Downtown Market (3)
Turning into the mage section of the market, I spotted a familiar face.
Park Nari, the Guild Alliance's rising prospect from the Mother Nature Club, with the miniature tiger Beomi perched on her shoulder.
Our eyes met, and when I gave a light wave, she waved right back.
"H-hi."
"Meow."
Beomi waved a front paw in greeting as well, then slipped down from Park Nari's shoulder and came trotting over to me — whereupon it began rubbing its cheek and forehead against my knee, over and over.
Watching this, Go Hyeon-woo reached out a hand to give it a pat.
"What a charming little cat."
"Hss—!"
Beomi's fur shot straight up, sharp claws bared in an instant. Go Hyeon-woo sheepishly withdrew his hand and backed off.
Come to think of it, those two had gone up against each other in the 2v2 PvP assessment. He had laid into the poor thing with Clear Stream without a shred of mercy — no wonder there was no love lost between them.
"B-Beomi. Come back here."
Park Nari fumbled out her [Life Cube] and opened it, and Beomi slipped inside at once, curling itself into a round little ball. I'd had a feeling, ever since our trade, that the cube was destined to become Beomi's own private villa — and sure enough, that was exactly what had happened. Scratching posts and all.
"Well, seeing you get such good use out of it, I'm glad."
"Y-yeah. Th-thank you... Are you getting good use out of yours too? The one you learned with the Blank Skillbook..."
"Oh, I'm using it to the absolute fullest."
So much to the fullest, in fact, that Wind Force had climbed to the number-one spot on a great many people's list of most despised skills. Dang Gyu-young gritted her teeth at its very name, and Hong Yeon-hwa went pale whenever so much as a breeze stirred.
"Ah, h-haha, I see..."
Park Nari was still letting out that timid little laugh when another familiar face appeared.
"Nari, who's come to... Oh my, it's been a while."
"It's good to see you again, sunbae."
Ha Suyeon, president of the Mother Nature Club. She must have followed her junior out, curious who the timid girl was chatting with so comfortably.
"Looking for anything in particular? If so, I'll help you find it."
Her manner and tone brimmed with goodwill — and fair enough, since the Life Cube had Park Nari pulling well ahead in the race among the promising first-years. A 1.3x boost to every life-attribute item stored inside was more than enough performance to open up a gap.
What's more, ever since spectating my duel with the Emerald Magic Tower, she seemed to have resolved to keep our relationship as favorable as she could manage.
An excellent mindset.
If we kept trading on good terms from here on out, it would be convenient for us both. And so, without any pretense of declining, I decided to accept Ha Suyeon's help.
"Actually, if you happen to have any skillbooks, there's one I'd like to get my hands on."
"Which skillbook would that be?"
"[Air Burst]."
A faintly puzzled look crossed Ha Suyeon's face.
"You're planning to learn it yourself?"
"Yes."
"...I see. Well, the more skills, the better."
She apparently judged that I had my reasons, because she didn't pry any further and instead called over two second-year seniors who had been tending the stalls nearby.
"Has an [Air Burst] skillbook come in?"
"..."
The two of them seemed to rummage through their memories for a moment. Then one flipped through a ledger and answered.
"Nothing on our end. It's still morning, so the seller may simply not have shown up yet..."
She added, with a note of uncertainty, that if I came back later the skillbook might well be waiting.
The other second-year, meanwhile, was still furrowing her brow, sunk deep in thought. Then something seemed to click — her face brightened all at once, and she clapped her hands together with a snap.
"Oh! Myeong-hun oppa might be carrying one!"
"He's a graduate."
Ha Suyeon supplied the explanation. A graduate holding the skillbook meant—
"Then I should pay a visit to the Graduate Sales District."
"Yes, I'll send word ahead for you."
"Thank you. I'll head over right away."
"Oh, just a moment."
Ha Suyeon stopped me as I was turning to go. She produced a small slip of paper, scribbled something across it in quick strokes, signed it, folded it up neatly, and handed it over.
"The line over there is even longer. Show them this when you arrive."
The queue for the Graduate Sales District would be longer than the upperclassmen's, if anything — the perception was that graduates sold items of a higher grade, and in practice that was exactly true. So just as Jegal So-so had ushered us in through the side door, Ha Suyeon was now exercising her club's privileges to let us pass without waiting in line.
"There's just one thing I'd like you to remember — that the Mother Nature Club is well disposed toward you."
"As if I could ever forget. Thank you."
Ha Suyeon and I smiled at each other.
The three of us pushed through the crowds of the commercial district and crossed over into the Graduate Sales District.
It occupied another large, market-like building, with a line out front winding long and sinuous like an earthworm. We circled around the building toward the rear entrance, where a third-year senior waiting there stepped into our path.
"This isn't the entrance. Go around front and queue up."
"I'm aware. But would you take a look at this, please?"
The senior accepted Ha Suyeon's note, read it at a glance, checked each of our three faces, and opened the rear door for us.
"...Go on in."
"Thank you."
The moment we stepped inside, we made straight for where 'Myeong-hun oppa' was. Since word had been sent ahead, he too picked me out at a glance.
"You're buying [Air Burst]?"
"Yes, I'd like to purchase it."
"Four thousand points."
And with that, the deal with 'Myeong-hun oppa' was swiftly concluded. My point balance wasn't anything like as comfortable as Go Hyeon-woo's or Seo Ye-in's, but this was money that needed spending.
And honestly, four thousand for a skillbook is practically a steal.
Considering that solid, dependable skills changed hands in the tens of thousands of points, the [Air Burst] skillbook's price had been set remarkably low. A low price meant thin demand, and thin demand meant the skill's performance was dubious.
Which was exactly why Ha Suyeon's expression had turned so odd when I said I was looking for it.
Air Burst. A wind-attribute spell that hurled a compressed mass of air and detonated it. Its power was passable and its blast radius respectably wide, but it suffered from one fatal flaw.
You can't hit anything with it.
The projectile flew at an awkwardly languid pace — slow enough that, in practice, anything with eyes and legs attached could dodge it every single time. Watching it go pop-pop-pop at empty air, the players had coined a nickname for it:
Air Pang.
In other words, a skill practically tailor-made to draw laughter the moment you learned it.
But that laughter died very quickly once Air Burst's true worth revealed itself. Or rather, once the power of the devastating skill that chained off it became known.
Spiral Explosion.
Air Burst had been the final, third piece of Spiral Explosion all along. The completion condition: driving all three prerequisite skills to C-Rank. [Twister] and [Point Explosion] had already been prepared through mentoring, and rank-grinding [Air Burst] was far easier than either of the previous two. Even without the event bonus it climbed quickly on its own, which was why I'd saved it for last.
Complete it before the midterms begin.
Not much time remained, but it was more than doable.
Afterward we took a leisurely lap around the Graduate Sales District, giving the stalls a light once-over, but nothing particularly eye-catching turned up. Just to be sure, I consulted my hidden-piece radar and asked Seo Ye-in as well.
"See anything? Anything giving you a feeling?"
—shake, shake—
Whether there simply were no worthwhile items left, or my luck for the day had already run dry, I couldn't say — but this much felt like plenty. Each of us had picked up at least one thing we wanted.
"I suppose we can head back now."
"Game center?"
Seo Ye-in's eyes had been drifting slowly toward boredom, but at the word finished they sparkled back to life at once. I shook my head all the same.
"Food first. We've got plenty of time."
I had originally budgeted for a long stretch of standing in line and expected to be done around three or four in the afternoon, but thanks to Jegal So-so and Ha Suyeon it was only just past noon. The game center wasn't going anywhere; there was no harm in filling our stomachs first and strolling over at our leisure.
And so we wandered the commercial district, browsing the food stalls lined up here and there.
"What do you want to eat?"
"I have long wished to sample a delicacy known as 'churros,' you see."
"You mean churros, right?"
"Bead ice cream."
"Sure, sure. Eat whatever you both want."
At that very same moment.
A three-story building stood a short distance from the commercial district. Its exterior had been dressed up to look like an abandoned derelict, but in truth this was the Thief Club's control tower.
Step inside and climb the stairs, and you came to a fairly spacious room whose every wall was packed edge to edge with monitors. Each screen showed a different corner of the commercial district — views stolen from the security crystal orbs installed throughout the area.
Several Thief Club members kept watch over the monitors in rotation, and at the center of the room stood Chae Da-bin, holder of the de facto command of this control tower, with Dang Gyu-young beside her.
Tapping away at her tablet, Chae Da-bin spoke.
"Smooth sailing so far."
"Mm."
Around the same time the market opened its gates, the Black Market too had begun receiving customers. Wary of being caught, they moved with extreme caution, yet one by one they made their way through the contact points and set foot in Exchanges A and B. And little by little, trades of banned items were taking place.
"The Disciplinary Committee doesn't seem to be paying us any mind."
A few of the monitors were tracking the Disciplinary Committee's movements, but nothing suspicious showed itself near the contact points or the exchanges. Either they had yet to figure out how this year's Black Market was being run, or they were focusing on keeping order in the commercial district during the early hours.
Of course, this was only the beginning. The more exchanges went live, the harder the situation would become — they would have to keep watching without loosening their grip for even a moment.
Then, in the middle of tapping from one screen to the next on her tablet, Chae Da-bin noticed something.
"Isn't that Kim Ho?"
"Huh, it is."
On the screen, Kim Ho was cutting a path through the crowd — flanked as always by the handsome martial artist, and by a pretty girl with gray hair. Each of the three held a bead ice cream in hand.
"How cute."
Dang Gyu-young chuckled softly and looked away from the monitor.
Still, she's letting it slide pretty gracefully, all things considered.
The distance between Dang Gyu-young and Kim Ho was far too close for an ordinary senior-junior relationship — at least, that was how it looked to Chae Da-bin and the other members. Which meant that, from Dang Gyu-young's standpoint, watching Kim Ho traipse about with that gray-haired girl could easily have been an unwelcome sight. The girl's beauty drew admiration even from other women, and the closeness between the two of them right now went well beyond what you'd expect of mere classmates.
Chae Da-bin had been anxious, unsure how Dang Gyu-young would react to the sight of them together, but it seemed she was magnanimously letting it pass, with all the tolerance befitting an older senior. Chae Da-bin breathed a silent sigh of relief.
What a relief.
And yet...
Perhaps that had been nothing more than Chae Da-bin's misreading.
—a sidelong glance—
Dang Gyu-young, who had been idly sweeping her eyes across the other screens, stole a glance. Then, as if nothing had happened, she moved on to other screens again — and before long,
—glance, glance—
she was sneaking repeated little glances at one particular monitor. Precisely, and only, the ones where Kim Ho appeared.
"..."
The more she looked, the more faintly her brow twitched, and a gauge of displeasure could be felt ticking steadily upward. Chae Da-bin secretly exchanged looks with the other members, and they too seemed to have sensed the strange phenomenon now unfolding. A taut tension began to settle over the control tower.
Next Chapter — [167] The Support Ate It All