Everyone, Step Aside
“You just handed over a secret manual?”
Director Kim Hyung-seok of the Hunter Management Bureau exploded.
“The man really is something else in every way… Fine. He took care of Leviathan and even gave us a manual. We can’t just let that slide. Agent Lee.”
“Yes, sir!”
“I’ll allocate the budget. Go scrape up every top-shelf whiskey you can find. That damn liquor of his—fill the entire safe house with it.”
“Understood!”
Clatter, clatter!
And so Lee Se-ah arrived at the safe house pushing a cart loaded to the brim with bottles.
Click.
She opened the door to find Black sprawled across the sofa as usual.
“I brought the liquor. Figured I’d clean up a bit while I was at it.”
“Skip the cleaning. Just leave it and go.”
“What? But there are empty bottles everywhere, and the dust—”
As her gaze naturally swept the living room, Lee Se-ah’s expression froze.
Huh?
The first time she visited, Black’s sheer presence had crushed her so thoroughly she could barely breathe. She hadn’t had the luxury of looking around.
What are those marks?
The corner of the living-room table was hideously corroded. The leather sofa had melted through in places, stuffing spilling out, and the walls themselves were blackened and dead—as if some vicious poison or acid had been flung in every direction.
“Um, Mr. Kang Hyun… the furniture is completely ruined…”
“Quit yapping and leave it.”
“Excuse me?”
The moment she started to protest, a finger belonging to the man buried in the sofa twitched lightly.
Whoosh—
“Hik!”
A deflated little scream slipped from Lee Se-ah’s lips.
Dozens of bottles of the finest whiskey rose from the cart of their own accord, floated through the air, and settled neatly beside Black.
Kang Hyun plucked one up, then waved a hand through the empty air with clear irritation.
“Wh-what?”
Her body lifted off the ground. She was pushed steadily out through the front door—
Bang!
—and the door slammed shut.
“……!”
Lee Se-ah stared at the closed door with dazed eyes.
So that was it.
The eviction order her seniors had suffered before she ever arrived.
But after seeing the carnage inside the room just now, a new thought struck her.
Was he… trying to keep us from getting hurt?
She suddenly remembered the intermittent, pain-laced groans he had made in the car on the way to the East Sea.
Could that have been the reason? Was that why he refused to let anyone near him?
Lee Se-ah stood there a long while before finally pulling a notebook from her coat and scribbling rapidly.
• Subject appears to be enduring extreme pain while suppressing something.
• Severe damage throughout residence. Recommend replacing furniture with specialized materials.
One week later.
Black’s safe house.
Lee Se-ah had been dispatched first thing in the morning.
Haa… what a life.
She let out a long sigh.
Because she was currently the agent who communicated with him best, the Director had simply designated her Black’s full-time manager. From now on she was to oversee his every move and keep him thoroughly placated.
And today she had to wake the beast, wash him, dress him, and deliver him to the Academy.
“Mr. Kang Hyun. Please come out.”
“Already?”
Creak.
The door opened and a complete wreck of a man emerged.
“Didn’t you say noon?”
Director Kim Hyung-seok had proven surprisingly capable. However he had sweet-talked the Academy head, he had secured a contract professorship. The existing faculty’s backlash had been so fierce, however, that a bare-minimum verification process had been agreed upon—and that process was scheduled for noon today.
“It’s nine right now.”
“You can’t go looking like that.”
“What’s wrong with how I look?”
“…….”
Lee Se-ah was speechless.
Was he seriously asking?
His hair had progressed past bird’s nest into full avian colony, and his training clothes were stained with what might have been kimchi broth or whiskey—impossible to tell.
“Does appearance matter when you’re teaching kids? Skill is what matters.”
He wasn’t wrong, but Black took it to an extreme.
“The Academy has tradition and prestige. If you walk in like that there’ll be chaos.”
“Prestige my ass with that level of skill.”
Again, she couldn’t argue. He was the only person in Korea—no, the entire world—who could get away with saying something like that.
In the end Lee Se-ah played her trump card.
“Mizuki 55 Year.”
“What?”
Black’s eyes snapped open.
Lee Se-ah crowed inwardly.
It works every time!
A Japanese whisky aged in mizunara (Japanese oak) casks, famous for its unique fragrance. Nearly impossible to obtain after the Great Cataclysm. A fifty-five-year bottle went for over two hundred million won at auction and was almost never available—but the Bureau’s information network could track one down easily enough.
“Cooperate nicely and I’ll get it for you.”
“Haa.”
Black exhaled and reluctantly stepped out.
“Where do I go?”
“…….”
The eyes of every salon staff member lined up at the entrance trembled in unison.
They had been on high alert for a Hunter Management Bureau VIP reservation—only for what looked like a neighborhood vagrant to walk in. Their shock was understandable.
“Um, Miss Lee Se-ah? Is this really him?”
The director whispered to her with a pained expression. Turning this into something resembling a human being was Mission: Impossible.
“Please, Director. This is a matter of national importance.”
Lee Se-ah practically begged, eyes welling.
“Just make him look like a person. That’s all.”
“Haa… very well. Sir, this way.”
The staff seated Kang Hyun in the chair with visible skepticism.
“What style would you like?”
“Whatever’s fastest.”
Kang Hyun closed his eyes and tossed the words out.
“No, Director!”
Of course Lee Se-ah wasn’t about to let that slide.
“As classic as possible, but with a strong, charismatic edge! Sweep it back with pomade, clean up the beard too…”
Under her storm of instructions the director’s hands flew into motion.
Snip, snip.
The rhythmic sound of scissors filled the air. As the shaggy hair covering his face fell away, a previously hidden forehead and bridge of the nose began to emerge. When the roughly grown beard was cleared, a sharp jawline saw the light of day.
Hmm?
The director’s hands paused.
The man reflected in the mirror was anything but ordinary.
“Whoa.”
The assistants hovering nearby slowly began to gape as well.
The man himself, however, was dozing off with little nods of his head. The smell of alcohol still clung to him.
“All finished. Time to change.”
Kang Hyun staggered into the curtained fitting room.
Lee Se-ah chewed her nails in anxiety. Would it be okay? Too flashy would be a problem; too frumpy wouldn’t work either.
Then—
Whoosh!
The fitting-room curtain was yanked aside.
“Ah, damn it. Do I really have to wear this necktie thing? It’s choking me.”
Muttering complaints, Kang Hyun walked out.
In that instant—
“Hup.”
Lee Se-ah involuntarily sucked in a breath.
A perfectly tailored suit wrapped his body like a second skin. The clean pomade sweep of his hair radiated a cold atmosphere, and the neckline visible through the slightly loosened shirt collar was lethal. Most striking of all were his eyes. Heavy with languor, yet paired with the refined exterior they looked almost arrogantly aristocratic.
“…….”
Every female staff member in the salon had stopped what she was doing to stare at him blankly. Even the notoriously picky director was clapping with an enraptured expression.
“Sir, it’s perfect! Absolute perfection!”
Lee Se-ah’s heart hammered.
This was a national secret weapon? This was a visual that should be publicized as a matter of national welfare.
“Hey, chick.”
“……Yes?”
Chick?
Why am I a chick all of a sudden?
“Want me to call you brat instead?”
“N-no. Chick is better.”
“What are you spacing out for? Hand over the liquor.”
When Black held out his hand, Lee Se-ah snapped back to reality.
“Ah—yes! It’s in the car! In the car!”
She hurriedly turned her head, trying to hide the face that kept threatening to flush.
Dangerous.
Just now had been truly dangerous. She had almost forgotten, for a second, that the man was an alcoholic with a completely wrecked personality.
“W-we have to go right away. The interview starts soon.”
The stage and the actor were ready.
Lee Se-ah was already starting to worry.
This man… he wouldn’t cause an incident once they got there, would he?
Thud!
Head Professor Jin Myeong-hoon slammed a file folder onto the desk.
“Headmaster. This is unacceptable.”
His voice climbed higher.
“Unknown academic background, unregistered hunter rank, zero prior career history—and the recommender is the Director of the Hunter Management Bureau?”
“Now, now—”
“Since when does the National Academy accept personnel favors from the Bureau? And just look at that.”
Jin Myeong-hoon pointed at Kang Hyun, who was dozing off with little nods.
“What kind of applicant walks into an interview reeking of alcohol? This is an insult to the Academy’s authority.”
“Professor Jin, calm down for a moment.”
The white-haired headmaster’s mouth had gone completely dry. He knew the truth. When the Bureau Director had persuaded him this time, he had been briefed on the classified information surrounding Code Name: Black. But that very classification was the problem. He could not say that the man sitting in front of them was the one who had slain Leviathan.
“The Bureau must have its reasons for putting him forward. And it’s only a contract professorship, not a full professorship.”
The headmaster tried to mediate while sweating bullets, but the other professors’ reactions were equally frosty.
“Headmaster, Professor Jin is right. We’re talking about educating the cadets who will shoulder the nation’s future. We cannot entrust that to an unverified individual.”
“Agreed. And we must not set a precedent for the Bureau interfering in academic operations. This is a parachute appointment—pure and simple.”
The air in the conference room froze solid. Every gaze locked onto Kang Hyun, who was still dozing.
Could the man not read the room?
Jin Myeong-hoon, finally at his limit, was about to unleash his presence when—
KRAAAAAAANG!
A thunderous boom shook the entire building and set the windows rattling like mad.
“Wh-what was that?”
“What is going on?”
While the professors reeled in confusion, the conference-room door burst open and a teaching assistant came running in.
“Emergency! Qi deviation!”
“What?”
Jin Myeong-hoon shot to his feet.
“One of the students has gone berserk!”
“Guide us there immediately.”
The headmaster and faculty bolted from the room. Kang Hyun, who had lazily opened his eyes, raked a hand through his hair and trailed after them at a leisurely pace.
The training ground was pure pandemonium.
“KRAAAAGH!”
At the center a male student thrashed and wept. Around his body, runaway energy howled like a storm.
“Damn it.”
One of the professors checked the boy’s pulse and shouted,
“It seems to be a dantian problem!”
“Where’s Professor Hwang?”
“She’s returning from a business trip—she’ll need more time!”
Professor Hwang Ye-rim, the faculty’s foremost expert in martial arts medicine, was absent.
“Then what do we do?”
“Form a qi net and suppress it!”
Jin Myeong-hoon and the other professors hurriedly stretched out their hands, pouring true energy into a suppression attempt.
But—
“KRAAAAAAGH!”
The student’s screams grew more agonized, and he began vomiting dark red blood. The more they pressed from outside, the more the rampaging true energy inside him tried to tear through his skin and erupt.
“I-it’s not working! What do we do?”
“Damn it! His meridians can’t take it!”
While the professors flailed in chaos, Kang Hyun—who had been watching the spectacle with open disdain—stepped forward.
That doesn’t even qualify as qi deviation.
It was a basic symptom of meridians getting slightly twisted from forcing energy too hard. Handling it the way they were doing could actually push the boy into real qi deviation.
“Everyone, step aside.”
“Wh-what? This is no time for you to interfere—”
One professor moved to shove him aside as a nuisance, then froze.
The eyes that had looked only languid a moment ago had sunk into a chilling stillness. The professor had weathered every storm imaginable, yet he had never seen eyes like those.
Eyes that said, at the very least: do not touch.
“I said step aside. Unless you want to burst the kid’s heart with those hands of yours.”