I looked at Min-Soo, and for the first time, 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 me some advice."
Min-Soo shook his head, his expression still grave. "Ji-Hoon, kindness is a luxury only the strongest can afford. When someone 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 seemed so useful at first, was starting to sound like paranoia.
"Or maybe you're just jealous," I let slip.
The word came 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 moment. The noise of the cafeteria seemed 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. Sometimes, 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 agreement. But I won't say any more about this."
He left without another word, leaving me alone at the table with my half-eaten meal.
I felt a little guilty. But another part of me, the part that had received a bit of kindness for the first time 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 me. 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 someone 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 me. It was ridiculous. Min-Soo was my ally, but he was wrong on this one.
I finished my meal mechanically. 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 message from a contact I'd only had since yesterday. Yoo-Na.
The message was short.
"I heard combat class was tough again today. Don't get discouraged. I saw your first duel, you have something the others don't. Keep fighting."
I reread the message several times. A small smile appeared on my face.
Min-Soo was wrong. I was sure of it now.
Yoo-Na's message changed something in me. It was a small thing, a few words on a screen. But it was the first time someone of a higher rank had shown me anything other than contempt or pity.
It was recognition.
Min-Soo saw me as a problem to be solved, an anomaly to be analyzed. Yoo-Na, on the other hand, saw me 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 me, just like every day.
But he didn't speak to me.
He took out his notes and focused on the lecture. He didn't comment on the professor's strategy, he didn't whisper an interesting statistic to me. There was a cold silence between us.
Our agreement still stood, but the fragile friendship that was beginning to form was dead. I had killed it.
Part of me regretted my words. But the other part, the stubborn part that had just received a compliment from one of the most powerful people in the school, told me I was right.
Min-Soo couldn't understand. He was too cautious, too afraid of the system.
Me, 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 time 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 me 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 become purely professional.
He was honoring our agreement. But the comrade had disappeared, replaced by a simple information provider.
In the evening, I went to combat class. I lost. Again. But this time, it was different. Yoo-Na's message was spinning in my head. "You have something 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 message.
Yoo-Na: "I saw your fight. You lasted 10 seconds longer than yesterday. That's progress. Keep going."
Another small encouragement. It was like water to a dying man. It didn't nourish me, but it gave me the strength to go on.
I reread the first message I had sent to Min-Soo, when I called him jealous. The guilt returned, but it was weaker this time.
Maybe he was jealous. Jealous that someone like Yoo-Na noticed me, 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.
Me, I was going to dive headfirst into the Pit.
One of us was wrong. And I was determined it wasn't going to be me.
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 become too fragile for that. He probably would have given me 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 me 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 me 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 me, but fear for me. 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 time, that idea didn't scare me. It freed me.
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 me 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 smell 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 seemed to be organizing the bets.
So this was the Pit.
Brutal. Fast. Merciless.
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 game. 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.