The Kim Ho Pillow
Seo Ye-in came walking out of the Arena in much the same state as when she'd gone in.
That alone gave me a fair idea of the result, but I asked anyway, just to confirm.
"What place?"
"First."
"Very well done."
Hong Yeon-hwa, on the other hand, looked strikingly different coming out than going in. She'd been practically overflowing with confidence on her way in; now she trudged out wearing a face full of gloom.
Judging by how the two had entered and exited around the same time—
"Did you two fight?"
"Beat her."
We weren't standing far apart, so Hong Yeon-hwa must have caught that. Sad eyes turned our way.
"……"
Seo Ye-in seemed to stare straight at Hong Yeon-hwa for a long moment, then slowly uncurled her fingers into a V.
I folded those fingers neatly back down.
"None of that."
"I can't?"
"Nope. Bad manners."
Even I—a man who had long since mastered every mannerless trick in the book—made a point of holding my tongue right after a match and, wherever possible, offering my opponent a word of encouragement. Stoking someone's anger while gaining nothing ran counter to my aesthetics.
At the same time, I found myself curious about the match itself. What kind of fight had it been, that the girl ended up wilted like that again?
"Let me see the replay."
"Okay."
Seo Ye-in handed it over, and I began skimming through it at speed. Curious about my verdict, apparently, she leaned in to peer into the crystal orb alongside me, while Hong Yeon-hwa, who had been about to walk off, stopped short and kept sneaking glances our way.
Keeping my eyes fixed on the orb, I doled out my remarks one at a time.
"Not bad."
"Counter Barrier. Good choice, and well learned."
"Your judgment after taking down Kang Hee-chan was solid, too."
With each remark, Hong Yeon-hwa's expression brightened by the smallest degree.
Soon the replay ended, and I turned to her.
"Good work out there. Don't mope too hard over one loss."
"...Thank you."
Hong Yeon-hwa nodded slowly, turned her back, and walked out of the Arena. From somewhere, I thought I heard a small sniffle as she rubbed her nose.
I stared after her retreating figure for a while, until Seo Ye-in gave my sleeve a gentle tug.
"Praise me too."
"Right. You beat her quite splendidly."
Hong Yeon-hwa's play hadn't been bad. The fact that she'd drilled Counter Barrier to combat-ready level within mere days deserved high marks on its own.
The misfortune was twofold: her opponent had been a Gunner, and that Gunner was Seo Ye-in, a girl of overwhelming talent. Against any other long-range class, Hong Yeon-hwa's final concentrated barrage of flame spells might well have caught them square.
Seo Ye-in, by contrast, had calmly observed the offensive pouring in from all sides, seized the single optimal instant, and activated Bullet Time. Then, in an assault that had looked utterly without escape, she found a gap as thin as a hair and slipped through it. Flawless skill usage, without a single fault to pick.
Seo Ye-in tugged at my sleeve and pressed in closer still. Her gray eyes sparkled.
"Got first. Twice."
"So you did."
"Wish Ticket."
The original arrangement had been that ten wins in the Toy Hammer Game would earn her a Wish Ticket. But Bullet Time had ranked up partway through, so we'd called it at eight, agreeing that the remaining two wins could be substituted with first-place finishes in the PvP assessment. And Seo Ye-in had gone and casually claimed first in both matches.
I bobbed my head.
"Well, you've done this well—I ought to keep my end of the bargain too. Pillow, then?"
"Pillow...!"
Seo Ye-in and I returned to the Special Training Room. I asked one final time.
"Your wish is to sleep on the Kim Ho Pillow. Confirmed?"
"Confirmed."
"I still don't really get it, honestly. Does it really put you to sleep that well?"
Nod, nod.
"All right. If that's truly your wish."
Sleep on me, hug me—do as you pleased. Today, I was to become the Kim Ho Pillow.
I stood there blankly, watching Seo Ye-in as though to ask what she would do next.
"……"
Seo Ye-in's gaze roamed here and there around the Special Training Room. It kept settling on out-of-the-way corners—clearly scouting the optimal napping spot. Before long she gave me a weak pull toward one side, and I obediently let myself be led.
As predicted, we came to a stop in a corner against the wall. With the napping spot settled, the next crucial matter demanded a decision.
"So—would you have me sitting, lying down, or face-down?"
"……!?"
Seo Ye-in's eyes lifted a little. Apparently she hadn't known so many options existed. She deliberated with the world's most serious expression for a good long while, then, having seemingly reached her decision, laid a hand on my shoulder. Sit, then.
The moment I meekly sat down with my back against the wall, Seo Ye-in rummaged through her inventory and produced a thick blanket.
"You even brought a blanket? How thorough."
"Mm."
Swaddled in the blanket from head to toe, she sat down right beside me, rested her head on my shoulder, and in less than five seconds flat was breathing the soft, even breaths of deep sleep.
Watching her, I couldn't help but give the matter serious thought.
Keep this up, and won't I actually end up with a new trait?
It felt as though a notification was about to flash before my eyes.
Trait Acquired: [Pillow]
Of course, no such trait existed, as far as I knew.
Faithful as I was to my pillow duties, sitting and idly watching time slip by didn't suit my temperament. I wasn't sleepy enough to nap alongside Seo Ye-in, either. So I decided to take care of a task I'd been putting off.
Time to find that crow.
To settle which dungeon Dang Gyu-young and I would enter next week, I needed to establish the dungeon crow's location and its hours of appearance, then predict its next showing. And what that required was—
Replays.
I opened the student shop and navigated to the replay section. Scanning the list of recently cleared Underground Floor dungeons, I selected one and paid 100 points. A crystal orb dropped into my palm, and within it played the figures of several students—a party of second-year seniors, sailing somewhere aboard a large sailing ship, occasionally trading blows with pirates or sea monsters that appeared along the way.
I watched only that far before I began flipping rapidly through the replay.
Watching the whole thing would be a waste of time.
Ordinarily, clearing an Underground Floor dungeon took anywhere from a few hours to several days. The Feathered Serpent Altar had been finished in the blink of an eye, while the Adaptive Voyage clear had swallowed two full days. There was no way I could sit through replays of such runs from beginning to end—and finding the dungeon crow meant combing through this replay, that replay, and the next besides.
Just the key parts, then.
The saving grace was that the creature's haunts and schedule were fixed. If I paused a replay at a given moment and no crow was in frame, I could safely write that one off.
At some point, the ship in the crystal was sailing a wide circle around an island made entirely of rock. I studied the summit of the tallest rock among them with care, but there was nothing there.
A dud.
I hadn't expected to strike gold on the very first replay I picked, anyway. I immediately bought the next replay for another 100 points and played it. This time the seniors stood in a golden wheat field stretching endlessly, a legion of monsters swarming in from the distance—battle about to erupt. Naturally, how they fought was none of my concern; instead I examined the scarecrow standing in the middle of the field.
Not here either.
Another miss. Without a shred of regret, I moved on to the next replay, and the one after that. In turn the crystal showed me a city center busy with hurrying cars, then a high mountain region where the clouds drifted close enough to touch. But nowhere could I find any trace of the dimensional crow.
So the spending went, 100 points at a time, piling up until it passed the 2,000-point mark—
Found it.
Eyes gleaming, I studied the inside of the crystal closely. A colosseum in the thick of a match. A student who had joined a dungeon raid was locked in a life-or-death struggle with an opponent, and the spectators, watching, hurled up cheers loud enough to lift the arena off its foundations. And there, at the very top of the stands, a crow was taking in the spectacle.
Even at a glance, this crow was far from ordinary. It was far too large to pass for a mere bird, and atop its head sat a tall gentleman's top hat. Add an aristocratic suit, and a bag carried in one hand, no less.
The Crow Tailor.
Precisely the dimensional crow I'd been searching for.
I analyzed where the Tailor would next appear, then sent Dang Gyu-young a message.
And with that, every preparation for next week was complete. We would carry on with the dungeon raid, then slip briefly down a side path to meet the Crow Tailor. Nothing we asked of him would come free, but the payment was already prepared.
Crows do love anything that sparkles.
Gems, for instance. Better still if they held mana. And as it happened, I had on hand one hefty ruby received from Hong Yeon-hwa, one comparatively small emerald from Gwak Ji-cheol, and one hefty emerald obtained by handing Jeong Su-ji a few midterm Crystals in trade. That would more than cover the fee as things stood.
Calculations finished, I turned my head slightly to the side. Seo Ye-in, sound asleep, came into view.
She really does sleep like a log.
A fair stretch of time must have passed while I combed through all those replays, yet she showed not the slightest sign of waking. She'd finally gotten her hands on the Kim Ho Pillow—of course she'd want to bank as much deep sleep as she could.
But we couldn't stay like this forever, so I resolved to wake her, gently and by degrees. As Ahn Jungmi's research had proven, the method for rousing a human sloth is extremely simple: steal the pillow. And at the moment, the pillow was me.
And so, shwoop, I put distance between us. The instant the comfortable shoulder-pillow she'd been leaning on vanished, Seo Ye-in's body tipped sideways and slid softly face-down onto the floor.
"……?"
Sprawled flat as she was, she raised her eyelids a bare fraction. Squirming, she stretched out a hand and groped at the empty air.
"Where is it..."
"Right here, my lady."
Though "here," of course, meant quite some distance from where Seo Ye-in currently lay. She beckoned feebly in my direction.
"Come back..."
"Let's end today's nap here. Up you come."
"Or go back to the dorm and sleep the rest off there."
But Seo Ye-in did not look convinced. Sprawled where she was, she voiced her grievance.
"You promised... You did..."
"I did promise. However..."
What Seo Ye-in had demanded with her Wish Ticket was to use me as a pillow. However—
the matter of for how long had never once been settled.
In other words, whether the Kim Ho Pillow got used for a day or for an hour rested entirely with me.
"These days, paid items come with time limits."
"No way..."
And so Seo Ye-in got her first taste of the sting that time-limited items deal out.