The Duel (1)
When class ended, there were visitors waiting for me outside the classroom.
On one side, Kwak Ji-cheol.
Jeong Su-ji, who usually tagged along with him, was nowhere to be seen today.
He shot me a look brimming with hostility, as if he were biding his time for something.
I took a moment to reflect on myself.
On the fact that I hadn't simply slammed his head into the alley wall when I had the chance.
I should've hit him a few more times and knocked him out cold.
Something tells me another opportunity will come along before long.
A little further off, Park Na-ri was gently stroking her cat, cradling it in one arm. Every time someone walked by, she hunched her shoulders with a nervous expression.
Each of the two had brought a guardian of their own.
Beside Kwak Ji-cheol stood a male student whose face seemed perpetually irritated by everything in existence, while beside Park Na-ri was a female student wearing a soft, gentle smile.
Both had third-year pins fastened to their ties.
The Emerald Magic Tower and the Nature Club, presumably.
The four of them approached me.
The Emerald Magic Tower senior spoke first.
"So you're Kim Ho."
"Good afternoon, senior."
"I'm Mok Jonghwa, president of the Emerald Magic Tower."
"And I'm Ha Su-yeon, president of the Nature Club."
Where Mok Jonghwa made no effort whatsoever to hide how far beneath him he considered everyone, Ha Su-yeon maintained polite manners and respectful speech.
Of course, whether her manners were merely polite remained to be seen.
Mok Jonghwa continued the conversation.
"If you had business with us, you should have come to us directly."
"Much appreciated, senior. The messenger conversation wasn't exactly on equal footing, you see."
Kwak Ji-cheol's and Mok Jonghwa's faces stiffened at the same instant.
Kwak Ji-cheol at being treated like an unequal messenger, and Mok Jonghwa at the implication that a mere first-year considered himself his peer.
Kwak Ji-cheol flared up, about to snap something back, but Mok Jonghwa raised a hand and shut him up.
"Seems being a new student has made you blind. Let me offer you a word of advice as your senior. Always remain humble. The world outside the well is wider than you think."
"Thank you for the advice. Though you don't seem to be outside the well yourself, senior."
"If that's how it looks to you, then your judgment is lacking. Properly gauging your opponent's ability is itself an ability."
"Is that why you sent two expendables after me?"
"……!"
Mok Jonghwa's words caught in his throat.
If his judgment truly was as outstanding as he claimed, and he had properly measured my ability, then Kwak Ji-cheol and Jeong Su-ji should have subdued me.
Yet here I was, standing perfectly fine and spouting insolence to his face.
He had just spat in his own face.
Unable to watch any longer, Ha Su-yeon stepped in as mediator.
"I think it would be best for both of you to stop here. We didn't come all this way to argue."
Mok Jonghwa started to fire off one more remark, then stopped and looked around.
With two club presidents showing up at once, the passing first-years' attention had all converged on us.
Everyone was craning their necks at the spectacle, so he must have judged that losing his temper further here would gain him nothing.
"This isn't a good place to talk. Let's move somewhere else."
We each bought ourselves a drink at the school store and settled in at the second-floor terrace, a spot that saw fewer student footprints than I'd expected.
Kwak Ji-cheol and Park Na-ri quietly kept their distance behind us, leaving the conversation to me, Mok Jonghwa, and Ha Su-yeon.
Ha Su-yeon opened the discussion.
"I hear you're in possession of a rather special item."
"I had a feeling that might be why you came."
Not that I'd merely guessed it — I was the one who had brought them here in the first place.
I pulled out the Life Cube and set it on the table.
I hadn't even opened the lid, and yet the box was already radiating a faint aura of life. Something unusual flickered in everyone's eyes at the sight.
Na-ri's cat wriggled free of her arms, leapt up onto the table, and squeezed itself right into the cube.
"Beomi, no! Come out of there right now!"
"It's fine. Just leave him."
"……Sorry."
I waved a hand at Park Na-ri, who was scrambling to retrieve her cat.
No point being stiff about it with his future owner.
The cat nudged the cube's lid open with a flick of its paw and climbed in.
Then it seated itself in the very center and made an announcement.
"Meow."
"So it was true……"
"Beomi really does love it……"
Mok Jonghwa and Ha Su-yeon wore expressions of wonder, as if they still couldn't quite believe what they were seeing with their own eyes.
Then Ha Su-yeon composed her face and continued.
"Even at a glance, it looks like an incredibly powerful life-attribute artifact. Would it be all right if we saw the item description?"
"Hmm……"
I feigned hesitation for a moment.
An item's performance is the owner's strength.
Show it off carelessly, and you might as well be laying your hand bare on the table.
I did intend to sell it eventually, of course — but if I leapt at the first request to show it, they'd find that suspicious, which was exactly why I made a show of dragging things out.
As if to ease my concerns, Ha Su-yeon and Mok Jonghwa added their assurances.
"This information will never leave this table. You have the Nature Club's word on that."
"And you have mine, in the name of the Emerald Magic Tower."
"……Then that's acceptable."
Playing the reluctant seller, I revealed the item's information.
All four crowded close to the cube.
As they read the description, their eyes shot wide in disbelief.
"Boosts the performance of stored life-attribute items…… by 1.3 times?"
"No limit on quantity, either. At this size, you could fit at least ten items inside."
"An absolutely outrageous item……"
"There's no way this is just B-rank. Where in the world did you get it?"
The performance had apparently shocked them more than expected, and all four of them buzzed with excitement.
Even Park Na-ri, shy and soft-spoken as she was, joined the conversation actively.
I sipped my iced coffee and waited at my leisure.
Once the excitement had settled somewhat, Ha Su-yeon returned in her soft voice — though she could not quite hide the fire smoldering in her eyes.
"I'll get straight to the point. Would you be willing to transfer this cube to us?"
"Well. It's a fine item to simply hold onto, you see."
Mok Jonghwa spoke in a haughty tone.
"An item only shines in the hands of one who knows how to use it properly. Even if you kept it, you'd manage two or three life items at best. It'd be a pearl necklace on a pig. Don't let it rot on you — hand it over to us, and we'll pay you far more than it's worth."
"President Mok Jonghwa is being a bit excessive, but I agree with him to a degree."
Ha Su-yeon added her explanations earnestly.
"Both the Emerald Magic Tower and the Nature Club hold generous stocks of life-attribute items. That means we'd be able to maximize this cube's effects."
In contrast, even if I worked hard to collect life-attribute items going forward, I would inevitably fall short of them in both grade and quantity.
Their argument was: rather than that, wouldn't it be better to trade it for equipment of comparable value that I could actually make use of?
Why, that's extremely convenient of you.
It wasn't far off from my own reason for deciding to sell the cube in the first place.
Life-attribute items simply didn't suit me.
But even if the reasoning was similar, there was a vast difference between hearing it from a seller and hearing it from a buyer.
If it looked like I was selling because I didn't need it, the price would drop. But framed this way — with them wanting to buy — I could hold the favorable high ground the whole time.
"I understand what you're saying. Still, I can't help hesitating."
"Then tell us what you want. We'll accommodate you as best we can."
"Hmm……"
I played the part of a first-year wracked with anguish — should I sell, and if so, for how much?
Everyone watched my face in silence, waiting for my answer.
And my answer had been settled for quite a while — ever since I brought up the Season Pass with Go Hyeon-woo.
At the end of my pretend deliberation, I held up four fingers.
"Four Season Passes for the Special Meditation Rooms. That's what it'll take."
"Absurd."
Mok Jonghwa shot back immediately.
"Don't you think you're being greedy? Two Season Passes, and we deal right now."
"There's no room for negotiation."
"……"
Mok Jonghwa scowled, and Ha Su-yeon picked up the thread.
"You can't possibly need four Season Passes, so you're really looking to trade them for items of equivalent value, aren't you?"
"To be precise, I'd like one Season Pass and the remaining three in items."
"We could stretch to three at most, taking the loss on ourselves. But four is excessive, even to me."
"Then I'm sorry, but I suppose we'll have to pretend this conversation never happened."
Ha Su-yeon's brow furrowed slightly as well.
I made it plainly obvious that I had nothing to lose.
"Like I said at the start, I'm perfectly content just holding onto this cube. If I do decide to sell, I could always take it to the Swordsmanship Club or the White Magic Club……. Or put it up for auction, I suppose."
"……!"
"……!"
In terms of rankings, the Emerald Magic Tower and the Nature Club sat somewhere in the upper-middle tier.
Compared to the old-guard prestige of the Swordsmanship Club or the White Magic Club, they were a notch below.
There was no guarantee I'd fetch more than three Season Passes if I took the Life Cube to one of them — but given the gap between factions, Ha Su-yeon couldn't help wondering if it might happen.
The auction worked the same way.
If the cube fell into someone else's hands like that, they might end up paying more than four Season Passes for it.
Ha Su-yeon let out a troubled sigh.
"Ha……. Before that, I'd like to ask something. What items would you accept in exchange for the three Season Passes?"
She meant: if those happened to be items they could acquire relatively easily, she was willing to absorb an even greater loss to close the deal.
But the world rarely works out so conveniently.
"I want a Blank Skillbook."
"……!!"
The Blank Skillbook.
Think of it as the skillbook version of a blank check.
Fill in the contents and it becomes a skillbook; use the skillbook and you learn the skill.
Its greatest strength was that even an existing skill could be inscribed and then customized to the writer's exact tastes.
Naturally, it was extraordinarily rare.
I'd be surprised if there were even five or six in all of Dragon Slayer Academy right now.
An item like that, once you counted the effort of acquiring it, would be worth about three and a half Season Passes.
The two club presidents knew this all too well, and they shook their heads.
"Every time we turn around, your demands keep growing. That condition we cannot grant."
"We'll need some time to think it over as well."
"Of course. Do let me know if you change your minds."
I answered with perfect composure.
Knowing them, that would probably happen before the weekend was out.
That 1.3x multiplier would keep dancing before their eyes.
But then—
"U-um, excuse me!"
Park Na-ri suddenly cut into the conversation.
The moment everyone's eyes turned to her, her voice shrank to a mosquito's whine.
"I…… have one…… of those."
"Na-ri, think this through carefully. The chance to craft your own skill doesn't come often. Wouldn't it be a waste to spend it like this?"
Ha Su-yeon tried to dissuade her, but Park Na-ri took a deep breath and set her expression in resolve.
"I've…… had that Blank Skillbook for an incredibly long time now……"
"I know."
"But I still haven't been able to think of a good skill. If this goes on, it'll just keep sitting in my inventory forever."
The Blank Skillbook held boundless potential, and precisely because of that, it demanded vast creativity from its user.
Handle it clumsily, and you might fail to bring out that potential at all, producing at best a low-grade skill.
There was no greater waste, so anyone using one had to agonize over it enormously.
Park Na-ri had been wandering, unable to come up with a worthwhile skill all this time.
Her argument was that rather than letting the skillbook sit pristine in her inventory, she'd rather trade it for the Life Cube.
"And…… Beomi loves it so much, look."
"Meow."
Beomi chimed in with a short cry, rubbing his chin against the corner of the cube.
As an efficiency fanatic through and through, I couldn't help thinking, over something like that? — but perhaps that's simply what an owner's heart is.
The desire to give your beloved cat…… tiger anything it wants.
It wasn't exactly incomprehensible.
Moreover, Park Na-ri's expression was serious enough that this seemed to be a decision she'd thought through on her own.
Ha Su-yeon must have read the same thing in Na-ri's eyes; after a moment of meeting her gaze, she sighed.
"Phew……. All right. If that's truly what you want."
"Thank you, unnie."
Ha Su-yeon turned to me.
"Shall we make the trade right now?"
"If we're doing it, there's no reason to drag it out."
"Agreed."
Park Na-ri handed me the skillbook — glowing pure white, utterly blank — and Ha Su-yeon passed me the card inscribed with the word Season Pass in elegant italics.
With that, the Life Cube became the property of Park Na-ri and the Nature Club.
When Na-ri beamed and hugged the cube tight, the cat inside let out a satisfied motorboat purr.
It had already begun scratching furiously at the cube walls, as if claiming it as its master's property.
"D-don't scratch it! Don't scratch!"
Watching the scene, everyone wore the exact same expression — they were probably all thinking the same thing.
Truly a circus and nothing less.
"Tch."
Mok Jonghwa clicked his tongue.
He might well have changed his mind later and paid four Season Passes, but with ownership already transferred, it was all water under the bridge.
Still, it seemed I had more business to discuss.
"We came to see you for a reason beyond that cube."
"Yes, go ahead."
What other business could they possibly have—
The next words came from Kwak Ji-cheol instead.
"I hereby challenge you to a duel."