First Day, First Lesson
Hunter Academy.
This educational institution — launched with no small ambition through a joint effort between the South Korean government and the Hunter Association — looked, on the surface, like nothing more than an ordinary high school. The age range of its enrolled students said as much, and so did a timetable packed to the brim with Korean, mathematics, and the like.
All of it, of course, was camouflage for the general public — the people who firmly believed an era of peace had finally arrived. But at its core, the Hunter Academy was, first and foremost, a quasi-military institution belonging to the state. They called it a collaboration between government and association, yet considering the Hunter Association was, in practice, little more than a labor union for state-affiliated hunters, that only made it truer.
Viewed from that angle, even those ordinary classes served a purpose of their own. In fact, general education was precisely what the association fretted over most when it came to training hunters.
You can prepare for a monster on the rampage. A hunter who suddenly goes berserk with no ethics or morals to rein him in? There is no preparing for that.
But.
The Hunter Academy's essence remained, above all else, that of a quasi-military institution. In other words — an institution built to raise the next generation of hunters.
"Starting today, the man serving as Class 1-A's homeroom teacher is one Park Woochan. Please give him your best."
Naturally, every class's homeroom teacher was a former hunter. In other words, the PE teachers.
I was no exception. Not that it mattered — a man who'd never even finished high school, let alone earned a teaching license, had no business lecturing anyone on history. In the end, my assigned subject amounted to PE periods that had swollen, compared to your average high school, to a frankly bizarre size.
Still, even so...
With a slow sweep, I took in the classroom. Contrary to what I'd expected when I first heard the assignment, the mood was fairly unremarkable. Roughly ten students, give or take. I had no idea what criteria they'd used to sort the classes, but at the very least, nothing about the room set off alarms.
Then again, these were freshly hatched chicks who'd only just set out to become hunters. It was an era where not one of them could lack a story worth telling — and yet, conversely, not everyone had already begun nursing a vicious killing intent behind their eyes.
"Ooh~"
"So cool~"
"Teacher, we're not doing actual class today, right?!"
If anything, they fell into a call-and-response like that.
A good thing, really. Teaching kids how to kill monsters might be the job, but children this age trudging around with storm clouds on their faces is never a pretty sight. Then again, they might take issue with hearing me say that.
Swallowing the thought, I began matching the photos in the attendance book to the faces in front of me, one by one. I'd heard in rough terms which students had been placed in my class, but having accepted the homeroom post, the least I could do was memorize their faces.
There were, of course, faces I already knew.
Naturally, that would be our Miss Ja Hayeon — currently sneaking a little wave in my direction. The moment our eyes met, she gave a sly, crescent-eyed smile, and before I knew it, my nose twitched. Could it be thanks to these past few days, when I'd put her through the wringer under the pretext of building basic stamina? Unlike when we'd first met, she seemed to have found quite a bit of ease in herself.
Call it only the first day if you like, but in practice she wasn't showing a single rough edge.
"Alright, alright. Settle down now. Yes — no matter what anyone says, I have no intention of starting real lessons on day one."
"Ooh~"
"That said, this is strictly my policy, so you'll have to go win over your other teachers yourselves."
"Aww~"
I couldn't imagine when they'd found the time to rehearse, the way they were hitting their marks in perfect sync. In the end, I burst out chuckling despite myself. Since I'd been saddled with the job half by accident, I'd had my reservations at first — but looking at it now, they were just plain cute.
"Now then — making you do self-introductions at this point would just be a waste of time, wouldn't it?"
"Yes!"
"Then let's spend this period on questions for your teacher. Honestly, it's my first time doing anything like this too, so I'm a little nervous. You did hear that I used to be a hunter, right?"
This time they answered only with laughter, and at the sight of it, I shrugged and urged the questions along.
Nothing particularly special came up. Have you ever caught a monster?What actually goes through your head when you see one? Call it fitting for the Hunter Academy — most of the questions were about the industry. Though every now and then something entirely irrelevant would surface, like whether I had a girlfriend.
And of course, the question I'd been bracing for came up too.
"So how did you end up becoming a teacher?"
"You're a parachute hire, aren't you? A total parachute!"
Raucous, teasing laughter erupted all around.
They were joking now, but if I fumbled the answer, things would get distinctly uncomfortable — for me, sure, but for those kids as well.
Whatever else you could say about them, these were aspiring hunters. They'd set foot in this academy carrying ambitions of their own, and hearing that their own homeroom teacher was a parachute hire was guaranteed to sour the mood.
Even setting that aside, if I opened my mouth and started holding forth about my active-duty days, it would be nothing but hot air without a shred of proof.
Granted, I had gone looking for that Goddess's dwelling in preparation for exactly this. But even so — a homeroom teacher strutting around with squared shoulders purely because a Constellation had taken a liking to him? That would be a bit much.
Which meant, apparently, the era had truly arrived — one that prized credentials over what a person could actually do.
"Hmm, who knows?"
"Whoa, he's dodging the question!"
"I knew it — he really is a parachute hire! What do we do?!"
Well, whatever.
It was a question I'd more or less anticipated, which meant my answer was already set.
"Because teaching little chicks like you doesn't take anything more than that. Obviously."
I tossed the answer back with easy swagger.
Or rather — I thought I had. But no echo came back from the answer I'd thrown out.
An odd silence.
I was still twitching my nose at the hush that had descended out of nowhere when, the very next moment, the room burst into howls of laughter.
"Ooh, our homeroom teacher is awesome!!"
"Confidence for days!!"
"Park! Woo! Chan!! Park! Woo! Chan!!"
And now they'd taken to chanting my name. Utterly ridiculous.
Honestly? It was a little embarrassing. No, wait — I didn't think I'd been that rowdy at their age. As I remembered it, back then I'd been carving up monsters more calmly and gently than anyone...
"Show us what you've got!!"
They'd even gone that far — slamming their desks like a pack of self-important orangutans.
I mean, even if you ask me to show my skills...
Hmm. I didn't mind, but — how, exactly?
Sure, on a day when a monster actually appeared in front of us, I'd go beyond showing off and bring out the harpoon outright. But here, right now, there was nothing of the sort to be done.
While I was turning that over, I suddenly felt the students' gazes converge on a single point.
Following them, I spotted a boy wearing a troubled, awkward smile. Handsome features — and a gaze sharper still. On top of that, a frame of solid muscle you could pick out at a glance even through the uniform. If I had to guess, unlike the other students, still all gangly limbs they hadn't grown into, he gave the impression of a boy who could throw his weight around.
"Who is that, anyway?"
"No idea. Is he famous among the students?"
"Teacher, Jung Pilyeon over there is actually good!"
"Come on, show us a match, both of you!!"
Fortunately, some students had their answers ready before I could embarrass myself by asking.
...Ahh. I see.
Hearing the name, something surfaced. Jung Pilyeon. Wasn't he the one who, on the very day he first awakened as a hunter, took a C-rank monster apart with nothing but a wooden sword? Good looks aside, I seemed to recall hearing he was already being counted among the next generation of hunters. He'd stuck in my memory because, student though he still was, he had actual monster-slaying experience to his name.
Even so — a next-generation hunter, huh.
Times really must be peaceful.
I couldn't think anything else.
No — the talent itself wasn't bad. Setting aside ecosystem-wrecking anomalies like Choi Seungjun, you could call it top-shelf. At the very least, far better than me, back when I spent entire days locked in life-or-death struggles with E-rank monsters.
Even now, I figured, a bit of training would let him stand shoulder to shoulder with most working hunters.
However.
Most isn't going to cut it.
Who was this school's chairman, to begin with? Choi Seungjun himself. That man was no pushover either — on the very day he first awakened, he blew apart the gate that had opened in his own front yard and single-handedly took down the A-rank monster that had ruled the place since its opening.
Measured in raw talent, Lee Joongoo fell far short of Choi Seungjun. In fact, I'd never seen a hunter with less talent than that man. And yet, for all that, he was the one hailed as humanity's strongest — a hunter who surpassed even Choi Seungjun.
That was the kind of era it was. The only kind of era it could be.
After all, for the hunters fighting on the front lines back then, talent was nothing more than a category on a chart. To put it another way: a classification table where the same man could be called a genius at one point, ordinary at another, and dull-witted at yet another. It meant nothing beyond that.
Talent and effort alone could carry a person, at best, to about A+ rank. To face an S-rank monster, everything — everything — had to break out of the frame.
Ugh, put that way, I sound like some grizzled old-timer.
Anyway, that was the point I wanted to make. Even if the day had come when raw talent alone earned you the label "next-generation hunter," what this Hunter Academy existed to produce were not hunters suited to such peaceful times.
"Shall we, then?"
A chorus of "Ooooh!" erupted.
But the boy himself looked nothing like he wanted to. Fair enough — he didn't seem the type to grandstand anyway.
Maybe he simply found the whole thing distasteful. After all, judged purely on association records, my current standing sat beneath even his.
A twenty-seven-year-old hunter with zero field experience, only just stepping through the association's doors. In his eyes, I was surely nothing more than that.
Hmm. Looking at it that way, these kids were rather sweet. If I were in their shoes, I'd have charged straight at a talentless parachute hire who had the gall to act so high and mighty.
"Then... should we head to the gym?"
"No, no need to go that far. Let's just do it here."
Jung Pilyeon's brow furrowed, noticeably.
When I picked up the pointer kept on the lectern, his expression turned graver still. Hmm. Could he think I was looking down on him?
But come on~
No matter how you sliced it, at my age, roughhousing with teenagers and flexing about strength would be a little embarrassing, no? At most, this was a light spar. Drawing a real blade would be going too far.
"Come at me whenever you like."
And so, a fight broke out in the classroom — a wildly out-of-place one.
Before I knew it, the other students had shoved their desks aside, clearing a path between us. I, having likewise pushed the lectern far away, gave the tip of my pointer a light flick.
"Come."
At that, Jung Pilyeon's eyes sharpened further—
—and the next instant, he shot forward.
The boy came at me head-on, wooden sword already drawn from his hip before I'd noticed it. He was fast — fast enough that you'd never take him for a student. And there wasn't a flicker of hesitation in the way he moved. C-rank or not, his claim of having taken down monsters clearly hadn't been an empty boast.
Most rookie hunters hesitate the moment they have to swing a weapon, their movements governed less by skill than by fear — of their own abilities, or of the monsters themselves. Weighed against that, what he showed deserved to be called excellent.
Perhaps he'd practiced kendo even before all this. His footwork wasn't bad either. The weight distribution was so sound I'd never have guessed he was standing in indoor shoes on a classroom floor.
Well — that was that, and this was this.
His blade was fierce, and his skill fiercer still. That single exchange alone would have landed a solid, telling blow against any hunter or monster of the same rank.
The lack of hesitation was good too, I thought, watching the wooden sword arrive at my chest before I knew it. If anything, he might have been too unhesitating. Whoa, whoa — isn't that a bit much, charging your own teacher like that?
To be fair, it would have been even better had he gone for my eyes or throat — but watching him swing at his homeroom teacher without a moment's pause, an inexplicable grumble slipped out of me all the same.
Properly honed, he could become a fine hunter.
The raw material wasn't bad.
Judging it so, I flicked the pointer.
...
Huh?
And then.
The next moment, Jung Pilyeon found himself sitting on the classroom floor.
Not that I'd unveiled any spectacular technique or anything of the sort.
I had simply caught the wooden sword rushing at me and turned it aside with the pointer.
In other words?
Deflect, and strike.
The result: the wooden sword spun loose from Jung Pilyeon's grip... and Jung Pilyeon himself had no choice but to land hard on his rear.
There was no crash, no drama. I couldn't exactly slam a student into the floorboards, so I'd been careful to rein in the force.
Thanks to that, Jung Pilyeon was left blinking blankly where he sat.
I'd have liked him to spring straight up, snatch his sword back off the floor, maybe even try a punch — but perhaps that was asking a bit much already.
Well — what he'd seen in that exchange, and what he'd take away from it... that was entirely up to him.
With that thought, I snapped my wrist and gave the crown of his head a light tap.
"There. Done."
Just then, the bell announcing the end of class began to ring.
That much should've satisfied the kids, right? Finishing the arithmetic in my head, I tidied the attendance book sitting on the lectern I'd shoved aside.
"Alright, we'll leave the questions there... Now, everyone get ready for class. Desks back in their original spots, all of you. Unless you want your teacher coming down on you?"
Poking the tip of the pointer under Jung Pilyeon — still sitting there, too bewildered to stand — I brought him to his feet, and his flustered face came into view.
Ah, great. Class was about to start, and someone was bound to chew me out for holding up the kids.
In the end, all I could do was give his shoulders a couple of brisk pats — a wordless snap out of it — and leave the classroom behind.