I Believe in Innate Goodness
I believe in the theory of innate goodness.
A short while later, Kang Hyun walked into the professor's office, and Lee Se-ah pounced on him with a question the moment he appeared.
"Well? What did Hwang Tae-gwang say?"
Kwak Do-jin and Yoon Hyun-jong swallowed hard.
"He wanted me to delete the video I recorded yesterday."
"And what did you tell him?"
"I said I'd delete it if Hwang Min-woo confesses everything in front of the committee and hands over the ledgers on the professors' corruption."
"…What?"
That reaction came from Kwak Do-jin.
What on earth was any of this supposed to mean?
He had already given up and resigned himself to being expelled tomorrow—and now this? Hwang Min-woo's confession? Ledgers on the professors' corruption?
"Professor, what in the world is…"
It would have been easy to dismiss as empty talk—except the man who had just come looking for Kang Hyun was the actual guild master of Taewang.
"Do you really think he'll throw his own son under the bus?" Lee Se-ah fretted beside the frozen Kwak Do-jin.
"There's a high chance he will."
"Seriously?"
"Yeah. Hwang Tae-gwang doesn't care much about Hwang Min-woo."
You could read Hwang Tae-gwang's character just from the bribes and corruption he had been running with the professors. A man who would stop at nothing to keep his power. To someone like that, a child was nothing more than a decoration for the family nameplate. When his own body was about to be cut in half, would he hesitate to chop off a single tail?
"Come on, though—it's still his kid."
"If he'd actually cherished that kid, would he have let him grow into that kind of garbage?"
"Okay, fair. Garbage raised garbage."
"The only reason Hwang Tae-gwang has been cleaning up after that brat all this time isn't fatherly love. He just didn't want dung smeared on his own face."
"And if he comes after you for revenge?"
"Who—me?"
That single word settled Lee Se-ah's nerves completely.
Right.
Who was Black, after all? The man who had obliterated Leviathan—the monster five S-rank hunters couldn't touch—with a single gesture of his hand.
If he wants to come after us, we'd actually be grateful.
From the nation's perspective, it would mean carving out a rotten guild without lifting a finger.
"Anyway. Kwak Do-jin."
"Y-yes, sir?"
Kwak Do-jin flinched. He still hadn't fully grasped the situation.
"Tomorrow, you don't have to do a thing. Just sit there and watch. No more nonsense about getting yourself expelled. Understood?"
"…Professor."
"The liquor was good, by the way. Nice stuff."
Hwang Tae-gwang turned out to be even more cold-blooded than expected.
"To abandon his own son this fast…"
A file arrived in the professor's email. It was the corruption ledger on the bribed professors, sent by Taewang.
"Wow. Everything you said was right, Mr. Kang Hyun."
Lee Se-ah scrolled through the ledger on the screen and clicked her tongue.
"Good grief, they gorged themselves. Now I finally understand why everyone says your luck turns the second you land an Academy professorship."
"All right. Call them in."
"Huh? Call who?"
"Who else? Oh Seong-hoon and Park Tae-su."
They had waited by the rice bin and caught the rats. Now it was time to cook the fat little vermin, wasn't it?
"Will they actually come just because I call?"
"You said you had talent."
Lee Se-ah flinched. Thinking about it, it was mortifying. She had bragged endlessly about joining the Management Bureau at the top of her class—and what had she actually accomplished? While she was still moving carefully inside legal procedures, Kang Hyun had made Hwang Tae-gwang come to him overnight and hand over the ledgers of his own free will. Lightning-fast, overwhelming efficiency.
Is this even real?
So this was why the field seniors had drilled it into her ears that real experience mattered. Everything she had stayed up studying at a desk had been nothing more than empty theory.
"…I'll call them right now."
She bit down hard on her lip and tapped at her tablet. Astonishingly, the two professors came scrambling in under five minutes.
"Hah—huff!"
"Professor Kang? What the hell was that just now?!"
Kang Hyun blinked in surprise.
"What? How did you do that?"
"I sent the ledger file to their personal emails. Told them if they didn't show up at the office within five minutes, I'd forward it to the Ministry of Education and the National Police Agency."
"Heh. Top of the class, all right."
Kang Hyun gave her a thumbs-up, and Professor Oh Seong-hoon bristled.
"What do you think you're doing right now?!"
"About what?"
Kang Hyun offered the two professors no respect whatsoever.
Hwang Tae-gwang covering for his own child—that, at least, was animal instinct. You could understand it. No matter how stupid and rotten a son was, he was still your blood. But these two? They were professors. One student had nearly lost his life, another was having his entire future ruined for nothing—and they had been grinning ear to ear over a handful of cash.
Personally, Kang Hyun despised this type more than anyone.
"I don't know where you got that file, but it's fabricated! Threatening professors without even verifying the facts—"
"For a fabrication, it matches what you received with a creepy level of accuracy, doesn't it?"
"Professor Oh, hold on."
This time Park Tae-su stepped in, sensing the situation was far from ordinary.
"So where did that come from?"
"Where else? The guy who paid the bribes sent it over."
"W-what?"
Both professors' eyes bulged as if they might pop out of their sockets. Meaning Taewang Guild had sent it?
That's impossible. Why would Taewang turn on us?
"I only want one thing. Tomorrow, at the disciplinary committee, spit out the truth with your own mouths. Everything Hwang Min-woo has done, and how you two sold a perfectly good cadet's life down the sewer for a few coins—lay it all bare. Honestly, I don't feel like wasting energy arguing with you here. Let's do this the easy way, with words."
"Preposterous! Is this man drunk?! What kind of nonsense—"
"Yeah. I didn't really expect you to listen nicely either."
"Then what?"
"I'm going to talk to the improved versions of you."
Kang Hyun rose from his seat and cracked his knuckles.
"You know something? I believe in the theory of innate goodness."
"What fresh garbage is that?"
"People are born good by nature. But as you live, black demons of greed and selfishness start clinging on. At first your conscience screams, so you feel the sting and lose sleep over it. Later you go numb even to that voice. Eventually the demon swallows you whole."
Kang Hyun approached the two men slowly, the way a hunter closes on prey.
"But tell me—do you know the fastest, surest way to strip off a demon that's latched on that hard?"
The two professors backed away. A chilling light glinted in Kang Hyun's eyes.
"Getting the hell beaten out of you. Demons are cowards by nature—no courage, no endurance. In the face of pain, they peel right off."
"Y-you insane lunatic bastard! You think I'll just sit still for this?!"
Sensing the threat, Oh Seong-hoon and Park Tae-su frantically tried to draw up their energy.
But—
Huh?
Why won't my energy…?
The professors' faces went deathly white. Their energy was completely blocked. Without either of them noticing, every meridian in their bodies had already been perfectly sealed.
What the hell? When did he—
They weren't even given time to be horrified.
CRACK!
Kang Hyun's fist drove mercilessly into Oh Seong-hoon's solar plexus.
"Ghk—gahhh!"
Park Tae-su saw Oh Seong-hoon crumple and tried to flee, but Kang Hyun's kick smashed into his shin without a shred of mercy.
THUD. CRACK! THWACK!
Kang Hyun did not beat children. They were still half-formed; a talking-to was usually enough. But grown men who had only aged without becoming adults? Those deserved a beating. Some people simply could not be fixed without the rod.
How much time passed?
"Please spare us!"
"I was wrong! Professor Kang!"
At last, the demons had been driven from the two professors.
"Feeling a little more cooperative now?"
"Y-yes! Very cooperative!"
"Then what about what I said earlier?"
"…If we do that, what happens to us?"
"What do you mean, what happens."
Kang Hyun dropped heavily back onto the sofa and answered in a lazy drawl.
"You've got two options. Speak the truth with your own mouths tomorrow and take your punishment—or run, and get beaten to death by me."
"…!"
"I gave you a chance. Choose for yourselves."
The two professors, limbs trembling, looked at each other. The deliberation would not take long.
Around the same time—
"Father, you wanted to see me?"
"There's a disciplinary committee tomorrow, I hear. Explain exactly what happened."
"Ah, that… Haa, it's nothing serious. There's this smart girl named Baek Yu-yeon. I was trying to bring her over, but some mad dog kept getting in the way."
Hwang Min-woo poured out his grievances with an air of wounded injustice, but Hwang Tae-gwang already knew the whole story.
"Ha. Haha."
I've been too indifferent to this son of mine. Far too indifferent.
He had believed a successor to the organization needed a ruthless edge and a ruthless sense of reality. But this wasn't ruthlessness. This was just stupidity. Wielding the name and power of Taewang so lightly—just to force one girl he happened to fancy into his hands? And in front of a monster under the Management Bureau's protection, no less?
"Son."
"Yes."
"At tomorrow's disciplinary committee, tell the truth with your own mouth. That you threatened her. That you bribed the professors and fabricated the charges."
"What are you talking about?! Why would we—"
"We? Did you not hear what I just said? Not we—you. Say that you did it."
"F-Father…?"
"Secretary Kim. Bring me an iron from my golf bag."
"Which number, sir?"
"Seven."
Without a word, the secretary handed over a silver iron. Hwang Tae-gwang took it and rose slowly from his seat. Hwang Min-woo's face went paper-white in an instant.
"D-Dad! W-wait a second—why are you doing this?!"
"Why?"
Hwang Tae-gwang's eyes settled into a cold stillness.
"I don't care what you get up to out there. But I will not watch the name of Taewang become a joke because of you. Get down."
"Eek!"
"I said get down."
Screams rang through the Taewang Guild headquarters for a long time as well.
The disciplinary hearing ended as anticlimactically as expected.
Hwang Min-woo limped in and confessed. Everything—from trying to kill Baek Yu-yeon a year ago in a fit of rage, to bribing the two professors and framing Kwak Do-jin.
The stunned director of academic affairs looked to the two professors, and they admitted it as well.
"We were blinded by Taewang's money and falsified Cadet Kwak Do-jin's disciplinary records. We acknowledge all our crimes, will resign our professorships immediately, and submit to police investigation."
Choi Byeong-gil's jaw dropped. Was this a disciplinary committee or a confession committee?
"…!"
Baek Yu-yeon, who had come prepared to testify, widened her eyes, and Kwak Do-jin sat with his mouth hanging open in a daze.
With the full truth revealed, Kwak Do-jin's disciplinary actions were voided across the board. The use of violence during the incident was still a fact, so the existing year-repeat penalty stood—but every disciplinary record that the bribed professors had unjustly piled on him was cleanly erased.
"Huh. Heh."
Walking outside, Kwak Do-jin stared blankly up at the sky. A fierce surge of emotion rose from deep in his chest. That entire year of bitterness and injustice—resolved so completely, so absurdly, in a single day.
It's all thanks to Professor Kang Hyun.
What kind of life would he have lived if he had never met the man? Thinking about it that way, even that hellish year started to feel like a fated opportunity. If Hwang Min-woo had never targeted him, he never would have met Kang Hyun.
Without hesitation, Kwak Do-jin headed for the faculty building.
"Professor!"
"Is it over?"
"Yes, sir—just finished! Thanks to you, every single disciplinary record was deleted. I mean it—thank you, from the bottom of my heart!"
"Just with words?"
"…Sir?"
Ah. The liquor. The liquor money… he was out of it now, wasn't he? And come to think of it, what about living expenses from here on?
"If you're grateful, go charm Baek Yu-yeon for me."
"Excuse me?"
Kwak Do-jin's face flushed scarlet.
"I told you I don't like her like that!"
"No, that's not what I meant. Who said anything about dating?"
"Th-then what?"
"Into our class."
"Sir?"
"Somehow or other, charm her into joining our class."
Do-jin, you little punk. I helped you—so now it's only fair you help me a little, right? So quit whining and bring Yu-yeon over.