“I’m crazy about newspapers. Just as Queen Elizabeth married the country, I married the newspaper……”

“This is spreading false information, can I sue you for this?”

“False information! I always win with facts, Juno.”

“Where in this article are the facts?”

It’s not even worth listening to anymore.

I let out a deep sigh and folded the newspaper tightly. Then Michelle stammered.

“Well, the way McQueen looks at you……”

“What about it?”

I glared at Michelle coldly and she made a dejected face. Then someone called out to me.

“Juno, what are you doing here?”

I turned around.

“Oh, Adrian.”

“What were you doing? Michelle was here too. Hi.”

Adrian greeted with a bright smile.

“Ah, I was looking for someone to help me with my history essay.”

“Essay? From Teacher Robin?”

“Yeah. Philafrizzoto…… Anyway, an essay related to war.”

I said, scratching my forehead.

Adrian tilted his head for a while, then opened his mouth with an “ah”.

“You mean the Peloponnesian War. We have a lot of related materials at our house for that. If you take those and refer to them, it will be easy to write the essay.”

“Wow, really?”

I was greatly delighted by Adrian’s words. Will things be solved this easily?

Seeing the joy on my face, Adrian chuckled. Then he bent down to meet my eyes.

“Then do you want to come to our house this weekend?”

“……What?”

I stopped abruptly.

“It’s not too far from school. Why don’t you come visit sometime? After weekend morning training.”

“Oh, that…… To your house? Do I really have to go? It’s not that I don’t want to, but you’re just lending me books. To your house?”

I tried to refuse Adrian’s invitation, feeling Michelle’s burdensome gaze.

“Is it inconvenient for you? I can lend them to you, but I’m afraid it might be too heavy for you to carry around. It’s 3 books, each 1,000 pages. Should I bring them?”

Gasp, 3,000 pages.

“Ah, no! No. I can’t cause you such trouble. It would be heavy for you to bring them too.”

I scratched my forehead with a troubled look.

‘Do I really have to go? Somehow…… No, well, nothing major will happen if I go. Adrian probably invited me without any particular intentions. We’ve closed dungeons together several times, so maybe it’s okay to visit each other’s houses?’

I hesitated, then glanced at Adrian. Adrian was just waiting for my response with pure eyes.

‘Yeah, what could happen. We’re just friends……’

“There are no friends between a man and a woman.”

Michelle said ominously, piercing my side.

“The lead for next week’s scandal column has been decided, huhu.”

“…….”

I looked at her with ice-cold eyes and whispered.

“If my name appears in the newspaper club’s articles next week too, then be prepared to receive a lawsuit, Bruce. I’m someone who really does what I say I will.”

“Gulp……”

“If you understood, go back to the newspaper club.”

“Okay.”

Michelle returned to the newspaper club with a chastised look. Adrian looked at her, puzzled.

“What kind of conversation did you have with Michelle that made her face turn pale?”

“Don’t worry about it. I just let her know that I have the right to my own image. And that I have enough money to appoint a lawyer.”

Adrian looked even more perplexed. Soon his expression softened again.

“Actually, there’s something I want to give you. It’s something I brought back from the dungeon last time, and I thought it would be good for you to have it, Juno.”

“Last time’s dungeon…… The mine dungeon?”

“Yeah. So won’t you come over once? I’ll prepare some delicious things too.”

Are you trying to lure a high school sophomore with delicious food now? I’m not that easy.

“My mother brought back some chocolates and yakgwa from her business trip. I thought you would like them, Juno. What was it called again? Yakka…… Yakka?”

“Yakgwa.”

I understood uncannily.

Wow, it’s hard to find yakgwa even in Koreatown. In the first place, the market is far away and it’s expensive if you buy it here.

In an instant, my eyes sparkled and shone brightly. Just imagining it made my mouth water.

“I’ll go.”

“Great. I’ll let my parents know.”

Adrian grinned widely and hung around by my side.

“But what are you holding right now, Juno?”

“Ah, this.”

I was holding the newspaper Michelle had given me behind my back.

I hid the newspaper behind my back.

“You don’t need to know.”

* * *

Weekend morning training was scheduled.

Victor decided to skip training today as the next match was tight.

So the people attending today are me, Adrian, and Teacher Gina.

As soon as we arrived at the training ground, Mr. Benjamin informed us of the situation since the mine dungeon.

“The resurrection stone brought from the mine dungeon is currently being researched by the research team. It seems to be a stone that can resurrect monsters to a limited extent. Whether it’s unfortunate or fortunate, if it could be used on people, it would have caused great chaos, right?”

We received a couple of photos of the research team studying the resurrection stone.

“But it does seem useful when experimenting on or studying monsters. Of course, it could also be a stepping stone to possibilities. It means there could be other items with different functions beyond the resurrection stone.”

If there was a stone that could revive dead monsters, there might be other stones with unique functions. That alone was reason enough to enter dungeons.

We received a briefing from Mr. Benjamin before basic physical training.

At first, when we trained together at the training ground, our focus was on ‘teamwork’.

Although we attended the same school, the four of us had almost no contact points otherwise.

Then we were tied together with just one common point of being Awakeners and became a team. Matching our breathing and adapting to skills were the biggest issues.

But now we were able to handle skills quite well and had developed teamwork.

Mr. Benjamin seemed to want to guide us to the next step.

“I saw Mr. Jade’s skills in the mine dungeon last time. I could hardly see any defense, but he took out so many zombies alone and quickly found the weakness, shortening the time to defeat the boss. Moreover, a team that can close 13 D-grade dungeons so we can enter C-grade as well….. I thought we needed to prepare even more.”

“For example, in what way?”

“Do you mean compensating for weaknesses?”

Adrian and I asked in turn.

Mr. Benjamin nodded with a satisfied look.

“That’s right. We focused our training on improving basic physical strength and teamwork. But as a result, it led to high team dependence. It’s not necessarily a bad thing.”

Mr. Benjamin trailed off and distributed relevant data to us.

“Recently, in California, there was a case where a private guild was closing a B-grade dungeon and the team was torn apart and some were left behind.”

“Left behind?”

“It seems they were negligent in their preparations. Among the guild members, 1/3 were left behind and couldn’t come out of the gate, and 2/3 came out without defeating the boss. In the first place, it was a guild that had gathered temporarily to aim for byproducts, so their teamwork didn’t match either.”

“What happened to that team?”

Teacher Gina asked with a tense face. Mr. Benjamin sighed deeply.

“Fortunately, the guild members who remained in the dungeon defeated the boss monster and managed to escape safely. But it took eight hours even after the 2/3 of the guild members who came out first. The report was also delayed, so the military’s response was delayed as well. As a result, there were five team members with serious injuries.”

“Still, they managed to close it somehow. It’s a great relief that they survived.”

Adrian said in a low voice while flipping through the data.

Then I remembered what Allen had said.

‘A-grade or B-grade dungeons can be accompanied by natural disasters. Moreover, if the gate is left open for a long time, the probability of monster waves occurring is also high.’

I’m not blindly believing Allen’s words, but it does make me uneasy.

‘If that private guild had hastily opened the gate and ran away without reporting it, and monsters had rushed out and turned part of California into a wasteland……’

It was a dreadful assumption even in imagination.

“So we want to train our team members to be able to endure even if they are left behind alone, or to grow into team members who can close low-level dungeons alone with S-grade skills. We do explore low-level dungeons, but there’s always the possibility of the worst-case scenario……”

“I understand what you mean. In what direction do you want to train us?”

Mr. Benjamin’s eyes became a little more serious at my question.

“If possible, I would like to train the three of you, excluding Teacher Gina, to be all-rounders.”

Ah, as expected. There’s no other way.

“Adrian is an ice magic type, so he can freely manipulate ice. Right now, with teamwork-focused training, he just freezes the monsters, but I will make it so he can develop precise and definite attack skills along with increasing his defense.”

After all, if it’s ice, the user should be able to use it however they want.

Sharp ice attacks like an awl or creating a thick ice wall as a shield.

‘Then with Victor, there will be two shields, so it might be even safer.’

“And for Victor, we’re going to have him experiment with the specially-made gauntlets currently being developed in the lab. We thought that if we increased the attack power, we might be able to clear dungeons faster. Of course, it will take some time depending on the circumstances of the military supplies company……”

“I see.”

“Juno’s marksmanship is excellent, but being tied to the ground could be a hindrance. ‘Concentration’ has no problem even if the aim is shaken, so if possible, we’re thinking of increasing mobility to widen the field of vision.”

“Mobility, huh? How so? Even though I diligently do physical training, I’m inherently clumsy……”

As I spoke with difficulty, Mr. Benjamin chuckled and brought out a box.

“Why, didn’t we bring something back from the mine dungeon?”

“What? Something we brought back?”

Something obtained from the mine dungeon.

The resurrection stone possessed by the corrupt businessman zombie. And……

“We’re going to increase your mobility with this.”

Mr. Benjamin opened the box.

* * *

“I don’t think this really suits me, Officer.”

At the underground base training ground made from dungeon byproducts.

I lay there as if the floor was a bed. My body was tightly wrapped in black ropes. Anyone who saw me would think I was a fish caught in a net.

This rope is the reward we received a few days ago after clearing the mine dungeon.

You have acquired the ‘Grappling Hook Rope Launcher’ and ‘Special Rope’. You can fire the rope to secure it and move around to expand your range of movement.]

It was nice to unexpectedly get a C-grade melee weapon from a D-grade dungeon. But……

‘I never thought I would be the one to use it.’

I also didn’t know I was this clumsy.