I’ll Retire After Saving the World

TL: SHW

“Apparently, having pets at home is good for children emotionally.”

“…It’s not like I’m against it.”

“Then why are you making that face?”

Gamble scrunched up her face and twisted her body this way and that. I watched quietly, wondering what she was trying to do, and soon her face lit up.

“Like I just ate shit!”

“…Ah, yes. You’ve been studying Korean diligently. Do you need some textbooks?”

“There are plenty of good online learning programs these days.”

I gave a perfunctory nod in response to Gamble.

Gamble paid little mind to my halfhearted reaction and sipped her coffee. A remarkably realistic cat had been drawn in the milk foam. That barista was strangely talented… No, I mean Hunter.

Just in case, I asked Gamble.

“You know the person making the coffee is a Hunter, right?”

“What? They were a Hunter?”

“…Never mind.”

Gamble looked back and forth between her coffee and the kitchen, then shrugged.

The conversation returned to Woo I-rok’s kitten.

“You looked so unhappy that I thought you hated animals.”

“…I don’t hate them.”

“But you don’t like them either?”

I shrugged without answering.

I had never expected Woo I-rok to want to raise something, of all things. Whether it was a cat, a dog, or even a hamster or fish.

Because I had never once wanted to raise anything.

I had even been the kind of kid who couldn’t be bothered to grow the kidney beans they handed out at school.

‘My friend’s cat had kittens!’

‘…Okay.’

‘They said I could take one, so I brought it home.’

Woo I-rok cautiously studied my face. He looked ready to start a full-scale rebellion if I said no.

‘I want this as my birthday present.’

‘Birthday present?’

‘Raising the cat.’

Even I knew something like this shouldn’t count as a birthday present.

‘I told you to let me know when there was something you wanted.’

‘That’s why I want to raise this one.’

‘No, you can keep it…. But are you sure you can take responsibility for it and look after it?’

‘I wouldn’t have brought it home if I wasn’t!’

‘Okay…. Do you know how to take care of a cat? Did you look it up?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Then let’s go buy whatever you need with your brother later….’

Woo I-rok beamed. Did he really like it that much?

Woo I-rok refused to leave the kitten’s side until I told him to go to bed. I watched the cat beside him for quite a while too, but I still didn’t get it. Animals? Maybe it was because I’d seen far more humans who were worse than animals…. Ah. If that was the case, maybe raising one instead of dealing with humans wasn’t such a bad idea.

I rubbed my chin.

How long had Woo I-rok been going to school now…? How many days had it been? Two weeks? That might feel like a long time to a little kid, but it had taken me a month before I went over to a friend’s house to play.

I had known it ever since I brought Woo I-rok from the Orphanage….

But having the reality shoved right in front of me like this still made me feel strange. It made it hit me that Woo I-rok truly wasn’t me. Even if Hong Seok-young adopted Woo I-rok now, he could never become Woo Hwijae.

That kid… Well, unlike me, would he want to become a Hunter? He had only enjoyed watching the Pilot High School kids get put through the wringer at first. Remembering how increasingly fed up he had looked as time went on, maybe he was like me in not wanting to become a Hunter.

Then what would he become? Maybe he would take an interest in movies like I had, or maybe he would say that wasn’t for him either and decide to try something I had never even imagined. Just like now.

He had quickly adjusted to attending school for the first time in his life, and now he wanted to raise a tabby kitten.

…Had Father felt the same way while watching me?

“By the way, did he decide on a name for the cat?”

“…….”

This time, my face soured.

Because I remembered Woo I-rok and Han Tae-kyung noisily arguing over the kitten just a little while ago.

‘Chasie!! Chasie!!!!’

‘Are you crazy? This isn’t your cat, uncle?!’

‘How can a cat not be Chasie?!! And I’m not a uncle! Call me hyung!!’

‘UNCLE!!!’

‘Hey, I’m younger than your brother, you know?!’

‘Uncle!!!!’

‘I said I’m not a uncle!!’

Seeing my expression, Gamble nodded as though she understood perfectly. She had been tormented by Han Tae-kyung in her own way too.

Whenever she stopped by the Villa for a while between Dungeon runs, Han Tae-kyung would find her and chatter endlessly about that cat. I couldn’t understand how he still had anything left to say after talking about it that much.

Anyway, I had postponed entering the Dungeon for a few days because of the cat. Han Tae-kyung pretended otherwise, but he was pleased.

While I was taking a break, I could go buy cat supplies with Woo I-rok…. Ah. My license. I should hurry up and get my license while I was at it. It was annoying having to bring Hunter Daseon or Kim Chae-min along every single time.

“I was wondering where you were. I heard you got back from clearing a Dungeon yesterday.”

While I was killing time at a table in one corner of the Villa, chatting with Gamble or looking at my phone, Hong Seok-young came over.

Hong Seok-young gave Gamble a casual nod in greeting, then called me.

“Hwijae-gun, a moment.”

“Why?”

“I wasn’t going to say this, but…. I’m not just anyone. I’m Hwijae-gun’s….”

“I told you to stop that!”

“…Teacher. Can’t the two of us have a conversation?”

Damn it.

He had gone and found himself a weakness to use against me.

Gamble blinked in confusion, so I sighed and got up. Gamble took a sip of coffee with an expression that said she didn’t particularly care, then opened the notebook she had brought with her. Then she stopped me.

“Ah!”

“…Yes?”

“I forgot to mention it. Shanshan says he’ll come visit sometime soon.”

“Soon?”

“What for?”

Hong Seok-young and I asked at the same time.

“How is he planning to come? That thing he does? Teleportation?”

“What? No. He’ll take a plane and come officially. More or less… like a family visit?”

“Family?”

“We’re basically family! He said he’d use wanting to see where I got a job as an excuse. And it’s not just anywhere….”

Gamble looked at Hong Seok-young.

“It’s Hong Seok-young’s Guild. Honestly, any ordinary Hunter would want to take advantage of an opportunity like this, wouldn’t they?”

“And tease Michel while he’s at it?”

“Shanshan has probably already done plenty of that…. It’s okay if he comes, right?”

I looked at Hong Seok-young.

Hong Seok-young nodded without much hesitation.

“We’re all in the same boat, so it wouldn’t hurt to get together properly at least once and talk. Tell him not to just show up without warning from now on, and to arrange it through the doctor like this.”

“Okay!”

“Let us know once he decides when he’s coming.”

“Yep.”

Gamble answered brightly, pulled out her phone, and tapped away at the screen. She seemed to be telling Hope. What was the time difference with Australia again…. Did he sleep? He said his body was human, so he probably did.

“Then, Hwijae-gun?”

Hong Seok-young patted my shoulder. I made no attempt to hide my displeasure as I followed him.

---

“What is it?”

Hong Seok-young looked at me with an odd expression.

“…What?”

“Your Dog Tag?”

“Huh?”

“Your Dog Tag.”

Hong Seok-young pulled out his own Dog Tag and shook it. Even the first character of his name had not been engraved on it.

“Are you wearing it?”

“Uh….”

“I told you to keep it on. You went into a Dungeon again this time, didn’t you?”

“They were only C-rank and B-rank.”

“I heard there was an A-rank this time.”

“The clearing was practically finished. There were only two Monsters left inside.”

Hong Seok-young still frowned, clearly dissatisfied.

“Before you came to the past. That Dungeon you said was the first one to burst was D-rank too, wasn’t it? You said it wiped out half of Songpa District.”

“…….”

“You can’t let your guard down. Especially inside a Dungeon.”

He was right, so I couldn’t argue.

“Put it on.”

“…Put what on?”

“Put the Dog Tag around your neck right now.”

“I’ll put it on later if I need it.”

“Dungeons keep bursting open around here at the drop of a hat. By the time you need it, it’ll be too late. Put it on right now.”

“…….”

He wasn’t wrong about anything. Hong Seok-young was looking at me with an expression that said he absolutely would not back down.

In the end, I sighed and reached into my pocket. My wallet.

“A wallet? Is that Subspace?”

Hong Seok-young recognized my battered wallet. When I first came to the past, I had been caught and handed over to an interrogation room. The wallet had been confiscated then too. Hong Seok-young had probably examined it.

“Yes. It opens with my Mana Pattern, so I’m the only one who can open it.”

“That’s a feature I’d love to have.”

“Daeyeon develops it in about ten years, so wait until then.”

“Ten years?”

“Were you sixty by then?”

“…No, I wasn’t.”

Hong Seok-young muttered without much confidence.

There were two Dog Tags inside the Subspace. I took care not to pull out the wrong one. Not the one with the groove cut into it, but the one with nothing engraved on it.

The Dog Tag threaded onto a leather cord. The one Father had given me.

The moment I took it out, Hong Seok-young reached for it. Only after thoroughly checking both sides of the Dog Tag did he smile in satisfaction.

“Always keep it on.”

“…Yes.”

It didn’t look like this conversation was going anywhere unless I actually put it around my neck.

With mixed feelings, I hung the Dog Tag around my neck. It had only been about half a year since I stopped wearing it, yet it felt strangely heavy. Feeling oddly awkward, I scratched my neck.

“So, what did you want to talk about?”

“Hmm? Ah, Sem Bloom.”

“…You’re not about to tell me he was actually alive or something, are you?”

“I think you’ve watched too many movies.”

“…….”

Hong Seok-young chuckled, then spoke.

“No, nothing like that. The autopsy results came back.”

“…Only now?”

“The results were unexpected, so they ran a number of additional tests.”

“What could they possibly have found?”

“He’s a Monster.”

Hong Seok-young said it casually. It took me a moment to process what he meant.

“……What?”

“He wasn’t human. He was a Monster.”

“…….”

“Want to hear something interesting?”

“Usually when someone says that, what follows isn’t interesting at all.”

“True. It’s not an interesting story.”

Yet Hong Seok-young’s voice still held a trace of amusement, even as he blandly admitted it wasn’t interesting.

…Which meant it really wasn’t interesting at all.

“His legs are human. His torso is human too. Some of the internal organs are a little ambiguous, but overall, they’re human.”

There was something strange about his choice of words. Human. Overall, human.

But Hong Seok-young had said Sem Bloom was a Monster.

“His arms are definitely Monster. Hmm, they have feathers growing on them, so it would be hard to call those human.”

And Sem Bloom himself had said he wasn’t human.

There was still one part Hong Seok-young had not mentioned.

“…What about his head?”

“Ah, his head. This is where it gets really interesting.”

“…….”

“Most of this is human too. Hair, skin, tongue, esophagus. Ah, even the ears.”

“His eyes too?”

“Those are Monster.”

There was still one thing left. The part that could be called the most important of all.

I felt like I already knew without hearing the answer. But without confirmation, I couldn’t be certain.

Hong Seok-young scratched his temple. I forced the word out as though crushing it between my teeth.

“Brain.”

“I knew you were my son. You caught on immediately.”

“Was it Monster?”

“Hmm. It felt like human and Monster were coexisting in roughly equal measure.”

Hong Seok-young grinned. I felt mana ripple.

“We decided to describe it as being ‘in progress’.”

‘Noah didn’t replace the eyes.’

Hope’s words suddenly came back to me.

“That’s enough for him to call himself nonhuman. Sem Bloom wasn’t lying.”

***

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