Chapter 67: A Talent That Cannot Be Hidden (1)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 67: A Talent That Cannot Be Hidden (1)
Commuting to school by bus every morning is more of a hassle than I expected.
“Maybe I should’ve just stayed in the dorms…”
The perks given to special admission students included a spot in the dorms.
And not just any dorms—they were ultra-luxurious, incomparable to the rooftop room I was living in now.
I was tempted when I saw the photos of the interior, which looked to be a massive room, but I ultimately turned it down.
The moment I moved into the dorms, the distance between me and the landlady would become immeasurable.
They say out of sight, out of mind.
There’s a difference between making a special trip to see someone and having to go there regardless.
This is a crucial time when we should be getting physical; I can’t let distance get in the way.
Just look at today.
If I had moved into the dorms, would I have ever had the honor of getting a handjob while eating breakfast?
“Mhm, I made the best choice.”
I can definitely put up with a little inconvenience.
If it gets too bad, I can just run a few dungeons and buy a car. And once I can cast intermediate magic without issue, I’ll be able to fly to and from school. I just have to be patient.
“Still, this damn school is ridiculously huge.”
The weather was nice, so I’d planned to walk, but I ended up hopping on the campus shuttle instead.
I was cutting it close on time since I’d finished by coming all over the landlady’s hand.
She’d gone to such lengths to send me off to school properly; I couldn’t be late for my very first class.
As the bus sped along, I watched the vast campus scenery fly by and clicked my tongue.
“What a greedy old geezer.”
The fact that Korea University used the entirety of Yeouido for its campus was entirely the fault of one man: Choi Kang-cheol.
Insisting that if they were going to build it, they had to do it right, he made a proposal that was more like a threat, demanding the whole island. The government gave in.
Back then, so many Hunters were dying that the old geezer, an S-rank Hunter at the time, had a terrifying amount of influence.
Well… the advantage of having such a large campus is that they can build whatever they need on the spare land. The problem is, the disadvantages are just as significant.
“Being this big is why villains are constantly breaking in.”
A large area is inherently vulnerable to defend.
No matter how tight your surveillance system is, in a world teeming with extraordinary abilities, creating a blind spot is child’s play.
In the early days, this almost caused Korea University to be shut down the moment it was founded.
Villains would invade whenever they felt like it and wreak havoc. Back then, the surveillance system was much more primitive than it is now, and many students were killed or injured.
The blame fell squarely on that old man, but he solved the problem in his own bizarre way.
“A Hunter’s life is a constant crisis,” or so he said.
We live in a world where you can be walking down the street and stumble upon a terrorist attack.
At a press conference broadcast to the entire nation, the old geezer declared war on all villains.
Come at us anytime, he’d said.
Our students may bend, but they will not break. They will feed on you and grow stronger.
And what happened next?
Obviously, all hell broke loose.
Protests flooded in, people demanding to know what kind of crazy talk that was.
There was even an article titled, ‘Is Dementia an Insurmountable Wall, Even for an S-Rank Hunter?’
But the old geezer turned his back on his critics, closing his eyes and ears to their outrage.
His attitude was simple: attend if you want, and if not, get lost.
“But it actually worked.”
Only about a hundred students remained on that vast campus.
They didn’t stay because they agreed with the old man’s educational philosophy.
They were people with nowhere else to go, or vengeful souls who wanted to kill monsters and villains even if it cost them their own lives.
Those were the only ones who remained.
Trained under an S-rank Hunter through constant, real-world combat, those hundred Hunters shot to the top of the Hunter rankings the moment they stepped out into the world.
“…Though, to be honest, those guys probably would’ve succeeded no matter what.”
Anyway.
The world was stunned.
Choi Kang-cheol, the stubborn, senile old geezer, was suddenly hailed as the greatest educator of the era, leaving behind the famous quote, “A Hunter cannot grow stronger without facing crisis.”
At the same time, Korea University became an educational institution that had proven its reason for existence through results.
For the students, dealing with villains who infiltrated the campus became something of a surprise event.
They started offering various rewards like scholarships and equipment as bait for those who contributed to catching them. Now, the upperclassmen supposedly wait with bated breath for villains to show up.
As I was killing the dull time reminiscing about the past, I felt a presence behind me.
Who is it?
Just as the presence, which was slowly approaching, got right behind me, I whipped my head around.
“Gasp!”
A girl, who was about to let out a full-blown scream, hastily covered her mouth, panting for breath.
I wondered who it was, but it was Im Na-eun.
It seemed she’d spotted me on the bus and was trying to sneak up and scare me.
Maybe I should have just played along.
“Y-Y-You scared me!”
Im Na-eun clutched her heart, scolding me.
Leave it to the guilty party to get angry first.
“Weren’t you trying to scare me, too?”
“N-No, I wasn’t!”
Hey, Ms. Im Na-eun. Stuttering and avoiding my gaze like that makes you completely unconvincing.
“Hmph.”
She clicked her tongue softly and sat down next to me.
Then, as if she’d remembered something, she looked at me with her round eyes.
“Oh, right! I have something to ask you.”
“What is it?”
“The person who took me home last night, was that you?”
“Nope. I passed out not long after you did. Yu-jeong took me home.”
“Heeh… you must be really close with Yu-jeong.”
Close?
Hmm.
Yeah, we’re close.
To be precise, we got a little closer as of yesterday.
The word “sex” was now attached to the word “friend.”
If you’re friends who have sex, you’re sex friends. Simple as that.
“Not super close, but I’d say we’re friends.”
To become super close friends, we’d have to go much, much further than we have.
We’d have to be at a point where we could have sex whenever we wanted, wouldn’t we?
“Then who took me home? I woke up in the middle of the night and I was already home…”
“Beats me…”
There were more than enough people at that party who could have taken Im Na-eun home.
I’d bet every guy there wanted to take her home.
But since she didn’t feel like anything was out of place when she woke up, it probably wasn’t a guy.
“Maybe Yu-jeong took you home, too.”
“Ah, that could be it.”
“Want me to ask her?”
“Yes!”
I immediately opened my phone and sent Shin Yu-jeong a Ka-talk message.
`Me: Hey Yu-jeong, did you happen to take Im Na-eun home yesterday?`
“I sent the message, so I’ll let you know when she replies…”
Ka-talk!
“…She replied.”
`Shin Yu-jeong: Yep, I took her. Found her address on the delivery app on her phone.`
I showed the reply to Im Na-eun.
“That’s what she said.”
“Oh, I see. Yu-jeong is so smart. How did she think to check a delivery app for an address?”
“Right?”
That girl’s a genius when it comes to using the conveniences of civilization.
Before I could pull my phone away from Im Na-eun’s face, another message arrived.
“Uh, uhm… Do-jin, the, the message…”
Suddenly, her face flushed bright red.
What kind of message would make her react like that?
Did that girl actually say something bad about Im Na-eun?
`Shin Yu-jeong: Hey, did you jerk off before bed last night?`
“……”
This crazy bitch, seriously.
I hastily blurted out a non-excuse of an excuse to Im Na-eun.
“Um, well… we’re the kind of informal friends who joke around like this. You know? Like, we’re different genders but we don’t see each other that way, like childhood bud—I mean, old friends!”
“I-I see.”
Her expression was so awkward I couldn’t tell if she believed me or not.
Fuck, what am I going to do about this atmosphere?
Pissed off, I sent back a single ‘Fuck off’ and was about to put my phone away when Im Na-eun grabbed my arm.
“Ah… well, since your phone is out, do you want to… exchange numbers?”
“Sure.”
Come to think of it, we hadn’t even exchanged numbers yet.
I took her number and saved it in my phone.
That brought the total number of contacts to four.
Peeking at my screen from the side, her eyes went wide and she clicked her tongue.
“Wow… isn’t your contact list a little too empty…?”
“I guess it is.”
It was the complete opposite when I was Son Si-woo.
Back then, I had hundreds of numbers saved in my contacts.
But now, I think I like this better.
Something I’ve learned so far in life is that you don’t need to know that many people.
So in this life, I don’t plan on filling this contact list with a lot of people.
“I don’t want to add the numbers of people who don’t mean anything to me.”
“Oh, so does that mean I’m someone meaningful to you? Kyaa~! What’s this!”
She suddenly started patting my arm and shoulder with her little cotton fists.
The timely number exchange and my empty contact list managed to dispel the awkward atmosphere.
What a relief.
I sighed internally and said to her.
“You’re meaningful in your own way. Like you said, we’re the first friends we made at university.”
“Heehee, you’re right. We’re totally meaningful, yep.”
Sheesh.
Is this a scene from the life of a youth?
It’s a bit cringey, but it really drives home the fact that I’m twenty years old right now.
[Next stop is Area D, Area D.]
“Ah, let’s get off.”
“Okay!”
Area D, where the Magic Department buildings were clustered, was located in a remote part of campus.
If you were to ask why the buildings of such renowned mages were so secluded, the answer would be to prepare for potential accidents.
Being a mage is fundamentally a high-risk, high-return profession.
It means that the more effort you pour into casting a spell, the greater the destructive power or efficiency you can achieve.
Conversely, the risk of failure is also enormous.
It can range from physical damage due to mana reflux on the low end, to a full-blown explosion from a rampage on the high end.
Mistakes made by students were on a level that professors could handle, but this area also included research buildings where magic research was actively conducted.
A mistake there could lead to a major disaster, so the buildings were constructed in a remote area to prevent any accidents from spreading elsewhere.
“The buildings are so pretty, right?”
“Yeah, they are.”
The exterior walls of the Magic Department buildings were adorned with colorful magic circles.
Various damage absorption spells, protection spells, and the like.
They were all magic circles necessary to protect the buildings from magical accidents.
The reason Im Na-eun called them pretty was because the arrangement of the different magic circles was incredibly beautiful.
Some mage once bragged in an interview that mages must also possess a keen aesthetic sense.
Honestly, they all think they’re the most sophisticated people in the world.
“We’re going to be late, let’s hurry!”
I checked my watch to see that there was less than a minute until class started.
We hastily ran up the stairs and opened the door to classroom 201.
A considerable number of students were already seated inside.
They all flicked their gazes toward us for a moment before turning away, as if they’d lost interest.
In that short moment, they left a strong impression on me.
Despite their different genders and appearances, they all had one thing in common.
Every single one of them had a smug, asshole-ish look on their face.
Just by coming here, I’d already gained a new ability.
I could now tell if a passerby was a mage or not just by looking at their expression.
If they have a smug, Malfoy-like face, you can bet they’re a mage. Yep.
The way they all looked down their noses was seriously getting on my nerves.
Is this urge to break all of their noses a sign that I have a twisted personality?
Just as Im Na-eun and I found seats in the middle of the room, a man in a neat suit walked into the classroom.
His flow of mana was distinctly different from that of the seated students.
As expected, he walked up to the podium at the front of the classroom and faced us.
“Welcome. For this semester, I will be in charge of your Basic Flame Magic class. My name is Go Su-jae.”
The first class had begun.