Chapter 5
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Translator: Ace
Chapter: 005
Chapter Title: Academy Student Kim Geuk - [3]
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The moment I confirmed we'd arrived in front of the academy, I retracted the net I'd spread out around us. Amid a wave of light dizziness, Yang Tae-ja's voice reached me.
"That was seriously impressive... Why do you look so down?"
"Teleporting puts a strain on my nervous system every time. I get tired, my focus drops, that sort of thing."
"Like blue-balling it?"
This crude bastard. I furrowed my brow and nodded.
"Roughly, yeah. Anyway, that's why I don't use it much. Super Regeneration lets me recover from the fatigue pretty quick after some time, but until it's fully back, my whole body feels drained and concentrating is tough."
"You're probably not used to wielding your abilities yet. Want me to look into some training methods to help?"
"No need. From what I hear, even the fancy centers in Seoul have no clue how to train special superpowers like this. They just make you do weird meditative crap with heavy religious vibes."
"Still, doesn't it feel like a waste? It's such a rare ability—avoiding it just 'cause it tires you out seems off."
"What can I say, they say it improves with use, so I'm just waiting for time to do its thing."
"But you said you don't use it much?"
"I practice a few times before bed. That way, getting tired is fine."
"Does that even count as practice?"
"Feels like it's getting a bit better bit by bit. In daily life, I just treat it like something I don't have..."
Explaining that teleporting within my field of vision was way easier and less exhausting, and that I usually just walked or ran instead, still left Yang Tae-ja looking unsatisfied.
"Well, yeah, Physical Enhancement alone guarantees A-rank..."
He said it, but his face still looked uneasy. Was he bummed thinking I was wasting a perfectly good ability?
What could I do? I'd looked up other Teleporters besides myself, and it was the same story. That foreigner had apparently decided the ability wasn't practical enough and stuck to accounting.
Plus, in my case, I had other abilities that grew every time I trained them. So the one I focused on was this side of things.
"Kim Geuk, you're really putting in the work. Gonna go full throttle on training again?"
"Super Regeneration, remember? Muscles build up every time I work out, so it'd be a waste not to."
Back at the academy with Yang Tae-ja, I jumped right back into strength training without a break. Going all out without getting hurt, repeating until I was completely wiped out—that's when I finally felt like I'd made the day count.
And on the way home—walking, obviously, no teleporting—a phone call came in.
It was Park Mi-hyeong. That auntie who was helpful in all sorts of ways.
"How's it going? Manageable?"
When I asked why she was calling, her warm voice came through.
"Just checking if you have enough for tuition and living expenses! I could help out if you need it."
"Thanks, but I'm good."
"You sure? I remember you whining that your living expenses were running low."
Did this auntie have no idea how awesome I was?
I bragged that tuition was fully waived, that I'd even gotten a dedicated trainer today, and that this path led straight to a solid A-rank Hunter career.
Then, proudly, I added,
"When my sister gets out, imagine her big bro rolling up in a Porsche. Talk about security, right?"
The plan to get my little sister out early had actually been scrapped long ago during my human rights activism days.
And my new plan was to become an A-rank Hunter—a mega-rich guy raking in income even doctors and lawyers could only dream of—and support her that way.
That pathetic girl, probably bawling her eyes out in her cell over how her murder rap had ruined her life. When she walked out of prison looking like the world had ended, I'd hand her a fat bank account and a sports car in her name. Bet that ugly mug of hers would break into a huge grin then.
Yeah, it would. Definitely.
And this plan was brilliant because it felt like it'd just happen naturally if I kept eating, going to the academy, and training.
"Yeah, it'd be reassuring if my brother did that for me."
"Right?"
"Of course! It'll work out for sure, Kim Geuk."
Everything was falling perfectly into place. I was certain of it.
That night, I had a dream.
I don't remember exactly what it was about. But it felt like a very long one.
I also vaguely recall crying, getting angry, and roaring out in the dream.
And the clearest memory... the final scene of the dream...
A mushroom cloud.
In the dream, I detonated a nuke. Right in the heart of Seoul, killing hundreds of thousands.
Good dream? Nah, I shook my head.
Sometimes the emotions from a dream linger after waking. This was one of those times.
And the residue from this dream... it was horrific.
Damn it, I feel like puking.
Something even trickled down my cheek—I wiped my face and realized tears were flowing without me knowing.
I took deep breaths, waiting for the whirlwind of negative emotions in my head to settle.
Shit, fuck...
This was the first time my sleep had been this restless since birth. Things had been good lately—why now?
Suddenly, I felt ominous.
I first sensed something off the moment I stepped into the academy.
I locked eyes with the director, who was filling a paper cup with water. He greeted me with a beaming smile the instant he saw me.
"Oh, you're early! Kim Geuk, you're so diligent!"
I tried to smile back but froze, eyes widening instead...
A chill ran down my spine.
The director, who had been grinning ear to ear just a second ago, was now staring blankly at me with an expression like he'd never smile again. Like he was crying emotionlessly.
And aside from him, no one else who usually came and went at the academy was in sight. Just me and the director in the empty place. Why?
No time to think deeply. In the eerie silence, a sudden wave of depression left me standing there dazed for a moment.
All the while, the director kept staring at me. Vacantly. Expressionless. Like he had something to say but no energy for it, just gazing.
I closed my eyes and opened them, blinking a few times.
The director looking at me was smiling like before. And the academy was bustling with instructors brewing coffee and students as usual.
What the hell was that?
"Just now..."
I barely got the words out when the director chuckled and asked,
"Just now what?"
I almost asked what that grim face of yours was about but stopped myself.
Maybe that was a hallucination?
Possible. I'd pushed training pretty hard yesterday. Even with Super Regeneration, suddenly overdoing it could cause stuff like this. The rough night might've been from that too.
"Nothing."
"Silly!"
I forced a smile and headed into the classroom.
A few students greeted me again. My eyes met one of theirs—the oldest student here.
"Hey, Kim Geuk! Come sit here!"
The moment his voice pierced my ears, my consciousness felt sucked into somewhere else again.
And for a moment, I couldn't breathe.
That scrawny student was Im Hyeong-taek.
A guy in his forties, but his thinning hair made him look fifty. Like many when the world went to hell, he'd lost his job, and the stress had triggered his alopecia, or so he said.
This frail man showing up at a hunter academy that didn't suit him at all? To support his family. Wife and one daughter to feed.
A white-collar intel from a general trading company who'd never done manual labor in his life, now mixing with the young crowd to trade monster blood and flesh for his family's living expenses.
I knew all this in detail because the guy acted especially chummy with me.
He was definitely trying to network with Awakeners by feeding me industry info upfront. Spilling his sob story unasked to tug at my sympathy.
Seemed like all that bootlicking and playing pitiful to someone over a decade younger hadn't paid off.
Im Hyeong-taek, that pitiful family man, lay on the concrete floor with his neck snapped.
Just looking at it was nauseating.
His neck stretched like a deer's, twisted like a pretzel, skin torn like overstretched rubber bands here and there, exposing bone and tendons inside.
Looked like he wouldn't be heading home to his family anytime soon.
I didn't scream because the shock had frozen me solid, not because I was calm. Damn it, what the hell now?
I blinked, and Im Hyeong-taek was still waving me over.
"What're you doing? I said sit!"
Clearly, he wasn't dead. Neck neither snapped nor stretched to breaking.
That was another hallucination, apparently.
I sat next to Im Hyeong-taek, cursing inwardly.
Fuck, seriously fuck. I'm gonna lose it.
With my head filled by some inexplicable rage that felt like it stemmed from the hallucination, I tried to convince myself this was normal.
Even back in my pro athlete days, I'd had hallucinations from extreme fatigue a few times. All stuff that could happen.
But hallucinations this detailed and vivid, over and over? First time...
Heart still pounding, class started.
"In the military, you all practiced aimed shooting, right? Prone, standing, sitting. Plenty of time to control your breathing and focus... But out hunting, you can't shoot like that. With monsters, you gotta aim super quick or hip-fire in a panic—shoot first, think later."
This instructor was a former Hunter. Retired after about nine months, which made me wonder what qualified him to teach, but apparently that made him a veteran around here.
"Hesitate perfecting your aim? You're dead. Absolutely dead! Think a monster's big size means it's slow, so take your time aiming? Still dead! I saw a bus-sized monster once—not kidding, that bastard was as fast as a Sonata. Don't think like Earth creatures. The bigger ones are weirdly faster..."
The lesson content was ordinary. So why?
I was wrapped in a strange feeling I couldn't name—a bizarre sense of déjà vu.
Felt like I'd heard this lecture before. If so, when?
Last night... in the dream...
Of course, feeling like recent events happened in a dream is a common déjà vu thing. Feeling it from fatigue wasn't weird either.
But I suffered that damn déjà vu through the entire class.
I didn't expect it to drag on into the next criminal law class, all the way home, even while washing up and lying in bed.
And I had that dream again.
The ending with the nuclear blast was the same, but this time, bits of the middle came back clearer.
This dream featured the director and Im Hyeong-taek. Well, probably in the last one too, just that I hadn't remembered.
Their appearances matched exactly what I'd hallucinated. Im Hyeong-taek dead with a broken neck, the director staring at me blankly like he was about to shed bloody tears.
Second time seeing them, but they still made me want to vomit instantly.
Didn't know you could puke in a dream.