Even after returning to the spectator seats, Dang Gyu-young’s confidence was puffed up like the lab director’s chest.
Her stride was full of ease and composure.
The corners of her mouth twitched now and then into an uncontrollable smirk.
Seeing that, Go Hyeon-woo’s eyes gleamed with suspicion.
Her demeanor was hardly that of someone who’d just been defeated in a match. Clearly, something else had happened.
But he said nothing and simply made room beside him for her.
“Senior.”
“Hey, Hyeon-woo. Thanks.”
Seo Ye-in had also picked up on the strange vibe.
“……?”She stared at me for a few seconds, looked at Dang Gyu-young, then looked back at me again, tilting her head and glancing between us.
It also felt like her gaze was lingering around my cheek.
Then she asked,
“What were you two doing?”
Before I could answer, Dang Gyu-young cut in with a meaningful smile.
“Got a consolation prize.”
“……!”
Seo Ye-in’s gray pupils widened slightly.
She began tugging at my sleeve.
“I want a consolation prize too.”
“You forfeited. You’re not eligible for one.”
“That can’t be…”
If she had at least attempted the round of 16, I might’ve considered it.
But she didn’t, right?
The consolation prize window is officially closed…
Meanwhile, the next match was already underway on stage.
Two unfamiliar seniors were engaged in a neck-and-neck battle.
To me, their skills weren’t impressive, nor was I curious about their abilities or traits.
In short, it wasn’t worth watching.
So I turned to Dang Gyu-young and said,
“Let’s use this break for a feedback session.”
We needed to go over what had gone wrong in the match against Namgong Chang-cheon and figure out the next steps.
I held up a fake microphone to the corner of Dang Gyu-young’s mouth.
“Please share your thoughts first. Why do you think you lost?”
“Well…? Probably because my skills aren’t fully developed yet.”
“I’ll give that answer a 50 out of 100.”
Her answer wasn’t entirely wrong.
[Shadow Extraction], after all, was a skill she had only recently acquired, with just two slots available so far.
The registered undead were powerful enough that she’d made good use of them with just two slots, but the fact remained—they were still incomplete.
Same with [Solitary Stand].
It scaled her fighting power based on the number and rank of destroyed undead, but with only two at her disposal, it was inevitably lacking.
If she’d absorbed four or five instead, she wouldn’t have been overwhelmed even by Namgong Chang-cheon’s Emperor Sword Form.
Dang Gyu-young added,
“Namgong’s a second-year, so he had one more slot than me.”
“That’s not a valid excuse.”
“Why not?”
“Because the core slots are usually just four to five anyway.”
Take Namgong Chang-cheon, for example. He probably used slots for his longsword, defensive armor, internal energy technique, movement technique, and sword technique.
Those five would’ve been his main loadout, and the rest reserved for survival skills or finishers in emergencies.
Same goes for Dang Gyu-young and the other contestants.
“If you’re going to blame the number of slots, then at the very least, when it came down to the core five, you should’ve either won or held your ground.”
“…Now that you say it, that’s true.”
“Don’t you think there’s another reason?”
“Mhmm… maybe? What do you think it is?”
I tried to lead her to the answer, but she feigned ignorance.
I leaned in close and asked,
“Why are you pretending not to know when you clearly do?”
“…Saying it out loud would hurt my pride.”
“Then I’ll say it for you.”
“La la la~ I can’t hear you~ la la la~”
Dang Gyu-young turned her back to me and plugged her ears.
I pulled one hand away and force-fed the truth into her ear.
“It’s because. Your control. Was lacking.”
“Argh—!”
“Just look at the lab director.”
If she had taken better advantage of the flesh golem’s extreme regenerative abilities, she could’ve used a strategy where only the parts meant to be hit were inflated, then rapidly healed.
That way, his durability would’ve been off the charts.
In contrast, the only commands Dang Gyu-young could issue at the moment were simple ones like “inflate your whole body” or “charge the enemy”.
Against experts like Kang Dae-san or Namgong Chang-cheon, that just meant the head would get blown off in no time.
“The Shadow Lord was even worse. It was good that you kept him hidden at first, but his movements after that were way too predictable.”
All he did was charge in quickly with thrusts, so Namgong Chang-cheon adapted in just a few moves and countered.
“That’s why you didn’t get much value out of your two undead and ended up switching to [Solitary Stand].”
“Everything you said is true, but now my heart’s wounded.”
Dang Gyu-young crossed her arms and gave me a glare.
“I was being nice, and you go straight for the solar plexus like that?”
“Medicine that’s good for the body tastes bitter, you know.”
“Well, I hate bitter stuff, so be nice to me instead.”
“You’re the one who asked me to be strict before.”
“That was then.”
“Pick one. Just one. Which is it?”
Dang Gyu-young hesitated for a moment, then thought it over.
“If I really have to choose…? I guess I prefer the strict approach?”
“Excellent. Then let’s go back to this. Your control is the issue.”
“Hey now, to be fair, I’ve got my own argument too. I only just learned this stuff, remember?”
It had only been two weeks since Dang Gyu-young changed her class to Shadow Master.
And she’d only gotten the Shadow Lord last night. So of course she was still clumsy with it.
Namgong Chang-cheon, on the other hand, had been honing the same sword techniques endlessly since childhood, so it was no surprise his mastery was on another level.
That’s why it ended up feeling like trying to crack a boulder with an egg.
Understanding that, I gave a nod and said,
“I get it. That’s why we need to work on what’s lacking moving forward.”
“Got it!”
“For now, your stats are going to stagnate for a while.”
Slot increases don’t come easily, and the undead she already had were A-rank. There’s no reason to replace them.
“So instead, try to make the most of each undead’s unique strengths, and train to coordinate with them better.”
“Okay, I’ll give it a shot.”
With that conclusion reached, we turned our eyes back to the stage.
The match between Unknown Senior 1 and Unknown Senior 2 had ended, and now Unknown Senior 3 was squaring off against Song Cheon-gi.
– Rumbleeeee, Booom!
Thunder roared nonstop as lightning flashed across the arena.
The overall flow of the battle favored Song Cheon-gi, but his opponent wasn’t going down easily.
By the quarterfinals, the level of skill on display was impressive.
Because of that, unlike in the preliminaries where he’d relied on just two or three slots, Song Cheon-gi was now revealing more and more of his true strength.
I’ve identified six out of the eight so far.
From the start, drawing Song Cheon-gi into this tournament had been part of my plan.
By watching him fight, I could figure out what skills and traits he used, what tricks he had hidden, what habits he showed, and so on.
The information I gathered this way would prove extremely useful later on.
For example—
Like in a duel, perhaps.
***
Once the quarterfinal match wrapped up, I followed Dang Gyu-young somewhere.
As we walked, I asked her a question.
“Where are we headed?”
“The truth is, my uncle’s here.”
She’d mentioned that her ties with the main family weren’t exactly great, but it seemed her uncle had still come to watch the tournament.
Dang Gyu-young scratched her cheek a little awkwardly and added,
“I was actually going to introduce you sooner, but… I kind of bragged a lot, you know? Told him to wait and see how far I’d go.”
“So that’s why you’ve been putting it off until now.”
“Mhmm. But now that it’s over, I’ve got to introduce you.”
When we arrived at the meeting spot, a middle-aged man dressed in dark green robes was standing there.
Dang Gyu-young gave a small bow and spoke first.
“We’re here, Uncle.”
“Yes, Gyu-young. You’ve worked hard today.”
The middle-aged man’s gaze soon turned toward me, and I gave a polite bow as I introduced myself.
“Hello, my name is Kim Ho.”
“So you’re Kim Ho. I’ve heard a lot about you. I’m Dang Mun-hyeong.”
Since the Dang family mainly dealt in poison and hidden weapons, there were many fixed ideas about their people being twisted or sinister.
But Dang Mun-hyeong’s first impression was gentle and kind, and the way he treated us matched that as well.
He looked back at Dang Gyu-young and said,
“I figured you’d do well, especially with how confidently you spoke, but I’ll admit I was still surprised. I didn’t expect you to actually reach the quarterfinals.”
Just qualifying for the main tournament meant standing out from hundreds of future heroes.
Reaching the quarterfinals carried even greater meaning.
On top of that, in the round of sixteen she’d even taken down a third-year disciplinary committee member, proving she hadn’t advanced this far by sheer luck alone.
“I’d heard shadow magic was an uncertain field with little promise, but it looks like my worries were groundless. With that level of skill, Gyu-young, I’m sure you’ll be able to carve out your own path going forward.”
“Thank you for believing in me.”
Pleased with the recognition, Dang Gyu-young’s face lit up brightly.
Dang Mun-hyeong gave me a look and continued.
“I also spoke briefly with So-so. She said your strength has grown rapidly since meeting this friend of yours.”
That was true enough, but there was no way I could mention things like graduating two hundred times or giving out hardship quests.
So, as I had with Hong Yeom-baek, I chose to play humble.
“I didn’t do much. We just worked through things together.”
“Even so, it’s clear you’ve had an influence. I just passed the news along to my elder brother, and he was overjoyed. He even asked that you visit the main clan if the opportunity arises.”
Before I could answer, Dang Gyu-young quickly spoke up on my behalf.
“I was planning to visit during winter break, together with him.”
“That’s wonderful news.”
Dang Mun-hyeong looked genuinely delighted.
Then Dang Gyu-young leaned close to my ear and whispered,
“With him that happy, there’s no way we can skip out on visiting the main clan, right?”
“Unless I have other plans.”
“Cancel them if you do. Please? Just this once won’t hurt.”
“Well, I don’t really have anything lined up at the moment.”
“Great. Then keep it that way from here on out.”
I asked,
“But do you really need to drag me along for this?”
“I told you before, didn’t I? It’s boring going by myself.”
“Still… it really feels like there’s another reason.”
I gave her a probing look, and Dang Gyu-young avoided my eyes as she replied,
“Well, partly to introduce you to the elders and to get their permission too.”
“Permission for what?”
“Oh, just… this and that.”
“And what exactly does ‘this and that’ mean?”
“Uh—ah! I’m starving! Let’s go eat.”
Dang Gyu-young suddenly quickened her pace and said,
“You must be hungry too, Uncle. I know a really good place. Let’s go.”
“Let’s do that.”