Gwak Seung-jae's Grand Design
Items and skills that read an opponent's information, magnifying glass included, are classified as mental interference types.
They work by extracting the necessary information from the target's subconscious and outputting it.
And I possessed a trait that resisted exactly this kind of mental interference.
Sovereign.
The Sovereign's mental barrier was exceptionally powerful — unless the interfering party's rank was extraordinarily high, it simply would not be breached.
They'd have to be at least two ranks above me to even attempt it.
The magnifying glass the Disciplinary Committee prepared would be B-rank nine times out of ten, A-rank at the very most.
Back when Sovereign was C-rank, there had been a slim chance an A-rank magnifying glass could have pierced through, but now that it had climbed to B-rank, only an S-grade item could break in.
And the probability of the Disciplinary Committee pulling out a precious S-grade magnifying glass converged on zero.
Even if they had one, they'd be too reluctant to use it.
Having run these calculations, I accepted the wager — and that was how I could casually flick away Song Cheon-hye's magnifying glass.
To be honest, I hadn't intended to destroy it, but apparently it had been hanging together by a thread already.
"S-Sunbaenim......"
Song Cheon-hye looked at Gwak Seung-jae, her voice gradually thickening with tears.
Her world had probably gone dark right about now. She had boldly brought up the magnifying glass and even accepted the wager, only to fail at using it — and shatter it completely, no less.
Well, I do feel a little bad.
She'd just been faithfully doing her duty as a Disciplinary Committee member, and she'd ended up with a mountain of trouble dumped on her head.
This was why you didn't accept wagers carelessly.
Especially when your opponent was me.
Meanwhile, Gwak Seung-jae had fixed his gaze on me from the moment the magnifying glass shattered.
He stared at me a while longer, then finally spoke.
"Judging by your reaction, you expected this."
"That's correct."
I admitted it without protest.
If not for [Sovereign], I would have refused the magnifying glass outright, just as Dang Gyu-young had.
"In hindsight, the conditions had a loose spot. 'If the magnifying glass is used and no banned items appear.'"
"......"
Had he wanted to be airtight, he could have added a clause like 'if no banned items appear on the list.'
After all, outputting a list required the magnifying glass to function properly in the first place.
I, on the other hand, had deliberately gone vague with 'used it, but nothing appeared.'
It wasn't a lie, though.
Using it and failing still counted as no banned items appearing, didn't it?
Gwak Seung-jae looked me dead in the eye.
"Kim Ho."
"Yes, sunbaenim."
"I dislike wordplay."
"I apologize."
"You know as well as I do. We could do the same, if we chose to."
The first condition he'd laid out in exchange for permitting the magnifying glass was keeping eyes off us.
He hadn't demanded silence, so if we'd wanted to, either of us could have blabbed about everything that happened here.
"But that is not my way. What happened in this room will remain unsaid."
True to his straightforward nature, Gwak Seung-jae had chosen not to retaliate.
When he sent a glance at Song Cheon-hye, she nodded her agreement as well.
Truthfully, I'd set those conditions with both of their personalities firmly in mind.
"Furthermore, as promised, we will not pursue the stolen banned items any further. However......"
Gwak Seung-jae's gaze sharpened.
"......Because of this incident, you have most assuredly landed on our persons-of-interest list. At the very least, the two of us will be watching you from now on."
"I'll be careful going forward."
I'd cleared myself of suspicion, but suspicion's lingering gaze was another matter entirely.
Truthfully, the fact that the magnifying glass didn't work on me made me twice as suspicious in their eyes.
As long as I held [Sovereign], this day was always going to come.
So my plan had been to squeeze out every benefit I could while I was at it.
Gwak Seung-jae studied me a while longer, then turned his eyes to Song Cheon-hye.
"Song Cheon-hye."
"......Yes."
Having decided her reckoning had arrived, Song Cheon-hye hunched her shoulders, tense to the bone.
"You will not be held responsible for the destroyed magnifying glass. But I trust you have learned something from this."
"......I'm sorry."
"Insufficient information or not, a wager is a wager. Whatever Kim Ho demands with his Wish Ticket, you will see it through."
"......Yes, I understand."
Song Cheon-hye's shoulders sagged.
With that, Gwak Seung-jae opened the wooden door he'd kept shut.
When I followed him back into the Room of Truth, everyone stopped talking and turned their attention on us.
"......"
"......"
Curious stares came flying and stuck to me like darts.
Naturally they were dying to know how the magnifying glass had gone.
But just as he'd said, Gwak Seung-jae showed no intention of spilling anything to outsiders.
All he gave Oh Se-hun was a brief report.
"We've decided to let it go."
"I see."
'Letting it go' meant no banned items had surfaced.
Perhaps because of that, Oh Se-hun answered with a faint smile and asked nothing more, and the others seemed content to take it at face value.
"......!"
Dang Gyu-young alone looked mildly startled — after all, she was the only person here who knew about the Life Cube.
If 'we're letting it go' had come out with the thing stuffed full of banned items, the magnifying glass must have been neutralized somehow.
I'd explain that later, when the chance arose.
Business here wasn't finished yet, so I returned to my seat beside Dang Gyu-young.
Then Gwak Seung-jae swept his eyes across the room and began.
"Setting the banned items aside, I trust you all understand why you are here."
They'd commandeered the security crystals installed around the commercial district,
thrown the district into an uproar with large-scale spells and spirit summons and caused damage,
set foot in the temporary storage, off-limits to anyone but authorized personnel,
and obstructed the Disciplinary Committee in the execution of its duties.
"If you have anything to say, say it now."
"......"
"No? Nothing."
The evidence was overwhelming, and most of it had been committed right in front of the Disciplinary Committee's eyes, so the club presidents confessed their sins without fuss.
Then Gwak Seung-jae cast a glance my way too — one that seemed to say, Kim Ho, this includes you.
I had my own crimes: breaking into the temporary storage, and driving Song Cheon-hye into my Ice Wall headfirst. So I confessed just as readily as the presidents had.
Whether I held banned items had no evidence and no way of proving it — but these charges? This was a clean bust, caught red-handed.
Gwak Seung-jae continued.
"Accordingly, penalty points and disciplinary measures will be assigned to everyone involved in this affair."
"So we get to try our hand at sewer cleaning, do we?"
Jeong Chong-myeong chuckled.
He was something of a model student and had rarely been disciplined, but now his blunder would see him dispatched to the infamous sewer detail.
Yet to my surprise, Gwak Seung-jae shook his head.
"You'll be assigned something else this time. There is a more urgent matter."
"......!"
"......!"
The presidents' eyes deepened.
The same thought seemed to flash through every head at once.
The issue that had shot to the top of the rumor mill lately, and one the academy itself desperately wanted resolved.
The Witch of Decay lurking in the Dungeon Hall — and the Dark Oubleks she'd scattered far and wide.
As if to confirm that guess, Gwak Seung-jae drove in the wedge.
"We would like your help cleaning out the Dungeon Hall."
So that's what this was.
It had puzzled me from the start.
Was there really a need to trigger a Ban Wave in the middle of such a chaotic period?
Wasn't it just compounding the confusion?
Now it made sense — he'd meant to weaponize disciplinary punishment into a Dungeon Hall cleanup.
Requesting cooperation from clubs would cost payment, but confiscating banned items and slapping on penalties meant free labor.
And clubs implicated in the storage infiltration could be pushed into even more enthusiastic participation — cost-effective from every angle.
Dang Gyu-young grumbled her question.
"I had a feeling it'd be something like this. When does it start?"
"You may begin as early as tomorrow."
"That's possible? It's PvP assessment week right now."
"We've secured the academy's approval. The Dungeon Hall will be open for this week only."
The sooner, the better, I suppose.
Even now, at this very moment, the Dark Oubleks were devouring everything they could get their slime on and growing stronger.
The more time we gave them, the harder they'd be to bring down — better to wipe them out fast rather than wait for the dungeon-clearing week.
Hong Ye-hwa and Jeong Chong-myeong nodded and each offered a word.
"Fine, I guess. Dungeon cleaning beats sewer cleaning."
"What exactly are we supposed to do?"
"I'll explain now."
And Gwak Seung-jae began laying out the detailed plan.
By the time we were released from the Disciplinary Committee room, dawn was already creeping in.
Everyone shuffled back to the dormitory looking worn out, but Dang Gyu-young and I still had work left to do.
Splitting the banned items, that is.
I set aside my own share, drained the cube dry, and handed the rest over to Dang Gyu-young.
Whereupon she forgot all about her exhaustion and started grinning ear to ear.
"Heheheh."
"That good, huh?"
"Obviously good. We scored big again~"
"You know it's thanks to me, right?"
"I know~ of course I know~"
Dang Gyu-young answered with a beaming smile.
Most of the banned items hauled out of the temporary storage were high-value pieces.
On top of that, we'd be collecting a commission fee from the White Magic Club, so a bit of dungeon-cleaning discipline was nothing at all.
If the Disciplinary Committee had kept hounding them about the vanished items, the penalties would have piled up further — but I'd smoothed even that over with the magnifying glass wager, which meant Dang Gyu-young had come out ahead, and then some.
She gave the Book of Chaos a little shake.
"I'll hold onto this for now. We'll have to meet with them anyway to get the commission."
"Whatever you prefer."
"Not in any hurry, right?"
"No, take your time."
I could now borrow the Book of Chaos as my commission fee, but unauthorized dungeon clears were off the table for the time being anyway.
The Witch of Decay was still out there, and the Dungeon Hall was under heightened guard because of her.
I figured I'd borrow it once things quieted down.
Dang Gyu-young sounded a little wistful.
"Shame we can't get punished together. Dungeons are fun when we go in together."
"Can't be helped."
According to Gwak Seung-jae, the Dungeon Hall cleanup would proceed with personnel designated by the Disciplinary Committee clearing the dungeons assigned to them.
And unless the Disciplinary Committee had lost its mind, they weren't going to put first-years and third-years in the same dungeon.
I waved it off.
"There's plenty of time. Let's go together once things calm down."
"Deal."
Dang Gyu-young nodded with a smile, then asked again.
"When do you start?"
"After a bit of a rest — Friday or the weekend, probably."
"What are you going to do while you rest?"
"'Resting' just means training for me. Shoring up my fundamentals."
Cleaning the Dungeon Hall was bound to mean running into a Dark Oublek once or twice.
So this wasn't just a disciplinary matter — it tied directly into the main quest.
Which meant I needed to pad my specs as much as possible before then.
And I've got more than enough materials.
My inventory was already piled high with every variety of deadly poison.