Stalking (3)
After finishing dinner with Nakyeong and racing through the dishes, I headed straight for my room.
I meant to look into what she'd mentioned earlier — that temporary teaching position at the Academy.
Right. That option was always there.
What is a teacher, after all? Someone who earns a legitimate qualification and instructs students. If I became an Academy instructor, I'd naturally get face time with the student body — which meant I could get closer to Cheon Seo-hui, who was already enrolled there.
Aca…demy…teacher…
Cradling that swelling hope, I pulled out my phone and started searching for anything related to the Academy.
Oh. There's a lot.
As the most famous educational institution in the country, the Academy had documentation written up with near-thesis levels of detail.
Why is there a whole history of the elevator models on campus…?
It was just far more exhaustive and sprawling than I'd expected — most of it useless.
"Let's see…"
I focused first on the material about teacher appointments. Becoming an instructor at an Academy that trained talent in mana and superhuman abilities — with Explorers at the center of it all — required several steps. You needed at least ten years of experience in a related field, plus a separate training course for appointment. Only then did you even become eligible to apply.
Hss. A little short.
Unfortunately, as a nine-year Artifact repair technician, I didn't meet the baseline requirement. Swallowing my disappointment, I started looking into other fields.
Combat practice would be better, wouldn't it?
An Academy packed with talent tended to evaluate students by grades rather than raw potential — a fact I knew well enough from Nakyeong. What was it she said? Power is power?
In a way, prioritizing grades was only natural, but at the Academy the meaning tilted a little differently. The Academy's undisputed flagship track was Explorer — a profession that meant fighting monsters in dungeons until blood flew. So how do you evaluate students aiming for that career?
By strength.
In other words, high grades at the Academy meant you were one of the strong of your generation. Thinking about the treatment S-rank Explorers received in society — people stronger than nuclear weapons — the idea that power equaled authority more or less made sense. Not that it meant much in what was, at the end of the day, still a school for kids.
This track needs experience too…
I was flipping through the documents, hunting for a field that fit my conditions, when something caught my eye — an entry added only a few days ago.
Short-Term Contract Teacher
(Scheduled for second-semester introduction)
It was the temporary teaching position Nakyeong had mentioned.
"!"
The information was recent enough that caveats about uncertainty were still attached, but the general shape of the temporary teacher program was clear enough. Put simply, Academy temporary teachers were one-semester guest professors — temporary in name only, more like specially invited outsiders brought in from the field.
Famous Explorers don't exactly have a reason to become teachers, after all.
The temporary faculty was expected to be drawn from Explorers who'd made their names and retired, or ones currently riding high in the rankings.
And the selection itself wasn't open recruitment — it looked like they were handpicking people internally. For someone who was, for all practical purposes, a civilian, it was a hiring path I couldn't even dream of.
For me, that is.
"…You want to do what?"
The next day, after hastily taking the afternoon off, I went to find Choi Yeonjeong. She'd been resting at home, and she frowned at me like she couldn't believe her ears.
"I want to work at the Academy."
"……"
She casually crossed her arms and stared through me with a strange expression. Then —
"It's because of her, isn't it?"
She narrowed her eyes and tossed the guess out like a probe.
"Uh… yeah?"
I tried to brush it off naturally by bringing up Nakyeong.
"Just wanted to see how well my little girl is doing at school…"
"Don't give me that 'little girl' crap. It's that Cheon Seo-hui kid, isn't it."
How was her intuition this sharp?
"…Ahem…"
Having come this far, I realized more excuses were pointless, and I gave in cleanly.
"…I said I'd look after her."
"Ahh. So you're going to become a teacher just to raise her yourself?"
"No — if some random middle-aged guy suddenly shows up and goes, 'I am your master!' it'd be weird."
Honestly, I thought that was a perfectly logical argument.
"Are you joking right now?"
…Was it a punchable argument?
"You know temporary teachers are only recruited from Explorers, right?"
Her eyes flared, a little angry now, and she ground the words out as she pressed me. I knew exactly how terrifying she was when she got mad, so I forced a smile and tried to defuse the atmosphere.
"It's, you know, necessary work, so I don't really have a choice…"
"For the last twelve years, every time I asked you to work with me, you completely blew me off. And now it's 'necessary work'!?"
"Whoa, whoa. Don't get mad. The house'll get wrecked."
"Do I look like I'm not mad right now!?"
Choi Yeonjeong shot to her feet and shouted, and the cup on the table shuddered in response to the mana spilling off her.
"Hey. The house is seriously going to get wrecked. Just calm down and listen for a second, okay?"
I quickly moved to her side, forced her back into her seat, and did my best to settle her down.
"I never planned to go this far either, all right? You know how I feel about this."
"…So you're doing this because you don't know how I feel?"
She glared at me with axe-blade eyes, then yanked her hand free. Still — if she'd really been furious, she would've already flipped the whole place. Reading her face, it didn't seem quite that bad.
"I know. I do. I just couldn't come up with any other decent options."
I watched her carefully and dangled the bait a little at a time.
"If it doesn't work out, that's that! And since things have already come this far, we might even end up working together."
"…You mean that?"
She seemed to be biting.
"Yeah! You think I didn't do it because I lacked the skill? I didn't do it because I didn't want to."
I hadn't tossed out the partnership bait without thinking. Going active again, making a mountain of money — that part was genuine. Becoming a parent had finally taught me how expensive it was to raise a child. Of course, our Nakyeong was an absolute prodigy of a daughter who cost overwhelmingly less than her peers… but even so, our household was nowhere near wealthy. I'd always wanted to raise her like a golden spoon, too.
"Yeonjeong."
I met Choi Yeonjeong's eyes straight on and put some weight into my voice.
"You know what it means that a Hero has appeared."
"……"
Her gaze settled into something calmer. She'd once been a Hero herself — she knew exactly what a Hero's existence meant.
"It means a Demon King."
Heroes exist because Demon Kings exist. A Hero is, at its core, humanity's weapon for facing a Demon King. In a world without one, there is no reason for a Hero to exist. That was why we'd come back to this world in the first place — leaving ten years of memories behind us.
"I want Nakyeong to live in a happy world."
Once you know a Demon King has appeared, how are you supposed to sit still? Even if I hadn't been raising the next Hero, I would have picked up a sword sooner or later. No parent in this world wishes for their child's unhappiness.
"Help me out a little."
Choi Yeonjeong was silent for a while, looking at me with something almost resentful. Then she closed her eyes as if she had no choice, and let out a long, heavy sigh.
"You really… you know how cheap that is, right?"
"I know."
She shot me a look, then picked up her phone.
"Text Nakyeong."
"Huh?"
"Tell her you're coming in tomorrow morning."
Meaning, once again, that the condition for her help was a drinking spree.
"…I almost got kicked out last time."
"If you get kicked out, live here. We've got plenty of rooms."
Choi Yeonjeong sent me a bright, sunny smile and started messaging someone.
…I was probably going to have to tell them to put on a thick hangover soup.
"Nakyeong. Open the door."
"Who is this?"
"It really was work this time, I swear."
"I don't know any man who abandons his daughter to drink with some woman all night and ignore every call."
"No, my phone battery just happened to die…"
"That ajumma's place doesn't have chargers? Or phones? What does she even do with all that money she makes?"
"I'm sorry…"
I'd barely made it home around dawn and gotten my back thoroughly beaten for it.
"Ahh. Seriously, our Nakyeong's hangover soup is the best. Should we just open a restaurant later?"
"……"
"…Right. Eating quietly."
After listening to enough scolding to grow calluses on my ears and earning myself a bowl of hangover soup, I…
"I quit."
…walked straight into the office and threw down my resignation.
"What? Why are you quitting all of a sudden?"
As expected, the office director was thoroughly rattled. After nine years of steady work, suddenly handing in a resignation — of course he was thrown.
"Family circumstances. I think I need to leave starting today."
"Family circumstances… Hmm. You haven't gotten mixed up in anything bad, have you?"
He'd known my situation as a single father since the day I joined, and worry came first. Thinking back on the pocket money he'd given Nakyeong a few times when she was little, he really was a good man.
"Nothing like that. Something urgent came up that I need to prepare for right away."
"So that's why you've been taking so much leave lately."
"Yes, sir."
"Tsk… Fine. If that's how it is, nothing I can do. All right. I'll handle it."
In the end, thanks to the director cutting me some slack, I was able to leave without any real trouble.
"I'm only doing this because it's you! Whatever you end up doing out there, live hard!"
"I will, sir!"
This was why you had to conduct yourself properly in ordinary times.
No turning back now.
Just like that, I became a genuine unemployed man overnight — and without a moment to rest, I headed for the nearest relevant agency.
The minimum requirement for becoming an Academy teacher. The career I'd avoided for so long: becoming an Explorer.
B-rank, huh.
At the drinking session the other night, Choi Yeonjeong had said:
The Academy's minimum spec for temporary teachers was B-rank or higher. Meaning I had to clear a dungeon designated B-rank by the Korea Dungeon Management Corporation — Handeon, for short — within a set time limit.
Choi Yeonjeong had promised that once I met the conditions, she'd push me all the way. Coming from someone with that much domestic and international influence, the boast was worth banking on.
The problem was whether I could meet the conditions in time.
B-rank within a month…
Even Explorers couldn't enter dungeons every single day. That was the law of the land. So no matter how skilled you were, jacking your rank up overnight was impossible.
But it's enough.
In a normal case, that is.