Turning the clock back a little.
A moment earlier.
Garam, having arrived at the school in the car he had borrowed(?) from Hae-rang, was standing in front of the faculty office.
"You're the guardian of the student Yeon Ha-yeon, correct?"
Just then a voice called out to him.
A middle-aged woman with a cold air about her, who had opened the faculty office door and stepped out.
'Ha-yeon's homeroom teacher, was it?'
It was a face he had seen once before.
After confirming that he was Ha-yeon's guardian, she stepped aside from the doorway as if inviting him in.
"Please come in."
Following the homeroom teacher's lead into the faculty office, Garam sat down at the table.
"First of all, it's a pleasure to meet you, Guardian Kim Garam."
The guardian consultation began the moment he took his seat.
"You're aware of the reason we asked you to come in?"
He was aware. It was over failing, no less.
When Garam nodded, the homeroom teacher continued.
"Might I ask what line of work you're in, Mr. Garam? Depending on the guardian's occupation, there may be things the school can support you with."
She leafed through her documents without so much as looking at him.
She said it was a matter of support.
But the homeroom teacher seemed to be looking at something else entirely.
Exactly what sort of person Garam was.
Whether his household was worth investing her time in.
'A prestigious school, all right.'
In the end, even among students, being sorted into tiers was unavoidable.
"Ha. Here."
Had Hae-rang anticipated even this situation?
Garam took the business card he had received from Hae-rang out of his coat and handed it to the homeroom teacher.
"A business card...?"
The homeroom teacher took the card he offered without much interest, and her expression slowly began to fill with astonishment.
"Hunter Association, First Subjugation Team?"
The words she muttered without meaning to drew everyone's attention.
For a moment, silence fell over the faculty office.
Before long he could feel the startled teacher's gaze soften considerably.
'Should I call this snobbish, or say it's only natural for a prestigious school?'
While Garam was thinking that.
"To get to the point, the student Ha-yeon is currently at risk of failing. Honestly, if she doesn't score properly on this final exam... you may as well consider it settled."
At the words of the teacher, whose expression was far more courteous than before, Garam's face hardened.
'To think it had come to this.'
She had never said anything about her grades, so he had assumed she was doing fine.
He hadn't known it was this serious.
"In fact, through her second year she was outstanding enough that she might have aimed for top of the year. But from the moment she became a third-year, when practical subjects were added in bulk, her grades began to fall sharply."
Garam nodded as though he understood.
It was probably the blood channels.
Ha-yeon's problem was that the damage to her blood channels made her skill duration extremely short.
From third year, with practicals increasing, she probably hadn't been able to keep up with the classes.
"The student Ha-yeon is a child with ample potential. Elemental-type abilities are more versatile than other abilities, and above all, her instincts are more than sufficient."
The problem here, however.
"Most of the students at this school receive backing from their families. But the student Ha-yeon's problem right now......."
The homeroom teacher swallowed the rest.
But predicting the rest wasn't an easy matter.
It probably meant that support in the form of spirit medicines or artifacts couldn't solve it either.
"The student Ha-yeon once received a spirit medicine as a prize... but strangely, she was unable to absorb it."
The same case as the Blood Point Stone?
"Very occasionally there are people with weak mana circuits for whom that happens. In such cases the spirit medicine has to be custom-made. And the price is on the steep side."
Even then, a complete recovery would probably be impossible.
In a situation where not long ago he would have done nothing but despair, Garam was calm.
To be precise, he could now find a solution, stopgap though it might be.
'Kindred Conversion should solve it.'
Even if it couldn't fully restore her blood channels, extending her skill duration should be possible.
"About when is the final exam?"
Before then he would gather every Blood Point Stone there was and obtain Kindred Conversion.
"About two weeks from now."
Two weeks.
A span that was tight if you called it tight and ample if you called it ample.
'I'll have to search pretty hard.'
The list of gates he'd received from Ha-yeon and the commission forms from the Holy Knights.
He would be a little busy for a while.
"Ahem. Well then, Guardian Kim Garam. We too will do our utmost to find a way for the student Ha-yeon."
The homeroom teacher was a different woman from the one he had first walked in on.
She bowed again and again as she saw him out.
"Dad?"
When he turned at the sound, a girl was standing there.
"Ah, Seo-rin, you're here. Your father hasn't arrived yet. Can you reach him?"
"Well... he's been busy lately, so I'm not sure either..."
It seemed she had a guardian consultation scheduled today alongside his.
She was biting her lip hard, as if in frustration.
"The timing doesn't work today, so it looks like we'll have to do it again another time."
Leaving those words, the teacher closed the faculty office door.
'Was her parent not coming that much of a shock?'
For a child that age, it was possible.
'Wait, Cha Seo-rin? I've heard that somewhere.'
Right.
She was the daughter of a conglomerate called New Spirit Medicine Pharmaceuticals.
'The CEO's name was Cha Jin-myeong, wasn't it.'
A company famous enough that even Garam had heard of it a few times.
If you had to put it, a company that made the luxury goods of the spirit medicine world.
Too expensive for him ever to have bought any.
'There's a reason they're the prestige name in the industry.'
To think the daughter of a conglomerate like that attended here too.
As he absently stared at her, his eyes met Cha Seo-rin's.
"Are you by any chance Yeon Ha-yeon's older brother?"
Cha Seo-rin asked, the corners of her eyes twisting.
'She knows me?'
If she were a friend of Ha-yeon's, it would make sense.
But one look at Cha Seo-rin's face made it clear that the reason she knew wasn't a good one.
"I am, but."
"Ha. Like sister, like guardian, I see."
See?
Her manner of speech alone made clear it was absolutely not a good reason.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Nothing. It doesn't mean much of anything. You came for a guardian consultation today because of the final exam, right?"
"And?"
"From the look of it you don't seem to have any plan. She's going to fail anyway, so why not have her withdraw?"
This little brat?
She had gone and eaten her manners with her rice.
She must be considerably irritated by the fact that her parent hadn't come.
"Sorry, but that isn't your concern. And Ha-yeon will manage fine, so drop it."
Cha Seo-rin stepped toward Garam and opened her mouth.
"Does it feel good to say whatever you like? Wouldn't it be better, as a guardian, to tell her clearly that what can't be done can't be done?"
A laugh that somehow seemed to look down on him.
From it, Garam could roughly tell what sort of person Cha Seo-rin was.
The kind of second-generation conglomerate heir you'd usually only see in a drama.
That was Cha Seo-rin.
"Here's the thing, though. Saying I have no plan is flat-out wrong."
Garam's hand blocked Cha Seo-rin's way.
"Ha?"
SMACK!
Cha Seo-rin roughly knocked his arm aside.
"What's wrong about it? What kind of potential could a half-wit who can't even use her ability properly possibly have?"
At Cha Seo-rin's sharp words Ha-yeon lowered her head as if she had nothing to say in return, but.
"No."
Firmly.
"She does."
He denied it.
He wasn't simply talking about Kindred Conversion.
'If not for me.'
Ha-yeon had held the potential that might have carried her to S-Grade.
"...What are you—"
Cha Seo-rin stared at him as if dumbfounded.
"If you don't believe it, shall we make a bet?"
Garam proposed with a smile.
As he had with Yang Jin-hak.
And as he had with Kim Tae-hyeon.
A simple bet.
"The terms: whether Ha-yeon fails on the final exam or not."
"Ha. And the stake?"
"If we win, you hand over part of the benefits you receive as top student, say."
This was the Hunter Officers' Academy, where merit was supreme.
At such a school, the benefits the top student received, from free spirit medicines to dormitory arrangements and personal training, were all things that couldn't be converted into money.
"Fine. Then if I win, I'll take it in money. Say, a hundred million? I'll even let you put it on credit."
Snickering, Cha Seo-rin looked exactly like a devil.
"Let's do that. A hundred million if I lose, your benefits as top student if I win. That'll make a fine bet."
Well, at most she only looked like a devil.
Whereas he was an actual True Progenitor, a being on par with one.
"F-fine. We'll see about that!"
Perhaps unsettled by his confident attitude, Cha Seo-rin's voice trembled.
She looked at him and Ha-yeon for a moment, then yanked the faculty office door open and went inside.
"Whew. What a fierce student."
I don't think there was anyone like that when I was in school.
As he sighed, thinking that.
"Seriously, I can't even guess what you're thinking anymore."
Ha-yeon was walking up from behind.
"Ah, you're here?"
She had apparently heard the conversation he'd just been having with Cha Seo-rin.
"What were you thinking, making a bet like that?!"
"Don't worry. When have I ever made a losing deal?"
Not once, without question.
Ha-yeon seemed to know it too; she sighed and shook her head.
"You have to be careful. That girl's father, Cha Jin-myeong, might be connected to the Saryeon Society!"
"The Saryeon Society?"
Why on earth would the Saryeon Society come up here out of nowhere?
"W-well, there's a rumor that a Saryeon Society hunter drove Cha Seo-rin to school once. And also......."
"Hmm. Is that so."
The Saryeon Society.
As it happened, the Worshipper whose tail he had caught recently appeared to belong to the Saryeon Society.
'Is the Saryeon Society connected to the Worshippers?'
He couldn't conclude anything yet, but the uneasiness was unavoidable.
As Garam fell into thought for a moment, silence settled over the corridor.
"So, the guardian consultation is over? What... did you talk about?"
It was Ha-yeon who spoke first.
She seemed curious about what had passed inside.
"Nothing much. Just a rundown of the current situation."
All he had done was come out after hearing about Ha-yeon's situation.
At his words her expression stiffened.
It wasn't hard to understand.
No one wanted it known that they were at risk of failing.
"Don't worry. I have a method in mind. Even if you can't take top of the year, I can at least keep you from failing."
He had to obtain a Mid-tier Blood Point Stone as fast as possible and acquire Kindred Conversion.
Only with that would Ha-yeon gain the strength to at least avoid failing.
"This exam, I'll make sure you pass it as top of the year."
This was a vow.
A recompense to Ha-yeon, and a vow he made to himself.
And at the same moment as Garam's vow.
[A new Arrangement of Nosferatu has appeared.]
[Location: The Windswept Great Plateau.]
"This is......."
A System message floated up before his eyes.
[It's an Arrangement of Nosferatu. So it finally appears!]
Carmilla, who had been quiet until now, sprang into the air in surprise.
That was how impossible it was to simply pass over the System message that had appeared.
Naturally so, since it was the first Arrangement of Nosferatu to appear since he became a True Progenitor.