The Blade Must Be Sharpened
* * *
Afterwards.
We were able to return to the Academy without any particular trouble.
At the same time, the Academy entered its midterm exam period, which meant I too could use self-study as an excuse to carve out time to meet Choi Seungjun.
The Third Great Cataclysm, was it?
Pretty insane, right?
And then.
The truths I had pieced together during this field exercise were more than enough to draw groans of agony out of that man Choi Seungjun's mouth as well.
...An artificial reproduction of the Cataclysm.
And a handful of the upper echelon who had decided to sell out the nation purely for the sake of their own safety.
It was nothing short of a modern-day Eulsa treaty betrayal.
Yeah, that much I could accept.
Choi Seungjun, who had initially denied reality, soon found himself unable to do anything but admit it. The simple reason was that far too many things lined up perfectly under that assumption.
For instance, Choi Seungjun himself.
As I've mentioned time and again, Choi Seungjun is, first and foremost, one of the most prominent chaebol heirs in this country.
And yet.
Even so, no information about that organization, tangled up as it was with countless members of society's upper crust, had ever reached Choi Seungjun either.
The reason was presumably the same.
Before he was a businessman, Choi Seungjun was one of the most famous hunters in the nation.
His connections and capital must have been terribly tempting to those people, but it seems they had judged him impossible to win over.
However.
The corporate side seems to be bound together rather tightly.
For not a single person to breathe even a word to someone of Choi Seungjun's stature — unlike that guide who'd blathered on so freely, that side apparently kept their mouths shut with impressive discipline.
Well, either way.
We had gained a great deal.
We confirmed their objective. The Gangwon Branch had raised questions about the incident. It was possible the Namhae Branch might be brought over to our side as well.
Of course, that kind of judgment was Choi Seungjun's call to make, not mine. He was, after all, the head of the Academy.
Frankly, detailed political maneuvering was a completely foreign field to me, too.
The cooperation of two branches. I had no idea yet how we'd use it, but having more cards in hand couldn't hurt.
"Quite proactive of you."
Watching me, Choi Seungjun offered that mild observation.
Now that he mentioned it, I supposed I might look somewhat strange through his eyes. Not to brag, but up until now, my entire job description had consisted of killing monsters when they showed up and half-killing hybrids when they showed up.
Pawn off the complicated stuff on Lee Joongoo or Choi Seungjun, then just kill monsters and lick the honey. That was me.
But that wasn't who I was anymore.
Because they were the enemy.
...Right.
Choi Seungjun didn't press me any further.
For the last step, I straightened my collar. I wasn't normally the type to fuss over such things, but I had no choice today.
After all, the person I was about to meet was that kind of man.
Then, one final review. What was the purpose of this meeting?
First, mapping out the structure of the organization centered on our engagement target.
And beyond that?
Using it as bait to recruit the military — or perhaps to sound out the military's factions.
And finally, gathering intelligence on Ja Hayeon.
When I didn't answer right away, Choi Seungjun slowly folded his hands in front of him.
"You're already aware, of course, but judging by their conduct so far, their top priority is that student — Ja Hayeon."
"I know."
"Then this conversation should go faster, shouldn't it?"
It wasn't an unfair point.
When I'd first met Hayeon, I'd assumed she was nothing more than a bait-type ability user. After the full scope of their operations came to light, I'd assumed they coveted her curse ability.
But now.
Now that I knew their ambitions lay in the Third Great Cataclysm —
"Think about this rationally. You're not treating that student as a suspect, are you?"
"...Fair."
He was absolutely right.
Simple personal protection. It was true that Hayeon's danger level had shot up overnight compared to just a short while ago.
But that didn't mean Hayeon herself had become a dangerous individual.
It would be more accurate to say that the story entangled with Hayeon was far heavier than anyone had imagined.
If anything, for the sake of protecting her, we needed to investigate exactly why they were targeting Hayeon.
Still, I couldn't help the uneasy feeling churning in my gut.
"Fine. I get it."
Not that I had a better alternative, mind you.
And so, unable to withstand his gaze any longer, I could only raise both my hands in surrender.
"Then I'm really off."
"Mm. I'll leave that side to you."
At any rate, it couldn't be helped.
No matter what, Choi Seungjun — the head of the Academy — couldn't go absent during the midterm exam period. And conversely, there was no one else among the others who fit the bill.
The students were obviously out of the question.
Let the little brats focus on their exams.
Neither could I bring Seoa along. My leaving meant, in other words, that a hole would open in Hayeon's guard.
Seoa's presence, capable of protecting Hayeon at both the school and the boarding house, was absolutely indispensable.
Of course, I had my own reasoning. The venue for this meeting was well within my mana detection range, and I was confident I could link up immediately if anything happened to Hayeon.
But.
It was about time I admitted it to myself.
Up until now, my lax attitude hadn't mattered. All I'd ever needed to do was kill the monsters they sent at me.
However.
Now that I had formally recognized them as an enemy, that was no longer acceptable.
To put it bluntly, the only reason my carelessness hadn't cost us so far was that they'd seen my strength and lost their nerve in advance. Even in an era like this one, moving a high-rank hunter leaves traces behind.
And this was a man who had personally brought down an S-rank monster and an A+ rank human-combat specialist. In this situation, rashly mobilizing an S-rank hunter was out of the question — a man of his caliber would inevitably leave a trail, and even then, success was no guarantee.
I imagine thoughts like that had been simmering in their minds. The incident at the Gangwon Branch would only have deepened that perception, not erased it.
But.
I couldn't afford to think that way too.
I couldn't lean on their perception of me forever.
Frankly speaking, what if one day they snapped and decided to launch a sudden self-destruct bombing?
Maybe it's time to grow my strength.
What I had was more than enough to kill monsters.
But from now on, I'd be fighting people.
In which case, perhaps I, too, needed to resharpen the blade.
Swallowing that thought, I left the principal's office behind.
*
Even now, in the age of hunters, people remembered the name Brigadier General Cheong Joonpil with reverence.
The Second Great Cataclysm. An era when the phrase "the entire nation reduced to scorched earth" had to be used not as a metaphor but as literal description.
Back then, a pervasive atmosphere of contempt for hunters hung over South Korea.
The conclusion of the First Great Cataclysm. South Korea's relatively unscathed position. Because of that, not only the public but the government itself had privately regarded hunters as an unwelcome nuisance.
The emotional rift born of that era did not heal even when the Second Cataclysm began.
Least of all within the military.
The existence of armed force outside the army within the nation. Powerful figures in the military who had lost family to a hunter gone berserk. Hunters who, steeped in that social climate, distrusted the government and guarded against it in turn.
Because of these circumstances, in the early days of the Second Cataclysm, South Korea was driven literally to the brink of annihilation.
Seoul had been razed flat, and the government's own hand had been forced to set Busan ablaze.
At that moment, the man who stepped forward to dissolve that poisonous atmosphere was Brigadier General Cheong Joonpil.
Unlike the other power brokers of the military, Cheong Joonpil was not wedded to the army's monopoly on force.
Or to put it more precisely — he believed that hunters, who led with individual strength, were a poor fit for an organization defined by regimentation.
And so Cheong Joonpil quickly abandoned the forced conscription of hunters and handed the matter over to the government.
That was the birth of the modern Hunter Association.
Of course, the substance hadn't changed. All that happened was that the party administering the draft shifted from the military to the government.
But with words, same as with anything, the difference between "a" and "eo" is everything.
"Hunter registration number" became "citizen registration." "Hunter conscription" became "the heroes standing against the Cataclysm."
Just that much cosmetic change was enough for South Korea to weather the chaos of those days to a considerable degree.
Seizing the opening, he established a defensive line against the monsters pouring down from North Korea, whose gates had collapsed beyond control. And at last, he commanded the operation to retake Seoul.
In other words, to the vast majority of people, Brigadier General Cheong Joonpil was the peerless master commander who had held South Korea together through the Second Cataclysm.
"Mister, take a look at the clock sometime. How did the years hit you this square in the face?"
"Ha! You try sitting in this chair, boy. You think it's as easy as it sounds?"
"If it were easy, this country would've died already."
"Honestly. The nerve of you. At least deny it a little."
Well.
To me, he was nothing more than an old coot I'd run a few joint operations with back in the day.
...The architect of the Republic of Korea's kaiju-warfare doctrine. A commander without equal. The man who retook Seoul.
Simultaneously, the author of various Academy textbooks, including treatises on how to employ hunters as tactical assets from the military's perspective.
And yet, outwardly, a rumpled middle-aged uncle.
That was the Brigadier General Cheong Joonpil sitting before me.
"First off, I did look into the side you mentioned."
"Oh. As expected."
Naturally, the reason I was meeting this man today wasn't casual small talk as usual.
He would know that too. Despite his deliberately inconspicuous civilian clothes, his demeanor once the real business began was anything but ordinary.
Tap. Tap.
The light motion of his fingers drumming the table with the documents he'd pulled out. A soft nudge, wordlessly urging me on.
"So. Is that story actually true?"
"Which part?"
"The part where you said the military might have its own threads tangled up with that operational faction."
"An... operational faction?"
The word choice was so bone-deep military that I burst out laughing without meaning to.
Not that it would be an easy thing for the old man to laugh off.
The Third Great Cataclysm. Among all the various institutions watching for it, the one paying the closest attention to the possibility of a third invasion was, without question, the military.
He had once gone so far as to say — though today's social climate made it hard to voice — that even the end of the Second Cataclysm might prove nothing more than a temporary lull.
To a man like that, the intelligence I'd handed over this time must have been nothing short of a thunderbolt from a clear sky.
There exists a faction plotting a third Cataclysm in this country. That faction has allied itself with monsters. In exchange for handing them this nation as the stage for a third invasion, they have most likely secured guarantees of their own safety.
And.
Among that faction's collaborators, there is a hunter of military origin.
For the old man, it must have been a bolt out of the blue in every sense.
Of course, the military was ultimately an organization made of people, too. Climbing to a position like his practically required political skill as a matter of course.
But the general had earned his current post purely on the back of that overwhelming battlefield record. As a result, Cheong Joonpil was comparatively lacking in that particular breed of political maneuvering.
Some of that quality was, if anything, taken by the public as natural, uncut grit. In a country that had weathered any number of coups, it remained an important selling point.
If he had no intention of entering politics, it was nothing more than insurance against smear campaigns. But then again, considering the titles this man carried, even with political skill to spare, that organization would never have approached him with an offer.
Which was precisely why both Choi Seungjun and I could lay out the whole situation before this man with complete peace of mind.
"I'm... provisionally aware of the situation, yes."
"'Provisionally'? This is serious business. If a man my age gets cut loose, there's nowhere left to find reemployment."
"Spare me the theatrics. Walk into the National Assembly and you'd be riding high within the week."
With a wry snort, I looked over the documents the general handed me, wearing a doubtful expression. Listed there were the personal files of a considerable number of retired hunters who had once served in the military.
And this was exactly the purpose of my meeting with Choi Seungjun as well.
The guide I'd fought at the Gangwon Branch. To properly dig out his background, we had judged we'd need the military's cooperation.
"Not bad, this material. Take you long?"
"Honestly? Not much. As you well know—"
"—that's how military-affiliated hunters always are."
I nodded.
It was, in truth, an obvious point.
After Cheong Joonpil effectively washed his hands of standardizing and militarizing hunters, the number of hunters throwing themselves into the army had plummeted.
Besides, how many hunters had ever enlisted voluntarily in the first place? The vast majority had been conscripted.
In that context, a "military-affiliated hunter" essentially meant someone who had joined the forces for some particular circumstance — men struggling to make a living, or the type harboring some pointless military fantasy.
It wasn't that young hunters who devoted their bodies to national defense out of genuine conviction didn't exist — they were simply vanishingly rare.
Even so, nationwide, there should have been a fair number of them. Relying on my word alone and digging through the records on my blind insistence left me feeling rather ashamed to meet the old man's eyes.
And so.
After a while, as I paged through the files he'd handed over, my gaze suddenly stopped in front of one hunter's personal record.
Found you.
"What? Where?"
At my words, the general tilted his head — his interest, it seemed, hadn't entirely faded either.
But then.
"That's a completely different look from the description you gave me?"
Cheong Joonpil cocked his head at the photograph I was pointing to. But I could be certain.
"That's him."
"On what earth are you basing that?"
"The skeletal structure's identical."
The face? Faces can be rebuilt. Praise be to South Korea, the great nation of cosmetic surgery.
"...Is, is that so."
Well, the man in question responded to my confident claim with a somewhat sour reaction.
"Good grief. This is exactly why."
If even this man — widely credited with shattering the glass walls between military and hunter, hunter and civilian — was this hopeless, then I could only conclude that the future of this nation was truly dark indeed.
In any case.
Found you, you bastard.
Gazing down at the photograph on the file, I swore it silently to myself.
Tae Siyoung.
Committing to my eyes the three syllables written directly beside the face of the guide I'd encountered not long ago at the Gangwon Branch.
* * *