Retire 436
by Cristae436 Hunter and Teacher (1)
“Honestly, it’s true,” Hong Seokyoung said, not batting an eye.
If anything, he seemed not to understand why I was even asking.
“Why do you think people accused me of building an army when I started this school?”
“…I always thought starting a guild or starting a school was pretty much the same thing.”
“If it had been a guild, nobody would’ve cared,” Hong Seokyoung laughed, a deep, throaty sound.
“Surprisingly, it’s all pretty simple. Didn’t you say you fought a lot while working at the Administration? How can you not know this?”
“…I never handled the Academy’s affairs,” I replied.
At my excuse, Hong Seokyoung burst out laughing again.
“Well, then, no wonder you don’t know.”
The fact that he let my poor excuse slide without comment only made me more irritated.
But Hong Seokyoung didn’t give me a chance to defend myself further.
“Lots of people run guilds. If I’d given up my solo guild earlier, plenty would have welcomed it. They’d have begged me to let them join, made a fuss about it.”
It was hard to deny.
“But a school is different. It’s not a guild.”
“…Did they think the Academy was poaching talent that should’ve gone to the guilds?”
“In a way.”
Hong Seokyoung nodded.
“Taking in young talent and putting them in guilds—that’s still how it’s done, even in the future, right?”
“Yes.”
“But the Academy, the school I built…”
Hong Seokyoung smiled quietly.
That gentle smile looked almost pitying, as if he felt sorry for those who twisted his intentions. But at the same time, it also seemed to mock those who so freely distorted his purpose.
“I don’t take in the graduates from there.”
“…Well. That’s true, isn’t it?”
“And that’s the problem.”
“……”
“After three years of teaching, I send out kids who trust me into the Hunter market? That’s a different matter. What if they take the secrets of running their own guild and tell them to me?”
I knew people didn’t want my father’s influence to grow, but was that really the reason?
“That’s… so petty.”
“Yeah. It’s petty,” Hong Seokyoung laughed again, this time even louder.
“But that’s reality. Honestly, if my future self had established the Administration just twenty years later, things would’ve been much easier. That was my original plan. I know why I didn’t do it, though.”
“……”
“Anyway, for those reasons! That’s why people didn’t like me founding a school. Since I claimed it was for the protection of underage Awakened, no one could openly oppose it if they wanted to be seen as human.”
For all he said, though… Enough. This wasn’t the real topic of our conversation anyway. And if he put it that way, what could I say?
Hong Seokyoung’s shoulders shook with a small, quiet laugh.
“So… wait, what were we talking about?”
“Choi Jinwoo.”
“Ah. Right. That Alex kid is right, you know. If you’re not going to let them enter dungeons, you shouldn’t call it a Hunter Training High School.”
“But they’re just kids.”
“If I really wanted to raise kids, I’d have built an orphanage.”
Hong Seokyoung said this firmly.
“Or do they call them something else these days? Anyway, that’s what I mean.”
He looked at me, his gaze steady.
“Heejae.”
My tense expression softened. Hong Seokyoung smiled, similar to before but somehow different—a smile that wasn’t boisterous as usual, but uncertain, as if he didn’t know how to say what he was about to say.
He knew I wouldn’t like what he was about to bring up, but he also knew he had to say it.
My mouth felt dry as sand. I clenched my fists, my nails digging into my palms.
Time seemed to slow. Hong Seokyoung looked straight at me. His lips parted slowly. His voice hadn’t yet reached me. I could still stop him if I wanted.
But at the same time, I knew I had to hear it.
I knew I couldn’t run away here. I knew it would be cowardly.
Once again, I would be sheltered by my father, leaving him to bear all the burdens, while I remained behind, ignorant.
“Even if I die—”
“Teacher.”
But the moment my father spoke of his own death, I chose to run away.
He fell silent without another word. No reproach, no scolding. As always, he looked at me with gentle understanding, as if he knew everything.
I was the one who looked away.
I shouldn’t have ended the conversation like this.
I knew it. I knew, and yet—
Even in the future, hadn’t I always been under my father’s protection? Even after returning to the past, it was the same. Once I accepted that I was his son, Hong Seokyoung protected me just the same. He supported me. He always laughed heartily, telling me to use his name whenever I needed.
This time, I had resolved to stand by my father’s side and help him.
With no older sister, I couldn’t keep acting like a child forever.
“Anyway, what I meant to say is, if the kids want to enter dungeons, we can’t stop them. That’s what I was trying to say.”
That surely wasn’t what he truly wanted to tell me.
But my father changed the subject without a care.
I bit my lip.
“…But we can’t just send them to their deaths,” I forced out, my voice barely audible. Facing the fact that I was running away was hard. Once again, I was leaving everything to my father.
I would never be a good son.
“Well, that’s why we’re teaching them at this school, isn’t it?”
“That’s not the same.”
“You know we can’t review every dungeon our graduates enter, right?”
“……”
“Heejae.”
“And yet, you checked every dungeon I was going to enter, didn’t you?”
I glared at my father.
“You went through the trouble of looking at each one, telling me not to go here, to go there?”
“Heejae.”
“If you’d just said I wasn’t strong enough, I could have understood, but you were just stubborn…”
I bit my tongue.
“…No. It’s not about you as a teacher.”
I wiped my face with a dry hand.
Damn it. This wasn’t what I wanted to say. I should have just… not run away.
Even now…
“I can tell you why I did that,” my father said, not knowing what I was thinking.
“You’re my son.”
“……”
“Not my student.”
“…What’s the difference?”
“I just don’t want my son doing anything dangerous.”
I looked up at him, startled. If he’d said it boldly, I could have called him selfish, but instead he looked at me with a strange mix of guilt and relief.
“I’m only human, after all,” he muttered, as if making excuses.
If I hadn’t known my father so well, I might have thought he was crying.
…Or maybe he was crying.
Once again, I ran away from my father.
A good mage.
The air on my tongue felt like sand. Was it because of Kim Chaemin’s words? Or was it because of my conversation with Hong Seokyoung?
I understood Kim Chaemin’s explanation, and I knew she hadn’t meant to call Choi Jinwoo a sociopath—she’d meant it as genuine praise.
If anything, it made me realize that my own standards weren’t normal. I must have picked them up from spending so much time at my father’s side.
I didn’t know how things would turn out, but a new possibility had appeared: Choi Jinwoo’s magic.
A possibility is only a possibility. Even Hong Seokyoung had given up on that particular raid; I had no intention of dragging that kid into a place even he had abandoned.
For now, the best course would be to find a way to clear it without the guiding magic, using the testimony of Pyunes and Robinson. Well, it’s not as if we’re going in right away—these are things you need to prepare for in advance.
“……”
I stopped and looked into the classroom.
As always, the two young mages in their neat uniforms sat at two desks pushed together, deep in conversation.
Their soft voices drifted out into the hallway. If I listened closely, I could make out what they were saying.
“Why? You’re doing well, you know?”
“Still…”
“It’s true! I never lie about magic.”
Park Seohyun was doing her best to encourage Choi Jinwoo.
Kids really do grow up fast. When I think about what Park Seohyun was like around this time last year, I feel overwhelmed.
She was one of those who cried about wanting to quit school…
And now, after pulling herself together and deciding to become a great mage, she was comforting a friend who was discouraged by slow progress.
Kids really do grow up so quickly…
“Come on! Let’s try again. My grandfather always thought theory was important. Even though his research was kind of all over the place…”
“No, there was a direction to it, in its own way.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Look, this is the first spell you taught me.”
To be honest, the Academy’s magic classes relied almost entirely on the students’ self-study.
That’s just how magic is. And those two, in particular, had to forge their own paths. At least Choi Jinwoo had Park Seohyun to teach him theory.
The rest of the magic classes were left to Kim Chaemin. Occasionally, I would check in, just to show I was paying attention—especially after Park Seohyun made such a fuss about being taken on as an apprentice.
Well, I know Park Seohyun’s magic better than she does herself, so it’s not as if I have nothing to say. But I’m careful, in case she asks to be taken on as an apprentice again. Just dealing with Yoo Jieun is exhausting enough.
And honestly, Park Seohyun figures things out on her own, even without much guidance from me. After she covered the pension in shadows, she became comfortable with them, too.
Still, at that age, kids need an adult’s attention. Or do they? I seem to remember most of them found it annoying.
Anyway, Park Seohyun and Choi Jinwoo liked it when I checked in on them like this. So, though I didn’t do much, I made time now and then to look in on them.
“Oh! Teacher!”
Choi Jinwoo finally noticed me and called out.
“If you’re here, why are you standing in the hallway?”
“You two looked focused.”
“Since when did you care about that?”
“What are you talking about? I always care.”
Choi Jinwoo and Park Seohyun smiled quietly. Their shy reaction made me feel oddly proud. If it were those kids running around the sports field, they’d have said all a teacher’s love was fake and attacked me with wooden swords.
I shrugged and pulled up a chair to sit beside them.
“I actually have something I wanted to tell you both today.”
“Yes?”
“It’s about Mr. Pyunes. He’s been giving lectures on European dungeons lately, hasn’t he?”
“Oh, yes! The strategies over there are a bit different from ours.”
“Actually, that’s the standard. Korea’s the unusual one.”
I looked at Choi Jinwoo, then at Park Seohyun.
I had asked Pyunes not to talk about Park Nogyung in front of her. Perhaps thinking it wasn’t right to bring up her late grandfather in front of his granddaughter, Pyunes had readily agreed.
I wanted to be able to talk in a calmer setting.
“Both Mr. Pyunes and Mr. Robinson said they went into dungeons with your grandfather when they were young.”
Park Seohyun’s eyes grew wide.
“If you want to hear about it, you can go ask them. They’ll tell you.”