049. Support (Illustration Added!)
049. Support (Illustration Added!)
Good morning— ba-ba-ba bam-bam—♬
I fumbled a hand above my head and killed the phone alarm.
"Ugh.... I keep telling myself I'm gonna change this shitty ringtone, and I keep forgetting...."
I hauled myself out of bed and stretched.
I turned toward the window. The sun hadn't risen yet, so it was still dark out.
Today I had to get up a little earlier than usual.
That was because today was the day for Live Gate Training.
Velvet Academy cadets spend one full day a week on gate clearing.
The day varied depending on your schedule, but if you were an Academy cadet, it was training you had to do once a week, no exceptions.
I finished getting ready and stepped out of the dorm.
"Ah, Gukbap must be waiting."
It would've been nice if Kang Do-hee or Shin Se-hee could've joined, but going by the schedule, Gukbap was the only one whose Live Gate Training day lined up with mine.
It'd been a while since we had a schedule together.
We'd been apart so much lately, we hadn't been able to do anything together. Anticipation filled my chest.
When I stepped outside the Hall of Valor dorm, Gukbap was standing at the entrance with her arms crossed and her eyebrows making a V.
She'd apparently been waiting a good while—there was a drawing at her feet, done with her shoe.
A bizarre-looking man's face.
So she can't draw.
I thought to myself as I walked up to Lee Yu-ri.
She glared at me.
"You're late."
"You're just early. And you know men take forever to get ready, right?"
I said it with a smirk.
"...You only pull the man card when it suits you, huh?"
Lee Yu-ri said in a sulky voice.
"If you're jealous, why don't you get born a man next time?"
"What are you even saying? Shut up and let's go. We're gonna be tardy if we don't leave now."
Lee Yu-ri strode ahead, walking a little briskly.
"Walking together like this... reminds me of old times. Right? Back when we cleared gates together."
I said, matching her pace beside her.
"...That was, like, not that long ago, you know?"
"Gate training's done by squads, right?"
"Yeah. It's called training, but we're going into an actual gate. Gotta form a party."
"Hmm. Wonder who we'll end up in a squad with...."
At that, she looked over at me with an expectant face.
"If I'm not mistaken, seems like I know a pretty decent Tank around here somewhere...."
I said it with a sidelong glance, feeling mischievous.
"I hear she's pretty damn finicky, though. Think she'd take us?"
"Sh-she'd take you...! And she's not finicky!"
Lee Yu-ri answered, stumbling over her words just a little.
"Huh? Why are you answering for her?"
I gave her a quizzical look and asked back.
"...."
With that, Lee Yu-ri bit her lip and quickened her pace.
I chased after her right away.
"Come on, walk with me. It was a joke. A joke."
"...Hey."
"We haven't done anything together since Camela Forest anyway. Even our party activities only happen on weekends. I've been wanting to be in the same squad as you too."
At that, Gukbap's cheek twitched slightly. But then her face stiffened right back up.
Her mood had already lifted—but it looked like giving in too quickly would hurt her pride.
"Wh-who said I'd do it...?"
"Please, can't you do it just this once? Our party's one-and-only, rock-solid, as-reliable-as-a-hot-meal Tank? Without you, I'm screwed!"
I addressed her with utter deference.
At that, she puffed out her chest as if she had no choice and cleared her throat.
"Ahem—! F-fine! Just this once!"
Seriously, she's way too easy.
I let out a chuckle.
* * *
We made our way to the Central Plaza.
There were already around a hundred people gathered.
Mixed in among them were not just the newly admitted freshmen but also the occasional upperclassman.
Upperclassmen I'd had no occasion to run into before because our dorms were separate.
Telling them apart from the freshmen was easy.
"Hey, where's Fighting Dog and Cheonhwa?"
"Don't think their gate clearing day is today."
"Hah, shit. So we're screwed? Everyone else here is dead weight. Why the hell do we have to babysit a bunch of brats!?"
"We do this, they knock off penalty points. What choice do we have...."
The people with fire in their eyes, scrambling to see if there were any usable freshmen around... they were almost all upperclassmen.
Among those upperclassmen,
one person caught my eye.
While the other seniors were scurrying around searching,
a woman with green hair and a benevolent expression stood silently by herself, wearing a faint smile throughout.
At that moment,
the short-haired one who'd been bitching about why she had to babysit—the one who looked like she had a nasty temper—marched up to us.
"Hey. You."
She shoved past my shoulder and spoke to Lee Yu-ri.
"You're Lee Yu-ri?"
"Yes."
"I heard you were ranked first among the Tanks in Position Training this time?"
"Yes, that's right...?"
"Tch. Not like it matters—all you newbie brats are the same anyway...."
She looked Lee Yu-ri up and down with an overbearing attitude.
"We're picking squad members later. Come to me then."
"Uh, um...."
Lee Yu-ri hesitated, unable to flat-out refuse on the spot since the person in front of her was a senior she'd never met before.
"What's there to think about? You don't know who I am?"
"And you are...?"
"A-Rank Hunter. Kim Su-hyeon?"
At that, Lee Yu-ri's expression turned subtle.
Well, Lee Yu-ri isn't really all that interested in the hunter industry.
Even Shin Se-hee and Kang Do-hee, who were talked about everywhere—Lee Yu-ri had barely heard their names.
Seeing that Lee Yu-ri didn't seem to know her, the short-haired woman let out an exasperated sigh.
"Hah, they said newbie-newbie, so I guess you're a newbie who doesn't even know the hunter world? Look, when a senior tells you to come, just come."
My irritation surged at the way she kept talking so rudely to my party member.
"Excuse me."
When I interjected from the side, she frowned and turned her head.
"Huh? Now what are you. A man...?"
"Lee Yu-ri and I are planning to go to someone else."
I placed my hand on Lee Yu-ri's shoulder.
"What?"
The woman's eyes flared.
"We're going to that person over there."
I pointed with my finger at the green-haired senior who was beaming cheerfully.
"Hey, you're gonna squad up with that airhead?"
She burst out laughing in sheer disbelief.
"Don't bother. Guess you wouldn't know, since you're a man—actually, forget it. Hey, man-boy. I don't care whether you come or go, but what is she, your property or something?"
"Yes, she's my party member."
I answered, looking her straight in the eye.
"...What?"
At that, Lee Yu-ri turned her head and looked at me.
I tightened my grip on Lee Yu-ri's shoulder.
"And, that person seems like she'd be way better than you, sunbae."
"Why you little—"
Her pride apparently wounded, she scowled hard and raised a hand.
But—
tap─
"Is everyone here now?"
At Chairwoman Rina's appearance, the short-haired woman clicked her tongue and stalked off.
"Consider yourself lucky."
Sure, lucky. Clueless that Gukbap already had her shield readied.
Anyway.
I turned my head to the side and shifted my gaze to the tiny girl with purple twin-tails.
Oh, so Chairwoman Rina runs the Live Gate Training?
Made sense.
Training or not, this was ultimately real combat that even the freshmen took part in.
To guarantee the cadets' safety, it made sense for her to personally oversee this training.
"Good to see you, cadets. I trust you've all heard what kind of training this class is."
"Yes!"
The cadets nodded in reply.
"Live Gate Training is the very root of our Velvet Hunter Academy. Through this training, you may truly consider yourselves full-fledged cadets."
At Chairwoman Rina's words, the cadets straightened their backs with proud expressions.
Live Gate Training.
This was also one of the reasons Velvet Academy was recognized worldwide.
A system that sent cadets into gates to clear them on a regular basis.
When gates first erupted on Earth, some nations were actually driven to ruin—yet Korea was able to recover quickly thanks to its two-horse carriage: Velvet Hunter Academy and the Hunter Management Bureau.
Other countries adopted Velvet Academy's system, and academies sprang up like mushrooms after a rain,
but even then, none had shown results on par with Korea's.
Velvet Hunter Academy wasn't called the best academy in the world for nothing.
"At any rate, there's no need to waste time repeating stories everyone already knows. Let's begin without preamble. We'll form parties now—second-year cadets, step forward."
Twenty upperclassmen stepped forward and stood before us.
"Go up to the second-year cadets you wish to work with and state your role. The seniors will select appropriate combinations."
At that, murmuring swelled among the freshmen.
They'd belatedly realized the meaning behind the seniors' earlier behavior, running around with fire in their eyes.
And that senior who'd been rude to Lee Yu-ri a moment ago—
the rumor that she was famous among hunters must've been true, because the freshmen's line was the longest in front of her.
"Next."
The short-haired woman listened to the role of the freshman standing in line before her, then clicked her tongue as if they weren't even worth looking at.
"Next!"
"Tch, next—!"
"Is there not a single usable brat? Next!"
She kept irritably shouting "next" and filtering through the cadets.
Meanwhile, the green-haired woman I'd had my eye on from the start—
there was still no one standing in front of her.
"Gukbap."
"Huh?"
"Let's go over there."
I nodded toward the green-haired woman I'd been watching.
"But I've been meaning to ask... who is that senior? Someone you know?"
I took a moment to collect my thoughts at Lee Yu-ri's question, then opened my mouth.
"Well, she's quite the...."
"Quite the?"
"Extremely...."
"Extremely?"
"She's incredibly expensive."
"...Expensive?"
At those words, Lee Yu-ri's face stiffened.
I grinned and grabbed Lee Yu-ri's wrist, pulling her along.
"She'll click with you really well, too."
"I-I don't think so!?"
Lee Yu-ri got dragged along like a cow being led to the slaughterhouse.
