Chapter 50

The greatest chaebol in South Korea. The Shinsung group.

EunAh was the sole, beloved granddaughter of the Shinsung group’s president.

The elegant marble floor and exquisite view in her living room were only a portion of the enormous wealth she enjoyed. Such was nothing more to the official heir to the chaebol than daily life.

Sip.

EunAh wet her lips with a cup of black tea that was worth more than its weight in gold; its overwhelmingly aromatic, mellow scent did nothing to affect her, however.

At that moment, the scent and flavor of the tea were of no importance to her.

‘…Why.’

EunAh impatiently checked her Pocket’s message inbox to see if YuSung had contacted her, but he had not.

‘Why hasn’t he contacted me…?’

She bit her lip in trepidation, her face showing her displeasure. A woman in formal attire, who had been watching her the entire time, finally made her move to speak up.

“Miss… Did something happen?”

Lee SuHyun.

An elite among elites hired to be the secretary of a guild leader at age 26, but EunAh gave her a distrustful look as she responded to her.

“Nothing. Nothing happened. That’s the problem.”

SuHyun gave the girl a pleasant smile in response to her coarse tone. Of course, her inner thoughts were quite different than what she was showing on the outside.

‘I must be out of my mind. Stooping down to the standards of a little kid like this? Screw the high pay. I shouldn’t have taken this job!’

Right when SuHyun was regretting her decision to be EunAh’s aide, the girl in question began to speak up in a faint voice.

“…That, uh, normally, if something big happens, shouldn’t the other person text you?”

SuHyun’s interest was piqued as she saw EunAh wear a timid countenance for the first time since she had taken the job.

“Are you waiting for someone to contact you, Miss?”

“No, it’s not like… I’m waiting for him, or anything…”

She avoided the older woman’s gaze and began to make up excuses for her attitude.

“I owe him a favor, stuff like that!”

SuHyun immediately deduced who the person in question was from EunAh’s words.

‘…Is she talking about that hunter who solved the hospital incident?’

His name was Shin YuSung or something.

He was EunAh’s fellow Gaon Academy student who had captured the Rebellion member and had saved both Kim EunAh and Kim JunHyuk. All the pieces were falling together; SuHyun was having a hard time holding in her laughter.

‘…Well, well, well. Look at this! A headstrong girl like her is being all anxious. She has a cute side to her, after all.’

EunAh’s face scrunched up as SuHyun looked at her with a strange expression on her face.

“Why are you grinning at me like that?“ she asked, voice cold.

“Oh! I apologize. It’s nothing, just that. If he doesn’t contact you first, then you could do so instead, Miss…”

EunAh placed her index finger to her lips and sincerely considered the woman’s advice.

“Me, contact him first…”

In all of her life up to that point, EunAh had never once contacted someone else first—as someone who always had the upper hand in a relationship in terms of wealth and power, that could be called a given.

EunAh took a moment to think about it. She muttered to herself with a serious expression on her face.

“Now that I think about it… you’re right. This is all for the sake of paying him back, after all…”

Suhyun found herself becoming more and more entertained by the situation as EunAh began agreeing with her.

“So the person in question is Shin Yusung, yes?”

“Wh-what if it is?!” was EunAh’s harsh response.

But SuHyun was quite experienced in such matters at her 26 years of age. It was child’s play for her to deal with EunAh.

“Oh, nothing. I just thought I could be of help to you, Miss… I have quite a bit more expertise in this area than one would expect.”

“In what?”

“…Dealing with people,” replied SuHyun, giving the younger girl a subtle smile to show her carefree manner.

EunAh’s interest was officially piqued. She let SuHyun sit next to her on the sofa.

“That so? Okay, then. Come over here.”

And so the two women ended up sitting side by side. EunAh showed SuHyun the message that she had written up.

[KimSilverA: Hey, come to the rooftop on Monday.]

TL/N: ‘Eun’ can be read as ‘silver’ in Korean.

SuHyun was at a loss for words at what she had just read.

“M-miss? This is a bit… it reads like a challenge letter, don’t you think so? Try writing it so that it’s easier for him to infer what the meeting is about!”

EunAh fretted a bit more over the message, heeding SuHyun’s advice. She edited the message.

[KimSilverA: Come to the rooftop on Monday. Let’s talk. I have something to say to you.]

It was a marginal improvement over the first one.

“Okay! And Miss, if you just make the contents a bit softer around the edges…!”

SuHyun was wholly invested in helping EunAh.

“More soft? Isn’t that… I mean, wouldn’t that make it too awkward, though?”

SuHyun furiously shook her head at the younger girl’s question. EunAh eventually changed the message once again.

[KimSilverA: Monday, on the rooftop. I want to talk with you. There’s something I need to say.]

An even greater improvement.

But EunAh wasn’t a fan of what she had just written.

“Ugh, but isn’t this sort of… y’know, embarrassing?”

“No, this is fine.”

SuHyun ignored her concerns and sent the message.

Ring!

Now, there was no going back.

EunAh and SuHyun stared at each other. Ten seconds passed by. They couldn’t breathe.

Ring!

EunAh’s Pocket rang once again.

[Shin YuSung: Okay.]

The response was a clear agreement.

“See!”

SuHyun exclaimed, so excited about the message that it almost felt like she was the one receiving it.

EunAh glanced at SuHyun.

“…Whoa,” she said, impressed.

Whatever process they had taken to get there, a meeting time and place had finally been established for EunAh and YuSung.

* * *

* * *

A bright, sunny day…

Shin YuSung and his friends were out on a trip to Academy City. Their destination was a brook in the area where the calm sound of flowing water and the earthy scent of plants could wash over them.

Amy was reading articles on the Internet.

“Party Leader-nim, you really are… a god!” she shouted.

“I-is that so?” YuSung smiled bashfully as he asked the question.

SiWoo nodded fervently.

“Really! I couldn’t believe it, even when I read the article! To think you took down a villain… and not just any villain, but a member of the Rebellion!”

It couldn’t be denied that the school had been shaken up by the news of YuSung’s prowess. Even S Class, as elitist as they were, had to acknowledge that the boy had performed quite a feat. Amy moved next to YuSung to give him her analysis of the situation.

“Looking at public opinion on the Internet, I’d say we’re almost at 50-50 between you two! Adela’s quite a tough opponent since she’s so famous, but the villain capture is pulling its weight!”

Amy projected her screen onto a hologram. From what could be seen, the response to the news was mostly positive,

[PhytoncideAndPistachio: FR? Sick]

[DDZ: 😱 Gaon did us a solid]

[Enre: This student’s gonna show up in the Representative Selections, right? I already wanna cheer for him.]

[CbeforeDafterB: to the fist king’s disciple, a rebellion villain should be a piece of cake!!]

Amy straightened her back.

“As an expert…“ she began confidently, “I’ll say you’re all good on votes! All that’s left is your showing at the Representative Selection!”

“Thanks, Amy.”

“Hmhm, I haven’t actually done anything yet, though~? Hehe, still, when I see what you accomplished yesterday, I can’t help but think that backing you was the right choice…”

Amy slyly wriggled her eyebrows, mouth set in a grin. YuSung nodded his head.

“It was… Hm, I’m still worried, though. I don’t know what sort of events are going to take place at the selection.”

Amy wagged her finger back and forth.

“Uh oh, looks like someone doesn’t believe in me! Of course, you’ll get to know what they are! I was going to organize them all~ up and send ‘em to you later!”

“…Huh? How do you know that?” SiWoo shot back. He was stunned by her shocking declaration.

Amy smiled proudly. “I have my ways~ Fufufu!”

‘Amy sure is proficient in this area,’ YuSung thought to himself,

He smiled as well.

Her data was well-organized, and she gave good rundowns of it.

She had even managed to snag key information. Her abilities were past the realm of skillful—they were second to none.

‘I’m really glad I brought her into my party.’

Sumire glanced towards YuSung while he was acknowledging Amy’s skills.

“…S-still, I’m really glad you weren’t hurt anywhere.”

It seemed like she was rather worried about YuSung’s extracurricular activities on the inside. She was happier than anyone else when news of his safe return from his role had reached her.

The reason Sumire had struggled since dawn to pack him a lunch was because she wanted to feed YuSung something delicious after he had gone through so much.

‘I have confidence… in… in my cooking, at least! Since I prepared a lot for this!’’

Sumire reassured herself, a rarely-seen determined look on her face. She prepared both Japanese and Korean cuisine for YuSung, including his favorite karaage.

TL/N: Karaage is Japanese fried chicken. It’s boneless and covered in batter.

All that was left was for YuSung to enjoy the meal.

Sumire was waiting for the right moment to unveil her lunch, but while she was dithering, SiWoo suddenly clapped his hands.

“Oh, right! Let me go and get the food I ordered! It’s close by.”

Sumire’s eyes widened at the sudden development.

SiWoo soon came back, both arms loaded with delivery food.

“Ta-dah! Fried chicken is the best for a picnic! It’s a new menu item and super popular right now. Some kids actually got demerits for trying to secretly order this chicken to their dorm rooms. They couldn’t forget the taste!”

The smell of freshly-fried chicken was overpowering.

YuSung had never seen delivery fried chicken before. His interest was piqued.

“…Is this that delicious?”

He was looking at the chicken with a serious expression on his face.

Sumire hurriedly took out her lunchbox.

“I-I also! Prepared…”

“Whoaa! What’s this!? Did you make this all by yourself!?”

But the one who showed a reaction to her food was Amy.

YuSung’s gaze was still fixed on the delivery food.

“The boneless chicken is really good. YuSung-ah, try one. Dip generously into this sauce and…”

SiWoo fed YuSung a piece of boneless chicken with his chopsticks.

Sumire was getting more and more upset.

“Uu, uuu…”

However, her boxed lunch was going up against delivery fried chicken.

A product of the culmination of techniques developed by a major corporation in service of capitalism. A domination of taste. YuSung, who wasn’t used to eating foods with strong flavors, was captivated by the fried chicken in one bite.

“…This is delicious.”

“Right? I bet you never tasted anything like this on the Martial Spirits’ Mountain. It’s the bomb.”

SiWoo took out even more delivery foods, including pizza. YuSung didn’t even have the time to glance in Sumire’s direction.

“…I-I also made karaage…” she muttered, trying to appeal to the boy.

“Whoa, handmade karaage!! Me, me, me!”

But again, the one who paid attention was Amy.

YuSung was already completely taken in by the explosion of new flavors happening in his mouth.

“This is really… really delicious.”

“Right, right? Kyahaha, I knew you’d like it!”

SiWoo, caught up in the excitement, kept giving YuSung more food. Sumire’s shoulders drooped further down as he did so.

A gloomy aura surrounded her. Discouraged, Sumire grabbed a piece of the chicken that YuSung had praised.

The freshly-fried chicken that SiWoo had brought over…

The fried chicken that she had made…

Sumire boldly placed the piece of chicken in her mouth to figure out just what the difference between the two was.

‘Uu, uuu…’

And with tear-filled eyes, she realized the truth.

Even if both foods were fried chicken, the delivery chicken had all sorts of provocative flavors incorporated into it. It was a completely different food from Sumire’s handmade karaage—she couldn’t win against it from the start.

Sumire began mumbling to herself, defeated. “Uu… I-I’ll never be able to beat something like this…”

“Wow! As I thought! This karaage is delicious! Japanese cuisine made by a Japanese person? Good stuff. Whoa, hold on, there’s miso soup, too? This is all amazing!”

Despite all of that, Amy still seemed to like Sumire’s food.

“Th-thank you… for your compliments.”

But Sumire’s appreciative smile had a tinge of sadness to it.