Shin Byeongcheol had suddenly found himself getting shaken down for a potion.
From his perspective, there really was no other choice.
A sponsor had finally appeared, and if he irritated her, the whole thing might vanish as if it had never happened.
And no matter how high the price of [T.E.B - 001] was shooting through the roof, it still couldn’t compare to a black card.
So Shin Byeongcheol didn’t hesitate for long.
“...I’ll give it to you!”
“The right choice.”
Seo Ye-in nodded and accepted the potion.
I threw in a question.
“Last time, didn’t you say you weren’t going to drink it?”
“Changed my mind.”
— The more I look at it, the more interested I get.
“Yeah, well, I guess it’s better if you drink it.”
“Rank up.”
— If the original gets stronger, I get stronger too.
Before long, backed by everyone’s encouragement, Seo Ye-in pulled out the stopper, lifted the potion to her lips, and drank it down in one go.
Then she just stood there for a while without saying anything.
“......”
“Did it go up?”
“Yeah.”
“Looks like the odds really are high.”
Like most random rank-up effects, items like this usually weren’t influenced much by outside factors.
Still, since the item description openly said “high probability,” it looked like she’d succeeded without much trouble.
‘The problem is the side effect.’
Assuming that bastard really was Shin °• N 𝑜 v 𝑒 l i g h t •° Byeongcheol’s business partner and the maker of [T.E.B - 001], then looking back at what had happened over winter break...
One time, the result had been a chatty sloth who lost her laziness and got talkative.
Another time, it had been a possessive sloth who demanded that I look only at her.
‘Or it could be something completely new.’
At this point, prediction was basically meaningless, so the best option was to just experience it and see.
So I held my fist up to Seo Ye-in’s mouth like a microphone.
“Please give us a few words. How do you feel right now?”
“I think I have more energy.”
“Does that mean things feel less bothersome?”
“...Compared to usual.”
Seo Ye-in gave me a slightly vague answer.
I continued the interview.
“If things feel less bothersome than usual, then compared to winter break, how is it?”
“Fifty percent.”
“So your energy only filled up halfway?”
“That’s what it feels like.”
“Where’d the other half go?”
“...?”
But Seo Ye-in just tilted a question mark over her head like she didn’t know either.
‘It could’ve only half applied.’
But wasn’t it more likely that it hadn’t?
Like maybe the other half was some different side effect.
As it happened, I thought of a way to test it, so I immediately put it into action.
When I slowly started crab-walking sideways,
“......”
Those gray eyes followed me.
As if she had no intention of missing me for even a second.
I kept sidestepping until I hid behind Shin Byeongcheol’s back.
At that, Seo Ye-in instantly pulled out her pot.
Shin Byeongcheol seemed to sense instinctive danger from the way she was looking at him.
“W-why... are you looking at me like that?”
“Come out.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Shin Byeongcheol immediately tried to get farther away from me, but I followed him again and put a hand on his shoulder.
“What about this?”
“...Don’t stick to him.”
Seo Ye-in slowly raised the pot as she warned me.
I studied her for a moment, then asked,
“Is jealousy bubbling up?”
“...A little?”
“Still, it seems better than winter break. Another fifty percent?”
“Yeah.”
“Then I guess we should call it half and half.”
Fifty percent Fast-Luckless, fifty percent possessive sloth.
Combined, that had produced a mutant hybrid: Fast-Possessive-Luckless.
‘That’s actually better.’
At this level, communication was still very easy.
And if the possessiveness was only at half strength, that also meant the odds of a problem happening were cut in half.
So I asked just to make sure.
So I asked just to make sure.
“This won’t interfere with us having fun today, right?”
“It won’t.”
“It won’t.”
“And you’ll get along with your double too, right?”
“......”
“......”
Instead of answering, Seo Ye-in looked at her [Mirror Image].
Maybe because her possessiveness had gone up, she looked like she wanted to get rid of it immediately.
Then she made a request that didn’t sound much like a request at all.
“Time for just the two of us.”
“Time for just the two of us.”
— Me included makes three.
“Cooperate just for today.”
— Today matters the most.
Come to think of it, that was true.
It was already rare for us to come out to the entertainment district in the first place, and it was even rarer to come out without Dang Gyu-young, Hong Yeonhwa, and the others.
“...You catch on fast.”
— What the original thinks, I think.
“Can’t be helped.”
Seo Ye-in gave a small nod like she’d just made a difficult decision.
It looked like she was about to unilaterally deactivate [Mirror Image].
Fast-Luckless noticed that too, and spoke even faster.
— No putting me away.
“You can.”
— Mutual respect.
“I’m a tyrant.”
— Seed of rebellion.
Meaning, if she forced her back in, she’d rebel someday.
I couldn’t bear to watch anymore, so I stepped in to mediate.
“We came out together, so you should walk around together too. Putting her away feels a little harsh.”
— The butler’s words are entirely correct.
A trace of dissatisfaction passed over Seo Ye-in’s expressionless face.
But after staring at me, then staring at Fast-Luckless, she eventually nodded.
“...Mutual respect.”
— The original is highly respected.
Watching the two Seo Ye-ins make up like they hadn’t been bickering a second ago, I said to Shin Byeongcheol,
“Now that traffic control’s over, we’ll get going.”
“Oh, yes, you should. Have a good time.”
“Like I said before, if anything difficult comes up, call me.”
“Yeah, thanks.”
Shin Byeongcheol gave me a grin, then bent at a right angle toward Seo Ye-in, his new sponsor.
So this was how much weight a black card carried.
After that, we greeted the Thief Club members too, including Chae Dabin and the twins, then left the building and headed back onto the main road of the entertainment district.
And then we followed the flow of the crowd at a leisurely pace.
‘A lot of clubs came out too.’
Well, more than a month had already passed since the semester began.
Everyone was probably in the mood for a change of pace.
That meant more sightseers, and the clubs had increased their events accordingly.
SHRRRK-SHRRRK-SHRRRK!
A little ways off, a third-year blade-swinging senior was putting on a dazzling display of swordsmanship.
Every time the sword-light flashed, a large block of wood gradually took shape.
It was still far from finished, but I could already tell what they were making.
‘A Dharma statue.’
It was crude, but it had a lot in common with the one we’d gotten from Black Serpent Fang.
Looks like Zhuge Yeongyeong had generously shared the Dharma statue they traded for not long ago with the club members.
And now they were practicing with the insight they’d gained from it.
SHRRRK-SHRRRK!
Seo Ye-in, however, didn’t seem all that interested, and quickly looked somewhere else.
So I silently wished the blade-swinging senior the best of luck and kept walking.
As we went on, looking around here and there, something suddenly caught my eye.
‘Isn’t that Song Cheonhye?’
She’d put on sunglasses and a hat as if to call it a disguise, but it was sloppy enough to be laughable.
And the fact that she was openly wandering around the entertainment district made it seem like she wasn’t really trying that hard to hide her identity anyway.
‘If that’s how it’s going to be, then why even bother disguising yourself?’
That question had just crossed my mind when Song Cheonhye seemed to sense my gaze and whipped her head this way.
And the moment she spotted us, her face lit up, and she even tossed off her sunglasses and hat before waving wildly.
“Hellooo!”
I couldn’t exactly ignore her, so I waved back.
Song Cheonhye immediately pushed through the crowd and came over.
“You came out to have fun?”
“Yeah. What about you?”
“I had something else to do, but since I was here anyway, I thought I’d look around a little too. Just one quick lap.”
For some reason, her voice was noticeably brighter than usual.
It even felt like there was some Han Somi energy mixed into it.
Still, sometimes people just got in a good mood, so I didn’t think too much about it and nodded.
“Sure. Have fun looking around.”
“Want to walk around together?”
Song Cheonhye asked, still radiating positive energy.
She’d made similar suggestions now and then before, but this time she sounded especially uninhibited.
Like she hadn’t hesitated at all, and had just blurted it out the instant it came to mind.
Before I could answer, though, Fast-Possessive-Luckless cut into the conversation.
“...No.”
“Why not?”
“We decided to walk around by ourselves.”
— The three of us.
Fast-Luckless immediately corrected her while backing her up.
Either way, the meaning was the same.
There was no place for you to wedge yourself in here.
‘Looks like chestnut-burr mode is about to switch on.’
She’d just been rejected that blatantly.
She’d probably snap back with something like, I only asked out of courtesy, you know? or I was going to walk around alone anyway, you know? then huff off in a sulk.
But contrary to my expectations, Song Cheonhye didn’t get prickly at all. She didn’t even look offended.
At this point, she felt less like a hedgehog and more like a hamster.
She even smiled gently and tried to persuade Seo Ye-in.
“So you made that kind of promise. I’d rather not get in the way if I can help it.”
“...?”
“But it seems like it’d be way too boring to go around alone... Couldn’t you let me join you?”
“...???”
Seo Ye-in.exe stopped functioning for a moment.
Then she turned to look at me, and for once, there was a clear trace of fluster in those gray eyes.
Before I answered yes or no, I decided to ask the question that had been hanging in my head for a while now.
“Did you eat ‘that,’ by any chance? The one that raises your rank and has side effects.”
“Yes, just now!”
Song Cheonhye answered readily.
Normally, she would’ve pretended not to know or changed the subject, so that response was surprising too.
“I see. And your rank went up?”
“Yes. So I guess that’s why I feel good.”
Looks like she’d pierced the “high probability” wall too.
Somehow it felt like everyone’s rank was going up except mine.
Though it looked like there was a bigger reason her mood was so good.
So I said to the two Seo Ye-ins,
“We should keep her with us, at least until the side effect wears off.”
“...Time for just the two of us.”
— Three.
“I know, I know. But if we leave her alone, I don’t know what she’ll do.”
She was already saying and doing things she normally never would, and with that extra positive energy layered on top of it, she had no hesitation whatsoever.
That made it even harder to predict what she’d do next.
Since she was kind by nature, the odds of her causing real trouble were low, but even so, there was always the chance.
The right thing to do was keep her with us and look after her.
I coaxed Seo Ye-in again as she showed her dissatisfaction.
“Let’s say we’re not spending the wish ticket today and we’re just saving it. Then next time, it’ll be just the two of us—without Fast-Luckless either.”
“...Just the two of us.”
Her gray eyes widened slightly, like that had caught her interest.
Even if today didn’t go exactly how she wanted, if it meant the two of us could come again alone later, she was still coming out ahead.
After getting Seo Ye-in’s agreement like that, I spoke to Song Cheonhye again.
“Okay then. Let’s walk around together.”
“Thank you. I’ll buy you something good to eat.”
“That works for us.”
And so, with an unexpected extra companion added to the group, our tour of the entertainment district resumed.
Song Cheonhye, clearly excited, took the lead and pointed toward a performance stage.
“Over there! Look at that!”
A third-year senior and a huge gorilla were performing tricks together.
They were tossing more than a dozen large rings into the air like they were juggling them, then sending various objects through the gaps between them.
“Looks like a Beast Tamer.”
“Yes! We have one in our group too.”
I remembered seeing one during the all-out battle at the temporary storage facility late last year.
They’d probably be a third-year by now.
We watched the gorilla for a bit, then moved on.
The next thing that caught my eye was a group that looked oddly familiar.
The reason I was thinking of them as “that bunch” was simple.
They weren’t Dragonslayer Academy students.
A masked gentleman in a suit, a clown in flashy clothes, and a fortune-teller wrapped in robes.
They were all event bosses.
‘They’re still here?’
They were the kind who originally didn’t stay in one place and liked wandering around, and with the new semester already underway, I’d assumed they’d have left Dungeon Island by now.
Looks like they’d completely settled in.
And that wasn’t all.
WHIRR- CLANK, WHIRR- CLANK,
From the opposite direction, the sound of approaching footsteps mixed with mechanical noises drew closer.
When I looked that way, I saw a human-sized robot walking toward us.
It was carrying a large box in both arms.
‘There are even more of them now?’
Of course, that thing was an event boss too.
