Of course, I[1]was curious about what was going on. I tried to walked back as I held my burning chest, but my body wouldn’t move the way I wanted to. It was obvious why.

‘Magic? But she didn’t cast anything… Is this… possible?’

I learned in class that simple magic could be done without channeling, but I didn’t think it was actually possible. It had to be an improved version of a binding spell.

I had many thoughts in my head, but none of them were normal thoughts because I couldn’t even understand the current situation.

“Ah… ah…”

When I turned my head slowly, I saw the inside of a dark room, and it was a spooky room without a single light. It was difficult to believe that this was the same room I had come into just now so I could talk to her. It was starting to get difficult to breathe, but it wasn’t because of the dagger in my chest. Jung Ha-Yan must have filled this room with magic.

“Ah… aaaccck!”

I unknowingly kept on screaming. Before my brain could process what was going on, my body was already shaking on its own.

“D-Don’t do this! Aaahhh!” I screamed.

“...”

“P-Please spare me… spare me. Please spare me. Please spare me,” I begged.

“I-I’m not going to kill you. I can’t kill you,” Jung Ha-Yan stated.

“Don’t come near me! Don’t come close to me!” I yelled.

“I-I-I don’t want to. Hehehe,” she giggled.

I finally realized why I was feeling anxious back then. I wasn’t seeing things, and I wasn’t sick either. The fear I felt back then filled me up once again, and it was to the point that I couldn’t even feel the pain in my chest.

I was in an enclosed space, so I couldn’t move, but what bothered me the most was that Jung Ha-Yan was looking at me with her messy hair. She had the same twisted smile as last time, and her eyes looked empty for some reason.

‘What should I do?’

I couldn’t think of anything.

‘What do I do?’

I obviously couldn’t think of anything because one wrong move would get me killed. Actually, dying wasn’t the problem. The only thought that filled my head was how I could escape from this place.

My chin and body started to quiver.

‘He knew…’

Lee Ki-Young knew that this woman was completely insane.

‘That’s why he told me to wear the cape and go out.’

He knew that this would happen.

“Miss Jung Ha-Yan, please don’t do this. I didn’t do anything… wrong. I just…”

“Eeeek!!”

“Aaaahhhhh!”

When I heard a fwoosh sound, I felt something being buried deep into the back of my hand.

“You thief!” Jung Ha-Yan yelled.

I kept hearing the fwoosh, fwoosh sound, and my body was in so much pain it felt like I was on fire. It was so painful that I couldn’t even scream properly. It was frustrating that I couldn’t move my body.

“Stupid! Idiot!” she screamed.

“Aaaahhh!”

It was painful. I kept crying due to the fear and pain. I couldn’t figure out what was happening to my body.

“It hurts! It’s so painful! Please save me. Please… please spare me,” I begged again.

When I came back to my senses, I felt like I had lost sight in one of my eyes, and I discovered that I couldn’t move my arms and legs properly.

‘I’m definitely going to die here.’

When I couldn’t scream, no, when my voice wouldn’t even come out, I had no choice but to open my mouth because I had finally realized what I had to do to survive. Actually, I had known about this solution a while ago; I simply missed my chance to speak properly because I was busy screaming.

“It’s… a lie. Nothing… happened…”

“...”

“Nothing happened…” I repeated myself.

“Uh…”

“Happened…” I said again.

When my whole body became numb, I managed to say those words while coughing out blood, and then, the room became quiet. For a moment, I thought maybe that demon had left the room, but when I heard her whispering, I had no choice but to acknowledge the fact that I was wrong.

“What… did you say?”

“I… was… lying. Nothing like that happened…” I told her again.

“Lies,” Jung Ha-Yan said.

“It’s… true… I made it… all up…” I mumbled.

“What?” she asked.

“It’s… all made up… I’m sorry… please… spare… me,” I requested.

“What? R-Really? Oh. It must be true,” she commented.

“Please spare me…” I cried.

“We’re in big trouble. What should I do? What should I do? D-Did anyone see you come here?” she asked.

She sounded a bit flustered. I wasn’t sure if what I said just now helped her calm down a bit, but her voice had become different from a moment ago when she sounded like a madwoman. She was speaking in the same manner as the Miss Jung Ha-Yan I knew.

I was losing consciousness, but I forced myself to stay awake because I knew very well that her question just now was directly connected to my survival.

“Yes… the Red Mercenary Guild members… a few…” I replied.

If no one saw me, then the person named Han Sora would no longer exist because Jung Ha-Yan seemed extremely indifferent when it came to killing people.

‘Shit…’

Now that I thought about it, there were a few red flags. Chang-Ryeol Oppa’s warning and the majority of my other comrades advised me not to do anything foolish. Even Mr. Lee Ki-Young gave me that advice. Naturally, I remembered how he looked at me like I was pitiful, and tears started to flow out of my other eye when I recalled all this.

“Don’t cry,” Jung Ha-Yan comforted.

“I won’t… tell… anyone. Please spare me,” I pleaded.

“I told you I’m not going to kill you. W-Where’s the potion? This… was your punishment for lying. You can think of it that way. Han Sora! You shouldn’t lie to your instructor!” she shouted.

“Okay…” I mumbled.

“W-Why would you lie like that?” she questioned.

“I’m… sorry,” I apologized.

“But, wh-what should I do? I can’t let Oppa find out…” she stuttered.

“It’s ok… my… eyes keep… clos…”

“N-No! Don’t die!” she panicked.

Her attitude had become so different from earlier that I started to panic. After I felt something warm being poured on my entire body, I lost consciousness. Before the lights could completely go out, I prayed that when I opened my eyes again, I would be in a different room.

***

No matter how much I[2] thought about it…

‘She went too far…’

I knew Jung Ha-Yan was going to do something, but I had never imagined she would take it this far. I guess she had definitely vented all the stress that had been building up inside her recently. If she didn’t visit Sun Hee-Young, then Han Sora could have died, so I guess she really cornered her until she was dying. Obviously, I didn’t blame her for her actions. What she had done wasn't worth complimenting, so I complimented her in a different way. I didn’t focus on the fact that she had messed Han Sora up, but I praised her for punishing a student that was going to do something bad. Basically, Jung Ha-Yan got lucky. The jealousy that had made her run wild helped her catch a criminal.

After Han Sora’s physical wounds were treated with Sun Hee-Young’s help, Jung Ha-Yan brought her to me while looking like a sinner who had committed high treason, and after explaining the situation to me, she asked me for a reward with a proud look. Her attitude changed so fast that I was a bit surprised.

Anyway, I was a bit busy, but I did enjoy my time with her. During all of this, the demonstration began, and the majority of the trainees unlocked their first jobs. As the person in charge of teaching those with production-type jobs, I gathered all the mages and officially started teaching them about alchemy, and surprisingly, Lee Chang-Ryeol accepted the low salary the guild had offered him.

‘It was what he wanted...’

For him, having a place to train was more important than his salary. Despite the fact that his name wasn’t deserving of the price, his mentality wasn’t poor at all, and I wanted to applaud him for that. All he wanted was a small room he could quietly spend his time in and an epic-ranked weapon he could use.

‘He’s interesting.’

The conversation regarding Yoo Ah-Young was going well, too. Kim Hyun-Sung couldn’t really understand why I wanted to recruit her, but when I desperately insisted on recruiting her, he nodded in agreement. She was still between number two and three, but her legendary-ranked stat had to be real because as time went on, she was getting better and better.

It was around that time when Han Sora woke up and started attending class. The injuries she suffered left an enormous scar on her body. Most of her mana circuits were broken, and according to Sun Hee-Young, they would recover after a year, but her life as a mage was basically over. However, that didn’t mean she couldn’t return at all, but anyway, her entire body was undeniably ruined. In the end, one of her eyes didn’t recover, and her legs were slightly lame. I was sure there were more issues, but Han Sora seemed like she was trying her best not to show it. The interesting part was that she came to listen to the alchemy class I was teaching.

"Thank you… for the opportunity,” Han Sora said.

"What?" I asked.

"Thank you… for trying to save me… back then," she replied.

From my point of view, I had done nothing but wave my hand out of annoyance and tell her to wear the cape and leave, but from her point of view, I guess she thought I had given her a chance. The result wasn’t that great, but I had never imagined that Han Sora would take it that way, so I just nodded in agreement.

It was surprising how focused she was in my class. I wasn’t sure if she was planning on becoming an alchemist, but she didn’t seem like she had given up on life. The most interesting part was that the sidekicks who had previously been following her around started bullying her a bit, and even though I hadn’t seen it myself, it seemed like she had been immediately labeled as the weakest member in the newly formed party.

‘Humans sure are funny…’

If my memory served me right, the girls who had been following her around were the ones who started bullying her first. The only thing I saw was them treating Han Sora like a handicapped person and making fun of her behind her back, but I was sure they were treating her worse than that. However, I didn’t pity her. She did seem kind of pathetic when she limped around with her bandage-wrapped legs, but she and I were in different positions, so I couldn’t really feel her pain.

Anyway, Han Sora was enduring her painful life, and I noticed her trying to avoid Jung Ha-Yan. But whenever they met, her body would start shaking, and she would end up peeing herself.

‘Just what in the world did Jung Ha-Yan do to her?’

I was sure that wasn’t the only thing that haunted Han Sora. She couldn’t participate in the demonstration since she had been absent for a long time, so she obviously wasn’t going to receive any kind of offer from the other guilds. Once this training period ended, she wouldn’t have any place to go. And that would be the end of her story.

As soon as I started losing interest in her, I focused on finding people for the rearguard. I had previously assumed that Kim Hyun-Sung was going to recruit many talented people he knew in the future, but he didn’t seem all that interested in the trainees this year. However, he was definitely doubting his memory because he would sometimes visit the training camp and look at the trainees, but I guess he had realized the person he was looking for wasn’t here because he started to take his time when looking at the close-combat trainees while they were training. Basically, the Blue Guild had three more priority negotiation rights, and we weren’t using them to their full potential.

As always, I noticed Cha Hee-Ra talking, and even though she didn’t ask me right away, we would always end up talking about the same thing no matter what kind of conversation we had.

“Are you sure it’s okay to let her stay, darling?”

“Who?” I asked.

“That rude bitch, Han Sora,” she answered.

“It’s fine,” I told her.

“Wow…”

“What?” I asked her.

“I was just thinking that maybe you’ve become generous. Don’t you usually go all out and do whatever it takes to enjoy the suffering of other people?” she asked.

“It depends on the opponent. If I had that thought in the first place, she wouldn’t be alive right now. By the way, how much did you pay them?” I asked.

“About a hundred gold per person,” she replied.

“That’s not much. Or is it a lot from their point of view?” I questioned.

“The plan wasn’t going to work out, anyway. What matters is that they came to us first and told us the situation. I don’t really think the girls are nice, but they still did something good. I do feel bad for that Han Sora girl, though. She considered them her friend, but they told us her entire plan. It was pretty hilarious,” Cha Hee-Ra explained.

“I’m sure those girls thought that working with us was going to be more beneficial than if they worked with her,” I commented.

“They even asked if they could get a recruitment offer to our guild as a reward. I was going to teach them a lesson, but I held back. Anyway…” she paused.

She was finally getting to the point.

“You do plan on using those, am I right, darling? The other guilds can’t wait any longer. I’m trying my best to postpone the opening of the transfer market, but the mid-sized clans and the recruiters who attended the demonstration have been asking me to open it up… Why not just recruit anyone?” she asked.

“Ugh… Our guild master doesn’t really like that idea, and the Blue Guild has been aiming to recruit minor elite players from the start…” I replied.

“Geez, you talk about Kim Hyun-Sung every day. Are you sure there’s nothing going on between you two?” Cha Hee-Ra questioned.

“I told you there’s nothing,” I retorted.

“Alright, fine. Anyway, you’re going to use them, right? Park Yeon-Joo from the Black Swan Guild has been making a big fuss out of it. She yelled at me, saying that she was part of the alliance, too,” she complained.

“I’m indebted to her, anyway, so I can give her a single priority negotiation right, and once we’re done recruiting Yoo Ah-Young, I think you can just open it up. Oh, noona. I’ll just give you the remaining negotiation right, so—”

“Ahn Ki-Mo?” she asked before I could finish.

“Huh?”

“That bastard has been telling me nonstop that he wants to transfer to the Blue Guild…” she said.

“You don’t want him to, noona?” I asked.

“I don’t really care, but… you’ll have to pay me since our guild has invested a lot in that bastard,” she replied.

“That’s fine,” I told her.

“He told me about being loyal to me and whatnot. That stupid bastard. He’s pretty cunning, so don’t trust him too much, darling. I’m still annoyed about him backstabbing me. When he first joined, he said this guild was going to be his grave and talked all that bullshit about how he was willing to die with his guildmates, but now, he’s saying that he wants to join the Blue Guild. I thought he was just a comedian, but seriously—you’ll never know when he’ll backstab you, so be careful,” Cha Hee-Ra warned.

“Thanks…” I muttered.

He did portray himself that way.

Even though I was enjoying my time with Cha Hee-Ra, I had to get going. When I stood up from my seat, I noticed her looking straight at me.

“Heading to the interview, darling?”

“Yeah, I need to meet with Yoo Ah-Young. I want to recruit her as soon as possible, but she hasn’t been accepting the offer,” I explained.

“The big ones are usually like that,” she commented.

“That’s sexual harassment, noona,” I warned her.

“I didn’t say where, though,” she retorted.

When I turned my head, I saw her smiling as if she was teasing me, so I had no choice but to quickly leave the office.

1. Han Sora’s POV ☜

2. Lee Ki-Young’s POV ☜