Retire 302
by Cristae302 Future Aspirations (3)
With a grave expression, Soon Soon-jin gathered her papers and left the classroom.
Her unsteady steps looked precarious, but she managed to walk down the hallway without stumbling.
Though it sounded grandiose, in the end, what I was trying to say could be summed up as: “Get yourself a hobby.” Isn’t that right? What is the work of a Hunter, after all? Dungeon raids and monster hunting. What else is there?
The Administration requires that, regardless of the outcome, any Hunter who enters a dungeon and comes out must take mandatory leave. You can rest at home, or if you’re bored, wander around the Administration building like my sister does—it doesn’t matter.
Why is that?
No, think about it logically. Is there such a thing as clocking out inside a dungeon? If you’ve spent a week barely sleeping, working overtime, of course you should be told to rest.
These kids don’t know that yet, simply because they’re still students.
Hunters are human too, and they need rest. Later, when they actually become Hunters, they’ll figure out how to spend their free time on their own.
…But there are always some who can’t manage that properly.
That’s why the Academy encouraged a variety of extracurricular activities.
“……”
I tidied up Oh Hyun-wook’s paper. If he finds out Soon Soon-jin saw it… hmm.
Well, what could really happen? What would he do to me? It’s not like he’s going to go off drinking somewhere. At most, among the friends, he’ll just say, “Yeah, let’s definitely have a reunion in five years.”
And judging by how Soon Soon-jin reacted earlier, she’s not likely to tell the others. If it had been Lee Seung-yeon, I might have worried…
I looked over the rest of the papers I’d left on the teacher’s desk, starting with the one that bothered me most.
Seo Han-seong.
Seo Han-seong had always wanted to join the Association. And by all accounts, Soon Soon-jin died while working there.
In the original timeline, didn’t Seo Han-seong end up not joining the Association? Honestly, we all know the chances of that were slim.
Being a Hunter is a high-risk profession, but human feelings are… complicated. If I’d known things would turn out that way for Soon Soon-jin, I would have recommended another path to Seo Han-seong when we talked.
But.
Hmm…
Looking at Seo Han-seong’s drawing of himself, five years in the future, devoted to volunteer work…
“Should I call this innocence, or diligence…?”
Maybe I should tell him to try working with Oh Hyun-wook. That pig used to do all sorts of charity work, didn’t he?
Honestly, thinking about how Oh Hyun-wook got stabbed while running his own guild, I figure that no matter how badly Seo Han-seong messes up, he’d still run things better than Oh Hyun-wook. And those two, they’re closer than you’d think.
The friendship dynamics of teenage boys and girls are complicated. Even in this tiny school with only ten students, it’s the same.
There aren’t any kids who really dislike each other, but naturally, some are closer than others. Park Seo-hyun and Choi Jin-woo are master and apprentice, both mages, so they’re always together, but it’s the same with the others. Originally, Lee Seung-yeon and Soon Soon-jin used to stick together, but lately, Lee Seung-yeon has been glued to Kang Tae-woo. Surprisingly, Soon Soon-jin seems to have hit it off with Han Eun-young; they’re often seen talking together.
Oh Hyun-wook, who seemed destined to be a lone wolf, is paired with Seo Han-seong. Probably because they both share the experience of being trapped in a corrupt guild. Seo Han-seong’s circumstances are even more complicated, but I don’t know if Oh Hyun-wook knows all that.
Anyway, since he’s close with Oh Hyun-wook, maybe I can get them to work together somehow.
…But with Lee Seung-yeon around this time, will Oh Hyun-wook even start his own guild? Maybe he’ll just gather up the kids from the same guild and go join Seung-yeon.
Lee Seung-yeon often comes to me with Kang Tae-woo to ask about guild matters. Her career plan is as packed as ever, she’s planning to go to college, and though the club she started hasn’t done much yet, just seeing her enthusiasm hasn’t faded is reassuring enough.
Yoo Hye-eun and Han Eun-young are both doing fine.
Park Seo-hyun and Choi Jin-woo… were exactly as expected.
The problem is—
“…What am I supposed to do with her?”
It was Yoo Ji-eun’s drawing, running around with a spear.
Was this how my sister felt?
…Or my father?
Just checking the sins of the past is more than enough with Woo Il-ok. More than enough—too much, even.
I let out a deep sigh.
Father—Hong Seok-young—will have something new to enjoy when he gets out of the dungeon.
“Aigo!”
A wail burst from Hong Seok-young’s lips.
He tumbled out of the gate, and his mouth filled with gritty sand. Even coughing wasn’t enough; he had to rinse his mouth repeatedly with his canteen before it felt clean again.
Everyone else around him was in a similar state.
“Cough! Cough, cough, cough!!!”
“Ugh!!!”
“Kehek! Kek, kek!!”
…In fact, Hong Seok-young, who was only spitting out sand, was in better shape than most.
“Is everyone alive? Any injuries? Mori-kun? Mori-kun, where are you? Are you all right?”
“I’m fine!”
“Your leg?”
“Still attached!!”
“Still, contact headquarters and get a healer out here right away. Weren’t they supposed to be on standby anyway?”
Hong Seok-young frowned, sensing something was off.
They’d spent longer inside the dungeon than expected. But that’s how it always is with high-level dungeons. If things go exactly according to plan, it’s not a dungeon.
So, for any properly organized dungeon raid, there should always be a standby team at the gate. No one knows what state the Hunters will be in when they come out—sometimes they walk out on their own two feet, sometimes they’re so gravely injured they’re barely alive.
And if any Hunters fail to make it out right at the gate, there are rescue teams ready to go in after them.
Right before Hong Seok-young entered this desert dungeon, there had been such an operations base set up around the gate.
Now…
“What’s this? Where did everyone go?”
There was nothing.
As the others gradually regained their senses, they too looked around in confusion, following Hong Seok-young’s lead.
Inside the dungeon, Hong Seok-young had chosen the method that would avoid casualties, even if it took more time. Considering what he’d left behind in Korea, it would have made sense to clear the dungeon as quickly as possible, but he couldn’t ignore the lives right in front of him. His brilliant son would want a father like that.
Thanks to that, though there were injuries, there were no deaths. Even Mori, who was the most seriously hurt, had managed to avoid losing his leg thanks to some quick potion work. But a potion is just a potion, and real treatment is still needed, so they had to hurry…
“Hey, Ben! Are you in charge of communications? Someone, try to contact headquarters! Why isn’t anyone guarding the gate?”
“Just a moment, Hunter Hong. I’m already trying to get through.”
Hong Seok-young scowled, grinding his foot into the sand. The gritty, hot air. The blazing sun…
“…Hunter Hong.”
A sense of foreboding.
Slowly, Hong Seok-young raised his head. Isabelle Mori, the Japanese-American, called out to him, her face pale as a sheet.
He tossed his empty canteen aside and hurried over to Mori. The other Hunters nearby all wore grave expressions.
A chill of fear ran through Hong Seok-young. Did something go wrong in the dungeon? Did he miss something?
Mori stepped aside.
Hong Seok-young held his breath.
The wind swept away the sand. He quickly looked up to gauge the distance to the gate. The people who had been on standby around the gate had set up their tents right here. Yes, this was the exact spot.
“…This is, no doubt…”
Mori swallowed hard.
Hong Seok-young’s eyes turned cold. At that moment, the Hunter who had been trying to contact the base approached, his face just as dark.
“Hunter Hong, I can’t get through. It’s not a problem with the base—something’s interfering with the signal… Wait, is this blood?”
“Looks that way to you too, doesn’t it?”
Hong Seok-young glared at the dark red sand, then silently drove his spear into the ground. A sense of unease began to spread among the raid team. One by one, they fell silent and watched him.
Hong Seok-young began to dig into the earth. The deeper he dug, the redder the sand became. Damp, crimson, clumped together like mud.
“Ugh.”
At last, the spear struck something.
Not just sand—something with form. The stench of blood hit his nose, and Hong Seok-young could guess what it was. The others did too.
A Hunter is no stranger to human corpses.
“……”
Carefully, Hong Seok-young pulled a body from the blood-soaked sand. Though, it could hardly be called a body—it was only an arm. And even then, only up to the elbow.
The torn fabric was a military uniform. There had been U.S. military-affiliated Hunters stationed around the gate. There was nothing to confirm the identity, but Hong Seok-young would stake his spear that this arm belonged to one of them.
“Hunter Hong. That…”
Mori clenched her teeth.
“The severed end…”
“Yes.”
The wound was a mess. Simply being buried in the ground wouldn’t have done this.
It looked as though it had been ripped apart with tremendous force… No, more like something had chewed it off, mangling it beyond recognition.
Even for an Awakened, it would be hard to do this with human strength. Hong Seok-young carefully set the arm down and dug a little further.
Other bodies were quickly found. Each one was torn to pieces, as if bitten apart by something.
There was only one thing these corpses meant.
All the raid team members realized it.
And it always fell to Hong Seok-young to be the one to say it aloud.
“Everyone, on alert.”
Hong Seok-young spoke almost in a whisper. The raid team responded without a sound, moving quietly. Those who had been rinsing their mouths, those who were retching, those who had been grumbling about what happened in the dungeon, and those tending their wounds—all of them.
Everyone silently took up their weapons.
Hong Seok-young gripped his spear, still clinging with grains of blood-soaked sand.
“One of the dungeons in this desert has broken open. The monster is intelligent enough to eat humans and hide the bodies.”
“……”
“From now on, we stay on alert. Ben, what’s the closest base? Is there a city nearby?”
“…There is one, but it’s not very close.”
“But we don’t know how fast this thing moves.”
“…No, we don’t.”
“Keep trying to contact the base. We…”
Hong Seok-young looked up at the sky. A sky so blue it hurt to look at. The blazing sun. The gritty sand.
I knew it was a bad omen.
Yes. The timing was just too perfect.
“How are we on food and water?”
“We have enough.”
Hong Seok-young thought of his two sons back in Korea. He had a place to return to. His duty was the same as ever.
Save people,
and come back alive.
That’s all a hero has to do.
“We’ll track it down so it doesn’t reach the city.”
None of the raid team objected to Hong Seok-young’s words. If this were a guild, the response might have been different.
But these were state-affiliated Hunters. Each had their own reasons for entering the dungeon.
And most of them had lost family to monsters at some point.
Including Hong Seok-young, forty Hunters began to march, following the trail of blood.