The Student Disciplinary Committee Office
Even at this late hour, Disciplinary Committee Chief Oh Se-hun was still working.
A few committee members were helping him with the paperwork at his side. Song Cheon-hye was among them, and she was clearly losing her battle with sleep, nodding off right where she stood.
Then, as we came pouring out through the wooden door, she jolted upright and snapped into perfect posture, staring at us. The other committee members' attention turned to us as well, but unlike Song Cheon-hye, none of them looked particularly surprised.
They'd probably built up an immunity from this kind of thing happening so often.
"......"
Oh Se-hun finished up what he'd been working on as if nothing were out of the ordinary, then slowly lifted his gaze from the documents. He looked us over one by one, from Dang Gyu-young and the rest of the Thief Club all the way to Go Hyeon-woo and me, then gave a wry smile that seemed to say he had a fair idea of what had happened.
Even if he'd grasped the situation, he seemed determined to follow proper procedure, so he turned to Gwak Seung-jae first.
"What's going on?"
"We found them near the underground E-floor and brought them in."
"Is that so? Were they on their way down?"
"On their way up, actually."
Coming up meant their business in the underground floors was finished. Oh Se-hun exchanged a silent glance with one of the second-year committee members, who, without receiving any explicit order, read the unspoken meaning in it, opened the wooden door, and left.
Off to check things out, I see.
He was going to look into the dungeons that had been cleared and destroyed tonight. If a dungeon was destroyed without ever having been bid on, it went without saying that we were the ones behind it.
With that dispatched, Oh Se-hun flashed a gentle smile and gestured at the empty chairs.
"Have a seat first. Anything to drink?"
"Honey water for me."
"Cold water, please."
Dang Gyu-young dropped herself into a chair first, and Chae Da-bin sat down beside her. Gwak Seung-jae leaned against a corner of the room holding a cup of coffee—who knew when he'd gotten it.
The first-years, for some reason, all looked too uncomfortable to ask for anything, but I'd never been the type to worry about that sort of thing. Besides, I'd just come back from a desperate game of tag with the Black Snake Gang leader, and I was parched.
Dropping into a chair much the same way Dang Gyu-young had, I said,
"I'll have honey water too."
"......"
Maybe it was how completely unbothered I looked in front of the seniors, but the committee members' expressions flickered for a moment. The only person whose face didn't change at all was Oh Se-hun.
He'd already been through this with me at the entrance ceremony.
He nodded noncommittally, then asked Shin Byung-cheol and Go Hyeon-woo as well.
"Two honey waters and one cold water. What about you two?"
"We're fine, thank you."
The two of them had apparently resolved to draw as little attention to themselves as possible.
Just as Oh Se-hun moved to prepare the drinks himself, Song Cheon-hye sprang into action.
"I'll get them."
Oh Se-hun took a seat across from us, his gaze drifting slowly between Dang Gyu-young and me, then—having thought of something—asked her,
"Did Kim Ho join the Thief Club at some point?"
"I've been trying to lure him in, but he won't take the bait. Why?"
"Maybe it's just my imagination, but seeing you two like this... the vibe is kind of similar."
"Right?! See, they're similar! I told you!"
Excited, Dang Gyu-young clapped me on the shoulder. She might as well have been shouting, See that? You're destined to join our club! We're filling out the application the moment we leave!
But I cut her off, cold and decisive.
"I intend to stay unaffiliated for the time being."
"Fair enough. Clubs are hard to switch once you've joined, so think it over carefully."
The smile on Oh Se-hun's lips deepened slightly—whether because he appreciated my caution or because of the look of betrayal creeping across Dang Gyu-young's face, I couldn't tell.
Song Cheon-hye soon returned with two honey waters and a cold water and set them down in front of us. Whatever it was she found so distasteful, she shot me a withering glare as she placed my honey water, then spun on her heel and walked away.
Oh Se-hun poured his own share of coffee from a thermos, took a sip, and got down to business.
"Gyu-young, why don't you tell me. Why did you take the first-years down to the underground floors?"
"Oh, nothing much. Just thought I'd show our dear juniors around down there."
"You didn't enter any dungeons, did you?"
"Nope. We didn't even go near them."
Dang Gyu-young lied without batting an eye. Everyone present knew perfectly well it was a see-through lie, but there was no way to expose it on the spot.
Oh Se-hun swung the arrow toward me and asked much the same question.
"Kim Ho, you do know that going down to the underground floors violates the rules right now?"
"Yes, I do."
"Then why did you go down?"
"I was just so curious what it looked like down there. Couldn't help myself."
See-through lie number two.
Song Cheon-hye let out an incredulous huff—Hah! Honestly! Hah!—like steam escaping a kettle.
Oh Se-hun, by contrast, nodded as if that answer actually made sense to him.
"Perfectly understandable to be curious. Still, was it worth breaking the rules for?"
"No, sir. I'm sorry."
Oh Se-hun swung the arrow back toward Dang Gyu-young, his tone turning admonishing.
"Gyu-young, you're the one who needs to reflect here. You're a senior now—when your juniors start heading down the wrong path, you're supposed to stop them. What kind of senior leads them straight into bad influences?"
"......"
Dang Gyu-young looked a little wronged. Sure, she'd played the guide, but trace the cause all the way back and it was me who had put in the request.
Still, if she'd tried to argue that point, everyone in the room would have ended up miserable, so she did her best to play innocent instead.
Just then, the second-year who'd left through Gwak Seung-jae's wooden door returned from the underground floors. Without making a sound, he moved only his lips to report to Oh Se-hun—apparently using Sound Transmission.
Oh Se-hun saw no need to keep what he'd been told to himself.
"We just checked the underground floors. There were no unauthorized raids tonight."
Every dungeon destroyed tonight had been formally bid on and cleared. The replays had all been registered, without exception.
Of course, they weren't fools either. All the underground-floor side could currently confirm was the dungeons that had been destroyed—that is, perfectly cleared. They would also have considered the possibility that we'd used an emergency escape partway through.
But figuring out which dungeon we'd used it in was impossible, so in the end it came to the same thing: no hard evidence. And suspicion alone wasn't enough to press us further or keep us here.
This was exactly the calculation Dang Gyu-young and I had made before following them to the Disciplinary Committee Office so meekly. Simply setting foot in the underground floors didn't carry a heavy penalty.
"Kim Ho. In any case, you made it all the way down to the underground E-floor, so that's one demerit point. And—"
For an instant, Oh Se-hun's crescent eyes seemed to sharpen with a glint of steel.
"—if there's anything you're hiding from us, tell me honestly right now. If you come clean, I'll use whatever influence I have to reduce your punishment as much as I can—demerits, disciplinary action, all of it. If you stay quiet and we find out on our own, it's escalated punishment. Think carefully."
The carrot and the stick.
Confess to the covert dungeon raids, and the chief would flex his authority to minimize the consequences. Stay silent to the end and get caught later, and the punishment would be doubled, at most.
And the Disciplinary Committee's investigative ability was formidable—even relentless, in some respects—and their post-hoc arrest rate was quite high.
But of course, my answer was already decided.
Absolutely not.
If we'd cleared a light F-rank or E-rank dungeon, honesty might have been the better policy. But what we'd entered tonight was the Deep Layer. The place where mere approach guaranteed the harshest disciplinary action available.
Either way, it was a punishment bomb—so staying quiet and holding out was the optimal play. And I was confident we could keep it buried for good.
For those reasons, I answered with a perfectly straight face.
"There's nothing to hide."
"You're certain?"
"Yes, senior."
Oh Se-hun double-checked with Shin Byung-cheol and Go Hyeon-woo too, but those two had survival instincts as sharp as any ghost's. With me having committed this firmly, they weren't about to say otherwise.
Oh Se-hun nodded.
"Then one demerit point for everyone. Be more careful from now on. You're dismissed."
With Kim Ho and the Thief Club crowd dismissed—each one demerit point poorer—quiet settled over the Disciplinary Committee Office once more.
Oh Se-hun, his kindly smile intact, returned to his work, and the other committee members resumed assisting him. Song Cheon-hye was moving to rejoin them when Gwak Seung-jae set down his coffee cup and called to her.
"Song Cheon-hye."
"Yes, senior."
"Tell me. What's your take on all this?"
Everyone knew that Dang Gyu-young and Kim Ho had spat out obvious lies. But where exactly had the inconsistencies been? That was the skill she needed to develop—the ability to pin them down.
Song Cheon-hye took a moment to organize her thoughts before answering.
"First of all, the party composition was far too flashy. If they'd really just been sightseeing in the underground floors, one of Shin Byung-cheol or Chae Da-bin would have been plenty. There was no need for Club President Dang Gyu-young to come out personally."
"You saw it immediately. Good."
"I'd estimate a high probability that those three joined forces in order to breach the security of a dungeon—and a high-tier one at that."
Gwak Seung-jae gave a small nod.
"Those three would indeed be capable of attempting even the Deep Layer."
"As you saw yourself when you observed our duel recently, Kim Ho is skilled enough to play a perfect game against President Mok Jong-hwa's golem, and Go Hyeon-woo is currently holding a top-ten position in the first-year conquest rankings."
Song Cheon-hye quietly furrowed her brow.
"And yet, just now, Go Hyeon-woo appeared to be carrying an internal injury. For a fighter of his caliber to be injured..."
"Means they attempted a dungeon of considerable difficulty."
"Somewhere between D-rank and C-rank. Less likely, but it could be B-rank."
Narrow the dragnet down to the dungeons between D-rank and B-rank, and they might just find the traces those three had left behind.
And yet even after Song Cheon-hye's deduction had run its course, Gwak Seung-jae kept his eyes on her. He seemed to be expecting something more, but that was everything her mind could conjure at the moment.
Song Cheon-hye asked carefully,
"If I've missed something, please tell me."
"When you handed over the honey water just now."
"......?"
"Did you check Kim Ho's hands?"
"!!"
Song Cheon-hye's face went rigid.
From her perspective, giving Kim Ho's group anything to drink had already rankled—the sheer gall of being dragged in to receive a punishment and then demanding honey water on top of it had struck her as unbearably shameless.
That was why she'd turned away the instant she set the drinks down, never thinking to examine Kim Ho's hands closely. Gwak Seung-jae, meanwhile, had apparently been watching everything from behind.
"There was a very faint burn mark on his right hand."
"Then that means—!"
But Gwak Seung-jae, seeming to know exactly what she was thinking, slowly shook his head.
"No. We can't link it to the earlier incident. When you checked, the replays were all clean."
"That's... true."
"But one thing is certain."
That burn was recent.
Which meant—whether it came from Inferno Fist or some other fire spell—Kim Ho had left traces in whatever dungeon they'd entered and exited tonight.
And the moment someone set foot inside that dungeon—
"That will be the moment we catch their tail."