Black Badger

[X Team / Senior Chen Koenig: Me?]

Ah.

I quickly corrected my mistake.

[X Team / Me: Sorry. I’ll correct that immediately.]

[X Team / Senior Chen Koenig: Good. Then go catch the culprit.]

I mean, why me...?

[X Team / Senior Chen Koenig: Sniff them out and hang their head up as a warning!]

Of course, I wasn’t out of my mind enough to argue again in a group chat full of seniors.

Still a little dumbfounded, I stared at my phone and typed back.

[X Team / Me: Yes, sir!]

[X Team / William: Good luck.]

That was the first thing the kid had said after staying silent in the group chat the whole time.

Ha.

A strange sense of emptiness washed over me.

But before I could even properly process that feeling, people started flooding the chat again.

[X Team / sup (user not added): Yeah, you’re close with people on the other // team]

[X Team / sup (user not added): If you ask, they might tell you]

[X Team / . (user not added): Go, Taleb! We’re counting on you!]

[X Team / ☆ (user not added): Wait]

[X Team / ☆ (user not added): What if this bastard’s actually the mole?]

[X Team / . (user not added): Huh?!]

[X Team / Senior Giacomo Ro: Holy sh*t?!]

[X Team / Senior Giacomo Ro: IT WAS YOU!!!]

Seriously...

[X Team / Me: This is unfair. I’ve been staying home lately.]

[X Team / Me: I even voted for a different team name!]

[X Team / Ruta Ayer (user not added): What did you vote for]

[X Team / Me: Chow Chow.]

[X Team / ☆ (user not added): This guy really doesn’t make it easy on himself]

[X Team / Yoshika Shastel (user not added): Don’t bully our handsome youngest too much~ isn’t he still sick? You need to take care of your health~]

I wasn’t the youngest, though.

But it really was unfair. Why were they suddenly turning suspicious eyes on me of all people, when I’d been quieter than anyone?

I poured all my grievance into my defense, but no one really listened.

I even sent a crying emoji, but it was instantly swept away by the rushing conversation.

People quickly returned to raging at Team Y—meaning the Serpent Eagle team—renewed their determination to win, started building strategies for each event, and then circled back to the original topic: finding the mole.

And the task of rooting out the mole ended up being assigned to the lower-year staff, including me.

[X Team / Gregory (user not added): Leaking the team name is forgivable]

[X Team / Gregory (user not added): But leaking strategy must never happen, and will never be forgiven]

[X Team / Gregory (user not added): Identify the leak route as quickly as possible]

[X Team / Senior Jason Trevain: Everyone shut up now]

Thankfully, the whole chain of events was finally wrapped up when Trevain returned from a mission and entered the group chat.

[X Team / Senior Jason Trevain: Aren’t you all supposed to be practicing?]

The group chat immediately quieted down again. 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝚠𝚎𝚋𝗻𝗼𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝚘𝐦

The absence of unread messages piling up like madness brought instant peace of mind. It was also nice being free from all those suspicious looks.

Sadly, though, Trevain did not cancel the bizarre order from the seniors telling me to sniff out the mole.

So that was how I ended up going over to Yun’s house across the street, half out of curiosity and half by force.

Because two members of the Serpent Eagle team lived in the mansion across the road.

***

Ding-dong!

The moment I took my hand off the doorbell, the front door swung open.

Yun must be ★ 𝐍𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 ★ here.

I smiled faintly and stepped into the familiar mansion.

“What.”

As expected.

Whenever I rang the bell and the door opened without any cheerful footsteps or calm walking sounds from inside, Yun was always the one there.

Oh, but judging by the shoes, Yehyeon was here too.

But if he wasn’t visible in the living room, that meant...

“He’s asleep.”

That figured.

“What about Ami?”

“Patrol. Back in two hours.”

“Oh. Perfect timing, then.”

The moment I let that slip, Yun raised one eyebrow.

I looked at my mentor’s dry face and grinned.

“I came because I have a favor to ask, Senior.”

“What.”

“Did the Serpent Eagle team make a group chat too, by any chance?”

A look of utter disbelief mixed into Yun’s gaze.

But it wasn’t as if this was the first or second time I’d gotten that kind of look. Completely unfazed, I kept smiling in circles and waited for an answer.

“Obviously Ami made it. Why do you care?”

“Can I take a look at that group chat?”

I said it bluntly.

A flicker of interest entered Yun’s eyes.

“You’re saying you want to spy on another team’s chat with your whole chest?”

“Are you interested in the sports festival, Yun?”

“No.”

That’s what I thought.

Honestly, it would’ve been scarier if he had shown interest.

“If you’re not interested, then it shouldn’t matter if I look, right? I won’t tell anyone I read it. I absolutely won’t leak strategy either. Seriously. I’ll only look at the chat window itself.”

“Why do you even want to read it?”

“Because of Serpent Eagle.”

I explained the situation.

Yun snorted, as if thinking a bunch of idiots had gathered once again to do something idiotic.

To be honest, this time I kind of understood his reaction.

If he refused to show me the group chat, I was planning to just not push it and hang out before going home.

That was what I was thinking, and yet, surprisingly, Yun handed me his phone.

“Huh?”

Was this for real?

“You’re really letting me look?”

“Read it in three minutes.”

Yun said it flatly.

“If it were up to me, I’d rather just leave that room entirely.”

...So he’d never even gone in once.

The alerts had piled up into a mountain. Taking Yun’s phone, I immediately entered the group chat just like I promised.

The atmosphere in the Serpent Eagle group chat was noticeably different from the Black Mamba chat.

Probably because Ami was the room owner.

I quickly skimmed the conversation.

[Serpent Eagle / Choi Ami: Just like I said before, I made the poll!]

[Serpent Eagle / Choi Ami: Board “Poll”: Sports Festival Preferred Event Poll]

[Serpent Eagle / Tom Husson (user not added): Thank you, Senior!]

[Serpent Eagle / Hesh Lyle (user not added): I voted!]

[Serpent Eagle / Sunny (user not added): I think it’d be good to upload the team-name survey link too]

[Serpent Eagle / Sunny (user not added): I’ll make it]

[Serpent Eagle / Choi Ami: Thanks!]

[Serpent Eagle / Choi Ami: Rick and Oppa, vote too!]

[Serpent Eagle / Choi Ami: Add team names too!]

[Serpent Eagle / Ricardo Sordi (user not added): Sure]

“Yun!”

I shouted on reflex.

Yun didn’t even look my way.

“What now.”

“You still haven’t added Rick as a friend?”

You’re even on the same TF team!

For some reason I was the one feeling offended, so when I looked up and shot him a betrayed look, my mentor stared back with dull eyes.

“If you’re done, hand it over.”

“Uh. Not yet.”

Afraid he’d snatch it away, I shut my mouth and obediently looked back down at the phone.

After that came some warm, wholesome talk about ordering matching team T-shirts. Ami posted the group chat rules. There was discussion about coordinating with general staff and research staff, and also what to do if too many people ended up unable to join the events they wanted.

These people actually seemed civilized...

Of course, that didn’t mean the Serpent Eagle team lacked competitive spirit compared to Black Mamba.

[Serpent Eagle / O (user not added): Team name!]

[Serpent Eagle / O (user not added): Let’s go with an apex predator! Doesn’t the team with the cute animal lose every sports festival?]

[Serpent Eagle / Kate (user not added): That’s all superstition]

[Serpent Eagle / Kate (user not added): Actually, the Whale Shark team won the one before last]

[Serpent Eagle / ♥️ (user not added): Isn’t a whale shark an apex predator?]

[Serpent Eagle / Kate (user not added): Whale sharks are sweethearts!]

[Serpent Eagle / Choi Ami: Right, team names matterrr]

[Serpent Eagle / Choi Ami: But we’ll decide fairly by vote from the names submitted]

Huh?

It looked like they’d chosen their team name in a way pretty similar to ours, so how did it end up becoming Serpent Eagle?

Up to this point, it really did seem like a coincidence.

But it was still too uncommon a name to dismiss as pure coincidence.

I narrowed my eyes and scrolled further.

And then I quickly noticed something strange. At one point, discussion about the team name disappeared from the chat in an unnaturally abrupt way, and then suddenly the Serpent Eagle team won by the highest vote count.

There was something here.

“Yun.”

I called to my mentor in the most natural voice I could manage.

“What.”

“Did you happen to mention our team name to anyone?”

Maybe Ami had let something slip...

But Yun couldn’t have looked more indifferent.

“I only learned this team’s name because you told me.”

“Did Ami not say anything?”

“She made a lot of noise telling people to vote, but I didn’t really listen.”

“Did Ami maybe tell people to vote for a certain team name—”

“Hilde!”

The door flew open and Ami appeared.

I was about to rise from my seat and calmly greet her when she kicked off her shoes in an instant and charged straight at me.

“Hildeee!”

“Ami. Good work out there—”

Smack!

Using a running start, she snatched Yun’s phone cleanly out of my hand.

So she hadn’t run over because she was happy to see me?

Sharp.

Thinking that, I watched Ami land lightly in the living room.

Of course, I wasn’t too worried. Even if I’d been spacing out lately, it wasn’t like I’d completely lost my mind.

Naturally, the moment Ami came in, I’d already gone back to the home screen and turned the phone off so it would need a fingerprint to unlock—

“Just as I thought!”

Ami tapped away at Yun’s phone and shouted.

“You were spying on our group chat, Hilde!!”

“No, wait, how did you unlock it?”

I had definitely checked to make sure it was properly locked!

“I know Oppa’s unlock pattern! Gotcha, Hilde!”

“Yun’s really that relaxed about privacy?”

Says the man who literally has staff housing with a mystery-use freezer warehouse?

I turned my head toward my mentor with a seriously? look, and Yun, who was drinking (his own) tea in the kitchen, blandly met my gaze.

He even read the question inside it.

“Do you think I’d let anything happen the moment my phone became public?”

“No, so is that why you also treat the privacy on my phone like it’s worthless?”

“I have no idea what you’re suddenly talking about.”

What an unbelievably shameless human being...

While I was inwardly admiring the sheer thickness of my mentor’s face, Ami stepped right into my line of sight and asserted her presence.

“Hilde! This is cheating!”

I looked at the tiny senior angrily pouting in an adorable way.

Then I carefully voiced my honest opinion.

“But Ami, your Serpent Eagle team started it first.”

“That was just a coincidenceee.”

Ami suddenly put on a perfectly neat expression.

“It just kinda happened that way.”

“That expression looks unnatural, Ami... I don’t believe you.”

“Gasp! Hilde doesn’t believe me! I’m shocked!”

“And I didn’t look at anything important like strategy.”

I declared the truth proudly.

“I only looked as far as the part where the team name was being decided. Yun showed it to me.”

“Oh-ho. Passing the blame comes so naturally to you.”

“But it’s true. If Yun had said he didn’t want to show me, I would’ve just gone home. I only asked on the off chance it might work...”

“Be honest, Hilde. Ro and the delinquents put you up to this, didn’t they!”

Ami pointed it out sharply.

“You’re close with us, so they told you to come spy, riiight!”

For a while, Ami and I lightly bickered back and forth.

While eating the watermelon punch she brought out, we kept going like that until before long Yehyeon came shuffling out.

He looked like he had just woken up. His hair was even fluffier than before, and his eyes were nearly closed.

Dragging his bare feet along the floor, Yehyeon slowly looked at us.

“Hilde... what are you doing with Ami?”

The moment he grasped the situation, his eyes changed.

The current Black Badger advisor, who had hated sports festivals since time immemorial, stared straight at me.

“Hilde...”

“...Yes.”

“Don’t let the people around you push you around too much...”

After saying that, he turned as if to stagger back into the bedroom.

But just as I was about to apologize for waking him, Yehyeon stopped with a bitter smile.

For a moment, he stood there as if replaying what he had just heard from us.

Then he said,

“It looks like Trevain is trying to fill Richard’s empty place.”

That was truly just a superior muttering to himself.

“I’m grateful. It seems like you’ll do well.”