I looked at Min-Soo, and for the first ti, I felt a stab of annoyance.
"The Ivory Circle? Don’t you think you’re exaggerating a little?" I said, my voice sharper than I intended. "She was just being nice. She saw I was struggling and gave so advice."
Min-Soo shook his head, his expression still grave. "Ji-Hoon, kindness is a luxury only the strongest can afford. When soone like her smiles at you, you have to ask yourself what that smile costs her, and what it’s going to cost you."
His caution, which had seed so useful at first, was starting to sound like paranoia.
"Or maybe you’re just jealous," I let slip.
The word ca out before I could stop it. Min-Soo’s face froze. His analytical expression vanished, replaced by one of hurt surprise.
He was silent for a long mont. The noise of the cafeteria seed far away.
Finally, he sighed and pushed his tray away. His appetite was gone.
"Alright," he said in a neutral voice, his impassive mask back in place. "You’re right. I’m probably seeing conspiracies everywhere. It’s my power, after all. To analyze. Sotis, I analyze too much."
He stood up. "Do what you have to do. I’ll keep giving you the information I find. That’s our agreent. But I won’t say any more about this."
He left without another word, leaving alone at the table with my half-eaten al.
I felt a little guilty. But another part of , the part that had received a bit of kindness for the first ti in ages, refused to believe there was anything wrong behind Yoo-Na’s smile.
Min-Soo was smart. But he didn’t understand everything. He couldn’t understand.
I sat there, looking at the empty seat across from . The cafeteria was still noisy, but around my table, there was a great silence.
Jealous. The word had slipped out, but now that I thought about it, maybe it wasn’t so far from the truth.
Min-Soo saw the world through his D-rank glasses. To him, everything from the top was a threat. Everything was a conspiracy. He couldn’t imagine that soone like Yoo-Na could be simply... nice.
What did I have to offer, anyway? A weird power and a pathetic ranking. She had nothing to gain by manipulating . It was ridiculous. Min-Soo was my ally, but he was wrong on this one.
I finished my al chanically. My decision was made. I couldn’t rely on classes to progress fast enough. I had to find my own way. The Pit.
I stood up to leave when my terminal buzzed. It wasn’t Min-Soo. It was a ssage from a contact I’d only had since yesterday. Yoo-Na.
The ssage was short.
"I heard combat class was tough again today. Don’t get discouraged. I saw your first duel, you have sothing the others don’t. Keep fighting."
I reread the ssage several tis. A small smile appeared on my face.
Min-Soo was wrong. I was sure of it now.
Yoo-Na’s ssage changed sothing in . It was a small thing, a few words on a screen. But it was the first ti soone of a higher rank had shown anything other than contempt or pity.
It was recognition.
Min-Soo saw as a problem to be solved, an anomaly to be analyzed. Yoo-Na, on the other hand, saw as a fighter.
Later that afternoon, we had an Artifact Theory class together. I sat in my usual spot. Min-Soo arrived and sat next to , just like every day.
But he didn’t speak to .
He took out his notes and focused on the lecture. He didn’t comnt on the professor’s strategy, he didn’t whisper an interesting statistic to . There was a cold silence between us.
Our agreent still stood, but the fragile friendship that was beginning to form was dead. I had killed it.
Part of regretted my words. But the other part, the stubborn part that had just received a complint from one of the most powerful people in the school, told I was right.
Min-Soo couldn’t understand. He was too cautious, too afraid of the system.
, I was going to break it.
That evening, I didn’t open my textbooks. I opened the forum again. I reread the post about the Pit. There was a ti and a place.
Midnight. Sublevel 7.
It was an open invitation to anyone stupid enough or desperate enough to go.
I was both.
The day was long. The tension with Min-Soo was palpable. He passed notes during classes—analyses of the weaknesses of the monsters we were studying, diagrams of the professors’ tactics—but he didn’t say a word. It had beco purely professional.
He was honoring our agreent. But the comrade had disappeared, replaced by a simple information provider.
In the evening, I went to combat class. I lost. Again. But this ti, it was different. Yoo-Na’s ssage was spinning in my head. "You have sothing the others don’t."
I didn’t lower my head as I left the arena. I looked my opponent in the eye. I was no longer a punching bag. I was a problem that hadn’t found its solution yet.
After class, I received another ssage.
Yoo-Na: "I saw your fight. You lasted 10 seconds longer than yesterday. That’s progress. Keep going."
Another small encouragent. It was like water to a dying man. It didn’t nourish , but it gave the strength to go on.
I reread the first ssage I had sent to Min-Soo, when I called him jealous. The guilt returned, but it was weaker this ti.
Maybe he was jealous. Jealous that soone like Yoo-Na noticed , the F-rank. Jealous that I was willing to take risks he would never dare to take.
He wanted to play it safe, to climb the ranks slowly, by exploiting the system’s loopholes.
, I was going to dive headfirst into the Pit.
One of us was wrong. And I was determined it wasn’t going to be .
At 11:30 p.m., I left my room. The Gamma building was silent as a tomb.
I didn’t tell Min-Soo where I was going. Our relationship had beco too fragile for that. He probably would have given a list of all the reasons it was a bad idea, complete with percentages of risk for serious injury.
I didn’t need his calculations. I needed results.
Walking through the dark corridors, I felt more and more certain of my decision. Min-Soo was my first ally, but he was an anchor. He kept in caution, in the world of D-ranks who are afraid of their own shadows.
Yoo-Na, on the other hand, was different. She was pushing upward. She saw a potential that even I was just beginning to glimpse.
My words to Min-Soo had been harsh. I had been unfair. But maybe it was necessary. To cut the cord. To stop relying on his brain and start trusting my own instincts.
Jealousy was a complicated emotion. Maybe I had misinterpreted it. Maybe it wasn’t jealousy of , but fear for . A fear he could only express through caution and analysis.
But it didn’t matter anymore.
Tonight, I wasn’t his partner. I wasn’t the combat class’s punching bag.
Tonight, I was just Kang Ji-Hoon, the boy with a strange dagger, descending into the bowels of the academy to face monsters.
Alone.
And for the first ti, that idea didn’t scare . It freed .
Sublevel 7 wasn’t on the official academy maps. You had to take a series of service stairs, each one narrower and darker than the last. The destination was a large steel door with no handle. It was just ajar enough for one person to slip through.
The sound hit before I even entered. A dull thud, the sound of fists hitting flesh. Grunts. And the low murmur of a crowd.
I slipped inside.
The heat and the sll of sweat caught in my throat. It was a huge concrete room, lit by work lights placed on the floor, creating long, distorted shadows.
About fifty students were gathered in a circle. Their faces were nothing like the ones in class. They were hard, greedy, calculating.
In the center of the circle, two boys were fighting.
There was no referee. No rules.
One of them, a giant with fists of stone, sent his opponent to the ground with a brutal blow. The boy stayed down, knocked out.
No one clapped. A few terminals beeped, signaling point transfers. The giant spat on the ground and left the circle, collecting his winnings from another student who seed to be organizing the bets.
So this was the Pit.
Brutal. Fast. rciless.
It was exactly what I needed.
I thought back to my defeat against Park, in the clean, well-lit arena of the gym. That was a ga. This was reality.
I clenched my fist. My dagger wasn’t visible yet, but I could feel its presence, cold and calm, waiting.
I wasn’t in the schoolyard anymore. I had descended into the gladiators’ arena.
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