The Eavesdropping School Nurse
The hearing had yielded nothing new. Lua had lived through the incident herself, after all.
It had been nothing more than tedious administrative work—sorting out the facts and committing them to an official record.
And yet one question refused to leave her alone.
Why did this happen at all?
In the game Hunter Hunting Academy, there had never been an event where a monster escaped during class. There wasn't even an indirect mention of anything like it in the dialogue.
In other words, something that had never existed in the original game had just taken place.
There are two differences between the game and this world.
The absence of the protagonist—and Lua's own actions.
Of the two, the protagonist's absence was being smoothed over naturally by the story itself. Events that were supposed to happen still happened, and while the outcomes shifted a little here and there, nothing ever touched the broader timeline.
At the very least, not enough to spawn a major incident that never existed in the first place.
Which left Lua as the cause.
She had tried as hard as she could not to disturb the original chain of cause and effect—but somewhere along the way, without even realizing it, she must have made a serious mistake.
My mistake set off a snowball that rolled all the way into something this big…?
If she knew what the mistake was, she could simply fix it. The problem was that she had no idea when it had happened, or what kind of mistake it had even been.
At this rate, she might accidentally pull forward the great catastrophe still nearly nine months away—or trigger some other disaster entirely. She needed to figure out where she had gone wrong and put safeguards in place so it never happened again—
"—Nurse Han Lua."
"Yes? Y-yes!"
Lua snapped back to herself and jerked her head up. The Chairman and the teachers seated around the table all had their eyes fixed on her.
"……"
Cold sweat raced down her spine in an instant.
"I asked whether the statement Hoshikawa Himari just made is correct."
She hadn't actually heard a word of it, but Lua nodded vigorously all the same.
"Y-yes, th-that's right!"
"Very well."
As if warning her not to let her mind wander again, Pyo Yeonghan shot Lua a look, then dropped his gaze back to the documents. Lua froze solid, not even thinking to wipe the sweat from her forehead.
"Aside from the negligence in the verification process, there was no issue with the class itself. That leaves us no choice but to trace the source of the monster."
Pyo Yeonghan turned his attention to the hunter from the operations team seated at the far end of the table.
"Team Leader Park Haengsin."
"Yes."
The hunter straightened in his seat.
He looks like a real slacker.
That was Lua's impression as she stole a glance at his profile. With his goatee and bandana, Park Haengsin looked about as far from diligence and upright living as a person could get.
"First, explain the duties assigned to you."
"As Team Leader of Felix Academy Operations Team 1, I'm responsible for securing the teaching materials used in classes."
The answer came out smooth as silk. Even under the hawk-like stares of Pyo Yeonghan and the teachers, he didn't seem the least bit tense.
"The slimes used in this monster research class—Operations Team 1 captured them yourselves, correct?"
"Yes."
"Walk us through that process in detail."
"Hmm, it's a bit long…"
Park Haengsin shifted in his seat as he said it. When no one so much as cracked a smile, he curled one corner of his mouth into a sly grin and shrugged.
"Ah, just kidding. I'll tell you."
"……"
"Ordinarily, the request comes in about two weeks before the class. They ask us to capture and bring back a certain kind of monster for use as teaching material, along with preferred conditions—that sort of thing."
The hunter settled into a calm, measured explanation.
"The team gathers for a meeting. We decide where to make the capture, finish our preparations, and head out by helicopter or overland."
"Where was it this time?"
One of the teachers cut in abruptly, and Park Haengsin turned to him and answered without missing a beat.
"A riverside near the DMZ. A gate that had opened in an uninhabited area nearby overflowed, and the riverbank was swarming with slimes."
"Did the capture operation go smoothly?"
"Yes, same as always. The tankers drew aggro from inside the cages, we waited for them to come in, and we bagged them."
"Hold on."
Another teacher raised a hand, cutting Park Haengsin off.
"If there was a mistake, that would be where it happened. You were trying to capture a C-class and accidentally brought back a B-class, weren't you?"
It was a sharp observation. Every pair of piercing eyes in the room locked onto Park Haengsin—but he calmly took a sip of water.
Of course he'll deny it.
Even Lua thought so—
"—Yes, I think so too."
What came out of the hunter's mouth was the last thing anyone expected.
"Looking back, I must have slipped up. I don't think we properly confirmed whether they were B-class or C-class before we brought them in."
"What did you just say?!"
"It was a kind of safety complacency. We do the same kind of work so often that I figured it'd be fine and skipped the regulations. That was my failure."
Park Haengsin shrugged.
Murmurs rippled through the teachers at his words. Even Pyo Yeonghan leaned over to exchange a whispered word with the teacher beside him.
But the commotion didn't last long.
—Thud!
"Hunter Park Haengsin."
The Chairman struck the desk and brought the room to order.
"Can you swear, before your own conscience and professional integrity, that what you just said is the truth?"
"It is the truth, Chairman. There's no reason for me to lie when I'm admitting my own mistake."
"Very well, then."
The Chairman gathered the papers in front of him, tapping them neatly into a stack.
"There are no contradictions, and everything lines up. The full picture of the incident has been established, so let us proceed to determine the level of disciplinary action for those responsible."
"I'll accept it gladly."
Park Haengsin bowed his head.
Lua stole a glance at his profile. He was in a position to be begging forgiveness, and yet the same casual lightness from earlier still sat on his face, unchanged.
Something's off.
"Kim Inhwi, the teacher in charge of the monster class—under Article 124 of the Felix Academy regulations, you are hereby sentenced to two months' pay reduction."
"Kh… Understood."
The teacher clenched his pant leg and bowed his head. Yes—that was a normal reaction.
"Park Haengsin, Team Leader of Operations Team 1—likewise under Article 124, you are hereby sentenced to five months' pay reduction."
"I have nothing to say."
He said the words, but there was no real shift in his expression, as if it were someone else's problem entirely.
The Chairman and the other teachers, seated a little farther away, didn't seem to notice anything strange about him.
"Student Hoshikawa Himari, you may leave now. Return to class."
"…Understood."
At Pyo Yeonghan's words, Himari rose from her seat. But not before she leaned in and whispered to Lua, I'll be waiting.
—Click.
The door closed behind Himari, and Pyo Yeonghan continued.
"A word of caution to the faculty."
"……"
"This morning, I received a call from the Hoshikawa family. As you all know, that is the household of Hoshikawa Himari, who just left this room. The head of the family expressed his concerns regarding the academy's safety."
Lua pictured the face of Himari's father as she had seen him in the game—Hoshikawa Toshio. A man who had opposed his daughter's studying abroad. Of course he would be worried after an accident at the very school she attended.
"This time, he let it pass out of consideration for me. But he made it clear that if another incident like this occurs, he will take immediate action."
Every teacher lowered their eyes.
"This concerns the prestige of our Felix Academy. Going forward, something like this must never happen again."
Chairman Pyo Yeonghan raised his voice.
"One of the academy's two major events—the sports festival—is nearly upon us. I want every one of you to reexamine the work assigned to you from start to finish, and thoroughly reflect on whether anything has been neglected. Is that clear?!"
"Yes, Chairman!"
The teachers' reply rang out like a military formation.
"Teacher, shall I walk you back to the nurse's office?"
"Ah—n-no. I can go by myself. You should get to class, Himari."
"Forgive me. For one who is meant to remain always at your side as your 'Moon,' I…"
Lua soothed the apologizing Himari and sent her off toward her classroom.
She only had an hour or two left until the end of the workday anyway. Her plan was to hole up in the nurse's office, pick up the incident analysis she hadn't finished earlier, and head home after that.
Better not tell Himari that her father called.
Their relationship was already strained over the studying-abroad issue. There was no need to fan the flames.
Lua stopped by the school store, bought a chocolate cream bun, a carton of milk, and a bag of Scotch candy, then headed for the nurse's office. Sugar was essential if she wanted her brain to work properly.
"—?"
Walking down a corridor empty of people during class hours, Lua spotted a figure at the far end—someone's back.
It was Hunter Park Haengsin from the hearing. He was on a phone call with someone.
"……"
The face that had shown almost no emotional reaction even to disciplinary action flashed through her mind.
I need to check this out.
The incident had been pinned on his mistake—but she needed to work backward from why he had made that mistake in the first place. To keep another snowball from starting to roll.
—Softly.
She set the snacks she'd bought carefully against the wall of the corridor, then tiptoed toward Park Haengsin. He was taking the call on the stair landing, so Lua leaned carefully out over the railing and watched him.
"…Yes, that's right. There won't be any further action."
The same weightless expression as always. Fingering his goatee, he spoke with absolute certainty to the person on the other end of the line.
"Yes, it ended at five months' pay reduction. It wasn't deliberate—it was a mistake. What else were they going to do?"
"……!"
Just as she'd thought. Lua's instincts had been right. This call was about the incident.
"You'll deposit the deducted amount along with the rest, correct? Yes, yes—oh, no, I wouldn't dream of doubting you. I'm nothing but grateful."
They're covering the pay cut?
Which meant—
"—Swapping out the slimes is easy enough. Our team was the only one on-site anyway, so there's no risk of it coming out."
It hadn't been a mistake.
Park Haengsin had deliberately brought B-class slimes to the school in place of the C-class ones he'd been commissioned for. Almost certainly at the request of whoever was on the other end of that call.
And he agreed to close the matter as his own negligence…
If that unknown party was covering the pay reduction on top of everything else, he could walk away without losing a single thing.
"Yes, then I'll be waiting for the deposit. Feel free to contact me anytime if you need something like this again."
Park Haengsin's laughter echoed through the stair landing.
"My, my—you've already got the whole plan worked out."
At the next words out of his mouth, Lua held her breath.
"You're talking about the sports festival, aren't you?"