I’ll Retire After Saving the World

TL: SHW

Whatever Han Tae-kyung had brought with him, it was obvious it wouldn't be of any help to me. Maybe it was because I'd caught a glimpse of a vivid pink between the fluttering sheets of paper. A color Han Tae-kyung had gone so far as to name Chasie Pink.

I wanted to ignore him and send him away, but Han Tae-kyung was faster.

“Sunbae-nim, Sunbae-nim! I....”

Han Tae-kyung came running over, only to stop dead in his tracks. What was he trying to pull this time?

“He... hello?”

But Han Tae-kyung wasn't looking at me. He was looking at Gamble. Awkwardly, he offered a greeting that sounded more like Korean than English.

...Had I never introduced Gamble to Han Tae-kyung?

No, I was pretty sure I'd told him that Gamble had been staying here ever since she signed the Employment Contract.

“N-Nice to meet you.”

This was terrifying in an entirely different way from when he'd been sulking about how weak he was.

“My....”

Han Tae-kyung glanced at me. It wasn't that I failed to understand the look in his eyes begging for help, but there wasn't enough loyalty between us for me to actually help him.

Wait, Han Tae-kyung couldn't speak English? Since translators couldn't be used inside dungeons, most Hunters learned at least conversational English. It wasn't like only Hunters from the same country entered raids together.

Han Tae-kyung twenty years from now had been fluent in English too. That was why father used to send him on business trips to America whenever he couldn't stand the sight of him.

If I thought about it that way, did that mean Han Tae-kyung could learn as long as he had twenty years?

Human potential truly was amazing.

When I ignored his plea for help, Han Tae-kyung continued speaking his hopeless English while sweating buckets.

“My name... Han... Tae-kyung. Tae-kyung Han. Okay?”

And then his mouth snapped shut.

“…….”

Had he seriously exhausted his entire English vocabulary after saying a few phrases that belonged in an elementary school textbook?

A smile Gamble couldn't suppress spread across her face. I sighed.

“This is Dr. Sandra Gamble. You met her before, remember?”

“Hello.”

Gamble smiled shyly and waved.

“I speak Korean.”

For some reason, her pronunciation came out even more tangled than usual. She wasn't good at Korean pronunciation, but it had never been that awkward. Was she deliberately doing it so Han Tae-kyung wouldn't feel embarrassed? That was a level of consideration rarely seen in an American.

As expected of External Humanity....

“Really? Wow, what a relief!”

Han Tae-kyung beamed, then helped himself to a chair and sat down.

“I seriously suck at English!”

“...The kids need to learn English too, so when we hire a teacher, you should learn with them, Teacher Han.”

“Come on. I've lived just fine without it.”

“It'll be useful when you enter dungeons.”

Han Tae-kyung gave a vague nod at my words. His face made it obvious he wasn't listening at all.

“Isn't this a world where you can pretty much get by with gestures?”

Apparently, Han Tae-kyung and I lived in different worlds.

Han Tae-kyung spread the papers he'd been holding across the table.

The pink I'd seen earlier hadn't been my imagination after all. Han Tae-kyung's damned cat was on the papers. Crudely drawn in colored pencil... across the outer walls of a rectangular box.

Even as empty flattery, I couldn't call it well drawn. Just because you liked something didn't mean you could draw it well.

“Wow!”

And despite her short time in Korea, Gamble politely expressed her admiration. External Humanity would probably do well in office life too. Was it because she'd been through graduate school?

Gamble picked up one of the sheets and examined it.

“I know this! Chasie! It's Chasie, right? I used to watch it a lot when I was little.”

Poor thing.

I looked at Gamble with pity. At the same time, Han Tae-kyung's eyes began gleaming with madness. The animation featuring that cat was fairly famous in Korea too, but unfortunately, there was no one around Han Tae-kyung willing to watch it with him. Honestly, if Han Tae-kyung didn't walk around looking like a lunatic with that cat plastered all over his body, maybe one or two people might have indulged him. Some innocent little kid who didn't know any better, for example.

Han Tae-kyung was always starved for conversation. Especially conversations about that cat.

Everyone at the Villa acted as though the cat didn't exist. They had instinctively realized that the moment they entertained him once, Han Tae-kyung would hound them endlessly.

That poor External Humanity....

It couldn't be helped. This was how everyone learned about society.

“Chasie is super cute, isn't she?!”

Well, if she was lucky, Gamble might even become good friends with Han Tae-kyung.

Leaving Han Tae-kyung to Gamble, I examined the papers he'd brought. Honestly, the moment I'd seen that cat boldly plastered all over them, I'd wanted to ignore the whole thing, but I was afraid he'd cause some kind of disaster if I took my eyes off him.

“Our Chasie....”

“Ah.... You must... really like Chasie.”

“Let me tell you about the first time I met Chasie....”

Honestly, at first I couldn't understand what he'd drawn.

He'd drawn a crooked rectangular box and then put a cat on top of it. What was this supposed to be?

But after looking at several more sheets with similar drawings, along with the words written beside them, I was forced to understand whether I wanted to or not.

This was....

The Pilot High School.

In other words, this was Han Tae-kyung's proposed design for the Hunter training Pilot High School.

An exterior... completely covered in pink cats.

Had he lost his mind?

Han Tae-kyung had designed it surprisingly thoroughly. Setting aside whether the design itself was appropriate, he'd drawn the front, back, sides, and even the roof of the building. It looked more like a cat theme park than a school, and it was too grotesque to even qualify as a theme park. Han Tae-kyung had even drawn the interior.

...I'd thought he'd been unusually quiet lately because he'd lost confidence in his abilities, but had he actually just been busy drawing this?

I regretted all the time I'd wasted seriously worrying about him.

“…….”

I raised my head.

This time, Gamble was sending me a desperate look.

It had become obvious that Gamble would be avoiding Han Tae-kyung from now on.

Just like with Han Tae-kyung, there was no particular loyalty between Gamble and me that obligated me to help her.

But I didn't want Han Tae-kyung living with the hope that he could actually build this hideous theme park.

“Teacher Han.”

“And then Chasie... Yes?”

Han Tae-kyung pushed his slipping sunglasses back up his nose and looked at me. Those damned pink sunglasses.

“Did you happen to show this to Teacher Hong too?”

“Yes.”

Han Tae-kyung answered immediately.

“He told me to show Hunter Lee.”

He dumped it on her....

“And what did Hunter Lee say?”

“She told me to get Sunbae-nim's permission first.”

She dumped it on me....

Having understood the situation, Gamble watched Han Tae-kyung and me with great interest. I looked down at the papers in my hands.

If this design was adopted, Han Eun-young would definitely drop out this time and never set foot in the Hunter world again.

Of course, I had absolutely no intention of approving it. I was simply amazed that Han Tae-kyung could stare at this thing so lovingly. Not that I hadn't already known what kind of person he was.

“Sorry, but no.”

“Why?”

“First of all.”

Han Tae-kyung straightened his back as though preparing to listen carefully.

“This is a school.”

“Yes.”

“This kind of design is a little much for a school.”

“That's exactly why we should do it! Wouldn't students feel more motivated to study when they see Chasie's cute face?! Chasie is good for concentration, good for memory, and anyway, she's good for everything!!”

I nodded.

“Come back after you've sorted out the copyright.”

“Ah.”

Han Tae-kyung shut his mouth.

Hong Seok-young and Lee Mi-seon couldn't solve something this simple and had dumped it on me? I was beginning to question both of their capabilities. Well, I supposed I also used convenient methods whenever they were available....

“Just you wait. I'm definitely going to get my hands on it. I've saved up a lot already. I'll have to save more, though....”

For at least another twenty years, the copyright to that cat wouldn't belong to Han Tae-kyung. I could rest easy. By then, I should be able to retire too.

“More importantly.”

I glanced at Gamble before speaking.

There wasn't much Gamble could do even if she heard some internal information. If anything, it might be better to reveal a little as a sign of trust.

“There was a dungeon I originally planned to take you into, Teacher Han.”

“Ah. The place you mentioned last time?”

“Yes. But circumstances have changed, so we can't enter it right away.”

That didn't mean I couldn't make use of Han Tae-kyung.

There were plenty of dungeons in the world. An absurd number of them. There were several just a short distance from this Villa. Their ranks weren't high, so we'd simply left them uncleared.

Lee Mi-seon had told me to build up a track record.

Over the past few days, I'd seriously thought about what she'd said.

With no Ability Management Agency around, I couldn't exactly work a desk job, and I had no intention of remaining tied to the Pilot High School forever either. Once the Pilot High School was reasonably established, I planned to hire proper teachers and hand it over. The Ark alone was already more than enough to handle. And I had a feeling it was only going to become an even heavier burden in the future.

In that case, I needed power after all. Just as Gamble had founded Pharos. There were things in human society that could only be solved with money, authority, and fame. At the very least, it would stop people from looking down on me and casually testing my limits. I needed a name of my own, something different from the weight carried by Hong Seok-young's name.

“So I was thinking of entering a different dungeon. What do you think?”

---

“Ugh.”

Han Tae-kyung hunched his shoulders.

“Wouldn't you be more than enough to raid it by yourself, Sunbae-nim?”

“You need to improve your skills too, Teacher Han.”

Han Tae-kyung's eyes darted around.

I'd expected him to agree immediately, but surprisingly, he hesitated. It was a strangely lukewarm reaction from someone who'd come running straight to me after losing to Sem Bloom. He'd been happy about it last time, hadn't he? What had changed his mind since then? Surely he wasn't sulking just because I'd rejected that ridiculous design.

Well... I could enter a dungeon alone, and if that didn't work, I could always ask Kim Chae-min or Lee Mi-seon.

But if I didn't correct Han Tae-kyung's character now, I might never get another chance. Calling it his character sounded a bit much. In that case, let me revise that to his fear, respect for me.

I figured I could put Han Tae-kyung through the wringer the same way I'd trained the kids.

“I-I thought about what you told me last time.”

“Yes.”

“You said you're Principal ssaem's disciple.” [TL Note: Ssaem" (쌤) is a casual Korean slang word that means "teacher".]

“Yes. That's how it turned out.”

“Then going into a dungeon together is a little....”

Why?

“Didn't Principal ssaem teach you how to raid dungeons too?”

“He... did.”

“Right. Then it's definitely a little....”

What the hell did he mean by a little?

“Would it just be you and me going in?”

“Most likely.”

“If it were a Guild-scale raid, that'd be one thing, but just the two of us is a little....”

Why the hell did he keep saying a little?!

“I really respect Principal ssaem, but the fewer people there are in a Raid Party, the more... you know.”

What the hell was I supposed to know?!

Han Tae-kyung's absence wouldn't affect the raid in the slightest, but hearing him go this far somehow made me stubborn.

I swept my hair back, then pointed to one of the papers scattered across the table. It was a design for the interior rather than the exterior.

“I can't give you free rein over the rest of the Pilot High School, but you can decorate your personal space however you like.”

“Which dungeon are we entering? I, Han Tae-kyung, have never met a dungeon I couldn't raid!! Just leave it to me!”

Seriously... at least he was easy to understand.

I sighed in disbelief, and Gamble finally failed to hold back and burst into laughter.

***

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