Three Strikes and It's Your Head
The classroom I returned to for the first time in ages was, as ever, abuzz with pointless chatter.
"Hey, what'd you even do over the break?"
"Me? Just did some ability training, y'know."
"What? You played around?"
"Look at this punk. He's a lost cause..."
Watching displays like that, I was reminded all over again that these kids were closer to high schoolers than hunters.
And so, fourth period rolled around. After killing just enough time with the bone-dry opening ceremony, class time had finally come. It was the first day of the term — who the hell actually holds class? I'd thought the same thing, but the dogshit academic calendar had shoved me behind that lectern regardless.
"Alright, kids. Class is really starting now, so settle down."
"Aw, come on — who holds actual class on the first day back?!"
"I said the same thing, but apparently we do. Feel free to curse out the principal on my behalf."
"Curse him out with us, sir!!"
"Can't do that, you rascals. You'd get off scot-free — me, I'd lose my neck. Y'hear?"
"But sir, there's a hole in your hand?!"
"Ah, this? Got absolutely screwed catching a mosquito, that's all. You kids watch out for 'em too."
It really was the most trivial small talk, but in this country, even a fist-sized mosquito counted among the monsters. Barely E-Rank, mind you — but actually run into one and it's a royal pain in the ass~
"Sniff... O venerable Teacher Gang Gam-chan! We shall never forget the grace you bestowed upon us, leaving behind your strategies for slaying those mosquito bastards...!!"
"Alright then — first, let's review what we covered before and knock the rust off your senses. Honestly, pushing ahead with new material sounds like a pain anyway. Right?"
"Yes!!"
"Haha. An honest bunch of punks."
I felt as if my students and I were, for once, of one mind and one heart. Well — when even the man who had to run the class couldn't be bothered, the kids could hardly be blamed.
Of course, my reluctance came from a reason somewhat different from theirs. The post-break slump was undeniably real, but the root cause ran deeper. The hole in my left hand still throbbed. It hurt like hell, though if I'd truly wanted it treated, I could have patched it up on the spot — I had a few potions stashed away.
The problem was that unless I kept myself reined in like this, even I couldn't predict what I might do next. Forcing myself to look away from the gaze pressing in from outside the window, I flexed my palm open and shut.
Fortunately, I had prepared a lesson. Or, more precisely, this was the only lesson I could have prepared right now.
"Now then — today, let's test how you'd break free of an illusion laid down by a monster. Say, like a Dream Demon."
"Didn't you tell us before that it's hard to use Charm in the middle of combat?"
"True, but there are creatures that make a habit of casting Charm before a fight even begins. Say, like a Dream Demon."
"The key is realizing first that you were caught in an illusion. You want to start from whatever feels off in your senses."
"Right. But a higher-tier monster — or one specialized in Charm — can weave an illusion with no trace of wrongness at all. Say, like a Dream Demon."
"...Sir, did you happen to run into a Dream Demon?"
"Nope?"
I said no, but inwardly I flinched. Fuck — how did they figure it out?! These kids really did have sharp eyes.
I had, in fact, brought up Dream Demons with them, but at this rate, maybe I'd never needed to worry in the first place. Or maybe quite the opposite.
Could it be because of that woman? I pictured the shameless female who'd been nosing around the school grounds of late. And so today I'd ended up droning on and on about Dream Demon countermeasures while Jihee shot me uneasy looks the whole time.
Setting aside the self-loathing of having burned nearly an entire hour on fluff, lunchtime arrived right on schedule. As it happened, today's meal had to be a solitary one — nothing more or less than the need to report the Namhae Branch incident to Choi Seungjun. I'd taken my leave under the pretext of a commission, after all, so I was obliged to submit documents proving the commission had been carried out.
Not that the proof itself was difficult — the Namhae Branch had personally dismembered and shipped over Yuseongsin's head, after all. By principle, monster materials procured in the course of a commission belonged, for the most part, to the hunter in charge. Yuseongsin's head was no exception.
The problem was that I couldn't stand the things to begin with. No — they plain disgusted me. I did keep a minimal stock on hand in case it ever proved useful for rescuing civilians and the like, but that was the extent of it. At S-Rank anyway, materials stopped being the sort of thing you could put to practical use.
So I'd simply left the disposal to the Namhae Branch. For me it was pure liquidation, but apparently the branch had taken it as an act of consideration toward them. Well, a kindness is a kindness.
For me it was merely a question of taste; for the branch, it wasn't something they could come out and say. Either way, unfortunate circumstances aside, the disgrace the Namhae Branch had displayed in this incident was far beyond anything forgivable. Their adversary was a monster capable of snuffing out an entire nation single-handedly. Even granting that, a whole branch falling intact was not something to be tolerated. Whatever the gap in power, heads had to roll one way or another.
And in that climate, what if it came out that they'd come into possession of the materials of the S-Rank monster who'd masterminded the whole affair? Hmm — even I could see how that might read as them doing us a favor. Materials I couldn't have used anyway, handed over merely to be converted into cash — and the transaction itself counted toward their performance record. The Association's structure truly was a marvel.
"Do you have a moment, sir?"
Ah, for fuck's sake!!
"...Oh? Is that a no?"
So there I was, mulling over the fox head I'd handed off to Choi Seungjun along with all the requisite explanations, when that voice piped up from right beside me. A café. Seoa and the rest of the teachers had finished their meals ahead of me, so I'd stepped off campus to grab a bite. Sandwich in one hand, coffee in the other — I felt like a New Yorker at entirely the wrong time and place.
To me, the Dream Demon's voice, materializing out of nowhere, was no different from the upper half of a fly bobbing up out of a meal I'd been enjoying. In other words: fucking revolting.
"No — fuck. Forget 'a moment.' Didn't I already ask you, politely, to get lost?"
"Oh? Was that a request?"
"You little punk — ask anyone alive and they'd call that a request."
Against the Dream Demon's puzzlingly innocent protest, I could answer with total conviction. A Dream Demon who had claimed the seat across from me without once seeking proper permission. In other words — Jihee's mother, the woman I'd crossed paths with that very morning.
I'd heard her name, sure. But actually committing it to memory somehow felt unpleasant, so I'd elected to forget it on the spot. Looked at that way, you could appreciate just how grave a discourtesy Tiamat had committed against me, going and memorizing her name under the pretense of being a goddess. Fuck — polluting my brain with a monster's personal information. How does anything get more terrible than this.
...To be perfectly honest, there wasn't all that much I actually knew about Jihee's mother. Well, that much went without saying. Jihee had enrolled in disguise as an ordinary hunter, borrowing the power of her clan. There was no way her student records would have noted that her mother was a Dream Demon. Besides, for all anyone knew, it might have been the father who was the Dream Demon.
Even so, I'd judged the woman before me to be Jihee's mother for exactly two reasons. One, she looked like Jihee. Two, her face resembled the Dream Demon Jihee had once summoned forth in the training hall. Or rather — her face was simply similar to Jihee's. Frankly, she looked the way I imagined Jihee would once she was fully grown. A nose bridge carved clean and high. Brows that trembled toward melancholy at the smallest emotion. Unlike the elegance Tiamat claimed for herself as a goddess, there was something faintly decadent about her — though that was just a matter of species.
Either way, objectively speaking, you could call it a pretty face. The only catch being that to me, she looked like a scowling crustacean.
Which was why there was exactly one reason I bothered to keep the Dream Demon in front of me alive: she had come to me wearing the title of Jihee's mother. The problem was—
fuck, hadn't she come crawling back for another of her shitty favors?
"...Is wanting to see one's daughter really so strange?"
"It's not the favor that's shit. It's you."
"Of course, I'm well aware of how you regard me, but..."
Oh, and what exactly is it you know~? That was how badly I wanted to bite back. Fuck — forget favors, whatever those were; why was she telling me any of this?
I want to see Jihee. That was what she'd said to me. My own fault, really, for carelessly dropping the words "Jihee's mother" out loud. She must have worked out that I was her homeroom teacher. And from that moment on, the begging had come in a downpour — please, just once, let me see her, and on and on.
Naturally, all I could do was swat it away and tell her to quit spouting nonsense. The reason? "Because it's fucking annoying." Whatever pitiful circumstances she might have had were none of my business. She rubbed me the wrong way, so: no. If she hadn't been a student's parent, I'd have cut her into pieces then and there. The situation already demanded every last gram of my patience, and now she wanted more on top? I'd rather die.
And when I said as much, she'd latched on and started unspooling her sob story, thread by thread. In the end, convinced I'd genuinely kill her if it dragged on any longer, I'd grudgingly granted permission.
Right. The owner of the gaze I'd been ignoring all day under the label of "class observation" had been her all along. Well, that much I could let slide, since I was the one teaching the class. There was a limit, though — no way I could solve her family problems for her. Which is to say: if it's truly a private matter, then request a private meeting like everyone else!!
Seriously pissed me off, honestly. Not that "regard" had ever been in question — I still wanted to kill her even now. Jihee's mother or no, the bottom line was that she was a monster. Reverse discrimination against half-bloods or whatever the discourse was — I knew nothing about any of it. Annoying was annoying.
What was more— the whole thing stank~ Why, of all people, had she come to me? That remained entirely up in the air. Well, I had a rough idea.
Just look at how I'd first set eyes on her. The customized training in the training hall — in other words, I had appeared before her as the person Jihee dreaded most. And against her illusions, Jihee had shown violence so extreme it bordered on alarming. Had the target been real instead of an illusion, she'd have killed her outright. Whatever way you sliced it, that was too much for mere friction between a runaway daughter and a greenhorn mother. In short, this went well beyond a simple case of a child running away from home. Not that I knew the fine details.
And how exactly would I~? It wasn't the kind of thing you could ask idly, just to pass the time. Which was presumably why she'd come to me. Hoping her daughter's homeroom teacher would play go-between. Something along those lines.
Toward what end? An apology? A reconciliation? Who knew — I didn't know that much either, and honestly I didn't much care. It wasn't as if I absolutely needed to know. And even if she told me, what exactly was I supposed to do about it? It wasn't as if I had any standing to order Jihee around on her behalf, either. This was no petty squabble. What era does she think this is, leaning on a homeroom teacher's authority~?
"If you want a meeting arranged, then at least coordinate it with Jihee first."
"I'd love to — but you spent today's class lecturing about Dream Demon countermeasures again!!"
"Ah, fuck. Quit pouring mana into those eyes of yours — before I pop them."
"Ah — sorry."
"And now you want me to reshuffle my class schedule for your personal circumstances? No. Why on earth would I?"
"Uuu..."
There was no "uuu" about it. Cut the crap. Admittedly, the reason I'd ended up teaching Dream Demon lessons I'd never signed up for was precisely the woman in front of me — but that was that, and this was this. More to the point, I was honestly pissed. Take right now, for instance. Mana gathering at the corners of her eyes. A bitch trying to slip a Charm over me to get her way — what part of that deserved a personally arranged meeting?
I was already straining just to hold back the urge to hack her apart on the fact of her being a monster alone. Bluntly put, if she weren't Jihee's mother, I'd have ground her into Dream Demon paste by now. And in that state, she had the gall to play the mother? Forget guardianship — did she even realize she was still breathing thanks to Jihee?
"Probably not." That was the only conclusion available. Evidence? My own prejudice. But weren't Dream Demons all like that? I mean, outside of seduction, didn't they all seem like blockheads? "Jihee, I am not talking about you!!" Offering my student a silent apology, I let out a small sigh — because the Dream Demon before me showed not the slightest sign of giving up.
"I'll come again."
"You know the three-strike rule, right? Next visit, I take your limbs. The one after, your head."
"...What on earth do you take me for?"
"I don't take you for anything at all."
"Liar."
"Dead serious."
It was all lies, of course. There was hardly anything else I could have taken her for. If Jihee had so much as said she didn't care, I'd have been punting that head around like a football by now. A mother with no idea just how devoted her daughter was.
Shaking her head side to side, the Dream Demon drifted away, deflated. Watching her retreating back, I heaved a long "kaah" of genuine admiration.
Your temper has seriously mellowed, Park Woochan! Never thought I'd live to see the day I go around sparing monsters. If this had been back in my active days, huh? Student's parent or not, huh? I'd have just gone — wham — huh?
Hoo. So this is what they call "growing old" — no wonder my joints ached whenever it rained. Snickering, I let the joke linger at the corner of my mouth.
Well, regardless. Judging by the state of her, the odds were ten to one she'd come back. Let's see now. "Maybe I'll look into her a little." It did feel like shoving my face into business that wasn't mine, but eh — it would be fine. Best case, if things worked out, that was one more monster I could kill for free.
Of course, a parent was still a parent. I'd have to play it carefully so Jihee never caught wind — though honestly, given Jihee's attitude, it might not have mattered at all. Idly bantering with myself in a strangely good mood for a moment, I flicked the drained coffee cup into the trash.
Lunch hour was creeping toward its end. And fortunately, I had no afternoon classes. In other words, perfect timing to go find the sort of person who might know the full story. With that thought, I set off at a leisurely amble, in search of the half-blood who had somehow ended up becoming my outright colleague at work.