Retire 385
by Cristae385 Tied Feet (3)
“To be blunt, I’ve been led around by the nose this whole time.”
Hong Seok-young began his story without holding anything back.
He was so utterly unreserved that Mr. Daniel, who was almost certainly affiliated with some American intelligence agency, shifted uncomfortably in his seat.
“The U.S. government is no help at all. They don’t know how to do anything.”
Yet Daniel said nothing.
And Daniel was beginning to resemble more and more the pitiable victim of a dysfunctional bureaucracy. Why had this man come with Hong Seok-young? It didn’t seem like he was here to keep watch. Was he really just acting as a driver?
“In the desert, that… that guy. The mage. Same thing happened in the dungeon where I caught him. What did they do? Asked me to clear the dungeon, but didn’t even check what was inside? Didn’t keep track of who snuck in?”
Hong Seok-young’s voice grew louder. The man had clearly been bottling up a lot.
“I went out of my way to help, and they knew nothing, had no plan. Honestly, if I hadn’t known better, I’d have thought they were in on it.”
“Ahem, ahem.”
“They even raided the place they thought was Henry Lehmann’s residence and got hit right back, didn’t they?”
The minor protests of the bureaucratic victim were ignored.
I glanced at Kim Chae-min. He looked back at me. Hong Seok-young’s grumbling continued.
“When I first learned what those people were up to, there was nothing I could do. It took a long time just to figure out who was behind the black market.”
He didn’t stop.
“Yeah. Up to that point, I could understand. But? I’m not saying they have to catch the culprit right away! But! If people keep getting hurt, shouldn’t they at least try to find a way to stop it?!”
At first, I wondered if he was trying to provoke the American. But the man, who could only flinch and say nothing, didn’t seem to have any real authority.
This was pure, undiluted Hong Seok-young frustration.
I looked at Hong Seok-young’s leg.
The cast.
The damage the identification tag can block is limited to physical types. Magic is another matter. So is poisoning. Hong Seok-young’s story wasn’t finished yet, but if this was Henry Lehmann’s trap, it had worked. At the very least, until this was resolved, Hong Seok-young couldn’t move.
Should I be relieved that he wasn’t actually injured—that is, that he hadn’t taken damage exceeding what the tag could handle—or should I be worried that even American mages couldn’t find a cure for this poison? I couldn’t decide. Maybe it was because his reaction to the injury had started with complaints about the U.S. government rather than the wound itself.
Hong Seok-young’s attitude, regardless of the facts, made it feel like none of this was a big deal.
Even though I knew it wasn’t.
Kim Chae-min was still eerily silent. I’d known him long enough to recognize that when he had something serious to think about, he became extremely quiet. Yes. This was definitely something that required deep thought.
There was nothing I could do here. At best, I could go shake Hope by the collar and demand he tell me everything he knew about poison toads or monster toxins…
“Even this time, it’s the same. Did they ever actually warn the hunters? No! They could have at least told them to watch their backs!!”
“Uh, even if you say that to me…”
“They never learn anything!”
“S-sorry?”
“You don’t have anything to be sorry for. It’s not like you have any authority.”
I looked at Hong Seok-young again. Since he’d started talking, his body had grown tense. Arms crossed, slouched against the back of the chair, but his posture was rigid. His uninjured foot tapped the floor anxiously.
He tried to appear composed, but there were traces he couldn’t hide.
The fact that I’d never seen my father injured meant he’d never been hurt before.
…Did he just not want to show weakness?
“So, that’s how it happened.”
“That explains nothing.”
“Teacher Woo, we’re always in sync, aren’t we?”
“No, we’re not.”
“I don’t know what kind of policy the U.S. government is running, but hunters are still being hunted.”
“That’s not true! We’re trying to stop—”
“Enough.”
Daniel fell silent.
“This time, even the attackers were taken out by the dungeon monsters. But.”
Hong Seok-young tapped his cast.
“Looking at this, there’s a chance even that was a trap meant for me.”
“…Were there any other survivors?”
“Oh, plenty. Oddly enough, no one died.”
I blinked.
“The poison only paralyzes people; it’s not fatal.”
“Teacher Hong, then—”
Kim Chae-min, snapping out of his thoughts, interjected.
“What about the people rescued from the dungeon?”
He put particular emphasis on the word “rescued.”
“If they didn’t die… were they cured?”
“Sharp as ever, Mr. Kim.”
Hong Seok-young bared his teeth in a fierce grin.
“No. To be even more blunt—”
The childlike smile he’d shown us was gone. What remained was the predatory grin of a hunter often called the strongest.
“My symptoms are the mildest.”
The reason Daniel had come with Hong Seok-young soon became clear.
“…Yes. I’ve changed it.”
“This is a hassle.”
Daniel wiped the sweat from his brow as he looked at the bandages, stained with blood, pus, and poison.
I looked at the man and asked,
“Healer?”
“Yes. The bandages have to be changed regularly to keep Hunter Hong’s symptoms under control. Honestly, I wish he’d stayed longer, but he insisted on coming back.”
He didn’t seem completely unfamiliar with Korean, but he relied on his translator for listening. His Korean was awkward, with bits of English mixed in. Still, it wasn’t so bad as to be incomprehensible, and at least he tried to speak Korean rather than defaulting to English.
“Ah! Don’t burn those. Leave them.”
“Huh?”
“I want to take a look.”
Kim Chae-min stopped Daniel from burning the bandages.
“Uh, well… Try not to touch them with your bare hands.”
“Can you get poisoned just from this?”
“The runes on the bandages should still be effective, but better safe than sorry. It’s dangerous, after all.”
Whatever warnings he’d received from Hong Seok-young, Daniel was being extremely cautious.
I glanced at Hong Seok-young. He shrugged. However great the mages working on him had been, in the end, they’d failed to cure him. This wasn’t exactly Kim Chae-min’s specialty, but still…
“I think I understand the situation.”
I prompted Hong Seok-young to continue the story he’d paused while changing the bandages.
“If it were just ordinary monster poison, I doubt American mages would be stumped…”
“Exactly. That’s why it’s such a mess.”
By the time Hong Seok-young entered, the dungeon had already been torn apart beyond belief.
A dungeon with poison toads. The dungeon’s layout matched exactly what you’d expect for toads—a damp, dark shoreline. The waters where toads the size of tigers lived were more like a swamp.
Initially, the hunters raiding the dungeon were fighting monsters. During that process, the poison spread.
Then came the attack. According to the survivor who reported it, the raid party had already noticed the poison and was considering retreating before the attack. The poisoned hunters couldn’t respond properly to the assault. But the raid leader came up with a plan, and the attackers ended up getting poisoned as well.
That’s where the chaos began. Since the survivor had already escaped the dungeon, the rest is just conjecture. None of the rescued have regained consciousness.
However, according to Hong Seok-young, the two groups of poisoned hunters kept fighting even in that state. Neither side could back down.
But there was another power in the dungeon besides the hunters. The dungeon’s true master. The native creature waiting in the escape pod.
The poison toad.
“Ever tried cutting open a toad’s belly to pull someone out? I wouldn’t recommend it.”
“And they were still alive after that?”
“Human vitality, you know.”
Whether he was praising or mocking human life, I couldn’t tell from his tone.
“Well, Mr. Kim is right. If it had only been poison toads, I wouldn’t have ended up like this.”
Hong Seok-young grimaced.
“Basically, the swamp in the dungeon was a mass of mana. Stagnant mana. Naturally, since it was where the toads lived and spread their poison.”
“That already sounds ominous.”
“So the hunters, desperate and fighting monsters, decided to use it.”
“I think I see where this is going.”
Kim Chae-min raised both hands in surrender.
“They set off a mana bomb, didn’t they?”
“Mana bomb?”
“A mage uses themselves as a medium to trigger an explosion. The caster rarely survives. I doubt the reason they haven’t woken up is just the poison.”
“Exactly. Not a single rescued mage has all their limbs intact.”
“Mages, you mean…?”
“When did I say it was just the raid party? Of course our illegal intruders joined in and blew themselves up too.”
Kim Chae-min muttered a curse.
“Stagnant mana reacted, the poison triggered a chain reaction, and so on and so forth. Mr. Kim probably understands that better than I do.”
“…So the poison was contaminated. With mana.”
“It started as toad poison, but became something much deeper.”
“……”
Kim Chae-min cursed again under his breath.
I recalled what Hong Seok-young had said at the start.
“Do you think this was a trap? Set by Henry Lehmann?”
Or perhaps by Noah Michel?
Hong Seok-young shook his head.
“I wouldn’t say there’s no chance, but there’s no way to know. Without the mana bomb, the poison wouldn’t have gotten so twisted. But who could have predicted the bomb would affect the dungeon like that?”
“You’d know if you’d been inside.”
“It was an S-class dungeon. The raid team were veterans. Traces of twisted mana don’t disappear. Right, Mr. Kim?”
“That’s right. Especially since dungeons are cut off from the outside, it’s even easier to tell.”
“If they’d gone in, they’d have known right away.”
I nodded. For some reason, it felt like I was back in class, listening to my father teach. Maybe it was because Hong Seok-young was speaking in such an uncharacteristically calm voice.
“And there aren’t many ways to make mages blow themselves up with a mana bomb.”
“You never know.”
“True. We have to keep every possibility open.”
Hong Seok-young shrugged.
“Anyway, that’s the gist of it. I’ll have to take it easy for a while. Our school is convenient for that sort of thing. At least I can get some peace and quiet without reporters hounding me—”
“Uh.”
It wasn’t me who reacted to Hong Seok-young’s tired-sounding words, but Kim Chae-min.
But I wasn’t much different. Hong Seok-young raised an eyebrow. I gave a sheepish smile.
“What? Did you get into trouble while I was gone?”
“No, nothing like that.”
“In Marseille…”
“Hm? I thought you said that was handled?”
“Not the dungeon break. Didn’t you know?”
“Know what?”
Hong Seok-young blinked.
Had I not mentioned it? Maybe I hadn’t. Still, just glancing at a few online articles would tell you…
I looked at his cast. The same cast I’d been staring at for a while now.
He probably hadn’t had time to check the news.
“What is it? What happened, Hee-jae?”
“Well, it’s just…”
I hadn’t done anything wrong, but I felt guilty.
Thankfully, Kim Chae-min answered for me.
“Training High has never gotten this much attention since it opened.”
“Hm?”
“It’s all thanks to Teacher Woo.”
I didn’t appreciate that.
No, I haven’t done anything wrong!