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Ever since we went to the amusement park, things haven’t magically improved, but at least I can talk to Minho like a normal person now.

Not that anything exciting happened, and as summer’s heat faded, the autumn coolness rolled in without leaving much of a mark on my memories.

Along with the unwelcome guest of exam preparations.

Yeonhwa must have realized she couldn’t escape exams anymore, as she didn’t complain about why a hero needs to know calculus while studying — she just whined about wishing there was a magic pill to get smarter.

“There is!”

“Really?!”

Yeonhwa looked at me as if she couldn’t believe such a pill existed.

Surprised at the thought, she concocted her own reason about how it wouldn’t be strange if the Heros Company had one but immediately wanted to know what it was.

“Methamphetamine.”

“Me… huh? Sorry, I didn’t catch that. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of that drug… is it some top-secret product made only at your pharmaceutical factory?!”

Yeonhwa asked, seemingly clueless, if it was classified as a secret project from the place I used to work part-time.

Everything was wrong, but she did hit one point — it really ought to be classified when making methamphetamine.

“It’s a drug that’s only a little over 200 years old.”

I thought about teasing her some more, but felt a bit sorry for all the fun I had at her expense, so I told the truth.

“Well, then that’s useless!”

“Told you! Just existing doesn’t imply it’s useful.”

“This isn’t really Blanca’s fault; I think it’s more Yeonhwa’s fault for dozing off in drug addiction prevention class.”

Jinhyeon, still blissfully clueless, suddenly accused Yeonhwa. Both she and I stared at Jinhyeon, dumbfounded by his surprise attack.

“That was a bit inappropriate, wasn’t it?”

But seeing he could recognize he had chilled the mood made me think maybe Jinhyeon was getting better, even if he had a long way to go.

“Anyway, what I really want to say is that pills should only be taken when you’re sick. There’s no such thing as a magic pill that will just make you feel better.”

Wrapping up the awkward atmosphere with an unsolicited lesson, I warned the kids to stay away from any weird drugs.

“How about drugs from places like gates?”

But Minho, clearly not done, suddenly interjected after studying quietly.

“You should be careful with those too. How would you know if it’s a monster disguised as a drug, or if it’s just poison disguised as a drug?”

Why was he suddenly like this? I didn’t particularly dislike it anymore, but I couldn’t figure out why he was acting up.

Was it that I secretly enjoyed when he got attacked or was ridiculed? I didn’t think I had that kind of taste.

As I mulled over his impulsive behavior, he soon clarified he wasn’t trying to be a buzzkill, saying he had heard rumors.

“There are rumors of some items illegally circulating from inside a gate somewhere in Heros City.”

“In Heros City of all places? Is that even possible?”

Ageha, who had also been studying quietly, perked up at Minho’s words. Minho, seeing Ageha biting on the bait, revved up his tongue.

“I don’t know exactly where, but I hear those items are being detected. If there are rumors and concrete evidence, it means there’s gotta be something like an underground market somewhere.”

“That’s true. But in Heros City, of all places, an underground market? They’ve got some serious guts, or…”

“Maybe they have immense power to operate a business in Heros City.”

Seeing Seolhwa close her textbook and listen to Minho means today’s study session was pretty much over.

“So, this is a big deal, right…? I don’t think this is something we should get involved in…”

“I haven’t said I want to jump in yet, Lapiz. Besides, can’t we at least investigate? It could help us in our evaluations when we become heroes.”

“But we already have reservations to become heroes… Aren’t we distancing ourselves from all this?”

Lucia reacted like she had no interest as Ellie fervently argued how could that be possible, stressing how dangerous it would be for citizens knowing such things existed in Heros City.

“Have you thought about how dangerous it could be for the citizens just knowing such a thing exists in Heros City?! Of course, we must investigate!”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea… That could end up like last time…”

Minho, mid-sentence, winced as Lapiz jabbed at his sore spot and looked at me.

As I watched him, I crossed my arms and squinted at him with a sideways glance.

“Honestly, I was hoping you’d all help me out. I don’t think I can do it alone. So, Blanca, can you help me out too?”

At least this time he was being honest. I still didn’t like dragging the others into this, but I had no real choice…

There didn’t seem a reason to get angry.

“We don’t know anything about drugs or poisons, so it’d be great to have an expert on board.”

“No need to drone on, remember what I said? Just ask for anything reasonable.”

Without saying I would go with him, just saying I would go made his expression brighten up.

“But, just so you know, we have midterms in a week, right?”

But when reminded of what he was trying to ignore, his face quickly wilted like a sad cabbage.

“Well… honestly, cramming doesn’t really help improve grades, so can’t we just ignore it-”

“What are you talking about, Minho! No matter how little cramming helps, it’s better than nothing!”

Ellie was scolding Minho just as fiercely as she had with Lucia, passionately arguing that heroes have to do their best in everything.

Seeing Ellie being loud in front of others seemed like she adjusted to class A after all. But adjusting isn’t always a good thing.

I found myself missing the times when Ellie would be more considerate of others.

Eventually, Minho agreed to study hard while at the Academy and then investigate in his spare time, but he added the miserable condition that any actual field investigation would only happen after midterms, finally making Ellie seem happy.

“If the field investigation starts after midterms, can we participate then? Because right now, I want to focus on studying for exams. Sorry!”

Yeonhwa and Jinhyeon opted out, saying they wanted to concentrate fully on their exams, but it was probably a relief for Minho, as he smiled and said that was fine.

After all, until we opened up to each other, I was also a bit on edge, wanting to avoid adding any variables.

But why was he trying to do something now that’s meant to wait until after the midterm? In the original story, he called the others after the midterms were over.

I was curious about what got into him to call everyone early, so I teased him while asking.

“While your sense of justice is commendable, we really should put out the fire on our feet first, shouldn’t we?”

As I joked lightly at the amped-up Minho, he readily accepted it.

“Yeah, I should’ve taken care of myself before looking after others.”

“Why bring this up now when you could’ve waited until after midterms?”

When I casually pressed him on this, he seemed to understand my intentions and replied.

“Well, like Ellie said, even if these things do exist, they end up spreading bad stuff in society. So I thought it might be good to figure things out ahead of time…”

For the sake of the people… huh.

Seems like he’s really looking at this as a person.

Should I say he’s grown up, or maybe he’s just become part of a fairy tale? I’m not quite sure, but he seemed better than before.

Regardless, the atmosphere for studying was already ruined, so we just chatted normally and studied instead.

Since we were in the Academy’s library, eventually, the librarian came to shush us, but still, it felt special to be noisy in a place that was supposed to be quiet.

So… how did the underground market part unfold again?

Chasing the tail, I ended up stepping on it and actually got sucked into the underground market, getting hit hard and barely making it out with a few artifacts.

This was around the time I started getting seriously involved with the Evil Society, making this part seem quite crucial, even if it didn’t appear to have significant losses or gains in the original story.

Maybe I could shift the results a bit to be more favorable.

Any losses incurred this time would only fall onto the Evil Society.

And since the Evil Society was the main enemy of the Liberators, weakening their forces through our hands would ultimately benefit the Liberators.

In other words, I had plenty of reasons to give this my all.

First, I could start by subtly leaking information to Justitia.

While the kids were chatting away, I quietly and meticulously plotted how to let others do the dirty work for me.

 

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