Retire 426
by Cristae426 Field Trip (2)
“Wow!”
“Wow!”
“Wow!”
The children, dressed in their dirt-stained gym uniforms, spun around me in circles, covered in dust from head to toe, performing a bizarre dance.
Oh Hyunwook stood behind them, arms crossed, pretending not to care, while Park Seohyun clapped along with the children’s shouts, smiling quietly.
……
Strange. Had I really been away that long?
Was it the heat that had gotten to them while I was gone? I glanced at Kim Chaemin, who was standing a step away from me, looking blank. She just shrugged her shoulders.
Next, I looked to Han Taekyung. He was caught up in the middle of the children, dancing with them, only to be pelted with blows.
“Coward! Off on vacation at the beach!”
To be precise, he was being beaten by his younger sister.
“Me too! I want to go to the sea too!”
“Okinawa was nice.”
“Shut up!!”
He just had to add that last remark and earn himself another beating….
Of course, even if Han Eunyoung was hitting him with all her might, Han Taekyung was not the kind of person to just stand there and take it. With a deliberately exaggerated, nimble footwork that could only be described as showing off, he dodged his sister’s fists.
Then, slipping away from her punches, he pulled something from his pocket and handed it to her.
“What’s this?!”
“A souvenir.”
……
Han Eunyoung stared quietly at the magnet painted with the blue sea of Okinawa.
So that’s what he’d bought at the airport when I’d asked what he was getting.
I half-expected Han Eunyoung to throw the magnet away, but she was far more mature than her brother—she would never do something so thoughtless.
Instead, she simply lunged at Han Taekyung.
“Hm?”
Han Eunyoung’s talents could never be described as lying in physical combat, even as flattery. She worked hard, of course… but honestly, is there anyone at the Training High who doesn’t? She knew this herself, and lately, we’d been trying to help her cultivate her gifts in other directions. Still, when it came to devising strategies, her insight was razor-sharp.
With someone like Funès, a veteran Hunter with extensive dungeon experience, I thought he’d make a good role model for her.
“Ugh! Hey! What are you doing to your brother?!”
“I’ll treat you like a brother when you act like one!”
Han Eunyoung moved smoothly. Han Taekyung was a bit off guard, but even so, she grabbed his back and climbed onto him, wrapping her legs around his neck and torso and using her strength to bring him down… She’d improved a lot, hadn’t she?
It was a good thing. After all, if she wanted to be a Hunter, she couldn’t neglect combat entirely.
“Wow!”
“…You all need to stop now.”
“Woo! Woo!”
“I gave you summer break, didn’t I? You’re the ones who stayed at school.”
I pointed at Lee Seungyeon.
“Your mock exam scores were barely passing.”
“Ugh.”
Then I looked at Oh Hyunwook.
“You really made a mess of your rune retest, didn’t you?”
“I didn’t even take it, so why….”
“Seo Hanseong….”
“I’m sorry!”
“So honest. That’s you.”
“Why does Hanseong get away with it, but not me?!”
“Admitting your mistakes quickly is one of a Hunter’s most important virtues.”
Well, it must have been tough for these energetic kids to be stuck at school while Han Taekyung was sending pictures of the blue sea from his vacation.
But that’s just the life of a third-year high school student in Korea. If anything, this place is a lot more relaxed. For the sake of the students’ growth, we even banned self-training after school hours. The downside was that Lee Seungyeon stayed up all night gaming and flunked her mock exams.
No, I hadn’t really been away that long… had I?
I thought back to the days I’d spent in Okinawa. It had been a rushed departure, but originally, I’d expected to be gone just a week… Then the dungeon went wild, we had to wait for Jean Robinson and the other Hunters, then wait again for the lights to go out….
Suddenly, I realized the wind, which had felt so oppressively hot, had turned cool.
I really had been away for quite a while.
I sighed. It was my fault. All my fault.
In the end, my grand plan to introduce Eva Robinson and Funès to the students had sunk. The little Robinson, who’d been watching the kids with curiosity, began to yawn, unable to hide her boredom, and for some reason, Funès’s proud smile only grew deeper.
“Alright! Everyone, quiet!”
At last, I was able to introduce our guests to the pack of puppies who had finally learned to wait.
“These are Hunters from France. Master of the Anchor of Toulon, Nicolas de Funès, and Master of Dantes, Eva Robinson. They’ll be staying at the school for a while, so don’t be rude.”
“Why did they come to our school?”
“What’s there to see here, anyway?”
“The reeds?”
“Ms. Kim?”
“The principal?”
“Or is it really the reeds?”
……
These little brats.
The kids burst out laughing again. I glanced at the translators in Funès and Robinson’s ears. I wondered if any of the kids had noticed those.
While I was away, the second semester had begun.
Not that semesters really meant much at the Training High. But surprisingly, the students didn’t feel that way.
With most of them being third-years, the arrival of cooler weather seemed to make graduation feel suddenly close. Over the summer, they’d continued to raid dungeons with the help of assistant Hunters, and perhaps as a result, they’d started to objectively assess their own skills. The model students handpicked by Hong Seokyoung were steadily building their abilities, never slacking.
“We still have a long way to go as a school.”
“I doubt there’s a school anywhere in the world as specialized as this.”
“This is the only Hunter training school, after all.”
At my remark, Funès laughed pleasantly.
“No, I mean it. It’s something to be proud of. Honestly, I thought it might be a lot more of a mess.”
“…You too, Ms. Robinson?”
“No matter how famous Hong Seokyoung is, education is a different matter.”
Funès gave a slight nod to the person sitting across from him.
“I mean no offense by it.”
“No, I feel the same way.”
Hong Seokyoung gave a small chuckle.
“I never thought we’d get this far in just a year. It’s all thanks to our students.”
“You’ve been lucky with your students.”
“Exactly!”
Hong Seokyoung burst into hearty laughter.
If I joined in, it would just be an embarrassing display of self-congratulation. I shook my head and gazed out at the athletic field.
The grown-ups’ conversation was for Funès and, soon, Robinson. Eva Robinson was happily running around the Training High. She was older than the students, but… wearing a borrowed gym uniform and rolling around on the field, the little duckling looked even younger than when we first met.
Today, Eva Robinson’s sparring partner was Han Eunyoung. I called Robinson a duckling, and while Han Eunyoung had improved, Robinson was still a Hunter with real field experience. Maybe it was her recent encounter with fairies, but her skills had noticeably grown in the past few days. Han Eunyoung accepted her defeat and chatted away with Robinson.
Of course, I knew what you saw on the surface wasn’t everything, but even so, I was surprised to learn that Han Eunyoung was fluent in French. Unlike her brother, who bumbled through with awkward, halting French.
According to Han Eunyoung, she’d lived in France when she was young. It must have overlapped with the time Han Taekyung was in Dubai.
“So, what about the collaboration?”
“We’ll proceed as discussed. The details… well, it’s not like we’re raiding dungeons together. It’s just education, isn’t it?”
Perhaps because the students were so at ease, Funès was unusually open with his thoughts.
“Neither Jean nor I want to impose strict limits. From what Mr. Woo said, it seemed like Hunter Hong—or rather, the principal—felt the same way.”
“Of course!”
Hong Seokyoung nodded emphatically.
“If this were about raids, it’d be different, but when it comes to education, nitpicking every little thing would just be missing the point! That’s exactly what I mean. Besides, this isn’t something that’ll be over in a day or two. We can share curriculum, maybe even do some student exchanges if needed. That’s a good thing, isn’t it?”
As he spoke, Hong Seokyoung glanced at me, gauging my reaction.
Did he think I’d object? We’d already talked about this. What would Funès think if the principal was watching the teacher’s face for approval…?
I almost sighed, but held it back. Let’s think positively. At least he was at the stage of watching my reaction as he spoke, not before.
Education. In other words, the future sister-school arrangement had already been roughly settled before I left for Okinawa, with Lee Miseon included. As the two of them said, we’d just maintain a loose partnership. Information exchange. What a wonderful phrase.
“Eva was really disappointed, you know.”
“What?”
“She said if she were just a bit younger, she’d have begged to enroll here.”
“Ha ha, it’s not too late yet. How old did you say she was? If being a student is too much, she could always do a teaching practicum or something!”
Think before you speak, you idiot!
Fortunately, before the conversation could go any further, Funès shook his head.
“She’s not cut out for teaching. She’d run away before she even tried.”
“Everyone has their own aptitudes.”
“And after her experience in Okinawa, Eva will become a fine Hunter. If she can just rein in that excitable personality.”
“…Was the Dantes Guild always meant for education?”
“Something like that.”
Funès put my doubts to rest.
“Originally… Jean founded the guild for the families of members who died in the line of duty.”
“Ah.”
“It might sound like bragging, but the Banner of Glory is a famous guild. Even if the children of guild members are involved, bringing in inexperienced kids could cause all sorts of problems… so it was meant to manage them separately. Didn’t work out so well, though.”
“So you’re turning that into a school?”
“Calling it a school is too grand. For now, we’re just thinking of converting it into an internal training facility for the guild.”
“…But, Mr. Funès, aren’t you technically an outsider? Are you officially working with the Banner of Glory now?”
Funès nodded.
“The Anchor of Toulon will remain as it is. I’ll be in charge of training for both guilds. It’s ridiculous for an active Hunter to be barred from entering dungeons, don’t you think?”
Funès laughed, tapping his leg.
I almost told him not to say such things—his career already spoke for itself.
But what good would it do for me to say that? In the end, it was up to him to accept it. What others said was just that—what others said.
Funès didn’t seem to want to talk about it further, and neither did I. So I decided to change the subject.
“By the way, may I ask you something?”
“Me?”
“Yes. If it’s too difficult, you don’t have to answer. I’m just a little curious, personally.”
I wasn’t lying. If I tried to hide it, it would only make him more suspicious.
With topics like this, it’s best to be direct.
“Last year, I attended the Unconquered Dungeon Forum….”
And the moment I mentioned unconquered dungeons, Funès realized what I was about to ask.
“Have you ever been inside Mont Saint-Michel?”