Finally Shedding That Mutt Look
After class ended and everyone had dispersed, only Kwak Do-jin remained behind.
Kang Hyun sipped his whiskey as he regarded him.
The look in his eyes was different from usual—the gaze of a man who had already made up his mind.
"Professor."
"What, still thirsty for booze?"
"Thank you for the drinks that time."
"If you're just gonna talk without bringing the tab, get lost."
Even at the curt joke, Kwak Do-jin bowed at the waist in greeting.
Kang Hyun could tell.
This bastard's fully made up his mind.
He was finally casting off those ill-fitting third-rate thug clothes and deciding to return to his past self.
Yeah. That suits you better.
Better than barking half-assedly.
"I'm truly grateful for everything you've taught me. Thanks to you, Professor, I learned what the basics really are—and what I'd been missing all along."
It sounded far closer to a farewell than simple thanks.
He's prepared for expulsion.
Rather than keep watching Baek Yu-yeon get jerked around, he had decided to abandon the Academy instead.
But Kang Hyun made no attempt to stop him or dig into the decision.
Arguing over a choice reached after bone-grinding deliberation was no way to treat a martial artist.
"Whatever it is, looks like you've made a solid call."
"Yes."
Kwak Do-jin bit down hard on his lip.
He had no regrets.
But lingering regret remained.
When he had watched Kang Hyun unfold the Three Talents Sword Style just moments earlier, his heart had burned hot for the first time in a long while.
Kang Hyun had shown him, intact, that overwhelming presence he had once longed to reach when he first gripped a sword.
"May I ask one thing?"
"Go ahead."
"Even if I end up no longer being an Academy cadet... could I still keep receiving your teachings, Professor?"
A brief silence settled.
Gulp.
Kang Hyun swallowed a mouthful of liquor before answering.
"You never paid for the drinks, and now you want free lessons without tuition? Cha Yu-sik was the same earlier—none of you have any shame."
"Didn't you call me the exception before? Said I couldn't skip class? I learned a man doesn't talk out of both sides of his mouth."
In truth, Kwak Do-jin had never once wanted to retake any other professor's class, no matter how brilliant.
But Kang Hyun's classes were different.
He wanted to keep attending.
He felt he finally understood why private tutoring thrived outside these walls.
Even if he gave up the Academy diploma, as long as he could remain Kang Hyun's disciple, that would be enough. He was certain of it.
"You're mistaken, mutt."
"Huh?"
"When did we ever hold class during regular hours?"
"...!"
Kwak Do-jin's pupils blew wide.
Regular classes were originally Saturdays at ten.
Meaning any other session times were open even to non-cadets.
"...Thank you, Professor. I'll be going then."
Kwak Do-jin spun around quickly so no one would catch the red rising in his eyes.
Of course, there was no way Kang Hyun missed it.
Tsk. A grown man crying.
Behind the women's dormitory, in a narrow alley.
Someone approached carefully toward Kwak Do-jin, who was leaning against the wall.
A cap pulled low, a white mask covering the face.
"What did you call me for this time, senior?"
It was Baek Yu-yeon.
She looked for all the world like she was dodging someone, and that sight actually put Kwak Do-jin at ease.
She still hasn't stamped the contract!
If she had, why would she still be avoiding Hwang Min-woo?
"I told you not to meddle. Why do you keep showing up?"
"The contract?"
Kwak Do-jin asked flatly.
He needed to be sure.
"Haa."
Baek Yu-yeon let out a short sigh.
Guilt pricked sharply in a corner of her chest.
The senior who ruined himself trying to save me.
She couldn't stand by and watch him get expelled, and she wanted to scold him for turning into a thug.
"Listen carefully, senior."
So she drew a firm line.
"You're my lifesaver. That's why I'll do everything in my power to make sure you graduate safely. That's my responsibility and my duty."
"..."
"So you live your own life too. Stop acting out and going off the rails—attend class properly. Think of your grandmother. You can't keep doing this."
After a beat of silence, Kwak Do-jin answered.
"I'm not going off the rails anymore."
"What?"
"I ain't living like a thug. I made up my mind. So answer me."
He stepped closer and asked,
"That ten-year slave contract—did you sign it?"
"Haa, that..."
Baek Yu-yeon's lips moved.
"I didn't."
"You didn't?"
"Actually... I couldn't."
She pressed her fingers to her brow and muttered.
Not signing and not being able to sign were entirely different things.
"How couldn't you? Hwang Min-woo just sat still?"
"I was this close to stamping it with my thumbprint. But then..."
A look of pure disbelief crossed her face.
"You know that new contract professor who always walks around with a whiskey bottle?"
"Professor Kang Hyun?"
"Yes, him. He suddenly staggered out of nowhere going, 'Whoops! I'm drunk!' and dumped the whole bottle all over the contract."
"...What?"
His eyes went round as lanterns.
"And it wasn't just once. After that Hwang Min-woo got so mad he printed a new one, and the professor appeared like a ghost again, claimed his foot slipped, and tore the whole thing clean in half."
"..."
Kwak Do-jin's heart hammered.
"That's why Hwang Min-woo is completely losing it right now. After the professor did it twice, I figured it had to be fate, so I made excuses, postponed everything, and I've been running around hiding."
Listening to her grumbling, Kwak Do-jin's mind went blank.
The professor?
He had no way of knowing Kang Hyun had marked Baek Yu-yeon and was deliberately wrecking things.
So the bridge of his nose stung.
...He was helping me!
He was moved.
Kwak Do-jin steadied the swell in his chest and got to the real reason he had called her.
"I'm leaving the Academy."
"...What did you just say?"
Baek Yu-yeon's eyes flooded with shock.
"Senior! What are you talking about now?!"
"I'm walking out on my own two feet before they expel me."
"I told you I'd stop it somehow!"
"That's exactly why!"
His voice rose a notch.
"I'm leaving because you keep doing that crap. You think I'd actually be grateful if you stamped that damn contract?"
"Senior!"
"My life is mine to handle. If I get expelled, you've got no reason left for that bastard Hwang Min-woo to blackmail you!"
"Aren't you even angry about how unfair it is?"
"I used to be. Not anymore."
Kwak Do-jin meant every word.
Life was full of blessings in disguise.
If his life hadn't hit rock bottom, would he ever have sat through Professor Kang Hyun's classes?
"I've already found my own way to survive. So please—just think about yourself. Don't wreck your life using me as an excuse."
Their emotions collided and the air pulled taut—
Clap. Clap. Clap.
Slow, deliberate applause echoed through the alley.
"Aigoo, look at this tear-jerking youth drama."
Kwak Do-jin and Baek Yu-yeon both turned toward the sound.
A man stepped out of the darkness with a hard expression.
Hwang Min-woo.
He looked thoroughly pissed.
"So that makes me the villain, right? Fine, fuck it. I'll play the villain properly for once."
He sauntered forward with a crooked grin, eyes flipped from pure jealousy.
He locked onto Kwak Do-jin.
"Senior Kwak, walking out on your own feet?"
He snorted.
"Don't delude yourself, mad dog. Think it'll get easier outside the Academy? Expulsion or dropout—doesn't matter. You really think our guild's influence won't reach you when you try scraping by as a hunter out there?"
"..."
"And Baek Yu-yeon."
Hwang Min-woo pulled a crisp, uncreased new contract from his coat and waved it.
"That crazy drunk professor wrecked it twice so the old ones are gone, but this time I even laminated the damn thing. Watching the two of you play that sweet little scene just now, though? My mood's gone completely to shit."
Venom gathered in his eyes.
"Let's revise. Not ten years—fifteen. Rot in our guild's medical unit for fifteen years. Or I'll chop this bastard's arms and legs off so he can't even play hunter outside."
"You... you absolute...!"
Baek Yu-yeon's face went deathly white.
That was when Kwak Do-jin, who had been listening in silence, finally spoke.
"Hwang Min-woo."
He wasn't riled up the way he usually was.
Because he had decided.
He would not live like a thug.
"I was just gonna leave the Academy quietly on my own."
Kwak Do-jin cracked his neck left and right.
Crack, crack—the sound of bone grinding filled the alley.
"But thinking about it, that won't cut it."
"What?"
"Let's just go for a clean expulsion."
"What the hell are you suddenly babbling—"
Hwang Min-woo never finished the sentence.
Taat!
Kwak Do-jin closed the distance in a single long stride.
His thoroughly trained lower body drove into the ground; the rebound force traveled cleanly up through his waist and into his shoulder.
The professor said it, didn't he.
If your feet leave the ground, you're already dead.
Power starts from the earth and rises.
"Senior, no!"
Baek Yu-yeon lunged to stop him, but Kwak Do-jin's fist was already cutting through the air.
Even if you wanted to play thug, you still needed real force behind it.
In raw combat power, Kwak Do-jin had always stood far above the likes of Hwang Min-woo.
And now, with Kang Hyun's teachings locking his center perfectly into place, the blow landed—
THWAAAAACK!
Hwang Min-woo's head snapped sideways.
One clean hit.
That heavy single punch rattled his brain so hard he couldn't even scream properly before he blacked out.
Silence dropped over the alley. Baek Yu-yeon clapped both hands over her mouth.
"Hoo."
Kwak Do-jin let out a long, satisfied breath.
"See? That right there is a guaranteed expulsion. No self-defense, no nothing—I just straight-up beat his ass."
"S-Senior, what are you going to do..."
"So don't you ever, ever think about signing that piece-of-shit contract. Not even if you die."
The declaration of the martial artist Kwak Do-jin!
Watching from the rooftop above, Kang Hyun's mouth curled upward.
Finally starting to shed that mutt look.
A short while later.
The infirmary door burst open.
Every cadet and on-duty nurse inside snapped their eyes toward the entrance.
The one who walked in was Kwak Do-jin.
The Academy's famous mad dog.
"Huk...!"
"What the—what is that?"
Draped over his shoulder like a sack of rice was Hwang Min-woo, head lolling, completely unconscious.
Behind him, a deathly pale Baek Yu-yeon scrambled after.
"Senior! Don't do this! Please!"
Thud!
Kwak Do-jin dumped Hwang Min-woo roughly onto an empty bed.
"What on earth is going on?"
Hearing the commotion, a woman in a white coat came rushing out from the inner clinic.
Professor Hwang Ye-rim.
"Kwak Do-jin? Did you cause another incident?"
"Yes, Professor."
He straightened his back and spoke with complete composure.
"I beat him. No self-defense, no excuses—I just hated his fucking face so I punched him out in the open."
"What?"
"So."
Kwak Do-jin looked Hwang Ye-rim straight in the eye.
"Treat him, and please convene the disciplinary committee."