If I had to pick keywords that came to mind when looking at Dang Gyu-young, they would be charisma, easygoingness, and a bit of mischievousness.

Dang Gyu-ri, on the other hand, looked like the mischievousness ratio had gone up a lot more.

Their face had become more youthful, and even the tall, slender height they had been growing into had shrunk a little.

Their hairstyle, as I had seen during the entrance ceremony, was a ponytail, and that too played a part in the changed atmosphere.

Shin Byeongcheol seemed to have gotten a similar impression, since he appeared relieved after deciding they were a different person.

Even so, his tone was still cautious.

“So, ah... what brings you here......?”

“We saw Senior Kim Ho and came to say hello.”

Dang Gyu-ri answered with another bright smile.

At that, Shin Byeongcheol pointed at me and asked again,

“And how do you know... this guy......?”

“I came to the main house following Big Sis Gyu-young. That’s when we met.”

“Oh! Oh, right! You said you were going during winter break, didn’t you?”

Shin Byeongcheol nodded frantically.

Then the freshmen introduced themselves to him.

“I’m Dang Gyu-ri, Senior.”

“I’m Dang Eunbi. Please take care of me.”

At that, Shin Byeongcheol stiffened again, as if his danger-sense had gone off once more.

The name of the former Thief Club manager matched by two whole syllables?

He asked again in a careful tone,

“So... if it’s not rude to ask... what exactly are you to Senior Dang Gyu-young......?”

“She’s my cousin.”

“Ahhh, um, right, cousin....... I see.”

Maybe because of the sudden tension and stress, he looked like his stomach was burning.

Still, he seemed to have decided that finishing introductions was the polite thing to do.

“I’m Shin Byeongcheol.”

“So you’re Senior Shin Byeongcheol. Big Sis has mentioned you before.”

“......What did they say?”

The unexpected praise almost made Shin Byeongcheol puff up a little.

But Dang Gyu-ri tilted their head as if searching their memory and continued,

“They said you’re really good when it comes to work.”

“.......”

A chill seemed to run through Shin Byeongcheol, because his body shivered.

Then, as if his brain started spinning at terrifying speed, he smacked his forehead.

“Man, look at me. I was just on my way to take care of some club business! I’d like to talk with you juniors and even buy you coffee, but I guess it’ll have to be next time.”

“Yes, Senior.”

Then he rummaged through his clothes and handed each of them a business card.

The same business card he had given me the first time we met on the train.

[Dragonslayer Academy Errand Service!]

“If you ever need anything, contact me anytime, comfortably. If you say my name, the discount comes in hard.”

“Thank you, Senior.”

“Ah, it’s nothing. Anyway, have a good time with that guy, and I’m off!”

After saying that much, Shin Byeongcheol fled the scene.

Watching his retreating back, we said,

“Doesn’t look like he noticed, but his danger-detection ability really is good.”

“Seriously, Senior.”

“Why are you still speaking formally?”

“You’re a senior, so of course I should!”

“Gyu-ri, don’t you think it’s about time you stopped?”

“Pfft-hahaha.”

Dang Gyu-ri giggled like they were having the time of their life.

Then they pointed at their own face and asked,

“What do you think?”

“You got cuter.”

“Look at that answer coming out instantly. You’re a total natural.”

“It’s just what I was already thinking. I’m being honest.”

“......Mm, good. Keep doing that from now on.”

Dang Gyu-ri nodded in satisfaction.

This time, I threw out a question.

“So how is it? Being newly enrolled.”

“It’s just normal. It’s only the first day.”

“That’s true too. How did the placement test go?”

“A normal 600 points.”

In the first-year placement test, you fought three PvP matches and got 300 points per win.

Which meant, if they won two of them—

“Looks like you let one match go.”

“Yeah. A promising talent came out as my opponent.”

Han Gyeoul, who had been an officer of the Sapphire Mage Tower and the White Magic Club.

Apparently her younger sister, Han Gaeul, had enrolled this year as a rising prospect.

Their skill was impressive enough that they were getting even more spotlight than Hong Yeonhwa had last year.

Dang Gyu-ri continued,

“I needed to adjust my score anyway, so the timing was perfect.”

“Because you can’t stand out too much.”

The reason the academy had secretly re-enrolled Dang Gyu-young and some of the guards was to protect the freshmen.

The more attention they drew, the greater the chance their identity would be exposed, so there was ★ 𝐍𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 ★ a need to keep a low profile whenever possible.

Especially since the higher ranks had their replays sold often, which made them something to avoid.

Then I looked at Dang Eunbi.

Unlike Gyu-ri Gyu-ri, she was just an ordinary student, so there was no need for her to hide her ability.

Receiving my look, she answered briefly,

“I got 900.”

“As expected.”

From the way she handled memorization and poison, I had figured that even if she wasn’t at the level of a premier prodigy, she would comfortably land near the top.

Looks like that prediction had been right.

Since we were already on the subject of the placement test, I asked the two of them another question.

“Did you happen to notice anyone suspicious? Like someone who felt like they were deliberately hiding their strength, the way Big Sis is.”

“......Not really. There wasn’t anyone especially suspicious. Why?”

“Because Seo Ye-in seemed like she saw something.”

I briefly explained what had happened during the entrance ceremony.

That Seo Ye-in had reacted strangely, like she had discovered something among the freshmen.

At that, Dang Gyu-ri and Dang Eunbi exchanged looks.

“Eunbi, you didn’t notice anything either, right?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Did both of us miss it? Or was the other side just hiding well?”

Then I added one more thing.

“She could also have just seen wrong. Just in case, I already sent a message to the principal.”

“This isn’t something to brush off lightly. We’ll look into it too.”

“Don’t dig too deep.”

“We’ll be careful.”

If someone had infiltrated Dragonslayer Academy with some purpose in mind, then they had to be a skilled figure in their own right.

Even if I only estimated them at A-rank, Dang Gyu-young alone would still have a rough time, and the closer they got to S-rank, the lower the odds of winning would drop.

If there was going to be a fight, then it was right to fight only after making full preparations.

That meant I had delivered both a warning and a request to the two of them.

Dang Gyu-ri asked,

“So what are you doing now?”

“I was just about to take a lap around. Want to come with me?”

“Yeah, let’s.”

Dang Eunbi, however, seemed to have other plans.

“I’m going to go check out the Alchemy Club.”

“Just looking around? Or joining?”

“Probably....... joining.”

Her main field originally was making medicine and poison.

But during winter break, unexpectedly, she ended up completing Special Energy Potion and Dang Eunbi Potion No. 2.

When those had been tested on a sloth, the results had included things like chatty sloth and possessive sloth.

It looked like that had become the trigger that opened her eyes to alchemy.

What is she planning to make this time?

And who was she planning to use it on?

For some reason, I had a feeling Seo Ye-in would end up as the sacrifice again.

Or maybe the people around me would.

This should be very entertaining.

As long as it wasn’t me, wasn’t that what mattered?

So I didn’t bother trying to stop Dang Eunbi. Instead, I kindly even pointed out the direction for her.

While pointing at one of the buildings, I said,

“Alchemy should be over there. Second floor.”

“I’ll go take a look. Thank you.”

After sending Dang Eunbi off like that, I started walking together with Dang Gyu-ri.

“You’re not going to the Thief Club, right?”

“No. If I go and get exposed for no reason, it’s just a loss. Dabin is pretty sharp too. And formal speech to those idiots? Absolutely not.”

Dang Gyu-ri frowned.

Well, looking at the members of the Thief Club, the men definitely outnumbered the women.

And like thieves ought to be, most of them were prankster types.

When they had been the manager, they controlled them with merciless beatings, but now they couldn’t do that, so if they went at all, it was obvious it would just end in stress.

“But you use formal speech with me just fine.”

“That’s because you’re a senior~”

Dang Gyu-ri smiled sweetly and looped an arm through mine.

*****

Before long, the place we headed to was the Magic Engineering Workshop.

We were going to meet Bong Jaeseok’s younger sister.

Even though it was the first day of the semester, Workshop No. 1 was unbelievably busy.

Club members were running around in a rush, and blue light kept flashing without pause.

In the middle of that, a third-year club member passing by stopped short, apparently recognizing me.

I bowed first and greeted them.

“Hello.”

“Oh! Been a while. What brings you here?”

“I came to meet Senior Bong Jaeseok’s younger sibling.”

“Ah, that kid? Hang on a second.”

The senior headed deeper into the workshop at a quick pace.

Soon enough, they came back out with a first-year girl.

At a glance, she looked exactly like the kind of person who made you think engineering goblin, and true to being Bong Jaeseok’s younger sister, her face practically had I’m busy written across it.

Since she had come out in the middle of whatever she’d been working on, there was a trace of irritation too.

The first thing she said went straight to the point.

“I heard you know how to make the cube?”

“Before that, did you finish the blueprint?”

That would determine whether there was anything I could show or teach in the first place.

The last time I checked, it had been about eighty percent complete, and Bong Jaeseok had bragged confidently that it would absolutely be finished by the time the new semester started.

And sure enough, Bong’s younger sister casually opened her inventory and said,

“Of course I finished it.”

Then she took out a cube the size of a soccer ball.

If you looked closely, you could tell it was made up of countless tiny cubes, and that was the 10x10x10 blueprint.

Now I need to teach her how to make it.

The ultimate goal of the Bong siblings and the Magic Engineering Club was the mass production of the S-rank [Cube of Life].

Blueprints would keep coming in from now on, and there was no way I could afford to make time every single time that happened.

And I couldn’t just leave [Magic Engineering] taking up a copy slot forever.

So the agreement I’d made with Bong Jaeseok was that I would pass on the manufacturing method, and in return receive a certain share.

I made a proposal to Bong’s younger sister.

“Let’s go somewhere quiet first.”

“Yes.”

So the place we headed to was Workshop No. 4.

It had been almost completely empty last year, and it was the same this year, which made it the perfect place for private tutoring.

After sitting down across a table from each other, I handed the blueprint back to her.

“Let’s see how you do it.”

“I think it starts here...... from this part.”

Soon, Bong’s younger sister’s hand turned blue.

That meant [Magic Engineering] was manifesting.

In that state, she felt around one face of the blueprint as if searching for something, then pressed down firmly.

CLICK!

On the opposite face, cubes popped outward.

It’s very different from an ordinary cube puzzle.

If it had been just a matter of matching the outside surfaces, anyone could’ve solved it, but a Magic Engineering blueprint was three-dimensional.

You had to account for the arrangement and orientation of the internal cubes too.

And with a 10x10x10, that meant one thousand of them.

CLICK, CLICK-CLICK,

Maybe because of that, Bong’s younger sister pulled her hands back not long after starting.

She looked a little discouraged.

“......I don’t really know what comes after this.”

This was basically the same as teaching her from the beginning.

Considering the difficulty, this outcome had been obvious from the start, but even so, the reason I made her try first was—

Because I need to take the skill.

[‘Copy-Skill’ will be used.]

[The target’s skill ‘Magic Engineering(A)’ is registered in the slot.]

▷Copy-Skill [4/4]

[Featherstep(A+)]

Ice Wall(B)

Magic Engineering(A)

(Empty)

The minimum requirement to make changes to a 10x10x10 blueprint was [Magic Engineering] at A-rank or higher.

The senior from Workshop No. 4, who had been my copy target last year, had only been B-rank, so I had linked it with [Amplification].

And I had been planning to do something similar this time too, but—

I didn’t expect a freshman to be A-rank.

Maybe not in other skills or traits, but [Core] and [Magic Engineering] were both A-rank.

Bong Jaeseok had once evaluated her as “a genius who’s not even in the same universe as someone like me,” and now I could see why.

It’s a shame she’s in the production line.

If she’d been in combat, Seo Ye-in would’ve gotten a genius rival.

Anyway, I took the blueprint in hand and asked,

“The crystal orb?”

“It’s ready.”

And after confirming that Bong’s younger sister had started recording, I manifested [Magic Engineering].

With both hands glowing blue, I moved rapidly across the cube.

SHRRRRRRAK—!

Dozens, hundreds of tiny cubes slid inward, slid outward, and rotated over and over.

Then at one point, my hands came to a sudden stop.

“That’s enough for today. Review it while watching the crystal orb.”

If I pushed the lesson too far all at once, it might be too much for her to keep up with.

Better to go little by little and adjust the pace along the way.

“......!”

Meanwhile, Bong’s younger sister had gone a little blank, staring back and forth between the cube and the crystal orb.

Then, before long, that blank face filled with admiration and respect, and unlike before, she bowed politely at the waist.

“Thank you for teaching me, Senior.”

“Right. Work hard.”

“I’m Bong Jaeyeong. And your name is......?”

“Kim Ho.”

Only now were we exchanging names.