To the girl who'd spent her whole career at dead last, First Seat Ongyeol holds out a contract. Inside the arena, he wins for her. Outside it, he collects something different every time. And little by little, what he asks for starts reaching closer to her heart.
At a mage academy where duels decide the pecking order, the price of a lost match is never billed inside the arena, it's billed outside it. The heroine, ranked dead last for as long as anyone can remember, strikes an unusual bargain one night with First Seat Ongyeol. He'll manufacture her victories in every duel; in exchange, he'll name a different price after each one. First it was time. Then it was a secret. Now, even she can't predict what he'll ask for next. As duel-foresight, a strange new sense, grows in her fingertips, the contract slowly starts tilting toward something no ledger can explain.
- The night Ongyeol, who always priced things exactly right, gets the math wrong for the first time and stares at his own hand, unable to say a word.
- The instant her duel-foresight sketches the next trajectory before it happens, and Ongyeol, recognizing that look in her eyes, drafts a clause on the spot that was never in the contract.
- The moment the name that spent forever at dead last gets engraved on the rankings board right beneath Ongyeol's own.
The night Ongyeol, who always priced things exactly right, gets the math wrong for the first time and stares at his own hand, unable to say a word.
