When you got down to it, it wasn’t really anyone’s fault.
From Shin Byeongcheol’s perspective, all he had done was ask for help in an emergency.
It wasn’t as though he could keep track of where Kim Ho was and what he was doing at every moment, and even if Kim Ho had been in the middle of spending time with someone, he still would have sent the message.
That said, according to the book Shin Byeongcheol would someday write in the distant future, CEO Shin’s Guide to Social Survival:
Even if you’re right, there’s still such a thing as the right time and place.
If you said something correct in front of someone who was already furious, there was a high chance you’d just get punched for it.
And this junior here is... difficult, is what I’m saying.
Every time Shin Byeongcheol looked at Dang Gyu-ri, he felt an instinctive sense of danger.
They were “just a cousin,” sure, but they had more than a few things in common with “Manager Dang,” who had already graduated.
At times, the thought even flickered through his head that maybe they had made some secret contract with Dragonslayer Academy and come in undercover.
For all of those reasons, Shin Byeongcheol reflexively blurted out an apology.
“Ah, I’m sorry. I had no idea our Great Hero Kim was with a junior. I was thoughtless.”
“It’s okay, Senior. You couldn’t have known.”
“No, no. Either way, I interrupted a good time, didn’t I? I should apologize.”
“...”
Dang Gyu-ri only looked at him in silence.
A powerful sense of déjà vu hit Shin Byeongcheol again.
That was exactly how Manager Dang used to look at him while thinking, Should I hit him? Should I hold back? Should I hit him? Should I beat him black and blue?
And in situations like this, the key to survival was to move first and fast.
“Of course, I’m not planning to just say thank you and sorry with words alone. I’d like to express it in a more... material way?”
“You don’t have to.”
“No, let me. I feel bad, I’m telling you.”
“...”
Dang Gyu-ri looked at him silently again, then shot a sideways glance at Kim Ho.
Little by little, the killing intent pouring out of them eased off. It seemed they had judged that getting something out of this would benefit both them and Kim Ho more than simply getting angry right now.
Of course, if the value of that “something” was lacking, the whole table would flip on the spot, so Shin Byeongcheol put his brain into overdrive before making an offer.
“To be honest, I’m in the business expansion phase right now, so it’d be hard to give you anything grand.”
“Oh, really~?”
“But! But! Give it a little time and I can! At that point, whatever it is, I’ll do it all for you.”
“Anything?”
“That’s what I’m saying. Anything. To put it simply, it’s a blank check. One with Shin Byeongcheol’s name on it.”
“What’s the expiration date?”
The question was oddly specific, but Shin Byeongcheol didn’t notice.
Putting out the urgent fire was all he could think about.
So he answered with a laugh.
“Come on now, an expiration date? You think I’d be that stingy with a junior?”
“So there isn’t one~?”
“Of course not. None at all. Better yet, let’s put it in writing.”
A moment later, Shin Byeongcheol pulled out a memo pad and scribbled away at high speed.
Cutting out all the fancy wording, it boiled ✧ NоvеIight ✧ (Original source) down to this:
Of course, whether that would actually hold legal force was highly questionable, but that wasn’t the important part.
From Kim Ho and Dang Gyu-ri’s perspective, if he tried to weasel out of it later, they could always enforce it with force.
Shin Byeongcheol was fully aware of that too.
Once Dang Gyu-ri accepted the blank check, their anger finally seemed to settle down.
“Thank you, Senior.”
“Think it over well and tell me whenever you want. Anytime.”
“I will.”
Even the smile they gave him no longer carried any killing intent, and Shin Byeongcheol let out a sigh of relief inwardly.
Then Kim Ho asked,
“So how’d you get caught? You were doing a pretty good job avoiding people.”
“Well, the thing is...”
Shin Byeongcheol briefly explained what had happened lately.
Most of the potion deals had been done without face-to-face contact.
But the decisive clue had been the “CEO SHIN” engraving on the chopsticks.
At that, Kim Ho exchanged a dumbfounded look with Dang Gyu-ri.
“You practically advertised it to the whole neighborhood. You used chopsticks as flyers.”
“Come on, I know that too. But I just couldn’t help myself.”
“Your inner attention-seeker got out of hand?”
“Embarrassing to admit, but yes.”
Shin Byeongcheol answered like a man making a confession.
Kim Ho slowly shook his head.
“I get it, but if you do that, there’s no way I can help you. The dark-blade side is just the beginning. Starting tomorrow, people are going to line up.”
Meaning other clubs would come looking for the same thing too.
A potion that could raise rank was involved. Even forces that usually stayed quiet were likely to start moving.
Shin Byeongcheol asked with a pale face,
“Isn’t there some kind of way out?”
“The important question is why I should be the one cleaning up your mess.”
“Come on now, are we really strangers? Huh? Just this once, huh?”
“If you keep making unreasonable requests, we really can become strangers.”
With that, Kim Ho turned to leave without hesitation.
Shin Byeongcheol hurriedly grabbed the leg of his pants.
“Sir! Leave me aside if you want, but shouldn’t you at least protect my business partner? We can’t let them get dragged into all this score-settling!”
“So nobody knows yet that Eunbi made it?”
“You bet! No matter how much of an attention-seeker I am, Eun—”
Shin Byeongcheol froze mid-sentence and shut his mouth.
Then he asked back in an innocent tone.
“—Eunbi? Dang Eunbi? Why would she come up here?”
“Judging by the circumstances, I figured she was mixed in somewhere among your ‘business partners,’ so I tossed it out there.”
“What are you talking about? Please refrain from wild speculation.”
He had almost fallen right into an interrogation trap.
Shin Byeongcheol tensed up, thinking he couldn’t let his guard down for even a second.
Kim Ho kept pressing.
“It doesn’t feel like wild speculation when I look at T.E.B alone.”
“Come on, you’re forcing things to fit.”
“Then tell me. What exactly does it mean?”
“...Well, that’s a little difficult right now. It has a profound, deeply profound meaning, full of the maker’s soul.”
“Not the maker’s name?”
“Ahem! Anyway, I’ll explain later.”
Shin Byeongcheol slid right past it.
Of course, both Kim Ho and Dang Gyu-ri already looked as though they had fully concluded that Dang Eunbi was the maker.
Then Kim Ho asked, in a slightly more serious tone,
“Do you really have to hide it even from me?”
“Sorry to say it while asking for help, but for now, yeah.”
Shin Byeongcheol sighed heavily and continued in the same serious manner.
“This is a matter of trust. Honestly, I’m the one who pulled someone who was minding their own business into this.”
“And you’re going to take responsibility to the end?”
“Yeah. If I run my mouth and the wrong people get hurt in ways I never expected, that’s on me. Until this gets on track and stabilizes a little, I want to keep it secret.”
Kim Ho and Dang Gyu-ri exchanged another look, then stared at him with fresh eyes.
It was the kind of look that seemed to say, So he really does step up when it matters, even if he’s slippery every other day.
Then Kim Ho nodded.
“All right. Then I’ll pretend not to know Eunbi made it for the time being.”
“I’m telling you, it’s not Eunbi.”
“Anyway, back to what we were saying.”
“...”
“We can’t keep guarding you forever. Physically, it’s impossible.”
“Ah, damn it. So it really is like that?”
He had been lucky today and gotten help in time, but he couldn’t count on that kind of luck continuing forever.
Kim Ho’s group had schedules of their own too.
If Shin Byeongcheol got into trouble in the entertainment district or some far corner of Dungeon Island, then no matter how fast they responded, it would still take a fair amount of time.
And if they were out clearing dungeons or handling outside requests, they might be gone for days at a time.
So after thinking for a moment, Kim Ho made a suggestion.
“The best option is to put yourself under the wing of a force.”
“I thought about that too. But there are too many problems.”
First off, the Thief Club was out.
Its size was decent enough, but its overall martial strength was weak. If it clashed with other forces, it would get crushed flat.
The other groups only refrained from touching it because of conflicting interests as it was, but if the potion maker was involved, they would gladly risk open conflict.
So then what, go under another club?
That would inevitably expose Dang Eunbi, which meant betraying the “trust” Shin Byeongcheol had just been talking about.
Just as his face was beginning to darken again, Kim Ho said casually,
“That doesn’t mean there’s no way.”
“Really, boss?”
“At this point, we just make the board bigger.”
Then he started exchanging messages with someone for a while.
Curiosity exploding, Shin Byeongcheol leaned in and asked,
“Who is it? Someone I know?”
“Someone you know very well.”
“Our year? Senior? Junior?”
“Obviously a senior.”
The twenty-questions game had gotten about halfway through when a sound Shin Byeongcheol absolutely did not want to hear reached his ears.
RUMBLE...
The sound of a wooden door rising out of nowhere.
For people who broke school rules as casually as eating meals, it was the sound of nightmares.
It even showed up in actual bad dreams sometimes.
A moment later, the one who walked out after opening the wooden door was, of course, Gwak Seungjae.
Shin Byeongcheol noticed that indifferent gaze settle on him and hurriedly lowered his head.
“Hello, Senior!”
“...Shin Byeongcheol.”
Naturally, from the perspective of the head of the Discipline Committee, there was no reason at all for the vice captain of the Thief Club to be likable.
Still, Gwak Seungjae said nothing else to him and turned to Kim Ho.
“Is this one also related to what you were just discussing?”
“He’s the core of the core.”
Then Kim Ho laid out everything that had happened so far.
And when he got to the part about “scattering chopsticks engraved with CEO Shin,” Gwak Seungjae added a comment.
“We had also collected that as a strong lead. We were planning to move before long, but...”
“Looks like the dark-blade side beat you to it. The others won’t be far behind.”
“In that case, what exactly is it that you want?”
“I’d like you to designate this guy as a subject of ‘intensive observation’ for the time being.”
Just from the term alone, it was obvious: this was how the Discipline Committee managed students who were excessively troublesome.
But no matter how routinely Shin Byeongcheol broke school rules, he had never been outrageous enough to merit intensive observation.
Gwak Seungjae clearly knew that too, and seemed to grasp the intent behind the request.
“So in reality, what you want is the Discipline Committee’s protection.”
“To be honest, yes.”
Shin Byeongcheol was in a position where he couldn’t put himself under the wing of any club.
And if he still wanted protection, then the Discipline Committee was the best option for now.
Not only did it have sufficient force, unlike the other factions it wasn’t pursuing profit.
And with the wooden door in play, it would be able to send Discipline Committee members wherever an SOS came in.
Of course, Gwak Seungjae himself did not look particularly pleased.
“You’re asking something difficult, but I’ll hear the rest first.”
“Along with the intensive observation, I’d like you to spread one rumor. That T.E.B is about to be designated a prohibited item.”
“And what do we gain from that?”
“You’ll be able to use it as bait soon enough.”
Gwak Seungjae seemed to think for a moment, his brow faintly furrowed.
Then he spoke as if he had realized something.
“...The temporary storage facility.”
“Exactly.”
A wicked smile curled onto Kim Ho’s lips.
