That Was the Plan
At the same time, the screen faded to black, and white text rose over it.
The 10th Anniversary of the Conquest of the Tower
Giwon Guild—"friend of the people"—honors the sacrifice of the nation's heroes.
Jeyeon stared blankly at the billboard as it rolled over into an advertisement.
Why?
Her heart pounded out of rhythm.
Why are you the one saying that?
Of all the people in the world, it had to be Ki Taewon. The one who had stayed by her side until the very last moment. The one who knew better than anyone what she had done. And that man had stood before the entire world and denounced Jeyeon as a traitor.
The corners of Jeyeon's mouth turned slowly down.
"……That's not true, right?"
The vibrant city was at peace. People laughed and hurried about their days, living out the same calm ordinary as always. And in the midst of it all, Jeyeon alone stood rooted to the spot.
Until a moment ago, Jeyeon had truly loved this street. A place that, until so recently, had been nothing but low gray ruins now gleamed like a different world, and she had loved the sight of it so much that even with somewhere to be, her steps kept slowing on their own.
Now, not one of those lights felt like it belonged to her. Not the polished plaza, not the strangers brushing past with smiles, not even the screen overhead that had branded her a traitor. Every last bit of it was a world she had protected with her own two hands. And in that world, there was no place for Sung Jeyeon anywhere.
On the map app, the route to Giwon Guild blinked. Blink, blink. Like the system warning window she had seen in the moments before her death.
In that moment when she died—in the instant her heart burst—what had she been thinking?
That it had been a relief. Truly. That her friend, at least, had lived.
And then this was what came out of his mouth. Jeyeon laughed through gritted teeth. At the tail end of the laugh, she tasted blood.
"Hey, if we clear it—what do you want to do after?"
To Jeyeon, it was a memory from merely days ago. A rest area after clearing the 99th floor, where they waited for the final floor to open. Only the two of them remained, and in the campfire light, exhaustion lay deep on Ki Taewon's face.
It was a long while before Ki Taewon opened his mouth.
"I want to go to university. With you."
"Huh? We only finished middle school, remember. Wouldn't high school come first?"
"Wearing a school uniform at twenty-seven is a bit much, don't you think?"
"That's my point—why school at all?"
Ki Taewon answered evenly, his gaze fixed somewhere in the empty air.
"I just want to try going to school with you, without a care in the world."
"Ha! At our rank? Students, my ass—they'd carry us in as professors."
"……Do you have to put it that way?"
Jeyeon snorted a laugh and looped an arm around his shoulders.
"I mean, skipping lectures to go drinking—that's the real romance of it, no?"
"I want to eat at the campus cafeteria with you. Go to a café on free periods. Do assignments, too."
"Man, you're no fun at all. We saved the world, and that's all you want?"
Ki Taewon shook his head slightly.
"It's not the university that matters."
"Then what?"
Silence drifted between them for a moment. Ki Taewon watched the firelight, then said quietly:
"Later. When we're old."
"……"
"I want us to have at least one memory of our school days to look back on together, when that time comes."
Jeyeon's eyes went round.
"Oh?"
"When you're old, you live off the fun of telling stories about the past."
"What's this? So you're planning on sticking with me until we're old, huh."
Only then did Ki Taewon turn to look at her.
"That was the plan."
The words came out as if they were the most obvious thing in the world. As if that future had already been decided for him.
"Well, it's not like we're dating and about to break up. What reason would there be not to see each other?"
Jeyeon laughed.
"Right, my personality's so rotten you're the only friend I've got. You're stuck entertaining me for life."
"Sung Jeyeon's a real piece of work, yeah."
"Look who's talking, you punk. Quit talking shit."
Jeyeon gave his shoulder a light shove. Nudged by it, the corner of Ki Taewon's mouth curved up, ever so faintly.
"Suit yourself."
That was the promise the two of them had made, before entering the final raid.
Calling up that memory, Jeyeon clenched her fist.
Then why?
Blood welled from her palm. She didn't notice. And she had no way of knowing why Ki Taewon had done it, either.
What did I do wrong?
She wanted to know. To know, she would have to go to him and ask. He was at the end of the road she was walking now; all she had to do was keep going, the way the app told her to. And yet her feet refused to carry her there.
She had understood, least of all, the people who ran instead of facing things head-on. She was the one who used to call them cowards.
Jeyeon looked down at the map app still glowing on her screen—and shut it off.
I can't listen to another word.
It was funny, really. For the first time in her life, she felt she might finally understand how a coward felt.
She didn't know how long she had walked. Phone dark in her hand, Jeyeon drifted along the street.
Then someone knocked hard into her shoulder and swept past.
Jeyeon staggered, and the couple who had bumped her jumped in fright, apologizing.
"S-sorry!"
"……"
"Are you okay……"
Their words smeared and faded. The gazes sliding down Jeyeon's school uniform snagged on a patch of dried, blackish blood.
"Let's go, honey. No sense getting tangled up in this."
The couple hurried away, and only when Jeyeon finally lifted her head did she realize she had stopped in the middle of a bustling shopping district.
In that instant, the noise of the street bored into her ears all at once.
"We're recruiting new guild members!"
One voice carried above the rest, ringing out impossibly loud.
"I'm the guild leader, and I'll personally bus you through the low floors! Class, level—doesn't matter!"
A woman with a bright, ringing voice was working hard at handing out flyers in the crowd.
Two passersby took the paper out of curiosity. And the moment they unfolded it, their faces twisted.
"……What, Seongyeon? That traitor's guild?"
"These damn cockroaches just won't die. Shouldn't they be lying low? Why do they keep crawling back out?"
……What?
Jeyeon's expression froze solid.
"Ah, no wonder it looked familiar. Isn't that Sung Jeyeon's little fangirl club?"
The one sneering openly at the woman handing out flyers twirled a finger beside their temple.
"Who'd join a place like this? It's not like they've even got the Summoner anymore."
"Everyone's tripping over themselves to join guilds over the Survival these days, and they still look like this. Peel off the traitor label and they're dead last in the rankings—and it's not even a piss-ant little outfit, it's a hobby club, that thing."
……Dead last?
Seongyeon? The Seongyeon that every aspiring hunter once lined up to send a résumé to?
The papers they had crumpled and tossed away scattered across the ground. One of them drifted to a stop at the tip of Jeyeon's shoe. She bent down quietly and picked it up.
✦ Beginners welcome
✦ Full-time member positions
✦ A culture that's just like family!
On the paper was a logo she knew well. A white background, and drawn across it in gold: a moon, a star, the sky, and a lotus flower. It was the guild mark of Seongyeon—the one Jeyeon had made with her own hands.
As Jeyeon raised her head, the woman turned around at just that moment.
"Student, would you perhaps be interested in joining a guild?"
She was smiling, easy and radiant, as if she hadn't heard a single jeer from the crowd.
The moment she saw that face, Jeyeon's eyes went wide.
……You?