Retire 482

482 Territorial Dispute (4)

Sandra Gamble was not an educator.

She was well aware of that fact herself, and not once had she ever wanted to teach anyone. Once, a fellow university student had said something to her. She couldn’t remember exactly when, but it was probably after she’d asked a question about a sticking point in an assignment.

“You, too, can’t escape the fate of a genius.”

“What? Are you insulting me right now?”

“It’s not an insult.”

She’d gone to the trouble of explaining something, only to be met with a look of insolence.

“I just thought you’re not cut out for teaching people.”

“Oh, sorry? But you’re the one who asked me for help!”

“I am grateful for that, but…”

Her classmate didn’t stop, even in the face of Sandra’s sharp glare.

“You’re in a PhD program, right? You’re not planning to become a professor, are you?”

“As if that’s up to me, just because I want it.”

“I know, but you really shouldn’t teach anyone.”

“…That’s an insult, isn’t it?”

“No. It’s the fate of a genius. You just can’t teach others.”

“Our professor’s a genius, too.”

“Sure. But the professor also has a kind of pity for the foolish masses. You don’t even have that.”

“……”

“You don’t have the patience to teach anyone.”

“…I know! I know, okay!”

Whatever patience she’d had for teaching others had been exhausted on her childhood friend.

And even that had only been possible because they’d met as children, when she had no choice. If they’d met when she was a little older and more set in her ways, she would have turned her back on him without hesitation.

That’s why you have to be careful about the friends you make. Where had her life ended up, after meeting that troublesome person?

If you asked her whether she hated this tangled web of dangerous conspiracies and the never-ending pile of work… well, it wasn’t that, either.

If she’d never gotten involved, she might not have cared, but now that she was in, Sandra wanted to know everything. The secrets that swayed the fate of the world, knowledge from the future.

“And you can’t stand it when others know something you don’t!”

“Isn’t that true for everyone?”

“No. Most people accept their own shortcomings with humility and just say, ‘Oh, really?’ and move on.”

Looking back, perhaps her classmate’s candid assessment of geniuses a few years ago had been right. At the time, she’d only scoffed.

But there was something neither her friend nor Sandra herself had realized.

Sandra Gamble was not an educator.

But if the student had a basic foundation and sufficient enthusiasm, Sandra could muster both passion and patience.

“…Uh, Doctor. Why does it work this way here? Mana doesn’t usually circulate like this. Even if the mana stone changes the direction of flow, this angle is just too sharp.”

“It’s a margin of error.”

“Sorry?”

“It’s the difference between numbers and reality. And it’s proof that you can’t just sit around talking theory all day.”

“Oh, uh….”

Sandra beamed at the two teenagers gazing at her with blank faces.

These kids, who had visited her lab so timidly at first, had grown like weeds in the summer over the past few days. Not physically, but…

It had been almost a year since Sandra had come under Hong Seokyoung’s wing. As a researcher, Sandra didn’t have much direct contact with students, unlike Woo Heejae, Kim Chaemin, or even the more active hunters. But that didn’t mean she was a stranger to the students of this ramshackle school.

Eating together in the same cafeteria, passing each other in the halls—naturally, greetings followed. After Kim Chaemin built the greenhouse, their encounters became more frequent, since he’d entrusted Sandra with its care while he was away.

Even without that, an understanding of runes was essential for progress in mana engineering. She could have asked Woo Heejae or Kim Chaemin for help, but since the school offered classes anyway, it seemed useful to attend. Kim Chaemin aside, Woo Heejae had a tendency to explain things in more detail when the audience was students. For Sandra, who was trying to apply the new field of runes to mana engineering, reviewing the basics—even if she already knew them—was no bad thing. In fact, it was helpful.

So Sandra became familiar with the young mages. Kim Chaemin himself had some un-mage-like quirks, and his students were similar in that way. The girl seemed mage-like enough, but the boy—if she hadn’t known, she never would have guessed he was a mage at all.

“Uh, uh, a rune research project?”

“Are we really allowed to do that? We’re still learning ourselves…”

“Mr. Kim said you two are pretty skilled with runes.”

“U-Us?!”

“If Mr. Kim vouches for you, that’s good enough. Unless you’re not interested in this kind of research… Are you?”

“We are!!”

“Then you’d be better off learning properly from me than from someone less competent.”

“You’ll teach us?”

“Well… I’m not a mage, so I can’t teach magic. But I can teach mana engineering. Mr. Kim said he already covered the basics, right?”

“Yes!”

“Good, good. I’ll teach you the advanced stuff. And about rune design, too. Try to be as creative as you can.”

At first, she just needed an extra pair of hands.

But as she watched the kids follow her instructions so well… Hm. Was this why people took on apprentices?

She remembered the university professor who, despite being turned down because of her childhood friend, still occasionally emailed her asking if she’d work under him. And the ruthless boss who sent her work even from the other side of the globe.

It must be convenient to have someone who learns quickly and does their job well… You could even delegate work like this.

What Sandra wanted from the kids was proof that she hadn’t simply tossed aside that mysterious rune, but had tried to figure it out. Woo Heejae probably hadn’t expected her to actually decipher the rune, either. He’d just told her to do what she could. He was an annoying boss who only gave her more work, but at least he wasn’t one to make empty promises.

He’d even told the kids not to feel pressured. Sandra didn’t really believe these young mages could truly decipher the rune.

Even if they were, for their age, almost absurdly talented mages.

“…Seohyun.”

“Yeah?”

“This one, you know… it seems kind of similar.”

“Huh? Similar to what?”

And that expectation was spectacularly overturned.

The talent and creativity of these two teenage mages brought back the words of her old classmate, buried in Sandra’s memory.

“Maybe I actually have a knack for teaching?”

She could almost hear her classmate, probably now working hard at a mana engineering company, laughing at her.

“You’re cursed.”

“Hey. I’m the one helping you with your assignments, you know? I could just stop.”

“Coffee?”

“Coffee.”

“I hope you meet someone just like yourself one day.”

“Why do you keep saying that?”

“Who knows.”

She didn’t know if it was really a curse…

“Because if you do, you’ll finally understand the fun of teaching someone.”

…Maybe it was a prophecy, not a curse.

“Doctor!”

“What?”

“Could you check this for me?”

“What is it?”

“This part here. This is the one you showed us first, right?”

Park Seohyun held out the rune that Woo Heejae had first sent. What dungeon was it from again? The Mole Dungeon?

She didn’t know why anyone thought the patterns on a fairy’s wings were runes, but once it was pointed out, she could see how it might resemble one. Still, was it really a rune? She wasn’t entirely convinced.

Woo Heejae, who’d handed it over as a rune, had reacted the same way.

But when Park Seohyun and Choi Jinwoo, having heard it was a rune, received the pattern, they never said it wasn’t. Even though they were told it wasn’t drawn properly, they broke it down stroke by stroke and tried to analyze it.

And a few days ago, they’d sent her another drawing, saying it was more accurate.

“This one’s probably more precise, right?”

“No, I think it’s a different rune.”

“A different rune?”

Choi Jinwoo nodded firmly. Compared to Park Seohyun, his personality was a bit timid, but only in comparison; over the past few days, Sandra had seen he actually had a surprising amount of resolve.

“It only looks similar because you’re expecting it to be.”

“…That could be.”

“But there are some similarities.”

Park Seohyun chimed in, glancing at Choi Jinwoo.

“This part definitely overlaps.”

“Doctor, you said this was research into whether monsters can use runes, right?”

Sandra hesitated for a moment, but the pause didn’t last long.

“Yeah. You won’t find any in the dungeon you’re about to enter, but there are monsters that use something like magic. This was also found inside a dungeon.”

“You said both were from the same dungeon, right?”

One was definitely found on a monster, the other on something that might have been human or monster, but she couldn’t explain that to kids who knew nothing.

Sandra nodded.

Choi Jinwoo kept questioning.

“From the same place?”

“What?”

“I mean, it could be the same dungeon, but a different location, right? Were they found in the same spot?”

“…No. Not that. Different places.”

Choi Jinwoo seemed satisfied and looked at Park Seohyun. Park Seohyun copied the first pattern exactly.

“What Jinwoo means is…”

“Seohyun and I were separating the strokes.”

“Because runes are made up of combinations?”

Sandra had taken rune classes with these kids. She knew what they were trying to find. For her, it had been a task she didn’t have the time to focus on exclusively.

“The effect changes depending on which runes are combined… so knowing which stroke belongs to which rune is most important.”

“And?”

“The rune itself isn’t exactly accurate, which is a problem… but if you separate it like this—”

Park Seohyun didn’t finish drawing the rune. She only drew the outermost strokes of the Mole Dungeon rune.

Choi Jinwoo reached out and drew another rune on top of the one Seohyun had drawn. It was a complicated rune, but he drew it in one go, without hesitation. Sandra recognized it well. Woo Heejae had insisted they practice this rune until they could draw it in their sleep.

The five auxiliary runes that supported the main rune.

Sandra blinked.

“It’s just that we practiced it as a single rune, but originally, they’re different runes, right? If you draw them separately, since there are five…”

Choi Jinwoo broke them down and drew each one. Duration. Correction. Waterproofing. Amplification.

And finally, Resonance.

Sandra’s gaze scattered over the paper.

The Mole Dungeon rune that Park Seohyun had drawn… it was subtly similar. Resembling, but not identical.

“If this stroke extends here, and this one curves like this… and here, in the second rune, this part goes like this…”

Choi Jinwoo traced over Park Seohyun’s rune with a blue pen.

And, astonishingly—

“See? It’s exactly the same as the resonance rune.”

“…It really is.”

“Um, Doctor.”

Choi Jinwoo hunched his shoulders, speaking shyly but carefully.

“Did this really come from a dungeon?”

“What?”

“It wasn’t drawn by a person?”

They really were clever kids. Truly.