Retire 405

405 Admission Review (3)

Present.

“I-I’m sorry….”

Eva Robinson stammered out an apology in Korean. The Korean she had hurriedly learned in such a short time was limited. Hello. Thank you. I’m sorry.

She wasn’t a tourist, for heaven’s sake….

I let out a sigh.

“I, I’m, uh, afraid of d-dinosaurs… is that right?”

She quickly switched back to French.

Seeing her trembling so badly, whatever I’d been about to say fizzled out.

If she’d said she had a fear of heights, or that she was afraid of birds, it would have been easier to address. Did she come into a dungeon knowing her own weakness, without any plan for it?

But dinosaurs? Dinosaurs?

She wasn’t even sure.

Well… I suppose everyone has fears they didn’t know about. And if that fear is dinosaurs, all the more so. How often does a modern person get to face a living dinosaur in their lifetime?

Robinson’s voice grew even smaller.

“…I-I’ll do my best.”

“Yeah… all right.”

I looked at Robinson with a lukewarm gaze.

We’d taken shelter for a moment in a crevice in the cliff…. When I cautiously poked my head out and looked up at the sky, a flock of monsters that looked like pterosaurs was circling overhead.

“Kwaaaak!!”

Every time that screech, like a pig being slaughtered, rang out, Robinson flinched and her shoulders shook.

She was scared, but not to the point of fainting. Once she’d calmed down, she was regaining her composure quickly.

If she’d had a bit more experience, she wouldn’t have been so startled. In the end, being a hunter is a matter of experience. Like any profession, experience is crucial. That’s why Jean Robinson asked me to look after his daughter.

If she had no intention of trying from the start, that would be one thing, but for a kid who’s genuinely trying and just struggling, I have no desire to force harsh words on her. She knows her own situation best.

Of course, being a hunter means your life is on the line, so if someone truly lacks talent or isn’t suited for it, I’d suggest they find another path… but Eva Robinson isn’t like that. In fact, she’s rather talented.

“Y-yes?”

When our eyes met, Robinson just mouthed words silently, asking what she should do next.

See, this is exactly what I mean about her having talent.

She knew she needed to keep quiet, but since she couldn’t trust herself not to let her trembling voice slip out, she simply chose not to speak at all. In Marseille, the guild looked like a gathering of idle rich kids with nothing to do, but seeing her like this, I realized that wasn’t the whole story.

“……”

I carefully surveyed our surroundings, making sure not to draw the monsters’ attention. We’d come down the cliff quite a ways. Below, water was flowing. There might be monsters in that water, too. Honestly, even these pterosaur-like creatures weren’t part of the plan.

The dungeon investigation report I’d received hadn’t mentioned them. It only recorded gorilla-shaped monsters, a bit larger than an adult man. I couldn’t imagine Jean Robinson would have been careless with the investigation for a dungeon his own daughter would enter.

So where, and how, did things go wrong?

As always, it was Han Taekyung’s fault….

…Or so I’d like to say, but that’s not really true. Han Taekyung might have been the starting point, but even without him, things would have proceeded by some other means. In fact, five days ago, we’d received a message from Toulon’s Anchor.

I sighed and switched my weapon to a spear. With no idea how large this dungeon was, I had to be at full strength.

Well, there’s no point in assigning blame until we get out of this dungeon. In fact, we have to make it out in one piece before we can even start pointing fingers.

If we can just get out of this dungeon….

Why, oh why, did I agree to that proposal!

I have no right to complain, since I agreed myself!!

This is why you should never rush into a dungeon. You never know what might happen, and if the dungeon’s size hasn’t been checked and the monsters have been misidentified?

How is that even possible.

I’ll make sure to investigate every inch of this place and lock up anyone responsible for this mess. I’ll sue, I swear.

I motioned to Robinson. She gripped her weapon tightly and crept up behind me.

Looking back, maybe I should have realized, when Lee Miseon received that message five days ago, just how much trouble this was going to be.

---

Again. Five days ago.

“Lecture fee?”

Of all things, that unfamiliar term for a hunter caught my ear. Lee Miseon nodded.

“Yes. That’s exactly what they said. Lecture fee.”

“What… what kind of lecture fee?”

“They want you to take Eva Robinson into the dungeon and explain the raid process. So, basically, a kind of lecture. An external field trip version of Yangseong High?”

I frowned.

Back in Marseille… Jean Robinson had found it curious that I was teaching various things to the Dantes guild members. Not in a bad way, but rather with a fair amount of goodwill. He’d also asked me quite a lot about Yangseong High.

At the time, I thought he was just curious because Hong Seokyoung himself was running the school. When I answered Jean Robinson’s questions one by one, it was less for the sake of the strict-looking Robinson and more to impress the reporters hovering nearby.

But seeing that he’d contacted us through Toulon’s Anchor, it seemed Jean Robinson had been sincere. That made me feel a bit guilty. If I’d known he was serious, I would have answered more earnestly.

“Just Eva Robinson?”

“For now? It’s not easy to take other people in and teach them, so he doesn’t want to increase the number.”

So it wasn’t just a random demand.

It was unexpected, so I focused on what Lee Miseon was saying. I didn’t know exactly how Toulon’s Anchor had made the proposal, but Lee Miseon explained it in detail.

“They called it a lecture fee, but that’s just for this occasion. They want to build a good relationship going forward.”

Lee Miseon put special emphasis on the words “good relationship.” Judging by the bright smile on her face, it seemed the terms were much to her liking.

Even though she knew exactly why I’d asked her to look into the new student candidate, she was reacting like this. What on earth had they discussed?

“They said they want to become a kind of investor.”

“…Investor?”

“Well, you could call it a sponsor since it’s a school, or even a sister guild.”

Hmm.

I hadn’t considered that angle.

“I guess they were pretty impressed that a school for training hunters was established in Korea. Hunter Hong didn’t exactly hide the fact that he was founding a school, but he didn’t go out of his way to publicize it, either. Even if some people abroad knew about it, there hadn’t been any news, so they must have been skeptical.”

“…And then I showed up and started talking about the school.”

“They were surprised at how systematically the school was running. The kids even raided a dungeon together, didn’t they?”

Lee Miseon couldn’t hide her pride. Her beloved nephew had led the raid, after all. It was only natural to be happy when he did well, even if she’d already admitted his talent wasn’t anything special.

“She didn’t tell me everything, but… it sounds like they’re thinking of creating something similar in France.”

“Jean Robinson?”

“Toulon’s Anchor, too.”

I thought of the master of Toulon’s Anchor, Nicolas de Funès, who had a far more composed air than his niece. Most people would have retired with the injuries he had, but he was still leading his guild. Toulon’s Anchor no longer had its former prestige, but under his command, the guild members were still keeping the city safe.

Personally?

My desire to invite Funès to Yangseong High was genuine.

It’s easy to find hunters who are good fighters, but rare to find those who excel at raids. That’s why the academy had recruited retired hunters as teachers. Retired hunters—especially those forced into retirement by injury—are the real deal.

Lost in thought, I must have seemed negative to Lee Miseon.

“Sponsors aren’t a bad thing. Actually, they’re a good thing.”

She viewed the proposal positively.

“…A sponsor? Is Daeseon short on money?”

“No! Is there any harm in having more money?”

Coming from the daughter of a chaebol family, that statement hit differently. Lee Miseon waved her hands in alarm.

“That’s not it! Look. This is a school.”

“Yes. A school. Not a business.”

“But not everyone sees it that way.”

She spoke slowly, as if searching for the best way to explain.

“Even though Hunter Hong founded the school, everyone knows he doesn’t run everything himself.”

“Well… right? That would be impossible.”

“Exactly. So the next question is this: When Hong Seokyoung isn’t around, who teaches the kids? That’s why you’re building up your track record, isn’t it?”

“……”

“As much as it pains me, Daeseon isn’t good for that purpose. Right now, it’s Kim-saem’s name that gives people confidence in the school’s education.”

I understood what she meant.

“You’re saying we need the reputation of a French guild?”

“Toulon’s Anchor has shrunk a lot from its glory days, but it’s still a guild with history and tradition. Many famous hunters in France started there.”

Toulon isn’t a small city. If the guild still has the support of its citizens, then… I suppose that’s true.

“Jean Robinson’s guild is famous, too. He himself is well-known. There’s nothing to lose by having such a guild’s name behind us. If it were a Korean or East Asian guild, I’d have refused, but France is far enough away that it’d be hard for them to interfere in the school’s operations.”

Depending on what kind of person this candidate Kim Abel turns out to be…. It might be fine to set it down in the school rules. The academy had a similar policy: If you act on your own during class or training and endanger others, you’ll be expelled, and so on.

All of this is open to interpretation.

“Still… Hong-saem is wary of being tied to any particular guild.”

But I remained skeptical. The disaster in Myeongdong had been caused by a guild that falsified dungeon ratings. The guild my father had trusted.

The proposal from France was similar to what my father had tried to do with the Myeongdong guild. After the incident in Myeongdong, my father…

“……”

“Woo-saem?”

“No, no… It does seem like a good offer. We’d have to discuss the details, though.”

Lee Miseon tilted her head but let it go without further comment.

As long as no students died in Myeongdong, Hong Seokyoung’s distrust of Korean guilds wasn’t as severe as my father’s….

“And the fact that they used the term ‘sisterhood’ makes me think they’re definitely considering a school.”

“…A school?”

“‘Sister guild’ sounds odd, doesn’t it? They didn’t even mention Mimi. If that’s what they meant, they wouldn’t have used the word ‘sister.’ They even made sure to enunciate it clearly in Korean, maybe worried I’d misunderstand.”

“……”

“They’re being this open about it. We should at least look into it.”

Lee Miseon gave a bright smile.

With Hong Seokyoung’s conviction not to turn away students, and from the sound of Lee Miseon’s words, it did seem like a good opportunity.

But there was one condition I couldn’t forget.

“What about Eva Robinson?”

“Yes?”

“They wanted me to enter the dungeon with her, right? Did they say anything about that?”

“Oh! Of course they did.”

Lee Miseon’s sunny smile changed.

She gave an awkward laugh.

“They said they’ve already secured a dungeon….”

“Secured one?”

“…And asked if you could go in two days.”