The Support Ate it All

Chapter 135: Preliminary Field Trip (3)

When dozens of students swarmed through the downtown area, it was impossible to avoid attracting attention.

Especially if those dozens of students were all members of the thieves club, it was practically advertising, “Hey, we’re suspicious people~ and we’re here to do suspicious things~!”

Therefore, we decided to split into smaller groups and meet at the destination and I ended up alone with Dang Gyu-young again.

Dang Gyu-young asked me as we walked side by side.

“After observing a bit, what do you think?”

“It’s interesting. I can see you’ve done a lot of preparation.”

The participation of five graduate mentors, the thorough security with double and triple safety measures, and so on.

Last year’s black market was said to be a failure, but it seemed they had sharpened their skills this year.

However, since the student disciplinary committee was no easy opponent, we would have to wait and see who would have the last laugh.

“Huhum, I’m glad I brought you along.”

Today’s main goal for showing me around was to pique my interest, and seeing that I was intrigued, she seemed to think that she had achieved her objective.

Then she subtly made a suggestion to me.

“Do you want to get involved?”

It was a question about whether I was interested in participating as a mercenary like I did during the temporary storage infiltration.

Of course, I was interested but I thought it would be better to hear everything before deciding, so I asked back.

“What do you need me to do?”

“You see that annoying-looking senior? Stick with him.”

From Dang Gyu-young’s perspective, the annoying-looking senior was definitely that shrewd-looking man among the graduates.

It meant that, like his role, I should stand by as a reserve power and help out in case of an unexpected situation.

“Well, isn’t that too much to ask of me? I can’t handle the second and third-year disciplinary committee members.”

“Who said anything about fighting? Just create some distraction and then back off. You’re good at that, right?”

“Alright then. What about the compensation?”

“You, you’re looking for prohibited items, right?”

“Of course.”

Most of the people selling items on the black market were graduates.

Therefore, far more items of much higher rank were up for sale compared to the temporary storage we infiltrated at the beginning of the semester.

There was no better opportunity to secure prohibited items.

Dang Gyu-young smiled as if she knew this would be the case.

“Tell me what you’re looking for. I’ll let you know as soon as it comes up for sale.”

The thieves’ club had the advantage of being able to clearly see the prohibited items being traded while connecting sellers and buyers.

Making use of this advantage, she promised to secure the items I was looking for and give me priority in transactions.

From my perspective, this was exactly what I wanted.

Due to the influence of the EX-rank quest, the characters had changed, and naturally, the items they possessed had also changed.

Therefore, it was impossible to predict what would appear in this black market.

It was a situation where a lot of legwork was needed, but if the thieves’ club could take on that effort, it would save me a great deal of time and effort.

And the type of prohibited items I was looking for was, just like in the temporary storage infiltration,

Elemental Penalty Items.

I had picked up two items at that time.

The [Inferno Fist] skill book and two [Heart of Thunder] gems, which were still lying quietly in a corner of my dormitory.

Using them would incur a massive elemental penalty, but in my case I could almost completely nullify it with my S-rank [Elemental Resistance].

It was essentially a choice that allowed me to take the benefits without the penalties. It was the best option for now.

So I handed Dang Gyu-young a piece of paper.

“This is what I’m looking for.”

“What, you already made a list?”

“I was going to ask for your help anyway, but I’m just grateful that you suggested it first.”

“…….”

Dang Gyu-young looked at me with suspicious eyes for a moment.

But then she lowered her eyes to the paper as if deciding to look at the list first.

And the more she read, the more her eyebrows furrowed.

“…… Why are there so many extreme stuff on here? Kim Ho, why do you always look for such dangerous things? Like the Inferno Fist.”

“It’s all for world peace.”

Destroying everything brings peace.

Dang Gyu-young looked resigned as if she didn’t know what to make of me anymore.

“Yeah, sure it is. Anyway, you’re going to use this wisely, right? Not causing any big problems?”

“You know me. I don’t do anything I can’t handle.”

“Alright, I got it. I’ll look into it.”

As we continued talking about the black market while walking, the number of people around us suddenly increased.

We had entered the downtown area.

The place was just as lively as it had been last week.

The street vendors lined up in a row, and the street performances hadn’t changed much.

For example, the masked man who had given that trump card to Seo Ye-in was still performing his magic show at the same spot.

When I first saw him, I wondered if that same event boss was going to pop out of nowhere, but now it seemed he had really come to the Dungeon Island just for his magic show.

However, neither Dang Gyu-young nor I had much interest in street performances, so we kept our eyes forward and hurried our steps.

Our first destination was the rendezvous point.

A club member who had arrived a bit earlier was preparing for business and he was pulling out various tools from an ice cream cart.

When he saw us approaching, he greeted us with a grin.

“Welcome.”

Dang Gyu-young looked at the soft-serve ice cream machine for a few seconds, then turned to me and asked,

“What flavor do you want? Vanilla? Chocolate?”

“I’ll have half and half.”

“Then I’ll have half and half too.”

With that, the club member grabbed a cone and started scooping the ice cream.

However, the finished product was such a mess that Dang Gyu-young couldn’t help but comment,

“You need to practice a bit.”

“…I’m sorry.”

Even though it was a rendezvous point, it still had to maintain basic standards as a street vendor.

The fewer suspicious elements, the better.

After a few more attempts, the club member handed us each a relatively less distorted soft-serve cone wrapped in a napkin.

As mentioned in the meeting,

The napkin is the key.

If you look closely, it looked like two layers of the thin napkin overlapped.

While the outer layer seemed perfectly ordinary, the inner layer was densely inscribed with an intricate magic circle.

And on one corner of the napkin’s outer surface, there was a natural-looking arrow as if it were part of the original design.

As we left the ice cream cart and moved along, the arrow tilted like a compass and started pointing in one direction.

A quick glance at Dang Gyu-young’s napkin showed it was pointing the same way.

Following that direction would lead us to the next location, the exchange point.

We continued moving with our ice creams in hand.

To avoid arousing suspicion from the people around us, Dang Gyu-young discreetly covered her mouth while seemingly communicating with Cha Da-bin from the control tower.

“You can see us, right? Yeah, nothing particularly stands out? Got it; we’re heading straight to Exchange A.”

The Exchange A we arrived at was a small commercial building.

In front of it, a woman with a tear mole and another graduate were sitting in a relaxed manner. They were watching us as if to verify the effects of the installed formation, the Throughwalk spell, and the napkin.

When we approached the building as intended, Dang Gyu-young suddenly grabbed my napkin.

I was puzzled but I loosened my grip and she quickly snatched it away.

When I turned toward her, I found her eyes filled with mischief so I asked,

“Why did you suddenly take my napkin?”

“Try it without a marker, just once.”

“Do you mean passing through the formation without a marker?”

“Mhmm, mhmm.”

“What do you gain from this, senior-nim?”

“I’m just curious about how you’ll do it.”

Looking at her again, I saw not only mischief in her eyes but also anticipation.

She probably wants to see me wandering around lost and finally getting chased out, but unfortunately for her, that wish won’t come true.

“I’m sorry Senior-nim, but I won’t get lost.”

“Even without a marker?”

“If I do it well, yes.”

At that, the graduates who had been watching us with amusement, like they were watching a sitcom, joined the conversation.

The woman with the tear mole spoke first.

“That’s not something I can just ignore. I put a lot of effort into setting up this formation, you know. It won’t be easily broken through.”

She wore a soft smile on her face like when we first met, but there was a chilling undertone to it.

I guess my words had subtly touched her pride.

I responded politely.

“I didn’t intend to belittle your skills, senior. It’s just that I have a better sense than most people, so I thought I might be able to navigate through this as well.”

“…”

The woman with the tear mole stared at me silently, as if deep in thought.

Since I had immediately seen through her invisible ghillie suit during our first meeting, she seemed to somewhat agree with my claim about having a good sense.

Still, she seemed skeptical about whether my sense was enough to nullify the formation she had confidently set up.

Next, the middle-aged graduate spoke.

His role in the black market was to apply [Throughwalk] to buildings and create mazes.

He pointed at Exchange A which was his creation with a glance.

“If your sense is that good, can you navigate through that without a marker?”

“I’ll have to try to find out.”

“You’re not saying you can’t do it.”

The middle-aged graduate laughed as if he found this amusing.

The two graduates then put their heads together. They seemed to be discussing something.

Judging by their occasional glances in my direction, they were definitely talking about me.

After a while, they seemed to reach a conclusion and made me an offer.

“Then let’s do this. We will wait for you inside that building. Try to come to us without any markers.”

“What happens if I succeed?”

“If you succeed, I’ll get you anything you want from this black market.”

It was quite a tempting offer.

Dang Gyu-young promised me to secure the item and also to arrange the transaction.

But buying that prohibited item was another matter.

The only valuable item I had for the transaction was the large ruby I got from Hong Yeon-hwa, but I was hesitant to use it since jewelry items have many uses later on.

However, if I succeeded now, they would buy that expensive prohibited item for me.

Since there was nothing to lose even if I failed, I had no reason to refuse.

I bowed respectfully.

“I accept your test, seniors.”

TN: Bruh, stop betting against this mf…