The Wisdom Wall
By tradition, the post of Headmaster at Dragon Slayer Academy fell to the Hero of the previous generation, once he stepped back from the front lines. Of course, retirement cost an S-rank Hero nothing of his martial might, and every Headmaster in history had poured that staggering power into one purpose and one purpose alone: making Dragon Slayer Academy a better school.
Their temperaments varied wildly, and so their directions did as well. One Headmaster devoted himself to building up the school's facilities. Another established discipline and developed the Ban Wave. Still another swept away threats from the outside world.
And one Headmaster set foot into the deepest reaches of the Dungeon Hall's underground floors. Of the thousand-odd dungeons there, a mere ten existed of that rarest breed — demon dens among demon dens. They had dared to challenge the S-rank dungeons.
The wall that now stood before them was the spoils of one such attempt, known among those in the know as the Wisdom Wall. Whenever danger came knocking at Dragon Slayer Academy's door, the Wisdom Wall offered up a solution — and this time would prove no different.
As the Headmaster drew closer, the characters strewn haphazardly across the wall came swarming together, assembling into the shape of one enormous eye. As if to peer down at the sample it had been given. In the same breath, a single word rose to the surface.
A moment later the eye dissolved back into scattered characters, and two words remained in its place.
[OFFERING]
Borrowing transcendent power invariably exacts a price to match. This was hardly the first time around, of course — the offerings had been prepared in advance.
Two items emerged from the Headmaster's inventory: a pair of boots glittering with golden light, and a bracelet studded with jewels. Both were A-rank items.
"Here ya go."
He held them straight out in front of him, and the characters swarmed busily across the Wisdom Wall once more, this time shaping themselves into two palms. The palms curled inward, as if seizing hold—
— Crumble.
The A-rank equipment burst into powder and scattered on the air, destroyed in the very act of being offered up. Another word surfaced on the wall.
'Yeesh — do you have any idea what just one of those costs?'
The Headmaster felt his stomach begin to churn. Even for a former Hero, every single piece of A-rank equipment carried tremendous value, and watching two of them annihilated in a heartbeat was bound to sting. But however precious an item might be, could it ever outweigh a human life? For these two, nothing came before the safety of their students. If they meant to stabilize Dragon Slayer Academy even a single hour sooner, then a price like this simply had to be paid.
And so the Headmaster set his heartburn and regret aside and addressed the wall directly.
"Go on, tell me — where is the Witch of Decay?"
Such was the Wisdom Wall's bargain: offer a suitable sacrifice, and it resolved the user's curiosity. And with an object connected to the target serving as a medium, the answers grew more specific still. After the midterm, for instance, they had pinpointed the locations of the Witch of Decay and the Blood Cult Elder using a Blood Explosion Pill syringe as the medium. They had failed to actually catch them that time—
'But they won't slip away from us twice.'
That was why he had collected the Dark Oublek samples, fully intending to demand the same information with them as the medium.
And yet, somehow, things went sideways. In place of an answer, only a single word hung forlornly on the wall.
Even as it did, the characters gathered themselves again, formed a palm, and wagged it side to side.
The Headmaster's brow creased.
'Greedy little thing today, aren't we.'
Three A-rank items, it wanted. His stomach, only just settled, began churning all over again. But the Wisdom Wall took only a fair price, every time — which meant that demanding more offerings implied it would return information worth exactly that much more.
And so the Headmaster drew from his inventory a dagger black-red from tip to hilt and thrust it forward, as though inviting the wall to eat.
— Crumble.
The dagger, too, promptly dissolved into drifting powder.
The Headmaster dragged a hand down his face, sighing.
"Whew... Now talk. For real this time."
If the thing demanded yet more offerings or any further nonsense after all this, he was fully prepared to smash the whole wall to rubble. The Wisdom Wall, evidently aware of it, wasted no time — its characters snapped together, raising words one after another.
[TRAPS]
[LABYRINTH]
"...!"
"...!"
Every eye in the chamber lit up. Three words, no more — but they were more than enough to pinpoint the Witch of Decay's location. A labyrinth papered from entrance to depths with teleportation traps.
Dungeon No. 50, A-rank. The Transfer Labyrinth.
Seo Cheong-yong spoke first.
"Just as our analysis predicted, it's registered as A-rank. There really is nowhere better to hide oneself than a labyrinth."
"High probability the entire dungeon has been fortified."
Lee Su-dok chimed in.
Nearly a month had passed since the midterm — since the two instructors had clashed with them. Ample time for the Witch of Decay to recover her strength and turn her dungeon into a fortress. And by scattering oubleks throughout the Dungeon Hall, she would have bought herself even more of it.
The Headmaster tossed out an offhand offer.
"Should I join in as well?"
Lee Su-dok and Seo Cheong-yong answered simultaneously, as though they had rehearsed it.
"We will handle it ourselves."
"No sense swinging an ox-slaughtering cleaver at a chicken, is there?"
They had already tasted failure once, yes — but they were certain they could settle this matter at their own level. Granted, if the former Hero joined the subjugation force, both breaching the dungeon and felling its denizens would go far more smoothly.
'But a king does not move rashly.'
The greatest reason was that they still had not fully grasped the enemy's true aim. What if the scheme was to bind the academy's mightiest asset — the Headmaster himself — inside the Transfer Labyrinth, and invade Dungeon Island while he was pinned there? The fallout could be catastrophic.
There were political considerations as well. Every time a crisis erupted and the Headmaster moved personally, how would that look to the outside world?
'They'd conclude the faculty was incompetent.'
And should that impression spread, trust in Dragon Slayer Academy itself could come crashing down. Perhaps that, too, was precisely what the enemy intended.
All the more reason, then, that this was a matter they had to resolve with their own hands.
And one reason more — a personal one, belonging to Lee Su-dok alone.
'If it's going to end, it ends by my hand.'
The Witch of Decay was his prey. He had let her slip away once already, and the wound that had left on his pride made him all the less willing to hand her over to anyone — the Headmaster, another teacher, or anyone else alive.
The Vice Principal read the sentiment in the room, gave a small nod, and spoke.
"If that is the wish of you both, understood. Even so, as this is an A-rank dungeon, organizing a proper subjugation force would be the correct course."
"Naturally."
Seo Cheong-yong answered with a gentle smile. He had no expectation of losing once they closed with those fiends — but reaching the point where they could was another question entirely. And the venue in question was nothing less than an A-rank dungeon: a place that even Seo Cheong-yong, the instructor of the Conquest class, could never afford to take lightly.
"We intend to call on a few of the other instructors, and on a number of third-year students, for support."
"Do so."
The details would need days of meetings to settle. With the broad strokes agreed upon, they began to gather themselves to leave.
And just as they were about to step out of the room, one more word surfaced on the Wisdom Wall.
"...!"
"...!"
Everyone froze solid, stares riveted to the wall. It was a first not only for Lee Su-dok and Seo Cheong-yong — even the Headmaster and the Vice Principal had never once seen anything like it.
Before long the characters clicked crisply into place, assembling into two short syllables.
The Headmaster leaned slightly toward the Vice Principal and muttered,
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"...I am not certain either."
"Whose name is it?"
"Presumably a student's."
Neither of them could place it. Seo Cheong-yong, on the other hand, seemed to have thought of something.
"Instructor Lee, I believe your homeroom class has a student by the name of Kim Ho."
"...That is correct."
Lee Su-dok affirmed it with an uncharacteristically dazed air. It was true that Kim Ho belonged to his Class 3, and true that the boy looked suspicious in a dozen different ways. But why on earth would that name surface here, of all places?
'That boy really does have a gift for turning up just when you'd written him off.'
The Headmaster, who had been listening to the two of them, asked,
"Your homeroom class — that's a first-year class, Instructor Lee?"
"Yes."
"Hmmm."
The Headmaster hummed low in thought. A name appearing on the Wisdom Wall could mean only one thing: that its owner was destined to play a decisive role in the subjugation of the Witch of Decay. Bringing him along would pay off enormously, in one form or another.
'But why?'
By what logic, out of all the countless faculty and students, had a first-year been the one singled out? Curiosity swelled by the second, and the Headmaster flicked a subtle glance to his side. The Vice Principal caught the unspoken request at once and called up Kim Ho's records — his grades, first of all.
"PvP record: undefeated, excluding the Placement Exam and Mentoring. Dungeon clearance results: top of the first year."
"His origins? Affiliations?"
"Both unknown."
The Headmaster asked, genuinely puzzled.
"...Then how exactly did he get admitted?"
"I will look into the matter further."
The Headmaster turned his head and put the question to the two instructors instead.
"How does he strike the two of you?"
"Nothing about him ever jumped out at me. He does do well on the written exams, I'll grant you."
Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, what Seo Cheong-yong had seen of Kim Ho was in the classroom, where the boy sat back and listened quietly without ever pushing himself forward. His observations could hardly amount to more than that.
Lee Su-dok's answer took a beat longer. The night the Black Market opened. After cutting down the Blood Cult Elder who had appeared without warning, he had interrogated Kim Ho — and that was the scene now surfacing in his memory. He had activated the information-type skill [Truth or False], and against all expectation, this message had appeared:
[It is ???]
'...No need to bring that up here.'
For the moment, Lee Su-dok elected to keep his silence on the matter. In making that call, much as with the Witch of Decay, a powerful appetite to dig into Kim Ho personally had weighed heavily on him.
Instead, he offered different information.
"He keeps close company with two unaffiliated students from his class. One of them is the young heiress of the Hyeseong Group."
"The Hyeseong Group, hm..."
"Frequent contact with the president of the Thief Club as well. Our findings indicate she has often aided him in his unauthorized raids on the underground floors."
"A first-year, running unauthorized raids on top of everything else?"
"He is currently serving disciplinary punishment for infiltrating the Temporary Confiscation Storage, along with several other violations of academy rules."
"...How interesting."
The Headmaster stroked his chin, openly amused. The two instructors had handed him opposite assessments, and yet both were almost certainly true.
'Which is exactly what makes him so interesting.'
It meant that while the boy played the part of an unremarkable Student A on the surface, he was busy working toward his own ends behind the curtain. His actual list of rule violations was probably a great deal longer than anything that had surfaced.
He mulled it over briefly, then reached his conclusion. Truth be told, the decision had been made the instant the name had appeared on the Wisdom Wall.
"I do believe I'll have to meet this Kim Ho student myself."
He would look the boy in the eye with his own — before placing him on the subjugation force.
[272] The Support Ate It All