Drafted by the Registrar, Signed by the Team Lead

The Registrar wrote the draft of the interrogation report, and the team lead signs off to confirm it.

The lead is chosen by the team, and if the team doesn't choose one, it goes by seniority.

Seorin was the lead. No one had decided it, but that was how it turned out.

The draft ran three pages. Seorin stopped on the second page.

The incident summary read like this. Due to equipment malfunction, team member Han Doyun had entered the collapse zone, and team member Park Mirae had responded in an emergency.

Emergency response. The phrase Kwon Heesu had called the second method, yesterday.

Seorin checked how that phrase had gotten in there. The drafter box had the registrar clerk's name in it, and the reviewer box was empty.

If the reviewer box is empty, there's no record of who proposed the phrase.

Seorin had seen that blank box many times over three years. In registrar documents, a blank isn't a mistake. Some documents are supposed to have a blank and some aren't, and this was one that wasn't supposed to.

The third page had the disciplinary summary. Four week suspension, full team freeze, submission of the original.

The punishment was heavy but the account was light. The combination was strange. A heavy punishment usually comes out of a heavy account.

If you hand down a heavy punishment on a light account, you can adjust just the punishment later. Because the account is already light.

"I'd like to request a correction." Seorin left the signature line blank.

"The report is a finalized document." The clerk said. "We only need your confirming signature."

"A confirming signature confirms facts. If the facts are different, I won't sign."

"Which part." The clerk turned the draft back over.

"The phrase 'emergency response.'" Seorin pointed at the line. "Student Park Mirae stated yesterday in the hearing room that it was unauthorized use. The statement and the report don't match."

The clerk checked the hearing record. It took four minutes to confirm.

"...The statement does say that."

"Then write it the way she stated it."

"This phrasing benefits the student team."

"I know." Seorin didn't pick up the pen.

"Why refuse something that benefits you."

"This document becomes precedent for other student incidents later." Seorin said. "A precedent that says a procedural clause doesn't apply if there's an equipment malfunction."

"That's... limited to this case."

"Does it say that it's limited."

The clerk looked at the document. It didn't say that.

In the correction, Seorin included four items.

First, team member Park Mirae's unauthorized use of her ability. No notification, no approval.

Second, team member Han Doyun's attempt to use it without approval. The team's silence was interpreted as approval.

Third, team member Lee Garam's failure to report an overload. Aware within five seconds of the start, unreported for three minutes.

Fourth, team member Yu Seorin's physical intervention. Exercised a team member's right to refuse on their behalf. Point deduction finalized, no request for correction.

And then she attached a fifth.

"What's this." The clerk's hand stopped at the fifth line.

"The opposing team's contribution."

Fifth. In the qualifying round, Team Two, with the win already guaranteed ten seconds before the match ended, requested a stoppage and stayed on site as a witness.

"This is the student team's incident report. Another team's contribution is a separate matter."

"If it's treated as a separate matter, it won't be left in that team's record." Seorin said. "Only the fact that they won will be left. Why they didn't finish winning won't be."

"Student Yu Seorin, this increases the student team's point deduction."

"It does." Seorin didn't strike the item.

The clerk added it. As she added it, she asked one thing.

"Once this document is posted, it will affect the valedictorian candidate review. Do you understand that."

"I do."

"Let me confirm one thing, student." The clerk set down her pen. "Does this correction gain you anything."

Seorin answered that question honestly.

"It opens a path to appeal." Seorin didn't hide that.

"...Would you explain."

"If I'm docked points for team management responsibility, I can file an appeal contesting the team management rule itself." Seorin said. "Without the deduction, there's no such path."

"You came here having already calculated that."

"I calculated it. That's why I'm telling you now." Seorin said. "If I don't say it, it'll be recorded later that I was simply, purely honest."

The clerk wrote that exchange in the margin of the report. Seorin knew that margin served the same purpose as Taeho's margin.

It was posted the next day.

On the first day, the view count was eight hundred. Im Yeonwoo quoted the document in a short post, and gave it no title.

The body was two lines. This report lists four names and four separate faults, each attributed. This is the first time such a format has appeared in an academy document.

The valedictorian candidate deduction notice came that same afternoon. Team management responsibility item, four point deduction. The candidate ranking dropped from first to third.

Seorin read the notice and confirmed one thing. The path to appeal.

Since the reason for the deduction was team management responsibility, she could file an appeal contesting the team management rule itself. Without the deduction, there was no such path.

She had calculated that path yesterday. And even having calculated it, there was one reason she told the clerk. If she didn't say it, next time she would only calculate and not say anything at all.

Doyun saw the posted document that evening.

He was waiting for Seorin in front of the dormitory. Seorin saw his face and expected one of three things. An apology, thanks, or the question of why.

"I saw your four point deduction."

"I'm sure you did." Seorin didn't stop walking.

"That's because of my item."

"It's because of my item." Seorin corrected him. "Team management responsibility is my item. Your violation is in its own item, separately."

"What difference does that distinction make."

Seorin tried to answer and stopped. This person was trying to make his own fault bigger, right now.

"It makes a difference. I got four points because I signed as the lead. You didn't make me do that."

"Then why did you sign."

"The draft said 'emergency response.'"

Doyun stopped on that phrase.

"That's the thing the director said yesterday..."

"Same phrase. The reviewer box was empty."

Doyun did the math on that fact. Seorin watched him calculate, and this time watched the calculation not head toward his own guilt.

"You can't find out who put it in, can you."

"I can't. So I just fixed the wording."

"That's... not something I should thank you for, is it."

"No." Seorin cut him off.

"Got it." Doyun said. "I'll ask you one thing instead. How many boxes are you at right now."

Seorin looked at him.

"Why are you asking that."

"You stayed behind alone in the director's office yesterday. After you came out, I saw the sheath."

Seorin knew that observation was accurate.

"Six." Seorin answered.

"What happens at seven."

"Unfit for succession."

Doyun took that answer and said nothing. Seorin thought that silence was the same kind she'd given Mirae yesterday.

"Can I ask one more thing." Doyun said.

"Go ahead."

"Have you figured out the condition that makes that number go up."

Seorin thought for three seconds about whether to answer. If she answered, he would calculate that it had gone up because of him.

"I have a hypothesis. It's not confirmed."

"Will you tell me."

"Not now." Seorin said. "If you hear it, you'll count it as your fault. I'll tell you after I prove that's wrong."

Doyun took that answer. There was no resistance in taking it, and Seorin saw the change.

Two months ago, this person couldn't have waited on someone else's decision.

Team Two's contact came two days later.

Mun Sea came in person. There was paperwork in her hand, and it wasn't a duel request.

"It's a joint rule proposal." Mun Sea set the document on the desk.

Seorin looked at the first page. Both team names were in the applicant box.

"That gets rejected as collusion." Seorin closed the first page.

"It's been rejected twice already." Mun Sea said. "The third time is for a different reason."

"How is it different."

"The fifth item in the student team's incident report." Mun Sea pointed at the line. "Our team's contribution is written there. If two teams appear together in the record of the same incident, that's not collusion, it's being related parties."

Seorin checked that logic. The clause was in the rulebook. A joint filing by related parties isn't subject to collusion review.

"You calculated that and waited for our report."

"No." Mun Sea said. "I only found that out yesterday. I found out reading the report."

"Why aren't you asking for the duel to resume. I'm at a four point deduction right now."

Mun Sea looked up from the document.

"What do we gain by beating someone who's already been docked points."

"Bonus points."

"We'd gain bonus points. But what we want is the rule." Mun Sea said. "We get the rule from this document."

Seorin signed the document. Before signing, she confirmed one thing.

"Is our team's item included in this."

"It is. Incorporation into approval procedures within practicum time, and recognition of individual variation in team members' judgment time."

The second item hadn't come from Team Seven. Seorin recognized that.

"Who put in the second one."

"I did." Mun Sea said. "I read student Lee Garam's statement. The three lines attached to the correction."

Seorin remembered those three lines. Garam had written them in her own hand.

"Why does that statement become a rule proposal."

"That judgment time differs from person to person is right there in those three lines." Mun Sea said. "We have a student like that on our team too. For three years I told that student to match the team average speed."

"Is that student the one currently on exchange practicum."

Mun Sea paused for a moment.

"...Yes."

Seorin didn't ask what came next. If she asked, the reason this person had come here today would become an apology instead of a rule proposal.

Instead, Seorin made two copies of the document. One for the team ledger, one for Im Yeonwoo's archive.

"Why two copies." Mun Sea asked.

"With only one, whoever keeps it decides when to bring it out."

Mun Sea wrote that sentence in her own margin. This time, she wrote it down without asking where it came from.