Three Small Changes
Even after the day Lee Joongoo hauled me off, sat me down, and out of nowhere launched into an expose of my most embarrassing history, my daily life had gone on unchanged.
Not because nothing but trivialities too minor to disturb my routine came my way — quite the opposite. Matters far too weighty to be settled at a glance had come crashing in one after another.
To be honest, I had suspected something would happen. It had that feel to it.
Choi Seungjun had spoken as though he were entrusting me with some grave secret, but I'd more or less seen that much coming myself. That said, this was Choi Seungjun we were talking about. Fine, you should never let your guard down around a gate — but calling me in as backup for a mere E-rank gate? Charitably, that was a waste of resources; less charitably, downright paranoid.
He alone was already overkill for the job.
Apparently the man had anticipated that the Association's opposition faction, or some such, would make a move under cover of the practical.
In this age of peace, it takes only a moment's thought to see that some would view the founding of the Hunter Academy with a sour eye — whether simply drunk on tranquility, or convinced that even if gates were to open again someday, society's reconstruction should take priority for now...
Naturally, for such people, this practical was prey ripe for the tearing. If so much as one student came away injured, they would no doubt pounce — tearing into this "outdated education unfit for an age of peace" and meddling in the Academy's affairs.
Choi Seungjun, presumably, had planned to deal with the opposition's dignitaries himself, and to dispatch me the instant anything went wrong inside the gate.
But.
Neither I nor Choi Seungjun believed this incident to be the scheme of those opposition figures. No — to put it precisely, we couldn't have believed it.
If that were possible, Korea would have conquered the world by now.
The appearance of an S-rank monster was, in itself, a catastrophe on which a nation's very survival hung. It was not a matter that one faction of South Korea could manipulate at will.
A faction that would be lucky to command even half of the nation's upper echelon — and they could simply unleash an S-rank monster on their own authority? If that were truly possible, South Korea would have overtaken even the United States as the strongest nation on Earth by now.
Which meant another hypothesis was needed. Say, a gate running rampant...
"No, that's not it."
Hm. I'd thought it a real possibility. But well, if you were that certain, then I suppose it truly wasn't.
Twenty long years had passed since the first gates appeared, and still we could say nothing about them with certainty. The only fact humanity could assert about gates was that no such facts existed.
It was the phrase gate researchers habitually hid behind like a shield. Even so, I couldn't bring myself to believe this incident was the work of a rampaging gate.
To be fair, a handful of gates had shown inexplicably explosive growth. But even those radiated mana proportionate to their expansion each time they spread — gates, in other words, that possessed the prerequisites for rapid growth and expanded explosively over a short span. Not like this: an S-rank monster popping out of an E-rank gate as though the laws of physics simply didn't apply.
Above all, no such warning signs had been detectable inside the gate at the time.
If a mana source vast enough to gestate an S-rank monster had existed there, there was no way in hell I'd have missed it.
It was the same when the gate's rank was measured again after the incident was resolved. The rank remained E. Perhaps because the gate's master had been slain, the mana density within had only decreased, never increased.
Granted, I couldn't rule out some expert skilled enough to conceal it even from my mana senses. But why would a monster of that caliber crawl all the way into the Academy's basement, raise an E-rank gate to S-rank, and then vanish without a trace? That much remained a mystery.
And by sheer coincidence, timed precisely to the practical, an E-rank gate had shown signs of growing into an S-rank — whereupon some unfathomably skilled individual, having noticed, concealed the gate's growth and disappeared.
There was a far simpler explanation than piling hypothesis upon absurd hypothesis.
Namely: an S-rank monster had simply, literally, dropped out of nowhere onto an E-rank gate.
Of course, that raised problems of its own. How? And why?
How, in God's name, had that damned monster slipped past not only my senses but the Hunter Academy's entire defense network to materialize inside the gate beneath the Academy? The latter could be chalked up to dumb luck, but the former was not something I could wave off lightly.
...Truthfully, I had my suspicions. It was precisely because of this that I'd been posted to this school in the first place.
Ja Hayeon.
The thought had flashed through my mind that perhaps this demon bastard's appearance, too, was because of her. Just like that day when three A-rank monsters had burst out of a back alley with not a single gate anywhere nearby.
The problem was that, even compared to that day, this incident was exceptionally unusual.
Could she possess some ability that drew monsters in? That was what I'd wondered when I picked her up — and she really did have such an ability. I'd assumed that was also why she'd been attacked out of nowhere back then.
But. This situation was different.
Suppose the monster had come, drawn by Hayeon's ability. Even setting aside the question of whether her ability would work on an S-rank monster at all, the problem remained: how had it deceived the Academy's entire surveillance network to get here?
Teleportation? Please. If my senses couldn't catch even that much, my ability would weep.
And why had the monster acted the way it did in the first place? It was far too polished to be a mere case of attraction to Hayeon's ability. A clean, surgical assault. Which meant this question, too, could only swell.
Why go to such lengths? From every angle, the behavior was blatantly theatrical. And yet someone — the monster itself, or whoever had passed it that remarkable method — had chosen to reveal themselves at the Hunter Academy, even at the cost of staging such an awkward, conspicuous attack.
...Was there really something to Hayeon? Something worth acquiring at the cost of blindly dropping an S-rank monster on us?
Judging by Hayeon, who sat there quietly as ever with her blank expression, there was no telling at all.
Either way, I couldn't rush to a conclusion.
And so I could only say this: my daily life went on unchanged after that. Not because only trivialities too small to disturb it came my way, but because only matters too weighty to be settled at a glance did.
Still.
"Roll call, kids. Lee Yeeun."
"Here, Teacher."
There had been small changes.
First, Lee Yeeun's attitude.
Not that I'd actually done anything to earn it!
It felt awkward to take credit, all the same. The way she carried herself now — as though something clinging to her had finally fallen away — was certainly praiseworthy, but honestly, I still had no idea what layer she'd shed, or how.
Her troubles hadn't actually been resolved, either. If anything, I still held a rather negative view of her combat doctrine, which made it all the more puzzling.
And yet, despite it all, she treated even my somewhat bewildered self with marked courtesy. No — more than that! These days she called me "Teacher" every single time, without fail!
And here I'd half expected her to start talking down to me by next month.
After entertaining such grim thoughts as "educational failure," "the collapse of teacherly authority," "the limits of a teacher who parachuted in on connections," and "what else would you expect from a teacher who only finished middle school," this was a fairly encouraging outcome. Honestly, I'd have counted it a win if she merely refrained from badmouthing me, let alone called me Teacher.
Even if I still had no idea why!
Had Joongoo given her a talking-to?
That rascal talked like he'd given up on her upbringing entirely, but he's actually got some spine, huh~
If that were really the case, I figured I could cut Lee Joongoo some slack for dragging me out of nowhere to hold an expose of my most embarrassing history.
At this rate, our next counseling session might actually yield decent results? Of course, unless I delivered a proper verdict on her combat doctrine, that hope was nothing more than procrastinating on summer homework.
"Ja Hayeon."
"Here."
And second — it seemed Hayeon and Yeeun had become friends.
Frankly, it was a highly unexpected outcome. All the more so considering that only recently Hayeon hadn't even known she was a hunter. All the more so because I'd actually worried, at one point, that being surrounded by kids strutting around as "next-generation hunters" might get her ostracized.
Right up until I stepped in, the two of them had been a hair's breadth from grabbing each other by the collar~
How on earth had they grown close? It was simply baffling. Was this the power of high school girls?
Even as she answered the roll call, Hayeon kept sneaking glances at Yeeun, and the sight stuck in my mind. Yeeun, apparently having caught her at it, whipped her head away with a flustered air. But past the fingers hurriedly sweeping her hair back, her scarlet-burning ears were plainly visible.
Well, it was a change for the better, whatever the cause.
Had Hayeon had a phone? Or not. I seemed to recall her saying it had broken when the dragons attacked.
Come to think of it, it was about time I got a phone myself. Might not be a bad idea to take her out shopping for one sometime. With that thought, I slowly turned the page of the attendance book.
"Ryu Jihee."
"Here!"
"Jung Pilyeon."
"Yes."
"Hwang Yoonha."
...And then.
An untimely silence fell. Less a heavy mood than the quiet of an answer that never came. Though it did, admittedly, weigh the room down.
This was the third change.
"Yoonha still isn't here?"
"Doesn't look like it."
"...I see."
Our class had begun producing tardy students.
In truth, being late once was hardly a grave offense. It feels odd to say, but until they came here, every one of them had lived in a world where flying private under titles like "next-generation hunter" or "the future of South Korea" was simply expected. Factor in that they were at exactly the age to savor their own importance, and a little tardiness was almost cute.
The problem was that Hwang Yoonha had gone well beyond that.
The first time she was late, I let it slide. I could understand it. So I settled for a mild warning, and as I recall, Yoonha answered with a languid face that she'd be more careful from then on.
But contrary to her word, her attitude only deteriorated.
In the span of a single week, skipping first period became skipping two, then three, then four.
I was utterly at a loss. True, the practical had ended in a deflating anticlimax — all the more so given that it was meant to be every student's first real taste of combat against the monsters they'd been longing for. Even in other classes, some students made no effort to hide their disappointment.
But even so, wasn't this going too far?
If she'd vented her frustrations, or even gone the other way and gotten thoroughly loose, I could have understood. But a student who started skipping school the moment the practical fizzled out? What was I supposed to make of that?
Maybe it had nothing to do with the practical at all — maybe the timing was pure coincidence. But with nothing else coming to mind, that only made it harder on me.
Naturally. On the day of the practical I'd been busy butchering a demon bastard that had popped out of nowhere, and ever since, my days had been consumed by cleanup of one kind or another. Trying now to reconstruct what had happened back then was a fool's errand.
Who'd have thought my teaching life, humming along decently enough, would suddenly run headlong into this.
If, in a burst of quirky adolescent spirit, she'd wanted to prove to the whole wide world that she was in her rebellious phase, then I'd have to call it a resounding success.
"Well, looks like Yoonha's busy again today. Ah well, nothing to be done! When the other teachers come in, put in a good word for me. If Yoonha shows up later, tell her to come see me in the teachers' office. Pay attention in class. Got it?"
"Yes, sir!"
The chorus of answers rang out impressively loud. The students were probably getting used to it by now. Then again, even I had delivered the lines with the resignation of a man thoroughly sick of the routine, so it figured.
But today, something was different from usual. Because right up until I was about to leave work, Hwang Yoonha never came down to the teachers' office.
No, it wasn't that the students who'd taken to admiring Yoonha's bold spirit had defiantly ignored my message. If anything, quite the opposite.
Hwang Yoonha had finally gone and skipped an entire day of school, top to bottom.
Had there been no one around to see, I might well have turned a somersault on the spot — and then, quite suddenly, everything went dark before my eyes.