When Push Comes to Shove
Having made up my mind, I strode into the classroom without a moment's hesitation.
Or at least, I tried to.
“……!”
The instant my foot crossed the threshold, both my legs shot up into the air. By the time I registered what was happening, my body was already far from the door, back out in the hallway, hovering half-lifted off the floor.
Mr. Kwon Haeseong?
Absurdly enough, it was Kwon Haeseong who had plucked me off my feet and yanked me backward. And before I could even begin to protest this state of affairs, Kang Sagwa slid the classroom door shut.
-Thud.
“We follow the manual… I'll go get a restraint device first. Please wait here until then.”
Kwon Haeseong set me down with the ease of someone handling a package, then made to head off in search of the collar as if this were all perfectly routine.
Clutching at the dazed remnants of my mind after the whirlwind of the last few seconds, I snatched the arm of the man heading for the stairs.
“You want to use a restraint device on the kids? In this situation?”
No. That was not how this problem got solved.
“Of course I do? They're hardly ordinary children… What's happening in there can't be talked down.”
Kwon Haeseong looked genuinely baffled by my interference.
I agreed with him to a point — the part about them not being ordinary children, at least.
Still. No restraint devices.
And especially not if the thing I'd seen in the reference room earlier really was one of them.
“And how exactly would you get the thing on them?”
“I do it myself… I've done it before. A few times. If you're careful about it.”
“Is that safe?”
“For me? Or…”
“For the children, obviously.”
At my answer, Kwon Haeseong's face went foolish, and after a moment of thought he offered a reply I hadn't expected.
“Hm… I can't make any guarantees. But if I move fast and knock them out first…”
“……Have you done that before, too?”
“Usually, yes… I knock them out. It's the fastest way. For a swift resolution, nothing beats a restraint device.”
The more I heard, the more outrageous it got.
Just to be sure, I'd asked — and it turned out there was no such thing as a safe way to put on a restraint device.
So they would actually strap a collar designed for awakened criminals onto a seven-year-old. Knocking a kid unconscious was just part of the daily routine, apparently.
“I'll handle this myself.”
I released his arm as I spoke.
“How?”
It was Kang Sagwa who interjected, watching the whole scene quietly from her spot by the door. I turned to face her in silence.
No, I didn't have a concrete plan beyond refusing the restraint device.
But standing around idle wasn't going to conjure up a good idea either.
Maybe this was a simple problem. Kids fighting? You break it up, and that's the end of it. Then you scold them or make them reconcile, one or the other.
Using a restraint device just because things looked dangerous made no sense to me at all. Do they have any idea how suffocating and terrifying those things are?
“Can you take responsibility for that?”
“An apology, then.”
A pale arm barred the space between me and the door. Park Edeun had already called out Kang Sagwa's tone once, but he made no move to stop her now.
Why are they blocking me this hard?
It felt like something more than simple territorial sniping. Suppressing the irritation creeping up my throat, I answered in a deliberately calm voice.
“Then who takes responsibility, exactly?”
“……”
“I'm the homeroom teacher of Dolphin Class.”
Even if I was a brand-new teacher who'd clocked in for the very first time today, responsibility for my class fell to me.
“……”
Well, isn't that obvious.
A brief silence stretched between us, and then the arm barring my way finally lowered.
I walked slowly back to the door and pulled it open once more. And as the closed door swung open… hell revealed itself.
Is this hell?
The scene inside had changed completely since moments ago. The acrid reek of burnt electronics had grown thicker, and a hazy smoke churned through the air. The classroom was sweltering like a boiling cauldron, and the wallpaper had scorched black in patches all over the walls.
What happened in just the last few minutes?
After barely five minutes of bickering in the hallway, the classroom had turned into a fiery pit. I couldn't even begin to guess what emotional journey those two children had gone through in such a short span.
“Whoa, wow… what is all this? This is worse than usual, isn't it?”
“Teacher… we should still follow the manual, even now…”
“If you can't do it, just say so.”
Judging by their reactions, apparently this scale of disaster isn't out of the ordinary for them.
As I scanned my surroundings, the shattered glass scattered across the floor and the furniture and oversized toys floating suspended in midair caught my eye first.
But there was a much bigger problem than any of that.
Desks and large pieces of furniture were tangled together in a chaotic barricade ringing the twins.
All of it teetered on the edge of collapse, precariously balanced, ready to come down at any moment.
“We're not going to be able to get close like that.”
Park Edeun had clearly reached the same conclusion, eyeing the barricade with a grimace.
…Honestly, as far as getting close went, that was the least of my worries.
My face hardened as I took in the far more serious flaw in that barricade.
Every last piece of furniture was made of wood — the kind that catches fire beautifully.
It was fine for now, but soon enough those pieces would ignite. And when the barricade came crashing down, the twins would be in serious danger.
I should have stopped it at the start.
My mistake. I should have ignored Kwon Haeseong and gone for the kids first.
But now's not the time for regrets.
There was no time to mourn past choices. I moved.
Strangely enough, the surreal scene on the other side of a single door didn't feel as threatening as it should have. Ignorance is courage — isn't that exactly what I was right now?
“Huh? Huh? You're really going in?”
“It's dangerous out there…”
“Leave her be. She says she can do it — let's wait and see.”
I ignored the chatter behind me and pressed stubbornly forward. It was a classroom of barely thirty pyeong, but navigating through the dense, smoky haze while dodging obstacles strewn everywhere was no easy task.
Clamping my arm over my nose and mouth, I moved forward one careful step at a time.
“Seoro! Seora!”
I forced the names out through a clenched throat.
“Seoro! Seora!”
Inside the steam-bath of a classroom, sweat poured off me like rain. And that wasn't all — obstacles floating somewhere out of sight smacked into my face and body as I went, leaving me bruised and stinging.
“…Ugh!!”
Something slammed into my side and I stopped dead in my tracks.
Wow. I'm seeing stars.
Whatever had struck me, the pain was searing enough that I briefly forgot how to breathe.
Having been through even this much, worrying about whether the kids were all right came naturally. No matter that those two were A-rank awakeners — in my eyes, they were just children.
This is too dangerous. I need to hurry.
Just as worry was gnawing me apart, a voice drifted through the smoke again.
“Hey! Lee Seoro! Quit acting like you're so great!”
“I've never acted like that. And if you hadn't stolen my snack, none of this would've happened.”
“You said you didn't want the chocolate snack!”
“I don't like chocolate. That doesn't mean I said you could eat my chocolate snack.”
“Hey! That's the same thing!!”
…Well, they're doing better than I expected.
They were so wrapped up in their fight that the disaster around them didn't seem to register at all.
“Hoo…”
That said, this was unbearable.
The smoky air kept pouring into my eyes and nose, forcing cough after cough out of me. Tears welled up nonstop, and coughs burst free whether I willed them or not.
Just as I doubled over with another incoming cough—
-Whoosh.
-CRASH!! Clatterclatter-BANG!! BANG-BANG!!
Something enormous… whooshed past, grazing my hair.
The muffled impact behind me sent a chill down my spine despite the sweltering heat of the classroom.
I turned my head just in time to see what had narrowly missed my skull.
A rolling learning board.
“…Insane.”
It was meant for displaying the day's lesson materials and the weekly schedule, but right now its original purpose was impossible to guess from the mangled wreck it had become.
As I stared at the learning board crumpled against the wall, my eyes drifted down to the felt banner that had fallen beneath it. Emblazoned across it in large letters: Children of the Month.
Once a month, kids were chosen under rotating themes — "Helpful Helpers" or "Good Eaters" — a little recognition system designed to give children a sense of achievement and reward…
One thing's for sure: the twins' names have never been on that banner.
Having thus decided on one — just one — penalty for the twins, I turned my head back without regrets.
-Whiiiish.
The moment I reached the window, my hair whipped up in a sudden gust and stuck to my cheeks. Sweeping the strands out of my blocked vision, I quickly realized something.
Come to think of it, a few windows were already broken when I first looked in here.
Even a rough glance showed three of the four largest windows blown out. And in all the chaos, I'd overlooked what that meant: broken windows confronted me with one unavoidable truth.
My odds of suffocating to death just got lower… but at the same time, the wind could whip the fire into something far worse.
No way…
The back of my neck went cold. I whipped my head around, and sure enough — the flames that had been no bigger than fists when I first entered had swelled beyond recognition.
The smoke kept me from checking properly.
My hand instinctively reached for a fire extinguisher before I abandoned the thought. It might not work here. The fire was spread far too wide, and flames born of an awakener's power didn't die easily.
That was precisely why spaces occupied by awakeners were required to keep suppression equipment loaded with special chemical agents, separate from ordinary firefighting gear.
The thought led me straight to the one method I believed could turn this situation around.
“Are there no sprinklers in here?”
Fire code made sprinklers mandatory in schools and facilities like this kindergarten. These special sprinklers had a far wider suppression range than extinguishers, and were installed in every recently constructed building.
They have to be here.
The moment I swept my eyes over the blind spots, I spotted them — four sprinklers at opposite corners of the classroom ceiling.
But somehow, despite water having been long overdue, none of them had activated.
“……!”
Oh, you have got to be kidding me.
…There was a problem.
Some deranged individual had taped over every single sprinkler head with rubber tape.
How many layers thick is this?
I was burning with curiosity about the face of the person who had so lovingly sealed them shut, but that was a matter for later.
You and I will have a chat afterward.
Postponing my reckoning with the lunatic, I moved under the nearest sprinkler. Then I picked up a broom rolling around on the floor and stretched toward the sprinkler with all my might.
…Naturally, it wasn't even close.
Miles short.
The third floor was the top floor, with soaring ceilings — no amount of arm-stretching was going to reach it. I tried anyway, just in case. Of course.
Every piece of furniture I might have climbed on was either wrecked or floating in the air. Even Kwon Haeseong, the tallest of the teachers, would probably struggle.
“……”
As I calmly surveyed the room, my gaze caught on a tree visible through one of the broken windows. I hesitated for the briefest of moments — then steeled myself.
It might not work, but I have to try something.
I couldn't be certain, but if it panned out, the plan that had just come to me was absolutely worth attempting.
I ran back the way I'd come and called out to the teachers still standing at the door.
“Your abilities! What are everyone's abilities?”
They all looked startled at the sight of me bursting back out of the smoke, but they answered dutifully nonetheless.
“Physical enhancement type. Though it's purely just… being strong…”
Kwon Haeseong — pass.
“I'm a physical transformation awakener — do you know what that is? I can basically change like a chameleon. Oh, wait, also, I brought the restraint device like you asked.”
“No, put that away. We can't use that right now.”
Yoo Jinchae — also unsuitable.
“Summoner. Anything that fits in one hand, I can summon it.”
Kang Sagwa — pass.
“Me too? Hmm, I don't think I'll be much help. I'm a plant-type C-rank. You know Jack and the Beanstalk…? It's a subdivision of plant-type called growth acceleration, so basically… well, yeah, that.”
Found him.
Wiping the sweat streaming down my face with my sleeve, I grabbed Park Edeun by the shoulders.
The corners of my mouth curled up on their own.
“Teacher, I need your help.”
“…M-me?”
Yes. You.