Don't Break That Choice
When had he gotten there?
Middle-aged Song Cheol-ho's pupils trembled in fine, rapid spasms.
Even with an A-rank hunter's keen senses, he hadn't detected a single trace of presence?
How in the world?
"Who are you?"
"Why."
Thud.
Kang Hyun stepped down onto the ground and lazily cracked his neck. His right hand still held a phone.
"What if you know who I am? You gonna trample my life too?"
Song Cheol-ho's mouth stiffened by a fraction.
Kang Hyun glanced down at the phone screen and casually held it out toward Baek Yu-yeon.
"Cadet over there."
"Y-yes?"
"This is recording properly, right?"
The screen blinked with vivid red letters.
Song Cheol-ho's heart plummeted.
He's been recording from the very start!
If that footage leaked, cleaning it up would be a nightmare. He had to recover the phone by any means necessary, yet open violence was awkward. If a Taewang executive beat someone inside Academy grounds, it would explode into something far bigger than a mere disciplinary hearing.
"Y-yes, it is, Professor!"
Baek Yu-yeon had already been stunned for a while.
It's this professor again!
The first time, when he poured whiskey over the contract, she had truly believed it was pure chance. The second time, when he ripped the contract clean in half, she had only harbored a faint suspicion. But the third time left her with no choice but certainty.
It wasn't a coincidence!
He had been helping her from the beginning. Then why? Someone with no prior acquaintance, no connection whatsoever?
Click!
Kang Hyun ended the recording and slipped the phone into his pocket. Song Cheol-ho's gaze drifted there of its own accord.
Professor? What kind of professor drinks whiskey perched on an alley wall?
Of course he kept the thought to himself. If the other party was a professor, he needed to approach even more carefully.
"A pleasure to meet you. I'm Song Cheol-ho, director of the Taewang Guild. If I may ask, what was your intention in filming that video?"
"There's an outsider threatening a cadet inside the Academy. Of course I leave evidence."
"I-I see. Haha. It was more of a private internal matter tangled up rather than a threat, so there seems to have been a bit of a misunderstanding."
Song Cheol-ho forced a smile and continued smoothly.
"However, possessing footage of my face without my consent is problematic. I have no desire to create unnecessary trouble, so might I take a quick look at that phone?"
The words were polite. The real meaning was Hand over the phone.
Gulp, gulp!
Kang Hyun swallowed the liquor with a bob of his Adam's apple and smiled thinly.
"I said it's evidence. Is there an idiot who just hands the evidence over to the criminal?"
"Haa."
Song Cheol-ho let out a short sigh as if he had no choice. Words would not work on this man. That left only one answer.
He drew a luxurious leather wallet from his inner pocket.
Swoosh.
A thick stack of crisp checks emerged. Every single one was a one-million-won note. He counted out ten and lightly waved them.
"Then let's do this. Ten million won. Can I buy that video with this money? Should be more than enough for your booze money too."
He knew a professor's salary well enough. For the simple act of deleting one video, ten million ought to make the man bow and accept with both hands.
That was the moment.
Flash!
Kang Hyun's figure blurred, and in the next instant the ten checks were already in his hand.
"……!"
Song Cheol-ho's eyes flew wide as lanterns.
I couldn't even react.
No presence earlier either—this was clearly no ordinary professor.
Leaving the flustered Song Cheol-ho where he stood, Kang Hyun counted the snagged checks and glanced back at Baek Yu-yeon.
"Cadet."
"……Yes."
"That phone of yours that got smashed earlier—how much was it?"
"……Pardon?"
Baek Yu-yeon answered in a dazed stammer.
"Probably around 1.4 million won… I think."
"Is that so?"
Kang Hyun plucked three checks from the stack and forcibly pressed them into Baek Yu-yeon's hand.
"Here's three million."
"Why are you giving this to me…?"
"Device cost plus mental damages, generously included. Buy yourself a new one."
Leaving the dumbfounded Baek Yu-yeon behind, Kang Hyun turned and held out the remaining seven checks to Song Cheol-ho.
"Here. Change of seven million."
"W-what is this supposed to mean?"
He was flabbergasted. Who the hell snatches someone else's money and forces a settlement on the spot?
Kang Hyun fixed him with coldly settled eyes.
"You try to bribe a professor with money, yet try to silence a powerless cadet with threats?"
"This guy for real. I was trying to talk nicely…!"
"Stop here and leave. Unless you want to see something uglier."
"Ugh, this crazy bastard!"
In the end, deciding he would have to snatch the phone by force, Song Cheol-ho was about to put strength into his legs when Kang Hyun finally revealed his true presence.
It was a pressure aimed solely at Song Cheol-ho so that Baek Yu-yeon would feel nothing at all.
Huk?
Facing that presence head-on, Song Cheol-ho's breath stopped.
W-what is this.
It felt as though an invisible mountain of immense size was crushing him flat. The pressure was so terrible his lungs shrank; he could not even draw air. Primitive fear seized his entire body.
An A-rank hunter like him, pinned motionless by nothing more than a gaze and the presence the man radiated?
It felt like a nightmare, yet the sensation of every bone in his body screaming was unmistakably real.
When the energy choking his throat finally withdrew, Kang Hyun spoke with casual indifference.
"What are you still doing here?"
"I-I'll withdraw for now."
Pale as a sheet, Song Cheol-ho vanished into the darkness without even the leisure to save face.
A brief silence settled over the alley. Baek Yu-yeon still wore a dazed expression. She knew this drunkard professor as well—the one they called the Academy's disgrace on AcaNet.
It was a false rumor.
How could a man who drove off a Taewang executive that even full professors found burdensome with nothing but words possibly be a disgrace?
She was curious. Why had Kang Hyun helped her? Why had he stopped the contract, why had he secured the evidence? She had always believed unsolicited kindness was rare in this world, so the questions pressed harder.
But first—
"Thank you."
She offered her gratitude before anything else.
"For this matter, and for stopping me from signing the contract last time—thank you for everything."
Suspicion is an easy, swift defense mechanism, yet sometimes it makes one forget the most basic human duty. No matter how rough the world becomes, there are words that must come before calculation and doubt.
Gratitude to the one who saved you.
Kang Hyun liked that.
Constitution matters, but character is just as crucial.
He needed the Chilyojin, yet he could not simply teach it to just anyone. Carelessness might birth those terrible old monsters all over again.
"It's nothing."
Kang Hyun tilted the whiskey bottle and spoke with lazy indifference.
"I just liked your choice."
She had not yielded to Taewang's threats, nor had she hidden behind Kwak Do-jin's foolish consideration. She possessed her own standards, and no matter what the surroundings barked, she chose the path she could bear herself.
Baek Yu-yeon was solid. That was why she was not swayed by others.
"Don't break that choice."
Just keep your eyes fixed on the path you believe is right and walk it. The trash that tries to trip you up along the way—I'll clear it out myself.
No need for long speeches. She would understand enough from this.
Without lingering, Kang Hyun turned and tipped the bottle back.
"The booze tastes pretty good today too."
Then—
"Ah."
As if something had just occurred to him, he turned his head.
"What's your dream?"
"My dream?"
"Yeah."
"Why do you ask?"
"Can't a professor ask a cadet about her dream?"
She rolled her eyes and hesitated a moment. She did have a dream—to restore the body of her younger sister, who had been ill since birth. But it was not a story to casually share with someone she was meeting for the first time.
"I don't really have any grand dream or anything."
"Calling it a dream might have been too grand. Career path, I mean. What were you planning to do after graduation?"
It was a question of where the girl who had refused to sign the contract would go.
Baek Yu-yeon caught the meaning and answered.
"Probably with high probability, I'll end up working under Professor Hwang Ye-rim."
"Why?"
"Well…"
After a brief pause she replied.
"Because the professor is the top authority in the domestic martial arts medicine field. There's the most to learn."
"What, no other reasons?"
"Other reasons?"
"For example, that professor's character is impressively excellent, or there's some special story where it absolutely has to be that professor and no one else."
"No, nothing like that particularly."
"Is that so?"
Kang Hyun turned his head again.
Easier to bring over than I thought.
Just teach her martial arts medicine well, right?
I should tell the chick.
To buy some materials for making a secret manual.
Kang Hyun's lips curled up faintly.
Should I start with the Tendon Changing Classic? Or the Heavenly Medical Treasure Book?
The legendary medical texts of the Murim were still stored intact inside his mind.
Top floor of Taewang Guild headquarters.
"So… you let a mere contract professor snatch the video of you threatening Baek Yu-yeon and just came back empty-handed?"
Deep furrows carved themselves into the forehead of Hwang Tae-gwang, master of the Taewang Guild and father of Hwang Min-woo.
"That's… hyung-nim. It may sound like an excuse, but that professor was no ordinary man."
Song Cheol-ho wiped cold sweat as he continued.
"Appearing behind me without a single trace of presence was one thing, but the presence he radiated was no joke, I tell you."
"Shall I read it for you?"
Hwang Tae-gwang irritably shook the report the intelligence division had sent up.
"Professor Kang Hyun. Alcoholic who always carries a whiskey bottle. Known among cadets as a drunkard and a parachute hire. This is the amazing guy?"
"The drunkard part seems right, but parachute? Absolutely not. Never."
"Huu."
He was already stressed to death because of his son, and now even his usually reliable brother-in-law was spouting nonsense. His stomach turned.
"Wait. I'll check myself."
He pulled out his phone and expertly dialed a speed-dial number. A short ring, then a deep, mature voice answered.
"—President Hwang? What brings you calling at this hour?"
"Director Choi. Sorry for the late hour. Nothing major—just need a background check on one little rat."
Taewang's connections reached even into the high-level police intelligence lines.
"—Haha, who else has gone and ruffled Taewang's feathers this time? Who is it?"
"Name's Kang Hyun. Recently hired as a contract professor. What kind of guy is he?"
"—Contract professor? Well, it'll come up quick. One moment."
Through the receiver came the rapid clatter of keyboard keys. Then—
"—Hmm?"
The typing suddenly stopped.
"—Hold on, President Hwang."
"Yes."
"—This is… pretty strange."
"What is?"
"—I've looked up all sorts of people, but this is the first time I've seen the entire screen turn solid red like this… Wait, what the hell is this!"
"……Director?"
"—Shit! This is fucked. Just got a reverse-trace warning from the Management Bureau Special Division. What? Management Bureau Security Grade Zero target?"
"Security Grade Zero?"
Even Hwang Tae-gwang had never heard of such a code in his life.
"—Damn it, explaining this is going to take serious sweat. President Hwang, what the hell did you poke? You weren't planning to get me fired, were you?"
"Th-there's no way."
"—Ha, for real. Phone's already ringing. President Hwang. Don't contact me for a while."
Click.
The call was cut unilaterally.
Sensing the atmosphere had turned ominous, Song Cheol-ho carefully asked,
"Hyung-nim? What happened?"
"Hmm."
They had merely run a background check, yet a top-secret Management Bureau code had appeared and the Special Division had immediately reverse-traced them?
A chill raced down his spine.
"Looks like we poked the wrong person."