I’ll Retire After Saving the World

TL: SHW

I got chewed out by Kim Chae-min.

Something about not forcibly triggering magic over nothing.

A sparring match with Hong Seok-young, the kind people supposedly show up with a fortune in hand just to beg one round of, gets downgraded to "nothing" the moment the Archmage catches wind of it.

─Do you have any idea how startled I was?! The Seed was sitting there perfectly quiet and then it woke up! I was so shocked I shot straight up out of bed!!

...Well, having nothing to say in my defense, I listened quietly. Thinking about it from Kim Chae-min's position, being horrified was fair enough.

The truth was, during the sparring I hadn't spared her a single thought. It was a method I could only use once anyway, so the urge to do it properly got ahead of me, and, well.

So I took her nagging without a word of protest and simply listened. While also being grateful it wasn't a video call.

Still, for the sake of Kim Chae-min, who couldn't see my face, I nodded vaguely with all the remorse I could muster. I spent a good while soothing her, swearing I'd never do it again, putting real sincerity into my voice at the very least.

─Honestly.... Stop acting like children! Grown adults, the both of you!

I don't know how much of my sincerity Kim Chae-min actually bought, but in the end she grumbled in a tone that said she'd let it go just this once.

“Yes. I'll be careful from now on.”

Kim Chae-min, still sounding unsatisfied, fired off one last jab and hung up. Judging by the way Hong Seok-young's name came up right before the call ended, he'd be next. Apparently my excuse that this was all Hong Seok-young's fault hadn't fallen entirely on deaf ears.

Even so, it really is better not to ruffle an Archmage's feathers. Especially considering that particular Archmage was working practically for free.

Tap.

Pattering footsteps.

Before I'd even turned around after hanging up, a small figure went past in front of me.

“I-rok, hold on.”

I snatched Woo I-rok's bag then and there.

“What!”

“I told you school doesn't start until tomorrow, so why are you already wearing your backpack?”

“…….”

Woo I-rok pushed out his lower lip. He was putting on a prim face like it was nothing, but it was plain as day that he was looking forward to school. A kid's a kid.

It was so obvious that pretending not to notice was hard, and pretending anyway cost a fair amount of mental effort. Poking that sulky cheek and teasing him would have been easy, but....

So this was why Yoo Ji-eun and my father used to tease me the way they did.

Still, out of respect for my own dignity, I withdrew my finger and pretended not to see the bag on his back.

Hong Seok-young had gone and taken Woo I-rok out yesterday to buy him a backpack. Honestly, I think it's far too expensive a bag for a third-grade boy. Hong Seok-young declared loudly that it took at least that much to keep from being looked down on, but.... What on earth does that even mean? Was twenty years ago that barbaric? How is anyone supposed to raise a child in an environment like that? How did I grow up? How on earth did my father raise me?

Hong Seok-young was a man with the outdated conviction that expensive equals good. Restraining someone who kept shouting for the most expensive item on principle was harder work than going into a Dungeon. And what was it he said to me, again.

‘Hui-jae, if there's anything you need, pick it all out!’

...Bad for a child's upbringing in every possible way.

I let it slide this time under the excuse of a birthday present, but if he thinks I'll let it slide the next time as well, he's mistaken.

“I-rok.”

The bag was one thing, but that wasn't what had caught my eye. I reached a hand toward Woo I-rok. A thin leather cord hooked around my finger.

“Did the ajeossi give you this?”

“Yeah.”

The Dog Tag dangled against Woo I-rok's chest.

A Dog Tag with nothing written on it is really no different from a thinly hammered scrap of iron. It has no value as an accessory either. When my father first hung one around my neck, I used to leave it behind, wondering why I had to wear such a thing. It wasn't until after I got my Hunter License that I understood what the Dog Tag was worth.

The tag was strung on a leather cord. Not a worn-out cord like the one Hong Seok-young wore, but a glossy new one. Whether to call that thoughtful or clumsy, I couldn't say....

“The ajeossi told you to wear it at all times, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Never take it off. And don't hand it over, no matter who asks for it.”

Woo I-rok listened blankly, then asked.

“What is it?”

“Something expensive and good.”

Woo I-rok furrowed his brow, not understanding. Explaining it in complicated terms wouldn't get through to him anyway. At least put this way, he wouldn't lose it somewhere.

I tucked the Dog Tag inside his shirt so it wouldn't show.

“And don't show it to anyone else.”

“…….”

“Got it?”

“Yeah.”

“Alright. Off you go.”

Thrilled about going to school, Woo I-rok had turned noticeably more agreeable since his birthday.

Woo I-rok didn't argue and went scampering off again. The... pink cat plush dangling from his backpack bothered me, but I hadn't seen it. Hadn't seen it.

...Han Tae-kyung, where is that bastard.

“Hmmmm.”

I heard a woman's voice, still unfamiliar to me. Not Korean pronunciation; the timbre was foreign.

Sandra Gamble, the only foreigner currently inside the Villa, was leaning against the wall and watching me.

“You're... different than I expected.”

Gamble looked me up and down, then spoke languidly.

If there had been even a trace of insolence in her eyes I'd have snapped something back, but there wasn't. If anything they shone with curiosity, like a child who'd found something interesting.

“Different?”

“Mm. Your image?”

Gamble tilted her head.

“No, that's not it. I learned it on the internet. What this kind of thing is called.”

An employee who studies on her own is a precious thing. I waited without interrupting her, as if to say go on.

“Workplace atmosphere?”

“…….”

I understood what she was trying to say, but whether it was the right term for it was another question.

Gamble crossed her arms into a defensive posture.

“It's not?”

“I didn't say it wasn't.”

“Your eyes say otherwise.”

“Your Korean is good. I'd believe it if someone told me you were Korean.”

“Koreans all say that.”

“People from every other country say the exact same thing.”

Gamble shrugged.

“Anyway, you look after your family better than you seem like you would, you there.”

“I told you to call me Teacher Woo.”

“Mmmmm, how do I put it, it doesn't quite roll off the tongue. I saw you fighting Hunter Hong in the garden the other day. Are you really a teacher?”

Gamble had thrown out a fairly painful question.

I might be called a teacher, but I wasn't an actual one.

“To be honest, when I heard they were your students I had my doubts.... But watching you, it does seem like they really are your students.”

“I was under the impression you aren't a Hunter.”

“Me? No. I'm not a Hunter.”

“Then how can you tell?”

“I spent years at Shanshan's side. You think I wouldn't pick up that much? I have eyes too.”

“Is that so.”

Gamble pushed her back off the wall and straightened up. She wasn't looking to pick a fight with me; it seemed she had simply come looking for someone ordinary to talk to.

That she'd come to me for it was unexpected, but... considering who else was staying in the Villa, perhaps it made sense. However cooperative the arrangement had become, nobody wants to stand around next to the crew that abducted them out of California.

The men in the suits and the Daseon Hunters here weren't the same people, but she'd have been put through the wringer by them once she was in Korea.

Here was another case of a life ruined by having the wrong family. Feeling somewhat sorry for her, I nudged the chair in front of me toward her with my foot. Gamble blinked a couple of times, then promptly dropped into it.

In the end, she was a fellow Guild member. A future source of revenue, too. And coaxing information out of her, gently, would be... convenient as well.

“Things are rather chaotic at the moment.”

“Which things?”

“All of them.”

The Villa was a mess, and Lee Mi-seon and Daseon had more than enough on their hands without it. Sem Bloom's body had only been recovered; it still hadn't been dealt with. Kim Chae-min was away as well, and the kids who normally brought the place to life weren't here either.

“You've heard what this place is for, haven't you?”

“Uh... a school, they said.”

“Yes. A place where Hunters are raised. Think of it as a Guild selecting Disciples. The students are on a short break at the moment.... You'll be seeing them soon enough.”

For the time being, I couldn't move out of Pilot High School. The same went for Hong Seok-young and Kim Chae-min, not just me. Naturally, the workshop Gamble had demanded would end up being built at Pilot High School as well.

I'd explained that much to Gamble. Which was precisely why she'd come back demanding lab equipment to fill the workshop with.

“How many are there?”

Gamble made no attempt to hide her curiosity about the kids.

“Eighteen years old? That's a cute age.”

“Hunter Hong teaches them pretty brutally at that cute age, so don't go stirring them up for no reason.”

“Oh, what do you take me for.”

Gamble burst out laughing. And yet her eyes were oddly subdued. They hadn't been a moment ago. Why all of a sudden?

“…….”

I deliberately said nothing more and stayed quiet. Gamble killed time fiddling with the hem of her clothes, then finally spoke up.

“That kid, I heard he's here.”

“Who?”

“...The child I rescued. Her, family?”

Ah.

External Humanity wasn't an inaccurate term. Hope would have forgotten about it at once and given it no thought whatsoever, but Gamble was different. When I told her about my relationship with Woo I-rok, and on top of that that the older brother of the child whose death she'd faked was living here, she had been visibly flustered.

She probably hadn't imagined there would be others from the same Research Lab at the Orphanage. Or rather, even if she had known, she wouldn't have guessed the two of them were that close. Woo I-rok could also be counted as coming from the same Research Lab, but that relationship isn't a good one, is it.

Even at an Orphanage run by the Ark, not everyone there came from the Research Lab. Gamble had sorted out which was which and pulled strings so that everyone from the Research Lab fell under her own management.

“Um, shouldn't you tell the kid?”

Gamble didn't hide her worry, letting it show plainly.

“His sister....”

“I'm going to tell him.”

I folded my arms and rubbed my chin. It wasn't that I didn't trust Kang Tae-woo. Ever since we'd gone to the emptied-out Orphanage, Kang Tae-woo had cooperated with absolutely everything. Having spent a long time at the Research Lab, he'd picked up a fair amount himself.

It's hard not to trust a seventeen-year-old boy who still wears on his wrist the crude bracelet his little sister made.

“I was worried about whether he'd be able to accept that he can't see her right away.”

Spending time with Lee Seung-yeon had brightened Kang Tae-woo's personality considerably. A good thing. When he first came to Pilot High School he'd hung back a step with a gloomy face and only watched; now he jokes around easily enough.

I don't want to shake up a kid who's living well... I had no intention of spouting insanity like that. It was simply a matter of timing. If possible I wanted to let him meet her in person, but maybe I'd have to settle for setting up a video call.

Gamble looked at me like she couldn't understand.

“What is he, seven?”

“...Seventeen.”

“Then he's fully grown. Shanshan was going into Dungeons alone at that age.”

“That one isn't human, though.”

“……Well, I've got nothing to say to that. Anyway, he's old enough to have thoughts of his own, so let him judge for himself. As long as Michel doesn't find out, it's fine by me.”

“That's a fair point, but....”

When were the kids coming back? Maybe I'd bring it up once they returned to Pilot High School.

...Just as I was thinking that, blithely.

“Sunbae-nim! Take a look at this, would you!”

Han Tae-kyung appeared holding a bundle of papers.

***

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