The Support Ate it All

Chapter 255: The Challenge

It was a reaction I had somewhat anticipated.

For Bum, the Cube of Life was practically like his own private villa.

From his perspective, it was as if an acquaintance he barely knew suddenly asked, “Hey, mind if I crash at your villa for a couple of days?”

Of course, I had already prepared some persuasive arguments.

“I’m not asking to borrow it for free. I’ll pay you rent.”

“..…?”

Bum raised his little paw as if to attack, but then put it down again.

It seemed he wanted to hear me out before deciding.

“Hasn’t your villa been getting a lot of scratches lately?”

“It’s about time for a remodel, don’t you think?”

“Meow…”

At present, I was the only one capable of maintaining the Cube of Life.

Repairing magical engineering items wasn’t particularly difficult, but for Bong Jae-seok and the other members of the Magic Engineering Club, the Cube of Life was a difficult object.

They hadn’t fully figured it out yet, and messing with it carelessly could lead to unexpected problems.

“Meow…”

Bum seemed interested.

If it can be remodeled neatly in exchange for leaving the villa for only two days, wouldn’t it be a good deal?

When I felt that he was almost convinced, I delivered the final blow.

I pulled out a handful of dried fish. These were the same specialty from the Gathering of Villains which Bum had been munching on earlier.

“Just snack on this for a few days. I’ll return it to you as good as new.”

“Meow.”

Bum gave a short reply before resuming his nibbling on the dried fish.

It was his way of agreeing to my proposal.

Having resolved the biggest hurdle, I turned my gaze to Park Na-ri next.

“He’s fine with it. What about you?”

Park Na-ri stared at me with wide eyes, as if she couldn’t believe what she had just witnessed.

Perhaps she hadn’t expected me to successfully negotiate with Bum.

But when I continued looking at her, she dropped her gaze diagonally and stammered nervously.

“If, if Bum’s okay with it, th-then I’m fine too.”

The reason I asked Bum first was simple.

After all, I needed the consent of both the owner and the resident.

If I had asked Park Na-ri first, she would’ve likely said something like, “We should check with Bum first…”

Such is the exhausting life of a caretaker.

Park Na-ri cautiously asked.

“H-How long are you planning to borrow it for…?”

“About two days should be enough. You don’t need it this week, right?”

“M-Mhmm … The duel battles are all done anyway…”

Park Na-ri wasn’t the type to go around challenging people to duel battles, and her magic training was something she usually did without the Cube.

That meant she could lend it to me until the next strategy week.

“S-So… what are you going to use it for?”.

“For research. And to help out Senior Bong while I’m at it.”

It wasn’t a lie.

Bong Jae-seok had recently started asking for help more often.

Hiding prohibited items is not something you want to make public.

Unless the other side somehow discovered it by chance, I planned to keep it confidential.

Although Park Na-ri wasn’t the type to break school rules, I couldn’t say the same for the members of the Mother Nature Club.

Even their leader Ha Soo-yeon had a subtle, scheming side to her like a tactician.

If the Cube was used too openly, it could draw attention, and there was a risk the repercussions might reach both me and Dang Gyu-young.

Perhaps the explanation about using it for research convinced her because Park Na-ri pulled the Cube of Life out of her inventory and emptied its contents.

I accepted the Cube and handed her a specialty product set from the Gathering of Villains.

“Thanks. I’ll use it carefully and return it clean.”

“M-Mhmm…”

“Meow.”

Even then, Bum who had been busily chewing on dried fish lifted his head and let out a sound as if to say,

– Take good care of the remodeling.

***

After securing the Cube, I busied myself with tasks while waiting for a message.

Because of the sudden ban wave, the thieves’ club would need some time to assess the situation.

Like before, I helped Seo Ye-in with her training, and while I was at it, I practiced wind-type magic like Wind Barrier.

Just as expected, a message arrived.

[Dang Gyu-young: (Waving Fox emoji)]

[Dang Gyu-young: Where are you?]

[Kim Ho: (Waving Fox emoji)]

[Kim Ho: At the training center.]

[Dang Gyu-young: Let’s talk for a bit.]

[Kim Ho: Ok.]

Seo Ye-in’s sloth battery seemed to be running low, so we decided to wrap up her training session.

“That’s enough for today.”

“Mhmm…”

Seo Ye-in stared at me for a moment, then tilted her head slightly as if she was puzzled by something.

But soon, she gave a small wave and began walking toward the dormitory.

I watched her retreating figure for a moment before I too started moving toward the meeting spot.

The second-floor terrace of the convenience store.

Dang Gyu-young was already there sitting with drinks prepared for both of us.

As usual, she had a sweet latte with plenty of cream.

When I sat down next to her, she met my gaze and smiled silently.

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Just because.”

She kept staring at me with a playful smile as if there was something on my face, so I decided to break the silence first.

“What happened to Byeong-cheol?”

“Oh, Byeong-cheol.”

Dang Gyu-young’s expression shifted to indifference as she replied in a casual tone,

“He was expelled for causing significant damage to the club.”

“I see.”

I had a feeling things weren’t going well for him, and it turned out I was right.

Then, Dang Gyu-young relaxed her expression and let out a small laugh.

“Kidding. We’re not that petty. If something gets stolen, we just steal it back. No big deal, right?”

“You really do have a unique way of thinking.”

“You were mocking me just now, weren’t you?”

“Just a little.”

She gave me a sideways glance, then sipped her latte through the straw.

After taking a sip, she continued,

“Still, we should recover what’s ours.”

“Are we going? To the temporary storage?”

“Absolutely.”

“When are you planning to go?”

“Probably tomorrow night.”

Infiltrating the temporary storage was always a race against time.

If you delayed too long, the disciplinary committee would hand over the prohibited items to the academic side, and once those confiscated items were transferred to the storage facility, retrieving them would be nearly impossible.

The disciplinary committee too would tighten their defenses the more time they had to prepare.

That was why acting quickly was ideal. However, with all the preparations required on this side, tonight would be too soon. Tomorrow night was set as the deadline.

It was a reasonable plan, and I nodded my head in agreement.

Then I asked the next crucial question.

“Where is the temporary storage this time?”

“Look at this. These guys are seriously unbelievable.”

Dang Gyu-young let out a dry laugh as she showed me a few photos.

They were images captured from the surveillance crystal balls installed around the downtown area.

In the photos, members of the disciplinary committee were loitering near a particular building.

The sight of that building struck me as very familiar.

It was the same place I had visited multiple times during the Black Market event.

The C-Exchange.

“Looks like they’re recycling it.”

“Yeah, it does.”

Each exchange had been equipped by our graduates with passage techniques and disruption formations.

While the passage techniques may have long lost their effect over time, there was a high chance the disruption formations remained intact.

The disciplinary committee appeared to be restoring those formations for their own security purposes.

Their intent was blatantly clear.

Setting the temporary storage at the old school building as before would have been much safer, yet they deliberately chose the downtown area.

And using the same tricks that the thieves’ club had employed at the Black Market?

“It’s a challenge.”

“They’re basically daring us to try.”

A formal rematch challenge.

If you looked purely in terms of pure results, this year’s Black Market was a resounding victory for the thieves club.

Things had been fairly balanced in the back-and-forth struggle until the Elder from the Blood Sect appeared, forcing the entire disciplinary committee to mobilize to contain the situation.

After that, they could do nothing but watch as prohibited items were traded in abundance. It was a humiliating blow from the disciplinary committee’s perspective.

Naturally, they had spent time sharpening their knives in preparation, and when the moment was right, they launched a surprise ban wave, dealing a significant blow to the thieves club.

Now, it seemed they intended to lure us into their trap with this challenge, aiming to slap us with penalty points and disciplinary actions.

“This does seem pretty shady.”

“Mhmm, it’s completely shady.”

“Looks like a trap no matter how you look at it.”

“An obvious trap.”

We couldn’t help but exchange small, knowing laughs.

“You’re still going, though, aren’t you?”

“Of course. No question about it. You’re coming too, right?”

“Absolutely. No question.”

To make smoother progress on the main quest, I needed to power up as much as possible.

For the sake of world peace, sometimes breaking a few school rules was inevitable.

Dang Gyu-young leaned in and lowered her voice slightly.

“So, you know… that cube? Can you borrow it for me tomorrow?”

The Cube of Life was a guaranteed way to smuggle out any prohibited item placed inside it.

It was practically a game-breaking item for infiltrating the temporary storage.

But the owner of the cube was Park Nari.

Since Dang Gyu-young had no real connection with her, asking to borrow it would undoubtedly be awkward.

The first thing that would come to Park Nari’s mind would be: “Why does the president of the thieves club need a life-type item?”

I smiled and casually placed the cube on the table.

“This one?”

“…Wait, what? You already borrowed it?”

“Call it intuition.”

Then Dang Gyu-young leaned toward me and began roughly ruffling my hair and cheeks.

“Aww—our Kim Ho, how can you be so clever? You’re just too cute. Too cute, I swear.”

I could understand how Dang Gyu-young felt, but I still wanted to finish the conversation we were having.

So I subtly leaned my body to the opposite side and asked,

“But what about the rest? Just having the cube won’t be enough.”

Using the cube to store prohibited items was only possible after reaching the temporary storage.

If we got caught by the disciplinary committee before then, it would all be for nothing.

On top of that, there was no way to know what awaited inside C Exchange, which was occupied by the disciplinary committee members.

Whether their members would be lying in wait or if additional traps had been set beyond the formations, no one could tell.

Navigating that middle stage was up to the thieves’ club.

Dang Gyu-young countered with a question.

“For now, Kim Ho, you can break through the formations, right?”

“Most of them, yes.”

“Knew it. That makes things much more doable.”

Thanks to my stagnant water sense, I could pinpoint the weak points in most formations and break through them.

Even the disruption formation that a graduate had once installed at C Exchange had been easy enough for me to handle. Even if the disciplinary committee had reinforced it, the result would likely be the same.

Even so, there were still mountains of issues to deal with, but Dang Gyu-young grinned confidently.

“This time, we’ve got reinforcements. Go ahead and put that in for now.”

“Okay.”

When it came to the Cube of Life, the fewer people who knew about it, the better.

So I stored it in my inventory as Dang Gyu-young sent a message to someone.

Not long after, as if they had been waiting nearby, two third-year seniors appeared and joined us.

One of them was a familiar face. It was Hong Ye-hwa, the president of the Ruby Magic Tower.

The other was a man wearing glasses with an intellectual air about him.

Hong Ye-hwa greeted us with a faint smile and a wave, while the man in glasses glanced at me briefly before turning to Dang Gyu-young and asking,

“Is this the first-year you mentioned?”

“Yeah, that first-year.”

I wasn’t entirely sure what “that first-year” was supposed to mean.

Still, judging by the attitude of the two seniors, it seemed Dang Gyu-young had told them I would be playing a significant role.

I bowed my head first as a greeting.

“Hello, seniors. My name is Kim Ho.”

“Nice to meet you. I’m Jeong Chong-myeong.”

The man replied with a brief introduction of his own. Then Dang Gyu-young added an additional comment.

“He’s the president of the White Magic Club.”

The White Magic Club was a large organization rivaling the Swordsmanship Club in influence.

And now, its president has joined our operation to infiltrate the temporary storage.