Kim Hajin must be fighting for his life right now······!
“Let’s go! There’s someone who needs our help!”
“Huh? Where?”
“Just follow me for now!”
Rachel and the cadets of the Black Team hurried toward the sixth floor.
The End
Rachel began hurriedly making her way back to the sixth basement floor. The Black Team struggled to follow behind her. Even as they ran, the team members repeatedly asked what this was all about, but Rachel did nothing except keep running.
“······What?”
At last, in the lobby of the sixth basement floor, they found three fallen warriors laid out. They were all cadets from the White Team, bound hand and foot with their mouths and eyes covered, wriggling like caterpillars.
“W-what is this?”
The team members voiced their confusion at the sight. Rachel was momentarily stunned as well, but she soon understood. She had thought that even Kim Hajin couldn’t possibly handle six people at once, but apparently that wasn’t the case.
“Ms. Rachel?”
“Ah, ah. I suppose the situation has already been resolved.”
That was when Rachel, who had been murmuring in admiration, suddenly answered.
From the far end of the lobby, a spear-wielder appeared.
“Oh, it’s Shin Jonghak! Jonghak~!”
Lee Gyeongrak, one of Shin Jonghak’s lackeys, ran over to him. Shin Jonghak gave him a deliberately relaxed smile.
He had unfortunately(?) lost his fight with Kim Suho, but he hadn’t suffered injuries severe enough to force him out of the exercise—mostly because he had fled—and had been catching his breath for a while in the residential area of the sixth basement floor.
“Good to see you.”
Shin Jonghak was speaking to the team members when he spotted Rachel and flinched in surprise. Rachel gave him a small nod. Shin Jonghak also dipped his head lightly.
“Jonghak, do you know what happened here?”
When Lee Gyeongrak pointed at the fallen warriors scattered across the floor and asked, Shin Jonghak answered with perfect composure.
“Of course. I killed two of them.”
Rachel’s brow furrowed sharply.
She thought Shin Jonghak was taking credit for someone else’s work, but Shin Jonghak had been telling the truth.
While Yoo Yeonha and Chae Nayun were being toyed with by some swift-moving bastard, Shin Jonghak had ambushed the cadets with thrown spears and eliminated two of them.
“Ahem. Then······ I’ll be taking command from here on.”
Shin Jonghak said this while stealing a glance at Rachel. Rachel looked over the other members of the Black Team. They seemed more inclined to follow Shin Jonghak.
However, Rachel did not want to work with a man who took credit for another person’s accomplishments. Besides, the relic was already in her possession.
“In that case, I’ll withdraw here.”
“Ah, why don’t you stay and work with us?”
Lee Gyeongrak tried to stop her regretfully, but Rachel was firm. She moved toward the emergency stairs in the east, while Shin Jonghak watched her back for a moment before leading the Black Team to the open staircase in the center.
From then on, the mock relic snatching contest proceeded at a rapid pace.
Shin Jonghak gathered all the surviving members of the Black Team and ultimately managed to seize two relics, while Rachel also made a significant contribution through her own guerrilla tactics.
Meanwhile, White Team’s Chae Nayun managed to protect the relics despite being repeatedly harried by Rachel, while Kim Suho displayed leadership and martial prowess worthy of his reputation and safely transported five relics.
Thanks to the efforts of Kim Suho and Chae Nayun, the contest itself ended in victory for the White Team, but Rachel and Shin Jonghak also achieved individual results that satisfied them both.
······For the record, Kim Hajin, who miraculously survived Yoo Yeonha and Chae Nayun’s pincer attack, did nothing more than hide in a fourth-floor basement restroom and hold out until the contest ended.
* * *
“······Yaaawn.”
The seventh basement floor restroom.
Tomer finally opened her eyes. Even after waking up, she stared blankly ahead for a while. Her mind still felt slightly hazy.
“Ah, right. The mission.”
The thought suddenly occurred to her, and she picked up her smartwatch.
“······Huh?”
However, the moment she looked at the watch’s screen, her mind went blank.
The current time was 3:02 p.m.
What? This couldn’t be right.
Wondering if her personal smartwatch had broken, she picked up the cadet smartwatch.
There, an even more definite fact had been delivered.
+ Relic Snatching Contest Concluded +
[Final Survivors─Black Team: 12 / White Team: 11]
[Relics Held─Black Team: 3 / White Team: 5]
[White Team MVPs─Kim Suho, Chae Nayun]
[Black Team MVPs─Shin Jonghak, Rachel]
+ White Team Victory +
“······Huh? What?”
Tomer patted her cheeks. She thought she might be dreaming.
But the watch’s screen remained unchanged. This time, she smacked the watch hard. It still remained unchanged.
“No way. No way. That can’t be······.”
She hurriedly ran out of the restroom.
The seventh-floor lobby, where all classes had already ended, was filled with nothing but darkness, without a single light.
“Ah······?”
Tomer, utterly dumbfounded, collapsed onto the floor.
* * *
After the practical training ended.
All the cadets gathered and sat on the lawn. A few cadets with serious injuries wore deeply pained expressions as they applied potions, but most of them were chatting about the class with faces that were either pleased or regretful.
“Jamer, is Jamer still not here?”
Among the cadets, Instructor Kim Suhyeok was looking for the mage Tomer, calling her by her alias since she still had not emerged.
“······Tsk.”
Chae Nayun, meanwhile, was sitting alone on the lawn and tearing at the innocent grass.
She had quite a lot to be dissatisfied about. Of course, the contest itself had ended with the White Team’s victory.
But she had not been able to settle things with Rachel, and even though it had been six against one—even if Shin Jonghak had joined in partway through—she had failed to capture a single Kim Hajin.
Above all······ although Chae Nayun herself refused to admit it, what Jiyoon had said during the contest continued to bother her deep down.
“Ahem~”
Someone approached her side with a little noise. Chae Nayun turned her gaze in that direction. It was Yoo Yeonha.
Yoo Yeonha gave a short laugh and spoke to her.
“Are you troubled?”
“······About what? What do I have to be troubled about?”
Chae Nayun answered gruffly at the unexpected question. Yoo Yeonha nodded and countered.
“Oh, really? I only thought you seemed bothered by what Lee Jiyoon said.”
“W-what are you talking about? Are you crazy? Why would I be bothered? I don’t even remember what she said.”
“No, but~ still.”
Yoo Yeonha looked toward Kim Hajin. He was beneath the shade of a large tree nearby, together with his team. In other words, he was with their team leader, Rachel.
Yoo Yeonha spoke bluntly.
“At this rate, you might get him stolen from you.”
“W-what? Stolen, my ass. Are you going to keep spouting nonsense? I never had him in the first place.”
Chae Nayun’s unusually vehement reaction, complete with a clenched fist, was the very definition of her words and actions contradicting each other. Yoo Yeonha quietly studied her before continuing.
“I don’t believe those rumors either, but maybe you kept pushing him away until he went looking for someone new.”
At that, Chae Nayun’s gaze slowly drifted toward where Kim Hajin was. Rachel was beside him.
Chae Nayun frowned and sharply turned her head away.
“······If he could change that easily, he wasn’t my type to begin with.”
“Pfft.”
Yoo Yeonha couldn’t hold back her laughter at the statement, which sounded suspiciously like self-justification. Chae Nayun looked as though she wanted to snap at her, but Yoo Yeonha spoke first.
“Nayun.”
“What now?”
“Between Kim Suho and Kim Hajin, which one is it?”
“No─! Ah, come on, I said it’s not either!”
Chae Nayun shouted with her face flushed red. The attention of everyone around them briefly focused on her, but Yoo Yeonha continued teasing her with a delighted, “Oh-ho-ho~”
“Then what about Jonghak?”
“Are you insane?”
Her reaction was much colder than before. So it definitely wasn’t Shin Jonghak. Thank goodness. Yoo Yeonha felt secretly relieved, then suddenly found her chest turning bitter and unwittingly let the words slip out.
“······I’m jealous.”
“Of what?”
“Some people don’t have even one, while others get to choose one out of three.”
“Ugh.”
It wasn’t worth answering, so Chae Nayun merely shook her head.
That was when Shin Jonghak sauntered over, swaying his hips.
Having scored nine kills and seized two relics in this contest, he held his shoulders so high they seemed to pierce the sky.
“Hey~ Chae Nayun.”
“Oh. Shin Jonghak. Your team lost, so how do you feel?”
Chae Nayun teased him with a chuckle. However, Shin Jonghak was already satisfied with being named MVP and responded with complete ease.
“Nothing could be done. You were on the White Team.”
“······Ahem. Well, that’s true.”
Just then, Tomer emerged last through the exit. Chae Nayun also glanced in that direction. Kim Suhyeok approached her with a frightening expression.
“Jamer, why did you take so long to come out?”
“······”
“When I checked the GPS, it showed that you had been sitting still in the seventh-floor restroom the entire time.”
But for some reason, Tomer was completely dazed and absent-minded, unable even to answer.
* * *
As soon as the contest ended, I returned to the dormitory. I’m exhausted. Maybe I should’ve just killed myself during the contest. I’d wanted to watch until the end because I hadn’t written the contest in that much detail. I survived for nothing and only wore myself out.
“Hajin~ Hajin-hajin~”
However, my exhaustion melted away the moment Evandel approached me. Evandel greeted me with a radiant smile. I picked her up and looked around the dormitory. Orioles, bush warblers, puppies, cats, and so on······ There were so many animals Evandel had made.
“You haven’t forgotten that you need to keep them from going outside, right?”
“Yep!”
Evandel answered energetically while inspecting my hands and pockets. But I hadn’t brought anything with me. So this time, she stretched her neck over my shoulder and checked behind my back as well. There was no food there, either.
Evandel looked at me with slightly bewildered eyes.
“Hajin. You didn’t bring anything······?”
“Ah······ Sorry. I was tired and forgot.”
“······”
Evandel pressed her lips tightly together. Her bright eyes began to fill with tears as betrayal and disappointment mingled within them. I stopped her from crying with a single sentence.
“But I ordered chicken and pizza. They’ll be delivered soon.”
In an instant, Evandel’s face brightened.
“Ah-ha~ What~ What~”
Of course, that was a lie. I’d order it while pretending to take a dump.
“I’m going to the bathroom for a moment.”
I set Evandel down and entered the bathroom. Sitting on the toilet, I ordered a chicken-and-pizza combo. Some Rich Gold thing and some seasoned thing.
Afterward, I checked the news section.
“······Whoa!”
A loud cry burst from my throat.
Finally.
The news I’d been waiting for had appeared on the main page and among the real-time search terms.
[The Master of the New Guild Fiend, ‘Suwon Dungeon’ Successfully Conquered!]
It had been a long while since August 14, and no news about the Master of Fiend had surfaced, so I’d been worried that something had gone wrong······
But look at this news. Wasn’t it clearly announcing that I had become rich?
I hurriedly logged into the stock-trading website.
As expected.
1.5 billion won had become 10.3 billion won.
“Awesome. So~ awesome.”
I was happy, but it also left me conflicted. Should I sell or not? It was supposed to skyrocket by more than ten times, but right now it had only risen sevenfold. Maybe I should just sell it now, just in case. Or should I wait until tomorrow?
Of course, even if I sold it now, it was still a whopping 10.3 billion won. That was enough money to live on for the rest of my life.
Enough to live on for the rest of my life······ except that all of it would disappear if I returned to my original world.
“······”
A strange emotion surged up from inside me. It was an indescribable sense of emptiness, bitter and sharp enough to pierce my chest.
“Ah. More importantly······”
I slapped my cheeks smartly and drove the thought away.
Right now, I needed to focus on the situation I was facing.
“Songs. Songs······ Ah, that bastard Lee Yeonghan.”
The next problem I faced was songs.
Until the midterms ended, there probably wouldn’t be any special enemy incursions, so my greatest concern was ‘songs.’
That damned Lee Yeonghan.
“Ah······?”
As I agonized over it, I suddenly thought of ‘Skills.’
I hurriedly accessed my laptop.
[Skills (1/3)]
Of the three available slots in the Skills section, only parkour had been entered so far.
But filling one of these precious slots with a song would be insane.
However, what if I could use a Skill when I needed it and delete it when I didn’t?
On a whim, I tried deleting Parkour.
[The technique Parkour will be deleted. 200 SP will be converted, but the level of mastery you have built up cannot be recovered.]
“Oh, shit.”
I stopped in fright, but thanks to that, I learned that techniques could be deleted. What was more, it wasn’t simply deletion—the system would even convert part of it into SP. If that was the case, then it was certainly worth considering.
I projected the holographic keyboard on my watch and tried creating a technique.
===
[Songster]
─You will become capable of singing well.
===
“······No way. It’s just singing. It can’t cost that much, right?”
Hoping that was the case, I tried saving it.
===
[Songster] [Practicality]
─You will become capable of singing well.
─The emotion of the song will be clearly conveyed in your voice.
[500 SP will be consumed. Would you like to save it?]
===
Five hundred SP. Five hundred SP······ It cost far more than I’d expected. Apparently, that was the price of singing well in an artistic sense.
“But I don’t really need to sing that well.”
I didn’t want to astonish the world with some incredible high note. I wasn’t going to become a singer here, either. Five hundred SP was far too expensive just to get me through a moment of embarrassment.
If I had to name the genre I wanted, it would be the style of a singer whose name was practically synonymous with ballads because of his sweet tone—someone like Sung Si-kyung or Kyuhyun.
“······Can I do that?”
For the moment, I changed the description.
You will become capable of singing sweetly······.
[150 SP will be consumed. Would you like to save it?]
That was still plenty expensive, but at least this amount was manageable. It looked like more than four thousand people would be attending, too. If I sang in front of four thousand people, I could probably recover around sixty or seventy SP.
“You fucking bastard, Lee Younghan.”
After cursing the source of this evil once more, I pressed Save.
Save complete.
“Ah. Ah-ah. Ah-ah-ah-ah. Oho-oho, oho-oho.”
I tested my voice, pressing down on my throat.
“Hyohyo-hyo. Yo-hyo-hyo-hyo. Yo-hyo-hyo, yodelayhee~ yodelayhee~”
It felt like something had changed, and yet it also felt like nothing had.
Knock knock.
Just then, Evangel knocked on my bathroom door.
─Hajin~ Someone knocked on the door. *slurp* I think the chicken’s here.
Evangel’s voice sounded as though her mouth was full of saliva.
“Uh, yeah.”
I hurried outside and accepted the chicken and pizza.
Evangel had somehow already put on plastic gloves and was sitting demurely in front of the table. I neatly tore open the chicken and pizza and set them down on the table.
“Chew thoroughly.”
“Okay!”
Then I started practicing my voice again. Ah. Ah-ah. Ah-ah-ah-ah.
Uuuung─
Just then, the alarm on my smartwatch went off.
[Hajin has to sing this time. Shouldn’t he practice?]
In our team group chat, Jin Hoseung started the conversation.
[Lol, should we go to karaoke? What do you think, Rachel?]
That was Lee Bokgyu’s reply. I secretly waited for Rachel’s response. If I could play the flute on top of having the technique, I had a feeling I might be able to sing incredibly well.
[I have a little studying to do······ I really want to go, sob······ but I don’t have time ㅠ,ㅠ]
Unfortunately, it seemed Rachel couldn’t join us.
“Aw.”
Then I had no reason to go, either. Why go with just the guys?
I replied that I couldn’t go, then took off my watch.
* * *
Meanwhile, this was the office of the Geronimo Mercenary Group, located in central Seoul.
Jane was sitting there wearing the face of a man named Yohan Jestiops, ranked fifty-eighth in the world’s mercenary rankings, staring at a monitor.
“······This should do.”
She was searching for a mission for a novice mercenary. What she needed at the moment was a mission that involved killing people to the greatest extent possible—but where those people were villains who thoroughly deserved to die.
She pulled out one mission that fit the bill perfectly and contacted the captain.
“Hey, Captain. I found one.”
─What’s it about?
“Mafia. Apparently, there’s a mafia group in Italy. But the guy’s a demonkin. Or, well, they say he looks like one.”