This Was No E-Rank
It happened while I was standing at the podium. Until just moments ago, I'd been scurrying around bolstering the kids who were cowering before a gate unlike anything they'd ever seen, but with the hands-on instructors who'd be leading them through it now in place, there was nothing left for me to do.
Frankly, part of me wanted to go in first. Thanks to the days I'd spent carving up monsters, I was in slightly better shape now, but every time I laid eyes on a gate, the trifecta of chills, cold sweat, and dizziness kicked in just the same.
And yet there was exactly one reason I was still lingering on the training field.
The request of Choi Seungjun — Principal of the Hunter Academy, and these days, my boss.
You're better at handling monsters than I am, aren't you?
It wasn't exactly wrong.
Granted, with Seungjun himself on standby, we were already overpowered. But I was the one who'd insisted that anything could happen inside the gate, and so, accepting a measure of discomfort, I stayed put — killing time by watching the students flicker in and out through the gate.
Someone's quite the popular one, aren't they.
Seungjun, by contrast, was a different story. Whatever wellspring of leisure he was drawing from, he was utterly unflappable — so much so that he'd actually wave at the students, who were whispering up a storm now that the legendary S-rank principal had shown his face.
I couldn't help ribbing him for it, but Seungjun merely let a smirk play at the corner of his mouth.
"And you're one to talk?"
In his other hand, the man saying that held a smartphone. But what flickered across its screen wasn't one of those internet sites the nations of the world bled themselves dry to maintain as monuments to their own prestige.
The display showed Lee Yeeun and Ja Hayeon, sharp as day — the two of them trading barbs in razor-edged tones only moments ago.
Even Choi Seungjun couldn't pluck out and execute only the monsters lurking beyond a gate while blind to the situation inside. That was why, ahead of this practical, he'd pre-linked his phone to the gate's interior.
The problem was that the facility he'd gone to all that trouble to prepare was currently being used to tease me.
My, my. Did you hear that just now, Mr. Park? Hayeon student says you're not to speak informally to her. Not that I imagine you're the type who needs to hear it?
Son of a bitch.
"No, Hayeon, I'm truly grateful you think of me that way. Grateful as I am, though — couldn't you please stop? I'm dying over here..."
How is this bastard not a textbook case of workplace abuse? To be fair, gate or no, this was a practical exercise, so it had been necessary, and he'd duly notified the students in advance — nobody could really fault him for it. But watching him needle me from the sidelines like that, there was no way in hell I could just sit there and take it.
["Then either stay here, or go out there alone, I don't care. I'll solo it and come back."]
["Are you insane?"]
Even as all this went on, the conflict bleeding through the screen was sharpening by the second. Oh dear, oh dear. That's just going too far. As I found myself clicking my tongue, Choi Seungjun — who'd been grinning ear to ear until a moment ago — could only shrug.
"So? What do you think of those two? You had a bet going with Lee Jungoo about his little sister, didn't you?"
"Ah. That."
I stroked my chin and mulled it over, but honestly, I needn't have bothered. One look at what was happening on that screen and the answer was as good as written.
"Fail."
Forget everything else — their situational awareness was rotten to the core.
This was a practical, yes, but proposing to split into sub-parties when there were only two of them to begin with? Then turning around and suggesting they go after the boss?
Either way, the moment they set foot in a gate with that attitude, they'd be marching straight into a bloodbath.
Worse, their opponents were monsters that bent every effort toward shattering a party's cohesion — and in a gate teeming with the things, these two would be sowing internal discord before attempting anything else at all.
Nine times out of ten, that's a self-inflicted defeat. In the worst case, self-annihilation.
Not that they'd have seen it coming.
There was a reason I hadn't taken any special precautions before this practical. Call it self-aware or not, Yeeun had a streak of stubbornness that bordered on excessive. Given how capable she was on top of that, it had been easy enough to predict she'd attempt a boss hunt in pursuit of the top score.
And that was precisely the problem.
Provisionally appointing a leader is actually fairly common practice among hunters. If something goes wrong, someone has to take responsibility and direct the others. And beyond a gate is a structure practically engineered for something to go wrong.
But Yeeun wasn't the type to consult her teammates about any of that — which meant that even if she launched an assault, it would almost certainly ride entirely on her own insistence.
Assuming command without consulting anyone. Minus one point.
Then there was the practical reality. Right now Hayeon was exerting her abilities to some extent, but at heart it was nothing more than cramming — a crash course. A boss is the absolute sovereign enthroned at the apex of a gate. The power of a brand-new hunter like Hayeon wouldn't just fail to stick — it might well be reflected straight back at her.
Maybe the ease with which she'd hunted the lesser monsters had bred confidence. But between ordinary monsters and a boss lay a gap of at least one full rank. No — factoring in Hayeon's abilities, you could call it two and not be exaggerating. Building a strategy on a miscalculated assessment of her strength, the assault could only end in failure.
Misjudging her own combat capacity. Another point off.
And above all — unlike the other children, Hayeon hadn't agreed to any of Yeeun's iron-willed insistence. She should have given it up right there. Instead, she went so far as to strong-arm her own opinion through, to the point of splitting the party. What a sight.
Overriding a valid objection. Instigating internal conflict within the party. That's another point off for each — two more, bringing the total deduction to four.
At this rate, no matter how inclined I was to grade kindly, there was no possible way. You could argue the last deduction only applied because she happened to be paired with Hayeon, and that it might have gone differently with another partner, but...
If that were the case, it'd be an extra deduction.
After all, that's what this whole practical was for. As I'd said time and again: if you're a hunter, the day will come when you have to party with people you never chose. This class was a chance to rehearse that in advance. Sure, you could argue this was just a simulation and the real battlefield would be different — but I found it hard to believe that a girl who couldn't so much as synchronize a single breath with her own classmates would manage to pair up smoothly with hunters she was meeting for the very first time.
Until now, she'd been scraping the passing line. But if this kept up — if the two of them actually split, or if she forced through that boss assault — there'd be no escaping a failing grade.
In other words, the moment Yeeun made that bet, her defeat was already sealed.
As he listened to my explanation, Choi Seungjun — who'd been nodding along as if impressed — suddenly opened his mouth.
"Psychoanalyzing high school girls. That's even creepier than I expected. You a stalker?"
"No, you absolute degenerate —"
This bastard. You don't have to be awed by my boundless dedication to education, but come on.
"Either way, there's something to be gained from this. If Yeeun can correct her habit of running solo off this practical, she'll grow that much further. And Hayeon — for all the ups and downs — has gotten valuable experience out of it too. Never mind the others; for a girl who's only just become a hunter, every minute and second of time like this is precious."
So I thought, mentally polishing one education plan after another.
The next instant, a boom shook the earth to its roots.
The ground lurched. A shudder rattled beneath my feet, and in its wake, dust came boiling up off the training field. At the same time, an aahh of awe burst from the students as a freak gale of grit swept over them.
But that was all. Nothing else followed. The students and other teachers who'd been glancing around, half convinced an earthquake had struck, did nothing but bellow at everyone to settle down — no sign of a proper response to be seen.
Which was only natural. Because the truth was, nothing had happened. Order them to respond, tell them what to look for — at this point it would just be taking credit for nothing.
And that was exactly why.
The only ones capable of reacting in that moment were precisely two.
In other words: me, and Choi Seungjun.
"Teachers! Calm the students down and hold position! Figure out what's happening! Watch your surroundings — if anything looks off, find it! Don't get careless!"
The one kicking back his chair and roaring — from a man who'd been sitting peacefully not thirty seconds prior — was, improbably, Choi Seungjun. Wielding both his office and his S-rank record, his thunderbolt of a command whipped the faculty into line.
It was a split-second judgment, and a sound one. Only, his instructions were frustratingly vague — apparently even he didn't yet grasp exactly what had just occurred.
Which was understandable. If anything, the fact that he'd reacted at all deserved to be called exceptional. That, too, was likely one of his inborn gifts — either raw instinct, or experience tempered from crossing countless lines of fire as an S-rank hunter.
Me? I was different.
What seized me in that moment had nothing to do with talent I may or may not have been born with, or accumulated experience. My vision whipped around in a blur, and sweat began pouring down my whole body as if it were raining. The bleak March breeze brushing the back of my neck felt almost painfully vivid. That's how bone-deep the sensation flooding over me was — shivering cold from top to bottom.
Chills. Cold sweat. Dizziness.
Once the diagnosis reached that point, there was nothing left to hesitate over.
And so Hunter Park Woochan—
The man had been mid-sentence, naturally pivoting to lend me authority by styling me a hunter rather than a teacher, when his words cut off. Because I'd already left my seat and my body was already in motion.
Situational assessment: complete. There was no time left to compare notes piece by piece. The instant he'd called out to the teachers first, the rough division of labor was already settled.
Meaning: he takes the outside.
And I take the inside.
"Prepare for engagement, just in case!"
Apparently he, too, had finished reading the situation in a heartbeat — I vaguely heard such shouts erupting behind me. Some of my fellow teachers reached out to stop me, hands extended as if to say calm down, but under Seungjun's restraint they could only flounder, arms wheeling in empty air, frozen in half-crouched poses.
Honestly? There was no need to hold me back at all.
Shukuchi.
Because among the entire faculty, there wasn't a single person who could lay a hand on me — on someone who rode the mana flowing through heaven and earth, literally stepping across it.
Around then, a murmur began spreading through the students as well. It seemed they'd finally grasped that this situation was no mere drill — it was real.
Thankfully, there was no panic. Love them or loathe them, these were the next generation of hunters, drawn from every stratum of society — trained to respond to exactly this kind of thing at a moment's notice.
Of course, this being their first time face-to-face with the real thing, an unavoidable stiffness clung to them. But that much was fine. As long as they didn't flounder and trip up my ankles, I had no intention of letting harm come to them. At the very least, I had that much confidence in myself to say so.
Therefore.
With the students steadily regaining their composure under Seungjun's and the teachers' control, only one problem remained.
Ja Hayeon and Lee Yeeun — the two still inside the gate, of all people.
The conclusion was already drawn.
Which meant the necessary course of action was roughly self-evident, too.
All of this — about two seconds, give or take. In that sliver of thought, I switched myself over from teacher of the Hunter Academy to hunter, and hurled myself without a shred of hesitation toward the gate, its maw still gaping wide.
...The alien crawling sensation over every inch of my skin was something no amount of repetition would ever make familiar. All the hard-won calm I'd ground out blasting monsters to paste these past few days was for nothing — my chest was churning again, awash in uneasy foreboding.
I know.
This sensation was no gift to be called a talent. Call it a kind of allergy. And just as a man with a peanut allergy might end up with nothing worse than flushed skin, or might convulse outright, depending on how much he ate — I was the same.
This sensation, still flailing about so restlessly that calling it the aftermath of slaughtering tens of thousands of monsters just yesterday felt almost too generous.
It was impossible. No E-rank gate could ever produce a sensation like this.
Worse — it was swelling by the moment. Until seconds ago it had sat at E-rank, the level of yesterday's endless culling. Then, in a blink, D. Then C, B, A—
Some would call it unbelievable. Some would scream that it was theoretically impossible. But I trusted this goddamn sixth sense over the theories of mana engineering, a field barely three decades old — because this cursed, motherfucking thing had spent all that time playing my nerve endings like a stringed instrument, throwing every conceivable tantrum until I believed what it told me.
Which is why, this time too, I had no choice but to acknowledge it faster than anyone else alive.
From the E-rank gate installed beneath the Hunter Academy — a monster of A-rank or higher had emerged.
And that sensation was still, even now, growing stronger by the second.