Retire 415
by Cristae415 Butterflies of Memory (5)
Aside from his insistence on wearing sunglasses day and night, indoors or out, Han Taekyung was, for a hunter, a fairly reasonable person.
Even twenty years later, when he sometimes got into disputes with civilians, Han Taekyung never did so without reason. Thanks to dungeon management laws, he usually won in court. It wasn’t because he was a public official with the Bureau—if anything, he got more flak and was even suspended from duty regardless of the verdict.
He was obsessed with American cartoons, but that was a much healthier hobby than getting into trouble elsewhere. Maybe because he wanted to buy the rights someday, he never spent money recklessly, and unless he was suspended, he always participated in dungeon raids. Maybe because he’d once been headmaster at the Hunter Academy, he was good at training new recruits.
Honestly, if he’d claimed the sunglasses were due to an eye injury or sensitivity, I’d have let it go. Everyone who met Han Taekyung twenty years later thought so. So did I.
…Turns out, it wasn’t wrong.
“He said some other things, but, uh, they were curses. Want me to tell you? There wasn’t much to them. Mostly just bragging.”
Han Taekyung had been by my father’s side even before my father adopted me.
For all his complaints, my father relied on Han Taekyung a lot. My own trust in Han Taekyung was built on that foundation. My father never told me how he’d first met Han Taekyung, but if he hadn’t been trustworthy, he never would have kept him near the students, near me.
“I don’t know about the others, but you should know, sunbae. Kim-saem’s going into the dungeon, right? Then maybe he should know too… Well, he’s an archmage, so he’s probably fought fairies before.”
“…Can I tell Kim-saem?”
“Yeah, sure. Go ahead.”
Han Taekyung scratched behind his ear so hard it made a noise.
Seeing Han Taekyung’s anger toward the butterflies, I could understand a little where that trust came from.
Hong Seokyoung, too, had always acted as if there weren’t enough fairies in the world to grind beneath his heel… If he’d known what happened to Han Taekyung, there’s no way he’d ever have thought this man would side with fairies or monsters like Noah Michel. No, it would be impossible.
Han Taekyung said he’d never told my father about it, but looking at my father now that I’d come back to the past… maybe he’d known all along. That man was darker inside than he let on.
How lucky I am to have a father like that.
“Han-saem.”
“……”
“Han-saem! You’ll hurt yourself.”
“…Huh?”
“Your ear.”
“Oh. Yeah. Hah.”
Han Taekyung gave an awkward laugh, looking at the blood on his fingertip.
Over his face, I saw the image of the pterosaur being eaten alive in front of the gate.
If the butterflies Han Taekyung faced were the same species as these… Right. They wouldn’t have only gone for the eyes. If they could distinguish like that, they wouldn’t be monsters.
Sam Bloom had replaced many parts of his body—his own flesh and blood. Eyes. Arms. Tongue. And so on. He’d spoken Korean fluently, even though it would have been tough for a Dutch national.
Han Taekyung couldn’t speak foreign languages like that. But if his ears weren’t originally his, maybe he could understand the gibberish monsters spoke. Especially if it was a fairy with its own language system.
“I’m not going back into the dungeon, so I’ll just…”
“…You’re heading back to Korea?”
“What? No!”
Han Taekyung looked at me like I’d said something ridiculous.
“I’m going to enjoy the Okinawan sea for a bit. Ha, there’s a reason it’s so famous. There’s a surfboard in the garage—can I use it?”
I nodded before I could ask for more details.
“…Apparently this is Funès’s cousin’s villa. Go ask him.”
“Okay!”
Besides his eyes, I wondered if Han Taekyung had replaced anything else.
At least outwardly, aside from his eyes, he still looked human.
Next, I found myself curious about the friend who’d made the deal for Han Taekyung. Sam Bloom had replaced his own body. If someone had replaced Han Taekyung’s lost parts for him… was that person still alive? Could they have survived?
I thought Han Taekyung would run straight to Funès, but he paused to take off his jacket. For a moment, he was wiping blood from his hands and neck.
He rolled up the bloody clothes and tossed them in a trash bin at the edge of the garden, then waved at me.
……
There was something I needed to confirm with my father.
“Fairy… wow! Why is this place so nice?”
It turned out Kim Chaemin from Korea arrived before Jean Robinson’s guild members from France.
A bit slow for coming from a neighboring country, but he’d said he needed to finish up a mud test first. In that case, he’d actually come pretty quickly.
“Hello, Robinson Hunter! We met not long ago, right?”
“Hello, Archmage.”
“Ahaha, don’t be so stiff—we’re going into a dungeon together. Just call me by name!”
Kim Chaemin swept through the gloomy beachside villa like a whirlwind.
“So, you’re just waiting here now? Some people were working at school, you know!”
“After coming out of a dungeon like that, I deserve at least this much of a reward.”
I greeted Kim Chaemin from a sunbed facing the sea.
“What’s with those sunglasses?”
“They’re Han-saem’s. I borrowed a pair.”
I pointed at the sea. Kim Chaemin’s gaze followed my hand.
Eva Robinson and Han Taekyung were in the water. A hunter’s stamina is as endless as the ocean. They’d gone in at sunrise and hadn’t come out even after noon.
Kim Chaemin clicked his tongue, not sure whether to be amused or exasperated.
“Well… it was a really weird dungeon. But aren’t you supposed to be preparing to go back in soon?”
“We can’t go in right away.”
Kim Chaemin sat down on an empty sunbed.
“Because Robinson’s guild members aren’t here yet? They’re arriving this evening, right? You’re going to plan the raid then? That’s not like the Woo-saem I know.”
“I’ve handed over all the dungeon info.”
“You’re not satisfied unless you do everything yourself.”
I didn’t deny it.
But right now, that damned dungeon was in a rather special state.
“I set it on fire before I left.”
“Hm?”
“I really went all out, so it’ll take a while to burn out. You know how hard it is to put out that fire. Once I burn that much mana-soaked wood, I can’t control it either.”
“……”
“With any luck, maybe the fairy will burn to death.”
Kim Chaemin fell silent. The look he gave me was hard to describe. I shrugged.
“Well, there are places in the dungeon where it could avoid the flames, so probably not.”
“Hmmm, I see….”
“We decided to wait until the forest burns down a bit. To eliminate any place the fairy could hide.”
“Aha….”
Kim Chaemin responded half-heartedly.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
“No… So when are you planning to go in?”
“As of now, in a week. Conveniently for us, we have Han-saem, don’t we?”
Kim Chaemin immediately realized what I was getting at.
“You’re going to use Han-saem to check the dungeon and time it?”
“I can’t tell them the truth, so I’ll just say it’s your magic. That should work.”
“Magic isn’t that all-powerful, you know?”
“Noah Michel’s magic was great. Magic itself is innocent, right? That puppet magic is tricky to use, but I heard it was really handy in situations like this.”
It was only just before Sandra Gamble’s death that the gate-crossing spell was improved. Even then, it was so primitive that even its creator, Michel, said the success rate was low.
But Kim Chaemin didn’t know that.
“…I’ll wait. For a little trick, it should be fine. Doesn’t have to be perfect. But my magic, soon…”
He trailed off and shot me a look.
I waved my hand.
“That’s why you’re the archmage. I’m counting on you.”
“…You’ve gotten really…”
“Really?”
“Annoying…”
I smiled and lay back on the sunbed. Gentle weather, the peaceful sound of waves, a cool drink… Maybe this is why people go on vacation. Maybe this is the kind of vacation my father wanted for me.
Maybe someday I should take Woo Irok somewhere like this. Maybe Kang Taewoo and Sophia, too. I doubt they’ve ever been to a place like this.
“You know, people…”
I watched Han Taekyung using a surfboard as a paddleboard. No matter how much of a veteran hunter you are, balance on water is a different matter. Especially if Eva Robinson is rocking the board.
Han Taekyung flailed his arms to keep his balance, then finally fell in. I could hear laughter all the way from here.
“When you hear something totally unexpected, sometimes you just end up feeling happy.”
“…Was that dungeon really so shocking? Do you think the raid will be difficult? What was it like, anyway? You didn’t say it was that bad on the phone.”
“The dungeon… well, honestly, I don’t care anymore. I didn’t know, but apparently Funès’s nickname in his youth was ‘Fairy Slayer.’ There was a reason Robinson brought him along. I thought I was just the scapegoat for blame.”
“Why do you always think the worst of people?”
“That’s just how public officials are.”
“You’re not one anymore.”
“Aren’t schoolteachers public officials?”
“We’re technically private school teachers, so not really.”
“……”
I had no comeback for that.
So I pointed at Han Taekyung.
“I got his permission.”
“Huh?”
“So don’t be too surprised.”
“About what?”
“How should I explain this… Maybe this is why he wanted me to be the one to tell you.”
“What? About Han-saem?”
Hope hadn’t figured out Han Taekyung’s condition because he’d only met him after becoming human. If you take off the sunglasses, the eyes are obviously suspicious.
But what about the parts you can’t see? Like the eardrums—no one can see those.
Even Han Taekyung seemed to have relaxed at the Okinawan beach. Maybe it was more because of the fairy than the sea, but it was better to blame the sea.
Even after translating what the fairy said, Han Taekyung kept dropping little bombs in passing.
Honestly, just that one thing the fairy said was enough of a headache. There’s only one thing it could mean.
The monster that used to appear before my father, the one from the future.
I burst out laughing. Kim Chaemin now looked at me like I was insane.
A monster that must have returned from the future long ago probably can’t do anything now. But still, all of this—
“Han-saem.”
“I’m really getting anxious here. What’s going on?”
“He hates flying bugs.”
“…What?”
“I figured I should start there.”