Chapter 5: This Time I Will Live My Own Life Too
A premium beef restaurant in Jongno District.
Over the sizzle of grilling meat, a toast rang out.
“Right, to the good-luck charm of our task force! To Agent Lee’s safe return! Cheers!”
“Cheers!”
“Se-a, you really are the treasure of this team!”
At the fierce cheering and the shower of praise from her seniors, Lee Se-a clinked her glass with an awkward smile.
She had, admittedly, produced results that were hard to believe for a rookie only just deployed into the field.
Leviathan carcass, disposed of.
A first-rate martial arts secret manual, secured.
And on top of that, Black slotted into the Academy.
“Hey, how on earth did you handle that Black…… Kah!”
Manager Kim shuddered as he chewed his meat.
“Wasn’t it Assistant Manager Park, back then? He went near the safe house and got flung through the air before he could even touch the door handle.”
“Come on, senior! I still went back stubbornly enough to see his face, at least. Ugh, it was savage. I thought I was going to be torn apart on the spot. Honestly, those eyes…… they’re terrifying, aren’t they? They say he burst the Leviathan with one wave of his hand…… Who’s to say my skull isn’t next?”
“He’s a time bomb, no telling when he’ll go off. Which is exactly why our Agent Se-a is all the more impressive!”
Her seniors poured out their fear of Black and their bad-mouthing of him as though it were a side dish.
Of course, their being afraid of Black was only natural, but.
‘……He isn’t like that.’
Lee Se-a clenched both hands under the table.
The Black she had seen was different.
A man who pushed them away because he was afraid they would be hurt, even while enduring pain vicious enough to melt his furniture.
A man who could not turn his eyes away from a dying student, even in the middle of being misunderstood.
A man who could toss over a martial arts secret manual and express his thanks in that offhand way.
‘What do you seniors know about him!’
Just as Lee Se-a’s lips parted to defend Black.
Bzzt! Bzzt!
The phone she had set on the table rattled loudly.
[Director Kim Hyeong-seok]
“Ah, excuse me. It’s the Director.”
She scrambled to her feet, rushed out of the restaurant and answered.
“Lee Se-a speaking.”
– Ah, Agent Lee! You’re at the team dinner, aren’t you?
“Ah, yes, sir! My seniors threw me a welcome party.”
– As well they should. Thanks to you taking charge of that bomb, the task force lot can finally sleep with their legs stretched out. Looking at the Bureau as a whole, your contribution is enormous. Enjoy yourself as much as you like.
“Thank you, Director!”
– Ahem, to the point. Course registration for this Academy term starts a week from now, doesn’t it?
“Yes, that’s right.”
The National Hunter Academy’s education system was elective, like a university’s.
Starting with weapons — sword, spear, bow — and going on to qi arts, medicine, formation arts and the rest.
Cadets chose whichever they wanted from dozens of major courses.
Naturally, competition for a famous professor’s lecture was fierce enough that it filled up within seconds of registration opening.
– Still, this is Black’s first class we’re talking about. Support him properly at his side, Agent Lee, and get Special Instruction Studies some decent publicity.
“Y-Yes, understood.”
Lee Se-a was worried too.
Would there be any cadet who wanted to take a weekend special lecture run by a contract professor of unknown origin?
‘What am I going to do.’
She was sighing already.
Should she circulate flyers on the Academy noticeboards?
Or should she contact the promising students individually?
– And, Agent Lee.
The Director’s voice sank a level lower, heavy and serious.
– This is the real reason I called. Inside the Academy, you absolutely must not let that man cause an incident, no matter what happens.
Lee Se-a swallowed dryly without meaning to.
– That qi deviation business last time only worked out because the Dean barely managed to bury it. Imagine Black losing his temper and taking Professor Jin Myeong-hun’s head off. We couldn’t clean that up either. You understand?
“I’ll cover it even if I have to throw my own body in.”
– Never forget, not for a moment, that you are carrying the most important and weightiest mission in South Korea right now. Hanging up.
Beep— beep—.
The call ended, and Lee Se-a stared blankly down at her phone screen.
Only now did it feel real.
Exactly who it was she was looking after.
“Haa.”
Her buzz had evaporated.
Given Black’s personality…… if the students did not turn up, there was no telling what he might do!
Slap! Slap!
Lee Se-a struck both her cheeks hard with her hands and psyched herself up.
Right!
She would give it a shot!
***
At that same hour.
Seated on the sofa, Kang Hyeon wet his throat with whiskey poured over ice, sunk in thought.
The Demon God, Asura.
Where would the thing be by now?
In Murim it had taken twenty-odd years. Would it be the same this time?
He could not be certain.
It might appear as soon as tomorrow, for all he knew.
‘In which case I couldn’t stop it if the sky split in two.’
“Kuh!”
As the thought dragged others after it, the area around his qi center throbbed as though it were burning.
The venom Asura had planted just before it croaked.
To run the Heavenly God Scripture he had to drive this venom out somehow first, and that was not easy.
‘I’d need at least three-tenths mastery of the Water Luminary Formation.’
The seven old men had each laid out a different formation.
Seven formations governing yin, yang and the five elements.
Only when those meshed and turned in perfect concert was the Seven Luminaries Formation completed and the Heavenly God Scripture made possible.
Bzzt!
Just then, the phone on the table vibrated briefly.
He picked it up and checked, and a message was waiting.
[Chick: Professor Kang Hyeon! I’ll be visiting the safe house at 10 a.m. tomorrow! There isn’t much time left in the registration period, so tomorrow we absolutely must draw up the syllabus and discuss how to recruit students. Have a comfortable night! ^^]
A syllabus?
What was that?
Tok.
Kang Hyeon tossed the phone carelessly back onto the table.
Honestly, students were beside the point.
He was not going in to genuinely teach anyone in the first place.
‘My purpose is one thing.’
Finding seven vessels who could bear the Seven Luminaries Formation.
Preparing for the Asura that would come afterward.
He intended to walk the Academy and sweep his eyes over every cadet’s frame and constitution.
And if there was not a single usable one in the Academy?
Then he would have to dig through other national academies or the guilds until he found them.
But in truth, more important than constitution was the will of the one who wanted to learn.
However heaven-sent a prodigy a man might be, however fine the bone and sinew he was born with — once in a thousand years — what use was it?
Nothing could be done with someone who would not work, or who had no drive.
‘The question is whether any of them carry that much bite.’
Gulp.
The harsh liquor went down his throat.
‘Open the lid and I’ll know.’
***
Becoming a professor turned out to be more of a nuisance, and involve far more to do, than he had expected.
“What is all this?”
“Your Academy access pass. Tap it on the terminal at the main gate and the door will open.”
“……And this?”
“A tablet linked to the electronic approval system. You can check student paperwork and the academic calendar on it.”
“……”
Every time he saw something like this, Kang Hyeon was struck all over again.
That devices like an Illusion Formation cast in midair were simply everyday objects here.
Even in the thirteenth year of his life, the one he remembered, there had been such a thing as a mobile phone.
A flip phone you had to jab at button by button to send a message, but still.
“All right, now look into the camera lens here!”
Beyond that there were fingerprint registration, facial recognition and a string of other convoluted procedures.
It was tiresome, but he went along with it.
This too was part of adapting to society, and he was grateful to Lee Se-a, sweating buckets as she checked one thing after another.
“Mr. Kang Hyeon. We have to write down the course objective.”
“Just write something and hand it in.”
“How could I do that? This is where the elites of South Korea gather. Without a proper syllabus, nobody will even register.”
“Then let them not. Their loss, isn’t it?”
“Uh……”
She could not argue.
The Academy’s professors were A-rank Hunters at best, and the Black in front of her was a monster standing above even the S-ranks.
“B-But the students don’t know that. If we don’t get a certain number, the course gets cancelled.”
“Hm.”
Kang Hyeon tipped back the half glass of whiskey remaining over the ice.
Honestly, it left him with a strange feeling.
‘Is she worrying about me?’
It was unfamiliar.
The seven old men who had taught him were too busy swinging the rod, and everyone he met on his travels through the martial world either hated or despised him.
It had not been much different since he came here.
There had always been fear in the eyes of the men who came calling on behalf of some government body.
‘That chick was no different at first.’
The greenhorn who had shaken like an aspen and could not even breathe properly.
And now that same girl was fretting over whether he would be humiliated at the Academy.
“How to get stronger.”
“Sorry?”
“The objective. You said you were writing it. Write ‘how to get stronger.’”
While he was in Murim, Kang Hyeon had always wanted to go back.
To go back and live an ordinary life.
So what, then, was ordinary?
Kang Hyeon’s eyes moved to Lee Se-a, clutching the tablet and fidgeting on her feet.
Perhaps it was something very small.
Lending an ear to the advice of another person who worried about him.
In a situation like this one, was simply going along obediently with what this greenhorn said not the most ordinary decision there was?
‘Right.’
Since he had blundered into becoming a professor anyway.
Starting his life on this Earth by properly playing the part of that professor would not be a bad thing.
Setting the empty glass down on the table, Kang Hyeon put the question to himself.
He had thrown away a lifetime to save Murim.
Beaten like an animal, bones shattering, blood in his mouth.
So did this remaining life, returned to him as if by a miracle, also have to be thrown away — again — to stop Asura?
‘I don’t want that.’
He was sick to death of it.
‘This time I will live my own life too.’
On this peaceful Earth he would drink good liquor, live a daily life like a human being, and stop the Demon God gladly besides.
That was the way of the second life Kang Hyeon had chosen.
“Mr. Kang Hyeon? ‘How to get stronger’……. What else should I write after that? Surely those five words aren’t the whole thing?”
The corner of Kang Hyeon’s mouth curled faintly.
For a man of Murim that was enough. What else was there to write?
“Attach a condition to it.”
“A condition?”
“That’s right.”
The languor in Kang Hyeon’s eyes flashed for an instant.
“Those who are prepared to die.”
“Sorry?”
“Tell them only the ones who won’t piss themselves and run in the face of real death should apply.”
Lee Se-a’s finger stopped over the tablet.
“……The wording seems a little too extreme……”
“Write it exactly like that.”
Kang Hyeon drove the point home flatly.
“Because anyone without that much bite won’t last a single day in my class anyway.”
***
A few days later. The night registration closed at the Academy.
Alone in the Special Task Force office, Lee Se-a gripped the mouse with a hand that trembled with nerves.
‘Please, please, just the minimum, at least!’
The minimum enrollment for a special lecture at the National Academy was five.
Below that, it was cancelled without mercy.
And if Black flew into a rage over the cancellation and went on a rampage?
Chilled to the spine at the mere thought, she hammered the refresh button the instant the clock struck midnight.
The screen flashed, and the final registration results came up on the monitor.
Course: Special Instruction Studies
Professor: Kang Hyeon
Capacity: 50
Final enrollment: 3
Tok.
The ballpoint pen slipped weakly out of Lee Se-a’s hand.
Fewer than the minimum of five.
Which meant cancellation, confirmed.
“W-We’re finished.”
