And so, our first request, “Finding the Cat,” began.
However, as soon as the request started, a small issue arose. In the original storyline, everyone was supposed to search for the cat together, but because of my involvement, we ended up splitting into pairs.
This was something that would affect later events. I suggested searching together, but Lee Seo-jun dismissed it immediately, calling it inefficient.
In the end, Lee Seo-jun was paired with Lee Hyun-joo, while I was paired with Choi Seo-yoon.
“Hmm.”
I pondered how to handle this sudden change in the situation.
Originally, today’s incident involving Choi Seo-yoon was supposed to be resolved by the entire group, including Lee Seo-jun.
The more interactions Choi Seo-yoon had with Lee Seo-jun, the safer his survival would become. But because of my interference, the development had changed once again.
Seeing my troubled expression, Choi Seo-yoon looked at me with concern.
“Senior, why do you look so worried?”
I shook my head.
“It’s nothing.”
“You’re not upset about being paired with me, are you?”
Choi Seo-yoon narrowed her eyes playfully.
“No. I was just lost in thought for a moment.”
“Hmm…”
She eyed me suspiciously, as if she didn’t quite believe me.
Who was suspicious of whom here?
“Honestly, aren’t you the one who’s unhappy about this pairing?”
“Huh? No way.”
She looked genuinely surprised.
“You wanted to be paired with Lee Seo-jun, didn’t you?”
“No. I’m fine being paired with you, senior.”
Choi Seo-yoon grinned at me. Whether she was being sincere or not, I couldn’t tell.
“…Is that so?”
Having nothing else to say, I simply nodded.
“Enough. Let’s just find the cat.”
“Yes, sir~.”
“Lucy~ Where are you~?”
About 30 minutes had passed since we started searching for the cat.
Choi Seo-yoon had been calling out like that the entire time.
As if the cat would actually understand human speech.
“…I can’t believe my first mercenary request is finding a cat.”
She muttered with a disheartened expression.
“That client is something else, too. Just how rich do you have to be to hire mercenaries to find a cat?”
She had a point. Even for an F-rank request, mercenary jobs required a minimum fee of five million won.
That meant she had money to burn.
“Can we even find it by the end of the day?”
In the original story, the cat wasn’t found until sunset. But I had no intention of wasting an entire day like in the original.
Since I knew how the story went, I could find the cat in no time.
The problem was that finding the cat would also trigger a small incident.
The storyline was already altered, and forcing it back into place was a foolish idea.
No matter how I thought about it, it would be best for me to handle this incident myself.
Besides, the villain in this event wasn’t that strong—Choi Seo-yoon and I could handle them just fine.
“Follow me.”
“Huh?”
As I suddenly started walking off, Choi Seo-yoon asked, “Wait a second. Where are you going?”
“To find the cat.”
Seeing how confident I was, she stared at me, dumbfounded.
“You know where it is?”
“I have a good idea.”
“A good idea…?”
She looked me with suspicious eyes for a moment before following along.
The place I was heading to was a small abandoned factory, a little away from the mercenary headquarters.
I scanned the area—it looked exactly as described in the original.
If the events were still unfolding as they should, then the cat should be here.
And so would the first incident of the mercenary experience.
“Here?”
“Yeah, most likely.”
Choi Seo-yoon looked at me doubtfully.
She clearly wanted to say something but held back.
Ignoring her, I stepped inside the abandoned factory.
The inside was dark.
It felt like walking into a haunted house.
Still, I had been in far gloomier dungeons, so it wasn’t particularly scary.
And then—
—Meow.
A cat’s cry echoed inside the factory.
Choi Seo-yoon flinched and was about to scream, but I quickly covered her mouth.
“Shh.”
She tensed, then gave me a small nod.
“Move quietly. No footsteps.”
I slowly walked in the direction the meowing had come from. The sound continued to ring out at intervals.
“There it is.”
A white-furred cat with a sleek coat sat elegantly.
I carefully approached and grabbed it by the neck.
—Mrrrow!
“Gotcha, you little rascal.”
I immediately checked its neck—there was a collar with a blue gemstone embedded in it.
It matched the one the client had described.
“Wow. That’s amazing! Senior, how did you know it would be here?”
Choi Seo-yoon looked astonished.
Then she narrowed her eyes and gave me a suspicious look.
“Don’t tell me you planned this with the client?”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
I handed the cat over to Choi Seo-yoon. She screamed with joy and gazed at it lovingly.
With this, today’s request was complete…
Except, the real event in the original story was just about to begin.
It was about time for them to appear.
At that moment, a chilling sensation ran down my spine.
Goosebumps spread across my skin.
I had felt this before.
Killing intent.
A sense of imminent danger.
The ability to detect murderous intent activated, and I sensed a powerful concentration of magic nearby.
“Watch out!”
As I shouted, a surge of magic power erupted from somewhere.
I immediately stepped in front of Choi Seo-yoon and activated the defensive barrier on my alloy bracelet.
—BOOM!
At the sudden attack, Choi Seo-yoon trembled slightly.
“W-what? What’s going on?”
“Focus. It’s an enemy.”
I glared in the direction the magic had come from.
As time passed, a man emerged from the darkness.
A man in his thirties, wearing a deeply pressed hat.
“…What? Are you really a student? I didn’t expect you to block that.”
The man looked at me with an impressed expression.
Choi Seo-yoon saw him and her face immediately stiffened.
“You are…”
“It’s been a while, Seo-yoon.”
“Uncle Park Jinsu?”
Park Jinsu.
He was one of the many people in the original story who held a grudge against the Choi family. He had lost his younger sibling because of Choi Seo-yoon’s father, Choi Jae-hyung.
As I expected, Park Jinsu, the first villain of this mercenary activity, had been tailing Choi Seo-yoon all day.
Just like in the original story, he had followed her to this deserted abandoned factory and, seeing this as the perfect opportunity, attempted an assassination.
Park Jinsu glanced between me and Choi Seo-yoon, then smirked confidently.
“My plan got a little messed up, but no matter.”
Then, on his hand, blazing fire-attribute spikes began to form.
Meanwhile, Lee Seo-jun and Lee Hyun-joo continued walking, searching for the cat.
After looking for so long, even passing pigeons were starting to look like cats.
“Ugh. When are we ever gonna find it?”
“…Seriously.”
It was already 3 PM.
Lee Hyun-joo was beginning to feel both boredom and exhaustion.
Bending over repeatedly to match a cat’s eye level had taken a toll on her back.
“By the way, you’ve been hanging out with Kim Sunwoo a lot lately, haven’t you?”
She suddenly voiced her curiosity.
Lee Seo-jun thought for a moment before nodding.
“Yeah, I guess we’ve been crossing paths a lot recently.”
“More than just a lot, honestly.”
At Hyun-joo’s remark, Seo-jun chuckled slightly.
“I guess I find him interesting, so I’ve been spending time with him on purpose. He’s surprisingly versatile. His combat skills are pretty impressive, too.”
Hyun-joo looked at his face.
She had known Seo-jun for over ten years. Having grown up together since childhood, she could read him like an open book.
“Wait, don’t tell me… are you feeling competitive with Kim Sunwoo?”
“Huh?”
Seo-jun was briefly caught off guard.
Hyun-joo narrowed her eyes.
“…What? So it’s true? You weren’t even this way when you had that standoff with Yoo Ara in first year.”
“Haha.”
Seo-jun let out an awkward laugh.
Of course, he couldn’t hide his thoughts from Hyun-joo.
“Well, I guess there’s a bit of that.”
“That’s surprising. I wouldn’t have thought he’d be someone you’d feel competitive with.”
Hyun-joo muttered, puzzled.
Seo-jun simply smiled.
“Oh! Is it because of his theoretical scores? He got perfect marks, didn’t he?”
“That’s part of it. But there’s more.”
For example, his ridiculously fast barrier-breaking speed. Or his ability to use compression spellcasting, something usually mastered only by seasoned mages.
Kim Sunwoo could skillfully handle things Seo-jun either lacked or struggled with.
But to be precise, what Seo-jun felt toward Kim Sunwoo wasn’t exactly competitiveness.
It was more like admiration.
Of course, if Sunwoo proved to be as skilled in magical combat as well, that admiration might turn into competition.
“Anyway, it’s just—”
Rumble…
Just then, a powerful magical energy surged from somewhere.
Seo-jun and Hyun-joo instinctively turned toward it.
Something was happening.
And it was coming from the direction Kim Sunwoo and Choi Seoyoon had gone.
“Let’s go!”
The two of them immediately sprinted toward the source of the magical disturbance.
Along the way, multiple explosions of magic erupted.
Something was definitely going on.
There was no way they’d be feeling multiple distinct magical energies at once otherwise.
After running for about a minute, they arrived at the scene of the explosion.
A small abandoned factory.
Inside, Kim Sunwoo and Choi Seo-yoon were locked in battle with a man.
Before even questioning why they were fighting, Seo-jun instinctively reached for his sword to help.
But then—
“Huh?”
Something felt off about the battle unfolding before his eyes.
Kim Sunwoo was demonstrating magic skills far beyond what a student should be capable of.
As if he had infinite mana, he relentlessly launched powerful magical projectiles.
The man, overwhelmed by the barrage, was steadily being pushed back.
Watching the fight, Seo-jun found himself dazed.
Hyun-joo, standing beside him, seemed just as stunned.
“…What the hell? Since when was he that good?”
Kim Sunwoo’s magic had always been strong, but… this?
Seo-jun already knew from the previous dungeon raid that Sunwoo had an unusually high mana pool.
But the sheer volume of magic he was unleashing now far exceeded what he had seen before.
No, more importantly—
Something about this scene felt eerily familiar.
Where had he seen something like this before?
…He was sure he had witnessed a battle just like this in the past.
―Kuaaagh!
While he was lost in thought, the enemy screamed as he took a direct hit from Sunwoo and Seo-yoon’s combined attack.
The man, overwhelmed by pain, collapsed to his knees.
The fight was over.
The man groaned weakly before losing consciousness and slumping to the ground.
Hyun-joo quickly ran over to Sunwoo and Seo-yoon.
Seo-jun, however, remained frozen, staring blankly.
And then—
The realization hit him.
Two months ago.
The Han River Dark Mage Incident.
The way Kim Sunwoo fought just now…
It was eerily similar to the battle style of the mage, Kim Jinwoo.
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