Retire 434

434 Aptitude (2)

Pyunes and Robinson spoke not only of fairies, but of all manner of monsters and dungeons. They did more than simply hand me information; they even gave lectures for the children.

Hunters and lectures.

The two words did not seem to fit together, but everything has a first time. Perhaps, in the future, those two might be called teachers or professors somewhere.

A working Hunter from another continent was not someone you could easily meet. The lecture was meant for students, but before long, the classroom was packed with veteran Hunters working at the school. Even though they were “veterans,” like Lee Miseon, they also held positions with the Association. Still, a Hunter is a Hunter. Who could remain uninterested when an active Hunter was sharing dungeon strategies?

Even when Kim Chaemin and I taught rune classes, the veteran Hunters would quietly gather and join in. Since they belonged to the Association, they were even more sensitive to the latest techniques. There was no reason to stop them, so I actually encouraged them to attend. After all, why had I made runes public in the first place? It was to give as many Hunters as possible a better chance at survival.

But that was the path I had chosen; Pyunes and Robinson might have felt differently. They could easily have resented giving away their knowledge to unrelated foreign Hunters for nothing. In truth, that would have been the normal reaction.

Yet Robinson said nothing. He did not drive the Hunters away.

In Robinson’s stead, Pyunes spoke kindly.

“What’s there to hide between Hunters, after all? If I thought otherwise, I wouldn’t have run dungeons with you.”

…He had a point.

In the end, one classroom at the Academy became a place of harmony between Korean and French Hunters.

Calling it a “place of harmony” might be too grand; let’s call it a place of learning. That, after all, is what a school is meant to be.

As usual, I was seated in the classroom to supervise the children, and Kim Chaemin and Han Taekyung, who were bored, quietly dragged over chairs and sat down as well.

“So, in a dungeon like this, the most important thing is to make use of the terrain…”

I glanced at Hong Seokyoung.

He was not someone to miss such a gathering. I was not the only one unsettled after hearing the testimony about Mont-Saint-Michel. Hong Seokyoung, too, looked more thoughtful than usual.

I felt the same way.

But in truth, the most unexpected person was someone else. I looked at the American sitting next to Hong Seokyoung.

Hong Seokyoung’s leg, poisoned as it was, remained unchanged. It was neither worse nor better. There had been no news of a cure discovered in America. The same was true for Kim Chaemin and Gamble.

…Was this what Gamble meant when he asked for more time to work? But who else could do it but him?

Shaking my head as I briefly thought of Gamble, I looked again at the American—Daniel, who would deny it himself, but was surely attached to some intelligence agency.

Daniel was not particularly trying to hide anything, so he quickly noticed my gaze. Perhaps embarrassed by whatever he read in my eyes, Daniel turned his head away, feigning indifference. But it was obvious he was listening to Robinson’s lecture.

I wondered how this scene looked to that American.

I grew curious.

Everyone who knew my father had received the idea of a Hunter training institution with skepticism. In America, the military played a similar role. Surely they had considered gathering underage Awakened, but perhaps, given their different social climate, they had never felt the need.

Yet even in such indifference, the Academy was managing to blossom, somehow. Like the Hunter Academy I knew. Perhaps even more smoothly.

What would America decide when Daniel reported that Hong Seokyoung’s school had formed a sisterhood with famous French Hunters?

I didn’t know about the educational institutions, but if they wanted to maintain a good relationship with Hong Seokyoung…

Well, that was a secondary matter.

My attention was focused elsewhere.

There were barely a dozen students. Even with all the children in the classroom, they took up little space. Only now, with adults crowding in, was the classroom truly full for the first time.

Yet Robinson’s lecture was still, above all, for the children. The front desks were taken by the students.

Perhaps because graduation was so near, the children had lately become more diligent in class. Watching their backs, tense with determination not to miss a single thing, my gaze settled on the one sitting by the window.

Choi Jinwoo.

A child who, in the original timeline, had died during the Myeongdong dungeon break last year.

But now, he was Park Seohyun’s apprentice, a young mage learning the magic of the great magician Park Nogyung.

In front of Choi Jinwoo sat Park Seohyun, her hair tied high, focused on Robinson’s words. The questions she occasionally asked struck right to the heart.

…If the guiding magic of Park Nogyung, which Pyunes had so lavishly praised, were to be revived, only Choi Jinwoo could do it.

Because Park Seohyun would not permit anyone else.

---

Even without Pyunes’ longing words for Park Nogyung’s magic, I had expectations for Choi Jinwoo.

It wasn’t that I believed Choi Jinwoo would manifest a unique magic and become a great magician. According to Kim Chaemin, Jinwoo’s talent was not as extraordinary as Park Seohyun’s.

“It’s not that he has no talent!”

When I asked if Choi Jinwoo could use Park Nogyung’s magic, Kim Chaemin replied with a troubled face.

“A magician’s talent isn’t something you can easily define. In the end, it’s about how well you adapt to your own mana… and that’s different for everyone. Sometimes you suddenly reach enlightenment and can use unique magic, just like that.”

“That’s all well and good, but why are we talking about this here?”

“Well, there are guests at the school!”

Kim Chaemin laughed brightly. Gamble, perhaps too tired to complain anymore, just shook his head and focused on the mana clock.

It couldn’t be helped. We had often used the lab as a meeting room anyway, but with Pyunes and Robinson around, we couldn’t discuss these things outside.

Above all, for any discussion of Mont-Saint-Michel, Hope was needed.

“Magic? I’m not a mage, so talk without me. I was just at the most critical part. Do you know how dire the situation is right now?”

“Later.”

“No, seriously…”

I ignored Hope’s complaints.

“If you think about it differently, every mage has the potential to become a great magician. That’s why the Europeans are so obsessed with family… and attributes.”

Coming from Kim Chaemin, I believed it.

“It’s easier to explain a path you’ve already walked, isn’t it?”

“Hmm…”

I nodded.

Kim Chaemin gazed at me for a moment, then asked cautiously.

“Do you need Jinwoo?”

“…I’m not sure.”

“Seohyun won’t teach magic to anyone but Jinwoo.”

“I know.”

“Then…”

“It’s not just because of Mont-Saint-Michel.”

If it were only Mont-Saint-Michel, things wouldn’t have gotten so complicated.

…No, even if it were only Mont-Saint-Michel, it would still be complicated. But Pyunes’ lavish praise of Park Nogyung had awakened in me a sense of another possibility I had overlooked.

Hunters like Pyunes and Robinson, even after ten years, still longed for the magic of the great magician. Of course, the great magician was that kind of figure, but even so, I knew all too well how overwhelming Park Nogyung’s magic was.

In Okinawa, Kim Chaemin had pinpointed the location of the core immediately. See how much simpler the raid became because of that. Otherwise, it would have been much more difficult.

Kim Chaemin described it as a skill that was only temporarily possible in the Okinawa dungeon. Even if I set fire to a dungeon in the same way, I couldn’t be sure I could do it again.

But Park Nogyung’s magic had no such conditions. It simply guided you to the core.

A guide, in the truest sense of the word.

If Choi Jinwoo could reproduce even half of Park Nogyung’s magic, he would be more valuable than any other mage.

Whether he realized that himself, I didn’t know.

“Hmmm.”

Kim Chaemin tilted her head as she listened to my concerns.

“Jinwoo will do well, I think.”

“Pardon?”

“If you ask me, Teacher Woo, I don’t think you know Jinwoo very well.”

“……”

“It’s almost as if you’re a little awkward around him. Isn’t that right?”

“…You’re right.”

I let out a sigh.

“It’s not so much that I find him difficult, but… I just don’t know how to deal with him.”

“…You know the kids have less than half a year until graduation, right?”

“It’s just that… I mean, with kids like Oh Hyunwook or Seo Hanseong, I understand them. They have clear goals, don’t they? The other kids, too. They each have their own ambitions.”

“Ah… that’s true.”

“But what about Choi Jinwoo?”

“Hmmm.”

“He just happened to become a mage, and by chance, the principal noticed and brought him to the school. Even when I started teaching runes, he barely realized he was a mage at all.”

Perhaps understanding what I meant, Kim Chaemin folded her arms and adopted a serious expression.

“Do you know when Choi Jinwoo started taking magic seriously?”

“…When he heard about Seohyun?”

“Yes! To be honest, I don’t even know how seriously he thinks about raiding dungeons. Sometimes it just looks like he’s following along because his friends are doing it. Even the talk about forming a guild after graduation… Well, that’s how everyone is at that age.”

I didn’t think it was good for a Hunter to have too clear a goal—like revenge, for instance.

But at the same time, you couldn’t expect good results from jumping into this line of work without any thought at all. Among the Academy’s students, there were kids like those at the Academy, with their own circumstances. Wasn’t Lee Miseon running a foundation for such children? The one named after her niece.

Among those children, there were some who had ended up at the Academy, swept along regardless of their own will. With nowhere else to go, they stayed because this was the only thing they could do.

Those were the ones who died first.

No matter how much you taught that monsters were dangerous and dungeons were horrific, with friends at their side and teachers watching over them, they never truly felt it.

Then, reality would hit. There is no dungeon without a Hunter’s blood.

“It’s best to win without fighting. That’s why I hope the doctor can find a way to close the dungeon from the outside.”

“What? What?”

Gamble, who had been in the corner, started in surprise and looked up.

“But if that’s not possible, we have to be prepared to enter Mont-Saint-Michel. Thanks to Hope’s confirmation, we now know that the fairy Pyunes encountered is the king of Noah Michel.”

In a way, that was a relief. If it hadn’t been the king, it would have meant something even worse was waiting.

“No matter how terrible a monster is, once it comes out of the dungeon, its days are numbered. I think destroying the dungeon core, like in Okinawa, is the next best option.”

“So that means you need Jinwoo’s magic.”

“I have no intention of taking the child into the dungeon.”

I spoke firmly, in case Kim Chaemin was thinking otherwise.

“In any case, that’s how important this magic is. The fact that a spell that should have been lost can continue through Choi Jinwoo is, honestly…”

“Wait, wait a minute.”

Kim Chaemin interrupted me.

“This is why I said you don’t really know Jinwoo, Teacher Woo.”

“Yes?”

“I don’t know if Jinwoo can become a great magician. But he’ll be a good mage.”

Kim Chaemin looked at me with a somewhat awkward expression.

“Because talent and aptitude are different things.”