I Became the Academy's Veteran Player in a Novel
The following evening.
One floor at a time, and before I knew it, we were on the 14th.
We split up the sections and searched the entire floor. While I was checking the bathroom, I sensed movement behind me.
Seo Yujin was standing there, shuffling her feet. When her eyes met mine, she asked, "What's wrong?"
"Nothing," I replied, a little too curtly.
She swept a needless glance around the hallway, then slipped into the bathroom after me.
"Hey."
"Yeah?"
She wavered, lips pursing and unpursing, before finally getting the words out. "Sorry."
I played dumb. "For what?"
"...The F-class thing. That— that was just me repeating what the others always say. ...I won't do it again."
Seo Yujin lifted her eyes and searched my face. I kneaded the back of my neck. "Hmm? I'm fine, though?"
Her eyes went wide. "Liar."
"Really. Honestly, I'd rather they call me F-class."
"Why?"
I let out a short laugh and walked out of the bathroom. She followed.
The long corridor was empty.
"That way I get to tease you about being an F-class lover."
Given her usual temper, she had every right to blow up at me, but Seo Yujin only fidgeted with her fingers.
"So you're not sulking anymore?"
"Mm."
Her bracelet glowed blue. She glanced around carefully, then brought up the reason she'd come. "So tonight..."
"Come to my room."
A smile slipped onto her face before she could stop it; the moment she caught my eye, she hurriedly fixed her expression.
"Ahem. Let's go. The others are waiting over there."
Walking down the corridor beside her, I asked, "How far did you get?"
"To your elbow."
"Guess I'll have to work hard later, then."
Her cheeks flushed red. "...Yeah."
After chasing down the room-service rumor on the 14th floor, we had dinner. I ate alone.
"...Here. Eat."
Yujin sneaked me a cookie.
After the meal, the five of us gathered in the corridor to head up to the 15th. Judging by the vibes, Yujin had apparently defended me in her own way, but the mood still didn't look good.
I didn't particularly feel like stepping up and clearing the misunderstanding myself. If they'd confronted me directly—accused me of disrespecting S-ranks—I'd have something to answer. But this vague, low-key freeze-out just made me want nothing to do with any of them.
"Let's go," Yoon Seokhyeon said, taking the lead.
We climbed to the 15th floor and divided the rooms the same way as before. Including me, everyone had settled into a 'probably nothing to see anyway' mindset by now.
Once my sweep was done, I dropped by the room where Yoon Seokhyeon was. The others hadn't arrived yet, apparently. He was opening the dresser drawers one by one.
He glanced at me. "Find anything?"
I just shook my head.
The kids are freezing him out, so he's lost some steam.
Yoon Seokhyeon pulled a bottle out of a drawer. "Oh. There's booze in here?"
I took the cookie Yujin had given me out of my pocket and ate it.
"What kind?"
He faltered slightly at the sight of me eating it.
Wait. How does he have that cookie? Every room gets different food through room service. ...Did someone give it to him?
I asked him again. "Hey. What kind of booze is it?"
"Huh? Whiskey."
He pretended to examine the bottle, lost in thought.
What is with Kim Ian... The way he's talking, it sounds like he knows I lied to the others.
The rest trickled in one by one after finishing their sweeps.
"All clear."
"Nothing on our side either."
Yoon Seokhyeon spoke up. "Then I just have to check in here and we're done—"
He grabbed the bathroom doorknob and turned it.
In that instant, I caught an uneasy smell. Hard to describe, but deeply unpleasant.
"Wait—!"
Screech—
The moment Yoon Seokhyeon cracked the door open, I shoved him sideways.
SHLURP!
A thick tentacle tipped with a needle-sharp point lunged at me like a striking snake. I snatched it out of the air a hair before it could punch through my eyeball, then snapped my fingers on my other hand.
Holy Explosion.
Golden light swallowed the tentacle whole.
Ssssssss—
The thing writhed in my grip as it burned away. I flung it to the floor, where it crumbled into ash and vanished.
I flung the bathroom door wide open.
A skeletonized corpse sat in the bathtub. From its chest cavity, slime-like strands spread out in a spiderweb across every wall of the room. As the tentacle turned to ash, the other strands began to burn away with it.
A stomach-churning sight if there ever was one.
"Tch." I wiped the tentacle's ichor off my face.
"Are you okay?" Seo Yujin came hurrying over. I pushed her back with a hand.
"Don't come. You'll lose your appetite for nothing."
Glasses rose on tiptoe behind me and peeked into the bathroom. "Whoa. Holy shit..."
Yoon Seokhyeon picked himself up off the floor where he'd fallen and came over beside me, staring blankly at the vanishing tentacle and slime. He looked shaken.
It was only for a second, but I definitely saw it while I was falling—a tentacle with a needle. Kim Ian... that bastard. He could have died himself, but he shoved me aside and blocked it with his own body.
He turned his head to look at me.
Even knowing I talked trash about him to the others. He still saved me. ...Why?
"Uuurgh."
Chubby caught sight of the skeleton and the maggot-blobs in the tub and dry-heaved beside us.
Yoon Seokhyeon asked me, "You alright?"
I shrugged. "Eh. Didn't get stabbed."
Not that it would've mattered even if I had—I had Immunity to All Poisons.
He looked like he wanted to say 'thank you' but couldn't quite force the words out. His lips flapping, he eyed the whiskey bottle he'd left under the dresser and said, "Guys. Let's have a drink."
The snacks were the nuts that came standard in every room, plus the yakgwa—honey cookies—served as welcome food.
Yakgwa.
Perfectly ordinary honey cookies. Presumably they counted as room service, safe to eat.
Yoon Seokhyeon downed a glass of whiskey and opened his mouth. "Everyone. And Ian. I'm sorry."
Everyone traded silent glances, reading the room. The alcohol starting to hit him, Yoon Seokhyeon laughed at himself and brought it out. "I lied. About Ian dissing S-ranks. It was a lie."
He knocked back the harsh whiskey straight from the bottle. Glasses and Chubby looked flustered. Yoon Seokhyeon let out a long breath.
"I did it because of my ugly jealousy. I'm sorry."
Chubby asked, "What are you talking about? Jealousy?"
Instead of answering, he tipped the bottle back and gulped.
Ah, hold on. This is not looking good.
Don't. Don't do it. Don't you dare—
Yoon Seokhyeon turned bleary, half-lidded eyes on Seo Yujin. "Hey. Seo Yujin."
She must have sensed the incoming disaster too—her face was pure panic.
"I like you. A lot. No... I love you."
He chugged more whiskey, glug glug glug.
Everyone was aghast.
"Go out with me. If you don't say yes, I'm quitting the club, so..."
We watched Yoon Seokhyeon's body tip past its center of gravity.
"Wha—!"
Glasses lunged to catch him from the side, too late.
THUD.
He sprawled flat on his back on the floor, limbs starfished.
Chubby touched his forehead. "Aaah, no. We just witnessed someone's most cringe-inducing black history."
Glasses washed his face with a dry hand. "Ah... damn it. Now who's gonna notify the club that he quit?"
I played dumb. "So what's this about me disrespecting S-ranks?"
"...Well," Seo Yujin said, and told them the truth of it.
Chubby waved a dismissive hand. "For the record, I never believed it? Yoon Seokhyeon pulls this petty political crap all the time. Figured it was another one."
Glasses pointed at the body on the floor. "This bastard's just an actual idiot."
I shook my head with an expression of deep disappointment. "You could've at least asked me."
Glasses gulped down his drink and said, "...Sorry."
I refilled his empty glass and raised mine. "Can't be helped. Misunderstanding's cleared, right? Drink up and let's forget it."
"Y-yeah."
This guy. He's genuinely a good dude, isn't he?
We all clinked glasses—everyone except the unconscious Yoon Seokhyeon. My eyes met Seo Yujin's as she tapped her glass against mine.
Still, he's got a cool side or two, huh?
I shot the harsh whiskey in one go. With Immunity to All Poisons, not a trace of a buzz rose.
Midnight.
I was leaning against the headboard, reading one of the novels stocked in the bedroom.
Knock knock.
A soft knock from outside. Yujin, most likely, so I didn't bother getting up. My position was perfectly comfortable and I had no desire to move—and the door was already cracked open anyway, so there was no need to answer it. Besides, for the first time I'd won a suite with two bedrooms off the living room, and I wanted to play the master of the bedroom a little.
I heard the doorknob turn. A moment later, Seo Yujin's head poked into the bedroom, her body wrapped in a bathrobe.
"You in here?"
"What do you mean? You knocked and got no answer, so I figured you were asleep."
She trotted over to the bed. I turned a page, unhurried. Yujin perched on the edge of the mattress. After a stretch of silence, she spoke first.
"Hey."
"Yeah?"
"...Aren't we doing it?"
"Let me just finish this part."
"Finish what?"
Seo Yujin pressed herself flush against my side. The scent of body wash drifted up warmly from her skin.
"A ghost-story novel."
"They have those here?"
"Yep."
"You like ghost stories?"
"Sort of."
"Why?"
"Not the jump-scare kind—I like the ones with this quiet, creeping dread?"
Seo Yujin's eyes went wide with surprise. "Huh? Me too, me too!"
"Really?"
"I love school ghost stories. There's something about exploring a place you know so well—it feels like an adventure."
"Huh. Makes sense."
I nodded, draped an arm around her shoulders, and slipped my other hand inside her bathrobe. She wasn't wearing anything under it. My fingertips caught on her nipple. I teased it with the pads of my fingers, and she accepted my hand without a word of protest.
"What about you, Ian?"
"Apartment ghost stories for me. Same reason, probably?"
"I like the apartment ones too."
"Yeah? I just need to read a little more of this—"
I flipped back the covers and took hold of my cock, already half-hard beneath them. Seo Yujin gave her hips a slow, twisting wiggle.
"In the meantime, you can warm this up with your mouth."