One and a Half Months of Silence
Another weekend slipped by, and Monday arrived. Hayeon herself was a little wistful about it, but she was discharged from the hospital without a hitch all the same.
And so, club time. I had resolved to come clean with the students about everything that had happened so far.
At first I'd wondered whether any explanation was truly necessary—but the Kim Minchul incident had shifted my perspective somewhat. My conviction that students must never be dragged into affairs like this remained unchanged, mind you. And yet. The genuine lunatics out there gave no consideration whatsoever to our side of things. Once that fact truly sank in, I found myself feeling that our side needed to change its approach as well.
To put it bluntly: lay out the situation from the very beginning, then separately reveal what these people really were. After all, most of the students gathered in this club had come precisely to hear the full story from me. Which meant the choice came down to two things—the danger of holding power one doesn't fully understand, or vigilance against the monstrous clutches those fiends kept at their beck and call. Of the two, I had chosen the latter.
Besides, I couldn't rashly assume there would never be another case like Hayeon's. If the entire class were the subject, that would be another matter, but the club numbered all of four. That much I could manage without a problem. Above all, these kids were already parties entangled with that organization. And the enemy, after all, was a pack of madmen who extended their hands even to monsters. There was no such thing as being too careful.
Of course, opinions had been divided among us adults on this. Choi Seungjun, for one, was opposed. His gist was that he had taken charge of the Academy to make the raw gems called students blossom—not to watch them squander their worth brawling over things that were none of their concern. The phrasing was a touch clumsy, but in short: he was worried about the students. He shot me a briefly irritated look for boiling it down to that, but I could tell it would only devolve into trivial banter, so I simply ignored him.
By contrast, Lee Joongoo was, surprisingly, in favor. I'd assumed he'd oppose the idea, given his own sister was involved. Choi Seungjun aside, it was unexpected. I'd been musing on this for a while now—maybe Lee Joongoo is actually rather strict with his sister. Sending her in his own place during the Seoa incident was proof enough of that. Or perhaps it was only natural, in a world where situations like these kept erupting. What were we even doing at their age, come to think of it?
The clincher, as ever, was Lee Joongoo's remark. Not that I could tell the kids, "We suffered through it, so it's your turn to suffer too."
The vote came out two to one. And so I resolved to explain to the children, in detail, everything that had happened. Not that I had any intention of airing my personal affairs with my own mouth—which meant what I could actually talk about was limited to my own actions against their attacks.
My first meeting with Hayeon as a monster cornered her. The circumstances that brought me to the Academy. The war of words with Yeeun, and the bet that came of it. Practical training. The monster that appeared without warning, and its subjugation. That organization, whose vague outline I finally began to make out. Yoonha's abduction, following right on its heels—the battle, and the rescue. Then the conflict with the Honinhoe that began with Jihee's warning, the scheme Jihee orchestrated over midterm week, the Honinhoe's assault, and once every incident had been wrapped up, the media war waged around the Honinhoe.
Is this for real?
Laid out all in a row, there was simply no way all of this should have happened within a single half year. In fact, the girls listening to my stories one by one gradually wore expressions of sheer exhaustion. What surprised me, though, was that every time I tried to mumble my way past a story, the people involved only pressed me harder. Thanks to that, even the personal matters I'd meant to skip came spilling out—with the students' blessing.
What I kept to myself were the facts under an outright gag order. In other words, Tiamat's true race, and the question of what was to be done with Hayeon—roughly those. On both counts, the girls behaved as though they'd rehearsed their lines together behind my back. Well. Either way.
The guild matter, which I'd cleared with Seoa in advance. And finally, a suitably sanitized account of the Kim Minchul incident—when I finished, the clubroom sank into an unseasonable silence.
Well, fair enough.
It couldn't be helped. Even by my own reckoning, the first semester had been absurdly eventful. And some of the stories were uncomfortable ones. That the technique Lee Yeeun wielded was, in truth, a self-destruction art that devoured her own body, for instance. Or that there was a half-blood among them. The same went for Yoonha's family circumstances, relatively light as they were—topics where other people's eyes couldn't help but be a concern. So I'd assumed a little awkwardness was only natural...
"It doesn't matter. If I think of her as my friend, that's all there is to it."
"Waaah, Yeeun~!!"
"Get off me, you're making me hot and gross."
Surprisingly, none of that awkwardness materialized. Maybe they were simply too busy digesting the absurdly overcrowded pileup of incidents to bother. Before long, the students were chattering away as usual. The single most stunning moment among them was, without question, Yeeun's remark. Because the thing I had worried about most, in truth, was the relationship between Jihee and Yeeun.
Wasn't it obvious why? That until now, Ryu Jihee had never once thought of Lee Yeeun as a friend. That she didn't particularly dislike her, but didn't like her either. That she had merely been playing at a convenient friendship to hide the fact that she was a half-blood. ...It's a bit crass to say outright, but if I'd heard those words in my own school days, I'm confident I would have sobbed my eyes out.
"Honestly, this one's on you, Jihee~"
And yet. Even after hearing Jihee's words—little short of a confession—Yeeun remained utterly composed. She went so far as to declare it flatly, in fact. I've thought it before, but every girl gathered in this club seems to have nerves of steel. No—should I say, this time she truly lives up to being Lee Joongoo's sister? I never expected to glimpse such an unexpected side of her here.
"Man, though, that's way harsher than I imagined. Wouldn't you say, Teach?"
"What is? My life?"
"No—well, you're not wrong, but I mean that organization."
Yoonha, who had been snickering at the whole scene, opened her mouth with a languid air. Compared to how she'd choked up not long ago, spilling her own circumstances through tears, she was far easier to face now. Should I call this growth, or what? Either way, the mere fact that Yoonha wasn't baring her fangs at me without cause was enough to bring tears to my eyes. And she wasn't wrong, either.
That organization. This group—so shadowy that even now nobody knew what it called itself—was, as ever, unorthodox to an outrageous degree. The finesse to control multiple high-rank monsters at once. Evidence even suggesting they had entered negotiations with monsters. Hunters up to A-rank at their disposal, not to mention half-bloods approaching S-rank. Enough reach to wage media wars through broadcasters, or to dangle the National Assembly itself as bait. And that was from merely listing objective facts.
It was all but certain that the incidents involving not only Hayeon and Yeeun but Jihee and Yoonha as well had been their machinations. If anything, the guild affair with Seoa—only half-entangled—and the Tiamat matter were the exceptions. The overwhelming majority of the messes I'd been tangled in all semester traced back to those people. Impossible to gauge, whether in scale or in capability.
"Then, Teacher."
"Hmm? Yeeun, what is it?"
"What should we do?"
"Uh... good question?"
When I answered her question so half-heartedly, Jihee, who was glued to my side, shot me a sidelong glare. Naturally, I glared right back. Before long she looked away with a soft hmph.
Heh. Victory. There is nothing quite like the satisfaction of out-stubborning a single high school girl.
But still. What should they do? Asked like that, I had no answer to give. No—seriously, none. The very reason I'd told them about that organization in the first place was the same. "These bastards are terrifying, so don't even think about drawing a blade against them. The teachers will handle it—you just stay careful." Wasn't that the whole point?
Besides, we adults weren't so different. Not just me and Choi Seungjun—Lee Joongoo either. In my case, on the thinking that if I kept Hayeon at my side, they would inevitably send monsters. In Choi Seungjun's case, because they were the ones who reached for the Academy first. In Lee Joongoo's case, because these bastards proved even madder than he'd anticipated. Our purpose was concentrated, without exception, on a single point: throwing a wrench into theirs. A defensive strategy, in other words. Raiding and destroying their stronghold, moving to actively apprehend them... As it happened, no such plans existed. We had neither the luxury nor the leads for it in the first place.
Only now that I'd somehow shaken off the assassins they dispatched and Choi Seungjun had wrested away the strategic advantage were the points level—objectively speaking, probably below level. After all, we had only just barely managed to absorb their attacks. In fact, even now, with their offensive slowed, we were in no position to attempt a counterstrike. They say the defender holds the advantage over the besieger, but defense alone cannot turn the tide of a war. It is always the attacking side that decides when and where to strike. And if the attacker outweighs the defender, defense amounts to nothing more than a listless game of stalling. Literally nothing but ankle-grabbing with the attacker's victory all but promised.
"Not exactly a rosy situation, is it~"
Only. Ask me whether I could break that deadlock, and all I could do was squirm. What do you expect me to do about it? As I'd said before, being a cell-based organization made them difficult to track. We had more or less uncovered their characteristics, but they were so distinctive that it actually made them harder to get a fix on. Presumably, they were in contact with monsters. They had likely extended their feelers into the government and all manner of groups. Easier said than done—someone with ties to monsters, among people powerful enough to raise the subject of half-bloods on the floor of the National Assembly. How was I supposed to investigate that... I was no political operator to begin with, and one careless misstep could send the backlash crashing down on the Academy itself. The very gravity of the situation was, ironically, serving as their smokescreen. So for the time being, a stagnant stalemate was the limit of what we could manage.
"Then, why not try looking at it from the other side?"
"Huh? The other side?"
"Certainly, from the teachers' perspective, the situation might look like a stalemate you're barely managing to hold. Right?"
"Right?"
"But what about from their side?"
"Hmm?"
"The matter involving Hunter Shin Seoa was, from start to finish, something you stepped forward and handled on your own initiative. And the matter involving Ms. Tia, you said, was never their doing to begin with."
...That was how I'd framed it, but apparently, in Yeeun's eyes, the current situation was no simple stalemate.
Still, Ms. Tia, huh. I get the feeling she's respected even less than I am. Is that really all right?
Swallowing that rather peculiar assessment, I lent my ear to the rest of Yeeun's words.
"Then that organization has been holding its offensive in check for nearly a month and a half now."
"And it circles right back to that."
"Yes. Of course, objectively speaking, that isn't such a long time."
"But. Considering how hyperactive the first half of the semester was, the tempo is undeniably, strangely leisurely. A month and a half—by their previous frequency, that's enough time to set three or four incidents in motion. So what if...?"
To scout out our strength?
That was exactly what I'd thought at first. High-rank monsters, a hunter who killed people, a half-blood into the bargain. I had demolished every piece they sent, one after another, without exception. I'd judged that they were simply crouching low for a while. In truth, their assaults had stopped only after my full strength was laid bare. But even so, more than a month and a half of silence...
"Maybe the damage you dealt was greater than they anticipated?"
"Nah, I doubt that."
The monster village I had swept clean that day had been middling at best. The strongest monster there was, at most, around B-rank. It was hard to imagine that dealing a crippling blow to bastards who had thrown three A-ranks and an S-rank at us without a moment's hesitation. Granted, watching that many high-rank monsters get carved down one after another was surely a considerable loss for them as well. But. I didn't believe that alone would stop them. No—I couldn't believe it. Monsters don't cut and run out of sheer fright over a few dead high-ranks. If they did, the nations of the world wouldn't be suffering this much.
"Is that so?"
"Yeah."
"Then nine times out of ten, they have some other purpose."
...Huh? Another purpose?
"Yes. You still believe they have strength to spare, don't you, Teacher?"
"Th-that's right?"
"If so, then there has to be a reason they aren't moving."
"Huh."
"They can't possibly have just sat still for a month and a half."
Like a prophecy, that was what Yeeun said. And hearing it, I too began to feel a creeping unease.
I knew their objective. Hayeon herself. ...I didn't believe they would change that objective at this late stage. Everything they had done so far pointed to it. An A-rank hunter who murdered people. An S-rank monster timed to appear during practical training. And a half-blood with power on par with S-rank besides. Generally, A+ rank is considered the ceiling of what modern society's standards can measure. Hunter or monster alike, once something reaches S-rank, its power can no longer be reckoned by modern society's yardstick. In other words, everything they had thrown at securing Hayeon's person amounted, in effect, to bad checks. And now, at this point, they give up? No—if it were something they could simply abandon, they would never have been writing bad checks so freely from the start. It meant that, at the very least, they had judged Hayeon worth committing S-rank-class force to acquire.
But. The grand objective: securing Hayeon. The means to that end. The mid-tier and lesser objectives serving it could be swapped out. In other words, instead of assaulting the Academy or eliminating me, they might come at Hayeon by entirely different means. After all, their goal had always been Hayeon's capture—not my defeat.
Then what if... What if, all this time, they hadn't been exercising restraint or gathering intelligence at all? What if they had simply been amassing strength?
I stole a glance at the calendar. A month and a half. Not a long time—but not a short one, either. And. With the whole series of incidents surrounding Tiamat resolved, the date had quietly crept to late May. The Academy's final exams were now right at the doorstep.