Tutorial (4)

We caught our breath where we stood. The right thigh that had burned so hot cooled in a flash. Kill a beast, drink its mana, and the body answered at once. It had overheated so fast I'd been worried, but the recovery came just as quickly. A relief.

"Jin-woo-hyung!"

"Sol! Sis, open your eyes!"

Some wounds, though, would never heal. I looked at the awakener who had called himself a former marine—the one an orc had split clean in half. I looked at the awakeners the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠pumpkin's scattershot had killed. They might have been men who deserved to die. In that moment, I only pitied them.

"Hyung-nim."

"Hae-il. Good work."

"Come on, what hardship did I take? You dropped the orc, and you dropped the jack-o'-lantern too, didn't you?"

Lee Hae-il came up and ducked her head. For an instant something like fear seemed to cross her face, then it was gone, and only that usual bright grin remained. The beasts had been shocking enough that the feeling ought to have stuck.

"I knew you were impressive, Hyung-nim, but I didn't know you were this impressive, I tell you."

She was openly marveling.

"One thrust and the orc drops dead. Another thrust and the jack-o'-lantern drops dead. One shot, one kill! Hahh! Is this what world-champion class looks like?"

I'd heard plenty of talk like that before, and still it felt as good as the first time. I wondered why, and the answer came quickly.

Because for the past month, I had actually given it everything.

And so I was one step closer to Saetbyeol Guild, where Chae-ha would be, and to this intoxicating status-window ring. My body was sturdier. My right leg had recovered a little. I was even finding a new pleasure in the work of a hunter. I had done my best and come away with what I wanted, and with things I hadn't dared want. How could I not feel good?

"You really pulled your weight too. Cutting those two goblins down—the timing was perfect. I'm alive because of it."

I gave the praise back. That timing had been genuinely excellent, all the more because it was the real thing. At a first tournament, most athletes can't show even a fraction of what they can do. She had done exactly what she'd been taught, in a match where her life was on the line.

"Well, I've always been told I pick up anything fast. The viewers—no. The fans called me Lee Hae-il, the greatest genius in history, the one who even blasphemes the gods."

She shrugged, jabbed a thumb at herself, and topped it with a wink. The whole display was painful to look at.

"No. Not that great."

Praising her any further seemed like a mistake. By then my right leg had cooled completely.

"Hold on."

I got up and walked over to the awakeners gathered off to one side.

"Uh, Athlete Jeong."

"Thank you."

They watched my face and offered their thanks. Unlike with Hae-il, I had no urge to praise them.

"I told you plainly not to fire. Didn't I?"

"That's—"

"We all learned this, didn't we? The pumpkin absorbs heat, stockpiles what it takes, and dumps it back out. We were supposed to be able to drop it with cold weapons alone."

Honestly, I was at the limit of swallowing the curses.

"Keep this up, and I can't keep moving with you."

"What? How can you say that?"

Then one awakener came up in front of me with a knot of six or seven behind him. The others hastily parted to open a path. Jang Yeong-jun. He was Scorpion Gang too—the one who had run with Kim Gang-oh, washed out of the course early, and with Baek Jin-woo, dead only moments ago.

"What?"

"We know all of that too. Did you sit the class by yourself...?"

"If you knew, then why—"

"We were going to sweep the goblins clean before the pumpkin bastard woke up."

The tone was careful. The eyes were full of resentment and anger.

"You clearly told us not to shoot, even before the pumpkin woke."

"No."

"If we hadn't hesitated because of what you said, we could have killed every one of those goblins! Then Hyeok would still be alive, and Dong-woo too!"

I couldn't believe what I was hearing.

"That sounds like you're saying it's my fault."

By then my own words had stopped coming out clean.

"If Athlete Jeong had skipped the swordplay and just shot from a distance, nobody would have died!"

Jang Yeong-jun answered as if he had been waiting for it.

"Uh—wha...?"

The air froze solid.

"He tags along and then runs his mouth? Without Athlete Jeong, that bastard would've been chopped in half by the orc!"

"I mean, still—if the athlete had used his gun? Couldn't we have killed the goblins?"

"Shoot, and the pumpkin wakes right then, I'm telling you. They kept firing even after that. They didn't hesitate because Athlete Jeong said not to shoot. It was a situation where you could yank the fucking trigger all day and the bullets still wouldn't leave the barrel."

Lee Hae-il spat a curse, then sprinted over to stand at my side, and every awakener around us turned to watch.

"If that's really what you think, I have nothing to say."

I looked at Jang Yeong-jun. The world had people shameless enough for this. Once, I might have gotten angry, or tried to talk him around.

But after living through that trial, I no longer had any wish to change what someone else believed.

"From now on, don't order us to shoot or not to shoot. Consult with us, and—"

Jang Yeong-jun was getting to what might have been his real point. Hang a moral debt around my neck, then use me. That was the play.

"Looks like I can't travel with you people either."

I cut him off and ended it.

"Sorry?"

"If you don't like my decisions, go your own way. I've got nothing to lose."

"No—"

"I was going deeper in anyway. Even if it means two or three more fights, I'll break through faster."

"You're saying you'll leave all of us and go alone?"

"I don't know about alone. I do know I'm not going with you."

The thought wasn't only about Jang Yeong-jun. Having taken an orc and a jack-o'-lantern, I was starting to get a feel for it. I could do this. I didn't need to punch all the way through the deepest red zone, but going farther in and clearing faster seemed the better play. It would mean a few more fights. For me, that wasn't such a bad thing.

"You remember what they said? The deeper you go, the more pumpkins and orcs."

I looked around at the other awakeners and laid it out.

"I'll take point, the way I have so far. Anyone who keeps following does it knowing that. And I'll say this plainly. Fire a gun without my permission, and I drop you on the spot."

I didn't wait for their answer. I walked.

"Hyung-nim. That was pretty cool, I tell you."

Lee Hae-il was the first to fall in beside me.

"You're still coming? Won't it be dangerous?"

It surprised me a little.

"What?! No. Watching those bastards run their mouths, they still haven't got a feel for this, have they? Sticking with you like we are now is a hundred times safer, I figure."

It didn't feel bad. It felt like both my skill and my judgment had been acknowledged.

"Athlete Jeong."

More of them fell in behind me than I had expected. The knot following Jang Yeong-jun had shrunk from six or seven to four.

A small man.

The situation room.

"He cut that off clean. Jang Yeong-jun? If it weren't for that one, nobody would've had to go red in the face."

"Trash like that is everywhere. Especially among politicians. Fuck, I think about that assemblyman from back then and my blood runs backward. That one's a black guild, no question."

"That 'anyway' was the key, y'know. He said he was going deeper no matter what, so the kids looking for a free carry couldn't hang on and dropped off, y'know."

"Not easy. No way he ran that by cold calculation."

Scouts from the guilds, the conglomerates, and the public agencies watched the monitors with bright eyes.

"Truth is, looking someone in the face and saying 'you're nothing but a hindrance, get lost'—that's hard, isn't it?"

"Before the gates opened, the person who acted like that was the one with the broken character."

"The fuss Mr. Jang nearly started got handled, and he picked up people willing to go deeper with him. Seems like he did well?"

"I especially like that he puts it all on the table first, nya. Makes it their own choice, so everyone feels responsible, nya."

The public-agency scouts were particularly fervent. Exceptional awakeners were rare. Exceptional awakeners whose character was at least decent enough to survive on a written reprimand were rarer still. At his level, both ability and character had cleared the hiring bar by a wide margin. Su Seong-min, Saetbyeol's scout, went paler by the moment.

"Seong-min."

Hong Si-yu smiled brightly and spoke as if sharing a secret.

"Getting nervous yet?"

"......"

"Starting to wonder why you said something that stupid? When he shows up on TV later, you can just hear the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠vice chairman. 'Who was the scout on him back then?'"

On the monitor, Jeong Jae-ha was running like the wind along the border between the red zone and the yellow.

Thud!

A jack-o'-lantern that had never woken was smashed apart in a single blow.

Once a jack-o'-lantern went down, the guns could speak.

Rat-tat-tat-tat!

Under a baptism of MP5 fire, the orcs and goblins that had been closing in bled and went sprawling.

A textbook clear. Picture-perfect.

"So that's not a three-year veteran. That's a three-week rookie?"

"He's in first right now?"

"Yeah. By a mile."

The scouts were sliding past evaluation into sheer appreciation. Jeong Jae-ha and the awakeners skimmed the very edge of the red ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠zone and were the first to push past the gate's halfway mark.

For a moment every eye pulled to one side. The screen swung with them. There was a clearing ringed by a towering hedge of thorn, and at its center a pumpkin of monstrous size.

The boss monster of this gate. Before that pumpkin, a lesser drake crouched low.

The dregs of dragonkind: a lesser drake sheathed in a rounded orange carapace like a pumpkin. Dark-green thorny stems tangled with scales at the joints, and veins like pumpkin vines stood raised along the wings. An easy hunt for Hong Si-yu and the scouts. For awakeners who had only just awakened, a calamity.

Jeong Jae-ha cut boldly past the pumpkin and the drake and made for Zone Three.

They found a sapling before long.

"That Lee Hae-il is pretty capable too, isn't she?"

"She's got nerve, she handles a blade well enough, and best of all, she isn't looking for a way to weasel out of the work."

Around then, the scouts took their eyes off Jeong Jae-ha's group.

"All right, let's look at another group."

"See what happened to those ones from earlier."

"Wasn't there a kid who bragged he'd made some noise in an organization?"

They were people combing a gravel bed for gems, not people cutting and setting them. The scouts had just narrowed their eyes at their separate screens when—

Those are the thugs from back then. The ones who picked a fight with Athlete Jeong.

Hong Si-yu found Jang Yeong-jun on one of the screens.

He kept needling the other awakeners too. Must have plenty weighing on him.

Jang Yeong-jun was meeting up with his crew.

The one he needled the hardest was...

Hong Si-yu had already run the personnel files.

Lee Hae-il.

Kim Gang-oh, Jang Yeong-jun, and the rest of the Scorpion Gang awakeners were tied to Lee Hae-il by a single case.

The Scorpion thugs had used Lee Hae-il, then an internet broadcaster, to launder money.

They wouldn't—

Hong Si-yu stared at the screen without a word. Jang Yeong-jun's crew was moving toward the red zone at the center. Watching Jeong Jae-ha and the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠awakeners come back with the sapling dug up, he grinned.

"Control team."

Hong Si-yu snatched up the radio.

Rat-tat-tat-tat!

But Jang Yeong-jun emptying a full MP5 magazine into the empty air was far faster.

The disaster they had been warned about arrived. The jack-o'-lanterns woke as one, and orcs and goblins swarmed in like hornets.

Jang fled with his crew. The beasts that had swarmed in glanced about, then found Jeong Jae-ha's group passing in front of them.

On the screen, an orc's eyes narrowed.

"Goddamn it!"

"That bastard!"

Hong Si-yu, Su Seong-min, and the scouts cursed as one.

"Prepare to enter. We're going in ourselves."

Hong Si-yu was on her feet at once, radio already up.

On the screen a green wave rose, made of beasts. This was beyond anything the field team could handle.

Athlete Jeong.

Hong Si-yu ran for the gate, checking the live feed on the smartphone slaved to the screens. Mana inside the gate fuzzed the picture with static, but burning one phone was the least of her concerns.

Huh?

Then she saw it. Jeong Jae-ha, face gone cold as if he had reached some decision, lifting an MP5.

Rat-tat-tat-tat!

Jeong Jae-ha raked the sky with the submachine gun.

What is he thinking?