Week 5 Mentoring, PvP Assessment (9)
For the time being, Seo Ye-in's training would be left to Ahn Jungmi.
Go Hyeon-woo, for his part, was more than satisfied with his mentor and group members, so there was no need for me to get involved there either. The only place I could genuinely help was arranging a friendly sparring match with Han So-mi.
The opportunity came sooner than expected. I was on my way to the Arena for [Distortion] training with Dang Gyu-young when I spotted Song Cheon-hye far off in the distance.
Though she's looking rather worse for wear.
Nothing like her usual sharp, airtight self — she shuffled along with a deathly pale face, wobbling and swaying with every step. She put me in mind of nothing so much as a mollusk.
Coming back from mentoring, by the look of her. Traces of fierce combat were stamped across every inch of her, and I didn't need to see it to know how thoroughly Dang Gyu-young had run her ragged.
In any case, I had business with Song Cheon-hye, so I closed the distance and called out first.
"Song Cheon-hye."
"!!!"
Apparently she had assumed there wasn't a soul around. My voice made her jolt upright; she glanced around in a flustered panic, and the moment she spotted me, she underwent a transformation of truly astonishing speed. Her hunched spine snapped ramrod straight, her half-tumbled hair was smoothed and retied in a blink, and her rumpled uniform was straightened from collar to shoe-tip.
Total elapsed time: under three seconds.
"What brings you here?"
"Coming back from mentoring, I see. Must be rough on you too."
"Rough? I'm afraid I don't know what you mean."
"Well, just now you were wearing it all over your face."
"Not at all. Are you certain you saw correctly?"
Song Cheon-hye stonewalled without a flicker of shame, insisting that this much was nothing.
I cocked my head.
"Hmm, so it seems. My mistake, then. My eyes have been going blurry lately."
Except my movements were a shot-for-shot recreation of her gait from moments before. Wobble, wobble. Sway, sway.
Watching her own disgrace replayed before her eyes, Song Cheon-hye shuddered.
"S-stop that."
"I really should have recorded that unforgettable scene on my crystal ball. What a waste, isn't it?"
"Using a crystal ball outside of practical evaluations is a violation of academy rules. Recording another student without their consent is even worse!"
"I know, I know. I'm just saying it's a shame it can't serve as evidence."
"..."
My imitation had simply been too perfect for her to keep denying it. Even so, she never admitted the whole of it to the very end.
"...I may have let a little fatigue pile up today. That's all. Is that why you called? To poke fun at someone who's exhausted?"
"No. You happened to walk by, so I figured I'd offer a light greeting. And I have something to ask, while I'm at it."
"I don't believe I'm under any obligation to answer. Good day."
With that — greetings exchanged, our paths now free to part — Song Cheon-hye turned her back so decisively the air itself seemed to chill.
But I couldn't send her off just like that. Just as she lifted her foot to go, I asked:
"No obligation to answer, of course — only you seem to have forgotten something."
"Me? I hardly think so."
Song Cheon-hye gave a small, dismissive sniff, as much as to say don't talk nonsense. Then—
"The wish ticket."
"...!"
At the word she stumbled to a halt and went rigid, her head creaking slowly back around toward me. I smiled and asked again:
"Remember now?"
During the week four [Sweep] exam, the two of us had made a lighthearted wager over whose completion rate would come out higher. The stake had been a wish ticket — a promise to grant one small favor, or answer one question. Of course, the outcome of that bet had been settled from the very start. Where I had scrubbed the dungeon spotless without missing a single monster and claimed the top score of 100 percent, Song Cheon-hye had come in at a slightly lower 97. And now I meant to spend the wish ticket I'd won.
Song Cheon-hye heaved a long sigh.
"Ask, then. But let me say this up front: nothing that touches on Disciplinary Committee secrets."
"Wasn't going to. It's something simple."
"Which is?"
"Han So-mi. What does she like?"
"...P-pardon?"
My question wasn't merely unexpected — it flew so far off any map she might have drawn that astonishment flooded Song Cheon-hye's face. She ventured carefully:
"You're not, by any chance... interested in So-mi...?"
"Interested? No. Nothing like that."
I cut her off flat. She was the Sword Empress's disciple, after all, and as a future S-rank hero candidate I was certainly interested — but the interest Song Cheon-hye meant was clearly of the romantic variety, so no was the only possible answer.
Song Cheon-hye's brow creased.
"Then it's even stranger. Why would you care what So-mi likes if you're not interested in her?"
Nothing about it embarrassed me, so I laid it out honestly: Go Hyeon-woo and Han So-mi had landed in the same group, and I wanted to arrange friendly sparring between the two of them so they could hone each other's skills.
"Then you should have said that from the start. I'm hardly so inflexible as all that."
"I tried. You wouldn't listen. You were about to stride off just now — and that was with a wish ticket on the table."
Song Cheon-hye subtly averted her gaze.
"...In any case, if it's something that helps So-mi as well, I'm willing to cooperate gladly. Would telling you which snacks she likes do?"
"Let's start there and see."
Baiting with snacks. Simple, but reliably effective — always the first thing worth trying. That said, the list of Han So-mi's favorite treats was a little surprising: sweet red-bean jelly, honey-glazed rice fritters, crispy fried seaweed, traditional confections of every description.
I let out a thoughtful hum.
"Red-bean jelly, hm... Unusual taste."
"Red-bean jelly grows on you, you know."
"I never said it tasted bad. Just that it's unusual."
Either way, this worked out neatly for me. I happened to have red-bean jelly and rice fritters stocked up from the Black Snake Gang marketplace, which meant no tedious scavenger hunt.
I pulled a round tin of rice fritters out of my inventory and held it up.
"Something like this?"
"Yes. Exactly like that."
"If I hand it over and ask, will she go for it?"
Song Cheon-hye appeared to run a quick simulation in her head, and her face delivered the verdict: hopeless. She sighed softly and extended her hand.
"Give them to me instead. I'll speak to her myself."
"I'd appreciate that."
Coming from her, the request would land far better than from me. And since I was at it — inventory cleanup being a bonus — I fished out a whole armful of the remaining snacks and piled them into her embrace.
As I watched her transfer them into her own inventory with quiet satisfaction, she shot me a look that plainly said my gaze was unwelcome.
"Why are you staring? It's uncomfortable."
"Nothing. You just seem kinder than usual, somehow."
"Don't get the wrong idea. I'm doing this because it helps So-mi."
"Of course, of course. I'm sure. Still — thanks."
That wish ticket had been money well spent. We'd each gotten what we came for, and there was no reason to keep hovering in front of someone so obviously done with me.
So I turned to take my leave, and—
"Wait just a moment."
This time it was Song Cheon-hye calling me to a stop. I answered in her own manner of speaking:
"And whaaat seems to be the matter~???"
"Don't do that."
"Sorry. Anyway — what?"
Song Cheon-hye eyed me with displeasure, then opened her mouth again.
"One more time."
"One more what?"
"A bet."
"Fine by me. On what?"
"This week's PvP. Whoever peels more stickers."
But I'd already peeled every last one of mine?
And assuming Song Cheon-hye's skill was anywhere in Hong Yeon-hwa's league, she'd be lucky to peel even one this week. She was digging her own grave, deeper and deeper.
But there was no particular reason to enlighten her, so I feigned ignorance and asked about the terms.
"Same pairs as we are? You with Gwak Ji-cheol, me with Hong Yeon-hwa?"
"Yes."
"And if the sticker counts come out even?"
"Then whoever finishes their PvP first wins."
"Good. What are we putting up?"
"Same as before. A wish ticket."
I stole a glance at her expression, but nothing in particular showed there. If anything, she seemed to have some purpose beyond simply being sore about her loss and wanting a rematch.
"What, is there something you want to ask?"
"There is."
"Then just ask. Why the runaround?"
"Would you answer?"
Meaning she intended to spend the wish ticket, having judged I wouldn't answer willingly. I could roughly guess the question, too. She'd been sneaking glances at my hand ever since earlier — no doubt curious about the burn I'd picked up going in and out of the Black Snake Gang last weekend. It had healed up spotless after I ate the Hundred-Year Polygonum Multiflorum and cycled my mana, but if someone truly wanted to ask, there were ways.
Something along the lines of 'How did you come by that burn, exactly?'
I stifled a laugh and gave my answer.
"Sure. Let's bet — wish ticket on the line."
It would be more fun that way.
One more problem to settle.
The Blacksmith Club had been in touch. They'd told me at the time that the equipment commission would take roughly a week — yet here they were, calling for me again after barely a few days. Ten-Thousand-Year Cold Iron and Black Mithril were hardly the sort of materials one works quickly; there was no way the piece was already finished.
Which meant the opposite, most likely. The odds were very good that something had gone wrong. I'd expected as much from the moment I placed the order.
I headed straight for the Blacksmith Workshop. I'd barely waited at the door before out came that same upperclassman from a few days ago — a third-year by face value. Today his knotted, slab-muscled frame was buttoned neatly into his uniform, and a glance at his tie pin confirmed he was in fact a second-year. The hypothesis that a man ages the moment he takes up a hammer had just gained considerable weight.
"You're here."
The second-year who could pass for a third-year recognized my face at once — the VIP-ticket commission must have stuck in his memory.
"Afternoon."
"Follow me."
We traded the brief greeting, and he led me to a small club room arranged off to one side of the workshop. It was furnished less like a clubroom and more like an office or a consultation room — which, from the look of it, was exactly how it was used.
I hadn't waited long before the Blacksmith Club President stepped in. He trudged over, lowered himself into the seat across from me, and without a scrap of pleasantries came straight to the point.
"Ran into a problem during processing."
And with that, he set an ingot down on the table. Dark, inky sheen. The alloy of Ten-Thousand-Year Cold Iron and Black Mithril I had handed over.
"Fusing the two items wasn't the hard part. What came after was."
A chill had been brushing against my skin from the moment he'd produced the ingot — and I was sitting a fair distance from the table.
"That's no ordinary cold."
"It is not. We attempted the work several times. Every attempt failed."
Both Ten-Thousand-Year Cold Iron and Black Mithril were, at their core, cold-bearing metals. Taken separately, each was admittedly finicky to work — but they wouldn't have looked impossible. The Blacksmith Club President must have reasoned the same when he accepted the commission. The fused result, however, had sailed clean past his expectations: the cold now rivaled any respectable ice-attribute material, and the difficulty of the work had spiked along with it.
"The forge's heat just pours off it. Most of it, wasted."
Which meant no proper heat, no melting, no reshaping — so how was anyone to work that into the form of a staff? Especially when what I'd ordered wasn't some common staff, but one precise enough to mount magic-engineering components.
I listened to the whole account and nodded slowly.
"I see."
"..."
At my placid nod, the Blacksmith Club President's eyes narrowed to slits.
"You react like a man who expected exactly this."
"I did expect it would be difficult to handle. But I believed you could manage — you did say it wouldn't be a problem, so I decided to place my trust in you."
In truth I'd weighted the odds toward failure; I had simply said the opposite on purpose. We'd be crossing paths often enough going forward — no need to claw his pride to ribbons.
The Blacksmith Club President studied me for a moment as if sounding out my motives, then put another question to me.
"You'll have prepared a solution for when I failed. Am I wrong?"
"There is something I had in mind, just in case... Honestly, though, I can't say I'm confident in it either."
That, too, was a solution I'd prepared from the very beginning — I just played unsure.
"I see. Then assume the thing you have in mind works, and tell me what you want."
Bong Jaeseok of the Magic Engineering Club had little patience for push-and-pull either, but this man was worse. Straight to the wants, formalities later. I let him wait while I pretended to weigh my options, then spoke.
"When the staff is finished, there'll be material left over, won't there?"
"You even knew that. And?"
"I'd be grateful if you'd use the leftovers to make one more small thing."
The president didn't deliberate for even a breath before accepting my proposal outright.
"Done. If your method works, I'll make you the extra. Show me."
The bargain was struck in the blink of an eye. Of course, there was calculation on his side as well. A man at the level of the Blacksmith Club President could soon lay fair claim to the title of master craftsman — and such a man would go far out of his way to avoid a blemish on his name. The artisan abandoned the commission because the material bested him would be prime gossip fodder, after all. So he had no choice but to find a breakthrough — and if I happened to hold it, then handing over what he'd have to surrender anyway and sparing himself the agony was the profitable play.
Worked out nicely for me.
Because I already knew the method.
There were, broadly speaking, two ways to melt a Ten-Thousand-Year Cold Iron alloy. One: a flame mage of real power — third-year, club-president grade — pouring out maximum output. Two: flames raised by a flame mage bearing a special trait, the kind inherited by only a handful in the world.
And the place where both could be found was, naturally—
The Ruby Magic Tower.
I turned the chunky ruby Hong Yeon-hwa had given me over in my fingers. If I showed up with that in hand, they would at least receive me as a guest.