3. Each One's Talent
Back in his office preparing for a lecture, Kwon Moo-hyuk noticed that the corridor had grown noisy.
"Seriously, these kids."
Quiet in the hallway was basic etiquette on a floor lined with professors' offices.
Hunter might be the most glamorous profession in the world, but some things simply had to be respected.
Click.
"Kids. I understand lectures haven't started yet, but is there any excuse for raising this much of a ruckus in the corridor?"
"Oh, Professor!"
The startled students immediately bowed their heads, stammering apologies one after another.
Their sincere contrition—offered without a single excuse—dissolved Kwon Moo-hyuk's irritation on the spot.
It was only once his mind settled that he registered the noise filling the entire corridor.
"Why is it so loud out here? Did something happen?"
"That? They say there's chaos at the main gate right now!"
"Chaos?"
Despite the students' breathless excitement, Kwon Moo-hyuk's reaction remained lukewarm at best.
This was the National Hunter Academy.
Which meant that thanks to abilities, every conceivable kind of incident broke out here.
"Why? Did someone go rocketing into the sky again? Or send some poor staff member's car flying?"
"No, it's not that! Professor, you know them, right?"
"Them?"
"The delinquents!"
Kwon Moo-hyuk's face went cold in an instant.
So it's those punks.
As in any educational institution, the Academy had its pack of delinquents.
They caused petty incidents and trouble—just short of becoming genuinely serious problems.
How could a pack of delinquents exist at the National Hunter Academy, of all places?
Sadly, it was entirely possible.
Even in the hunter world, where skill was everything, the so-called "connections" were an obstacle no one could climb over.
A police chief's son, a city councilman's relative, the daughter of a thriving company president, even a National Assembly member's nephew.
At that level, their status as hunters could still smooth things over if it came to a scrape.
The real problem was that their leader was the kind of person who was simply too exhausting to touch.
Wasn't he the youngest son of the Korea Hunter Association's chairman?
If you made an enemy of the Association, hunter life became considerably more arduous from that point on.
Even the Academy's own professors avoided crossing him, preferring to look the other way whenever possible.
To be fair, the kids kept to a certain line—crossing it would mean consequences for themselves, too.
And the leader, being the chairman's son, was sharp enough to keep his pack well in hand.
But why on earth were they suddenly the talk of the campus at a moment like this?
"One of the professors just took down three of them at the main gate!"
"...What?"
As he'd said, each and every one of them carried connections that were a genuine headache to deal with.
Worse, those connections didn't stop at one—they tangled together and multiplied, making the burden heavier still.
For these reasons, professors didn't touch them unless something truly exceptional happened.
Every professor on this campus knows that. Which professor on earth poked that hornet's nest?
Kwon Moo-hyuk, who happened to have no lecture starting immediately, made his way toward the main gate.
He wanted to understand the situation—and to see whether anyone needed help.
"Good grief..."
By the time he reached the main gate, Kwon Moo-hyuk realized the students hadn't been exaggerating.
Two of the male delinquents lay sprawled on the ground, groaning.
The girl was kneeling with both hands raised, the way a child plays the stationary game.
This is bad. If the department head hears about this, he'll scream.
Kwon Moo-hyuk knew exactly how many gifts the department head had accepted from those kids.
Thanks to that, whenever trouble arose, the department head was always the first to smooth it over.
A professor who can't even guide his students down the right path—just lining his pockets with bribes.
Suppressing the sigh that threatened to burst out of him, Kwon Moo-hyuk approached the professor in question.
"Excuse me."
Tap.
The first thing to catch his eye was a white cane extended forward.
A cane?
Nearly all of the Academy's faculty and staff belonged to the younger generation.
Even the chancellor was only in his fifties; there wasn't a single elderly gentleman among them.
"Who... might you be?"
At Kwon Moo-hyuk's question, the man slowly turned.
Oh.
The moment he saw those unfocused, clouded eyes, Kwon Moo-hyuk knew exactly who this was.
The subject of the hushed gossip that had filled the professors' lounge just moments ago.
"You wouldn't happen to be the new professor arriving today?"
"Yes. My name is Lee Hyun."
Kwon Moo-hyuk reflexively took the hand extended with unerring precision toward his own.
"I've heard about you, Professor Lee Hyun. I'm Professor Kwon Moo-hyuk. I, um... about..."
"Ah, you mean this situation."
Lee Hyun explained what had just happened.
Despite introducing himself as a professor, the students here had invoked their parents' authority and used their abilities against him.
But their technique had been riddled with openings, so as a professor, he had shown them firsthand what a true hunter looked like.
"—and that's how things stand."
"..."
Kwon Moo-hyuk let out the sigh he'd been holding back.
Honestly speaking, there was nothing objectionable about Lee Hyun's conduct.
The delinquents had started it, and their behavior throughout had been inexcusable.
Ordinarily, even if someone seemed suspicious, the correct procedure was to call security.
"Professor Lee Hyun."
The problem was that these were no ordinary students—they carried connections that were an absolute nuisance.
"I think it would be best to wrap things up here and let these students go."
"Haven't they still more reflecting to do?"
"That's the thing. These students aren't ordinary students."
If Lee Hyun intended to keep working as a professor at the Academy, he would need to learn when to bend.
Unlike this place, where a hunter's status was everything, those students wielded not only their hunter abilities but connections and political power besides.
"...Here's the truth of it."
When Kwon Moo-hyuk finished his explanation, Lee Hyun was silent for a moment.
He's clearly thinking, 'This is a disaster,' Kwon Moo-hyuk thought with a bitter smile.
Truthfully, Kwon Moo-hyuk felt a quiet self-disgust at giving this kind of advice in the first place.
What kind of professor sweats over his own students' moods?
But a professor was, in the end, just one hunter among many. There was nothing to be done about it.
"Then shouldn't we educate them properly, all the more for it?"
"...I beg your pardon?"
Kwon Moo-hyuk wondered if he had misheard.
"As professors, it's our duty to educate those students properly."
At Lee Hyun's unwavering answer, Kwon Moo-hyuk could only groan inwardly.
What is this man saying? The police chief's son! The councilman's relative! That girl is a company president's daughter! And above them all sits the youngest son of the Hunter Association chairman...!
He could respect the burning zeal of a professor on his first appointment—but this was simply too much.
Not only his professorship was at stake; one misstep could endanger his hunter license as well.
"Thank you for the advice, Professor Kwon Moo-hyuk. But I intend to finish the lesson I started."
"Wait, Professor Lee Hyun!"
Shaking off Kwon Moo-hyuk's restraint, Lee Hyun approached the fallen students.
"Stand up."
"St... stand up!"
"Stan-u-PP!!"
Somehow, everything these kids do reeks of trash, Lee Hyun thought.
They weren't mere extras—they were bottom-feeders muddying the Academy's waters.
Well, these are characters meant to be disciplined by the player anyway, so no harm done.
Impressive connections or not, that alone could not stop him.
A true educator, after all, had to hold fast to what was right until the very end.
Tap-tap!
"Both of you will attend my lecture. Without fail. If your names are missing from the roster on the first day, then the two of us will no longer be professor and student—we will be something else entirely."
The two boys sprawled on the ground looked up at Lee Hyun.
A moment ago, he had seemed anything but a threat—just a single blind man, nothing more.
The sight of him jabbing the ground with his cane had been laughable, and those unfocused eyes were a textbook specimen of the handicapped.
But now?
"Do you understand what I've said?"
Tap-tap.
Every time that cane struck the earth, their minds and bodies trembled in unison.
One minute.
In that sliver of time, they had glimpsed what death was.
Those hollow, sightless eyes seemed to see straight through everything.
"Your answer."
"Y-yes, sir!"
"We understand, Professor!!"
Having confirmed their answers, Lee Hyun turned away with a smile.
He walked toward the main building visible in the distance, neither too fast nor too slow.
"..."
He hadn't even heeded Kwon Moo-hyuk's earnest advice—had simply held to a true educator's stance.
Staring blankly at Lee Hyun's retreating back, Kwon Moo-hyuk reached a conclusion.
That professor must have connections far more powerful than I imagined.
Yes, that had to be it.
This Professor Lee Hyun clearly knew someone extraordinary.
There was no other way he could be so at ease dealing with students like these.
Right—they said he's a hunter with a callsign. I should go dig up more about him.
With that thought, Kwon Moo-hyuk glared at the three students behind him.
"What are you all doing? Get up and get ready for class."
On any other day, the two boys would have drawled some insolent "Yessir—" with a smirk.
"YESSIR!!"
But today, they were raw recruits with military discipline drilled into them, through and through.
"Tch..."
The girl, still holding her hands up, was another matter entirely.
Ratatat—
Fingers flying across her phone, the screen filling with text.
The profile picture of the message's recipient showed the Hunter Association chairman and his entire family.
Moments later, a reply arrived beneath the girl's message.
***
Vmm! Vmm—!
A lightning-fast thrust split the air with a sharp crack.
Flawless form stripped of every wasted motion, a spear tip that never wavered by so much as a hair.
Each time the spear drove forward, the training hall itself seemed to shudder faintly.
This was spearwork of the absolute highest caliber—peak physical ability fused with refined technique.
If a student was already this good, she would become a superstar the moment she debuted as a hunter.
"..."
And yet Yoo Seol-ah's face refused to brighten.
"Not enough."
Second overall in the combined theoretical and practical rankings of the entire Hunter Academy.
A genius among geniuses, her record placing her within the top five in the Academy's history.
The very first name on every recruiting shortlist—the one scouts from the top hunter corporations would swarm the instant she graduated.
Despite evaluations this extraordinary, Yoo Seol-ah could not feel even a flicker of joy.
Because from childhood to this very day, the same person had always stood in front of her.
Cha Ye-rin.
They'd been born in the same neighborhood, and thanks to their parents' close friendship, they'd become friends too.
At first, the relationship between Yoo Seol-ah and Cha Ye-rin had been wonderful.
Both were hailed as prodigies, both stood out from the earliest age.
Then they entered the same kindergarten, and things began to tangle.
"And the person with the most stickers is... Ye-rin!!"
At first, Yoo Seol-ah simply assumed Cha Ye-rin was a little more likable than she was.
She was certain that if she just worked hard enough, she could match Cha Ye-rin.
"Our class's top student. Cha Ye-rin again, of course."
When six full years of elementary school passed without her ever once surpassing Cha Ye-rin.
"Unbelievable. She didn't miss a single question?"
When Yoo Seol-ah finally clinched first place on the finals—missing exactly one question—and Cha Ye-rin scored a perfect hundred on everything.
"We now announce the Hunter Academy entrance exam results. Valedictorian: Cha Ye-rin."
When Yoo Seol-ah stood watching from behind as Cha Ye-rin recited the Hunter's Oath on behalf of the entire incoming class.
"Student Cha Ye-rin. A truly promising future lies ahead of you."
When lectures, practical training, exams, assignments—every measure of every arena—left her behind.
Yoo Seol-ah finally understood: she had been locked inside a prison called Cha Ye-rin.
For nearly twenty years, living in Cha Ye-rin's shadow had been a tortured existence.
But there was something that tormented her far worse than any of that.
"I'm so proud to call you my friend. Let's give it our all again this time too, Seol-ah!"
Cha Ye-rin never once looked down on Yoo Seol-ah, who always trailed behind her.
If anything, she constantly affirmed her friend, sang her praises, and reached out her hand—let's work hard together.
And every time she did, Yoo Seol-ah wondered if her competitiveness—her desperate hunger to win—was simply wrong.
Cha Ye-rin never meant it as mockery, not even a little. And that made it sting all the more.
As time went on, Yoo Seol-ah felt herself becoming more and more pathetic by comparison.
"Haaah..."
Sinking down onto the training hall floor, Yoo Seol-ah let out a very long sigh.
If she could beat Cha Ye-rin just once—just that single time—maybe things would ease, even a little.
She had poured herself into relentless training, and her skill had improved by leaps and bounds.
And still, Cha Ye-rin stood before her.
No matter how hard she tried, and tried again, she simply could not get past her.
I know. I know none of this will change anything. That it's a fool's competition I'm running all by myself. I know all of it.
Cha Ye-rin shone like the sun—someone everyone gazed at in admiration.
But wherever a sun burns, a shadow falls somewhere in its wake.
And in that shadow behind the dazzling light, Yoo Seol-ah had always stood.
Is it my fate to spend my whole life chasing your back, only to collapse exhausted before I ever reach you?
Clap, clap.
At the sudden sound of applause, Yoo Seol-ah's head snapped up.
"That was a magnificent spear."
A man stood in the training hall—she had no idea how long he'd been there.
She stared at him for a moment, and then her face twisted violently.
Unfocused, hollow eyes, and a white cane clutched in his hand.
A blind man who couldn't even see her—praising her spear, critiquing it, as if he had any standing to.
"What the—"
"Let me offer you one observation."
The man pointed at her spear and continued.
"You suit the sword far better than the spear."