Where Banned Items Gather (5)
"Hey! Your hand—are you okay?"
The moment Dang Gyu-young laid eyes on me, the very first thing she did was seize my hand. She turned it over back and front, scrutinizing every inch, muttered something about this maybe not being the right one, and went to inspect the other.
I'd braced myself for her to demand the items on the spot, so this was a slight surprise.
"Not a scratch on you? And you really used Inferno Fist?"
"I don't use it without taking precautions."
"...Right, of course. You'd have managed somehow."
Her lips jutted out as though her worry had been for nothing, and she let go of my hand.
"But honestly, you might be even more skilled than I thought. Even granting the Inferno Fist—how did you beat Gwak Seung-jae?"
"I got lucky."
"No. He's not the kind of opponent luck alone lets you beat. He's top-tier among the second-years... You didn't secretly repeat a year, did you?"
"I keep telling you—I've graduated over two hundred times."
"Aigoo, there you go again!"
She smacked my forearm lightly.
"It's the truth. Your faith is lacking."
"Ugh, enough! The items—they're all safe?"
"Yes. Shall I take them out now?"
"Go ahead."
The instant I dumped everything I'd carried out of the Temporary Confiscation Storage onto the table, Dang Gyu-young's mouth fell open. She swept the lot into her arms, nuzzled her cheek against it, and wore an expression of pure rapture.
"Aww~ look at you, my adorable little darlings! How are your colors this gorgeous too? So pretty, so very pretty~"
Every last one was a high-risk banned item, and to my eye they looked nothing short of sinister. But I suppose when greed clouds a person's vision, everything starts to look like treasure. And since she was enjoying herself that much, it seemed a shame to kill the mood—so I quietly retrieved only my share: two Heart Thunder Jades.
"With this, our transaction is complete."
"That's right, that's right. A very fine deal indeed."
"I'll be off, then."
"Hey, hey, hold on."
Dang Gyu-young pushed the banned items into one corner and perched herself on the edge of the table. Meeting my eyes squarely, she spoke.
"Kim Ho. Want to join our club?"
"Is this a recruitment offer?"
"Yep. I've been keeping an eye on you, and I've never seen a candidate who fits our club better than you do."
"That's the first I'm hearing of it. What exactly is this ideal profile?"
"Arrogant, underhanded, and insatiably greedy—one look at you and I thought, now there's a born thief if I ever saw one."
"Are you insulting me right now?"
Dang Gyu-young chewed over her own words and, apparently finding even herself unconvinced, quietly swapped them out.
"...Daring, shrewd, and hugely ambitious... Wait, why am I watching my mouth around you? Hey! Just join already! Big sis will take good care of you!"
"I decline."
"Aw, why!"
"Let me ask you one thing. It's because of this, isn't it?"
When I pointed at the Life Cube, her gaze slid away, none too subtly. She traced a tiny circle on the table with her index finger.
"...Honestly, I can't say it plays no part at all..."
"I'm going to sell it."
"What?!"
Of every expression I'd seen on her face until now, this was the most stunned. She rushed over, clamped her hands on my shoulders, and shook them furiously.
"When? Where? To whom? How? Why??"
"Let go of my shoulders first, then we'll talk. As for the 'why'—it simply doesn't suit me."
For someone in my position, life-attribute items and skills ranked far down the priority list. The Life Cube had earned its keep through the special use it found this time around, but now its purpose was spent—it was time to send it off. I could have saved it for the next Ban Wave, but that was still a long way off. Handing it to a rightful owner now and trading it for something more useful to me was simply the better choice.
"Then hand it over to me. I'll pay you handsomely."
"I'm sorry to say this, but I doubt you could bear the price."
"Let's hear it anyway. What are you thinking?"
"Special Meditation Room Season Passes."
"Season Passes? We can get our hands on those."
"Four of them."
"F—"
The word died in her throat. She dragged a hand across her forehead, then forced a hollow laugh and picked the conversation back up.
"Haha... junior, aren't you aiming a bit high? Four Season Passes is pushing it."
"No. That is the precise price."
"Look, slipping past the Ban Wave like that was genuinely impressive, but even at its best, that's worth two passes."
"You've got the wrong end of it—that's not even what this is for. It has a proper ability all its own."
"...Huh. Now that you mention it, I suppose it does? Then what is it for?"
If it were merely a tool for throwing the Ban Wave into disarray, there would have been no reason for it to hang heavy with plants. And what about the intense life energy that burst out every time it opened? A separate, original purpose made far more sense.
"I'll show you the item description—so grant me one small favor in return."
"Deal. Show me."
The moment I revealed the description, Dang Gyu-young's eyes widened bit by bit into disbelief.
"The effects of life-attribute items stored inside... boosted by 1.3 times?! That's absurd! What kind of item even does that?"
"Worth the price, wouldn't you say?"
"...Emerald or the Mother Nature Club crowd would kill for something like that. Still, four passes is a lot, no?"
"I'll manage to get it out of them. My way."
Dang Gyu-young clicked her tongue. When the man himself was willing to sell at that price, a third party had no grounds to argue.
"Tch. Fine—I'm sure you'll handle it. So what's the favor?"
"Just pass along one piece of news. The more naturally it reaches their ears, the better."
"To whom?"
"The president of the Magic Engineering Club. Tell him a first-year completed a 10x10x10 cube."
"...?"
She shot me a look demanding to know what scheme I was cooking up, then shrugged.
"...Sure. That much I can manage."
"Thank you. Now I really will be going."
"Kim Ho."
I bowed my head and turned to leave, but she called me back. Her face was serious, without a shred of mischief.
"Forget everything I joked about earlier. Cube or no cube, my offer stands. Think it over properly."
"I will, sunbae."
The Magic Tower Association and the Guild Coalition, each a pillar of the Four Major Factions, stood in rivalry—but the ties between their member clubs ran in every direction. The Ruby and Sapphire Towers belonged to the same association, yet they were old enemies; the Jewelcraft Club, though under the Guild Coalition's banner, was granted every courtesy imaginable by the Magic Tower side thanks to its specialty in gemwork. The Emerald Tower and the Mother Nature Club fell into the latter category. Their shared affinity for similar attributes had kept the two on comfortably close terms, and this year, with the Guild Coalition's top prospect Park Nari being a druid, exchanges between them had grown more frequent still. As a result, Emerald's president Mok Jonghwa and Mother Nature Club president Ha Suyeon had taken to meeting nearly every other day.
Mok Jonghwa skipped the greeting and asked instead:
"What is it this time?"
"I actually came to ask you something. Have you ever happened to see an item like this?"
Mok Jonghwa accepted the roughly drawn sketch. A cube-shaped box with a lid that opened and closed, blanketed edge to edge in all manner of plants, a green aura of life radiating from every surface. Even at a glance, nothing about it felt ordinary. It was an item Mok Jonghwa had never once laid eyes on in his life.
"First I've ever heard of it. What is it?"
"I don't know the details myself. Nari saw it and brought this back."
The story went like this. Park Nari had been playing with Beomi over the break, same as any other day, when a powerful life-attribute pulse washed over her from somewhere nearby. Beomi, acutely sensitive to such things, had bolted after the pulse before she could blink, and with nothing but the thought of catching her runaway companion, Nari had chased after it. And there she found a boy holding the box from the sketch—and Beomi curled up inside it, purring away like a motorcycle engine in deep contentment. Judging it an intrusion, she had promptly retreated with Beomi in tow, but the identity of that box kept gnawing at her. Or so the tale went.
Mok Jonghwa was astonished on two counts.
The first: That wretched cat actually liked something?
Beomi was a cat—a tiger, rather—of spectacularly vile temperament. As Park Nari's companion beast, it had been worth plenty of effort to try to win over. He'd sat through lectures by a renowned beast tamer and hunted down treats said to be favorites of feline spirit beasts, only to fail every single time. With a personality like that, escaping without a scratch was the best outcome anyone could hope for. And yet that little monster had crawled into the box of its own free will. What in the world was that box?
The second surprise was that the pulse had carried from a distance. According to Nari, she had been in the middle of her classroom while the boy stood out in the corridor. If, from that range, the life pulse had registered not only to Beomi but to Nari herself...
"At the very least, it's no ordinary item."
"That's what I thought as well."
"And the owner?"
"A boy named Kim Ho. First-year, Class 3."
"Affiliation?"
"Unaffiliated, as far as we could dig up."
Still unaffiliated, was he... Then pushing hard would carry few consequences. If he secured psychological leverage up front, he could grind that first-year down and snatch the item up at a bargain. Having finished his calculations, Mok Jonghwa called over his two first-years.
"Gwak Ji-cheol. Jeong Su-ji. Over here a moment."
Gwak Ji-cheol and Jeong Su-ji had been deep in debate, twisting a single spell formula every which way, but the instant their president called, they wiped the formula away and stood before him.
"Yes, hyung."
"You called?"
"Anything you can tell me about a Kim Ho in Class 3?"
Jeong Su-ji looked inclined to spare her words, but Gwak Ji-cheol handed back an answer without a beat's delay.
"Him? Famous coward, that one. Got matched against Song Cheon-hye in the Placement Exam and abstained on the spot."
"What? He abstained in the Placement Exam?"
"Yes. Heard Song Cheon-hye's name and just raised his hand."
He did have a record of toppling Hong Yeon-hwa in the match immediately before, but that fact had long since slipped from everyone's memory. Rumors, after all, have a way of carrying only the ugliest parts, inflated.
"If you were matched against him, could you win?"
"Bring a whole truckload of guys like him and they still wouldn't be my match."
In fairness, hearsay was all Gwak Ji-cheol had to go on. But in his mind, Kim Ho was already fixed in place: a coward who would curl his tail and bolt the moment a fight turned against him.
At the blustering boast, Mok Jonghwa gave a curt nod.
"Bring him to me. I want to see this boy myself. If he digs in and refuses... break him."
"Understood. He's a timid creature, so a little pressure should snap him in two. The name Emerald alone will have him groveling."
"Take Su-ji along, just in case."
"I could manage on my own..."
"No backtalk."
"...As you say."
Ha Suyeon had watched the whole exchange wearing her soft, pleasant smile, but privately she was at a loss. This wasn't what I set out to arrange...
This year's Emerald president, for all the grave, deliberate image wood-earth mages were supposed to carry, had a habit of forcing matters through with brute pressure. He would toss out a word or two first, and when those failed, bring his weight to bear. The only one certain to bleed for it was an innocent first-year.
And yet did that mean she wished to stop him? Not quite. She was every bit as curious about the mysterious item as he was. It was bound to be fairly high-grade, and if the Emerald side pushed hard and knocked the price down, that suited her just fine too. And should things go awry, the damage would never spread as far as the Mother Nature Club. It was, in the truest sense, profit without so much as a finger lifted.
Well. Either way, I'll be seeing that box before long.
Just what kind of item could it be? With expectations quietly rising, Ha Suyeon settled in to wait.
[34] The Support Ate It All