Retire 547
by Cristae547 (Hunter Academy Side Story 14) The Graduates_1
“Did you know Teacher Woo totally freaked out and called me?”
“Because of Yoo Ji-eun?”
“Yeah. Apparently, Ji-eun said she wants to quit being a Hunter.”
“…Ji-eun said that?”
A modern-style restaurant. They’d reserved a private table to talk comfortably, but even though the appointed time had passed, not everyone had arrived yet.
Oh Hyun-wook checked the time. Yoo Hye-eun glanced at the clock, following his gaze, then continued talking about her sister.
“So! Later I talked to Ji-eun too, and do you know what she said?”
“What?”
“She said she wanted to become a Hunter to give me a good life, but then realized it’d be a lot faster just to get an allowance from the teacher.”
Yoo Hye-eun burst out laughing.
They hadn’t all shared the details of their lives, but everyone had a general idea of what the others had gone through. With Hong Seok-young’s help, they’d all managed to get out of their first guilds and received care afterward—Hyun-wook included. Remembering the amount of “allowance” he’d received from Hong Seok-young as living expenses and scholarships during high school, Hyun-wook thought Ji-eun’s reasoning was actually pretty realistic.
Even after graduation, Hong Seok-young occasionally gave them “allowances.” He always said that young adults never had enough money…
Unlike Yoo Hye-eun, Oh Hyun-wook hadn’t lost his parents. They’d died in a dungeon break, but they’d been good, ordinary people. He was, of course, grateful to the principal, but never really saw him as a parent. Well, maybe someday he’d repay him.
So Hyun-wook didn’t envy the Yoo sisters. In fact, he thought they were lucky. Having adults around who could help when things got tough was a good thing.
“So is that why she said she wanted to quit being a Hunter?”
“She said that’s not what she meant. Teacher Woo always told us not to just think about being Hunters, but to try lots of different things.”
“Yeah, well… He made us do a lot of weird stuff.”
He’d even taught them how to escape from a moving car or pick handcuffs, just in case. Who knew what kind of “just in case” that teacher had in mind…
Surprisingly, Seo Han-seong had always agreed with Teacher Woo. While the other kids were hesitant, Han-seong had declared,
‘It never hurts to learn something new.’
‘That’s the spirit, Han-seong. Here’s a sticker.’
‘Yes!’
Hyun-wook shook his head.
“She’s my sister, but she’s really something. Who’s she going to support? If anything, I’d be the one supporting her.”
“Come on. It’s kind of admirable.”
“You know how helpless she is. Why do you say that?”
“At least she’s thinking seriously about it.”
A friend’s little sister, and also a junior at school. Having watched over Ji-eun since she first awakened, Hyun-wook felt like she was a little sister to him, too.
Tae-woo had delayed graduation by a year, and Hyun-wook had worried how someone so quietly anxious would handle that wild child, but it seemed Ji-eun wasn’t staying a kid forever either.
“So, if she’s not actually quitting?”
“She just wants to try something else. She never thought about college before, but now she’s thinking maybe it wouldn’t be so bad?”
“College? Her?”
“She should try whatever she wants.”
Ji-eun was only a second-year. There was still more than a year left, so she might change her mind again. By this time next year, she might be declaring she’ll follow the principal and become the greatest Hunter.
Yoo Hye-eun nodded at Hyun-wook’s words, then suddenly burst out laughing.
“What?”
“Oh, you should’ve seen how flustered Teacher Woo was.”
“He was flustered?”
“Yeah! It made me realize he’s human, too. After you all graduated, he thought he was done, and then someone else says they want to quit. He was muttering about how you’re all going to take turns quitting, or something.”
Yoo Hye-eun tilted her head.
“Did any of us ever say we wanted to quit school?”
“Cough.”
Hyun-wook choked on his drink.
“Eun-young did say she’d drop out because of Teacher Kyung… but I don’t think that’s what Teacher Woo meant. Hyun-wook, did you hear anything from the others?”
“No. Ahem, nothing.”
He hadn’t heard anything. Not really…
Yoo Hye-eun narrowed her eyes. She looked gentle and round-faced, but if she really was, she wouldn’t have been able to take care of her little sister and handle the Academy’s training. The teachers were a bit more lenient with her than with the mages, but that didn’t mean she was exempt from training.
Trying to escape her suspicion, Hyun-wook changed the subject.
“Hey, Han Eun-young.”
She’d been sitting in the corner on her phone since she arrived with Yoo Hye-eun.
“What are you doing, staring at your phone?”
“……”
“Han Eun-young?”
Han Eun-young frowned, as if she didn’t hear him.
Usually, if she was this annoyed, it was about her brother, Han Tae-kyung. But if it was about him, she’d usually curse him out, not go silent like this.
He’d tried to deflect Yoo Hye-eun’s suspicion, but now he was a little worried. Hyun-wook signaled to Yoo Hye-eun. Since Eun-young and Hye-eun lived together, they’d come to the gathering together.
But Yoo Hye-eun shook her head, apparently just as clueless.
“Hey, Han Eun-young!”
“…Huh? Oh. What?”
“Why are you just staring at your phone? Is something wrong?”
“Oh, Mom keeps telling me to call my brother since he’s not answering her. Like he’d answer my call if he won’t answer hers.”
So it was about Han Tae-kyung after all.
“He said he was on a business trip, so he’s probably in a dungeon again… He always nags me for not answering Mom’s calls, but now he’s doing the same thing!”
“Ask Seo-hyun and Jin-woo when they get here. They’re still at school, right? They’d know about Teacher Kyung.”
“Why are they so late?”
Speak of the devil—just as Eun-young gulped down her drink and complained, the door opened. Maybe they’d heard her voice, because Park Seo-hyun and Choi Jin-woo entered, looking sheepish.
“S-sorry. We got lost on the highway…”
“You said you were coming straight from school, right?”
“Yeah. It felt weird to keep asking the teachers for rides, so I got my license… Driving is hard. You got your license too, right?”
“If you can’t drive, it’s hard to get to dungeons.”
Seo Han-seong, who’d gone to the bathroom, returned and sat down. Now there were only two empty seats left.
Seo-hyun, watching Eun-young, asked,
“Did Teacher Kyung annoy you again?”
Everyone knew—if she was raising her voice, it was because of Han Tae-kyung.
Eun-young blushed, a little embarrassed by the attention.
“He’s not answering again. He’s still on that business trip, right? Do you know what’s going on?”
“It’s probably that again.”
Seo-hyun flipped through the menu Yoo Hye-eun handed her.
“You know, the teachers’ suspicious detective agency.”
“They’re still doing that?”
“Aren’t you two in the loop now? Haven’t you heard anything?”
“They don’t tell us.”
Choi Jin-woo clicked his tongue, looking disappointed. He must have been hoping for some inside info.
“All I know is there’s someone else besides Teacher Kyung. Seems like they know the doctor…”
“Tae-woo probably knows more than we do.”
“Tae-woo?”
“I tried to get it out of him, but he wouldn’t talk.”
There was plenty to say about the teachers’ mysterious meetings and business trips.
“Can we order first?”
“If you’re late, it’s your fault. Why are those two late, anyway?”
“No idea. Something about a club or whatever.”
“Aren’t some of them in college?”
After a moment of gossiping about the latecomers,
Even after the food arrived, the topic of conversation was still the suspicious behavior of their high school teachers.
“Honestly, Teacher Woo is really suspicious.”
“Totally.”
“Remember Myeong-dong? At first I thought he was just one of the Hunters cleaning up after the dungeon break, but looking back now…”
“At the time, we didn’t know anything, so we just went along with it.”
Now that they knew a bit about dungeon raids, there were plenty of things that seemed off—especially for Hyun-wook and Han-seong, who were working as junior Hunters at Daseon.
“Runes, too! You know Teacher Woo is listed as a rune developer? How does that make sense? He’s not even a mage!”
“He really knows his magic theory…”
Seo-hyun and Jin-woo added, looking glum.
“Sometimes Teacher Woo is even worse than Teacher Chae-min. If we don’t get it, at least Teacher Chae-min feels sorry for us and explains. But Teacher Woo just looks at us like, ‘Why can’t you get this yet?’”
“The doctor says that’s the difference between being a student and an adult…”
The mages grew even gloomier.
Feeling the weight of their mood, Han-seong changed the subject.
“Teacher Kyung is just as suspicious! Remember what he said at graduation?”
“Oh, that.”
That warning not to act like you know him.
Still, compared to Woo Hee-jae, Han Tae-kyung was a mystery you could actually solve. Naturally, everyone looked at Han Eun-young. She scowled again.
“I don’t know! You think I haven’t asked?”
“But he must have said something.”
“I told him if he got in trouble, he’d better tell me. He said it wasn’t that.”
“That’s even more worrying…”
“He said if we ever work in the Middle East, we should use his name. The way he said it just made me more anxious.”
Grumbling, Eun-young finally slumped her shoulders.
“I don’t know. He’s weird, but he never says anything he doesn’t mean. He told us not to, so don’t.”
No matter how much they talked, there was no way to get an answer. Maybe, once more time had passed and they were all handling things on their own, the teachers would tell them.
And when they finally did get the answer, maybe they’d laugh at how much they’d fretted over nothing.
“Whatever. We’ve graduated—enough about the teachers!”
Yoo Hye-eun clapped her hands, changing the mood.
“Let’s hear from you guys. Han-seong, you went into your first dungeon, right?”
“Hyun-wook went first. I went after.”
“You went into different dungeons?”
“Yeah. We’d worked together a lot at school, so they said we needed to learn to work with other people.”
“Oh… Guilds really are different.”
Now the conversation shifted to catching up. It was the first time they’d all gathered since graduation. Everyone had been busy adjusting to college or guild life, and they hadn’t really chatted at length, even over messenger.
When he’d first heard Hong Seok-young’s proposal for the pilot school, Hyun-wook never imagined he’d be able to laugh and talk like this. Two years ago, he wouldn’t have even thought of taking a break, too anxious and guilty.
But now he knew. If you let yourself be consumed by those feelings, you’d miss what was right in front of you and lose the ability to do anything.
People have to breathe, and sometimes look back and dream.
Right after graduation. As the graduates were packing to leave, Woo Hee-jae called each of them aside for a private talk.
‘Oh Hyun-wook.’
‘Teacher.’
‘That goal you told me about at the start. Is it still the same?’
‘…Yes.’
To become a better person, to help others in the same situation as himself.
‘Then now’s when it really begins. It’s not something you can do alone. Even you all together can’t do it by yourselves.’
‘…I know.’
‘Daseon is a good place to build connections. Start there. Find people who can help you, and people you can help.’
Woo Hee-jae tapped Hyun-wook on the forehead.
‘There are some in Daseon, too.’
That must have been a hint. Hyun-wook and Han-seong were quietly investigating the subtle differences between the Daseon teachers and the Daseon guild Hunters, convinced it would lead to the teachers’ “secret.”
At the very least, they had to prove they weren’t just children holding out their hands for help before asking for the teachers’ “assistance.”
The young Hunters, in the midst of their conversation, all looked up at once.
“Sorry we’re late!”
The door opened, and two friends, still small in stature, came running in.
“You’re late, Lee Seung-yeon!”
“Soon-jin, it’s been a while!”
It had been exactly half a year since graduation. Among his friends, Oh Hyun-wook felt a tension he hadn’t even realized was there finally begin to ease.