Chapter 102
When class ended, Park Siwoo approached me.
“12. That’s the number of statues you told me to smash last time.”
“Oh. You worked pretty hard, didn’t you?”
When I made up my mind and smashed statues in-game, I’d destroyed around 50 of them.
I’d probably spent about a month of in-game time wandering around alone to do that.
Finding 12 over just the past few days without any precise information was a pretty solid result.
They must have been hidden tightly, like a real treasure hunt, yet he still managed it. He was capable.
“But when I broke those statues, I felt something like vitality flowing through my body. That’s normal, right?”
“Ah, that?”
That meant his stats had gone up.
Demon statues absorbed people’s life force like mosquitoes and stored it, so when they were destroyed, the life force that had lost its destination flowed into Park Siwoo instead.
Wasn’t it one stat point per five statues?
Of course, the stats you could raise this way weren’t infinite.
If they were infinite, I’d have been smashing statues nonstop myself a long time ago.
Probably 3? 4? That was about the limit.
I was following a Fist King Build in my own way, even if it got interrupted a bit whenever I transformed into a Devil Knight, so stat points weren’t that desperate for me.
But at Park Siwoo and the others’ current level, even this would be a huge help.
Since it was still the early game, opportunities to raise stats were scarce.
“It’s a good thing, so you don’t need to worry about it too much.”
Just then, Helena approached and scoffed.
“Only 12? I found 20.”
I’d thought it’d been hard to see her face these past few days—had she been running around looking for statues the moment class ended?
Maybe because it was a conspiracy involving Demons, their motivation was off the charts.
I turned my head and looked at Dan Chun-woo.
Feeling my gaze, he looked back at me.
“What.”
“How many did you find?”
“Tch, 19.”
He answered with a light click of his tongue.
Seeing that, Helena became smug.
“Both of you were lacking in effort. Does that mean the wish ticket is mine?”
If he found just one more, his stat would go up by one more point.
I threw a Demon statue that had been shoved somewhere in my bag at Dan Chun-woo.
“Hey, catch.”
“What is this?”
“Now it’s 20 to 20. Isn’t that a tie?”
Seeing this, Helena looked dumbfounded.
“T-This is cheating! This is manipulation by the organizer!”
“I promised one wish ticket. What should I do about this?”
“This makes no sense!”
I couldn’t help but laugh at Helena, who was seething in frustration.
I’d said it as a joke, but her reaction was so perfect that it made me want to tease her more.
“I’m kidding. You worked hard, and it’d be disappointing if there were no reward. I’ll give the wish ticket to you, Helena.”
“Who jokes like that?!”
Helena glared at me with murderous eyes, but she didn’t refuse the wish ticket.
That aside, the number of statues these three had smashed already exceeded 50.
The progress was extremely satisfying.
As I was thinking that, Helena smiled playfully and asked,
“With this wish ticket, I can ask you for anything, right?”
“Anything I’m capable of granting.”
“How should I use this, I wonder.”
She put on a mischievous smile, as if to pay me back for teasing her.
Getting cocky.
When I messed around like this with them every now and then, it felt like I’d returned to my real school days.
Just then, the classroom door was thrown open roughly.
Bang.
At the sudden loud noise, the cadets’ gazes focused there.
Joo Sarang was standing in front of the classroom door.
Her expression didn’t look normal.
She was panting, as if she’d really rushed here.
Her eyes trembled anxiously.
Spotting me, Joo Sarang strode over.
“This is bad.”
“What is it?”
“Ha Yoon disappeared.”
“So?”
“That’s not something you say ‘so’ to!”
Joo Sarang grabbed my shoulders and shook me.
“What are you going to do, huh?! We finally got hold of his tail and tied him down, and he ran away!”
“I’m getting dizzy…….”
She was gripping and shaking my shoulders so hard that my head wobbled like a scarecrow balloon.
Seeing this, Helena grabbed Joo Sarang’s wrist and stopped her.
“Stop it. He said he’s dizzy.”
“Out of the way, outsider!”
“What did you say?”
Helena glared at Joo Sarang as if she couldn’t believe it.
Regardless, Joo Sarang kept pressing me.
I pried her hand off and said,
“Don’t worry. I knew this would happen from the start.”
“And you’re acting like this right now?”
From the beginning, the number of choices Berid had when cornered wasn’t that large.
The identity of Ha Yoon had already lost its usefulness the moment it was exposed that a member of the student council was a Demon.
Even so, the reason he’d clung to it until now was probably because he couldn’t let go of everything he’d built up so far.
“First, let’s do what we need to do.”
Since the bastard had made up his mind to completely hide himself, there was nothing I could do right away.
Berid’s ability was just that broken.
He stole everything—appearance, memories, habits, even abilities—so if he really wanted to, he could move around perfectly disguised while staying hidden.
How were you supposed to find someone like that?
That said, his ability wasn’t omnipotent either.
Rather, the limitations of his power were quite clear.
The only targets he could transform into were those he himself had killed.
And above all, he couldn’t use the stolen abilities in combination.
For example, when he was in Ha Yoon’s form, he could only use the abilities Ha Yoon had possessed at the time; combining abilities from different people was impossible.
So all I had to do was grasp as much information as possible about the people around me and keep track of their movements.
I looked over at the others beside me.
“All of you, save me in your emergency contact lists. If anything happens, contact me immediately.”
Park Siwoo, who roughly knew what was going on within the student council, nodded.
If the bastard decided to kill Park Siwoo, Helena, or Dan Chun-woo and steal their abilities…
Would I even be able to notice?
Then something I’d forgotten suddenly came to mind.
The name tags that only student council executives could use.
With those, not only could they contact each other, but they could also monitor biometric signals.
If we used that, even if Berid attacked or something unforeseen happened, we could infer the situation from a signal that abruptly cut off.
Would Yoo Iseo know about it if I asked?
Yoo Iseo would be with Seo Da-hee right now, so I should contact her side.
Seo Da-hee was currently inside the Academy.
Right after meeting Seo Da-hee, Yoo Iseo had stuck close to her as if she felt anxious whenever Da-hee wasn’t by her side, with no intention of leaving.
Seo Da-hee didn’t seem to dislike it either.
So normally, Seo Da-hee stayed together with Yoo Iseo in Yoo Iseo’s dorm, and whenever she needed to go outside, she’d come out disguised as another student.
At that moment, Joo Sarang, who was beside me, asked,
“So what is it that we’re supposed to do?”
“We deal with the underlings first. The ones Berid abandoned.”
“Ah-ha.”
Berid had bolted.
That meant Berid had abandoned the identity of Ha Yoon, which was no different from confessing that he himself was a Demon.
Then if Ha Yoon was a Demon, what about the students he’d personally recommended and brought in?
Naturally, that meant most of them were Demons too.
On top of that, I’d already passed the information to Yoo Iseo that every single one of those guys was a Demon.
The report was done, which meant it was time to act in earnest.
I looked at the ones who didn’t understand our conversation.
“We have something to take care of, so we’re leaving first. Park Siwoo, you come with us.”
“What? Why?”
“Aren’t you going to the student council room?”
“Ah, yeah!”
Park Siwoo hurriedly packed his bag and followed me.
Joo Sarang flipped her middle finger at Helena and then followed after me.
Seeing that, Helena scrunched up her face.
Well, it wasn’t my business if those two didn’t get along.
We headed straight to the student council room and met Yoo Iseo there.
The student council room, which was usually noisy, was quiet.
That was because she alone filled the space.
No—if anything, this should be considered normal.
Before Berid had wrecked it, the student council centered around Yoo Iseo had actually been like this.
Seeing this, Park Siwoo tilted his head.
“I don’t see the other executives.”
“That’s right. They all ran away.”
Yoo Iseo answered calmly.
At that, Park Siwoo tilted his head again, looking confused.
“They all ran away?”
“Ha Yoon, who was the vice president, disappeared. After killing the watcher assigned to him by the Association.”
“What?”
Park Siwoo’s eyes widened as if he couldn’t believe it.
“That means……”
“Ha Yoon is a Demon. And the student council executives he personally selected are all Demons as well.”
“But—”
His voice trembled, as if he was deeply shocked.
“I know you’re shocked, but we don’t have time for that. We don’t know what those who are hiding will do.”
I turned my head and looked at Yoo Iseo.
“Have you figured out their whereabouts?”
“I’m not a subordinate of Cadet Seongwoo.”
A cold response came back.
Ever since she learned that I was a Devil Knight, she’d maintained a distant attitude.
Because of that, only Seo Da-hee, who was stuck in the middle, had it rough.
“The Association’s watchers assigned to them are in pursuit.”
The number of Demons Berid had personally recruited into the student council totaled nine.
Among them were five high-ranking Demons, and the remaining four were elite mid-ranking Demons.
The Demon of Indulgence had been subjugated, and Joo Sarang was on our side, so that left three high-ranking Demons and four mid-ranking Demons.
On the other hand, there were only four members left in the student council.
Joo Sarang spoke.
“If we’re going to catch them, we need to wipe them out completely.”
If even one of them survived and reported to Pandemonium that Joo Sarang and I had moved, things would get troublesome.
Since I had also infiltrated the Academy as a spy, it wasn’t strange for me to have some friction with Berid in the course of doing various things.
But in a situation like this, going as far as assassination?
And executing fleeing Demons?
That was practically an act of betrayal.
At that moment, Park Siwoo raised his hand and cautiously voiced his opinion.
“If the problem is a lack of people, how about entrusting it to Dan Chun-woo or Helena?”
“Oh, that’s genius.”
With their skills, dealing with high-ranking Demons might be difficult, but mid-ranking Demons, who were basically grunts, should be manageable.
They already had a record of joining forces to subjugate a high-ranking Demon.
Not bad—he could even offer opinions like that.
When I looked at Park Siwoo, his expression seemed resolute.
Well.
Thinking back to Seo Da-hee’s death.
He’d need to grow.
Back then, he’d been shocked to learn that a close security guard was a Demon, hesitated uselessly, and ended up losing Seo Da-hee.
Now, it seemed he’d grown enough not to be shaken just because someone close to him turned out to be a Demon.
Aside from that, he was still the same foolish Park Siwoo.
For the remaining one person we lacked, we could move Seo Da-hee.
There was just one thing bothering me.
What if all of them fleeing at once was also part of Berid’s plan?
The current situation was strange enough that the available forces on the Demon side and on our team were bound to collide one-on-one.
With our current strength, they wouldn’t lose to the Demons—but what if Berid joined one of them and launched a coordinated attack?
If he killed one of our team members and took their place like that, it would be troublesome in many ways.
“There’s one thing I want to say. I’ll sit this operation out.”