Retire 417

417 Preparation for the Raid (2)

“Does it bother you?”

“Hm?”

“I asked if it bothers you.”

Kim Chaemin’s gaze drifted toward Han Taekyung and Eva Robinson, playing on the beach.

It was a stark contrast to the adults’ serious faces as they reviewed dungeon plans.

Eva Robinson was one thing, but Han Taekyung… Well, I was the one who told him to just check the fairy’s words and not worry about the dungeon.

Apparently bored of playing in the water, Han Taekyung had started training Eva Robinson under the guise of play. Jean Robinson and the other hunters from his guild, Banner of Glory, watched the two with interest.

After about a year of teaching at Yangseong High, Han Taekyung had become quite systematic in his instruction. Eva Robinson’s skills were about on par with the kids at school. Han Taekyung seemed to have taken a liking to the poor duckling and was giving her careful guidance.

Well, whatever the case with Eva Robinson, Jean Robinson was probably just as curious about Hong Seokyoung’s Hunter Training High School. I’d say he’d gotten his answer by now.

If not, he had no conscience.

“I’m not sure.”

Kim Chaemin turned his eyes away from the beach. My gaze followed his. The table near the sunbeds was strewn with documents about the Okinawa dungeon.

…Which side was he asking about?

Since I didn’t have a satisfactory answer either way, I stayed silent. Kim Chaemin, for his part, didn’t press me for a reply.

Lost in thought as he sifted through the materials, Kim Chaemin finally spoke again after a long pause.

“About going into the dungeon.”

“Yes?”

“We still need Han-saem, don’t we?”

“Why?”

“What do you mean, why?”

Kim Chaemin looked at me as if to say, “Don’t you know?”

“We need Han-saem to understand what the fairy says.”

What the fairy says.

At his words, I glanced around. Han Taekyung and Eva Robinson were far off, and the French hunters were scattered about the villa. There was still time before the fire I’d set in the dungeon would burn out. Until then, we couldn’t do anything.

All we could do was review the raid plan, track down those who’d surveyed the dungeon, pressure the Japanese government….

Honestly, the Japanese government might be the real victim here. It’s not like they falsified the survey. If it had been any other hunters, they’d have just paid some compensation and smoothed things over, but they had to get unlucky with this lot.

The fire would burn out soon. Then we’d see what these laid-back hunters were really made of.

“That’s not necessarily true.”

“Huh?”

Kim Chaemin’s eyes widened.

“Are you saying, Woo-saem…”

His eyes narrowed, and it was obvious what he was thinking. Did he think I could understand the fairy’s words?

“No. In the current plan, I won’t even be facing the fairy.”

“Then?”

“Think about it, Kim-saem. You know, don’t you?”

No one was paying attention to us. Kim Chaemin used magic to keep our voices from leaking.

Here, the only other person who could speak Korean was Han Taekyung, but it never hurts to be careful. If anyone asked, I’d just say it was guild business.

“That thing isn’t important.”

No matter how highly that fairy thought of itself.

“What I’m really curious about is whether Han-saem can only understand the fairy, or if he can understand all monsters.”

“Hm.”

“Hope and Sam Bloom both had no language barrier, right? That means not just speaking, but understanding as well. Han-saem can’t speak, but…”

“He can listen.”

“I wonder if Han-saem always said he hated complicated stories because he ended up learning things he didn’t want to know.”

“……”

Kim Chaemin started to object, but fell silent, looking rather convinced by my words.

“Then shouldn’t we bring him along? He’s met the same kind of creature before, so he wouldn’t object. In fact, wasn’t it Robinson who asked why we weren’t bringing him?”

“That’s not necessary.”

“Huh?”

Kim Chaemin looked surprised.

“I’m not saying this to make things harder for Han-saem. It might be difficult to interrogate the fairy, but if it says anything at all…”

I shook my head.

“The information it has is useless.”

At last, Kim Chaemin stopped talking.

I wasn’t the only one who’d come from the future. Even if we couldn’t communicate, look at the centipede hiding deep in the Bangi-dong dungeon. That centipede…

No, let’s not talk about centipedes.

Even putting that aside, there were plenty of monsters who claimed to have come from the future. The ones who appeared before Hong Seokyoung, for example. It wasn’t just one or two, or even a dozen—there were many.

“The item they made. Strictly speaking, it’s single-use, isn’t it? It doesn’t break after one use, but you can only use it once, so it’s the same.”

“Right?”

“So here’s the question.”

“For example… let’s say a butterfly goes back in time. Let’s call the point it returns to B, and the past it returns to A.”

“Yes.”

“And whatever it did, it lived longer than that point it returned to. It lived until C. But the butterfly died at C, and another one picked up the item and went from D back to A.”

“……”

“So who is the butterfly at A?”

Kim Chaemin finally understood.

“There would be a naive, original version of the butterfly at A, right? But what about the one that came back from B to A?”

The fact that the item was single-use didn’t erase the previous user.

All those monsters that attacked Hong Seokyoung proved it.

Kim Chaemin groaned. Maybe he hadn’t realized this right away because, at the time, he was more focused on future magic knowledge than on items that could bring you to the past. And unless you’ve experienced it yourself, it’s hard to grasp.

“Would the butterfly know that it died at C and another one went back in time?”

“…And that it happened over and over?”

“It did happen over and over.”

This tied back to what Hope had said: you don’t need to worry about the ones that came back.

A dungeon is a space cut off from the outside world.

Within it, pitiful souls endlessly repeat time. Even in death, there’s no way to escape the cycle. In a sense, they’re the ones truly lost in the past—fragile souls, trapped without even realizing they’re repeating the same thing.

It’s the stuff of classic horror films.

But this isn’t fiction.

There’s no guarantee it couldn’t happen to me.

If the last thing I’d seen had been monsters crawling freely outside the dungeon, I’d have been tormented by the thought that I was also endlessly repeating meaningless time.

The fact that monsters were walking the earth, unafraid of the outside world’s lifespan, meant their goal had been achieved—and in that case, repeating the past was just a way of erasing that outcome.

“So if you ever see one of those items, don’t even think about using it—just destroy it.”

“Huh? What item…?”

“I didn’t even know what it was, and I didn’t have a choice.”

Kim Chaemin, who hadn’t understood at first, now frowned as he finally realized what I was talking about, and how I’d come by that item. And what you’d have to do to get it.

“Don’t say stuff like that!”

Kim Chaemin smacked my shoulder. Even for a magician, an Awakened’s hand was heavy.

As I rubbed my shoulder and chuckled, Kim Chaemin glared at me, eyes wide.

“I’m telling the principal on you!”

“Why’s he involved?”

“I’m going to ask him to scold you!”

“Go ahead, then.”

“So annoying!”

“Yes, yes.”

Kim Chaemin glared at me, fuming. I shrugged.

“But there’s something else I’m really curious about.”

“……”

“I’m not joking.”

“…What is it?”

Ah, a magician’s curiosity.

“The king in Mont-Saint-Michel.”

“Hm.”

“Hope said he’s barely even seen him in person, right?”

The reason my father had always warned me never to enter Mont-Saint-Michel.

“But he said that guy used the item, too.”

“The very first time… Ah.”

“Yes. I’m curious when he used the item to come back, but basically, he’s also trapped in the dungeon, repeating things.”

He might have come from even farther in the future. That’s fine. But the fact that he used the item means he failed his first attempt, and the fact that other monsters used it means he failed the second time as well.

But then, how is he still ruling over Noah Michel and threatening this world?

Is it all just Noah Michel’s doing? Or is there some other secret we don’t know?

…Do I have to go into Mont-Saint-Michel?

……

I caught sight of Han Taekyung and Eva Robinson running along the beach with wooden swords.

And approaching them were two middle-aged men: Jean Robinson and Nicolas de Funès.

Marseille and Mont-Saint-Michel are on opposite ends of France.

But those two are both hunters who worked in France. Funès has been out of active duty for a long time due to injury, but he’s still active as a guild leader in his city. That means he’s respected enough to influence other hunters even in that state. He’s modest about it, so it’s easy to overlook, but the fact that Jean Robinson brought Funès to Okinawa says it all. Ask him about any monster and he’ll rattle off everything he knows.

Jean Robinson may not have worked much overseas, but he’s famous in France….

……Could they know about Mont-Saint-Michel?

Maybe they’ve even been inside?

It wasn’t that long ago that France started strictly restricting entry to Mont-Saint-Michel. There was a time when France put a lot of effort into raiding that monstrous dungeon.

“Woo-saem, you’re giving me a really suspicious look right now.”

“Huh? What did I do?”

Kim Chaemin flopped back onto the sunbed, letting the magic that had kept our conversation private dissipate.

“But you are worried, right?”

“Still with that? Of course I’m worried about the dungeon. A fairy is still a fairy….”

“No, not that.”

He pointed at Han Taekyung, who was now talking with the Robinsons.

“You don’t like it when Han-saem goofs off.”

“…I’m not so petty as to resent someone else having fun.”

“Nothing you feel guilty about?”

“I just don’t like it when people play while I’m working. That’s different.”

“Sure, sure. But you did approve Han-saem’s vacation, didn’t you?”

“He deserved it. He’s been working nonstop.”

Kim Chaemin chuckled.

“He’s the kind of guy who actually takes vacation when you tell him to. I tried to ask him something about the dungeon, and you know what he said?”

“What?”

“He said if I made him work while he was on vacation, he’d report me to the labor board, no matter who I was.”

For the record, Hong Seokyoung’s guild is still considered a business with fewer than five employees, so a report probably wouldn’t get him what he wanted.

“Ahaha, but if you asked, he’d do it anyway.”

Probably. But… considering he scratched himself bloody just talking about fairies, I’d rather not.

Off in the distance, I could see Han Taekyung taking his stance. Across from him was not Eva Robinson, but Jean Robinson. I could hear laughter from here.

“There are hunters with way more experience than Han-saem. Why him?”

His sunglasses glinted above his smiling face.