall-sized building, and it was enormous. Stalls raised by second- and third-years spread out all the way to the far edge of my sight. It looked like it would take until nightfall to see it all — but when I lifted my eyes overhead, signs were floating in the air, each one pointing toward a different quarter.
Inside, too, the sales zone was partitioned off by category. The items were already spilling out of every stall in dizzying profusion, so without at least this much order a buyer could have wandered lost for half the day. Hence the consideration.
Go Hyeon-woo of the warrior line, me of the mage line, and Seo Ye-in of the ranged line each had different corners to comb. So Go Hyeon-woo asked,
“What say we split up and search?”
“Let's just stay together. We've got plenty of time.”
Thanks to Jegal So-so, we'd skipped the whole ordeal of queuing, and that had bought us a comfortable margin. Sticking together was the better call — we could lend each other a hand picking out items, too.
And so we stepped into the nearest section — the archers' quarter. Several seniors sat around inside, trading idle chatter, and sensing our arrival they broke off mid-sentence and turned to look at us. Then one male student and one female student came over to meet us.
“Welcome. Looking for anything?”
“What's your class?”
I pointed at Seo Ye-in.
“She's a Gunner.”
“...Tch. I see.”
The male student clicked his tongue in disappointment and trudged back to his group. The female student gave an amused little smile and explained.
“He only sells archer gear.”
None of it would suit a Gunner like Seo Ye-in, so he was cutting his losses early. The female student asked next,
“Anything in particular you're after?”
“Just browsing for now.”
“Sure. Ask if anything catches your eye.”
The female student likewise drew back a step, so we could look around without feeling hounded. I asked Seo Ye-in,
“What do you want to look at first?”
“......”
I had a rough read on Seo Ye-in's shopping style already, from our trip downtown two weeks ago — from the Pointy-Ear Magic Item Shop.
'The type who doesn't overcomplicate things.'
She might lift one item after another in her hands, but if nothing pleased her she'd simply move along, and if something did, she'd grab it without a second's deliberation.
“......”
Just as predicted, Seo Ye-in's gaze, drifting unhurriedly over the stalls, snagged on a single spot — and she walked straight toward it. A mountain of assorted ranged-class skill books was piled up there, and Seo Ye-in, as though she already knew exactly what lay where, rummaged through it without a trace of hesitation and hauled out one skill book that had been buried in a far corner for who knew how long.
'And how on earth did she spot that one?'
The female student, who had withdrawn to keep an eye on us, saw what Seo Ye-in had picked up and came back over — and the moment she registered that it was a random skill book, her expression turned peculiar.
“You're thinking of buying this?”
“Yes.”
There was a trace of reluctance in the girl's face.
“...I'd be happy to make the sale, but you're a junior, so I'll be straight with you. I don't recommend random skill books.”
A random skill book taught its user a single skill, chosen entirely at random. Here the pool had at least been narrowed to the 'ranged' category, but even so, she would be acquiring one skill out of a countless many — and of that countless many, the useless ones, the ones wholly ill-suited to Seo Ye-in's style, made up an overwhelming majority. Which was to say, the odds of her learning something completely absurd were very high indeed.
“That said, I can't exactly let it go for less than market price, either. We have to at least break even, you know.”
Random or not, a skill book was a skill book, and its value ran high. Besides, it had dropped from a dungeon on the Underground Floors, and to recoup the resources they'd sunk into clearing it, they needed to fetch its proper price.
Seo Ye-in tilted her head slightly and asked,
“How much?”
“8,000 points.”
Go Hyeon-woo flinched in surprise. Even with the comfortable cushion of points I'd built up selling replays, it was no sum to sneeze at. Most first-years wouldn't so much as entertain the thought.
And if she learned something absurd from the random skill book? Those 8,000 points might as well disintegrate into thin air.
No wonder the girl was trying to talk her out of it.
“You'd be better off buying something else. Are you really sure?”
“I'm buying it.”
“I really did warn you. It's your purchase.”
Without a moment's hesitation, Seo Ye-in produced her student ID and paid the 8,000 points. Then she spread the random skill book open on the spot. The female student still wore an expression of lingering unease — until she saw that, and her eyes went perfectly round.
“You're learning it right now?”
“Yes.”
— Fwah—
Before anyone could so much as raise a hand to stop her, the skill book began to glow, slowly at first. It was water under the bridge now, so the female student, half in pity and half in resignation, heaved a long sigh. In a moment the light would be absorbed into Seo Ye-in, and a notification visible to her alone would appear. Telling her she had learned a new skill.
— Fwah—
But instead of flowing into Seo Ye-in, the light pouring off the skill book only kept growing fiercer and brighter. What had been a soft glow was now so dazzling that no one could look at it directly.
“Hey, what is that thing?”
“What's she doing?”
At the sudden anomaly, every eye in the vicinity locked onto us. And still the skill book's radiance climbed brighter and brighter, until at last it swallowed the entire hall.
[165] The Support Ate it All