No matter how many times I called, it was the same.
Cha Eunsol did not answer.
The phone only kept ringing before switching to a missed call every single time.
She must have noticed what was going on and been unable to sleep, so the fact that she still refused to answer was nothing short of puzzling.
‘Is she actually asleep?’
I also wondered if something might have happened to her.
But considering Cha Eunsol’s skills, the chances of that were slim unless it was something truly serious.
Rather, taking her personality into account, it was more reasonable to guess that she might simply be sleeping.
Or else…
‘Is she ignoring me?’
I couldn’t deny that possibility either.
Personally, I found that one more suspicious.
She didn’t want to get dragged into something troublesome, so she was deliberately not picking up.
「Cha Eunsol」
—Who made all that noise?
Even in the game, whenever an incident occurred, Cha Eunsol would often barge into the situation because her sleep had been disturbed.
With how light a sleeper she was, there was no way she was comfortably asleep right now.
She was undoubtedly awake, holed up in her room and staging a sit-in.
‘Then I guess I’ll have no choice but to drag her out by force….’
There was still some time left before the operation began.
Before then, I had to meet Cha Eunsol and figure out a way to coax her out.
It was then.
“Eunsol isn’t answering?”
When I kept calling over and over, Yeon Haneul seemed to infer the situation and came over to ask.
“As you can see.”
I answered while showing her my call history.
At that, she twitched her rabbit ears and brought a hand to her mouth.
“Maybe she’s asleep because it’s night?”
“Do you think you could sleep in this situation? She is the type to do that, but I’m sure she’s deliberately not answering.”
“Hmm… Should I try calling her?”
“It won’t work even if you do.”
“I’ll try anyway.”
Yeon Haneul took out her smartphone.
She called Cha Eunsol.
‘This just occurred to me… Haneul’s ears are on her head, so why does she hold the phone to her cheek?’
It was something I had taken for granted until now and never questioned.
But it wasn’t particularly important, nor was it a useful question.
As long as Haneul was comfortable, that was enough.
I played with her rabbit ears while waiting for the result.
Unfortunately, she couldn’t get in touch with Cha Eunsol eit—
“Ah, Eunsol.”
“…”
…She got through. Why did it connect?
I blankly stared at Yeon Haneul, who seemed to have reached Cha Eunsol.
I felt hurt by Cha Eunsol’s attitude, treating me and Yeon Haneul differently.
But I set that feeling aside and snatched the phone from Yeon Haneul.
“I’m glad you answered. Actually, since earlier—”
“Eunsol, it’s me, Gyeonu. You wouldn’t answer when I called, so I used Haneul’s phone.”
[…What do you want?]
“It’s nothing else….”
After that, things went exactly as I had hoped.
Unable to resist the temptation of chicken, Cha Eunsol appeared before long.
“Here, chicken. Enjoy.”
“…”
I did feel sorry for Cha Eunsol.
But since I had to prepare it in a hurry, it wasn’t easy to procure fresh chicken.
So I handed her the cold leftover chicken that Gang Hanbyeol and Bak Sagun had happened to leave behind because they hadn’t been able to eat it properly.
“Someone was eating this.”
“They only ate a few pieces, though.”
“So someone was eating it.”
“Haha….”
Cha Eunsol’s eyes cooled as coldly as the chilled chicken.
A gloomy note seeped into her voice.
At last, she turned sharply away.
“I’m leaving.”
“Wait, hold on.”
“Eunsol, wait! I’m sorry! The thing is, if we ordered now, they said it would take a while….”
We couldn’t let Cha Eunsol leave like this.
Yeon Haneul and I hurriedly caught hold of her.
Just as she was about to ride the wind and fly off, she stopped with a sullen look.
“Chicken… I was looking forward to it.”
“Eat that for now, and once this is over, let’s all go eat chicken together. I’ll—no… Min Arin will buy you as much chicken as you want.”
“…Really?”
“That’s why we have to rescue Min Arin. She’s the one with the money.”
“…”
Even I had to admit it was a childish persuasion attempt with a painfully low level of intelligence.
Yeon Haneul stared at me in disbelief, as if asking if that was really the best I could do.
But when it came to persuading Cha Eunsol, there was a need to be childish.
For someone so faithful to her own desires, difficult and complicated logic would never work.
Sure enough, my prediction was right.
“Okay, I’ll help. Nom.”
Cha Eunsol, who seemed to have been lost in thought, accepted my proposal.
She took a piece of chicken from the box in her arms and ate it.
Not caring that her hands were getting greasy, she deftly separated bone from meat.
“I like the dry meat better… There are only drumsticks, and not much breast meat. Nom.”
“You like breast meat? Me too.”
Cha Eunsol stuffed a drumstick into her mouth and chewed.
After taking the bone, now stripped clean of any meat, out of her mouth, she spoke to me with a sullen face.
“I can’t eat chicken with you.”
“I agree.”
“Nom.”
Unexpectedly, my tastes matched Cha Eunsol’s.
I decided that when we went to eat chicken later, I would not sit at the same table as her.
As always, I should sit next to Haneul.
‘Thank goodness Haneul likes drumsticks.’
If we didn’t have to fight over chicken, then maybe we really were compatible.
* * *
The instructors who would participate in Group C’s operation were decided.
Among them was Yu Noeul.
When she appeared in the operations meeting room, she spotted me and walked over.
“Gyeonu, you’re participating too? How commendable. Well, since Arin’s involved, I suppose you couldn’t just stand by and watch.”
“You must have been on the grounds.”
“It just so happened that I was on duty today.”
“What about the Witch?”
“Instructor Yena wasn’t on duty, so she couldn’t participate in this operation. I heard she’s rushing over now, so she’ll probably be deployed to another operation.”
“I see.”
Yu Noeul had a red armband around her arm with “On Duty” written on it.
Perhaps because she was preparing for combat, unlike usual, her hair was tied up.
She also had a pouch at her waist filled with various tools.
Just then, noticing my gaze, she smiled mischievously.
“Where do you keep looking?”
“Pardon?”
“What about your instructor’s hips?”
“…”
Yu Noeul bent down and looked up at me, giggling.
The way she tried to enjoy my flustered reaction was truly wicked.
But knowing what she was after, I answered calmly.
“I was wondering what you had dangling from that pouch.”
“Hmph, Gyeonu, you’re no fun to tease. This?”
Yu Noeul seemed to lose interest at my reaction, which differed from what she had expected.
Giving up on playing around, she obediently opened the pouch and showed me the inside.
It was full of potions that restored stamina and mana, vials that caused abnormal statuses, magazines, and all sorts of hidden weapons.
“You prepared a lot.”
“You never know what might happen inside. So I brought as much as I possibly could. This is a potion that increases recovery speed, this is smoke, a flashbang, and this is….”
As an intelligence-type hunter, Yu Noeul belonged to the assassin class if categorized by profession.
It made sense that she would be prepared with various tools in order to respond to any situation.
‘Her skills were never properly revealed in the game, but….’
Even if she had only been appointed for the first time this year, she was someone with enough ability to become an instructor at Geumgang Academy.
If Yu Noeul joined the operation, it seemed the burden would lessen.
Just then, she took out a dark brown bottle and shook it in front of my eyes.
“And this is the poison of a Bead Centipede. It’s a monster that lays hundreds of bead-like eggs inside the bodies of beasts or people smaller than itself. The young that hatch from those eggs eat their host and emerge into the world, and at that time, they come to possess a deadly poison that acts fatally on the same species as the host.”
“…”
“This is poison extracted from a Bead Centipede born using a human as its host. In short, to humans, you could call it an extreme poison.”
“What… are you planning to use that for?”
“I have to use it on Arin.”
“…”
Yu Noeul tilted her head as if asking whether that wasn’t obvious.
She did not seem to feel any reluctance about killing Min Arin.
It was far removed from the image she had of being affectionate toward her students.
Rather, she gave off the impression that she did not easily give her heart to others.
I felt as if I had glimpsed a side of her that I could not grasp in the game.
Even so, I hid my agitation and spoke indirectly.
“She’s a student in the class you’re in charge of. Aren’t you saying that a little too coldly?”
“I don’t want to use it on Arin if I can help it either. But if you’re a hunter, you have to be able to consider the worst-case scenario. If the situation gets out of hand, then we’ll have no choice but to kill Arin.”
“It’s not that I don’t know that….”
“Gyeonu, have you ever killed a person?”
“…If villains count, yes.”
Yu Noeul asked me that as she put the vial into her pouch.
Unlike her gentle tone, the question itself could not have been more unpleasant.
Unable to read her intentions, I furrowed my brow and answered.
I had already experienced killing people.
I wasn’t just talking about killing Lee Gahyeon’s clone.
I had committed murder even before that.
‘I experienced it while eliminating the villains who appeared in the game ahead of time. To ease my guilt, I only targeted guys who were definitely villains… And during a middle school training camp, I had the misfortune of getting tangled up with villains too….’
A lot had happened in the five years since I awakened to my previous life.
As a result, the sense of guilt I felt about murder had lessened.
It would be more accurate to say I had gotten used to it.
…Though very occasionally, I still dreamed about the murders I had committed.
“To have already experienced killing at your age… How admirable.”
“…”
Yu Noeul praised me for that.
For my part, I didn’t know whether I should be purely happy about it.
Soon, she added,
“Still, killing someone you know is a completely different experience. The closer you are to that person, the more so.”
“…”
“That’s why you have to keep the worst in mind. When the situation comes, you’ll have no choice but to hesitate. If you end up in that state at that moment, you’ll only make the situation worse. So you have to assume the worst-case scenario and prepare yourself to move without hesitation. Gyeonu, are you prepared for that?”
Yu Noeul gazed steadily at me.
Faced with her smiling eyes, as if waiting for an answer, I could not readily open my mouth.
She seemed to read my feelings from that alone.
“Either don’t grow attached from the beginning, or assume the worst-case scenario and prepare yourself.”
“…”
“If you don’t want to go insane or die young, you have no choice but to live that way. That’s the life of a hunter. It’s advice from a senior in the field. And…”
Yu Noeul took my hand.
She placed something in it.
“When you feel like you’re about to fall apart, make sure you eat something sweet.”
“…”
“I hope we can save Arin! There were other friends too, right? Share those with them. Eat that and gather your strength.”
“…Yes, thank you.”
“I’ll give you more if the operation succeeds.”
It was a whole handful of scorched-rice-flavored candies.
I unwrapped one and ate it as I saw Yu Noeul off while she turned and walked away.
“…It’s nutty and sweet.”
I felt like I was gaining strength.
* * *
The time for the operation was drawing near.
Those participating in the operation silently prepared for battle, occasionally lifting their heads to look up at the night sky.
A full moon, holding a gentle light, illuminated the darkness.
As if trying to covet that moon, the thorny vine spire that had been growing endlessly and arrogantly came into view.
“…”
Soon, we would infiltrate that spire.
We had no idea what might be waiting inside.
Overwhelmed by the majesty of the thorny vine spire, we had to steel our resolve.
People waited for the time to come with hardened expressions.
“Everyone trapped inside will be transported through the central entrance hall. So those restraining the thorny vines from the outside, please pay special attention to securing the central entrance hall. And the supplies for treating the injured…”
Do Sieun devoted herself to reviewing the operation with the student council members.
“The instructors will take the lead, so don’t worry, everyone! If you feel like it’s too much, don’t push yourselves and fall back to rest!”
Yu Noeul encouraged the tense students.
“Whew… I’ve warmed up enough.”
“I hope Arin is safe.”
“It’ll be all right. Everything will work out.”
Yong Haerang thrust his fist into the air, kicked out his legs, and loosened up.
Bak Sagun adjusted his glasses and finished his preparations.
Gang Hanbyeol soothed his friends’ unease.
“It’s okay, you can do this. I can do this! Aja! Aja!”
“Everyone, don’t stray too far from one another. And don’t try to leave formation on your own.”
“I want to break in already! There must be tons of fun things in there, right!?”
“Yum.”
Go Eunbi, frightened by the battle ahead, repeated the words to herself.
Lisa, now responsible for the lives of the party members, emphasized it again and again in a stern tone.
Nam Yuri hopped around.
Cha Eunsol quietly munched on a sausage.
‘What is Haneul doing?’
After checking on their condition, I looked for Yeon Haneul.
She was standing still, gazing up at the Thornvine Spire.
I walked over to her.
She noticed my presence and pricked up her rabbit ears.
Soon, still keeping her gaze fixed ahead, she spoke.
“To be honest.”
“Yeah.”
“I don’t think she and I are a good match.”
“What do you mean? Min Arin?”
“Yeah.”
Yeon Haneul moved her chin slightly.
Then she continued.
“It’s not that I dislike her, but sometimes, when I look at her, I don’t like her. She keeps provoking me.”
“She did tend to act that way because she saw you as a rival.”
“That’s not it…. I mean I don’t like her in another way. She irritates me.”
“…”
“If it hadn’t been for your request, I don’t think I would’ve gotten along with her.”
“…Is that so.”
Just what on earth had Min Arin done?
I was honestly surprised that Yeon Haneul, who was bad at saying unpleasant things, would openly describe her as displeasing.
It seemed the rift between her and Min Arin was that deep.
But as the ally of my childhood friend, I backed her up.
“Min Arin was in the wrong, then.”
“Right? She was, wasn’t she?”
The corners of Yeon Haneul’s lips rose slightly.
I glanced at her profile and let out a small laugh.
Then she spoke.
“But still.”
“Yeah.”
“Thank you for treating me, a demihuman, without prejudice, and for not looking down on me.”
“That’s because she recognizes you as a rival.”
Demihumans were discriminated against.
They said that perception was weaker in the Academy, where people aiming to become hunters gathered, but there were still some who quietly felt superior to demihumans.
That was why Yeon Haneul was shy around strangers and wary of people.
To someone like her, Min Arin’s existence was bound to hold a certain meaning.
“That’s why I want to save her.”
“We will. No matter what.”
And so, we gazed at the Thornvine Spire and steeled our hearts.
Some time passed after that, and finally, the operation began.
I Became the Childhood Friend of the Mid-Boss