Byeong-cheol Is Out
If a Random Rank-Up succeeded, obviously nothing could be better. It would save the two of them all the time and effort they would otherwise have poured into raising their specs.
'That said, realistically, two scrolls is far too few.'
Go Hyeon-woo's luck simply wasn't good enough to bet everything on a single attempt. Seo Ye-in had once pulled off the outrageous cheat of raising Bullet Time to C-rank in one try, but fortune like that was unlikely to strike twice in a row.
'And most of their skills are C-rank now, too.'
Going from D to C might just barely work out with luck on your side, but C to B was beyond anything ordinary luck could manage. You had to punch straight through a probability that converged on zero. That was exactly why I had failed thirty scrolls in a row in my past life, and why I'd regarded Inferno Fist reaching B-rank as nothing short of a miracle.
So I watched the two of them without getting my hopes up.
The first challenger was Go Hyeon-woo. He held the Random Rank-Up scroll and wore a wry smile.
"I must say, I am feeling a touch nervous."
"Don't let it get to you. If it fails, you can always try again next time."
"Understood."
Fwoosh—!
The moment Go Hyeon-woo activated the Random Rank-Up, the scroll began to glow brighter and brighter—
Psshhhh……
—and then the light died in an instant. The scroll crumbled into gray ash and scattered on the air.
"Hmm. So that's how it goes."
"That's how it goes for most people."
Go Hyeon-woo accepted the failure with perfect equanimity, and a stamp pressed itself onto the Stamp Coupon of its own accord.
Our gazes shifted, natural as anything, to the remaining challenger: Seo Ye-in.
"……"
As always, not a trace of tension showed on her face. She stared blankly down at the Random Rank-Up in her hand for a moment, then used it just like that.
Fwoosh—!
The scroll glowed brighter and brighter.
'Could it actually hit?'
She was the lucky mascot who had pulled off every conceivable cheat, so even I felt a flicker of hope brush past.
But—
Psshhhh……
The Random Rank-Up dissolved into ash, and another stamp was added.
"A shame."
Seo Ye-in's expression was exactly as it had been from the start. She'd always been deadpan at random box openings, so apparently the outcome didn't matter much to her either way.
If anything, it was Go Hyeon-woo who raised his eyebrows in surprise.
"Now that is a rare sight. Miss Seo failing at anything."
"Tell me about it."
Apparently even the lucky mascot couldn't keep an undefeated streak alive with Random Rank-Ups. Well, if she could, that wouldn't be a cheat anymore — it would be a bug. It would mean assembling 2nd- and 3rd-year-level specs from Random Rank-Ups alone.
'Still, too early to say for sure.'
That had only been two attempts. Whether her success rate would settle down to the average, or whether she would keep pulling off the occasional miracle, we would have to keep watching to find out.
The Random Rank-Up's abysmal odds applied to me just the same.
Psshhhh……
✖ RANK UP FAILED
The two scrolls before my eyes scattered into dust. They were spoils I'd picked up from taking down Dang Gyu-young and Elemental Gap-du, but—
'They've been converted into stamps by now, anyway.'
The good news was that only one stamp remained until the first reward. I figured I could fill it by clearing the next dungeon — open enough random boxes, and at least one dud was bound to turn up.
As if reading my mind, Dang Gyu-young sent a message at precisely the right moment.
The "pretty boy" Dang Gyu-young meant was Go Hyeon-woo. The two of them had crossed paths a few times and gotten roughly acquainted, but judging by how she still hadn't bothered to learn his name, she clearly wasn't very interested.
And asking me to bring Go Hyeon-woo along meant—
'Looks like things are finally ready.'
It would certainly be about the underground floors raid.
So Go Hyeon-woo and I set off for the Thief Club room.
"Well, well! Welcome, honored customers!"
"Hey, Shin."
Shin Byung-cheol greeted us with his usual theatrics. Go Hyeon-woo answered with a friendly smile, then bowed politely to Dang Gyu-young as well.
"Good day to you."
"Right, come in and sit anywhere."
The only Thief Club members left in the room were Dang Gyu-young, Chae Da-bin, and Shin Byung-cheol. Since important matters were about to be discussed, they appeared to have sent everyone else out.
I took a leisurely look around the somewhat emptier club room. Just a month ago we'd been making do with sofas and chairs salvaged from the discard pile, but the place was now starting to look properly furnished.
"You've brought in new furniture."
"We confiscated it off Kim Gap-du."
Dang Gyu-young added with a grin that they'd hauled off the Martial Artist Club's furniture, every last piece.
'That's cold, Gap-du. Truly cold.'
I felt a fresh pang of sympathy for the man, but the world of competition was a ruthless place. His side had been the ones to wager a daily date ticket on the match, and his side had been the ones to raise the stakes beyond all reason. I let it go and moved on to business.
"Did the Swordsmanship Club get in touch?"
"Yeah. I talked with Paeng Mi-ryeong this morning."
And the subject of that conversation, naturally, would have been this week's B-rank raid target: the Gathering of Evildoers.
The Gathering of Evildoers was a large-scale dungeon with a total capacity of twenty entrants. Fifteen of those slots belonged to the expedition built around Paeng Mi-ryeong; the remaining five were ours. The main force would clear the dungeon and its side chambers using the strategy guide and treasure map I'd handed over, while we stayed out of their way and collected only the minor hidden pieces — that much had already been agreed upon. And now, at long last, Paeng Mi-ryeong's side had finished every last preparation and passed along the exact schedule.
"When is it?"
"Friday evening."
I had expected Friday or Saturday. With a capacity of twenty, the raid's difficulty was high and it would take considerable time — we would need to invest at least two full days, and two weekdays would mean missed classes, so the weekend was the only real option.
Dang Gyu-young continued.
"The expedition goes in first. We'll wait for our opening and slip in after them, quiet as shadows."
"I'll leave that part entirely in your hands."
Stealth hinged wholly on Dang Gyu-young's abilities, after all.
"Then we should start hammering out the details. First things first — we're entering with these five, right?"
Dang Gyu-young swept her gaze around the room, counting heads: me, Go Hyeon-woo, Dang Gyu-young, Chae Da-bin, Shin Byung-cheol. Five in total.
But I slowly shook my head.
"No. Shin Byung-cheol is out."
"Wha—? Kim Ho, my good sir, what are you saying?!"
Shin Byung-cheol's eyes went round as saucers at this bolt from the blue.
I added a calm explanation.
"So there's no misunderstanding, let me say this up front: I'll get you the Phantom Shadowless exactly as promised. You're only out of the raid itself."
"Oh. Well, in that case it's fine, I suppose."
Shin Byung-cheol had earned credit for his part in the Black Snake Chamber raid, so his share of the Phantom Shadowless was all but guaranteed. What I was refusing to guarantee was his spot on the raid team.
He seemed to accept that much, but the disappointment clearly lingered; he smacked his lips and asked,
"C-could you at least tell me the reason?"
"It's a different situation from the Black Snake Chamber."
In the Black Snake Chamber, Shin Byung-cheol had dismantled the trap formation and guided Go Hyeon-woo all the way to the Chamber Master's secret vault. His combat contribution, on the other hand, had been close to zero.
In the Gathering of Evildoers, combat power came before anything else.
I pointed at Go Hyeon-woo.
"If you want in, you'll need to fight at least as well as he does."
"...That's a steep cutoff line. Guess I'm out, then."
Only then did Shin Byung-cheol fold up his lingering hopes without another word of protest. Go Hyeon-woo's combat power already placed him in promising-prodigy territory — and that was the minimum requirement. Better, he judged, to yield the spot to someone actually qualified than to dig in his heels and beg his way in while unable to fight.
With that settled, Dang Gyu-young spoke up again.
"So that's four with Byeong-cheol out. Who's our fifth?"
"We'll have to bring someone in from outside. A mercenary."
"Sounds like you've already got someone in mind?"
"I do. An exceptionally well-suited candidate."
"Right, of course. Our Kim Ho will handle it just fine."
Perhaps because a fair degree of trust had built up between us, Dang Gyu-young let it pass without further question.
Next, I handed out a thick stack of papers to each of them: the Gathering of Evildoers strategy guide. It spelled out in detail how we were to conduct ourselves once inside the dungeon, what to watch out for, and so on. It being a B-rank dungeon, I had written it up to keep the danger to a minimum.
As we paged through the guide one sheet at a time, Chae Da-bin threw out a question.
"This has the expedition's strategy guide mixed in as well."
"Yes. Think of it as a compiled edition."
"……"
Chae Da-bin's brow creased. Our roles and the expedition's were cleanly divided — so why go to the trouble of including the compilation? She had caught on to my intent.
"...Weren't we supposed to stay out of each other's way?"
"If they do well, that is."
"That sounds an awful lot like you're saying they won't."
"The odds of trouble are fairly high."
I had no way of knowing how strong Paeng Mi-ryeong's leadership was, or how thoroughly her team had prepared from the guide. But a sage from a distant island nation once left behind a famous saying: gather five people together, and one of them is bound to be trash.
'And there are fifteen of them over there, aren't there?'
Whether they would really sail through without a single incident was doubtful.
I added an explanation.
"Honestly, we could just do our own job and walk away. It wouldn't matter."
Collect the hidden pieces, hop on the emergency escape portal, and our role was complete. Even if Paeng Mi-ryeong's side came begging for help, we would be under no obligation to oblige.
Besides, the expedition's strength was by no means lacking. Fifteen 3rd-years, no less — even if something went wrong, they would punch their way out on their own.
"It's just that the expenses could balloon in the process."
We would have to dig into our stockpiled potions and magic scrolls, and at that point the dungeon rewards would end up a net loss.
Dang Gyu-young's eyes gleamed.
"Then borrowing our hands would be the cheaper option."
"Far cheaper, in the long run."
"Help them out and squeeze extra rewards out of them?"
"You read my mind."
"Hey, I am the Thief Club president, you know."
While Dang Gyu-young and I traded jokes, the onlooking Chae Da-bin and Go Hyeon-woo exchanged a remark or two of their own.
"We can't rule out the possibility that they handle everything perfectly, but it's still better to have it all memorized."
"No harm in bracing for the worst, after all."
And so, somewhat unnecessary though it was, we concluded that we would commit the thick compiled edition to memory.
Dang Gyu-young looked at me again.
"Now all that's left is the mercenary problem."
"I was planning to go meet him right about now, actually."
Who to bring along as the mercenary?
With a few conditions set, the answer came quickly.
The first condition, as I'd told Shin Byung-cheol: combat power at least on Go Hyeon-woo's level.
The second: a desire to obtain the Phantom Shadowless even at the cost of other rewards.
And last: a certain amount of backing behind them. Sharing the Phantom Shadowless for mere participation would be a loss on our end — we would need to collect some change back.
With those conditions in mind, one person immediately came to mind.
Someone who had shown tremendous interest ever since I first mentioned the Phantom Shadowless—
A Black Way rising star known by the aliases Jang Sam, Jang Chul-soo, and more.
'Jang Mu-geuk.'