Chapter 3: Stand Aside, All of You
“He just handed the secret manual over?”
Director Kim Hyeong-seok of the Hunter Management Bureau reacted explosively.
“The man really is remarkable in every possible way……. All right, he cleared away the Leviathan and gave us a secret manual on top of it. We can’t simply let that pass. Agent Lee.”
“Yes, sir!”
“I’ll allocate the budget, so go and scrape together every bottle of top-grade whiskey you can find. It’s only liquor. Fill the entire house with it for him.”
“Understood!”
Rattle, rattle!
And so Lee Se-a arrived at the safe house with a cart piled high with alcohol.
Click.
When she opened the door and stepped inside, Black was sprawled across the sofa as always.
“I’ve brought the liquor. I thought I’d tidy up a little while I’m here.”
“Never mind the tidying. Leave it and go.”
“Sorry? But there are so many empty bottles, and the dust……”
Lee Se-a’s expression stiffened as her eyes naturally swept the living room.
‘Huh?’
On her first visit she had been so crushed by Black’s presence that even breathing had been difficult.
So she had not had the composure to look around, but……
‘What is that? Those marks?’
The corner of the living room table had corroded away hideously.
The leather sofa had melted through in places, exposing the stuffing beneath, and the wall had gone black and dead.
As though some vicious venom or hydrochloric acid had been splashed in every direction.
“Um, Mr. Kang Hyeon. All of the furniture is ruined……”
“I said leave it and go, no more talk.”
“Sorry?”
The instant Lee Se-a asked again.
Kang Hyeon’s finger, buried in the sofa, twitched lightly.
Slissssh!
“Eek!”
A deflated scream leaked out of Lee Se-a’s mouth.
The dozens of bottles of top-grade whiskey in the cart rose into the air of their own accord, crossed the room and settled down beside Black.
Kang Hyeon picked up one of them, then waved a hand through the air as though she were a nuisance.
“Uh, uh-uh?”
Her body floated up.
Then it was pushed steadily out through the front entrance, and.
BANG!
The door shut.
“……!”
Lee Se-a stared blankly at the door.
‘So this was it.’
The eviction her seniors had suffered before she ever came.
But having just seen the state of that room, a thought came to her.
‘Could it be that he’s worried we’ll get hurt?’
Now that she thought about it, she remembered how he had let out intermittent groans of pain in the car on the way to the East Sea.
Could that have been the reason?
Was that why he refused to let anyone inside?
Lee Se-a stood there for a long while before belatedly pulling a notebook from her coat and beginning to scribble.
– Presumed to be enduring extreme pain from suppressing something.
– Damage inside the residence is severe. Replacement with special-material furniture should be considered.
***
One week later.
Black’s safe house.
Lee Se-a had been dispatched there since morning.
‘Haa, the life I lead.’
She let out a deep sigh.
On the grounds that she communicated with him better than any other agent recently, the Director had gone and designated her Black’s exclusive manager outright.
From now on she was to manage his every move and keep him in a good mood.
And today.
Now she had to wake this beast, wash him, dress him and take him to the Academy.
“Mr. Kang Hyeon. Please come out.”
“Already?”
Clunk.
The door opened and out came some sort of derelict.
“Didn’t you say noon?”
The Director of the Bureau was fairly capable.
However he had managed to sweet-talk the Dean, he had secured a contract professorship.
Only, the backlash from the existing faculty had been so severe that they had agreed to a minimum vetting procedure, and that was today at noon.
“It’s nine now.”
“You can’t go looking like that.”
“What’s wrong with the state of me.”
“……”
Lee Se-a was dumbfounded.
Was he asking because he genuinely did not know?
His hair was past magpie’s-nest territory and well into full bird’s nest, and his tracksuit was stained with something that might have been kimchi broth or might have been whiskey.
“Does the state of me matter for teaching kids? Skill is what matters.”
He was not wrong, but Black was far, far too extreme.
“The Academy has tradition and authority. If you go out like that there’ll be an uproar.”
“Authority, my ass, with skill like that.”
This too she could not refute.
He was the only being in South Korea—no, in the entire world—who could say a thing like that.
In the end, Lee Se-a played her trump card.
“Mizuki 55 Year.”
“What?”
Black’s eyes flew open.
Inwardly, Lee Se-a cheered.
‘It works, of course!’
That Japanese whiskey, aged in mizunara oak casks, famed for its distinctive aroma!
That bottle so sought after it was nearly impossible to obtain!
A 55 Year went for over two hundred million won at auction and was hard to find on the market at all, but with the Bureau’s information network it could certainly be secured.
“If you cooperate quietly, I’ll get one for you.”
“Hah.”
Letting out a sigh, Black reluctantly walked out.
“Where am I supposed to go?”
***
“……”
The eyes of the salon staff lined up at the entrance wavered as one.
They had been thoroughly on edge over a VIP booking from the South Korean Hunter Management Bureau, and then some neighborhood vagrant had turned up, so their bewilderment was understandable.
“Um, Ms. Lee Se-a? Is this really the one?”
The director of the salon whispered to Lee Se-a with a troubled look.
Turning this wreck into a human being was mission impossible, plain and simple.
“Please, Director. This is a matter of national importance.”
Lee Se-a pleaded with her, all but in tears.
“He just has to look like a person, that’s all.”
“Haa, understood. Sir, this way.”
The staff sat Kang Hyeon in a chair, half doubting and half believing.
“What style would you like?”
“Whatever finishes fast.”
Kang Hyeon tossed it out with his eyes closed.
“No, Director!”
Naturally, Lee Se-a was not about to let that stand.
“As classic as possible, but with a strong, commanding charisma to it! Sweep it all back with pomade, and the beard cleanly……”
Under Lee Se-a’s storm of instructions, the director’s hands turned busy.
Snip, snip.
The rhythmic sound of the scissors rang out.
As the hair that had shaggily covered his face fell away, the forehead and the bridge of the nose it had hidden began to emerge.
When the roughly grown beard was cleared, a sharp jawline saw the light.
‘Hm?’
The director’s hand faltered.
The face of the man reflected in the mirror was anything but ordinary.
“Wow.”
The mouths of the assistants hovering nearby slowly began to fall open.
Yet the man in question was nodding off where he sat.
Even the smell of alcohol would not come off.
“All done. Please change now.”
Kang Hyeon staggered into the curtained fitting room.
Lee Se-a chewed anxiously at her nails.
Would it really turn out all right?
Standing out too much was a problem, and looking tacky was out of the question.
That was when it happened.
Shhrrrk!
The fitting room curtain was swept aside.
“Ah, hell. Do I really have to wear this necktie thing? It’s stifling.”
Kang Hyeon walked out along with the grumbling.
In that instant.
“Hup.”
Lee Se-a swallowed a breath without meaning to.
A suit tailored to fit him exactly wrapped his body to perfection.
The pomaded hair swept cleanly back gave off a cold atmosphere, and the line of his neck, visible through the slightly loosened shirt collar, was lethal.
Most overwhelming of all were his eyes.
They were full of languor, but paired with his groomed appearance, they carried an aloofness like a nobleman’s.
“……”
Every female employee in the salon had stopped what she was doing and was staring at him blankly.
Even the director, notorious for being hard to please, was clapping her hands with a rapturous look on her face.
“Sir, it’s perfect! Perfect!”
Lee Se-a’s heart was pounding.
This was the national secret weapon?
This was a look that ought to be publicized widely as a matter of national welfare!
“Hey, chick.”
“……Yes?”
Chick?
‘Why have I become a chick?’
“What, should I call you greenhorn instead?”
“N-No. I think chick is preferable.”
“What are you standing there in a daze for. Hand over the liquor.”
When Black held out his hand, Lee Se-a snapped back to her senses.
“Ah, yes! It’s in the car, in the car!”
She hurriedly turned her head.
It was to hide a face that kept trying to flush red.
‘Dangerous.’
That had been genuinely dangerous just now.
Because she had very nearly forgotten the fact that the man was an alcoholic and a broken personality.
“W-We have to leave right away. The interview starts soon.”
The stage and the actor were ready.
Lee Se-a slowly began to worry.
This man.
He wouldn’t go and cause trouble, would he?
***
Thwack!
Head Professor Jin Myeong-hun threw the document folder down onto the desk.
“Dean. This makes no sense.”
His voice rose steadily higher.
“Educational background unknown, Hunter grade unregistered, no prior career whatsoever, and the referrer is the Director of the Hunter Management Bureau?”
“Now, listen.”
“Since when does the National Academy accept personnel favors from the Bureau? And look over there, if you would.”
Where Jin Myeong-hun pointed sat Kang Hyeon, nodding off.
“What kind of applicant walks into an interview room reeking of alcohol? This is an insult to the authority of the Academy.”
“Professor Jin, calm yourself for now.”
The Dean, his hair shot through with grey, had a mouth gone bone dry.
He knew.
Because the Director of the Bureau had handed over the classified file on Code Name: Black while persuading him this time.
But being classified was precisely the problem.
Because he could not say that the man before their eyes was the one who had killed the Leviathan.
“Still, the Bureau must have had its reasons for sending him. And it’s a contract post, not a full professorship, is it not?”
The Dean mediated in a cold sweat, but the other professors’ reactions were just as frosty.
“Dean, Professor Jin is right. This is the education of cadets who will bear responsibility for the nation’s future, no less. We cannot entrust that to an unvetted man.”
“Indeed. And we mustn’t set a precedent for the Bureau intervening in academic administration, either. This is a parachute hire, plain and simple.”
The air in the conference room froze over.
Every gaze turned toward Kang Hyeon, who was still dozing.
Could the man not read the room?
Just as Jin Myeong-hun, out of patience, was about to loose his aura.
CRAAAASH—!
A roar that shook the entire building rattled the windows madly.
“Wh-What was that?”
“What is it?”
While the professors were still flustered, the conference room door flew open and a teaching assistant rushed in.
“We have a crisis! Qi deviation!”
“What?”
Jin Myeong-hun shot to his feet.
“One of the students has gone berserk and is rampaging!”
“Lead the way at once.”
The Dean and the faculty bolted out of the conference room, and Kang Hyeon, opening his eyes languidly, mussed his hair and followed after them at an unhurried pace.
***
The training ground was pure chaos.
“Kraaagh!”
In the middle of it, a male student was thrashing about with tears streaming down his face.
Around his body, runaway energy whirled like a storm.
“This is bad.”
One of the professors took his pulse and cried out.
“It seems to be a qi center problem.”
“Where’s Professor Hwang?”
“She’s on her way back from a business trip, but they say it’ll take some time!”
Professor Hwang Ye-rim, the most accomplished of the faculty in martial medicine, was absent as well.
“Then what do we do?”
“Let’s spread a qi net and suppress it!”
Professor Jin and the rest of the faculty hurriedly stretched out their hands, pouring out true energy in an attempt to subdue it.
But.
“Guhaaaagh!”
The student’s screams grew still more agonized, and he began to vomit dark red blood.
The more they suppressed him from outside, the more the true energy raging within the student’s body tried to tear through his skin and burst free.
“I-It isn’t working! What do we do?”
“Damn it! It looks like his meridians can’t hold.”
While the professors were flailing about in a frantic uproar.
Kang Hyeon, who had been watching the sight with contempt, stepped forward.
‘That doesn’t even rise to the level of qi deviation.’
It was a basic symptom—he had simply forced his energy up too hard and his meridians had twisted slightly.
Handle it the way they were, though, and it really would turn into qi deviation.
“Stand aside, all of you.”
“Wh-What? This is no time for you to be stepping in……”
One of the professors moved to shove him away, as though telling him not to be a bother, and then faltered.
Because the eyes of Kang Hyeon, who had looked nothing but languid, had settled into something chillingly cold.
He had been through every hardship there was, but he had never seen eyes like that.
Eyes that at the very least must not be provoked.
“I said stand aside. Unless you want to burst that boy’s heart with your own hands.”
