The Swordswoman's Left Arm
A heavy silence settled over the training grounds.
Only the occasional noise from other students far off drifted across now and then.
Her arm…
Faced with the unexpected sight, I stared at Cheon Seo-hui in pure shock.
“…….”
She kept her eyes fixed on the tips of her shoes, her face tight with resentment.
I had to get past this moment first.
“…Okay. Next.”
After evaluating a few more students, I wrapped things up.
My mind was already somewhere else entirely, so I used the orientation as an excuse and ended class a little early.
I needed time to think this through calmly.
Of all places… the left arm.
For a left-handed swordsman, an injury to the left arm was no different from having the arm cut off entirely.
And because she fought with a one-handed sword, it was even more devastating.
A lefty swinging a blade with the right hand was every bit as difficult as writing with the non-dominant hand.
The fact that Cheon Seo-hui still insisted on her left-handed style despite the discomfort proved it.
She simply could not change the way she fought.
How did it happen? Why was she hurt?
Sitting in my office, I let out long, heavy sighs and turned the problem over in my head.
Knowing almost nothing about Cheon Seo-hui, I could barely even begin to imagine the answer.
Not “I” as I was now, anyway.
“Teacher Kim!”
“Yes, Teacher Han? Is something urgent?”
I went straight to Cheon Seo-hui’s homeroom teacher.
If anyone would know her circumstances, it would be her.
“Ah… Seo-hui?”
“Yes. Earlier I noticed her arm… she was limping with it. Is she injured…?”
Teacher Kim’s face filled with quiet pity as she let out a short sigh.
“Apparently she was badly hurt right before the entrance exam.”
“But why? And of all things, the left arm…”
“I can’t go into the details of the reason… After the injury she didn’t receive proper treatment, so residual effects remain.”
“Treatment?”
Suddenly Kim Yubin’s past rose in my mind.
The memory of a girl who had injured her hand because of her mother and lived the rest of her life carrying a stinging scar.
So that’s why she came looking for me.
At last I thought I understood why the goddess had appeared before me.
What Cheon Seo-hui needed right now was not overwhelming power…
It was genuine, warm help.
What am I supposed to do about this?
I continued the rest of my classes while turning the problem over carefully in my mind, searching for the most natural way to approach her and offer help.
She said everyday life isn’t much of a problem.
Thankfully, Cheon Seo-hui was not completely unable to use her left hand.
As long as she avoided anything that put strain on the arm, she was fine under ordinary circumstances.
The real tragedy was that, as an Academy student, ordinary circumstances simply did not exist for her.
I can’t let her give up training completely.
Like it or not, she was material that had to become a Hero.
Part of me wanted to let her focus purely on recovery, but I could not forbid sword training either.
Not unless she planned to marry some capable husband and live a quiet, comfortable life.
The lunch hour everyone looked forward to arrived.
“Teacher Han, aren’t you eating?”
“I have something to take care of. You all go ahead.”
I turned down the other teachers’ invitation to eat together and sat alone in my private office, face serious, wrestling with my phone.
I was trying to figure out what message to send Cheon Seo-hui.
How do I even open this?
It had only been a short time, but I had seen her face, so I had enough reason to contact her.
She had, after all, shown better form than most of the other students.
These days the self-proclaimed swordsmen of the modern age tended to focus more on mana control than actual swordsmanship.
The blade was just a medium; real power came from mana—that was the prevailing attitude.
That was exactly why I had made them swing their swords in the earlier classes.
To see whether they were swinging a sword or simply swinging mana.
As expected, I had not found a single student who truly cared about the sword itself.
Except for Cheon Seo-hui.
She clearly had talent.
“Mmm…”
I typed “You’ve got talent” into the memo pad, then deleted the whole line in one swipe.
I wrote and erased several more times, exactly like someone fretting over a message to a crush.
Knock knock. Someone rapped on the office door and poked their head inside.
“Is Teacher Han Dohyeon here?”
It was Choi Yeonjeong.
“What? What’s up?”
“I waited in front of the cafeteria so we could eat together, but you never showed.”
Once she confirmed I was alone, Choi Yeonjeong glanced around the room and stepped inside.
“Looks a lot like my office.”
Most Academy teachers had their own private offices.
Choi Yeonjeong, who handled third-year practical marksmanship, had one of her own as well.
“What are you doing that’s so important you’re skipping lunch?”
“Ha… there’s something.”
I set the phone down with a heavy sigh and stretched.
She watched me for a moment, then asked casually,
“Something happened with her, huh?”
“Huh?”
“Cheon Seo-hui.”
“How did you…?”
“I can tell just by looking. That’s the face Han Dohyeon makes when he’s fretting over a girl.”
How was her intuition always this sharp?
I stared up at her in mild amazement, then decided this was as good a chance as any and carefully brought it up.
“I’m trying to contact her. What should I say?”
“Contact her?”
“…I taught her class earlier.”
I explained everything: how I had them do basic evaluations and noticed Cheon Seo-hui favoring her left arm; how I had hurriedly checked and learned she had seriously injured it before enrollment and still carried the aftereffects; how I wanted to help but had no idea what to write.
Choi Yeonjeong’s reaction was oddly complicated.
“Hmm…”
Then she asked,
“What do you want to do?”
“About what?”
Her tone was lightly probing, testing my intentions.
“What kind of relationship do you want with her?”
It was a simple question that required no deep thought.
“Just… teacher and student?”
“Ahh. Is that so?”
Apparently that was not how it looked to her.
“You don’t just want to meet her?”
“What.”
I waved both hands in strong denial.
“Come on, that’s ridiculous! Why would I want to meet her?”
Honestly, she had hit the mark dead-on.
“Then just keep it simple, right?”
“…Simple?”
Choi Yeonjeong crossed her arms and offered advice in a coolly practical tone.
“‘You’ve got talent. Your arm looked like it was bothering you. I’ll help you.’”
It was the exact approach I had already considered.
“No, that’s too…”
“Too what?”
“Too… cold.”
It was not as if I wanted some deep relationship with Cheon Seo-hui.
I still had a conscience. How could I go after a girl the same age as my only daughter?
I did not want to give my Nakyeong a mother who was her own age.
But still.
“As someone who needs to get closer to her going forward, isn’t that wording a little too stiff…?”
On the other hand, I did want a more familiar relationship with her.
A softer connection would simply be easier to deal with than a rigid, formal one.
That was all.
Really.
“…….”
Choi Yeonjeong narrowed her eyes and gave me a look of pure disbelief.
“Han Dohyeon. Get a grip.”
“…Out of nowhere?”
“She’s your daughter’s friend.”
I understood exactly what she meant and quietly looked away.
“Aish, I told you it’s not like that…”
“Right. Of course it isn’t. It better not be.”
She emphasized it once more, then told me to stop fretting over useless things and dragged me off to eat.
“…I don’t really have an appetite.”
“They’re serving udon today. The teachers in my department say the udon here is good.”
“Udon?”
“Yeah. You like udon. So eat first, then we can figure out what to send.”
She said it like that, but it seemed she was still willing to help.
“…Guess I don’t have a choice.”
As always, there was no winning against Choi Yeonjeong.
Whispers. Whispers. Sharp gazes and low voices poured in from every direction.
At the center of it all, of course, stood Choi Yeonjeong.
“Your popularity is through the roof.”
Eating lunch with Choi Yeonjeong on campus was nowhere near as relaxing as I had hoped.
Unlike ordinary staff, she only came in once or twice a week—a rare and precious presence—so wherever she went she drew every eye, student and teacher alike.
Thanks to that, I barely registered whether the food was going into my mouth or my nose before we finished and left.
“Can’t be helped. It’s me, after all.”
The person at the center of the attention simply said it would settle down soon and looked completely unbothered.
This was why not just anyone could handle being a celebrity.
Anyway.
After the meal we returned to my office, sipped coffee, and put our heads together to brainstorm ways I could naturally grow closer to Cheon Seo-hui.
“What if you just say you need to talk about swordsmanship?”
Choi Yeonjeong pushed for a simple approach.
Teacher and student—call her in the most ordinary way possible.
“Not bad, but…”
For some reason the idea did not appeal to me.
It felt too purely official.
“If it’s not official business, then what is it?”
She shot me a look of pure exasperation.
I scrambled for an excuse.
“Come on, the kid has no family. How lonely must she be? Wouldn’t it be nice if she had at least one person she could lean on? Right?”
Only when the heart opens can real learning begin.
“…….”
Instead of being moved, Choi Yeonjeong looked distinctly displeased.
Apparently my noble intentions had not come across.
“…Ahem. Never mind then.”
We also ran a few simulations based on possible scenarios—what if she refused my teaching, for example.
“Just threaten her.”
“…I must have misheard. What did you just tell me to do to a kid?”
She took a casual sip of coffee and dropped an even more shocking line.
“‘If you don’t do as I say, I’ll make sure you suffer serious disadvantages!’ There’s plenty of that kind of thing.”
Looking at her sometimes, she had her own quietly unhinged side.
“You watch that kind of stuff…?”
“Who knows?”
“…Absolutely no coercive methods. What would she think of me?”
“A stalker.”
“That was all necessary. I had no choice.”
In the end, after a long debate, we finally settled on a direction.
For all the heated discussion, the final product was remarkably ordinary.
Well… you can’t become close friends overnight.
Human relationships are towers built layer by careful layer.
Send.
I hit send and waited for a reply with a heart full of anticipation—exactly the way you feel the first time you message a girl you like.
But…
“Dad.”
“…….”
“Dad?”
“Huh?”
“What are you thinking about so hard?”
“Nothing? I wasn’t thinking about anything.”
“Hmm… really?”
“…Yeah.”
For some reason I never received a reply, even after night fell.
Why did she read it and not answer?
It was the classic “left on read.”
I clearly wrote my name.
I had even made sure to identify myself properly.
Normally if a teacher contacted you, you would at least send some kind of reply.
Yet Cheon Seo-hui showed no reaction at all.
I felt like I was going to lose my mind.
Should I just go find her?
For the first time in a long while I felt my patience reach its limit, but I clenched my teeth and waited for an answer.
Maybe it was simply too late at night to reply.
She’ll answer tomorrow, right?
And then the next day arrived.
After a sleepless night I headed to work, only to run into news of Cheon Seo-hui in a place I never expected.
“She… did what?”
“Seo-hui contacted me yesterday…”
The news was that Cheon Seo-hui had submitted a withdrawal application.