I Need to Make Some Money Too
Every time I stepped out onto the old training grounds at dawn, my mood lifted.
It was the clear mountain air.
The Academy had been built twenty years ago atop the streets of Pyeongchang-dong, and carving into the foothills of Bukhansan had drawn quite a bit of opposition, from what I’d heard.
Perfect for a side dish.
I climbed the platform, bottle to my lips like a trumpet, and found five cadets already waiting.
“Have you all been keeping up with the horse stance?”
The abrupt question drew different reactions from each of them. Cha Yu-sik and Yoon Hyun-jong nodded without hesitation. Seo Hae-in scratched her head. Kwak Do-jin and Han Tae-ho flinched.
Look at these brats.
Once we’d started Samjae Geombeop in earnest, I’d told them to handle basic conditioning on their own. But as their swordsmanship improved, they’d clearly started slacking off on the tedious lower-body work.
Time to weed out the ones whose heads have gone soft.
No matter how lofty a martial art you learned, without the stamina to back it up you could do nothing at all.
“Originally I planned to recite the foundational formulas of the mind method I intended to teach you today.”
All five pairs of eyes went wide at once. I’d told them proper martial arts would only be taught after the midterms, once they met the standard. And now he was offering the mind method early? That meant he’d already decided which arts each of them would receive.
“But only the prepared seize opportunity.”
Kang Hyun grinned and pointed the whiskey bottle toward the rear of the Academy.
“That peak.”
Even at a glance it was a steep cliff face no one ever climbed.
“I’ll wait at the summit. When you arrive, I’ll start reciting the formulas.”
“Th-that place, sir?”
Han Tae-ho yelped, but Kang Hyun ignored him and continued.
“Don’t forget my class ends at nine in the morning.”
That was all.
Whoosh!
He vanished before they could even protest. The cadets stood there, dumbfounded.
Current time: six in the morning. Fail to arrive within three hours and there would be no formulas today. The sooner they reached him, the more they could learn.
“R-run!”
“Hyaaaaah!”
The cadets took off like madmen.
After the morning’s training, I returned to the professor’s office.
“Oh, Professor Kang! You’re here?”
Lee Se-ah, who’d arrived first, was polishing the liquor cabinet.
Kang Hyun stared at her, baffled.
“Why are you wiping that?”
“Because it’s my job.”
“Who assigned you that job?”
“I assigned it to myself.”
Would the citizens ever know? That a top agent of the Hunter Management Bureau, paid with national funds, spent her mornings polishing some professor’s liquor cabinet?
“Stop wasting time and come sit.”
“Yes, sir!”
As Kang Hyun settled into his chair, Lee Se-ah naturally took the seat across the table. Premium paper was laid out with practiced ease.
Grind, grind.
She began grinding ink on the inkstone Yoon Tae-jung had gifted them. It was their morning routine—producing manuals.
Scratch, scratch.
Kang Hyun’s brush flew across the paper as if possessed. Beside him, Lee Se-ah timed the placement of fresh sheets, replenished the ink, and gathered the dried pages for binding.
“Professor Kang, what’s this manual?”
“The Water Star Array Method.”
“What’s that?”
Just then Kang Hyun’s brush finished the title on the cover.
Water Star Array Method
“Knowing would only get you hurt.”
“Tch. You always say that. I may not look it, but I can keep a secret.”
She pouted, yet her hands never stopped sliding the next sheet into place. There were many manuals still to make: the formation texts for the Chilyojin they would one day deploy once all seven disciples were gathered; the mind methods and sword manuals for each of the five cadets currently scrambling up the mountain; and the medical martial arts texts he needed to toss to Baek Yu-yeon immediately.
“Wow… you’re really fast…”
Without those quick hands, a lifetime wouldn’t have been enough for the sheer volume.
“Haaaah.”
Lee Se-ah bound a finished manual with thread and let out an exaggerated sigh.
“I didn’t pass that blood-soaked national exam just to run a cottage industry…! I’m a top agent, and every day I’m grinding ink and binding books.”
Kang Hyun snorted mid-stroke at her lament.
“Keep at it. Something good’s coming soon.”
“What kind of good thing? Muscle knots in my forearms?”
As she grumbled, Kang Hyun flicked a glance her way.
“Does your Bureau have any representative martial arts you use?”
“Representative arts?”
Lee Se-ah froze for a beat. There were, of course—manuals purchased overseas at enormous cost for the agents. But they were state secrets; ordinary citizens and even most major guilds had no idea.
Do I tell him or not?
Her pupils wavered. Her head blared warning lights: of course she shouldn’t. Agent’s Code, Article One—preserve confidentiality!
But her instincts screamed louder.
I have to tell him. No question.
Black himself was a top-tier national secret. What was the harm in sharing a secret with a secret? And if she reported this to the Director? One hundred percent he’d light up both eyes and order her to spill everything and squeeze something useful out of it.
So should I say, “I’ll go ask the Director first”?
No. That was amateur hour. The moment she hesitated, this indifferent man would say, “Forget it, too much trouble,” and then what?
Ah, Director… if anything goes wrong, I’ll just take the fall and resign!
“There are!”
“What are they?”
“They train in the Shadowless Art, the Shadowless Step, and the Soul-Chasing Dagger Technique. The combat agents, not me.”
“Is that so?”
Kang Hyun’s brow furrowed.
“The Shadowless Art is a low-grade demonic art.”
“You know it?”
Of course he did. It was a junk technique the madmen of the Demonic Cult had cooked up to raise their Shadowless Unit.
“Yeah. It punches through the meridians in one go and grants high achievement, but the more you practice it, the shorter your lifespan.”
“Whaaaat?”
Lee Se-ah’s mouth fell open. Could the high average retirement rate among combat agents have been… because of the Shadowless Art? The government had always packaged it as overwork and excessive missions, but looking back, the major guilds trained just as hard and stayed healthy. Look at Dean Seo Il-hyun—seventy this year and still robust.
“On the other hand, the Shadowless Step and Soul-Chasing Dagger Technique are decent enough. A footwork that erases even the sound of footsteps and the shadow itself—perfect for people who poke around in others’ business. The dagger art isn’t bad for throat-cutting ambushes either.”
Even as he spoke, Lee Se-ah’s mind was spinning. She needed to call the Director right now and halt training in that insane art.
“Shouldn’t we stop the training immediately?”
“Don’t make a fuss. Telling them now won’t change much.”
“B-but still—”
“Just listen, chick.”
Scratch, scratch.
Kang Hyun kept writing as he continued.
“I’ll give you perfect interpretive editions of the Shadowless Step and Soul-Chasing Dagger Technique you use, plus the original and interpretive editions of the Hidden Meridian Mind Method to replace that garbage Shadowless Art.”
“Hidden Meridian Mind Method?”
“A mind method that pairs perfectly with the Shadowless Step. It conceals the flow of qi itself so nothing shows on the surface. Practice it and you won’t shave years off your life, and it’ll mesh far better than what you have now.”
“Hah.”
Lee Se-ah’s thoughts began to whirl. Even at a glance this was an enormous score. But why was Kang Hyun suddenly offering such generous terms?
“There’s no free lunch in this world, right?”
“Good, chick. You understand.”
“Please tell me. Within the Bureau’s authority—no, at the national level, as much as we can—”
“Nothing that grand.”
The corner of Kang Hyun’s mouth lifted.
“When I provide those interpretive editions, list me as the manual interpreter under my name, and have the state promote it a little.”
“Pardon? Your name, Professor Kang?”
Lee Se-ah’s eyes went round.
“May I ask why?”
“I need to make some money too.”
Once Taejung Mulsan stabilized, he planned to dive into the manual business in earnest. But he couldn’t simply dump everything in his head onto the market overnight. Think about it—if some unheard-of manual suddenly dropped into the market, what idiot would shell out tens or hundreds of billions for it on the spot? Few would recognize its true worth, and nine times out of ten it would be mocked as a fake.
So first he needed to build solid trust.
Manual Interpreter: Kang Hyun.
Brand those three syllables into the hunter market. Kang Hyun was confident. Anything that passed through his hands—even the shabbiest junk technique—would sell like wildfire. The very skeleton and caliber of the interpretation were on another level. People who’d only ever seen the scribbles of half-baked interpreters would feel as if a hammer had smashed them square in the skull.
Of course there was the problem of counterfeiting, but that could wait for later.
“Is it possible?”
“Uh, well…”
The standing directives regarding Kang Hyun flashed through Lee Se-ah’s mind. Right now the South Korean government and the Bureau were desperate to keep Black hidden. There had been a reason they’d only informed Dean Seo Il-hyun when Kang Hyun joined as a professor.
South Korea was a hunter weakling. Directly overhead loomed China, a superpower eyeing the peninsula, while across the sea Japan and the United States each fielded countless S-rank hunters and pulled the world’s strings. If word spread that someone stronger than an S-rank hunter had appeared in South Korea under these circumstances?
One of two things would happen: they’d try to snatch him through persuasion, or international friction would erupt. South Korea’s current national power couldn’t stop either. Even Kang Hyun’s absolute might wouldn’t change that. A blade brandished openly for all to see and counter was far less threatening than one kept silent and hidden.
“Um, Professor Kang…”
Lee Se-ah swallowed dryly and spoke with care.
“Does the interpreter’s name… absolutely have to be Kang Hyun?”
“Hm?”
“I mean… do you really need to use your real name?”
“Why not?”
Looking miserable, Lee Se-ah launched into a long, detailed explanation of South Korea’s wretched geopolitical reality—China this, diplomatic friction that, the state unable to protect Professor Kang, and so on.
Kang Hyun listened and snorted indifferently.
“Tell them all to come. I’ll handle whoever shows up.”
Truthfully, he’d never had the slightest intention of hiding his power from the start. He’d simply found it annoying. The moment he returned to Earth, government organizations had latched on like leeches, giving him a house, money, and even daily whiskey tribute while promising meticulous care. There’d been no reason to refuse. For a man who’d hated bothersome affairs even in the Murim, it had been a rather comfortable seclusion.
That didn’t mean he wanted to strut around flaunting his strength. Kang Hyun was simply indifferent. Whether the world knew him or not didn’t matter in the least.
“I know you’re strong, Professor! Of course I know! But that doesn’t mean you have to fight, right?”
“Why shouldn’t I fight?”
Kang Hyun tilted his head. When weaklings barked, you found the strongest one and beat him into the ground with overwhelming force.
“It’s not that you shouldn’t… I’m just worried it’ll be waaay too annoying for you.”
“What?”
“Obviously! The more manuals hit the market, the more the hunter world will flip upside down… and you want to put your real name on them?”
Kang Hyun’s brow twitched, and Lee Se-ah hurried on.
“The masters of Korea’s three great guilds will show up with trucks full of cash and blockade your office door! Chinese and American spies will stick to you like leeches even when you go to the bathroom! Your name will be on every special news report, and politicians will cling to you begging for one photo…!”
“I get it, I get it.”
Kang Hyun conceded. That would indeed be irritating.
“Then we’ll use your name.”
“……Pardon?”
Lee Se-ah’s eyes nearly popped out of her head.
“My name, all of a sudden?”
“If you think about it, you’re helping too. Call it co-authorship.”
“But that’s—”
“We’re using a proxy name either way, aren’t we? Like you said, once the manuals hit the market, people will line up with cash. Are you going to invent a fictional person for every ghost transaction? Eventually a real someone has to meet them, handle the practical work, haggle, stamp the contracts, and collect the money. Who’s going to do that?”
“……”
Lee Se-ah’s mouth hung open. Come to think of it, there was no one else. No other agent was willing to communicate with Black.
“If you don’t want to, fine. Just use my name—”
“I’ll do it! I’ll put my name on it!”
Lee Se-ah squeezed her eyes shut and shouted—just as a cautious knock sounded.
“Come in.”
At Kang Hyun’s permission, a cadet staggered inside. It was none other than Baek Yu-yeon.
One look at her face said she’d barely slept for a week. With a zombie-like expression she held out an ancient text and spoke.
Heavenly Pulse Compendium
“Professor…”
Her voice was cracked.
“I’ve memorized it all.”