I’ll Retire After Saving the World

TL: SHW

─Um, um. Hello! I was taught to greet people like this!

The woman scratched her cheek as she said hello. She looked quite nervous, but I didn't have the mental capacity to be considerate of that. Because out of everyone present, I was the one who knew best what that shy face had gone on to accomplish. Better, even, than she herself did.

─Oh, this is my first time talking to a Korean person besides my teacher! So, if my Korean sounds weird… um, uh, please bear with me?

Noah Michel, and now Sandra Gamble?

I'd come back twenty years, and my plan was to nurture talent, hunt down the wicked, prevent the apocalypse, and then retire in peace. Had it actually been doomed from the very start?

The thought began to creep in that maybe, no matter what my father or I did, this world was destined to end regardless.

No matter how much people around her sang her praises, Noah Michel was fundamentally a mage.

How old was Michel when she manifested her Unique Magic? Five? Six? Considering how many mages had gone insane from magical research, I could understand how she'd lost her mind at such a young age. The Ark… or whatever she'd created, if it was the madness of an Archmage, then fine. Just a mage being a mage.

Famous as Noah Michel was, that was strictly within the domain of mages. Even if the people she'd helped went around calling her the Daughter of the Sun or whatever, the perception of Noah Michel was ultimately "an incredible mage." Most people couldn't even tell the difference between an Archmage and a regular mage, so how would they grasp how remarkable the Runes Michel invented were?

Michel's Runes were something only Hunters could appreciate firsthand, and only mages understood how her magical theories had influenced the use of magic.

But Sandra Gamble was different.

Sandra Gamble's fame surpassed Noah Michel's. She wasn't merely a genius mana engineer; she was counted among the world's most influential CEOs, and cited as the person who had contributed the most to keeping humanity safe.

Because she developed the Mana Measuring Device.

And it was an invention worthy of that acclaim.

The ability to detect Dungeon Breaks in advance? I didn't need to talk myself hoarse to make clear how revolutionary that was. Every time a Dungeon Break occurred, anywhere from dozens to tens of thousands of people died. The Mana Measuring Device brought that number to zero.

Of course, the device was expensive, and far more dungeons lacked one than had one installed. But densely populated nations like South Korea had no choice but to rely on them absolutely.

And it wasn't just the Mana Measuring Device. Sandra Gamble's Pharos had introduced countless products that impacted modern society. Power generation using Mana Stones that drastically reduced environmental pollution, methods for early detection of Mana Poisoning by measuring mana concentration in the body, and they'd even built vehicles that could operate inside dungeons.

If Noah Michel raised the survival rate of Hunters, Sandra Gamble raised the survival rate of humanity.

That was how remarkable a woman she was.

Before I came to the past… about a year before, she'd gotten caught up in a terrorist attack and died young, or so I'd heard.

In any case, Sandra Gamble had profoundly influenced the safety of a humanity forced to coexist with dungeons.

If it were only Noah Michel, maybe I could manage. But add Sandra Gamble's name to the mix, and it changed things.

Everything got worse.

─So… what was I supposed to say first?

"Idiot."

─You have no right to call me that!

Gamble swung her wrench as if Hope were standing right in front of her and she was aiming for his head.

…Was that woman always like that?

I didn't know. I'd met Sandra Gamble before, sure, but we were never close enough for me to comment on her personality. It was strictly business, and the CEO of Pharos had a towering reputation as a lunatic who loved crushing people with a smile on her face.

'Haha, what do you mean? I simply dislike people who refuse to learn. Being stupid is fine.'

…That was how she'd answered when some brave reporter asked her about it.

'Look. Even someone like you is sitting here asking me questions, convinced you've got something between your ears, right? But if the next time we meet, you haven't learned a thing? Then you're done.'

'What criteria are you even using to judge that?'

'The fact that you're asking that question means you don't make the cut….'

Well, in the end, that reporter stormed out of the conference hall with a face burning with humiliation.

The woman who had so deftly turned away a reporter trying to attack her now peered into the narrow frame of a phone camera and spoke.

─Anyway! That idiot over there has been terribly rude to you all this time!! He has no brain!

For someone who'd said she wasn't good at Korean, she was far too fluent. If not for the awkward pronunciation, I would have assumed she spoke Korean as a native language, like Hope or Sem Bloom.

That clumsiness actually made Sandra Gamble seem more human.

…What did External Humanity even mean, exactly?

"He's not brainless."

─He might as well be!! So, if there's been any misunderstanding, Shanshan, it's definitely Alex's fault. Killing him would be a bit of a problem, but short of killing him… he's sturdier than he looks, so a few hits won't kill him, it's fine!

…A far, far more lively, easygoing, and cheerful face than the one I'd known.

Sandra Gamble, who had not yet founded Pharos, glared at Alex Hope, who wouldn't even be visible on her screen.

─Still, we need to clear up any misunderstandings so we can talk in peace…. Shanshan! You still haven't told them, have you?!

"Told them what?"

─I knew it!

"About Sem attacking them? I told them that! I warned them properly!!"

─No, not that!

Gamble took off her glasses and scratched her head furiously. She seemed half-oblivious to our existence.

─You moron! I told you to tell them that the kids you killed are actually all alive!!!

"…What?"

"Oh."

Alex Hope made a dull sound and opened his mouth.

"Ohhh."

"What did you just say?"

"Right, that."

"Who's alive?"

"Now I remember."

Alex Hope nodded.

"I told you to tell them that!!"

─How are you answering so casually! I told you if you didn't explain that, these people would think you're some horrific child serial killer!! And that's why you should tell them first thing!!!

"……."

Hope tilted his head side to side, then spoke in a vacant voice.

"Did you?"

…The call quality was impressive. Hope wasn't even next to me, yet his voice was being transmitted to Gamble with perfect clarity.

I'd picked up a cheap phone from a carrier store, but the technology of this era wasn't to be underestimated….

While I briefly examined the phone model as a form of escapism, Sandra Gamble's cursing drifted through the air.

Hope wasn't fazed in the slightest. If he'd at least looked sheepish, Gamble might have calmed down.

Gamble, in English peppered with Spanish, spat out what was less a threat and more a promise to fly to Korea and crack open his skull to replace his brain with artificial intelligence. Hope, still perfectly composed, just kept yawning. I considered turning the camera toward him, but figured it would only mean more cursing, so I stayed still. The timing to jump in was…

……Was I supposed to do it?

Thinking that, I raised my head and found Hong Seok-young and Kim Chae-min staring right at me. Both of them gave a thumbs-up in unison.

I wondered if the artificial intelligence Gamble was talking about could be implanted in their heads, too.

"Sandra. By the time you get to Korea, I'll already be back in Australia."

"……."

It took a long time before Sandra Gamble calmed down and we could finally have an actual conversation.

*

[Sandra Gamble]

[Age 26]

[Ph.D. in Mana Engineering, California Institute of Technology]

Lee Mi-seon had quickly dug up information on the 2021 version of Sandra Gamble.

She'd gone on about how investigating people in America was difficult and whatnot, yet she'd gotten it done fast. Even if I was the one who gave her the name….

I quickly scanned the information Mi-seon had sent. Honestly, I already knew everything, so it wasn't even useful as reference. Still, I showed it to Kim Chae-min and Hong Seok-young as well. Aside from earning a doctoral degree at a young age, there was nothing particularly noteworthy. She hadn't even participated in any academic conferences after finishing her doctorate, nor had she done anything else of note.

Sandra Gamble had said that during this period, she'd holed up in her garage at home, repeating experiments with Mana Stones. Those experiments would later become the foundation for the Mana Measuring Device.

─A little sleight of hand is all it takes to fake a corpse. Korea doesn't really do thorough examinations of remains since the death toll is so high. So it was easy. It was easy, sir.

Gamble explained with an awkward look on her face.

I'd connected the phone to the TV and enlarged the display. At least I didn't have to hold the phone the entire time.

─Well… it's not like nobody died at all.

"The kids, he knocked them out and took them. The ones connected to the Ark, he killed them all!"

─Being known as a child kidnapper isn't great either…. Shanshan, please, can you let me do the talking?

"Go ahead."

─Oh, yes. So, keeping the children in Korea risked them being discovered, so we moved them to the U.S.!

"To the U.S.?"

Hong Seok-young lowered his voice. He shouldn't have been projecting any Killing Intent, yet Gamble on the screen nodded frantically with a terrified expression.

─I have a foundation… they're all there. Well, they're in foster homes, but our foundation is looking after them, so…. It's called Museion.

I snapped my head up.

"Museion?"

─Yes! Museion! It's named after the academy founded in Alexandria, Egypt, for scholarship and the arts….

"Never mind that."

─Oh, okay….

Museion was Gamble's foundation? If it had been, I should have known.

My face hardened.

Museion, much like Lee Mi-seon's Seungyeon Foundation, had provided support to dungeon victims. Its primary focus was the families of deceased Hunters and young Awakened. There had even been a few people at the Agency who'd received Museion's sponsorship.

'Team Leader!!'

'What.'

'Sorry, but, we, um, vacation, we need time off!'

Faces that had come running in a panic.

'…What's going on?'

It was a time when I was exhausted from dealing with the aftermath of Sandra Gamble's sudden death, so my words didn't come out gently either. I wasn't thrilled about people taking time off when we needed all hands on deck to review the Mana Measuring Device agreement with Pharos following Gamble's death.

But seeing their faces, wrecked with tears, I couldn't bring myself to say no.

'Our, um, our, b-b-benefactor has, has, p-p-passed away.'

'Benefactor?'

'We, um, we, were s-s-sponsored, you, you know.'

'…Museion?'

'Yes. The, the person, who, who looked after us.'

I let them go in the end. They said they had to go all the way to America, so I scraped together every bit of leave they had and then some. What could I do? They'd been adopted and sent to faraway America, yet they'd deliberately sought out their roots and returned to Korea, and they were saying they had to at least be there for their benefactor's final farewell.

I ran a hand through my hair.

Their benefactor who had looked after them was Sandra Gamble? Then did they know all along that Gamble had founded Museion?

They'd kept it hidden and never told me?

…Or had they been leaking information from our side?

I steadied my breathing.

Don't forget. One thing at a time. Start with what's right in front of me.

Don't agonize over things that haven't happened yet. Dig into the clues laid out before me right now.

"What do you mean it would be a problem if they were discovered?"

Sandra Gamble opened her mouth slightly, then stopped. When I looked at her quizzically, she twitched around her eyes before calling out to Hope.

─Shanshan.

"Yeah?"

─He's definitely dead, right?

"Yeah. I confirmed it."

Gamble's expression changed. So did Hope's.

─Because if that bitch Michel caught on, she'd offer them up as sacrifices.

***

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