The Interferers

"Potential Awakening and Unique Technique Optimization. That will be the lecture I'll be teaching. If you're interested, I suggest you enroll."

It would have been ideal if it were Cha Ye-rin, but Yoo Seol-ah was every bit as remarkable a student.

He had deliberately left the door open for her, so the odds were high she would come.

Yoo Seol-ah would seize a path that led higher than where she stood now.

And Lee Hyun himself would draw the academy's brightest rising star into his own lecture.

A good outcome for them both.

"Then I'll see you later."

Leaving Yoo Seol-ah standing there in a daze, unable to utter a word, Lee Hyun walked on. Even by the time he left the training grounds, she still hadn't moved an inch.

Tap, tap.

'Yoo Seol-ah.'

By the game's standards, she had been the second most important character after Cha Ye-rin. Every one of her illustrations, and even her default weapon slot, showed a spear—without exception.

So nearly all players raised her as a lancer. The class yielded more than enough top-tier performance on its own, and no one ever thought to question it.

'But it wasn't true. No one ever imagined she'd been hiding it like that.'

Yoo Seol-ah's true brilliance only erupted the moment a sword was placed in her hand. The stage where her talent could truly bloom was not that of a lancer, but of a swordswoman.

'Then why on earth does Yoo Seol-ah carry a spear instead of a sword?'

He had a feeling it wasn't something as simple as liking the weapon. Just moments ago, during their conversation, he had read her heartbeat. On top of that, he had scrutinized everything—her voice, even the vibrations given off by her every gesture.

The restless, wavering flux of her emotions had been unmistakable.

'It was like watching ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠someone who believes they can't live without the spear.'

Lee Hyun didn't know why Yoo Seol-ah clung to it so desperately. But one thing was certain: a sword belonged in her hands.

'The official course listing will go up soon enough. I'll persuade her properly then.'

A few days later.

"Ha."

Listening to the automated voice, Lee Hyun could only let out a sigh. Just in case, he played the recorded message one more time.

Nothing.

His lecture hadn't been posted to the enrollment system at all.

At the Hunter Academy, courses were usually opened within two days of registration. Yet three days had passed, the weekend was almost upon them, and Lee Hyun's still hadn't appeared.

He wondered if it had simply slipped through some administrative crack, and whether he ought to march down to the administrative office himself.

"Didn't I tell you?"

Someone approached from the side, clicked their tongue lightly, and settled into the chair beside him.

"You'd best stop provoking those students."

The voice. The footsteps. That distinctive accent of his. And even his breathing.

"Professor Kwon Moo-hyuk, from the other day, I take it."

"...How did you know?"

It was common knowledge that the blind, robbed of their sight, developed their other senses to extraordinary degrees. Kwon Moo-hyuk knew this as well as anyone—but they had met exactly once. They hadn't even exchanged that much conversation, and yet the man had identified him instantly. It was astonishing.

"We spoke the last time we met, Professor."

"Did we really talk that much?"

"I have a rather good memory. My senses are quite sharp as well."

Hearing that answer, Kwon Moo-hyuk found his friend's warning surfacing in his mind all over again.

"I'm only saying this because I'd hate to see it—don't push him around carelessly."

"That's a hunter who was appointed as a professor. A man who carried a Callsign."

After first meeting Lee Hyun, Kwon Moo-hyuk had checked his personnel file. Lee Hyun. Age twenty-seven. A hunter—and a blind one. The man was a full ten years his junior.

He'd wondered why someone so young was already a full professor, and apparently there was a reason. Armed with that information, he had dug through the hunter database next. The Hunter Association's homepage didn't give full details, but it offered a general picture of any registered hunter.

'There was nothing.'

Most hunters joined the Association as a matter of course, thanks to its staggering catalogue of benefits. But Lee Hyun wasn't registered with it at all.

'A freelancer. Or... state-affiliated.'

Wondering if anything about him had leaked to the outside, Kwon Moo-hyuk had called his friend. He asked whether the man knew anything about the Callsign of the hunter who had, unbelievably, shown up as a professor.

"No idea. What do you take me for, some kind of national intelligence director? I heard it through the grapevine, that's all. ...Hey. Don't go telling me the info's fake, either. The part about him holding a Callsign is fact."

Not registered with the Hunter Association, yet appointed a professor at the National Hunter Academy. Claimed to hold a Callsign, yet beyond that single fact, nothing about him was known anywhere.

'I can't figure him out. Not the slightest bit.'

Kwon Moo-hyuk had decided the wisest course was simple cooperation.

"A few days ago at the main gate, you humiliated two male students—Seok Min-jae and Go Tae-seok. This was the handiwork of the one who leads their little group."

He would treat him simply as a colleague, without overthinking it.

"You said that leader is the son of the Hunter Association's president."

"That's right. And the only one of the president's children to be gifted with power, no less. He enrolled in the Hunter Academy and pulls quite respectable grades."

"Judging by the students he keeps around him, I'd have taken them for delinquents. Apparently that's not quite the case?"

"The friends who trail after him, perhaps. But the man himself manages everything with thorough precision, wouldn't you say?"

Nam Tae-yoon.

Calling the face and name of that one male student to mind, Kwon Moo-hyuk clicked his tongue again.

"Nam Tae-yoon knows exactly what his weapon is and exactly how to swing it for maximum effect. He knows that about people, too—this is proof. He pulled strings to delay your course listing, Professor Lee Hyun."

If it was the Nam Tae-yoon he knew, the boy wouldn't block the lecture outright to the very end. He was too clever for that—he understood precisely when to press and when to cut his losses, and he had enough caution to avoid sticking his neck out so far that the damage circled back to him.

"It should appear in the enrollment listings once the weekend passes."

"So it's nearly over, then."

"He wants to make you anxious, Professor. The message is: know exactly who it is you've touched."

"That student wields far too much power."

"It's not that he's a student. It's the connections standing behind him."

This was exactly why Kwon Moo-hyuk had advised Lee Hyun to let it go and quit while he was ahead. There was no question that Seok Min-jae and Go Tae-seok had overstepped, swaggering around and calling him an intruder. It was even possible Nam Tae-yoon would have accepted the fault and stayed out of it entirely.

The problem was that Lee Hyun had disgraced them in front of every watching student.

'Now what will this young professor do?'

An ordinary person would panic, unable to hide their alarm, crying that this was a disaster. Even someone with an iron core would wear a strained expression at the prospect of facing that kind of political machinery.

"Interesting."

Lee Hyun swept aside every one of Kwon Moo-hyuk's predictions.

"Guiding a wayward student back onto the path—isn't that the true duty of an educator?"

"..."

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

Once again, Kwon Moo-hyuk became certain: this man, too, had something enormous standing behind him.

"...Damn it."

Staring at the screen, Seok Min-jae spat out a curse.

Lee Hyun.

That man. The professor who had humiliated them in front of the whole student body just last week!

"Both of you will enroll in my lecture. If your names are missing on the first day of class, then we will cease to be professor and student, and become something else entirely."

Even now, just recalling that moment made his knees go weak. There had been no way that pressure came from a blind man.

Once, thanks to Nam Tae-yoon, he'd met an S-Rank hunter—and it had been exactly like this. The same species of human, and yet a pressure so crushing he'd scarcely dared to breathe.

"Do I make myself clear?"

Tap, tap.

"Gwaaah!"

Every time that cane's sound rose in his memory, his mind and body shuddered together.

"What are you doing?"

The door swung open and Go Tae-seok walked in, snickering. Seok Min-jae, not bothering to explain the situation, simply pointed at the screen.

"What? What is it?"

"That professor."

"..."

"Enrollment just went up."

The grin froze solid on Go Tae-seok's face as the memory of Lee Hyun came flooding back. Just like Seok Min-jae, he had taken that aura head-on. Without a single word of exaggeration, it had felt like standing face-to-face with a monster.

"...What do we do?"

"Do about what? Why would we take that lecture?"

"Did you forget what he said? If our names aren't there on the first day, he'll stop seeing us as professor and students?!"

"Screw that! It's just a threat! We're fine! Nam Tae-yoon said he'd handle everything, didn't he?"

The man was, after all, the son of the Hunter Association's president. Squeezing a single professor was no trouble at all. Blocking the enrollment listing had been nothing more than a taste—a warning shot.

"And if it really comes to it, we've got our own connections to burn. What's there to be scared of?"

"You can still say that after seeing that crippled professor...?"

"Relax. He's already put us through it ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠once, so he knows messing with us again would be a pain in his ass."

Talking themselves into believing it was nothing, the two boys headed out of the dormitory.

"Still, what kind of professor is twenty-seven? He's barely older than us."

"Nothing on him comes up in the Association database either. What the hell is with this guy."

Any ordinary person would have called it impossible, or suspicious. But these two lived on a higher plane than most, and only one possibility occurred to them.

'Is he in the same department as us?''This professor must have one hell of a powerful backer too.'

If the guess was right, only one question remained: whose backing would prove stronger.

Still debating whether or not to take the lecture, they stepped into the student union building. Being good Koreans, their first instinct was to top up on caffeine—

Tap, tap.

The moment they pushed open the café door, the sound was carved into their ears.

That goddamn cane.

"Student Seok Min-jae. Student Go Tae-seok."

The blind professor.

Lee Hyun was seated, pointing directly at the table across from him.

"Sit."

"Um..."

"I was thinking of buying coffee for the students who'll be sharing my lecture."

Sit while I'm asking nicely, or I'll make sure you can't so much as walk.

Delinquents they might be, but they were still awakened—thanks to their abilities, their instincts were sharp. Both boys felt the threat to their lives and dropped into their seats immediately.

"As I said before. I want us in the same lecture hall."

"Yes, Professor."

"That is what you told us."

"I trust you've already enrolled, then."

If you haven't, you're welcome to do it right here, in front of me.

Neither of them had any difficulty recognizing that the last words were the real point.

"Um, Professor. We looked into it, and your course is a bit... not really our thing, you know?"

"Right, right. It's just not a lecture that grabs us, that's all."

"Is that so?"

Lee Hyun smiled.

Go Tae-seok and Seok Min-jae smiled along with him.

"Hahaha."

"Hahaha!"

"Ha... ha..."

Then, ever so slightly, Lee Hyun's closed eyes cracked open.

The man across from them was blind. He couldn't properly see a single object in front of him.

"..."

"..."

And yet both of them were seized by the feeling that those eyes were boring straight through them—down ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to the marrow of their souls.

"The first lecture is this Wednesday."

Cross me, and you'll regret it.

That was exactly how the two boys heard it.

"Enroll... we can do it now, right?"

Reading the message, Nam Tae-yoon let out a genuine scoff.

"What a hilarious guy."

With the barest flick of his connections, he had shoved the enrollment date back. Nothing more than a basic flex—the message being that this was nothing to him. The meaning: don't go stirring up trouble you can't handle, and just do your job, Professor.

'Any professor with a working brain takes the hint at this point and backs off.'

But according to Go Tae-seok and Seok Min-jae, the man hadn't backed down at all. He had made them confirm their enrollment on the spot, insisting they show up to his lecture no matter what.

'Maybe it's because he's so young, but he's got real nerve.'

He had already finished his investigation into this Professor Lee Hyun. Unregistered with the Hunter Association, rumored to hold a Callsign, and no information on any of it.

"Looks like he started his hunter career abroad, worked for one of their corporations, then came home after an injury. No connections here apparently, yet he landed a professorship somehow. That's everything we've got, Tae-yoon."

Recalling the words of the Association president's secretary, who handled his loose ends, Nam Tae-yoon stretched lazily. Fine, the man might have backers of his own—but on this side stood power that wasn't even worth comparing.

"Time to teach him the difference in our levels."

An amateur, at this point, would apply more pressure and try to crush the professor outright. But Nam Tae-yoon had chosen an entirely different method.

Nam Tae-yoon knew exactly how to bring down people like this. He would walk into the lecture himself and demolish the professor's authority from the inside out.

He was a student, yes—but even licensed hunters acknowledged Nam Tae-yoon's skill. A blind hunter? He was certain he could grind the man underfoot without breaking a sweat.