Hero Academy (3-52)
"Instructor Sung Suho! Are you all right?"
"You were so late we thought something might have happened…"
Seong Sua and Cho Seohyun let the tension drain from their faces as they came toward me, already peppering me with concern. Looking at the two of them, I exhaled a black-hole of a sigh and felt the relief hit me all at once.
Augh… I nearly shit myself.
The second I'd stepped out of the car, the looks on those two women's faces had been the exact expression of a pair of predators locking onto prey. Thanks to that, I'd almost panicked and blurted out some idiotic excuse about Park Huiyeon for no reason at all…
"What brings the two of you out here?"
"What do you mean, what brings us…"
"We heard the moment class ended. You were attacked by unidentified assailants?"
"Ah… news travels fast."
I gave a hollow little laugh and was about to walk them through everything that had happened when something cut my explanation short.
Still sitting in the car, Park Huiyeon poked her head out from behind me and looked at Seong Sua with a voice full of mild surprise.
"Hm? What? Seong Sua?"
"Ah… Senior Park Huiyeon?"
"Long time no see. What are you doing here?"
Listening to the two of them greet each other, I put it together. They must have known each other from their cadet days at the Hero Academy.
"I heard Instructor Sung Suho ran into trouble, so I came."
"Ah… wait, are you serving as an instructor right now?"
"Yes."
"Ahh."
Park Huiyeon wrapped up the brief catch-up and was about to climb out of the car to head back toward the Church when—
"Hup!"
"Guh!"
"Whoa—!"
"Careful!"
The moment her feet hit the ground, her legs gave out. She threw her arms around my neck and scrambled up onto my back, and I nearly pitched face-first into the pavement.
And then came the real problem.
"Hahaha… sorry about that."
"I—it's fine."
"Well, since we're already like this, mind carrying me all the way to the dorms?"
The first ones to react to Park Huiyeon's shameless little joke weren't me — they were Cho Seohyun and Seong Sua.
"…What?"
"Excuse me?"
Both of them were staring at me and Park Huiyeon with dark, murderous faces. Park Huiyeon flinched under the sudden killing intent rolling off them, and I felt a cold sweat of pure terror myself as I snapped a silent order straight into her mind.
Get off. Now!
[Are you speaking to me?]
No!
Why the hell are YOU answering!
Fortunately, Park Huiyeon slid down off my back, scratched her head, and laughed with an awkward little shrug.
"Kidding, kidding! Thanks for everything today. See you!"
"Yes. Good work today."
Park Huiyeon hurried off toward the dorms without looking back. And left standing in the space she'd vacated were…
"…Maybe we shouldn't have come."
"…We didn't interrupt anything, did we?"
"…"
Cho Seohyun and Seong Sua, both wearing expressions thick with barely restrained irritation.
I ushered Seong Sua and Cho Seohyun up to my room, sat them down at the table, and offered up an awkward smile.
"Haha… after spending a few days together, we just got a little friendly, that's all…"
"…"
"…"
Cho Seohyun and Seong Sua listened without so much as letting their narrowed eyes return to normal. Come on… a guy can laugh and chat with a woman every now and then…
[And if Min Ha-yeon and Han Bom were off laughing with some other man…]
Back, you demon! Begone!
[…]
Damn Armonia, trying to inject poison straight into my brain…
Sitting there in silence was only going to make things worse, so I threw out a question to change the subject.
"So what brought the two of you all the way out here?"
At that, Seong Sua finally softened her expression and started laying out the situation in detail.
"We heard something had happened right after class ended, so we came. Are you hurt at all?"
"I'm fine. But the cadets…"
"Don't worry about them. We already checked on their condition and sent them back to their rooms."
"That's a relief."
Apparently the Church had its own position to consider, so they'd gone ahead and informed the Hero Academy about the incident. From the Church's perspective, if they wanted to keep the cadets quiet, getting the Academy's cooperation was smarter than trying to bury everything on their own. And because they hadn't mentioned me at all during that process, the two of them had gotten worried enough to come looking for me themselves.
"But why didn't you answer your calls?"
"My smartwatch got destroyed."
"Ah…"
I'd deliberately smashed the thing while we were getting out of the dungeon with Park Huiyeon, figuring it would buy me as much uninterrupted time with her as possible. My method had been to chuck it at a monster and let the thing chew it up — and watching that had actually made me a little nervous. The build quality was so absurd that the monster had to chomp on it several times before the watch finally gave up the ghost.
That thing was tougher than I expected. Am I going to get written up for property damage later?
[Since it was an accident rather than negligence, I doubt they'll make a serious issue of it.]
Putting everything together, the reason the two of them had come boiled down to one thing.
"Thank you both for worrying about me."
"No… I mean…"
"I'm just really glad you're okay."
Cho Seohyun looked away with a shy little expression, while Seong Sua smiled and rose from her seat.
"Well, we should get going."
"It's already night."
Cho Seohyun glanced out the window and stood up just as naturally. I walked them both down to the parking lot and offered a parting apology.
"I'm sorry. Making you come all the way out here because of me…"
"Hardly. We just came to get some air."
Seong Sua climbed into the driver's seat with a smile. Cho Seohyun waited until Sua was settled, then stepped in close and murmured quietly into my ear.
"When you're out on assignment like this…"
"…?"
"…if you get bored, call me. I'll keep you company."
"Haha. Got it."
I looked at Cho Seohyun and let out a small snort of a laugh. She still had a woman's pride — she wasn't about to come right out and say call me.
Once Cho Seohyun had settled into the passenger seat, Seong Sua rolled down the window for one last goodbye.
"Tomorrow's the last day, so be careful coming back."
"See you tomorrow."
"Yes, understood. Both of you — drive safe."
I smiled and watched their car pull out of the lot, then let out a long, heavy breath.
Holy… shit. That was close.
[It's a good thing Park Huiyeon handled things in advance. Without that, we would have been in real trouble.]
Mid-blowjob, Park Huiyeon had used the excuse that she didn't want to stop as a reason to ask the driver for another thirty minutes. Stretching the time hadn't been purely about the blowjob, either. The blowjob itself had been over quickly. The moment she finished, she'd sprayed perfume through the interior of the car and started putting herself back together until she looked completely presentable.
And if Park Huiyeon hadn't asked the driver for that favor — if we'd rolled straight into the parking lot as we were?
Cho Seohyun and Seong Sua would have come face-to-face with the absolute wreck that was me and Park Huiyeon, and the thick scent of a man and a woman hanging in that car would have hit both of them with zero filtration. I would have gotten a firsthand tour of a very personal hell.
Park Huiyeon has definitely done this a few times before.
It wasn't that she'd been with a huge number of men, but it was obvious she'd pulled this kind of cleanup routine with the ones she had. Still, thanks to that experience of hers, we'd slipped cleanly through a crisis that could have ended everything.
Well… those two seem fine now… should I just go to sleep?
The Church had said they'd want to ask a few questions before we headed back to the Hero Academy tomorrow. Park Huiyeon and Yoon Jia had probably gone ahead already to lay out the whole story and get everyone on the same page for whatever came next.
As long as they don't figure out what I did, I'm good.
[More importantly, Miss Rena and Miss Beatrice relocated via warp, so there's no risk of them being discovered.]
Starting tomorrow, the Church would almost certainly comb through every inch of the dungeon we'd gone into. They didn't strike me as the type to smile and let something that had hurt them just slide…
But they could dig for a hundred days and they still would never find those assailants. Knowing the whole situation was airtight was a relief — and somehow also a little frustrating.
It's barely evening. Am I really supposed to just sleep? If I at least had a VR Headgear I could log in and kill some time… Hm?
I was grumbling to myself on the way back to my room when I spotted Yoon Jia trudging along with her shoulders slumped. I walked straight over and spoke up.
"Is something wrong?"
"Ah! Instructor Sung Suho. Well…"
The moment Yoon Jia returned to the Church, she was hauled in front of the investigation team and then the legal team, one after the other. She hadn't actually come face-to-face with the assailants during the attack, so fortunately the questioning wrapped up quickly and she was allowed to head back to her room.
But the real reason they'd called her in was insurance — in case any information leaked to the outside. Don't say anything unnecessary. If anyone asks, tell them you weren't involved. That sort of thing.
And even that short stretch of pressure had been more than enough to wring every last drop of energy out of her.
"Haa… the Hero Academy really was easier, wasn't it…"
She was trudging along when something even more annoying decided to call. Yoon Jia looked at the name on her smartwatch and sighed.
"Haa, I'm already exhausted…"
She hesitated. Answer or ignore — she went back and forth several times before finally hitting accept and lifting the watch to her mouth.
"Hello?"
"Jia! Are you okay? I heard there was trouble?"
"Yeah… I'm fine."
Yoon Jia gave Go Chungshin a concise rundown of everything that had happened inside the dungeon. Once he'd heard it all, Go Chungshin made a noise of pure regret.
"Augh… if that admin bastard had just died in there, it would've been perfect."
"…"
Yoon Jia had been hearing Go Chungshin talk about Sung Suho for a long time now. The core of almost every story was the same: Sung Suho was human garbage. But the more time she spent around Sung Suho himself, the more Go Chungshin's credibility as a judge of character kept crumbling.
And the conclusion Yoon Jia had reached was simple.
Oppa was the one being unprofessional, so he got chewed out. And now he's pissed, so he's painting Instructor Sung Suho as the villain…
Yoon Jia had met plenty of people over the course of her working life. Among them were more than a few who caused damage through their own mistakes, then turned around and looked down on the person who called them out for it — pure reverse-victim energy.
Watching the way Oppa plays games, I bet he's the same at work…
She'd always half-suspected as much from Go Chungshin's gaming style. But sitting here actually listening to him, it didn't feel good. And thinking about the game only dragged the dream back up — everything that had happened inside it.
Haa… I just want to hang up.
Yoon Jia let Go Chungshin's words wash over her and spoke into the line.
"Oppa… I'm really tired right now. Can I go rest?"
"…You've been weird lately."
"About what?"
"Don't tell me you're still sulking over that. Over something that small…"
"I'm hanging up."
Yoon Jia bit down on her lip and ended the call on her smartwatch. Instantly she could feel something boiling up from deep in her gut.
Something that small!? Asking me to put out is 'something that small'?
Go Chungshin's words short-circuited her reason, and for a moment the dream and reality blurred together. Everything that had happened in the dream was so vivid it started mapping itself directly onto the real Go Chungshin.
The entire walk back to her room, she rejected every incoming call from him.
"Haa… just stop already… Huh? I-Instructor Sung Suho…"
The second she spotted Sung Suho in the distance, Yoon Jia panicked and hit block on Go Chungshin's number entirely.
"Ah! Haa… it's not like I can talk right now anyway. I'll unblock him later and apologize…"
Yoon Jia watched Sung Suho approach and forced the best smile she could manage. But her smile might as well have been invisible — Sung Suho walked right up and spoke in a voice thick with genuine concern.
"Is something wrong?"
"Ah! Instructor Sung Suho. Well…"
Yoon Jia couldn't quite get the words out. But even standing there unable to speak, she could feel with absolute clarity what kind of person Sung Suho was.
Oppa only ever thinks about his own mood, but Instructor Sung Suho is always busy looking after everyone else…
Even in a life-threatening situation inside the dungeon, Sung Suho had thrown himself into protecting the cadets, protecting her, protecting every teammate in danger. And then Park Huiyeon had dragged him off, and his colleagues from the Hero Academy had come all the way out here looking for him.
…What was he talking about with Park Huiyeon earlier?
Some instinctive hunger stirred in Yoon Jia — a quiet wish that Sung Suho would set aside personal time for her, too. While she was still wrestling with that feeling, Sung Suho offered a bitter little smile and started to step back.
"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have asked. Well then…"
"W-wait a second!"
"Yes?"
Yoon Jia thought to herself.
I want to keep getting closer to him… But once the observation visit ends, I might never see him again.
Holding that thought, she crushed down the embarrassment blooming inside her and forced the words out.
"S-since today's the last day… how about we grab a light cup of tea and wrap things up properly?"