The A-Grade's Debut Fight After Abandoning the Status Window (1)
Two days later, Docheol showed up at the complaints office again, this time carrying a carton of Mocacold.
Not one box. Two.
"The bribe amount's gone up."
"So has the favor I'm asking."
"Still not listening."
"I'm talking about Do Hagyeong."
"I said I'm not listening."
Docheol poured himself a paper cup of coffee.
While he was busy with that, I tucked both boxes into the desk drawer.
My old policy was simple: take what you could get.
"Just come with me as far as the mountain entrance. I'll crawl from there."
"How's a wheelchair supposed to get to the mountain entrance? And I have my disciples the day after tomorrow."
"Your disciple. You mean that famous Baekho kid, Jin Seojun."
Docheol gave a snort of laughter.
"I am curious how a 1st-generation hunter would see his dependency on the System."
"No need to wonder. He's a blind man who can't do anything if you cover his eyes."
"And you're the one who volunteered to teach that blind man."
"I didn't volunteer. The bastard latched onto me. Though I suppose it's partly my fault for being tempted by a lifetime supply of Mocacold."
Now that I'd said it out loud, it felt like that was going to become the lesson plan for the day after tomorrow.
I finished the cold coffee and kicked Docheol out.
I still didn't hear him out about Do Hagyeong.
If I had, there was no doubt I'd have been dragged up a mountain.
Two days passed.
In the Association's underground training hall, Jin Seojun arrived a full thirty minutes earlier than the appointed time.
In his hands was a thick stack of papers.
A glance told me they were mutant pattern analysis documents.
He must have stayed up all night.
"Sir. I organized the kobold mutant data from yesterday. I was thinking that if I made a table of the behavior patterns for the ones that play dead, we might be able to add a new judgment value to the System..."
"Throw it away."
"...Pardon?"
"If you've got time to make tables, go gather pebbles instead."
Jin Seojun's face hardened.
Telling a proud genius to throw away the material he'd spent all night making was probably no different from slapping him across the face.
"If we establish a mutant response manual before Gaon Guild does, Baekho can seize the industry standard first, and that would..."
"So you made another stack of data?"
"Yes. Once the data piles up, we can teach the System with it. Then next time, even the mutant will be detected by the System."
I glanced at the thick sheaf of papers.
That was the problem with him.
He wanted to classify even mutants into tables and force them into the System.
Mutants existed precisely to mock the System.
Trying to cram them back inside it was already a step too late.
He was a typical genius of the present age, the sort who believed everything in the world became safe once it was turned into data.
He was smart.
The trouble was that his smartness kept rolling in the wrong direction.
I pulled two black cloth strips from my pocket.
"Cover your eyes. Both of you."
Yu Seoa accepted the cloth without a word and blindfolded herself.
She seemed to have gotten used to this sort of thing over the past few days.
Jin Seojun hesitated, cloth in hand.
"What are we supposed to do with our eyes covered? We can't see anything."
"Exactly. That's why I'm covering them. I've been telling you for days not to rely on your eyes."
"But maintaining sightlines is basic combat doctrine..."
"You sure love your basics. Cover them."
Jin Seojun reluctantly tied the cloth over his eyes.
I leaned back in the folding chair and tapped the floor with my shoehorn.
"The rules are simple. It's tag."
"Tag?"
"Jin Seojun is it. If you touch Yu Seoa once with your hand within thirty seconds, you win. If you don't, you lose. Both of you are blindfolded."
The corner of Jin Seojun's mouth twitched upward.
Even through the cloth, I could see his confidence.
"If my opponent is blindfolded too, then the conditions are equal. Even if I'm an A-grade hunter and Yu Seoa is S-grade, without sight it'll come down to luck. Worth a try."
"Yeah. That's the normal way to think."
I yawned.
"Begin."
Jin Seojun moved at once.
Fast.
He reached precisely toward the source of the sound.
His hand sliced through empty air.
Yu Seoa had already slipped half a step to the side.
"...?"
Jin Seojun reached again.
Empty air again.
Every time he turned, following the sound of Yu Seoa's footsteps, Yu Seoa read his intention first and drifted away like water.
Jin Seojun grew more and more frantic.
He flailed, changed direction, stumbled.
It was amusing to watch.
The A-grade hunter's movements themselves were immaculate.
His footwork was quick, his reach precise.
In the System's world, those movements would have landed nine times out of ten.
The problem was that by the time he aimed, Yu Seoa was no longer there.
Jin Seojun chased after the place the sound had come from, while Yu Seoa moved before the sound could even fully emerge.
Half a beat.
That tiny half-beat between them kept stretching the distance into something they would never be able to close.
"Is it this way...!"
Jin Seojun lunged forward roughly.
Yu Seoa ducked smoothly beneath him and, as if she were merely passing by, tapped him on the back.
"You're caught, Hunter Jin Seojun."
"... "
"Thirty seconds. You went over."
I declared it lazily.
Jin Seojun ripped off the blindfold.
His face was flushed red.
"This is... either Hunter Yu Seoa saw through the cloth, or she memorized my footsteps in advance..."
"I didn't look," Yu Seoa said calmly as she removed her blindfold.
"I heard where Hunter Jin Seojun's breathing was gathering. You held your breath once right before you reached out. In that moment, I could see exactly which way you were going to move."
Jin Seojun's pupils shook.
"Breathing... Is that really possible?"
"It wasn't for me a few days ago either. I just kept getting my forehead smashed on pebbles."
Yu Seoa smiled faintly.
That smile carried the ease of someone who could see her own past self in Jin Seojun.
Then she suddenly turned to me, cloth already off.
"Senior."
"What."
"During that game of tag just now... I sensed something strange from your side. How should I put it? It was calm, like a lake spread flat on the ground, but so deep I couldn't see the bottom..."
I stopped with my Mocacold halfway to my mouth.
Now that her senses were opening up, she was starting to grope at the strangest things.
"It's your imagination. What kind of lake are you sensing in an old man's body?"
"...Is that so?"
Yu Seoa tilted her head.
She didn't press any further.
She still wasn't at the stage where she understood exactly what she'd felt.
That was fortunate.
Trying to read the bottom of a 1st-generation hunter with a single grain of sensitivity was a hundred years too early.
I looked back and forth between the two of them.
Yu Seoa had already climbed one rung higher.
She was no longer content with just collecting pebbles; she was beginning to read an opponent's next move before it happened.
Jin Seojun had only just drawn his starting line at the bottom.
"Jin Seojun."
"...Yes, sir."
"You were still running your System in your head even while blindfolded."
Jin Seojun flinched.
"I used an auditory enhancement skill. I converted the position of the sound into coordinates..."
"Which is why you lost."
I pointed at him with the shoehorn.
"Your System points out where the sound came from. But Seoa moves before the sound even settles. While you're waiting for the coordinates to appear, she's already gone somewhere else."
Jin Seojun closed his mouth.
"Turn off the System. Auditory enhancement too. Position tracking too. All of it."
"If I turn that off... I won't be able to catch anything."
"Exactly. You won't catch anything at first. Seoa started by getting her forehead cracked on pebbles too."
I tore open a fresh packet of Mocacold.
"The guy who couldn't see straight even with his eyes open—do you think he'll suddenly be able to see with them covered? First flail around blindly a hundred times, then come talk to me."
Jin Seojun gritted his teeth.
Then he blindfolded himself again.
This time, he even switched off his System window on his own.
For the first time in his life, he was standing in darkness with no numbers floating in front of him.
"This time you're the one running. Seoa is it."
Yu Seoa tied on her blindfold and took position.
"Begin."
The result was brutal.
Yu Seoa touched Jin Seojun in five seconds.
He hadn't even known where to run, so he'd frozen right where he stood.
"Again."
The second try lasted five seconds too.
This time Jin Seojun just ran.
Straight into the wall.
Not even realizing there was a wall an inch in front of him.
Thunk.
He rammed his forehead into it.
"...Ghk."
"Third round."
Yu Seoa moved in again.
Jin Seojun, clutching his forehead and staggering, got caught on the shoulder again in five seconds flat.
With the answer sheet called the System gone, Baekho's next ace was helpless as a newborn.
A man who had spent his entire life following only the path drawn by blue letters had been thrown into darkness without a guide for the first time.
"I can't do it."
Jin Seojun collapsed, panting hard.
There was already a bump swelling on his forehead.
"I can't find any direction at all. Everything's the same in all directions. How am I supposed to do this with just my senses..."
"Of course it's dark. You've spent your whole life only looking at the light the System turned on for you."
I took a sip of coffee.
"But listen carefully. It only feels pitch-black, right? It's not. The air in this room is still moving. When Seoa moves, it pushes that air. You should be able to feel that pressure against your skin."
Jin Seojun slowly raised his head.
"Feel it. Don't try to see it. The more you try to see, the more you'll want to switch the System back on."
"... "
"Your eyes lie, but your skin doesn't. That's the only truth our generation ever learned in hell."
Data could be manipulated. The System could be deceived.
But the goosebumps crawling up your spine? No one could fake that.
Jin Seojun sat there quietly for a long time.
He didn't rub the bump on his forehead. He didn't shout that it was unfair.
He just kept his eyes closed, feeling for the texture of the air touching his own skin for the first time.
Then he stood again and tied the blindfold back on.
It was his fourth attempt.
Yu Seoa approached him without a sound.
Jin Seojun's shoulder gave a tiny twitch.
For the first time, just before Yu Seoa could touch him, he stepped sideways.
Yu Seoa's hand brushed the edge of his collar and missed by a hair.
"...Ah."
Jin Seojun froze, staring blankly.
He looked like he didn't even know what he'd just done.
"You dodged it. Just now."
Yu Seoa said it while taking off her blindfold.
Her voice was genuinely astonished.
"...I did?"
"Yes. You read my turn to the left first."
Jin Seojun looked down at his own hand.
Then he looked at his feet, then his shoulder.
"I felt it. Definitely... the wind brushed my left cheek. I just knew you were coming in from that side, even though I couldn't see it."
His voice trembled.
Not from fear, but excitement.
He was at a loss at the fact that his own body had moved on its own, catching a motion the System hadn't told him a single letter about.
I crushed the empty paper cup in my hand.
A pebble.
This kid had finally caught one too.
"Enough. That's it for today."
"Can't we do just one more?"
Jin Seojun asked urgently.
The genius who'd been clutching a stack of papers just moments ago was nowhere to be seen.
That hungry look belonged to someone whose senses had opened for the first time.
"No. I have to get off work."
"Sir!"
"If I teach you everything in one go, I'll have to come in again tomorrow. That's the most annoying part."
I grabbed my wheelchair's wheel.
Yu Seoa looked at me and smiled quietly.
Then she reached down to help up Jin Seojun, who was still sitting on the floor.
The girl who had been my first disciple just days ago was now already taking care of my second.
It was a pretty good picture.
As we were leaving the training hall, Jin Seojun suddenly called out from behind me.
"Sir. Is it true that that shoehorn is really a mythic-grade artifact?"
I stopped walking.
"...Who told you that?"
"Something circulating in the gallery... And Vice-Captain Han Segi has been saying strange things lately too. That you subdue people without laying a finger on them."
"Han Segi's just bitter because he got his nose rubbed in the floor by Seoa the other day."
I raised the shoehorn and wagged it.
"It's a stick for scratching your back. Don't believe nonsense. The gallery addicts always have wild imaginations."
"...Yes, sir."
He answered, but Jin Seojun's eyes still looked unconvinced.
This was why geniuses were such a pain.
Once suspicion took root, they had to dig until they got an answer.
I didn't reply and rolled my wheelchair out of the training hall.
Once I was in the corridor, two Baekho rookies passing by spotted me and started whispering.
"Hey, isn't that the old guy with the shoehorn?"
"Yeah, I saw on the gallery he's already being treated like some hidden mastermind villain lol."
"But seriously, who started the rumor that Senior Jin Seojun is learning from some F-grade old man?"
A hidden mastermind villain.
That was a little too grand a title for an old man whose only talent was tossing pebbles.
Ignoring them, I shoved the wheelchair into the elevator.
Behind me, in the training hall, I could hear the two disciples gathering up scattered pebbles in little rustling noises.
Just thinking about throwing those at both of them again tomorrow already made my arm ache.
Still, when I looked back at those two bent figures kneeling to pick up the pebbles, I somehow felt like maybe I could afford to throw one more box at them.
Just one box.