Welcome to the Union Hero Academy (4)
Homeroom Office
Inside the homeroom office.
Countless teachers were busy at their desks, tapping on keyboards and shuffling paperwork.
Among them, a young woman in a deep indigo blazer stood out.
“Ms. Hong. What are you doing?”
“Just reviewing middle-school teaching materials and the entrance exam data.”
“Oh, so on the very first day you’re already working hard?”
Park Hanana, the homeroom teacher for Class 3, sidled over and slid a sweet canned coffee across the desk to Ms. Hong.
For Ms. Hong, who was running low on sugar and caffeine, the canned coffee was basically a nutritious drink.
“Drink up, Ms. Hong.”
“Thanks. I was starting to feel a little tired.”
“Oh my, oh my~ Since it’s the start of a new semester, you must have been burning the midnight oil?”
“No. It’s just my liver.”
Ms. Hong gave a flat, empty smile and answered the ridiculous joke straight-faced. She took a swig of the coffee.
Park Hanana had been about to drop a line like, *What? It’s just your liver, huh—maybe you were joking?* but she didn’t want to insult Ms. Hong after the past incident that had damaged her liver.
So she swallowed the words that had climbed all the way to her throat.
“Ah, speaking of which, Ms. Hong. Ms. Hong.”
Park Hanana’s head lit up like a lightbulb overhead as something clicked.
“And speaking of which, Ms. Hong. Did you do that thing with the kids? That thing?”
“That thing?”
“Yeah~ you know, the one where you let off this aura that makes the kids freeze up~.”
“I didn’t mean to intimidate them.”
You didn’t mean to intimidate them?
If Park Hanana had been one of the students, she would have been completely crushed.
Maybe she and the other kids in the class had even been trying to crack open Ms. Hong’s pumpkin from behind?
“Ugh, ugh. Ms. Hong’s aura is enough to make even active heroes quake in their boots~.”
“If you’re that terrified, you should probably quit being a hero. After all, you can’t use it in real combat anyway.”
“You’re really intense, Ms. Hong.”
Who would dare say that to a High Ranker?
“Still, it’s not very nice to scare the kids too much. They’re in a really sensitive age.”
“The students here aren’t ordinary kids—they’re hero trainees. You can’t just treat them like children forever.”
“Aaah, so stiff~ That’s exactly why they don’t come visit on Teachers’ Day. Look at me. How popular am I with the students?”
Park Hanana raised her chin proudly.
In fact, she had quite a bit of popularity.
Especially with her young age and adorable appearance.
“Ms. Hong, you always give me that dead-eyed, irritated look—try at least trying to smile a little? That face of yours is wasted.”
“Okay.”
One sentence.
She was going to turn into an old maid, wasn’t she?
As a colleague, I felt a little worried.
“And speaking of which, how are the kids in Class 1? They were all buzzing about being the golden generation?”
“Not bad. A few of them are a little concerning, though.”
“Oh? Well, the son of the SL Group, the second son of the Black Shadow Clan, and… oh, also the little miss of the Gaonnuri Clan. Wow, the talent pool really is something.”
They had been geniuses even before admission.
They were going to grow up to be the heroes who would carry the next generation of Korea.
In a few years they might even appear on TV as pillars of the nation. Park Hanana, as a teacher, took pride in that.
“By the way, why are you looking so intently? Let me see… huh? Who’s this? Lee Jinhyuk?”
“Just a little bit of curiosity.”
Lee Jinhyuk, Lee Jinhyuk, Lee Jinhyuk…
Even after thinking it over, no face came to mind.
Park Hanana looked a little puzzled. If Ms. Hong was worried about him, he must have been famous even before entrance exams. Strange.
“Never heard the name before?”
“Exactly. He barely passed Union.”
“Really?”
Park Hanana blinked hard.
What? I’d better not waste time scanning some kid like that.
It was already a busy first day.
“Hmm? Additional admission? Wow… the practical exam was a total disaster. How did he even pass? Ah~ wait, perfect on the written? Very unbalanced.”
Park Hanana gazed at the materials Ms. Hong was flipping through, letting out more sighs than actual wonder.
His theoretical scores were certainly excellent.
Which made it even sadder.
“From middle school onward his theory scores… wow? His written exam scores are sky-high. He must have been highly evaluated as a tactical advisor. Well~ his hero aptitude is a bit lacking, though.”
He could have gone into regular school, gotten a comfortable job, and lived a peaceful life.
Watching him try so hard to become a hero he had no talent for made a teacher’s heart ache.
I knew all too well that without talent, effort was pointless.
Lee Jinhyuk looked like he lacked even the basic ability to be a hero.
“He doesn’t seem like the kind of kid Ms. Hong would bother with.”
Perhaps it would be better for other students—Lee Siwoo, Kang Daehan, Yu Seolhyeon, or whatever— but something about worrying about this one was off.
“Is there a particular reason you’re concerned?”
“This one.”
Ms. Hong paused, then continued.
“He’s completely unfazed even by my aura.”
“What? Him?”
Whoa.
That was surprising.
Even if Ms. Hong was holding back, the students couldn’t be expected to survive that.
A normal person would be trembling like they were facing a tiger alone in a mountain at midnight.
But this trainee, Lee Jinhyuk, had endured Ms. Hong’s aura.
*Could it be?*
Ms. Hong nodded as if she had already seen the body test results and accepted it.
Ah, right. His physical stats were terrible.
“Perhaps his senses are so dull he couldn’t even detect my aura? There are cases like that at Union sometimes.”
Very rarely, but they did exist.
Students who couldn’t sense aura.
Of course, it was strange when you considered the academy’s average level, but sometimes a rock slipped through the sieve.
“I suppose so.”
Ms. Hong nodded without hesitation.
Union was Korea’s best academy, but not every student was a top performer. There were always those who slipped in through extra admissions because of their exceptional written scores.
“Still, it’s not just that I’m worried about this one.”
“Then what?”
Ms. Hong scratched her chin and answered.
“He was too calm.”
“Huh?”
Too calm?
What did that even mean?
Wait… when I unleashed my aura?
That would make sense. If he truly hadn’t felt anything, he should have seen the other trainees gasping and collapsing.
Without any warning, even the bravest person would have been shocked.
“Too relaxed, maybe? Or too calm? It’s supposed to be enough to leave anyone flustered, yet he acted like it was normal.”
“Perhaps he heard it somewhere? Ms. Hong’s initiation.”
“Well, it could be…”
Ms. Hong thought back to that moment and began.
“…His gaze was as if he were evaluating something.”
Not just the other trainees—Ms. Hong herself had been appraised that way.
The look had stuck with her.
“What is it… the more I think about it, the weirder I feel. Kids like that always have something hidden.”
“Ah! The origin of intuition, right? Well~ I trust Ms. Hong’s judgment. True, true. Speaking of which, I remember the kid from last year.”
“…”
“The one who caused an uproar last year, dropped out on his own, and disappeared.”
“…”
“So I’ll be keeping an eye on him.”
Whether it was like that case or not.
***
At 11:50 a.m.
Theory class for the anomaly department.
If anything was boring, this was it.
“Several decades ago. After the sudden appearance of monsters, a portion of humanity began to awaken abilities.”
Anomaly abilities.
The so-called superpowers.
Powers that transcended common sense and law.
These abilities had created both hope and fear for countless people.
“Those who crossed the boundary between reality and fantasy with their own ideals, and the mysterious monsters, left humanity in chaos for a long time.”
The early days of anomaly awakening had been total chaos.
Many people had lost their lives.
“Amid the confusion, some anomaly users had achieved great feats—defeating monsters, protecting civilians—and eventually became the progenitors of the current heroes.”
“Jinhyuk-ah.”
“But others were drawn to the intense power and acted without restraint. Those tainted by malice… the mentally unstable. Yes, the villains.”
The relationship between monsters, heroes, and villains.
Something we had been taught since elementary school.
Today was the first day, so maybe they were repeating it because it was important. My ears were getting used to it.
“Anomaly abilities are a double-edged sword. The more you use them, the stronger you become, but they also erode your mind. When the mind is weakened, madness and malice take root easily. So you must always be cautious.”
Right.
It was a troublesome setting.
The stronger you grew by using anomaly abilities, the more your mind was chipped away, increasing the chance of turning into a villain.
A fair number of heroes had fallen to villainy.
Of course, it didn’t affect me.
Because I didn’t have an anomaly ability.
Non-anomaly person, me.
“You are the hero trainees who will one day shoulder the responsibility of the Republic of Korea. So…”
“Jinhyuk-ah, Jinhyuk-ah.”
She poked my cheek.
What is Jin Soyeon doing?
“Why?”
“I’m bored.”
“You’re not listening to class?”
“We’ve heard this nonsense for ages. Boring~”
I yawned and tried to stop her from poking with her pen.
“Ah, theory class is so dull~. I wish we’d had outdoor classes instead.”
“That’s why your middle-school written scores were a mess.”
“Written scores don’t matter anyway. Practical scores matter more~.”
As someone with high written scores, it was somewhat frustrating.
“Don’t ask me to lend you my theory notes later, okay?”
“Huh? Too harsh.”
“Too harsh is what kids like you deserve.”
The instructor suddenly opened his mouth, looking at us.
Ah, I spoke too loudly and got caught.
“You look like you’re having a good time. First day and you’re already dating? Your brains are falling out.”
No. Don’t say that.
Look over there.
Lee Siwoo is giving us a strange look.
“Well, today’s the first day, so I’ll let it slide. From now on, you’d better remember that—no flirting, understood?”
“Yes.”
“Class is over for today. Enjoy lunch, everyone, and see you next time.”
Lunch already?
The moment class ended, students began heading to the cafeteria. Some stayed in the classroom and continued talking noisily.
“So, my ex-boyfriend, Jinhyuk? Want to go eat something cozy together?”
“No thanks. I’ll go with the others. I’ll grab something from the vending machines.”
I turned down Jin Soyeon’s invitation.
I couldn’t stick to her any more than necessary.
Even though I had officially broken up with her, hanging around too much would only cause misunderstandings.
And if I stayed by her side, Lee Siwoo would have an even harder time approaching her.
Jin Soyeon and Lee Siwoo needed to get closer than they were now.
That way, the future would be smoother.
“Well, then—”
“Ah, wait a second.”
I stood up with her words.
I walked slowly toward the bathroom.
Before heading to the vending machine, I figured I might as well use the restroom.
But.
“…”
Lee Siwoo had already followed me inside.
“Ah, Siwoo.”
I acted like I naturally knew him.
“This is the instructor-only bathroom.”
“…”
“I entered without permission, too.”
“…”
No response to my pointless comment.
He kept staring at me in silence.
Then I let out a silent sigh.
Fine.
Since things had come to this, I would be direct.
It would be better to speak my piece and leave.
“Do you like Soyeon?”
It was a sudden, straight shot.
Lee Siwoo’s shoulders twitched just slightly.
It was a bit awkward coming from his ex.
“Well, Soyeon is pretty. Anyone would like her.”
I nodded as if I understood.
“Then try going out with her.”
“It’s fine?”
The words carried multiple meanings.
I tilted my head in confusion.
I had deliberately played dumb to see how he would react.
“Like what?”
“Can I approach Soyeon?”
Of course I can.
I wanted him to.
“Well, of course. Ah, maybe I’m getting in the way because I’m a little close to her?”
“You two were close, right? You still are.”
I could tell what Lee Siwoo was thinking.
I started as if it was nothing.
“Jin Soyeon and I are like family. We dated, but she never felt like a woman to me. That’s why we broke up.”
“…”
“So don’t worry about it.”
“…”
I’m not a rival.
Please don’t try to compete.
There are plenty of other people who can do that for me anyway.
“Or maybe… I could even help you two get together.”
“It’s fine.”
“Ah, really?”
I clicked my tongue.
Too over the top?
“Anyway, I’m leaving first.”
I waved my hand and walked toward the door.
Now that I’d said that, it should be okay.
I hoped Lee Siwoo would become more proactive… wait, what?
Thud, thud.
I heard hurried footsteps outside the bathroom.
What? Was someone standing near the entrance?
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