Discharged and Straight to Work, That's Me - 3
“Foreigner. Whoa, she’s seriously gorgeous.”
“Is she an actress? Or a model? Damn, that figure is insane.”
“Hey. Keep your voice down.”
“It’s not like she understands Korean anyway. What’s the big deal?”
The students’ chatter made Irina giggle. Not understand? She understood every single word, and that was the problem.
Insane figure? Ahaha! I guess I’m still rocking that sexy vibe!
Irina bounced through the Academy grounds, light on her feet. She felt fantastic. Her disguise had worked far better than expected. In movies, people just cut their hair and put on glasses, and that was supposedly enough. She’d doubted it would work in reality, but it actually had. None of the students recognized her even though she was openly strolling around.
Maybe this’ll fool the villains too. Should I head over to one of the unsafe districts? Someone might try to pick a fight, and then I could legally smash them to pieces.
Villains could kill ability users without consequence, but ability users were expected to capture villains alive whenever possible. Even criminals supposedly had basic human rights. If she slaughtered them indiscriminately, the Human Rights Commission would come down hard, and the Ability User Association would be forced to condemn her.
They can all go to hell. What rights do villains deserve? This country is seriously messed up!
Of course, there was one exception: if an ability user’s life was in serious danger, lethal force against villains was permitted.
Maybe I should drop by and blow off some steam. I’ve got the perfect excuse after the Academy attack, and the other S-ranks wouldn’t complain.
She considered it for a moment before shaking her head. Not because she worried about tarnishing her reputation as the strongest S-rank. Hardly.
If Mom finds out, she’ll smack me so hard! No way, I hate that!
Irina shook her head vigorously, glanced around, then removed her glasses. She let her hair down and shook it once, sending a golden waterfall cascading down her back.
“Hup.”
She stomped once and kicked off the ground. BOOM! In an instant, a golden meteor shot from the earth toward the sky.
Ah. Jiyun-unni’s going to scold me again.
She’d been told repeatedly not to do that inside the Academy. The sensation at her toes told her the pavement had been completely destroyed. Whatever! She decided to forget about it and landed on the rooftop of a nearby building.
“Hmm~”
Humming to herself, she sat on the rooftop and gazed out over the city. Things had been boring lately, but today something very interesting had happened.
Baek Seojin.
She recalled the face of the Silver-rank examiner she’d met earlier. Tall enough, decent-looking, and he seemed like a good person. But what intrigued her most was something else entirely.
He survived a direct hit from the Water Ghost’s spear. Interesting… very interesting.
A deep smile spread across Irina’s face as she replayed her earlier conversation with Han Jiyun.
“Unni. Still no sign of the Water Ghost?”
“Nope. Don’t get your hopes up. We probably won’t find him. He’s already elusive, and with Hyun Sujin helping him, tracking’s basically impossible.”
“Tch, that coward. He ran the moment he heard I was coming, didn’t he?”
They weren’t talking about an ordinary villain. This was an Elder. Even Han Jiyun wouldn’t say something like that lightly. Objectively, the outcome of a fight between them would be hard to predict. But Irina was different. She had every right to speak that way. She was the only person who had defeated one of the Elders, Kwak Hyuk, multiple times. The Spear Ghost, feared by everyone else, was wary of only one person: Irina.
That guy only became a traitor because he couldn’t get over losing to me.
Just a few years ago, Kwak Hyuk had been a proud S-rank ability user. His arrogance had been a problem, but his skill was so overwhelming that no one dared criticize him. Then he was defeated by Irina, who at the time was still just a high school girl who hadn’t even entered the Academy. An S-rank had been forced to kneel before a teenage girl.
After that, Kwak Hyuk never recovered. He twisted into something else entirely, discarding both his duty as an ability user and his dignity as a strongman. The only thing that mattered to him anymore was beating Irina. To grow stronger for that purpose, he eventually abandoned his position, became a villain, and chased power with blind obsession. All to defeat one person. All to sharpen a spear that could pierce Irina.
His own arrogance turned into a fatal poison.
Han Jiyun shook her head and looked at Irina standing before her.
“That bastard keeps running whenever I challenge him to a fight. How long is he going to keep sharpening that spear? He needs to actually stab me so he can realize, ‘Ah, this is how hard I need to thrust.’ Pathetic. Total trash, right?”
“…”
Every time she saw this, Han Jiyun wondered if this really was the same Irina everyone called the strongest.
“Irina. Enough. Aren’t you supposed to be returning to duty?”
“I am. But you still haven’t told me the details, have you?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
She tried to play dumb, but it wouldn’t work.
“Come on, Unni. I have ears too.”
“…”
“Tell me already. The examiner who survived getting hit by that spear bastard.”
Han Jiyun sighed and fell into thought. Given Irina’s personality, she would never stay quiet after hearing this. She’d probably go straight to Baek Seojin and make his life miserable.
Seojin-ssi would be in serious trouble.
That was why she hadn’t wanted to tell her at first. Honestly, the investigation into Baek Seojin wasn’t even finished yet. But considering Irina’s nature, keeping it secret might actually be more dangerous. She’d go poking around everywhere and could easily draw the villains’ attention. In that case, it was better to give her just enough information.
“Baek Seojin. Belongs to the Measurement Department. After awakening his ability, nothing particularly notable happened, so he failed the Academy entrance exam. He passed the 9th-grade civil service exam as a special ability-user case and has been working as a public servant ever since.”
“Huh? That’s it? That’s all?”
“Unfortunately, yes.”
Irina protested that it couldn’t be that simple. Maybe someone in his family was special, or there was some hidden secret.
“I’m telling you, there’s nothing. His family records show he’s alone. It looks like his family was caught in a Gate incident and he survived by himself. So don’t bring that up. It’s rude.”
“Got it.”
“Really? Last time you said something stupid in front of people who’d lost family and got yelled at.”
“I told you, I just forgot that time!”
Forgetting something like that. Good grief. Han Jiyun shook her head again and continued.
“Honestly, I don’t understand this either. An ability user who couldn’t even get into the Academy survived an Elder’s attack. Not once, but twice. And on top of that, he still tried to block the way.”
“Ooh! Maybe he’s one of those ‘hidden power losers’!”
“…What?”
“You don’t know that, Unni? It’s ‘hidden power loser’! Someone who hides their real strength and acts like a loser!”
What on earth was that? Han Jiyun frowned, and Irina immediately went for the kill.
“You don’t even know this, Unni? Wow… You really are getting old.”
“…You crazy bitch, what did you just say?!”
Han Jiyun grabbed the sword lying beside her. Talking openly about age in front of a woman was a crime punishable by beating.
“Ahahaha! Anyway! That’s a fun story. Since the Water Ghost isn’t here, I’ll be going now!”
“If you’re leaving, at least take one hit first, you rotten thing. How dare you say that to your unni!”
Han Jiyun swung her sheathed sword with a glare. Irina responded with a bright smile and poured more fuel on the fire.
“Hehe! Sorry! But it’s true that you’re old, Unni!”
“Hey! Irina—!!”
Her phone vibrated. Irina checked the screen and answered.
“Yeah. When am I coming out? I’m not at the Academy. Where? Uh… a building. I don’t know. I just went to the tallest one I could see. So where exactly? Find me yourself. That’s what an attendant is for. Yeah, that’s your problem. Hanging up now. If you’re not here in ten minutes, I’m going alone.”
Ignoring the desperate “Irina-nim!” coming from the other end, she ended the call and thought about Baek Seojin again.
There were two possibilities I considered. Either he’s hiding it, or he doesn’t know. Like how I used to be completely unaware until it manifested later.
That was why she’d deliberately held his hand to check his ability. No matter how well someone hid their power, they couldn’t help but react to foreign energy entering their body. It was an instinctive collision that occurred between strong individuals. An unavoidable reflex.
And Irina’s conclusion was that he didn’t know about his own ability. She couldn’t say it was one hundred percent, but at least eighty percent likely.
“Aah. This is making me way too excited. Such a handsome oppa.”
He didn’t know how strong he really was. He probably just thought he was lucky. When a man like Baek Seojin finally realized his strength, how incredible would he become? He would give her heart-pounding, exhilarating battles that Kwak Hyuk couldn’t even compare to. And on top of that, he was far more handsome than the grotesque Kwak Hyuk. Not disgusting at all. Instead, every fight would be genuinely enjoyable.
“Uuuuung—!”
Irina stretched as far as she could, then suddenly burst into laughter as if something had just occurred to her.
“Oh! Is this what they call ‘catching a big fish’?! Ahaha! Aaaah! I’m so excited—!!”
If any villains had been present, they would probably have muttered, “Yep, that’s the Crazy Yellow Bitch, living up to her name.”