Retire 535
by Cristae535 (Hunter Academy Side Story 2) Cafeteria_1
Working at the Academy has its clear advantages and disadvantages.
For the school nurse, Shin Min-seo, she was thoroughly satisfied with her working environment.
“It gets a little lonely out here in the middle of nowhere, but honestly, those Hunters with their stubborn streaks… Oh, I don’t mean you, Hunter Ji.”
Shin Min-seo covered her mouth and laughed awkwardly.
“Honestly, I’d rather be bored than work at the Seoul office, where the workload is just insane!”
Of course, there were plenty who thought differently. One of Ji Yu-geon’s senior Hunters, Choi Dae-hyun, was like that.
“There’s plenty of work here and there, but I’d rather just go into a dungeon and be done with it.”
When Ji relayed that to another senior, the man’s eyes widened as he retorted,
“You’re lucky if you get to go into a dungeon. Don’t you remember Boston? You’ll just get stuck with Association work instead. It’s chaos over there right now. Especially in the States.”
“The US isn’t even our responsibility.”
“That damn Alex Hope…”
As soon as the name Alex Hope came up—a man whose nationality was Australian, whose location was America, and yet whose problems had somehow become the Korean branch’s business—the faces of the Daseon Hunters gathered in the director’s office all twisted in frustration.
Ji Yu-geon still didn’t understand how it had ended up as their problem. The master probably didn’t get it either. But he knew exactly why it had happened.
Because it was Hong Seok-young and Woo Hee-jae who had brought him in!
That was definitely a minus to working at the Academy.
“Still, at least we’re not the only ones with a headache over it… It must be even more infuriating in the US. No matter what they want to do, they can’t even lay a hand on the situation.”
“They’re obviously tangled up in something shady, but since Hong Seok-young and Kim Chae-min are involved, nobody dares touch it.”
“Those two are way too famous to mess with…”
Especially now, when the whole world was watching.
Ji Yu-geon shook his head as he checked his email with a look of weary disgust. Did this count as part of the Academy’s working environment?
No, this was just the brutal reality of the International Hunter Association.
This was why not just anyone could juggle multiple jobs.
Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to do what Daniel from America had done—quit cleanly and transfer to the Academy. The master might glare, but he’d been so busy lately that he hardly ever came down to the school anyway.
Besides, with most of the students having graduated, even counting the new incoming class, there were only three students in total.
Compared to the current workload, where he had to worry about affairs across the Pacific in another country, the boredom that came with working at the Academy was practically a vacation.
“I’ll go get some coffee.”
“Oh, bring me a cup too, would you?”
“Me too.”
“Me too!”
“…Can you all just pick one menu item?”
“I want a plain yogurt smoothie!”
“Cafe latte. Hot.”
“One chamomile tea, please.”
“Iced Americano.”
“…….”
Should I just transfer to the Academy?
He wasn’t sure if he should officially list the Academy among his workplaces, but since he was working there, it was hard to say he wasn’t. Honestly, with how much of the teaching load he’d taken on, it would be disappointing to deny it now.
At any rate, there was one benefit to having his main workplace shift from the Seoul office to the Academy that Ji Yu-geon could state with conviction.
……
As a Hunter, he’d been content to drink coffee brewed at home, but now he could indulge his hobby at work, on the company’s dime, as much as he wanted.
“One cherry ade, please! With this much ice!”
“…All right.”
Of course, this too had its clear downside.
It had started as a way to provide snacks for the kids during their growing years, which made sense, but how had he ended up providing snacks for the adults as well?
Even if he generously included the Academy’s teachers—the regular subject teachers—he couldn’t help but feel it was a bit much when even the Association seniors, who didn’t teach any classes, were ordering drinks.
“Haaaaaah….”
Maybe he should bring this up with the master…
“Huuuuuuuh……”
“…….”
“Uuuuuuuuuuh………….”
Ji Yu-geon promptly forgot the list of drink orders and made a single cherry ade, which he brought over to Yoo Ji-eun.
Yoo Ji-eun, who was slumped over the table sighing as if begging someone to talk to her, perked up as soon as Ji Yu-geon approached.
“Teacher!”
Thank goodness Woo Hee-jae had sorted out the titles; otherwise, she’d still be calling him “mister” or “Hunter” at random.
“Why the sighs? Are you bored because the older kids aren’t around?”
The kids about to start college were busy preparing to move out, and those about to start internships at Daseon were nervous and preoccupied, since it would be their first time in a formal guild. The teachers, too, were busy checking in on all of them.
Thanks to that, the remaining students at the Academy, Kang Tae-woo and Yoo Ji-eun, were left with a short vacation until the new term started.
He’d seen Woo Hee-jae and Kim Chae-min checking the greenhouse together that morning, so Ji-eun must have come along with them.
“That’s not the problem!”
Her attempt at a scowl wasn’t very intimidating, but Ji Yu-geon sat down across from her with a matching serious expression.
It was hard to ignore someone being so obvious, and with Ji-eun, even if he tried, she’d just end up grabbing him anyway.
And Woo Hee-jae had once asked him, with a worried look, to keep an eye on her. That was when Ji-eun had just started coming to school with her older sister.
“Please, keep an eye on Yoo Ji-eun.”
“Yoo Ji-eun?”
“I’m afraid if we’re not careful, she’ll get sucked into some cult…”
That was right after he’d learned about the ridiculous flyer Ji-eun had picked up in front of the school.
He still remembered it, it was so shocking. Something about purifying your blood with magic. First, he’d been appalled that anyone could believe such nonsense, and then, even more appalled to learn that the cult was bigger than he’d thought. Then came the string of child abduction rescue cases, the research lab with its unfathomable motives, Kang Tae-woo’s testimony, Sandra Gamble’s confirmation that the dead or missing children were being protected, the increased workload, and that damn Alex Hope…
“No, really! Look, teacher.”
Forcing himself to shake off the trauma of work, Ji Yu-geon focused on Ji-eun.
Even if Woo Hee-jae hadn’t asked, he would have looked out for her.
If Ji-eun had tried to hide things, like Lee Seung-yeon’s runaway incident, she might have caused some real trouble, but fortunately, she wasn’t that reckless.
Her sister had given her a serious scolding, and after Woo Hee-jae called her to school for some classes, Ji-eun hadn’t strayed since. Maybe she liked having people look out for her. You saw it often in Association work—kids who grew up without guardians would bloom like sunflowers at the slightest bit of attention.
“It’s just… it’s so unfair.”
“Unfair?”
With steady attention and protection, Ji-eun’s temperament had gradually stabilized. The same was true of other kids with no guardians or complicated family backgrounds. To Ji Yu-geon, who remembered what they’d been like before enrolling, the change was nothing short of miraculous.
Especially seeing Oh Hyun-wook no longer afraid of adult Hunters, able to ask for help and share his worries.
“I just don’t get it!”
“What don’t you get?”
Ji-eun pouted and tugged hard on the strings of her hoodie.
“If you don’t tell me, I can’t help.”
……
She could have talked to Woo Hee-jae about this, but if she’d come looking for Ji Yu-geon, it must have something to do with that teacher.
Ji Yu-geon didn’t press her, just waited patiently. After all, she’d be the one who couldn’t stand the frustration.
Sure enough, Ji-eun didn’t last long before she spoke up.
“I collected two full sticker sheets too… But no matter how many you collect, it all just gets lumped together as one favor! That’s so unfair!”
Her cheeks puffed out in a childish sulk. It felt like just yesterday she was hopping around the track, proud to have caught up to her sister’s height.
Ji Yu-geon barely managed to suppress a smile as he spoke gently to Ji-eun.
“Your older friends collected even more than you, and they’re not complaining.”
“That’s their problem! They only had to collect for one year, that’s all!”
It was closer to two years, actually.
Ji Yu-geon wisely didn’t point that out.
“I have to keep attending classes until I graduate! I still have ages to go before I can graduate!”
“And Tae-woo doesn’t mind?”
“That guy doesn’t know anything about this stuff! He’s definitely going to get scammed the moment he graduates!”
Well… that probably wasn’t true.
Ji Yu-geon looked at Ji-eun with a lukewarm gaze. If anyone was at risk of being scammed, it was Ji-eun, not Kang Tae-woo.
“So, what bothers you is that it feels unfair?”
“It doesn’t just feel unfair, it is unfair!”
He supposed, for Ji-eun, that might be true.
If she saw it as “just a favor.”
Having watched the school from its founding, Ji Yu-geon knew better than the students themselves just how slapdash things were here. He probably knew more about the inner workings than even Hong Seok-young or Woo Hee-jae.
So he understood exactly what the people of Guild Mimi were thinking when they handed out that strange “right to use the teachers’ names” to the graduates. He couldn’t help but understand.
A school is not a guild. No matter how much you trade on Hong Seok-young’s name, that fact doesn’t change. From the outside, there’s no way to know whether Hong Seok-young actually teaches here or just lends his name. Ever since the incident with the giant American sea monster, inquiries about enrollment hadn’t stopped, but there probably weren’t many who truly intended to enroll. And even if they did, most would just want to spy on what Hong Seok-young and Kim Chae-min were doing at the school.
There was still only one official new student.
When would this school ever truly live up to its name as a Hunter Academy High School?
Not until a graduate made a name for themselves with the Academy’s title attached. Until then, the only things that would really help the kids were their college diplomas or the experience of being a junior Hunter at Guild Daseon.
Both Guild Mimi and Daseon figured it would take at least ten years for the school to find its footing. Woo Hee-jae planned to use a French guild to speed things up, but that was still up in the air.
So it was only natural to worry about sending kids off into the world with a high school diploma that might not help them at all. Isn’t it always the case that if the first graduates do well, there’s hope for the next ones?
That’s why the graduation gift was a kind of guarantee. Even if the school ended up being no help to their futures, it was a promise from the teachers that they’d look after the students to the end.
Some of the kids had realized the weight of that “right to use,” but not many had picked up on the guarantee behind it. Seo Han-seong and Han Eun-young seemed to have an inkling.
With more experience, a few others would figure it out in time…
“But what’s so hard about granting one favor!”
No matter how much time passed, Ji-eun didn’t seem likely to realize it.
Woo Hee-jae’s intention was probably to make even the weight of the graduation gift part of their education…
“Well, Ji-eun. I think you just don’t realize how incredible your teachers really are…”
For this heartbreakingly innocent girl, it seemed necessary to be a little more direct.