The interview proceeded in a warm and friendly atmosphere.
The interviewers carefully kept things light so the young children wouldn't get hurt, and since they all seemed to know we'd already been accepted anyway, they only asked simple questions.
“Yeowoo, what kind of food do you like?”
“Hyunwoo, who do you respect the most?”
“Would each of you tell us one thing you're interested in?”
The interview I'd been expecting ended far more uneventfully than I'd imagined, and we were about to leave the interview venue and head to a handmade pork cutlet restaurant.
That was, if no one had stopped us.
“Hello!”
A cheerful, bright voice.
A woman greeted us as though she'd been waiting at the building's entrance.
Not Yeowoo and me, but our mother.
“Huh? Me?”
“Yes! I'm greeting you, ma'am.”
“Uh…… Have we met before?”
“This is our first meeting, but we'll soon be acquainted. Hello to you two as well. You're really as pretty and handsome as I'd heard~”
The woman smiled brightly and waved, wearing a beige trench coat.
She had the air of one of those career women I'd seen on a screen, so I stared at her curiously with my mouth slightly open.
“I'm sorry for taking up your time, ma'am. Let me introduce myself first.”
She took a business card from inside her coat and handed it to Mother.
Mother accepted the card, then covered her mouth in surprise.
“Golden Heart…… You're the Deputy Guild Master?”
“Yes. That's right.”
“The Golden Heart I know? The…… number-one guild?”
“Haha. Yes, that's right. How embarrassing.”
But she didn't look embarrassed in the slightest.
She was smiling brightly with a confident, self-assured expression.
“The reason I came to see you today is, ma'am—”
I had a feeling this was going to be a long conversation, so I turned my head away.
I don't know exactly what this is about, but she's probably trying to make some kind of sales pitch.
….
….
Actually, I'd thought that sales pitch would be a one-time thing.
It wasn't.
They came one after another, tangled together like sweet potato vines.
People claiming to be guild representatives kept pestering us nonstop.
I lost count of how many times I heard introductions like, “I'm so-and-so from such-and-such guild~” before we finally got into the car.
***
Time passed once again, and spring arrived.
It had been about a year since we'd gone to the Mana Observation Center for our mana sensitivity tests.
In the meantime, I'd graduated from kindergarten and had to say an indefinite goodbye to the little brats I'd grown attached to.
“Waaah! Teacher! Why isn't Hyunwoo going to the same elementary school as me?”
“Hyeona. Um…… Hyunwoo was admitted to the Academy, so he'll be going there instead. He's going somewhere good, so why don't we congratulate him?”
“Waaah! No! Hyunwoo! Don't go! Go to the same elementary school as me!”
Hyeona, the girl who had always come to me with questions she couldn't solve, must've grown attached to me over time.
She hugged me and bawled, begging me not to go.
She was fairly cute, so I patted her back, stroked her head, and told her not to cry.
Apparently finding that sight adorable, our teacher began filming us with her phone.
“Do you really have to go? Hm? Please….”
“We'll probably see each other again. It's okay, so stop crying.”
“Then I'll go to Hyunwoo's school too. Teacher, I want to go too! Waaah!”
The teacher smiled awkwardly.
After somehow bringing that chaotic graduation ceremony to an end, Yeowoo and I headed to Jinhae, South Gyeongsang Province a few days later for the Academy's entrance ceremony.
The Academy was located in Jinhae, and because of the distance, we'd decided to live in the dormitory away from Mother.
Yeowoo was the only one who hadn't known about that.
She cried and made an enormous fuss when she found out, but I remained calm.
After all, it only meant we wouldn't see Mother for a little while.
“Yaaawn.”
I'm a little sleepy.
Maybe it was because the heater inside the car was turned on lightly, but I was gradually becoming drowsy.
On the radio, ‘Classics That Open the World,’ the program my parents always listened to around this time, was playing music that was several hundred years old.
The windshield wipers squeaked as they swept away the steadily falling rain.
As I watched them, my eyes slowly closed.
Before I even realized it, a black curtain covered my vision.
—Wake up!
Yeowoo's rough hands and shouting woke me.
When I opened my eyes, Yeowoo filled my vision.
Apparently annoyed about something, she repeatedly pinched and kneaded my cheeks as though they were lumps of clay.
“Ow. Don't do thaaat….”
When I frowned and sat up, Yeowoo looked at me regretfully.
Kids and their pranks….
“Kids, we're here. There's about an hour left until the entrance ceremony, so why don't we look around and see what the Academy is like?”
“Yeah! Sounds good!”
“Okay.”
When I opened the car door and stepped outside, a pleasant breeze wrapped around my entire body.
The area was packed with people who appeared to be the families of incoming students.
I briefly looked around at them and was about to catch up with my family, who had started walking ahead, when—
“Oh! We meet again. Hi!”
It was a strangely familiar voice.
I turned around and saw the girl I'd met at the interview.
Her name was…… Yoon something.
The Yoon-something girl's family was beside her as well.
A broad, sturdy-looking father.
And a mother whose looks didn't lose out even compared to our mother.
Yoon-something seemed to have inherited about half of her appearance from each parent.
“Sia, who's this? A friend?”
Ah. Right.
Yoon Sia.
Yoon Sia's father approached me.
I bowed politely in greeting.
“Hello.”
“Yeah! He's my friend! No, more like my little brother! His name is Lee Hyunwoo, and he's turning eight this year.”
How does she remember everything after meeting me only once?
Surprised inwardly, I greeted Sia's mother as well.
“I'm Hyunwoo, her little brother.”
“Hoho. Her little brother? Where did you two become friends?”
“Yeah~ Back at the interview…….”
That was when Mother came rushing over and grabbed my arm tightly.
“Hyunwoo! What are you doing here?!”
“Huh? Ah, well…….”
While I trailed off, confused by Mother's excessive reaction, Yoon Sia's father recognized her and greeted her warmly.
“Oh? Aren't you Jisang's wife?”
“…….”
What?
Do they know each other?
“What brings you here?”
But Mother's reaction was strange.
She wasn't normally like this at all, yet she looked Sia's father up and down with contempt, grabbed my arm, and left.
“H-Huh? Mom?”
“Let's go. Quickly.”
As she dragged me away, I alternated between looking at Mother and Yoon Sia's father with a peculiar expression.
Yoon Sia's father was smiling awkwardly.
There definitely seems to be something between those two.
But what…?
***
The auditorium resembled a massive temple.
Yeowoo sat neatly to my right, while Sia sat to my left.
The auditorium was also packed with new students who had come for admission, their families, and outsiders who had arrived early to get a look at the promising talents.
On an upper floor, several reporters were photographing the new students with enormous telephoto cameras.
On the floor above even that, groups of guild representatives gathered in twos and threes, whispering among themselves as they stared somewhere below.
I folded my arms and tried to wait for the entrance ceremony to begin in the marketplace-like auditorium, but Sia beside me wouldn't leave me alone.
“It's really noisy, isn't it?”
Sia was probably just as bored as I was.
Since I had nothing better to do either, I casually chatted with her.
Then…….
“Hyunwoo! Lee Hyunwoo!”
“……Huh? Whyyy?”
Yeowoo called me.
“Look at that. Isn't it amazing? That's a really huge air conditioner.”
“Huh?”
I looked where she was pointing.
Sure enough, there was an enormous air conditioner shaped like a refrigerator blowing air, looking completely out of place in the majestic auditorium.
I nodded.
“Yeah. That's interesting. It really doesn't fit in here.”
Tap, tap.
“Hm?”
This time Sia poked me from the left.
When I looked at her questioningly, she smiled.
“Look at the ceiling. It's really high. If you keep staring at it, doesn't it make you feel kind of scared and dizzy? Come on, let's look up at it together.”
“…Huh? Uh, okay.”
I looked up at the ceiling as she suggested.
It really did make me feel strangely dizzy and a little frightened.
More than that, though, my neck hurt.
“Hey! Hyunwoo!”
Yeowoo again.
She grabbed my shoulder and shook me.
“…What? Why do you keep calling meee?”
Yeowoo made a few hesitant sounds, then suddenly pointed toward someone on the second-floor gallery.
“L-Look at that! He doesn't have any hair! Isn't that amazing? He's bald!”
“Uh…….”
“Hyunwoo! This is even more amazing! Look over there! That person's really fat!”
Ah…….
My head is starting to spin.
Until the entrance ceremony began, Yeowoo and Sia kept poking me from both sides and competing to strike up conversations.
Was this what they meant when they said that when whales fight, the shrimp's back gets broken?
Because I was the one being worn down in the middle.
***
“Hmm. Those siblings are one thing…… but that girl is hanging around them too? Is that really a coincidence?”
Son Euna spoke while gripping the railing on the highest floor of the auditorium and looking down.
Representatives from other guilds nearby also crossed their arms and looked below.
Every one of their gazes was directed at Hyunwoo and Yeowoo, along with Yoon Sia beside them.
“They probably just happened to become friends. Besides, don't people say birds of a feather flock together?”
“Hmmm…… It'd be wonderful if we could somehow coax those three little brats into joining our guild. You're all thinking the same thing, aren't you?”
At Son Euna's sarcastic tone, the guild representatives all smiled and chuckled.
“I don't know about Yoon Sia, but those siblings are completely low risk, high return. Their parents are only a B-rank Hero and an ordinary office worker.”
“Why not Sia? Because her father's the head of Leviathan?”
“Well, there's no point picking a fight with someone in the same industry and earning everyone's criticism. And that man's personality is supposedly dogshit.”
“Mongrels always bark the loudest, don't they? Leviathan was…… what rank again? I stopped counting anything outside the top ten.”
The representatives from guilds ranked around the top ten burst into laughter.
The only ones who didn't laugh, instead wearing stiff expressions, were representatives from guilds outside the top ten.
Son Euna giggled as well before changing the subject.
“By the way, all of you failed too, didn't you? Their mother was very cautious.”
Everyone fell silent.
By ‘failed,’ Son Euna meant their attempts to approach the family.
It was essentially an effort to win their favor.
We'll provide financial support at the guild level, so why don't we get acquainted and draw up an exciting blueprint for the future together?
But every guild that tried approaching them had been rejected.
Starting with the number-one guild, Golden Heart, one notable guild after another throughout the industry had been turned down.
Son Euna's eyes gleamed as she stared at Lee Hyunwoo, wedged between the two girls below.
A little brat who had only just turned eight, yet gave off a strangely mature aura completely unsuited to his age.
A child with a cute face and plenty of handsome features even at a glance, making his future appearance all the more promising.
She wanted him.
She desired him.
She was determined to bring that child into her guild.
If anything, the fact that he couldn't be obtained easily only made her more impatient and greedy.
“Anyway, I don't know about Sia, but Golden Heart has already staked its claim on those siblings, so don't touch them. Consider this an official declaration, okay?”
Someone immediately shot back.
“Oh my? Aren't you taking the world a little too lightly, Deputy Guild Master? You already got your position through your daddy's connections, and now you want those promising youngsters too? Aren't you a little greedy?”
“Hah! And that's exactly why Guiding Light Guild has been stuck in second place forever, isn't it? Even with me serving as Deputy Guild Master, you haven't caught up. If anything, the gap just keeps getting wider.”
“…Can I take that as you saying you want to seriously go at it?”
“Of course not. I was only joking. What real authority does a figurehead Deputy Guild Master like me have…? Hehe. You know my dad handles everything anyway.”
Son Euna smoothly slithered away from the confrontation while subtly provoking the Deputy Guild Master of Guiding Light Guild.
The other Deputy Guild Master glared at Son Euna with mounting anger, but Son Euna merely whistled and pretended not to notice.
“All right, all right. Focus. Looks like the entrance ceremony is finally about to begin.”