Disparate Treatment
“Han Ji-hyeon, don’t you think Ker is pretty smart?”
“……Yes. I suppose so.”
One day, while the socialization education project was in full swing, they were out on one of the walks that had become part of Ari’s daily routine.
There was no way anyone could let Ari and Ker roam around on their own, so Han Ji-hyeon inevitably had to tag along, trotting after them and doing her best to keep up with the conversation.
The only mercy was that they had agreed to stay within the area around the Research Institute.
At least they’ve been keeping that promise so far.
That alone was a relief.
The isolation room that had been remodeled for Ari had long since lost any real function as a containment cell. No matter how often they locked her in, she could just open the door and walk out. At that point, what was the point of steel doors or security systems?
They had repaired the entrance, but the forced-locking function was gone now. Honestly, it was already fortunate enough that Ker was being kept in a separate room at all…
Grrrrowl.
Just then, their eyes met, and Ker curled one side of its mouth and one eye in a mocking grin. It was the very picture of a dog’s sneer.
It was enough to make Han Ji-hyeon exhale in disbelief. A beast looking at people like that—really, the nerve of it. She let out a dry laugh before she could help herself.
And inwardly, she found herself quietly agreeing with Ari.
It really is smart, for a boss-grade monster.
They couldn’t understand each other’s language, but somehow Han Ji-hyeon could practically hear what Ker was thinking.
I don’t show respect to humans weaker than me.
It was like some edgy offshoot of a dark fantasy villain, except worse.
And maybe it understood that it would get scolded if it said it out loud, because it only pulled that face when the two of them happened to make eye contact.
What a cunning little bastard. Or little bitch, maybe. Anyway.
They rounded the corner of a building and passed beneath a row of street trees, where a soft spring breeze brushed past them.
Han Ji-hyeon swept her hair back with one hand. When she turned to look beside her, she saw the fairy lady with her eyes half-closed, wearing a contented expression as she basked in the warm sunlight. Even the silver hair fluttering in the wind didn’t seem to bother her.
For a moment, Han Ji-hyeon was completely captivated. The scent of spring blossoms tickled her nose, and for one absurd instant it felt as though the fragrance itself was drifting off Ari.
“…Why are you staring at me like that?”
“Ah, n-nothing!”
Apparently she had been staring too intently.
Han Ji-hyeon waved her hands quickly to show it was nothing. Ari merely curved the corners of her eyes and gave a small, amused smile.
And so the walk resumed. In a gentle voice, Ari said, “You know, I actually had a dream a long time ago.”
“Your dream, Lady Fairy? Hmm. I wonder what it was.”
“Hehe. I wanted to laze around comfortably in my own little room, living off the fat of the land! As long as I had money, that is.”
“…Ari, please make sure you say that in front of other people too. They’ll love it.”
“?”
The fairy tilted her head, clearly not understanding.
But Han Ji-hyeon was serious. If the country’s important officials heard that, wouldn’t they forget their age, leap to their feet, and start dancing?
There might even be someone who bowed flat to the ground.
She herself was more than willing to do that, provided the fairy lady didn’t cause any sudden trouble.
“By the way, how’s the studying going? If anything’s uncomfortable, or if you need anything, I can pass it along.”
At that, Ari thought about it for a moment.
Honestly, there’s barely anything to study.
It wasn’t like she was taking middle school or high school classes. These were truly the basics of the basics.
If she couldn’t get through this, that would be stranger.
The only unfamiliar and interesting part was the lectures about hunters and gates.
There were occasional gates that failed to be observed in time and ended up causing accidents, and hearing the vivid stories from an experienced instructor was honestly entertaining just on its own.
So when Han Ji-hyeon asked, Ari answered, “Hmm. It’s fine, aside from being treated like a kid who’s been taken out to the water’s edge.”
“Ah, haha…. So you’re adjusting well, then.”
Han Ji-hyeon’s eyes rolled left and right as she spoke.
“Oh, right, Lady Ari. I’ll need to be away for a bit this week. That’s all right, isn’t it?”
“Didn’t you already tell me that yesterday? I’m fine, so go ahead and take care of it.”
Ari could tell the subject was being changed so blatantly, but she let it slide.
Partly because she felt a little bad for how overworked Han Ji-hyeon looked.
She’d thought it before, but…
She really is a diligent woman.
With Ari now buried under a packed schedule of lectures, it would have left Han Ji-hyeon with more breathing room in return.
After all, Ari had told her she didn’t need to keep standing guard in the lecture room, and had made things flexible for her.
Honestly, having Han Ji-hyeon diligently take care of all sorts of little things made life a lot easier.
But she’s not actually my subordinate or anything.
She definitely wasn’t a slave, either.
So this was just Ari’s way of being generous.
In fact, she had even deliberately shown herself focusing on the lectures, as though she might take leave during this period if she needed to.
And yet she was planning to go to a dungeon instead of resting during that time?
There had been talk before about quotas for government hunters and all that homework nonsense, but…
…Is my superior the one who’s inflexible?
If Ari had been in charge, someone as diligent as Han Ji-hyeon would have gotten both a generous bonus and proper vacation time.
Ah! Maybe that’s exactly it?
Was Han Ji-hyeon just quietly stacking up her leave and bonuses like crazy?
Indeed. As expected of the woman this body had recognized as a modern role model!
Ari looked at Han Ji-hyeon with sparkling, admiring eyes.
And as a result—
W-what’s with her all of a sudden?!
Han Ji-hyeon forced a smile and watched her cautiously.
She couldn’t begin to guess what was going on in the fairy lady’s head.
At the same time, her own thoughts remained painfully the same.
Ugh, I really don’t want to go into a dungeon….
She had been repeating that thought for who knew how many times already.
One of the higher-ups at the Administration had told her that, as the staff member who would soon be fully in charge of Ari, she was going to end up following her into dungeons more often anyway.
Since this was her assigned responsibility, they said they would exempt her from quota regulations, so why not use this chance to make one last trip?
It was a well-known fact that the Administration’s hunters didn’t perform as well in dungeon raids as guild hunters did, so this was meant to be a kindness—if you could call it that—to help her recover her field instincts in advance.
It wasn’t exactly wrong, and the superior had come all the way in person, so Han Ji-hyeon hadn’t been able to refuse.
She swallowed a quiet sigh.
I really wish Lady Ari would just laze around in her little room and live off the fat of the land….
Then Han Ji-hyeon wouldn’t have to keep going into dungeons herself.
* * *
A few days later, in the evening. A private conference room provided by the Administration.
The instructors invited to teach Boss Ari had gathered in one place.
They were there to review the educational progress so far and discuss the direction of the remaining lessons.
After the official reports were completed, and there was no more need to keep records, the atmosphere naturally softened.
The conversation turned freer, as though everyone were finally letting their guards down and relaxing together.
“Boss Ari, I mean—she was nothing like I feared. Her attitude is so calm, and she’s so diligent. It’s honestly a joy to teach her. Really, it makes all this worth it.”
“Oh, I don’t know. I found that even creepier. The Administration wouldn’t be so tense for no reason, would they? I kept worrying she’d suddenly show her true colors.”
“In that sense, Hunter Han Ji-hyeon really is amazing, isn’t she? She’s been handling her from the very beginning.”
Then one young male instructor joined the conversation.
“E-everyone. Boss Ari is calm and diligent? Did I hear that wrong…?”
“Hmm? Well, strictly speaking, she does seem to hide signs of boredom. But that still counts as pretty diligent, doesn’t it?”
“She listened to my lectures very earnestly. I suppose it just varies by subject. Maybe it’s the way we present them.”
The instructor who had spoken last lifted his coffee cup with a casual air.
He sounded modest, but anyone could tell he was bragging about his teaching ability.
When the young man’s expression darkened slightly, another instructor jumped in with easy charm.
“Could she have taken something the wrong way without us realizing? She’s a transmigrator from another world, after all. Her sense of common knowledge could be different from ours, and maybe something we said rubbed her the wrong way.”
“Good point! Can you think of anything specific? We should all share these things so they don’t get repeated, and if there’s any mistaken idea involved, we’ll have to set it straight.”
At that, the young instructor folded his arms and fell into thought.
After a moment, he shook his head.
“I really did focus only on teaching. When we first met, I did compliment her looks a little, just to build rapport…”
He had simply praised her beauty as though she had stepped straight out of mythology, calling her a goddess-level beauty.
That made the other instructors tilt their heads.
“I’ve done that too, though? She seemed to like it when I said she was just like a fairy lady.”
“Maybe she took it as a man trying to hit on her?”
“That does make sense. Of course, there could also be differences in how much attention she pays to each subject.”
Various opinions were exchanged.
In the end, no clear conclusion was reached, and the young instructor was left alone with his thoughts.
No way. We don’t even seem that far apart in age, so was it the part where I said she could think of me as an easygoing older brother instead of an instructor?
He had meant it to narrow the distance between teacher and student, to build familiarity.
But if she had taken that as him coming on to her, well… that was a surprisingly plausible explanation.
Mm. Damn. It really was plausible.
……Meanwhile, there was one instructor who was listening quietly rather than joining the discussion.
He was a B-rank magic-type hunter who taught the hunter curriculum.
Internally, he was debating whether to speak up or not.
Does nobody… want to mention the monster?
That big, rude dog that still occasionally appeared in the classroom.
He had assumed another instructor would put it in its place, but now it seemed everyone was just passing the responsibility to someone else.
The more he listened, the more doubts rose in his mind.
Is this common-sense education actually going properly?
Are all these people just good at talking and nothing else?
“……”
There was still time left in the education period. Somehow, it would all work out.
He decided to dismiss it as needless worry and let the thought go.
Before long, the meeting was drawing to a close.
As people started leaving one by one, the hunter instructor spoke to the person beside him.
A fact had just occurred to him.
“Come to think of it…”
“Yes?”
“The Hunter Han Ji-hyeon who was in charge of Boss Ari. I haven’t seen her face for the last few days. Did she go on leave?”
“Ah, her? I happened to pass by while she was on the phone during one of my classes recently, and I heard she was going into some kind of labyrinth-type dungeon.”
“Wait, a labyrinth-type dungeon?”
The hunter instructor repeated it before he could stop himself.
“Do you know how many days it’s been?”
“Probably three or four? Around that much. Is there a problem?”
“Tsk…”
The instructor in front of him was a civilian, not an Awakened one—someone who didn’t know much about the hunter world.
So instead of explaining, the hunter instructor shook his head and got to his feet.
Then he thought about how the Administration couldn’t possibly be unaware of this, and how they were dealing with it.
“Hello?”
Once he had stepped outside the building and found a quiet place, he called a contact at the Administration.
And then he learned the situation.
“You’re assembling a hunter team for rescue?”
The dungeon should have been cleared within two days at the most—three at the outside—and yet he was hearing that they still hadn’t escaped.
Something had definitely gone wrong inside.
Of course, that in itself wasn’t rare. Dungeons were places people entered while gambling with their lives, especially higher-grade ones.
But the problem here was this:
Does Boss Ari know about this?
From what he had seen so far, Han Ji-hyeon had clearly been favored by Boss Ari.
If she came back safely, that would be one thing. But what if she died in the dungeon?
What would Boss Ari think of the Administration, and of Korea itself?
Even the contact on the other end of the line sounded shaken, as if the Administration itself was at a loss.
It was the kind of thing that could happen at any time, but the timing could not have been worse.
The hunter instructor sank into thought. Through the rest of the workday, through the moment he fell asleep, and then all the way until the time for Boss Ari’s class came around after he woke up.
And finally—
“You’re asking if I want to go do dungeon practice?”
With the Administration’s consent in hand, he carefully broached the subject with Boss Ari.