You Must Prove Yourselves
Honestly, he was disappointed.
Even if their lack of internal energy was forgivable—they had never learned proper martial arts—why were their lower bodies so pathetic?
These brats don't even have the basics down.
To gauge someone's natural constitution or vessel, you needed at least sturdy bones that could hold energy, or some spirit they could project outward. But this… They were nothing but pebbles rolling around in the dirt. Crack them open and you still couldn't tell which ones might be raw gems.
And those eyes…
They were completely different from the people in Murim. Back there, even the talentless ones had eyes burning with a mad will to live and a starving hunger for the martial path… These kids just looked pure. The annoyance, the irritation, the arrogant stares—all of it looked almost cute to Kang Hyun.
Gulp. Gulp.
He drank more whiskey. Originally he drank to dull the pain; this time it was simply out of a heavy heart.
He was supposed to stop Asura—the one who intended to destroy the world—with these fragile children?
"Haa."
A long breath thick with the scent of alcohol left his lips.
Still, let's think positively.
You never know. There might be someone with the perfect constitution among them.
Cha Yu-sik's eyes, on the other hand, had narrowed to slits.
What the hell is this?
It made no sense. Anyone who had trained in martial arts carried a distinctive presence. Even a C-rank hunter radiated an aura clearly different from an ordinary person.
But…
The professor standing in front of him gave off nothing at all. That left only two possibilities: either his realm was so high he had completely concealed his energy, or he was just an ordinary man who had never learned a thing.
Cha Yu-sik had seen the former before.
Father.
Whenever he faced Cha Ha-rang alone, he sometimes felt that same alien sensation.
No way.
Was this disheveled, whiskey-reeking man supposed to be an S-rank hunter? Ridiculous. There were only seven S-rank hunters in all of South Korea, and Cha Yu-sik had met every single one of them at least once at his father's side.
So the rumors were true.
A parachute the Association had forced into the Academy. What on earth could it be? What could make both the Association and the headmaster defend this man so fiercely? Did he have the president's backing or something?
I'm disappointed in the headmaster too.
They called him an upright, incorruptible martial artist, but maybe that was just empty talk. To hand over a teaching post to this incompetent through political games…
"Professor."
Cha Yu-sik stepped forward and spoke. He despised the man inside, yet outwardly he kept every courtesy. Contract or not, the man still held the title of professor.
"You wrote this on the syllabus. That you would teach us how to become strong. The condition: those prepared to die."
His voice carried across the training ground.
"So I must ask, if I may."
"What?"
"Do you truly believe you have the ability to make us strong?"
The bold challenge made the cadets who had been holding their breath widen their eyes. Watching from the rear, Kwak Do-jin let out a snort of laughter and nodded.
Yep. Cha Yu-sik really is a crazy bastard.
The other cadets felt a strange satisfaction at the words as well.
He's not wrong.
How does someone who looks like a washed-up wreck even think he can be a professor?
If he's going to demand we be ready to die, shouldn't he prove himself first?
They were on the verge of expulsion, yet they still carried the pride of National Hunter Academy cadets. None of them felt the slightest desire to grovel before some unknown contract professor. Cha Yu-sik had simply scratched the itch for them.
Only one person looked worried—Yoon Hyun-jong, watching Kang Hyun with a troubled expression.
Kang Hyun, however, still wore that same indifferent face.
"So what are you trying to say?"
"Prove it."
Thud.
Cha Yu-sik lightly tapped the scabbard at his waist.
"If you're going to set such grand conditions, shouldn't you at least be able to subdue one student here with ease? Even if you are only a contract professor."
"Hmm."
Kang Hyun stared at him for a moment, then let out a short laugh.
"I thought I'd only gathered tailless dogs, but looks like one of you actually knows how to bark."
Cha Yu-sik's brow twitched. Whether it was praise or mockery was impossible to tell, and his temper was about to snap—
Shing!
A sword left Kang Hyun's waist. It was a mass-produced iron blade, the kind sold at any cheap neighborhood weapons shop.
He drew without a second's hesitation?
Cha Yu-sik's pupils trembled. An ordinary professor would have thrown around cheap authority or scrambled for excuses by now. This man was different. And more shocking still—
For a moment I lost the trajectory.
The draw had been too fast. If that shabby iron sword had been aimed at his throat instead of empty air…
I would have been cut.
His head would have left his shoulders before he even registered that a blade had been drawn. For the first time, tension settled over Cha Yu-sik's face.
Of course Kang Hyun had drawn without thinking anything of it, but Cha Yu-sik had no way of knowing that.
Kang Hyun did not look at him. He let the tip of the drawn sword hang loosely downward, then—
Screeeeech!
—dragged a long line across the sand-mixed floor of the training ground. He turned to the twenty frozen cadets and spoke.
"The proof isn't mine to give. It's yours."
He lifted the whiskey bottle and drained every last drop down his throat.
Kuuuuung!
A horrific killing intent erupted from Kang Hyun's entire body and swallowed the training ground like a tidal wave.
"…Hhk!"
"Ghk—ghk!"
It felt as if the oxygen had been sucked out of the air in an instant. Cha Yu-sik, Kwak Do-jin, the cadets behind them—all instinctively stumbled backward. It felt as though the professor's sword would sever their necks at any second.
"Just first-class killing intent."
A faint smile touched the professor's lips.
"Come across. You have ten minutes."
The condition for the class: those prepared to die.
"Anyone who crosses this line is qualified to receive my teaching. Those who cannot—turn around and leave. You never have to show up to my class again."
Back in Murim, the moment word spread that he was taking disciples, people from every faction—righteous, evil, and demonic—would have come crawling with rare elixirs and secret manuals, knocking their heads on the ground. Compared to that, these kids were absurdly lucky. Cross one simple line and a fateful opportunity was theirs for the taking.
Show me, then.
The bare minimum of will needed to seize heaven's fortune for free.
One minute passed.
Suffocating silence blanketed the training ground. No one took a step. No—no one could.
"Haaah… hhk…"
"S-save…"
"Please…"
More than half had already collapsed as their legs gave out. From between the thighs of several of them, a wet liquid soaked into the sand. They had wet themselves.
It was only first-class energy, yet greenhouse flowers could never withstand the genuine killing intent of a man who had spent twenty years rolling through Murim.
"Tsk."
Kang Hyun clicked his tongue bitterly—then a sound cut through the stillness.
Ssscrape.
Sand being scraped hard. His gaze shifted toward the noise. Someone was stepping forward.
Surprisingly, the first to move was neither Cha Yu-sik nor Kwak Do-jin. It was Yoon Hyun-jong, who had been standing in a corner of the training ground.
Oh?
Kang Hyun's eyes curved with interest. He remembered. The kid whose blood vessels had been tangled not long ago.
I thought his bones were nothing special back then.
In the end, you only know a person once you hammer them. Smash them like a blacksmith's hammer and you learn whether they hold crumbling clay or steel that sparks under the blow.
"Khhhk…"
His face was paper-white, yet he walked straight forward. Kang Hyun knew exactly how much courage that required.
Next to move was Cha Yu-sik. Shock and horror filled his eyes.
I can't breathe.
With every step, the aura felt as if it were slicing his skin. Cha Yu-sik had experienced killing intent like this only once before.
Father.
When he had lost guild members in a dungeon, the presence had been exactly like this. No—if anything, this man was a step above in sheer ferocity.
That settled it.
This man is an S-rank hunter.
Not some incompetent parachute. The Association and the headmaster had deliberately hidden his identity and planted him in the Academy for some reason.
Cha Yu-sik bit his lip. The real reason he had been so reckless was that the professors here were only around A-rank. He had believed there was nothing to learn compared to the guild. But if the man in front of him was S-rank?
That changes everything.
He had to learn. This was an opportunity. The headmaster—the only other S-rank at the Academy—did not teach students.
I'm going in first.
Thud.
Staring at Yoon Hyun-jong's back ahead of him, he forced his stiff legs to move.
And behind them—
"Wai—wait, ah shit! This is bullshit… Hhk!"
Kwak Do-jin was face-down on the ground, trembling violently. Filthy curses poured from his mouth without pause, yet his body refused to move. Mad Dog? What mad dog tucked its tail in the face of death? Right now he was nothing but a mongrel crawling on the dirt, desperate to live. His mind screamed at him to get up and run, but his legs had no strength left in them.
I'm going insane, I'm actually losing it…
Then, through the fear devouring him, Yoon Hyun-jong entered Kwak Do-jin's vision—the twentieth-batch junior whose collar he had grabbed just moments ago.
What the fuck. That bastard's going?
In an instant Kwak Do-jin's face flushed crimson. He was terrified. Just looking into the professor's eyes still felt like his heart would explode. But he was also mortified. The junior he had dismissed as trash was walking upright, while he—the so-called senior—was sprawled on the ground?
That can't happen.
Kwak Do-jin clenched his teeth again and planted his hands on the floor. He had no strength to stand. So he crawled.
Ssshk. Ssshk.
Cold sweat poured down like rain, yet he stubbornly dragged himself toward the line. Kang Hyun watched with mild surprise.
More interesting brats than I expected.
The sight was wretched and pitiful, yet that kind of stubborn pride was also a talent a martial artist needed. And—
In front of the Demon God, face and dignity mean nothing.
When Asura descended, countless masters who had once ruled Murim went mad or took their own lives. The only ones who kept charging until the end were the stubborn bastards who had rolled in the mud.
Oh?
Kang Hyun's gaze shifted slightly. Behind the crawling Kwak Do-jin, two more silhouettes were forcing their trembling bodies forward somehow. He was honestly surprised. He had expected one at most—maybe none. Yet five of them were moving?
Kang Hyun's lips curved into a soft arc. Perhaps choosing this Academy had been the right call after all.
Five out of twenty isn't bad.
Before long the ten minutes were up, and the killing intent crushing the training ground scattered at the same moment.
"Haaah… hhk!"
"Cough, cough!"
Exactly five people had crossed the line.