Chapter 6: Has a Fated Encounter Rolled In?
The faculty lounge.
One of the professors standing in front of the coffee machine broached the subject offhandedly.
“About that contract professor they took on.”
“You mean Kang Hyeon?”
“Yes. Did you see the registration results?”
“I did.”
His colleague laughed under his breath.
“Three registrations. He couldn’t even fill the quota.”
“A natural outcome. The course objective is ‘how to get stronger’…… and the condition is ‘those who are prepared to die’…… Even a full professor couldn’t write it like that. Do you know what students are like these days?”
“Quite. The Academy isn’t some back-alley martial hall.”
The two professors traded words for a while, then turned their eyes to Jin Myeong-hun, who sat on the sofa quietly leafing through a tablet.
The subject of the contract professor had come up at all because he was present.
Since he had been the one who opposed the appointment most strongly to the Dean.
They were angling for points.
“What does the Head Professor think? It ended up exactly as you feared, didn’t it?”
Only then did Jin Myeong-hun’s finger stop on the screen.
He raised his head slowly and spoke.
“Is that something to be gossiping about here, of all places?”
“……!”
“It was an outcome we already anticipated. It will be handled by the regulations. That’s enough from all of you — go and prepare your own classes.”
“……Our apologies.”
Jin Myeong-hun folded up the tablet and rose from his seat.
A faint sneer crossed his lips as he left the lounge.
‘My good man.’
At the same time, he thought of Kang Hyeon.
‘Even supposing you have the skill, did you think standing at a lectern was that easy?’
***
At that same hour.
“……What do we do?”
At the safe house, Lee Se-a sat slumped over.
Her face was half vacant.
The Director had warned her!
Had told her to support him properly at his side!
And the very first button was done up catastrophically wrong!
“What do you mean, what do we do.”
Kang Hyeon, by contrast, sunk deep into the sofa, could not have been more at ease.
In his hand, as always, was a glass of whiskey.
The sight of him made her chest tighten with frustration, and at the same time let all her tension drain out.
Oh, to hell with it!
“No, not you, Mr. Kang Hyeon.”
“?”
Then who?
When Kang Hyeon frowned.
“Our country. What’s going to happen to our country now?”
“What kind of nonsense is that in broad daylight?”
“The future is bleak, isn’t it? To kick away heaven-sent luck like the chance to be taught by you directly? Haaa…… our poor Academy cadets.”
“……”
“Still, those three were lucky ones. Even if the course is cancelled, you’ll look after the three who applied on faith, won’t you? Won’t you?”
The corner of Kang Hyeon’s mouth twitched up.
The chick.
Her nerve had grown considerably.
She could banter now, too.
‘Then again.’
Kang Hyeon was smiling on the outside, but inwardly he was clicking his tongue.
Frankly, a cancellation would cost him plenty as well.
He needed to find seven vessels who could bear the Seven Luminaries Formation right away, and it would sever his official channel for looking the students over.
Even if one caught his eye, without a class as a pretext it would be hard to grab hold of them and put them through their paces.
“Hah.”
He breathed out the heat of the liquor.
“If it really comes to nothing, I’ll just get myself an S-rank Hunter licence. That should get me a few who want to learn, shouldn’t it?”
“You WHAT?”
For an instant a scream like a pterodactyl’s burst out of Lee Se-a.
“Th-That’s out of the question!”
“Why?”
When Kang Hyeon looked at her as though genuinely puzzled, Lee Se-a’s words caught in her throat.
Black’s existence was South Korea’s highest classified secret.
If he became an official S-rank Hunter?
The fact that there was an immeasurable-class monster in the country would be laid bare to the entire world.
There would be some benefits to that, certainly, but managing him would become vastly harder.
‘Because we’re not a Hunter powerhouse.’
And there was no telling what great powers like the United States, China or Russia might do to win him over.
Frankly, if it came to that, the government would have even less leverage over Kang Hyeon.
‘How am I supposed to say all this to his face?’
Just as Lee Se-a, cold sweat beading down her back, rolled her eyes about hunting for an excuse.
Bzzzt! Bzzt!
Kang Hyeon’s phone vibrated briefly.
He checked the screen, and his eyes narrowed with interest.
[Dean Seo Il-hyeon: Professor Kang, if you have the time, could you come up to my office for a moment?]
Kang Hyeon set the phone down and threw back the rest of his drink in one go.
“Have the car ready. I’ll have to go.”
A summons from the Dean, with the cancellation already decided.
Perhaps something had come up that could turn this situation around.
***
Knock, knock.
“Come in.”
When he opened the door of the Dean’s office and stepped inside, the old man with the shock of white hair, Seo Il-hyeon, rose from his seat.
Over the past week Kang Hyeon had done a rough investigation of the Dean as well.
Seventy years old. S-rank Hunter. A practitioner of the White Cloud Sword Art.
‘Indeed.’
He had read the man’s bearing the moment he walked in, and it was clean and unadorned, clear and deep.
‘Peak level.’
In Kang Hyeon’s head, this world’s grades and Murim’s realms were rapidly converted.
‘S-rank is peak, A-rank is first-rate, B-rank is second-rate, C-rank is third-rate.’
It would not be exact, but he had a rough reckoning.
What drew Kang Hyeon’s interest most of all was the grain of the energy Seo Il-hyeon gave off.
‘He’s learned the Clear Void Heart Method?’
There was no martial art Kang Hyeon did not know.
And among that great multitude, the Clear Void Heart Method ranked fairly high.
‘It brings the old Daoist of the Qingcheng Sect to mind.’
It suited the image of this affably smiling Dean rather well, too.
“So why have you called me?”
“Sit down first.”
When he sat on the sofa, warm tea had been prepared on the table.
A sip.
As he drank it, Seo Il-hyeon came to the point.
“The registration results were unfortunate. To be honest, a good deal of the fault is mine. I was the one who established the Special Instruction Studies course in the first place.”
“It can’t be helped. I don’t mind.”
“You may not mind, but I do.”
Seo Il-hyeon wore a meaningful smile.
“To have a man like you blocked by nothing more than an administrative regulation on enrollment numbers — setting aside my own authority, would that not be a national loss?”
Kang Hyeon tilted his head.
However much of a Dean he was, breaking regulations carried considerable risk, surely?
Did he have some other clever scheme?
“Let me make you a proposal.”
“Go ahead.”
“There are cadets facing expulsion review shortly.”
Seo Il-hyeon set his laced hands on the table.
“Terrible grades, frequent incidents. The reasons vary, but in the end they are children who fell short of the standard the Academy demands. The professors have already given up on them. There are more than enough students out there who want to get in here anyway.”
Ah.
‘Put them into my course?’
Was there any particular reason to?
If they fell below the standard, one more class was not going to change anything.
“Ordinarily they would simply be expelled…… but there is a regulation that lets them be spared if they achieve a certain result in the midterm evaluation a month from now — the sparring tournament, that is.”
Seo Il-hyeon’s eyes went straight to Kang Hyeon.
“I will put those children in by the Dean’s authority, so would you take charge of them?”
The words “any particular reason” were no longer necessary.
Was there any assignment better suited to establishing a foothold at the Academy?
And more than anything.
He had decided to try living as a professor.
“You’re extending me a kindness.”
“Because it’s worth extending. Did you not save one of our students yourself?”
“……”
Kang Hyeon looked at the Dean.
The gentle yet upright energy of the old man seated before him touched his skin once again.
The old Daoist of the Qingcheng Sect he had met in Murim.
He had thought only the grain of their cultivation was similar, but the disposition — walking the orthodox path without concealing his intentions — was the very image of the man as well.
‘At this rate he’ll reach a considerable attainment yet.’
Just as Kang Hyeon felt inwardly intrigued, Seo Il-hyeon waved a hand and went on.
“And do not take this as pure kindness. As I said, I have offloaded a set of genuinely difficult, headache-inducing brats onto you.”
At that frank attitude the corner of Kang Hyeon’s mouth curled slightly.
“Well, all right.”
Kang Hyeon rose unhurriedly from the sofa.
He had made up his mind to live as a professor here and find his vessels regardless.
The Dean had laid out the board this thoroughly and extended a kindness first, so it stood to reason that Kang Hyeon should return it in kind.
“How far have you learned the Clear Void Heart Method?”
“……!”
In that instant, Seo Il-hyeon’s hand froze in midair as it reached for his teacup.
“Wh-What did you just say?”
His voice was trembling faintly.
The Clear Void Heart Method.
That was the true name of the secret manual Seo Il-hyeon had obtained through a chance fated encounter.
The root of a martial art he had never disclosed to a single soul in South Korea — known to him alone.
And a man he had only just met had named it outright.
Watching Seo Il-hyeon’s stunned reaction, Kang Hyeon went on indifferently.
“The energy is clear, but the return path is slightly tangled. You’ll have been blocked at the third gate.”
“H-How could you possibly……!”
“Doesn’t the energy break once at the seventh meridian?”
Thud!
Seo Il-hyeon’s heart lurched.
It was exact.
The very point that had barred his way for years.
Turning his body toward the door, Kang Hyeon continued.
“Do not force it upward there. The Clear Void Heart Method is not an art that walks the domineering road in that fashion. At the blocked point, abandon the breath and let it settle down into the qi center.”
“L-Let it settle……?”
“Yes. Circulate three times, then empty it once. It will open.”
Creak, clunk!
Having said his piece, Kang Hyeon walked out of the Dean’s office without a backward glance.
For a long while after the door closed, nothing but a heavy silence hung in the office.
“……”
Seo Il-hyeon could not move from where he stood.
His own martial learning, built over more than ten years of dedicated effort.
And the man had seen straight through it merely by looking?
‘Circulate three times, then empty it once.’
Instinctively, Seo Il-hyeon moved the energy in his qi center exactly as Kang Hyeon had described.
Slissssh.
“Aah……”
The point that broke every single time flowed smoothly, like snow melting.
‘And I took him for nothing but a monster……’
Had a true fated encounter…… rolled into the Academy?
***
“What happened?”
Lee Se-a, who had been fidgeting on her feet outside the door, latched onto him at once.
“What do you mean?”
“The class! What did the Dean say? Is the cancellation confirmed?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
“He says he’ll fill it with students by the Dean’s authority.”
“He WHAT?”
Lee Se-a’s eyes went wide enough to pop out.
Was that even possible?
However much of a Dean he was, he could not take away students’ freedom to take the classes they wanted.
“Says he’ll scrape together the ones on the brink of expulsion and stuff them in. And that I’m to take charge of them.”
“Isn’t that just dumping the dirty work on you?”
“Don’t know. Let’s go home. Get the liquor ready.”
“Yes, sir!”
While the car was moving, Kang Hyeon sucked at his drink and settled the venom.
And when they arrived back at the safe house.
Ding!
A cheerful notification chimed on the professor’s tablet.
Since he was bad with electronics, Lee Se-a managed the work tablet outright.
“Oh? One moment.”
Reflexively switching on the screen, Lee Se-a tapped the notification and then jerked her head up.
“Mr. Kang Hyeon! The student roster. It’s already arrived!”
“Already?”
