Night settled over the densely packed residential neighborhood in Mapo District. The dim streetlights cast the shadows of three people walking through narrow, stepped alleys: Han Seo-jun, Lee Min-jae, and Yoon Chae-won.
In his hand, Seo-jun gripped a slip of paper bearing Kang Ji-ho's home address, which he had obtained from the class attendance records—a place even Mr. Yoon from the counseling office had never been willing to visit.
"This is his house, sir," Min-jae said, pointing to an old two-story building with peeling paint.
Seo-jun climbed the concrete stairs slowly. The wooden door before them looked rotten. Before he could knock, it suddenly swung open. A middle-aged woman with a weary face and swollen eyes appeared, carrying a trash bag.
"Who is it?" Ji-ho's mother asked hesitantly, looking at Seo-jun and the two students behind him.
"Good evening, ma'am. I'm Han Seo-jun, Ji-ho's Sociology teacher at Haneul High School," Seo-jun greeted her with a polite bow. "This is Min-jae and Chae-won, Ji-ho's schoolmates. We came to check on him."
The woman's face suddenly darkened. Fear and defensiveness flared in her eyes. "Ji-ho is sick... He doesn't want to see anyone from school. Please just go home. We don't want any more trouble."
"Mrs. Kang," Seo-jun cut in gently, going straight to the point. "We're not here to demand an explanation for Ji-ho's absences. I know what really happened to him at school."
Ji-ho's mother's hands trembled so badly that the trash bag slipped from her grasp and fell to the floor. The tears she had been holding back burst forth at once. "Y-You know, Teacher?"
Seo-jun nodded. With his mother's permission, the three of them stepped into the cramped, chilly house.
In the dark room at the very back, Kang Ji-ho sat curled up on his thin mattress. The teenager's face was deathly pale, his eyes swollen and ringed with deep shadows. On his exposed right arm, bluish bruises showed beneath the thick jacket sleeve he had deliberately used to hide them.
The moment Ji-ho saw Seo-jun and the others enter, he panicked and scrambled backward until his back hit the wall. "Why... why are you here?! Leave! Don't bother me!"
"Ji-ho, right?" Min-jae called softly. Without hesitation, he stepped forward and sat on the floor beside Ji-ho's mattress. "I'm Min-jae from Class 11. You don't have to be afraid. Mr. Han isn't like the other teachers at that school."
Ji-ho stared at Min-jae with trembling eyes, then glanced at Seo-jun, who knelt so their eyes were level.
"Ji-ho," Seo-jun said in a calm voice. "I've seen your locker. I also heard what Han Seung-woo said in the alley outside the school."
Ji-ho covered his face with both hands, and his sobs broke loose instantly. "It's pointless, sir. No one can help me. Han Seung-woo is the son of the school's biggest donor. Even Mr. Yoon from counseling yelled at me when I tried to report it last month! He said that if I caused trouble, the school would sue my parents!"
Seo-jun's chest throbbed with pain. It was exactly the same pattern: make the victim feel guilty and threaten them with power until they chose to stay silent and destroy themselves.
[Teacher's Eye Level 2 Activated.] [Name: Kang Ji-ho (16 years old)] [Trust in Host: Increased (0% -> 35%)] [Mental Condition: Beginning to Open Up / Requires Assurance of Safety]
"Seung-woo threatened to spread the video, didn't he?" Chae-won asked softly from the doorway.
Ji-ho nodded slowly behind his hands. "He... he recorded himself forcing me to kneel and taking all my pocket money behind the laboratory. He said that if I didn't bring him five hundred thousand won this week, he'd send the video to the entire grade's group chat and the school's social media..."
"Where did he store the video, Ji-ho?" Seo-jun asked directly.
"On his phone... but he also said he had a backup in the cloud storage account on his personal tablet, the one he often brings to school," Ji-ho whispered.
Seo-jun looked at Min-jae and Chae-won. A counterattack strategy began taking shape in his mind.
"Ji-ho, listen to me," Seo-jun said firmly, locking eyes with the teenager. "I'm not going to ask you to go straight back to school tomorrow. But I promise you, that video will never spread, and Han Seung-woo will never touch you again. Will you trust me?"
Ji-ho looked into his teacher's unwavering eyes. For the first time in months of fear, he felt something solid to hold on to. "C-Can... can Mr. Han really do that?"
"The three of us will make sure of it," Min-jae cut in firmly, patting Ji-ho on the shoulder.
The next day, they began assembling the evidence through covert operations.
Seo-jun knew he couldn't act like a lone hero, kicking down doors and accusing Seung-woo without irrefutable evidence. If he did, Mr. Yoon and Principal Park could easily destroy the evidence and turn the tables on him with an accusation of defaming a student.
"Seung-woo's phone is always locked, but he always leaves his tablet in the Class 11-1 locker during gym," Min-jae whispered as the three of them gathered in a corner of the library during first break.
"Our school's network security is extremely weak," Min-jae added, showing them a precisely drawn sketch of the school's Wi-Fi topology. "During gym, I can connect the close-range signal hacker to the transmitter in the third-floor corridor. Once Seung-woo's tablet automatically connects to the school's Wi-Fi, we can pull an encrypted copy of the files from his backup folder."
Seo-jun looked at Min-jae proudly. The boy's spatial talent and logical analysis, once dismissed as worthless by the other teachers, had now become the most valuable asset in this rescue mission.
"What about Mr. Yoon?" Chae-won asked. "He'll definitely defend Seung-woo if this case blows up."
"That's my part," Seo-jun replied with a cold smile. "Mr. Yoon thinks his position is safe because he holds the foundation's secrets. But he forgets that greedy people always leave a trail."
Seo-jun took out his phone and called Ms. Kim Soo-jin's personal number.
"Ms. Kim," Seo-jun said when the call connected. "In the old extracurricular records you're keeping, is there a history of disbursements for 'special counseling facilities' signed under Mr. Yoon's name and Han Seung-woo's parents' names?"
On the other end of the line, Ms. Kim's voice sounded hesitant for a moment before she sighed. "There is, Mr. Han. Last year, a twenty-million-won 'character development' government grant from Seung-woo's parents went into Mr. Yoon's personal account without passing through the school's official funds."
"Keep that evidence safe, Ms. Kim. We'll use it today to shut the counselor up."
Gym period for Class 11-1 arrived. The school field filled with the uproar of students running after the ball.
In the deserted third-floor corridor, Min-jae walked casually with a laptop and a pocket-sized signal-connecting device. Quickly and skillfully, he slipped the tiny device onto a cable conduit box near the Class 11-1 lockers.
Min-jae's fingers danced across his laptop keyboard.
[Connecting to Target Device: Tablet-HSW-11] [Bypassing Simple Security Protocol...] [Downloading Hidden File: Vault Folder...] [Progress: 45%... 80%... 100%!]
"Got it," Min-jae whispered.
A two-minute video file opened on his laptop screen. It clearly showed Han Seung-woo and two friends laughing as they kicked Kang Ji-ho and forced him to kneel behind the laboratory.
Min-jae clenched his fists at the sight of the horrifying video, then immediately transferred it to Seo-jun's encrypted USB drive.
At the same time, Seo-jun stepped into the counseling office.
Mr. Yoon, who had been arranging files at his desk, looked up in surprise when Seo-jun entered and immediately locked the door from the inside.
"Mr. Han! What the hell are you doing, locking the door?!" Mr. Yoon shouted as he rose in panic.
Seo-jun walked over slowly, then sat in the chair across from Mr. Yoon. He placed two documents on the wooden desk with a calm, heavy slap.
The first document: a transcript of the twenty-million-won bribe transferred from Han Seung-woo's parents to Mr. Yoon's personal account.
The second document: a screenshot from the Kang Ji-ho bullying video that Min-jae had just sent him.
Mr. Yoon's face, flushed with anger only moments earlier, suddenly went corpse-pale. His eyes bulged as he stared at the two sheets of paper before him.
"You... where did you get all this?!" Mr. Yoon's voice trembled violently, his breath coming fast with fear.
Seo-jun leaned back in his chair. He focused his gaze on Mr. Yoon, then summoned his new ability from the System.
[Activating Special Ability: Psychological Pressure!] [Consuming: 50 Teacher Points.] [Creating Mental Intimidation Wave on Target...]
In Mr. Yoon's eyes, Han Seo-jun's presence suddenly seemed to grow until it filled the entire room. The voice and aura surrounding Seo-jun felt so oppressive that Mr. Yoon felt as if an invisible hand were choking him.
"Mr. Yoon," Seo-jun said in a calm, thunderous voice, each word stabbing directly into the older man's consciousness. "Tomorrow morning, you will call Han Seung-woo and his parents into this room. You will process this bullying case officially, delete every backup of the video from their devices, and ensure that Kang Ji-ho receives a written apology and full protection from the school."
Mr. Yoon trembled violently, his chest heaving as he clutched the edge of his desk to keep from falling. "W-What if I refuse...?"
Seo-jun leaned forward slightly, staring at Mr. Yoon with cold, merciless eyes. "If you refuse, these two documents won't just end up in the hands of the police. They'll also reach the national media before sunset tomorrow."
Mr. Yoon swallowed, his saliva bitter in his throat. All his defenses and lies collapsed completely before the part-time teacher he had always considered weak.
"A-All right... I'll do it... I'll obey..." Mr. Yoon whispered in surrender, bowing his head deeply.
[Quest Notification!] [Quest Arc 1 Series - Part 4: KANG JI-HO INVESTIGATION ROUTE] [Progress: 80%] [Status: Evidence Collected & Counselor Successfully Pressured!]
Seo-jun rose from his chair, unlocked the counseling office door, then glanced back at Mr. Yoon, who was still trembling at his desk.
"Your first lesson, Mr. Yoon," Seo-jun said coldly. "A teacher who sells out his students for money is nothing more than trash waiting to be thrown away."
Seo-jun stepped out of the room. The battle to save Kang Ji-ho was not over yet, but tonight, the embers of courage had been breathed back to life in the darkness.