Aftermath of the Evaluation
"Hey! You three!!! Argh! Seriously!!!"
"*Sniffle...*
"Hwaaa... *sob*..."
"I-I'm so sorryyy..."
Three students stood with their heads hung low before me, looking thoroughly ashamed as I fumed.
"It's okay. Really, it's okay. At least you don't need to retake the whole evaluation—you just have to sit through about two more weeks of classes, right? That's not so bad. Way better than repeating a whole year."
Ha-yan was busy trying to soothe the two girls, who were quietly shedding tears.
But I still couldn't wrap my head around it.
They had tailed us to the bitter end, scraped together this incredible opportunity—and now, instead of following us back to Korea, they failed the evaluation and had to stick around studying for two more weeks?
I could not for the life of me understand this situation!! Why would they throw away a chance like that?! Was this their way of completely ignoring me?
In the end, I couldn't hold it in and was about to start yelling at the three of them all over again—
SMACK!!
"Gyaaah!!"
"If you're just going to keep grumbling in front of the kids, go sulk in the room! You can't even comfort them properly, so why do you keep making them cry?!"
"I-I got it!! I said I got it!! Stop smacking my back alreadyyy!!"
One palm smash from Ha-yan and my anger vanished on the spot, replaced by nothing but pure pain.
That girl. She really was her mother's daughter. That slap had some serious sting to it... *ugh*.
"All right, kids. The weird guy's been chased off, so no more crying."
"*Hic*... I-I'm so sorryyy... We keep bothering you like this, Unnie..."
The one who seemed to cry the most—the girl named Silvi—kept bowing her head to me as she spoke.
I shot one more glare at the door Siu had vanished behind, then did my best to put on the gentlest expression I could manage as I comforted them.
"You don't need to overthink it. Just study hard while you're at it, rest up, and come over to Korea. Siu and I have nothing but time, anyway. You saw me during the evaluation, right? There's nothing left for me to study on the magic side of things."
"*Sniffle.* That's true... Even our parents struggle with teleportation magic, but you used it so freely."
I finally managed to calm the sniffing kids down, sat them on the sofa in the hotel living room, and brought over some drinks.
This time, Ho-jin was sitting beside me as well—she hadn't been around the last time.
Now that living together was firmly settled, it was time to explain a few things they needed to know.
Of course, I had no intention of telling them Siu was a dragon. Even if I did, I doubted these kids would be able to process it.
Leaving that part out, though, I planned to tell them a few facts they'd need to know while living in Korea.
"Okay. First of all—the person next to me isn't a person. She's a Homunculus. Her name is Yang Ho-jin."
"Hello, everyone."
Ho-jin spoke in the warmest, friendliest tone she could manage, just as we'd rehearsed beforehand.
Her actual personality was a lot like Silvi's—timid, tearful, and absolutely fanatical about food—but I figured the kids would already be crushed under Siu's pressure. They needed someone other than me they could lean on.
Siu and I had talked over how best to teach these kids going forward, and we'd concluded there was no real reason for him to step in on the magic side of things.
There hadn't even been anyone close to my level at the evaluation, and these three were right about average among that crowd.
As for having to do the leftover coursework this time... well. Maybe they just hadn't had enough time to prepare because they'd been tailing us. They weren't that bad.
And just as I'd expected, the kids jumped in shock at the news that the person-looking being in front of them was a Homunculus—then seemed even more stunned by the sheer magical technique involved.
Well. I was the one living buried under Homunculi thanks to Siu; creating them actually took an insane amount of mana and skill. The mages' headquarters under Antarctica had only about a hundred of them, and that was over a very long stretch of time. Among those, Homunculi with free will and emotions like our kids numbered only around ten.
Hearing things like that, you really understood that Siu was something completely off the charts... or rather, a dragon.
The kids' eyes were full of burning curiosity—they clearly wanted to pepper Ho-jin with questions—but this wasn't the time for that yet.
Once they came to Korea, there'd be more than enough time for questions.
So I threw them a different one instead.
"Anyway, you'll come over in two weeks. What did your parents say?"
Just like me, these kids were still minors. Parental permission was essential. I'd half expected at least one set of parents to refuse—
"M-my parents told me to stay as loooong as I possibly can."
"My parents wanted to come to Korea themselves—I barely managed to stop th—"
"My father said he has some gold made with alchemy and asked me to find out how much you need..."
"...Your parents are something else, too, huh."
I'd told them to spare me nothing, but I hadn't expected it to go this far.
Of course. If Siu hadn't been flexing his power and money from the start, I could see exactly how this would have gone. The kids were so sweet—it was always the adults who were the problem.
I clapped my hands once, sharp and clear, pulling their attention back, and went on.
"From now on, forget everything else and focus on your classes. Once you're done, take your time coming over to Korea and contact me. You all got my personal number, right?"
The three kids nodded so hard their heads nearly flew off.
Without thinking, I reached out and ruffled the hair of the two girls sitting right in front of me.
Ah. So this was why Siu kept petting my head at the drop of a hat.
They were only a year younger than me—why were they so cute?
"M-my hair... Ha-yan Unnie stroked my hair... It was so warm..."
"As expected. Maybe it's because she's that person's disciple, but she's no ordinary person. How does someone her age have that much mana?"
"And the teleportation magic! Even my mom struggles with that spell, so how can she use it so easily? Without even frowning once, either."
After a rather terrifying reunion with Cha Siu—and the meeting with Lee Ha-yan that followed, who might as well have been an angel—they had gathered again in their own lodgings to talk things over.
The evaluation was done, and the remaining classes weren't scheduled until the next day, so they'd decided on a little after-party that wasn't quite an after-party.
They had a few things of their own to sort out, too.
But for a long while, their conversation never strayed beyond pure praise for Lee Ha-yan.
Back when she'd taken the evaluation herself, they'd been too busy with their own magic practice to watch properly. This time, though, they'd sat in the very front—close enough to feel like a one-on-one—and had felt her manipulate mana with their whole bodies.
After that experience, they said, they finally understood just how enormous the opportunity they'd seized really was.
Teave took a sip of his drink, then shuddered lightly as he spoke.
"Ugh. Even thinking about it now, Cha Siu-nim's mana level was truly... terrifying."
"But those kids who said weird things to someone like that—what were they even thinking? Even if the target hadn't been Cha Siu-nim but some other mage..."
"A-and some of them were straight-up grumbling and cursing. I think Ha-yan Unnie was checking their faces."
"If it hadn't been Ha-yan Noonim's choice, we probably would have been right there with them. And if Cha Siu-nim had noticed us... *whew*. I don't even want to imagine it."
Teave shuddered all over just from the brief mental picture, his legs going weak at the thought.
"Still, in the end... we're blessed. When I told my family, my parents went wild with joy. They immediately said they'd book the plane tickets to Korea for me."
"Ah, same with mine. They told me to look after you two properly—said I was the only guy. Then they started going on about how Korea might be dangerous because of North Korea. Total nonsense."
"*Sigh.* Adults still think of South Korea like it's the 1960s. Our own country's public safety is probably worse."
Terrifying moments and genuinely happy ones had come one after another, but in the end all three of them were practically bouncing with joy at having been chosen.
They simply weren't putting words to how frightening Cha Siu felt.
And the people around them were the same.
Some offered pure, heartfelt congratulations—but of course there were also those who poured out absurd nonsense out of pure jealousy.
That was how much weight the name Cha Siu carried in the world of mages.
"Still, cleaning up our friend lists should be easy. You two checking your phones?"
At Teave's words, Lily and Silvi immediately wrinkled their faces.
"I was wondering why my battery was dying so fast today—so *that's* what it was. I never thought she'd say something like that to me. Seduce Cha Siu-nim with my blonde hair? Seduccce? She must not have seen Ha-yan Unnie's face up close to say something that dumb."
"I only really have you two as friends anyway... My parents said cleaning up my friend list would probably go well."
Looking at their phones, the three of them freshly felt the true weight of the name Cha Siu among mages, and for a while they were completely absorbed in pruning the contacts saved on their phones.
A little later, Lily—who had been fussing with her blonde hair—opened her mouth again.
"You know. Something's been bothering me a little. Ha-yan Unnie called Cha Siu-nim so casually, without any hesitation. Are masters and disciples usually that close? I always use formal speech with my master. Don't you two?"
"That's true. I've used formal speech with my master since I was little."
"I-I call my mom and dad 'Master' during class..."
"But those two... how do I put it. They didn't feel like master and disciple so much as..."
Lily clutched her head with both hands for a moment, thinking hard—then her eyes flew wide as something clicked.
"That's it! They felt like a couple!"
"Want to study, Silvi?"
"Y-yeah. That sounds better."
"Hey, hey! Why are you completely ignoring what I'm saying?! Am I wrong?! Was I the only one who felt that?! Was that it or not?!"
Teave and Silvi looked at Lily like she had lost her mind and discreetly edged away.
Yes. The fact that those two reacted that way said it all—what Lily had just said was pure insanity.