First Impressions
I supposed I ought to start with an introduction.
I cleared my throat lightly, drawing every pair of eyes in the room to me.
"Greetings. As of this day, I shall be the instructor in charge of Class A. I am Cheon Hae-beom. I look forward to working with you."
It was only a light first greeting, yet the students were already wound tight with tension.
Young as they were, they were still superhumans who had awakened their abilities—and yet before me they were no different from dogs before a tiger.
Age really couldn't be faked, after all.
A snort of laughter slipped out of me.
Hmm… what kind of instructor should I play…
First impressions mattered most, didn't they?
What style of instructor should I present here if I wanted word to get around that I'd done well…
Well… judging by the students' reactions, only one image came to mind.
A heavy, serious instructor.
I was Cheon Hae-beom, the strongest being in this world—I needed the charisma to match.
Heavy. Serious.
I could just imitate one of those notoriously strict teachers from my school days.
I cleared my throat and continued.
"There is no reply. Are you incapable of speech, or is this some silent show of defiance against me?"
An earthquake went off behind the students' pupils.
A beat later, the ones who'd recovered their wits roared out as one.
"Please take care of us!"
Seemed I'd succeeded.
In the eyes looking up at me, awe, fear, respect, and curiosity all lived side by side.
The meaning behind each gaze was different, but from a teacher's standpoint, that was a promising start.
"Do not be so frightened. I have not the slightest intention of devouring you. However."
I decided to push one step further.
"Should you fail to show me proper respect and commit some discourtesy… that would be another matter entirely."
That was a warning aimed at Cha Hyun-woo as well.
Talking back to instructors was routine for that boy.
"Carve this deep into your minds. This place is no nursery that will indulge your tantrums, and I am no mere nursemaid—I am your instructor."
I watched Cha Hyun-woo's reaction as I spoke.
His Adam's apple bobbed.
The other students were no better—if anything, they looked worse.
"The relationship between you and me is a clear master-and-disciple bond. Between us there is a line that must never be crossed, and a courtesy that must always be observed. Do you understand?"
"Yes, sir!"
That ought to be enough for them to get the message.
I put on a faint, satisfied smile.
"Good. Then before we begin the lesson proper, I shall take attendance. Geum Jae-hyeon."
"Yes, sir!"
"Kim Su-jeong."
"Yes!"
"Im Na-eun."
"Yeees!"
It was proceeding smoothly enough.
"Na Eun-sol."
"…"
"Na Eun-sol. Answer."
I called her twice in a row, and still there was no reply.
The students' murmuring reached me unfiltered.
Even so, Na Eun-sol held her silence.
"Hoo…"
Was she really sulking over that one incident last time?
Even for a kid, she ought to be able to separate public and private matters better than this. Strange.
"Na Eun-sol."
"…"
"Na Eun-sol."
Silence again.
Even her way of talking back was ridiculously childish.
"Um… Instructor?"
After several more calls, another student, worn down by the atmosphere, opened his mouth.
I cut him off at once.
"You are not Na Eun-sol. Be silent."
I had a fair idea of what she meant by digging her heels in like this.
A challenge to my authority as an instructor, no doubt.
I was about to call her name once more.
That was when it happened.
"Why… why are you doing this?!"
Na Eun-sol's voice burst out, thick with emotion.
She was so indignant she even shoved her chair back and stood up.
Except the one who ought to be angry was me—so why was she the one getting snippy?
"Answer me, Na Eun-sol."
"I… I already answered five times!"
"…?"
What kind of nonsense was that?
I frowned and looked at her, and the other students rushed to her defense.
"I-Instructor, she's right. She kept answering every time you called her name."
"Her voice was just too quiet. You probably couldn't hear her."
Ah.
So that was it.
Na Eun-sol looked ready to burst into tears at any second.
Only then did her reaction make sense.
"Why are you only picking on me?! Did I do something that wrong? I even apologized—"
She cut herself off mid-sentence with a startled look, as if she'd just realized something.
Right. She hadn't apologized.
"Still… I really did answer…"
Na Eun-sol glared at me without another word.
I understood that resentful look of hers—but I was just as wronged.
What am I supposed to do if I genuinely didn't hear her…
And if I apologized and backed down here, the image I'd built up so carefully would crumble.
I had no choice but to brazen it out.
"You speak well enough when you want to."
"Excuse me?"
"From now on, answer with that same volume. If you mean to be a hero, then carry yourself like one. That timid attitude is unsightly."
"…"
"If you understand, sit down. Consider this a warning."
"…Yes."
Sorry about that.
I offered her a silent apology in my heart and made a resolution.
If she ever needed help, I would step in and lend her my strength without hesitation.
"I will continue the roll. Lee Ha-na."
"Yes."
"Lee Yeon-su."
"Yes!"
"Shin Na-yul."
This name, along with Na Eun-sol's, was one I was rather glad to hear.
I turned my head toward the owner of that name.
"…"
As if completely indifferent to my mood, Shin Na-yul was currently slumped over her desk, fast asleep.
Of course, I knew better. She wasn't actually sleeping.
Nor was it some act of defiance.
Pretending to sleep so she can claim she didn't hear me.
She was faking sleep because she was embarrassed about having no friends.
Such a Shin Na-yul thing to do.
Sympathy welled up, and I wanted to offer her some word of comfort.
But approaching her too readily from the very first meeting would only get me labeled a weirdo…
I desperately held down the pity that was about to burst and called her name again.
"I will call you one more time. Shin Na-yul."
"…! Yes! Yes!"
"Answer the first time I call you."
"Ah, um… I'm sorry… I was asleep, so I didn't hear…"
Had she been pretending to sleep and then actually dozed off without realizing it?
That was absurd in its own way.
"I'm sorry……"
Shin Na-yul lowered her face and avoided my eyes.
I simply nodded without further comment.
"It's fine. See that it does not happen again."
"Yeees…"
Unlike Na Eun-sol, this one was sharp.
Now only one person of particular note remained.
"Han Cho-ah."
This was one student I absolutely could not afford to get on the wrong side of.
In pure combat power alone, Han Cho-ah was greater than the instructors themselves.
In short, she was a full-blown overpowered heroine.
"Han Cho-ah isn't in the classroom."
"What?"
"She's not here."
"Where did she go?"
"Cho-ah headed for the faculty lounge earlier."
Ah, right.
In the early chapters, Han Cho-ah skipping class was a regular occurrence.
Of course, it wasn't simply that she couldn't be bothered to show her face.
Right now she was nursing a deep wound of the heart.
And the source of that wound was—
The empty place her master left behind.
A man had saved her from a monster and taken her as his disciple when she had nowhere else to go—though that was an unconfirmed plot thread, so the full details were unknown.
In any case, that master had abandoned her without a word.
Han Cho-ah had felt a profound sense of betrayal, and to forget the emptiness, she had come to rely on drugs and a wine called Hwanmongju.
So at this point in time, Han Cho-ah was extremely volatile. Best not to touch her.
No need for me to step in. Cha Hyun-woo will handle it just fine.
That was what the protagonist was for.
And she was the heroine meant to end up with him.
All I had to do was give them a little push from behind.
The first-year shared physical training room.
Class A of the first year was currently holding a stat measurement lesson there.
Since they measured one person at a time, the students had free time until their turn came up.
"Number one, Im Na-eun."
"Yes."
Na Eun-sol's group had gathered in a spot that looked comfortable to sit.
Normally Na Eun-sol would have been leading the chatter, but right now she looked unusually dejected.
"Ahem."
Lee Jae-ho, the biggest of the bunch, eyed the mood carefully before clearing his throat.
Then Lee Ha-na glanced once at Cheon Hae-beom and turned to Na Eun-sol.
"Eun-sol."
"What."
"Did something happen between you and that instructor?"
"…No."
"Hmm… Really? But the way he treats you is, how do I put it… a little."
"Nothing happened."
"Huh? Oh, okay."
There was a chill in the reply that came back.
Lee Ha-na guessed as much.
Something had happened.
"……"
For a while, only soundless silence hung around them.
Uncomfortable with the atmosphere, Lee Jae-ho threw out a topic.
"Hey, about that instructor, though."
"Yeah?"
"You think the rumors are true?"
"What rumors?"
"You know. The ones saying he's a has-been."
Cheon Hae-beom—master of the S-class hero Ma Seong-yong, and connected to other heavyweight heroes as well.
A man with no shortage of talk and trouble surrounding him.
Lee Ha-na chimed in with Lee Jae-ho.
"Honestly, it's not a completely baseless rumor. He spent over ten years in seclusion in the mountains, right? In that much time even mountains and rivers change—how much more a superhuman?"
While others had spent those ten years on battlefields where life and death came and went, Cheon Hae-beom had shut himself away in peaceful mountains.
It was hard not to make the comparison.
"My dad said that instructor was seriously incredible back then."
"Back then, sure. Superhumans these days are so standardized upward that Instructor Cheon Hae-beom probably wouldn't even make the cut."
"Come on, he was still a hero who dominated an entire generation."
"Rumors are always exaggerated~"
They were chattering away without pause when Na Eun-sol suddenly cut in between them.
"Hey."
Na Eun-sol found the present situation unpleasant.
They were taking pure speculation with no solid basis and talking about it among themselves as if it were fact.
If it had stopped there, she would have just listened.
But using those baseless claims to insult the man himself was something she could not stand to watch.
She knew there were fools everywhere who got swept up in rumors—but the fact that those fools were her own friends left a fresh sour taste in her mouth.
"Don't go spouting off about things you don't even know."
"Huh?"
"Have you checked for yourselves? No, you haven't."
"W-well, yeah…"
Na Eun-sol knew because she had heard it from her father.
How great that instructor was, and what a devoted man he had been.
So the impression Na Eun-sol held of Cheon Hae-beom could only be a positive one.
But—
He only hates me.
Because of that coffee incident last time, Cheon Hae-beom did not look kindly on her.
He had openly snubbed her in the classroom just now, so it was a settled fact that he was hostile toward her.
Of course, she had committed a wrong, so she had no right to complain.
"Eun-sol, are you sure nothing's going on with the instructor?"
"……What are you talking about. There's nothing."