Ruby Magic Tower
The word that I should come pay the Ruby Magic Tower a visit had arrived during the final week of mentoring — week eight. And now it was week twelve. Which meant a full month had already slipped by since I'd said I would come.
The reason I'd kept putting off the visit was that there were more pressing matters to handle first — settling the conflict with the Swordsmanship Club and completing the treasure map being the prime examples. Besides, I'd judged that the Ruby Magic Tower side wouldn't be in any great hurry to consult with me, either.
'Still, it's about time I paid that visit.' Most of the important problems had been resolved by now, leaving me comparatively free — and stringing an invitation along for too long was poor manners in its own right. So when Hong Yeon-hwa brought the subject up, I readily rose to go with her.
When we arrived at the Ruby Magic Tower club room, President Hong Ye-hwa was there to greet us. Word must have been sent ahead on the way over.
"Welcome. It's been a while."
"I apologize for not paying you a visit sooner."
"Don't be. I told you to drop by whenever you had time."
Thanking me for coming at last, she wore a gentle smile. She was far more practiced at handling people than Hong Yeon-hwa, whose every inner thought played out across her face. She had climbed her way to club president while being jostled this way and that among all manner of factions, so the art of reading a room must have worked itself into her bones along the way.
...
Hong Yeon-hwa, on the other hand, had been fixing her sister with an intense stare ever since the three of us sat down face to face — as though demanding something. Even when Hong Ye-hwa returned a stern look that plainly said restrain yourself, she showed no sign of backing down.
Going by everything I'd witnessed so far, one of the very few people the fiery-tempered Hong Yeon-hwa couldn't win against was her older sister, Hong Ye-hwa. Yet in this staring contest, Hong Ye-hwa, of all people, raised the white flag first. She shook her head slowly and spoke.
"I'm really sorry to ask this the moment you've walked in, but may I request one small favor?"
"Go ahead, senior."
"We had a bit of an argument, the two of us..."
Hong Ye-hwa let the words trail off, her face caught in an agonized debate over whether she should actually say this. But with Hong Yeon-hwa continuing to bear down on her in silence, she gave in with a resigned air and pressed on.
"It's just... she claims she sleeps better when she leans on you. I honestly don't quite believe it. So if you're all right with it..."
"You'd like to verify it for yourself. Is that it?"
"Yes. And if you truly don't want to, you're free to refuse."
I had a rough idea what was going on. Hong Yeon-hwa had seen me and Seo Ye-in sleeping attached at the hip during the midterm and shown open curiosity about the Kim Ho Pillow. So she had appointed herself Test Subject No. 2 and tried leaning on my shoulder — only for the experiment to be cut short by Hong Ye-hwa's sudden appearance.
I didn't know exactly what had happened after that, but somewhere in the middle of that sisterly brawl, something along the lines of 'You should try it too, unnie!' had probably been said. Hence this attempt at verification, presumably.
...
Hong Ye-hwa waited for my decision with a somewhat ambiguous air — half of her seemed to be hoping I would refuse, and the other half seemed to want the matter seen through to its bitter end. I felt every bit as ambivalent. Anyone would feel a little awkward if they dropped by a friend's house and the friend's older sister asked to lean on them for a moment.
'Still, it has to be done.' Did the Kim Ho Pillow truly possess the power of a good night's sleep? An unsolved mystery. And as it happened, Test Subject No. 3 had just walked in on her own two feet — awkward or not, I could hardly kick away an opportunity like this. So I nodded.
"I don't mind at all. Please, go ahead and test it."
"...Right."
The moment consent left my mouth, Hong Ye-hwa pushed two chairs together side by side. She seated me on one, moved to take the remaining chair herself — then froze, hesitated, and heaved a deep sigh.
"Good grief..."
Every manner of conflicted feeling came tangled up in that sigh. A moment later, she turned her head, shot her sister a withering glare, and took the seat beside me. Then, slowly, she tilted her body until her head came to rest against my shoulder, and closed her eyes.
...
Hong Yeon-hwa watched the scene with bated breath, strong conviction showing through her expression — as if she fully expected her sister to drop off to sleep just like this.
Hong Ye-hwa stayed leaning against my shoulder for barely ten seconds, but to everyone in that room, those ten seconds must have stretched out like hours. At last she lifted her head and slowly straightened herself upright. Thick veins stood out on her forehead.
Exuding a truly fearsome killing intent, she opened her mouth.
"There's no effect."
"Huh...?"
Hong Yeon-hwa's pupils shook violently. Her face brimmed with disbelief, like a small child who had just been told Santa Claus didn't exist. She sprang up from her seat and made to rush over here—
"Th-that can't be right...? I-I'll try it again—"
"Sit."
"Yes, ma'am..."
Chilled to the bone by the frost-blue menace radiating off Hong Ye-hwa, she meekly shuffled back to her seat and sat down. Every trace of that brimming confidence from moments ago had vanished; she had shriveled into a quivering little heap.
"Haa..."
Hong Ye-hwa let out another long sigh. If the previous one had been tangled up with conflicted feelings, this one was all suppressed fury.
'She has every right to be angry.' I could well understand where Hong Ye-hwa was coming from. From her perspective, she had caved to her little sister's badgering and spent ten whole seconds leaning on a first-year male student's shoulder. It would hardly be strange for all of that humiliation to convert directly into rage.
'So Test Subject No. 3 is a failure.' That said, it was too soon to pass final judgment on whether the Kim Ho Pillow worked or not. The sample size was still far too small — something to reconsider after a few more rounds of experimentation.
While I was thinking this, Hong Ye-hwa seemed to have succeeded in setting her anger aside for the time being. She offered a brief word of thanks for my cooperation, then moved on to the next topic.
"I hear you two had your PvP assessment together today?"
"Yes, that's right."
"How did it go, Yeon-hwa?"
What she was most curious about was probably how the defensive magic Yeon-hwa had learned recently was holding up. So I played back the replay of my second match with Hong Yeon-hwa — the one against the Go Hyeon-woo and Seo Ye-in team.
— Rat-tat-tat-tat!
Inside the crystal orb, Seo Ye-in raked the field with her assault rifle, and Hong Yeon-hwa held firm against the hail of magic bullets. Even near the end of the match, she took a rifle sniper shot head-on and lost only a sliver of health.
"At this level, her defenses look considerably reinforced."
"So it seems. You did layer an extra spell or two over her, but..."
"I heard she still has one defensive spell left to learn. Once she's picked that up and worked on raising her overall ranks, she should be just as sturdy — or sturdier still."
"Mm. This much isn't bad."
Far better than before, Hong Ye-hwa nodded in satisfaction. Hong Yeon-hwa, evidently never expecting praise to come out of my mouth, was crouched in a corner rolling her eyes — yet even mid-eye-roll, her face wore an expression of deep gratitude.
Hong Ye-hwa moved on to the next topic.
"There's something else I'd like to discuss. In fact, this is the real reason I called you here."
"Yes, senior."
"I've been thinking it's about time we started investing in her Aqua Flame as well."
Aqua Flame was an exceedingly rare trait possessed by one person alone in the entire Ruby Magic Tower: Hong Yeon-hwa. It allowed her to manifest flame magic in any environment, and above all granted her an absolute elemental advantage over the ice attribute. There was, for instance, the record of her stripping Bukgung Han-seol — a martial artist trained in cold-attribute arts — clean down to her very soul.
But for all its power, Aqua Flame came with brutally strict conditions for growth. It had languished at E-rank right up until she met me, then climbed to C-rank by melting down the Ten-Thousand-Year Cold Iron alloy. And now it had plateaued once more. To push it further from here...
"As I mentioned before, all she needs to do is enter cold-themed dungeons."
Burn the ice-attribute monsters with diligence, and the trait would grow. And among the countless dungeons of the underground floors, cold-themed ones were plentiful. I had relayed this information through Hong Yeon-hwa at the time.
Hong Ye-hwa nodded, saying she remembered.
"Right. So here's what I wanted to ask... I hear you're in and out of the underground floors fairly often. Is that true?"
I had been riding up and down the underground floors like it was three square meals a day every conquest week, so word getting around was only natural. It was hardly some grand secret, and Hong Ye-hwa didn't strike me as the type to spread it about, so I opted for a partial confirmation.
"I do sneak down there once in a while."
"What rank?"
"Mostly D."
At the mention of D-rank, Hong Ye-hwa's eyes gleamed. Then she made her proposal.
"Would you be willing to go down with Yeon-hwa?"
"Wouldn't it be more reliable to have your club members accompany her, rather than me?"
The club had plenty of second- and third-year seniors; my point was, why go out of your way to ask a first-year?
Hong Ye-hwa answered with a wry smile.
"They can't move for the time being. It's a little complicated to explain."
"These things happen. I understand."
"Thank you for understanding. Right now we have no choice but to bring in outside help, and I thought entrusting this to you might work out well."
Apparently, rather than commission a total stranger, she preferred to hand the job to someone she at least had some rapport with — namely, me. Even if I wasn't second-year caliber, anyone who could come and go from D-rank dungeons ought to manage a stable clear.
With that, Hong Ye-hwa drew a fist-sized jewel case out of her inventory. A ruby fitted to it perfectly was glowing a deep red.
"This is a gift. I'm grateful for all the help you've given us with one thing and another."
"I'll accept it with thanks."
"And if you're willing to go down with Yeon-hwa, I'll have more prepared as payment."
Not a bad offer at all. Descending into the underground floors every conquest week was already a given, and Hong Ye-hwa's request amounted to picking the ice-themed dungeons out of those runs and bringing Hong Yeon-hwa along. From my standpoint, that meant free labor — and with Aqua Flame in her arsenal, Hong Yeon-hwa would make clearing ice dungeons considerably easier besides. On top of that, she would add rubies on top of the clear rewards.
'The more gems, the better.'
— Caw! Young Lord! You've brought something shiny!
Gems were the trade material dimensional crows loved best, the Crow Tailor chief among them. So I didn't deliberate for long.
"I'll make time next week."
"Thank you."
The next conquest week was already booked for entering [Gathering of Evildoers] with Dang Gyu-young's crowd; beyond that, my schedule was wide open. Using the remaining slot to take Hong Yeon-hwa down as a trial run sounded perfectly fine.
"You're all right with it too, yes?"
Hong Ye-hwa tossed out a question that was less an invitation than a notification. Hong Yeon-hwa had been thoroughly cowed right up until that moment, but at suddenly being singled out she flinched, startled, and looked back and forth between the two of us. Then, after a moment's deliberation, she opened her mouth.
"I think... it should be... okay...?"
She wasn't scaring herself half to death in advance, at least — which meant this latest PvP assessment must have built up a fair stock of trust in me.
Hong Ye-hwa smiled warmly.
"Then get in touch with me as soon as the details are settled."
"Understood."
The Hong sisters walked me out as far as the front of the Ruby Magic Tower club room to see me off. Smiles were plainly visible on both their faces the last time I saw them.
But not long after I stepped away from the club room—
— KABOOM!
Beyond the closed door came the sounds of something burning, of something exploding, of a Flame Back Smack cracking square against its target — and then Hong Yeon-hwa's mournful scream rang out through the corridor.
— AAAAHH!!!