The Future Looks Bleak
“Angnyangnyang….”
“Eve, is it tasty?”
“Yes..? Oh, yes….”
“The older boys were cursing and fighting like crazy, so it must have been really scary~ Should I go tell the teacher and get them expelled on the spot?”
“N-no, ma'am! It's fine.”
“See that? How dare you act like that in front of such a sweet kid, you hooligans?”
“Sorry.”
“My bad.”
An Gyeong-won and Na Byeong-ho — the same seniors who had been growling threats at each other right up until I walked in — had just been thoroughly schooled by the older girl sitting with them.
Cho-a, eating her lunch beside me, was giggling at the whole scene…. Apparently it didn't faze her at all, but it had been ages since I'd last heard someone swear, and my heart was still pounding.
“So that makes you a transfer student, Eve? You were at a regular school before?”
“N-no! I just…. stayed at home..?”
“Homeschooled? Well, I suppose that's possible these days. Even the walk to school can be dangerous.”
The big-hearted, endlessly motherly senior was named Ha Yeon-woo. Same second year of high school as Gyeong-won and Byeong-ho, and currently the de facto top dog among them.
Around the second semester of second year, everyone heads out to the big guilds and crews as apprentice hunters, and from third year on they barely show up at school at all, living out in the field instead. Of course, there were plenty of other second-year seniors besides those three.
Cho-a had mentioned it before — apparently the middle and high school seniors visit the third-grade class near the end of the semester to talk with the kids who'll be joining Hunter Class the following year. Since I'd enrolled directly into fourth grade, every single one of them was a stranger to me.
“Bya. They're not fighting, they're just close. Got it?”
“What even is 'Bya' supposed to be?”
“Your family name is Lee, isn't it? Gyeongju Lee? Seongsan Lee?”
“Byeong-ho, that's an absolutely legendary moron move, honestly.”
“Why are you getting bent out of shape now?”
I could only gape at a nickname I'd never heard in my life. So he'd assumed my name was just... 'Eve,' with Lee bolted on?
“Gyeong-won, we told you to watch your language in front of the kids.”
“Oh, right. Sorry.”
“I-it's okay….”
There were even ninth-grader first-year seniors in the class, so the ages ran the whole spectrum. There was a sixth-grade senior too.
“Eve, Cho-a, take your time eating, okay? I'll wait for you.”
“Thanks, Unnie!”
“Thank you….”
“I'll wait for you too, kiddo.”
The second-year seniors, who'd arrived first and were already eating, had come early because the three of them had to go prepare before using the auditorium today. When Yeon-woo said she'd wait, Gyeong-won and Byeong-ho tried to stubbornly stick around too, but….
“You two, hurry up and go. It's your turn on duty today.”
“Wait, you're on duty too, Ha Yeon-woo.”
“What did you just say?”
“Yeah, got it. Let's go.”
“Gyeong-won, let's eat fast.”
Under Yeon-woo's death glare, the two seniors inhaled their extra-large jjampong and vanished like a pair of vacuum cleaners. Since we'd come early, a whole wave of Hunter Class seniors flooded in after us.
“Whoa, Unnie, who's that next to you?”
“This cutie? This is Eve. Fourth grade, and she's joining our classes from today~”
“That's insane. She's SO cute. Can I pinch her cheeks?”
“No touching while Eve is eating~”
“Eve, say hi!!”
“H-hello….”
“She said hello!!”
I figured answering politely with "hello" was the obvious choice, but for some reason they all started squealing and fussing over it. Cho-a seemed to know every senior by face and chatted away with them comfortably, but…
For me, it was not easy.
They were complete strangers, after all….
Also, the tonkatsu set was way too much food. I felt bad about Yeon-woo waiting, so I tried my absolute hardest to eat fast, but the rice was stacked like a mountain and there was a mountain of tonkatsu on top of it.
“Ugh….”
I left about a third of it behind.
By the time we arrived, the chairs in the great auditorium Nest had all been cleared away. The interior that had looked so cramped at the opening ceremony was now staggeringly vast — you could've sprinted laps across it without a problem.
Since it was the first day, they said we didn't even need to change into gym clothes.
Hunter Class spans every grade combined, divided into fourteen sections. Instead of Class 1 and Class 2, they're split by letters of the alphabet — and mine, as noted on my enrollment letter, was Class A.
Out of roughly 2,800 students, fewer than 10 percent of the elementary schoolers are awakened, around 30 percent of the middle schoolers, and the high schoolers top 50 percent.
Factor out the third-years who are off on field practice, and the awakened students remaining at school come to about 600? I know it sounds ridiculous — how can an actual hunter academy have only this many awakened students? — but awakened individuals are rare by nature, so this is the global standard.
Making a school that's 100 percent awakened students is basically impossible outside of a few wealthy exceptions. Even America doesn't build schools that hemorrhage that much money.
And of those, you subtract the awakened who want to go into tech development or research (like Baeksu-ah Unnie) rather than field work, leaving about 400 students who actually learn to fight and need the auditorium.
Class A — where I, Cho-a, Yeon-woo, and the rest of us were placed — was the group using the auditorium today. Though being the first day of the semester, no real class was actually happening.
“Right, everyone here?”
-“Yes~”-
In walked a teacher who looked like some scruffy middle-aged man — bristly beard, tangled messy hair tied into a careless ponytail, sunken weary eyes. His clothes were a shabby tracksuit that had clearly seen better days.
Back there in the rear, An Gyeong-won and Na Byeong-ho were already down on the floor in push-up position. The reason: they'd gotten caught goofing off instead of preparing for auditorium practice.
“Now, anyone want to know my name? Anyone feel like they'd die if they didn't? No? Didn't think so.”
“Teach~ we've got new students joining, shouldn't you introduce yourself~?”
“Oh my. We have new ones, do we?”
At Yeon-woo's words — she was hugging me tight from behind — the teacher's gaze swung our way.
“Ha Yeon-woo. And what exactly have you been squeezing this whole time.”
“A fourth-grade transfer student. Isn't she adorable? Her name's Eve, apparently.”
“H-hello….”
“Tsk tsk, that's no way to greet your teacher. Stand up and fold that little back of yours a full 180 degrees, crisp as a hinge.”
“Gasp….”
“Aw c'mon, Teach, why're you picking on a kid~”
I tried to stand up, but Yeon-woo was holding on so tight I couldn't. Maybe he noticed, or maybe he was just messing around, but either way the teacher let me sit there quietly without another word about it.
“Well then, before this teacher of the heavens. My name is Baek Sang-joon. Some of you already know, but I wasn't here last year. Anyone know why?”
“Me, Teach.”
“What is it, answer up, Lee Ha-jin.”
“You were on disciplinary leave and couldn't come in.”
“Right, get over there and hit the floor. Next to those two.”
“Yes sir.”
As the middle-school senior lumbered up from her seat and trudged away, Teacher Baek Sang-joon gave her backside a swift kick on the way past, then resumed, tapping the pointer stick in his hand against his palm.
“I protected this country, you know. Did you all forget? I spent a year out there in the West Sea playing sailor games with Chinese hunters who couldn't speak a word of Korean.”
“Does that pay well?”
“If they hadn't paid, I wouldn't have gone. They threw in enough money to live on for the rest of my life.”
“Then why did you come back? You made your money, shouldn't you just be resting now?”
“Gyeong-dae-hun, get out here. Go over there and hit the floor.”
“Yes sir.”
Kick — another senior's backside got booted as he shuffled off to do push-ups. Playing sailor games with the Chinese? Something about that rang a bell….
Could it be — Daramong..?
The image in front of me was nothing like the one in my head. The Daramong I'd imagined was a little more refined, cooler, cleaner. This guy looked like he'd rolled straight out of a nap — exactly like a slacker youth, inside and out.
“I became a teacher because I get to boot any punk who annoys me however I please. Understood?”
“Wow... what a terrible person.”
“Yu Choa. Kneel, hands up.”
“Eek. But I told the truth.”
By the time the chatter wrapped up, eighty percent of the boys in Class A were down in push-up position, and fifty percent of the girls were kneeling with their hands raised.
And that was how fifth period ended — nothing but idle banter from start to finish. Now that fourth graders only have classes up through fifth period, it was time for us to head home.
“Honestly, not a single one in this class worth liking either. Ha Yeon-woo, escort the elementary kids back to their classroom.”
“Me? Why can't you do it, Teach?”
“No can do. I am a truly excellent educator who delegates all tedious work to my students.”
“Eve, you must never grow up to be like that, okay? Right.”
Yeon-woo suddenly started trash-talking the man to his face, and even Baek Sang-joon chimed in while listening.
“Nicely said, Ha Yeon-woo. Hey, you there — Eve, was it? Do I seem like a bad person to you? Or do you think it's their fault?”
“U-um….”
“Eve! Speak up proudly! Say Teacher Baek Sang-joon is a bad person. Okay?”
“Aaaah….”
While I hemmed and hawed, utterly unable to answer, Cho-a finally stepped in and answered for me.
“You're totally a bad person, Teach.”
“Look at these brats. Did you all plan this together? Not a single one on the teacher's side. Ha Yeon-woo, get these ungrateful little ingrates out of here. You're all in for a rough year.”
“Yes yes~”
And so Cho-a and I followed Yeon-woo back to our classroom. The kids who only took regular classes were already gathered there, getting ready to head home.
“Cho-a, you're back? How was Hunter Class?”
“We just chatted around? It was the first day so we didn't do anything.”
“Did you do okay, Eve? Were the seniors nice to you?”
“Me..? I just, um…. They were nice to me, yeah.”
After exchanging a few hellos with the kids, the teacher came in and closing-time began.
“Friends going to the dorm, head straight there and don't wander off anywhere~ And friends going home, please wait nicely until the school bus arrives. Understood~?”
-“Yeeees~”-
The school bus wasn't a home-route bus — it just ferried us down to the very base of Cheonggyesan. When we got off at the bottom, Ophelia was already there waiting in the car.
“Eve, is that one your car?”
“Huh? Oh, yeah.”
“No way. Isn't that a Rolls-Royce?”
“Uh, yeah…. I guess..?”
“You people are loaded. Guess a 1.21-million-follower influencer really is built different.”
“I-I don't think it has anything to do with that….”
“So it's just your family that's rich, then? The world is so unfair. Sharing some?”
Flashing awkward smiles through the excited chirping of my Seoul-living Cho-a cartel friends, I said my last goodbyes and waved them off.
“We're taking the bus deeper into the mountain. There's one that goes straight up from here.”
“Oh, I see….”
“See you tomorrow, Eve!”
“Bye bye~!”
Having every last drop of my energy sipped away, I reunited with Ophelia in a state of total exhaustion.
“My princess. How was school?”
“Waaah…. Ophelia…. I don't want to go to that school anymore….”
“Regrettably, that is not an option.”
“Sniff sniff.”
“Were you perhaps bullied?”
“N-no, it's not that….”
Quite the opposite — there were just too many kids around me. I'd always figured having lots of friends was a good thing, but experiencing it firsthand taught me otherwise.
Who knew that the friends I'd gain would be little girls who sprayed conversation topics at me like machine guns — topics with zero possible common ground, no less.
It might have been bearable if they were dumb, clueless, airheaded goofs like my Gakboong-i pals. My head was throbbing.
And one of those Gakboong-i turned out to be a teacher..!
“Aigoo….”
The future looks bleak.