Chapter 7: A Sorry Bunch
The enrolled students came to twenty in all.
Onto the three existing applicants, the Dean had crammed in seventeen.
“Wow.”
Lee Se-a flicked through the tablet.
“Their records are quite something, aren’t they? There’s one who’s racked up dozens of disciplinary actions, and one who got suspended for swinging a sword at a professor because he had connections to fall back on. Do you want to read the roster?”
“No.”
Kang Hyeon, who had come into the house by now, sank into his usual sofa.
Pop.
And then, as naturally as breathing, opened a whiskey bottle.
Lee Se-a made a revolted face at the sight.
At that rate, did he have liquor running through him instead of blood?
“You’re not going to look? They are cadets you’ll be teaching. At least their names or their records……”
“And what would I do with that?”
“Sorry?”
“Whether they beat up a professor or throw their weight around on their family’s name is no concern of mine.”
He sipped his whiskey and went on.
“What matters is what kind of eyes they have when they stand in front of me.”
Twenty years in Murim.
Cutting down more geniuses and prodigies than he could count had taught him a truth.
Even a man born into the foremost house under heaven, raised gorging on every elixir and secret manual there was — if he pissed himself and fled in the face of death, he was nothing but a well-fed pig.
Whereas a beggar rolling in the gutter, if he bared his teeth like an animal and threw himself forward to survive, that was a true martial frame, a true vessel.
The Dean might have asked him, but he had no intention of saving all of them.
“When’s the class?”
“Next Saturday. That’s the first week of term.”
Being a late contract hire, Kang Hyeon had not been able to attend the twentieth-anniversary entrance ceremony or the orientation.
Personally, he regretted that a little.
There was no better place for reading students’ talent.
But it was not a matter to approach in a hurry, either.
Seven vessels who could hold a formation to the very end in front of that horrific Asura.
Genuine articles like that were never going to be picked out from the sight of them clapping politely below an entrance-ceremony podium.
‘A true famed sword shows its worth not while it sits in the scabbard, but when it has parted flesh and bone and been drenched in blood.’
He only hoped there was one among those twenty.
Even a single one.
***
Kang Hyeon once again pushed out Lee Se-a, who was determined to tidy the room.
After she left.
“Kuh.”
He set down the whiskey glass in his hand and screwed up his brow.
There was a limit to numbing the pain with the heat of liquor.
‘So it means to crawl up the moment my back is turned.’
Kang Hyeon folded into the lotus position on the sofa and closed both eyes.
Before long his breathing slowed fractionally, and the air around him began to settle into a chill.
The Extreme Yang Heart Method.
The exclusive art of the Sword Madman, the old man who had gone mad for the sword and given his whole life to it.
As he ran the heart method, Asura’s venom, which had been crawling up along his blood paths, writhed like a snake and was driven down to the floor of his qi center.
Of course, this was a stopgap.
‘I need to clear it out as soon as I can.’
Suppressing this venom alone was consuming eight-tenths of the inner arts he possessed.
Even if he wanted to take in new energy and build his inner arts up, he had no room to.
‘I have to get stronger.’
Last time he had fought the Demon God on roughly even terms and barely won.
The price of that was every one of the old men dead and most of Murim blown away.
‘I won’t let it go like that this time.’
He meant to prepare more thoroughly and win overwhelmingly.
So thoroughly that the people here would think nothing more than a single typhoon had passed by.
Slip.
Kang Hyeon’s eyes closed.
***
Saturday, 9:50 a.m.
The drill grounds in the Academy’s Old Hall.
A handful of students had gathered to take Kang Hyeon’s ten o’clock class.
“Hah, fuck.”
That was when a coarse curse burst out of somebody’s mouth.
The owner of the voice was Gwak Do-jin, Class 18.
By rights he should have passed even the graduating third-years of Class 19 and left the Academy long ago.
His nickname was Mad Dog.
Dozens of disciplinary actions and a year held back.
“Dragged out here on a Saturday morning.”
Thud!
He kicked a nearby training dummy in irritation.
He was throwing his weight around openly, but nobody stopped him.
Because the Academy divided seniors from juniors by class year.
‘If it weren’t for the Dean’s order I’d have just ignored it.’
Gwak Do-jin ground his teeth.
However blind to consequence a Mad Dog might be, he could not defy an order from Dean Seo Il-hyeon, one of only seven S-rank Hunters in the country.
“Hey, you two over there. You’re the new ones, right? Come here.”
Suppressed anger always goes hunting for an easy target.
When Gwak Do-jin’s foul glare fixed on the two freshmen cowering in the corner of the drill grounds.
Scramble!
The two freshmen came flying to stand in front of him, discipline snapping into place.
“C-Class 21! Han Tae-ho!”
“Class 21! Reporting, sir!”
“Good, good. Cute little bastards.”
Gwak Do-jin slouched onto one leg and patted the pair on the shoulder.
“You’re those ones, aren’t you? Two of the three suckers who volunteered for this dumbass class.”
“Th-That’s correct!”
“Why?”
“Sir?”
“This class. I’m asking why you registered.”
Han Tae-ho, who looked like a bit of a dope, answered first.
“I-I saw the description saying I could get stronger, so I registered!”
“Bullshit.”
Gwak Do-jin snorted.
‘Get stronger, my ass.’
Word that the man was a contract-professor parachute hire had already spread thoroughly, even among the freshmen.
“This one’s a real dopey bastard who doesn’t know a thing.”
Clicking his tongue as though at something pitiful, Gwak Do-jin turned to the other freshman.
“And you?”
“M-Me?”
“Yeah, you.”
“……I clicked the wrong thing by mistake during registration.”
“Insane.”
He burst out laughing in disbelief.
“This one’s even dopier. What a sight. What an absolute sight.”
Then he looked around and raised his voice.
“It’s a perfect trifecta. Problem cases on the brink of expulsion, dopes who walked in on their own two feet, and an unheard-of parachute nobody teaching the lot.”
Ptooey!
Gwak Do-jin spat on the ground.
“What a waste, all because of some bastard called Kang Hyeon or whatever……”
“You’re going too far.”
That was when somebody walked out from one side of the drill grounds.
“What’s this? Who are you?”
“Class 20, Yoon Hyeon-jong.”
“I asked what you are, you little shit.”
Gwak Do-jin came off his slouch and strode right up in front of Yoon Hyeon-jong.
A full head of difference in height.
“I’m the third voluntary applicant.”
“Ah, you’re that guy? The one who nearly died in qi deviation the other day.”
“That’s correct.”
“And?”
Gwak Do-jin’s lips twisted.
“You’re telling me it galls you to hear your saviour insulted?”
“……I think it’s careless to pass judgment without having experienced him.”
“What?”
A disbelieving laugh escaped Gwak Do-jin.
Haha. Heheh.
‘The world’s gotten a lot better.’
Not one but two class years below him, and the punk was mouthing off.
“Look at this bastard. Do I look like an easy mark to you because I got held back a year?”
Gwak Do-jin pushed right up into Yoon Hyeon-jong’s face.
“Should I teach you the pecking order before the professor gets here?”
“I think you’re the one who needs to learn the pecking order first, senior.”
“Has this bastard actually lost his mind.”
Rage climbing to the crown of his head, Gwak Do-jin seized Yoon Hyeon-jong by the collar with a savage grip and was raising his fist when.
“Senior Gwak.”
A low, bored voice came from some way off.
“……!”
At that single word, Gwak Do-jin’s shoulders locked with a start.
A man was walking slowly toward the corner of the drill grounds.
Class 19, Cha Yu-sik!
The Academy’s predator in all but name!
Setting his skill aside, there was no student who could touch him.
Even the professors found him difficult.
Because he had a monstrous connection behind him.
Cha Ha-rang, S-rank Hunter and Guild Master of Cheonrang.
His second son.
“Let’s leave it there on the first day.”
“Ah, shall we? Junior Cha?”
Gwak Do-jin quietly let go of the collar.
Even the Gwak Do-jin they called Mad Dog had no choice but to tuck his tail in front of a genuine madman.
‘However much of a nutcase I am, I don’t swing a sword at a professor.’
In fact, Cha Yu-sik held the professors in contempt.
Or rather, he could not help but find them laughable.
The Academy faculty were, for the most part, A-rank Hunters retired from active service.
How were they going to look to Cha Yu-sik, second son of Cheonrang, one of South Korea’s three great guilds?
‘Men who aren’t fit to stand at the toes of our guild’s raid captains.’
He had learned the sword directly, from childhood, from monsters who rolled through genuine live combat.
The professors’ predictable theory lectures and their hothouse-flower training only made him yawn.
Even so, there was exactly one reason he had set foot on these tiresome drill grounds on a Saturday morning.
“Haa.”
Cha Yu-sik let out a short sigh and swept back his fringe.
‘Dean Seo Il-hyeon.’
Because that old man had contacted his father directly.
“There’s no need to get so worked up, Senior Gwak.”
Cha Yu-sik wore his characteristic arrogant smile.
“This class is going to be over today anyway.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Is there any need to sit through a worthless class for a whole semester? I’ll finish it cleanly today.”
“Oh, don’t tell me. You’re going to humiliate him on day one?”
“Humiliate? Hardly.”
He grinned.
“I’m merely going to confirm whether he’s qualified to teach us.”
Tap, tap.
Cha Yu-sik touched his scabbard.
A professor who could not even handle one student?
Not even the Dean would have grounds to keep shielding an incompetent like that.
“Kuh, kuhah! Right! That’s how it should be! No qualifications, pack your bags!”
Watching a delighted Gwak Do-jin, Yoon Hyeon-jong clenched his fist.
‘This is dangerous.’
Rumor had it Cha Yu-sik did not lose ground even sparring against the Academy’s full professors.
Professor Kang Hyeon’s medical knowledge was impressive, he knew, but there was no guarantee his combat strength matched it.
The other cadets gathered on the drill grounds each harbored their own thoughts.
‘Cha Yu-sik’s stepping in? Good. This was a pain anyway.’
‘If today’s class blows up, I get to sleep in next week.’
Some were pleased.
‘Say what you like, wasn’t he the Dean’s recommendation? There’s probably a reason.’
‘He said he’d teach us how to get stronger. He’ll show us something.’
And some had expectations.
More time passed.
CLAAAANG!
As the bell rang out to mark ten o’clock exactly.
Crunch, crunch.
With the sound of footsteps dragging through sand, a man walked into the drill grounds.
“……”
In that instant, the cadets’ faces twisted.
“Haaaaaawn.”
The professor came toward them cracking a yawn, his hair rumpled as though he had just woken, the top two buttons of his shirt undone.
Most overwhelming of all was the whiskey bottle in his hand.
A sharp, harsh reek of alcohol rode the breeze into their faces.
‘……Liquor?’
‘He’s swigging whiskey from the bottle in the morning? A professor?’
‘What the……’
Even Yoon Hyeon-jong, who had been defending Kang Hyeon in his heart, let his mouth fall open.
Professor, no!
What are you doing?!
This would be grounds for discipline even for a full professor!
The few cadets who had held expectations soon took on a look of deep disappointment.
But Kang Hyeon paid the cadets’ stares no mind whatsoever.
Walking unhurriedly to the middle of the drill grounds, he stopped there and faced them.
He had not so much as brought a register.
He simply stood slouched on one leg and raised the whiskey bottle to his mouth.
Gulp, gulp.
In the strange silence, where even the breathing of twenty people had stopped.
“Haa.”
Breathing out a hot lungful mixed with the fumes of the liquor, Kang Hyeon slowly lowered the bottle.
“Not one drop of bite in any of those eyeballs.”
His lips twisted with disappointment.
“Livestock hauled into a slaughterhouse would have more life in their eyes than this.”
