Retire 387

387 Clue (2)

Through my personal experiences, the time I’ve spent caring for Uirok, and the lessons I’ve learned teaching the students at Yangseong High, I’ve come to realize something.

Children are always eager to know secrets.

…Of course, this isn’t something limited to children alone, but when it comes to being easy to handle, it’s certainly more true for them.

Especially the ones who think themselves clever—those are the ones most curious about the secrets of adults.

Among the students at Yangseong High, whom Hong Seok-yeong had painstakingly recruited, there wasn’t a single one stubborn enough to blatantly do what they’d been told not to do.

But that didn’t mean they lacked curiosity, and if this little secret were to become the spark for their rebellion, it was something I desperately wanted to avoid. I already had more than enough on my plate.

Well, if it were something else, maybe. But Hong Seok-yeong had shown up with a cast on his leg. If they just sat quietly through this, they wouldn’t deserve to become Hunters.

The only reason they were quiet now was because I’d let the moment to protest slip by without making a fuss. Once they came to their senses, it was bound to get noisy.

So I decided to act first. A moderately honest explanation could turn the children into obedient little lambs.

“Today, we’ve learned a lesson.”

After tossing Daniel to Yoo Hye-eun, I began the lesson.

“No matter how great a Hunter you are, a single moment of carelessness can lead directly to injury.”

For once, Hong Seok-yeong was sitting at the back of the classroom to observe the lesson. He opened his mouth to object to my words, but then quietly closed it.

He might not be the best teacher, but in moments like this, Hong Seok-yeong was quick on the uptake. Maybe it was his years of experience dealing with people. When it came to handling others, he was second to none.

“Of course, it’s because he’s a great Hunter that it ended with just an injury—otherwise, well. I don’t need to spell it out, do I?”

“You die?”

“That’s right. Usually… let’s see. There are monsters that don’t appear in dungeons below B-rank. Starting from A-rank, there are a few—though not many. Most of the time, as soon as one is confirmed, it’s designated S-rank. Anyone know what I’m talking about?”

The children’s eyes rolled around. I figured they wouldn’t know, since dungeons like that were practically nonexistent.

But to my surprise, Han Eun-young raised her hand.

“Han Eun-young?”

“Um, poison… Monsters with venom.”

“Correct.”

I placed a praise sticker on Han Eun-young’s forehead. It had been a while since I’d given one out. She carefully stuck it onto her desk.

“Poison is one of the things you must be most careful of. If a monster is poisonous, there’s a high chance the dungeon itself is toxic, and currently, there’s no antidote capable of neutralizing a monster’s venom.”

I looked at Yoo Hye-eun.

“Therefore, detoxification depends on magic, runes, the Hunter’s stamina, and the healer.”

Yoo Hye-eun swallowed hard.

That was enough for everyone to understand. Yoo Ji-eun rolled her eyes, then asked,

“So the principal got done in by a poisonous monster?”

“That’s right.”

“But he’s in a cast? Wasn’t it a broken leg?”

“It’s a special cast, made for detoxification.”

The children’s eyes turned to Hong Seok-yeong’s leg. He playfully wiggled his casted limb.

“That’s the lesson. No matter how strong you are, you have to watch out for poison. Actually, not just poison. Even dungeon environments that seem harmless can sometimes be dangerous.”

“That’s why you always need to stay alert inside a dungeon.”

“Today, we’re going to learn about dungeons with poison, and other dungeon environments that can affect the human body.”

The children straightened in their seats. The same kids who could barely keep their eyes open during morning classes.

I couldn’t help but smile.

Daniel, sitting next to Hong Seok-yeong, couldn’t hide his surprise. The translator must have been working overtime.

When I’d introduced him to the children and handed him off to Yoo Hye-eun, his face had been full of disbelief—what kind of place was this? He’d looked just as dubious when I’d shown him around the school buildings.

Well, most of the buildings ended up being described as currently unused due to the lack of students. If it weren’t for Hong Seok-yeong, he probably would have thought it was some kind of bizarre cult village.

Now, let’s see.

What else could I do to draw this man more earnestly into the lesson?

---

“…Ugh. An intelligence agent? Which agency?”

“Hey now. Just a government employee. Why are you making it sound so scary?”

Gamble shot a look of open contempt at Hong Seok-yeong.

“So the official reason is to treat our master?”

“It’s not just a pretext. That’s really what’s going on. The cast is genuine, I’m telling you.”

“Real or not, a pretext is a pretext. Keep him out of the lab. I don’t like Americans.”

“He won’t come in unless he tries to sneak in.”

“How long do I have to stay holed up in the lab, anyway?”

“……”

“Ugh, seriously! This is a violation of my human rights!”

Hope banged her head on the table and squirmed.

Not that I particularly pitied her, but it was true that we couldn’t keep her in the lab forever.

“Bear with it for now.”

“Ugh…”

“So, to the point.”

“…You know, research doesn’t yield results just because you want them. Sure, it eats up a lot of time and money, but if results came just because you demanded them, that would be magic, not science. And even with magic, not even an archmage could just conjure things up in an instant—”

“What are you talking about?”

“Huh? Weren’t you here to check on the research?”

“No. Well, have you gotten any meaningful results?”

Gamble bit her lip.

“Somehow, that stings my pride…”

“What’s there to be embarrassed about? You just said it yourself—research like this doesn’t yield results on demand.”

“…That’s true, but somehow it sounds different coming from you.”

“Does it?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Me neither.”

Hope answered blankly, and Hong Seok-yeong looked like he was barely suppressing a laugh.

I don’t know.

“In any case, it’s not about the research—it’s about that leg.”

“Poison?”

“Toad venom, technically, but it’s more complicated than that.”

“When is anything ever not complicated?”

Gamble, true to her academic background, made a sharp observation.

I glanced at the empty chair. Of course, I’d called Kim Chae-min to the guild meeting in the lab. Han Tae-kyung had said he hated complicated discussions and asked to be told only what he needed to do.

Daniel had been skillfully kept occupied by Yoo Hye-eun, but I couldn’t just leave the children unsupervised. Han Tae-kyung could keep Daniel busy and also look after the kids’ after-school activities.

But Kim Chae-min had once again holed up in her domain, carrying Hong Seok-yeong’s used bandages.

She’d said she’d come to the meeting, so she’d show up eventually… If I could finish explaining before she arrived, all the better. Hope was Hope, but a magical engineer’s perspective on the mana bomb might be helpful, too.

“Oh.”

Gamble pursed her lips in admiration.

“This is complicated in a different way. Physically? Magically?”

“How much do you know about mana bombs?”

“Officially? Not much. But out of personal curiosity? A fair bit.”

Gamble took off her glasses and wiped the lenses with her shirt.

“A mana bomb is a mage’s… mana… To put it bluntly, the body is the medium. Whether you can get a mage to cooperate is one thing, but researching it is ethically questionable. You know what I mean?”

Ethics.

It was an unexpected word, but I understood. For the same reason, mages themselves probably didn’t want related research to be conducted.

“But the idea of artificially detonating mana is fascinating. I want to know what sets it apart from magic, and whether it can be imitated by non-mages. That’s just curiosity—a scientist’s curiosity.”

And I could understand where Gamble was coming from, too.

“Master, is the dungeon closed?”

“It is. After all that chaos, how could it not be?”

“Even if it were open, I wouldn’t have been able to enter… If the inside’s that messed up, a mana bomb or two wouldn’t be enough to do it.”

“Exactly. According to what we can tell, at least five mages detonated theirs.”

Gamble began questioning Hong Seok-yeong. How many people had entered the dungeon before, what was the composition of the raid party, how did they clear the dungeon…

Some of the questions were predictable, others made me wonder why she’d ask—like the depth of the swamp inside the dungeon.

Still, in this room, Gamble was the expert. There must have been a reason for her questions. Hong Seok-yeong answered as specifically as he could.

Only when Hope’s boredom became too obvious did Gamble wrap up her questions.

“But isn’t our mage going to say anything?”

“She took the contaminated bandages to investigate… We’ll ask her when she comes.”

“I have a few ideas, but I’ll wait until I can consult with a mage. No point muddying everyone’s heads with things I’m not sure about.”

“Well…”

I shrugged.

“Given all this, the principal will be staying at the school for the time being. If he commutes, he’ll get spotted by reporters.”

“Ah, right. Things are noisy these days.”

Gamble nodded at me.

“You don’t have any public criminal record, so you should be fine, Doctor.”

“Criminal record? What are you saying to an upstanding citizen?”

“Upstanding?”

“Hey! You’re supposed to be on my side!”

“My mom said lying is bad.”

“You little—!”

Hope replied shamelessly.

Whether Sandra Gamble could really be called an upstanding citizen was beside the point… In any case, most upstanding citizens don’t hack government agencies, have contacts in the black market, commit crimes with those contacts, or report those same contacts to the government for reward money.

I looked at Gamble with indifference, then asked Hope,

“We need to deal with the poison first. You know anything?”

“Why do you ask me like I’d know everything?”

“You need to earn your keep.”

“So stingy!”

Despite her words, Hope burst out laughing, clearly enjoying herself.

The laughter soon faded.

“Unfortunately, I don’t know. I’ve never come across anything with venom.”

I hadn’t expected much, but it was still disappointing.

“Then is there a chance this was Henry Lehmann’s trap?”

“Well…”

Hope thought for quite a while on that one.

“I wouldn’t say it’s impossible. But overall, it depends too much on luck.”

“Luck?”

“Yeah. Our Henry might be a ruthless gang boss, but unlike Noah, he doesn’t act on a whim. But look: a raid party enters a poison toad dungeon, someone is sent to attack them, but one person escapes and calls for help? What are the odds that our guild master would be included in the rescue team?”

“……”

“And if it had just been ordinary toad venom, it wouldn’t have been so hard to detoxify.”

“It’s more like a side effect from the mana bomb.”

Hong Seok-yeong nodded at Hope’s words.

“I agree—it’s too flimsy to be called a trap. There was even a chance I wouldn’t have been affected by the poison at all.”

I reluctantly agreed with that.

If I were Henry Lehmann, I wouldn’t have set such an unreliable trap.

“Besides, Henry doesn’t like methods that can be treated, like poison. He’d rather handle it himself.”

Hope drove the point home.

“It’s not as if Henry lacks other ways, right?”