208. Master and Disciple Journey (1)
208. Master and Disciple Journey (1)
'......Is Ichika okay?'
I'd been heading to the infirmary in the middle of class, worried about Ichika collapsing from a desire-control issue.
I thought we'd resolved it with the usual head-pat she asks for now and then.
Apparently that wasn't enough.
'The kid barely shows any emotion, so how am I supposed to know how she's doing.......'
They say cats don't show when they're hurting, and Ichika was exactly like that.
Buzz—
That's when my pocket vibrated.
'Shin Se-hee?'
I tilted my head and answered the call.
"Uh, yeah? You want me to come for a minute? First, Ichika is——"
— Ah, I already checked on Ichika. Everything's fine for now.
"Oh, you did? Hmm, sounds urgent. All right."
At Shin Se-hee's frantic-sounding summons, I had no choice but to turn my steps away from the infirmary.
Utopia's hideout.
The moment I stepped inside, I saw Shin Se-hee seated at her desk, looking the same as ever.
Oblivious to my arrival, Shin Se-hee was lost in thought.
She seemed troubled, pressing a pen to her cheek with her lips pursed in a pout.
'Did something blow up?'
Probably not. With the mission board now open, there shouldn't be anything particularly busy at this point.
'Eh, whatever. It's not like the story's only gotten twisted once or twice so far.'
No harm in hearing her out first and judging after.
"Shin Se-hee."
"Ah, Jin Yu-ha. You're here?"
"Yeah, what's up?"
"A mission."
The word "mission" right off the bat caught me off guard.
"What? A mission? Weren't we supposed to take a break from missions and spend some time reorganizing?"
Shin Se-hee nodded in agreement.
"Mm, true. That's the case for Utopia as a whole."
"......Utopia as a whole?"
"Yes, Jin Yu-ha. A personal nomination request has come in for you."
A personal nomination request.
For big jobs you usually take requests at the party level, but
for smaller cases they sometimes single out one person with a nomination request.
'But a personal nomination request for me? I haven't applied for a rank upgrade at the Hunter Management Bureau, so my rank should be listed pretty low......?'
Maybe barely D-Rank.
Outside of Utopia, my only personal record was resolving "Camela Forest" with Lee Yu-ri
before we came to Velvet Hunter Academy.
If it were a request aimed at Kang Do-hee or Shin Se-hee, who'd already been famous as hunter prospects before enrolling, that'd be worth something. But with my low rank I wouldn't be getting any decent requests.
How do I put it.
My reputation itself is pretty high thanks to Utopia,
but my low rank means the scale of requests I can be entrusted with is small, so the rates don't match, I guess.
"......Uh, hmm. Well, a Personal Request. I mean, I'm grateful you thought well of me, but...... my rank is still super low, so I probably can't take on anything good?"
I was upfront about that part.
At that, Shin Se-hee laughed a soft "huh," as if she couldn't possibly have failed to consider it.
"Mm, how do I put it. It's a bit of an unusual request."
"......An unusual request?"
"Yes. Here. Could you look at this?"
Shin Se-hee held out a commission letter to me.
I took it and read it over.
────────────────
【 Nomination Request 】 ━ D-Rank Hunter Jin Yu-ha
Request Type ━ Undetermined
Request Details ━
I would like to see Jin Yu-ha resolve a request on his own, without help from other party members.
Any request at all is fine.
Please have Hunter Jin Yu-ha autonomously select a request
and carry it out over the course of 3 days.
However, please record all scenes on a personal camera during the execution of the request.
( An auto-tracking drone camera is enclosed. )
Request Completion Reward ━ 100 million
Request Duration ━ 3 days from the date of acceptance.
Requester ━ Nise
────────────────
'What the.......'
I couldn't hide my dumbfounded expression as I looked at the commission letter.
The box next to the letter was apparently the drone camera.
"An interesting request, isn't it? It's very simple. You just select a request you personally want to do, carry it out, and film it with a camera."
Shin Se-hee said this nonchalantly, as if she understood my reaction.
"In case you were worried about interference over the quality of the footage, I checked with the requester, and that won't be an issue. I have a separate confirmation for that, as well."
"......."
But my dumbfounded expression wasn't because of the unusual nature of the request.
This requester.
'niseh (Nise).'
I know who it is.
It's an anagram of the woman right in front of me.
Shin Se-hee (Shin Se-Hee).
In other words, it's another identity of hers.
A name she usually uses when she has to do something anonymously
or handle shady business behind the scenes.
I remembered it because Shin Se-hee's activities as Nise appeared fairly often in the game, too.
'......What on earth is she thinking?'
She wouldn't have planned this to trap me in something.
That's when it happened.
"Hmm. So. This. Time. It's. A. Personal. Nomination. Request."
A stiff, unbearably awkward voice abruptly cut in.
"M-Master......?"
It was Baek Seol-hee.
She leaned her head in slightly to scan the commission letter, then nodded.
"Hmm. It. Seems. There. Is. Someone. Who. Thinks. Highly. Of. My. Disciple's. Skill. Well. Done. Disciple."
She was never exactly the warmest speaker to begin with, but by now she sounded practically like a robot.
'......Her acting is godawful!'
I managed my expression with all my might.
"But. Disciple. Your. Hunter. Rank. Is. Low—"
"Even if Jin Yu-ha is allowed to choose because of his low rank, he still can't accept high-rank requests."
Apparently Shin Se-hee decided this wasn't going anywhere, and she cut off my master mid-sentence.
"However, for our academy cadets, if they are accompanied by one instructor, they can freely select requests under the instructor's authority."
Master shot Shin Se-hee a glare, as if to ask why she was interrupting.
"That. Being. The. Case. I. Am. Free. For. The. Time. Being."
Frankly, even from the sidelines it seemed like Master would be better off just not speaking.
'I mean, I'm willing to play along, but you've got to be a special kind of bad at acting.......'
It was a moment that made me realize even someone as near-perfect as Master had her shortcomings.
In any case, I grasped Shin Se-hee's intention.
'Ah, so what she's saying is: if I have anything I personally want to take care of, this is my chance to go do it legally, right?'
And the fact that she tacked Master onto it definitely felt like consideration.
Since Utopia needed to reorganize for a while anyway,
the meaning was clear: if there were places too tough to take the party members into, or risky requests, handle them now while you've got the chance!
'Oh, then that's a total jackpot! It's Master, after all!'
Master is so strong she makes your typical overpowered cheat characters look tame.
With her along, I could handle things I wouldn't even dream of attempting under the current circumstances.
I flashed a grin at Shin Se-hee.
This kind of surprise gift was always welcome.
"Thanks. For taking a request like this for my sake."
I said it even knowing she was the requester.
"Yes, Jin Yu-ha. Please go with a light heart and take it easy."
"Yeah, will do."
* * *
Like that, Baek Seol-hee and Jin Yu-ha departed from Utopia's hideout.
"Hoo......."
Shin Se-hee let out a heavy sigh.
"Truthfully, I didn't want to send those two off......."
But she'd had no choice.
The timing was what it was.
The moment when Sofia's discontent with Ichika was erupting.
And on top of that, Instructor Baek Seol-hee's threat—or whatever you'd call it.
'......That instructor, was she always that shameless? I'm sure she wasn't like that when I first met her.'
Shin Se-hee recalled Baek Seol-hee's terrifying visit the other day and let out a humorless laugh.
Waking up in the dead of night to find some woman staring down at you with icy eyes—she'd been so startled.
The person who'd breached every layer of Chairwoman Rina's ironclad security was fortunately no criminal but Baek Seol-hee.
— You said if I did that, my disciple's affection would rise, so I played the instructor role that was never in my stars. So how is it that there is no change?
'No. You are an instructor in the first place.'
And the way she delivered it was a sight to behold.
— Therefore, think of another method. The calculations still do not add up.
And she had a point.
Thanks to Baek Seol-hee, the Utopia Party's status had been able to soar even higher.
Without her special training, they probably
wouldn't have been able to produce such conspicuous results on the U.S. Monster Subjugation Request this time.
So, seeing as there was also a need to sort things out internally among the party members,
she'd had no choice but to devise a little scheme to appease Baek Seol-hee's dissatisfaction.
And that was,
Jin Yu-ha's personal nomination request, with Baek Seol-hee accompanying him.
To make that work, Shin Se-hee had even used her other identity.
'Well, I did ask them to film every scene, so even if the two of them are alone they won't be able to do anything untoward.......'
Still, she's an instructor. She wouldn't actually do that to a cadet, would she.
At any rate.
Jin Yu-ha was now away from the academy for a while.
"Now then. Shall we begin the internal reorganization?"
As if foretelling the bloodbath to come,
a chilly smile settled on Shin Se-hee's lips.