Scouting a Goddess
* * *
Seo-ah's first day of assisting with my classes wrapped up, all things considered, rather splendidly.
Honestly speaking, it was easier than I'd expected. Compared to the differences, what helped most was how the time needed for basic explanations had been nearly cut in half.
There were a few spots that fell short of my satisfaction and nagged at my eyes, but objectively speaking, this much made for a perfectly respectable student-teacher debut. Being her first day, there was some awkwardness here and there — but that's the sort of thing experience smooths out later.
Which brings me to why, that afternoon after wrapping up my classes more or less on schedule, I headed down into the Academy underground with Seo-ah and Ha-yeon in tow.
Ugh, this is awkward.
Unlike her usual self, Seo-ah kept fidgeting with her sleeves, uncomfortable in the crisp, tailored suit she was wearing. Her mother had commissioned it the moment she heard her daughter had landed a job at the Academy. What she earned wouldn't compare, but adults in this world still tended to favor the kind of jobs that got them lumped in with swindlers.
Come to think of it, maybe that's precisely because this is the world we live in. At least with a swindler's job, you're never going to end up wrestling monsters, are you?
So where are we going, Master?
Scouting.
Seo-ah, who had been trailing behind me with a bemused look on her face, grew visibly more bewildered the moment we reached the underground.
Admittedly, it was a somewhat chaotic sight.
Despite the hasty repairs, traces of the destruction from my brawl with Nam Sangwon still lingered here and there throughout the underground level.
Layer the caution tape stretched across the entrance on top of that, and it looked for all the world like a monster had burst out of a gate and gone on a rampage.
Huh? Master, is that okay? It says do not enter.
I'm fine, kid.
That's what connections are for, huh?
When I peeled away the caution tape surrounding us, Seo-ah let out a flustered little uhh. Apparently she was wondering whether she — a brand-new hire all of one day into the job — should really be doing this.
Needless to say, neither Ha-yeon nor I cared in the slightest.
Not that I'd anticipated Ha-yeon striding right over the caution tape with such a serene expression on her face, either.
You've grown up so tough, Ha-yeon...
And thanks to her example, Seo-ah managed to shake off her hesitation too.
Watching Seo-ah carefully skirt around the tape, I gave a small nod of approval and then pulled out my gas mask.
Alright, shall we go?
No, hold on.
What?
What was that thing just now?
What thing?
What's that on your face right now?
What do you mean, what? It's a gas mask.
Why are you bringing this up now? Don't tell me you don't know what a gas mask is.
Unable to help myself, I shot her a quizzical look, and Seo-ah pressed a hand to her forehead like her head was spinning, muttering quietly to herself.
Is it... me who's the weird one?
He's always like that.
Ha-yeon murmured wearily.
Now, I could guess what she was worried about.
Hey, you really think I'd bring a gas mask just to save my own skin? There's no poison in there, so relax.
Then why did you bring a gas mask if there's no poison?
He's always like that.
Ha-yeon answered once again.
After all that rigmarole, we finally managed to set foot inside the gate.
A bleak, desolate landscape greeted us within. Scorching winds whipped around us harshly — yet not one of us thought to ask what exactly we were supposed to be doing here.
Because someone was already waiting.
Hm~? We've got quite a crowd of visitors today, don't we.
That unmistakable cult-leader cadence.
Flame-red hair that stood out all the more in this parched, empty world.
And modern clothing that suited her even less.
Beyond a black rider suit of utterly unknown provenance, violet eyes glinted with an uncanny gleam.
Well, well. And a rare guest indeed, on the other side.
The goddess Tiamat.
Or to be precise, her avatar.
Ever since the Yoon-ha abduction incident, the goddess's terminal had remained in residence here at the Academy's underground gate.
Strictly speaking, of course, the goddess Tiamat had no business being here at all.
Her appearance a while back to investigate the irregularities surrounding the gate had been, quite literally, a special exception.
And now that the courtesy investigation was over, that applied all the more.
A Constellation descended in the flesh, and her true identity. On top of that, the fact that the Korean government was keeping a goddess.
Any one of these was liable to invite needless chaos if it got out.
And yet, once every incident had been wrapped up, the goddess had said this to me:
Would it not be enough for you alone to keep your mouth shut?
...I mean, she wasn't wrong.
Not that I wanted to do that, of course.
No, seriously — who would that benefit?
I'd made a complete mess of things with the Association, sure, but I still possessed a bare minimum of crisis awareness. The existence of the goddess Tiamat was top secret in and of itself. On top of that, her true nature was effectively that of a monster on par with an S-Rank threat. Letting a being like that wander the streets freely? You'd have to be insane.
Well, even if she weren't dangerous in the slightest, my answer wouldn't have changed. Something about it just felt wrong.
Truthfully, the mere thought of a monster sidling around my personal space was enough. From the moment it became something a monster would enjoy, my reasons to object were already overflowing.
And yet.
In the end, I couldn't bring myself to refuse her proposal.
Because during the Yoon-ha abduction, she had taken my side — not the Association's — and contributed to driving them off.
Park Woochan, man of honor, does not live in anyone's debt.
Obviously that's bullshit. I'd gladly welch on any debt out there, but owing one to a monster made my skin crawl so badly that I'd nodded along before I even realized what I was doing.
And so, from that day forward, the goddess had been sending her avatar over with a clear conscience.
I did belatedly come to my senses and tried talking her out of it, but...
'No, you're gross to touch.'
I never actually succeeded.
And so, between me — who wanted to send her packing, or failing that, pack her off to the afterlife entirely — and this woman, a dramatic compromise was reached.
I would provide her with a residence. In exchange, she would center her life around that residence instead of flitting about wherever she pleased.
She, who found fabricating an avatar every single day a nuisance, agreed to my proposal as well, and thus her avatar came to live in this very gate.
Her official duty: keeping watch over yours truly, the infamous 'man-slaughtering hunter.'
No point hiding it — the final line of defense our side had prepared inside the gate during the Honinhoe's assault had been this woman as well.
Starting with the incident that brought me and Ha-yeon together, nothing tied to that organization was the kind of thing you could go around blabbing about freely.
Which meant we desperately needed internal personnel capable of handling such affairs.
With me, Choi Seungjun, and Lee Joongoo on our side, we weren't about to lose any contest of raw strength.
But the three of us was all we had.
We'd managed to extract Nam Sangwon from the Honinhoe, but against people who could marshal influence across every field, we were an overwhelming minority.
Bluntly put, if they decided to tie our hands by mobilizing a handful of high-rank hunters, we'd have no choice but to burn time we didn't have.
We wouldn't cave — but if they pulled off a terror attack on the Academy in the meantime?
There'd be nothing left for us to do.
Meaning that, in that sense, striking up this arrangement with her had turned out to be a rather encouraging result for us as well.
'My personal feelings aside, that is.'
Certainly, that organization had demonstrated unbelievable excellence up until now.
But.
Did they know of the goddess Tiamat's existence? To that question, I could only return a fairly skeptical answer.
A Constellation descending to the surface wasn't something you learned simply by having connections in high places, after all.
Even if they did know, it wouldn't change anything.
Nobody could reasonably expect a goddess that fickle to be taking our side at this point.
Viewed that way, it was actually her helping us that I couldn't figure out.
Frankly, I didn't much care, either.
She'd apparently put on some weight, eating and sleeping and lazing around her room for a stretch. Or maybe she'd just grown fond of that cheeseburger she had last time?
Either way, it made no difference to me.
If she was hiding an ulterior motive, so much the better for me. I could kill her with a clear conscience then.
Truthfully, deep down, I was half hoping she'd betray us.
Things were fine up to that point, but the woman had begun signaling that she was bored.
Hardly surprising, given her position — stuck loitering inside a gate around the clock.
Insufferably fickle, this one. Honestly.
Still, I suppose you could say the timing was perfect.
A woman broadcasting with her entire body how badly she wanted to go gallivanting off after something interesting, and me, casting about for a student teacher.
There was more than enough room for a new negotiation.
Hey, you want to try being a student teacher?
Yes.
And that was that.
Total time elapsed: a little over one minute.
The negotiation was concluded.
A truly resounding victory.
By the way — what exactly is a student teacher?
A student who, in order to complete their curriculum, goes out to a school in the field and undergoes practical training in education.
Indeed. How thoughtful of you for that dictionary-perfect explanation. Truly touching.
Heh-hah. With that breezy attitude, the goddess rose from her seat.
...I'd delivered it like a joke, but the offer itself had been entirely sincere.
After all, this woman was a Constellation.
In this day and age, an ancient deity believed to gaze down upon humanity from beyond the stars.
And.
The abilities of such Constellations were, almost without exception, specialized in blessings.
Awakening ordinary civilians into hunters, as with the woman until recently just a normal person — you could call it almost obvious.
Among them, though, this one was something else entirely.
The goddess of Mesopotamian myth who, it is said, waged war single-handedly with the children she had forged with her own hands as her soldiers.
Her power leaned overwhelmingly toward granting divine favor to those under her command, compared even to her fellow Constellations.
Which is to say — as far as support-type abilities go, a teacher as outstanding as her was hard to come by.
The real problem was how the hell I was supposed to explain her to Choi Seungjun...
How would that go, I wonder.
Could it be that Choi Seungjun already knows about her?
Hard to say. Admittedly, Choi Seungjun possesses one of the most formidable backgrounds in all of South Korea. Viewed that way, he could well have heard of her — but on the flip side, he once walked such an independent line that rumors of open hostilities with the Association spread freely about him. Looked at from that angle, I'm not sure I could bring myself to tell him outright, either.
'Eh, whatever.'
Thinking about it had become a chore. I'd just introduce her as a Middle Eastern migrant worker.
Big Korean corporations love foreign labor.
Um, Master? Who is this person?
Hm?
Apparently Seo-ah had no clue whatsoever what was actually going on in this situation.
Well, in fairness, even Ha-yeon — who had some history with her — had never once been told this woman's true identity...
Which worked out just fine, really. Whether Seo-ah or Ha-yeon, living at the Academy meant they'd inevitably cross paths with her before long.
Ha-yeon was already entangled with her beyond all untangling, of course, but Seo-ah should at least learn her face ahead of time.
Whatever anyone says, Seo-ah is my first disciple. I didn't relish dragging her into affairs like this, but if something ever went wrong, I needed to have at least laid down the basics for her.
Bluntly speaking, when it came to me, the safety of my disciples mattered far more than the Association's security or society's upheaval.
Your workplace colleague.
Uh, what?
You'll be fellow student teachers, I'm saying. You'll be meeting soon enough anyway, so I figured I'd introduce you ahead of time.
No, that's not the point—!
Now what?
So the question is, who IS this person! What gives, Master? When did you start hanging around with a beauty like this?!
Oh, is that so. Given that you're her disciple, I had assumed you a madman eight times out of ten — but you seem a decent sort.
Shut up, you.
If we're being precise, I knew her before I knew you.
Instead of answering that, I put my brain to work for a moment.
Let's see now.
We'd be colleagues going forward, after all. Better keep the backstory as airtight as possible, no?
Ms. Tia Bint Rahman Bin Abdullah Muhammad, of Middle Eastern immigrant background. She's a foreigner, so take good care of her.
Oh, I see! Um, nice to meet you.
You insane bastard!!
GYAAAH!!
Instead of returning Seo-ah's greeting, the goddess delivered a full-force kick straight to my shin.
Granted, the bespoke suit absorbed most of the damage, but the simple fact that I had come into contact with a monster through nothing more than a single layer of clothing sent me spinning head over heels into the air.
Ow, goddammit!! What the hell is your problem this time?!
You insane bastard, how could you not expect this? Hmm?
You ARE from the Middle East, you lunatic!
Then shall this one call you a commie, since you were born in this land?
The goddess sauntered over to where I lay sprawled on the floor and began lecturing me in a slow, sing-song drawl.
Charming, that folksy vocabulary of hers.
Furthermore — visiting after so long, and she's hauled every last woman along with her, has she?
They're my students, you psycho!
Now that I think of it, you did always go about with naught but female disciples, didn't you.
Not that you'd know, but there are guys too.
Silence. Men, truly. The moment they glimpse a woman's chest, their eyes roll back into their skulls.
What shocked me was the vulgar vocabulary YOU just deployed.
An uncivilized ancient one after all, it seems. To use such expressions in this age — have you quite decided you'd like to be sued?
I mean, sure, the notion that you shouldn't bring a woman along when you're about to ask a goddess for a favor is a fairly widespread belief, but.
Besides — how, exactly, do those girls look like disciples to you?
Huh?
I could swear upon the goddess's own name — the way those girls look at you is in no way, shape, or form the way one looks at a teacher.
The goddess glanced back over her shoulder as she said it.
And yet.
Coming from the world's most ancient widow-goddess, that verdict carried a strange, convincing weight to it.
Goddammit.
It's not like that. At all.
This one simply cannot fathom what grounds you imagine you have to be so confident.
You say that, but, y'know~
Seo-ah hates me.
Hoo?
Could YOU harbor that kind of feeling toward the person who killed your own father?
Absolutely could.
You are genuinely deranged.
I tried to inject a little tragic gravity into my delivery, but the ancient-mythology goddess only had this to offer in reply.