“Compared with that, what about this? It’s five hundred apiece. A clean five hundred, with no rumors spreading at home and no taxes taken out.”
Seon U-gyeong took a syrup bottle from inside his jacket.
The colorless, odorless liquid sloshed inside.
The drug Mun I-ra had given him.
She had said he could call it whatever he liked, and at some point, the drug came to be called “Mana Syrup.”
The syrup gradually restructured the body of whoever consumed it.
As their mana surged sharply, the user felt overflowing vitality and elation.
‘This could make some money.’
A special amusement of rich young masters he had come to know through illegal sports betting.
That had been the beginning, but before he knew it, word of the drug had spread among parents as well.
“I heard that if they take this, our children’s mana will grow. Is that true?”
The higher one’s mana, the higher the chance of awakening. And that was not all. If one’s mana exceeded the required standard, one could even enroll in Justitia International School.
If one entered Justitia International School, the path to a prestigious university was all but guaranteed.
From then on, Seon U-gyeong began pretending to be Jjap-sso.
After all, borrowing the name of a famous person to make anonymous deals through Onion Market was a great help to sales.
The number of customers gradually increased, and the sums he collected changed along with it.
Unlike the rich young masters who chased short-lived pleasure, parents often asked about the side effects of long-term use, but—
Mun I-ra had pressed a finger to her lower lip and spoken enigmatically.
“I’m experimenting because I want to see how they change.”
It was an irresponsible thing to say, but for Seon U-gyeong, it was enough.
What did it matter? He was going to leave Korea soon anyway.
For the sake of money, things like that did not matter at all.
‘So what? Everyone lives like that, don’t they?’
“You know, Teacher, I think this is the spirit of the times. If hundreds of people rush in without caring whether it’s illegal or just a loophole, then it can only be the spirit of the times.”
Mun I-ra, who had been watching Seon U-gyeong with interest the entire time, asked quietly.
“U-gyeong, by the way, has Hong-gi still not contacted you?”
“Ah……”
Seon U-gyeong bit his lip.
There was no particular reason he had chosen Ham Hong-gi as his first target.
He just wanted the guy to get hooked on drugs and ruin his life.
The life of the problem child Ham Hong-gi was, in truth, the life Seon U-gyeong had always longed for.
The youngest son born with a silver spoon, coddled even if he lived like a complete delinquent. A flower garden of a life where he had probably never once worried about money or the future since the day he was born.
It would not be a big problem if he lost one customer.
But he could not stop the irritation rising inside him.
“Not yet……”
As Seon U-gyeong trailed off, Mun I-ra pressed down on her lower lip.
“Mm, I see. That’s a shame.”
Hong-gi shouldn’t have much time left until his mutation.
*
The makeshift meeting room set up in one corner of the Management Team had long since become a study room.
Geuru, who had been sitting at the long table solving problems, jerked her head up at the loud crash.
“Dani-oppa!”
Gidan had his head planted on the table, mechanical pencil still in hand.
“Geuru…… I’m done for.”
“You can’t die!”
“At least you guys…… have to succeed……”
“Oppa!”
Geuru clasped Gidan’s hands as he tried to close his eyes and cried out in a desperate voice.
“Get up! You have to study!”
“What a performance just because he doesn’t want to study.”
Serhi clicked his tongue and shook his head.
At his attack, Gidan’s eyes flew open and he came back to life.
“Who was it that lost to Geuru in dictation?”
“……”
Serhi’s shoulders flinched.
After they had started studying together, Geuru and Serhi had finally held the dictation match they had both been waiting for.
And the winner was Geuru.
She had seized victory by correctly answering the trap question Gidan had given, “ulgeurak-bulgeurak” (standard form: “bulgeurak-pureurak”).
Geuru smiled at Serhi, whose face was full of resentment.
“Dani-oppa, you shouldn’t make fun of your friend for being bad at studying.”
“Your smile pisses me off even more, you know?”
“Bad word!”
Geuru trotted over and smacked him with the duck clip.
“Ah!”
Serhi rubbed his stinging thigh.
Someday, he would take that duck clip from her.
‘……But why does it sting this much?’
A duck clip that pierced S-rank defenses?
They made something like that? What was it even used for?
Serhi pictured the uses of the duck clip, question marks floating all over his head.
Meanwhile, Gidan, who had been lying with his head on the table and only rolling his eyes around, spotted the calendar in his field of vision. As if remembering something, he shot upright, ripped a sheet from an empty notebook, and handed it to Geuru.
“Mm?”
“Short-answer question. What does Geuru want?”
Gidan tapped the paper, telling her to write her answer there.
“What Geuru wants?”
“Christmas is coming. You have to ask Santa Grandpa for presents.”
Santa!
Geuru’s mouth fell open in delight.
Santa Grandpa was someone who secretly left presents by your pillow at night when everyone was fast asleep.
Back when she was at the orphanage, once a month, all the children with birthdays that month were gathered together for a birthday party.
Somehow, Santa Grandpa had known, and had celebrated Geuru’s birthday along with Christmas.
Would he celebrate it again this time?
Geuru hesitated, then began writing down her wish list one by one.
‘Number one is Lego.’
Because she might be able to make a filial-piety factory!
Though she had not decided yet.
‘And then……’
A bicycle?
As Geuru buried her nose in the notebook and fell into thought, Serhi mouthed a question to Gidan.
‘What are you scheming?’
It was still not even the end of November. Wasn’t it too early to be talking about Christmas presents?
Gidan mouthed back to the puzzled Serhi.
‘December 3. Geuru’s birthday.’
‘Ah.’
Serhi propped his chin on his hand and peered at the wish list Geuru was writing.
Geuru wrote down a few more things, then wrote the word “Guildmaster” and stopped her pen.
She had wanted to try calling him Dad.
But after missing the timing when she had first made up her mind, she simply could not bring herself to say it. Without thinking, the title “Guildmaster,” already familiar on her tongue, kept slipping out.
Geuru pushed out her lips, then crossed out the word “Guildmaster” with two thick lines and rewrote it as “Dad.”
A doll to put in Dad’s room
Heehee.
After writing that much, Geuru set down her pen with her cheeks flushed shyly, and Gidan grinned.
“You can write down more. There are a lot of people lined up.”
“Mm? There are lots of Santas?”
“A ton. They have to go all around the world, you know. It’d be hard for one person to do it alone.”
Oh!
Nod, nod.
“So write enough to fill up the back too.”
Geuru nodded vigorously, then buried her nose in the paper again and pressed down hard as she wrote the next items on her list.
Serhi smiled faintly and stroked the round back of Geuru’s head as she groaned in deep concentration.
“It’s haaard……”
Gidan said to Geuru, who was whining after barely writing a few things.
“You don’t have to write it all today. Carry it around and add to it.”
“Uung!”
As Geuru neatly folded the paper and put it in her pocket, Gidan checked the messenger window that had been ringing nonstop.
The group chat for first-year Class S was filled with resentment toward Gidan.
They were complaining that when everyone else was busy preparing for the festival, he had slipped away alone and was not helping.
Gidan sent a bowing emoji, saying he was sorry and that he would repay them later.
As he flipped through the festival posters his classmates had sent him, Gidan forwarded the images to Serhi and Geuru’s phones.
Serhi and Geuru received the images and checked the posters.
“What’s this?”
“Wow! Dani-oppa, are you having a festival?”
“Come visit. I’ll show you around the school. It’s huge, so it’ll be good if you come early and take a look.”
“I wanna go, I wanna go!”
“I’m not interested.”
Geuru shot her hand up, and Serhi turned his gaze back to his workbook.
At that, Gidan smiled broadly.
“Sure, someone who even loses dictation to a kindergartener should study more.”
The lead of Serhi’s mechanical pencil snapped as he worked on a problem.
Bzzzt—their gazes collided.
Geuru’s mouth fell open.
‘There’s lightning……’
After they had engaged in a staring contest for a while, Serhi glanced at the math problem Gidan had been groaning over, then easily wrote down the answer.
Then he curled one corner of his mouth.
“That was easy. Ah, if you get held back at this rate, will we be in the same grade?”
“……”
Gidan narrowed his eyes and clenched his fist tightly.
As the two of them, burning with competitive spirit, became absorbed in studying, the Management Team members who had brought over refreshments smiled warmly.
“They’re all working so hard.”