I'll Retire After Saving the World

TL: SHW

Thud!

Crash!!

“Aagh!”

“Ouch!”

Just like when we were first sucked into the darkness, our return happened in an instant.

The chandelier flashed, and by the time I came to my senses, we were in this state.

When the magic swept us away, everyone had been doing their own thing throughout the villa. But the place we returned to from the darkness was the small inner reception room where Kim Chae-min often held magic lessons with Park Seo-hyun and Choi Jin-woo.

I quietly stepped away from the kids who were all tangled up together. A few Daseon Hunters, who hadn’t managed to dodge in time, were trapped under the kids. I almost got caught up in it too.

“Who’s the one sitting on top of me?!”

“Move your foot!!”

“My arm! My arm!”

The kids were groaning, unable to properly control their limbs, and looked utterly pitiful. Watching them lie there helplessly, it seemed like they would never get up, so I started by pulling off the ones lying on top. Moans of pain, which should not have come from teenagers, echoed in the room.

Once I confirmed the kids were mostly unharmed, I looked around. It was a familiar space. There was a plush-looking sofa and a low table. This was the reception room that Lee Mi-seon had offered to Kim Chae-min for his lessons, saying it was a space her father didn’t use much. In truth, even if the Daseon Chairman had liked the room, Lee Mi-seon would have willingly given it up.

Standing to one side of the reception room was Kim Chae-min. When our eyes met, she beamed and waved happily.

I stared at Kim Chae-min silently. As I continued to gaze at her, her smile slowly faded.

“……”

“……”

As I kept staring, she lowered her hand too.

That kind of reaction usually comes from someone who feels guilty.

I looked around the reception room again. The sofa was a bit askew, but no furniture was broken. The table was intact, and even the picture frames and display cabinets on the walls were untouched. The long curtains hanging by the windows didn’t have a single crease out of place.

The mana outbursts I know don’t look this calm…?

Was it not a mana outburst?

I looked around to find someone who should obviously be in the reception room. Even though I could already tell they weren’t there, humans only feel assured once they confirm it with their own eyes.

Park Seo-hyun wasn’t there. Neither was Choi Jin-woo.

I looked back at Kim Chae-min.

Though it wasn’t as bright as earlier, a faint smile was creeping back onto her lips.

“…Okay. Anyone hurt?”

Let's deal with the kids first. The conversation comes after.

“I’m fine!”

“I think I got hurt a bit when Lee Seung-yeon sat on me earlier.”

“Hey, don’t say you got hurt because of me!”

“You did sit on me, though!!”

“I’m probably lighter than you!”

“What are you talking about?!”

Lee Seung-yeon and Sun Sun-jin started bickering.

There’s no need to let me know no one’s hurt in that way.

I reached out my hand toward Mini-me, who was still clinging to Han Tae-kyung. Woo I-rok tugged hard on Han Tae-kyung’s hair one more time before climbing down from him.

“You’re not hurt either, right?”

“Nope.”

I patted Mini-me’s head as he answered quietly.

Stuff like this was a daily occurrence at Hunter Academy. With all the hot-blooded Hunter hopefuls crammed in and trained together, it would’ve been more worrisome if they acted too quietly.

I used to just hear the occasional report about it. Usually along with damage reports to the Academy building. After stepping down from the position of principal, my father rarely visited the Academy, and he would chuckle to himself for a while whenever he read those reports.

'This is when they're most reckless without knowing anything.'

'The chairman is going to be annoyed.'

'Did the chairman's office get involved again?'

'Yes.'

'That place has bad feng shui. The location selection was wrong from the start.'

I wonder if Lee Mi-seon built the chairman’s office in the same place again this time.

Putting aside memories of either mocking Lee Mi-seon who got annoyed every time the chairman's office was ruined, or pulling my hair out over budgets and repair costs, seeing it from the position of a teacher teaching the actual perpetrator... well, the person who caused the accident, gave me a new perspective.

Old memories still sparked reflexive frustration that bubbled up, but underneath that…

…….

How should I define this feeling?

Pride? Admiration?

It would weigh on my conscience to say I taught Park Seo-hyun and Choi Jin-woo, but it's not like I didn’t teach them at all, either.

I'm still worried about whether Park Seo-hyun's mental state is okay, and I’m unsure whether it really was a mana outburst, but a magic of that level isn’t exactly ordinary.

As expected, to become an Archmage….

Oops.

They're not the only ones I should be worried about right now.

I counted the chattering children.

Lee Seung-yeon. Sun Sun-jin. Han Eun-young, and…

One was missing.

Even at the very last moment in the darkness, one person had been unaccounted for.

Yoo Hye-eun.

Yoo Ji-eun’s face looked like she was about to burst into tears again.

“Teacher Woo?”

“…Yes?”

“I thought you might worry, so I’ll tell you in advance, the others are in the next room.”

“The other… kids?”

Kim Chae-min nodded.

“Seo-hyun, Jin-woo, and Hye-eun.”

“Student Yoo Hye-eun?”

“My unnie is here?!”

“Who? Yoo Hye-eun?”

“Is she okay?! Why isn’t she here?”

“Was she hurt?”

“What? Hye-eun got hurt?!”

“Hye-eun’s hurt? How bad? Is she okay?”

...No, we're in the same space, so why does the story change every time it passes through one person?

Clicking my tongue, I waited for Kim Chae-min’s explanation.

“Well, those with mana were spat back out?”

"Spat out... No. First, continue talking."

“Okay. So Hye-eun came out too, but I remembered that later?”

“……”

Kim Chae-min smiled awkwardly.

"I found out when Hye-eun came looking for me later. She was sleeping in her room and didn't know what had happened."

“……”

I didn’t know where to even begin.

Well… fine. It didn’t seem like it was worth saying anything.

At any rate, Yoo Hye-eun was safe, and the other two mages were fine as well.

Carefully, so the kids wouldn’t hear, I asked Kim Chae-min,

“Was this not a mana outburst? Why did it take so long?”

“Ah, it’s a bit complicated… The problem wasn’t mana, but the Domain and Seo-hyun’s magic attribute. But it’s all been resolved now!”

“……”

For something that's supposedly all resolved, I've never seen it actually look completely resolved.

***

“Did you cry?!”

Yoo Hye-eun grabbed her younger sister’s shoulders and asked urgently.

“What! Did someone bully you? Hit you? And you just sat there and took it? If you’ve learned from Teacher Woo, you should hit them back! Who hit you?!”

“N-no! No one bullied me….”

Yoo Ji-eun spoke timidly, somehow deflated. Yoo Hye-eun squished her soft cheeks mercilessly with both hands before letting out a sigh.

A peaceful scene, indeed.

Honestly, seeing Yoo Hye-eun completely fine was a bit anticlimactic… but since we’re not in a dungeon, I’d rather it be a little dull and safe.

Yeah. One person should at least get lucky and avoid the incident. That way I can breathe a little too.

Next after Yoo Hye-eun were Park Seo-hyun and Choi Jin-woo. Choi Jin-woo was smiling unusually brightly, and Park Seo-hyun…

Park Seo-hyun…

I thought maybe she’d at least have her bangs down, but oddly enough, she looked fine. She did seem a little timid, but she wasn’t hiding her eyes.

I looked once more at Kim Chae-min, who had started smiling again.

At the Agency, once someone started smiling like that, they were handed vacation time and sent off somewhere. After about a week off, they’d return looking half-dead again.

At the Agency, a smiling face was an ominous sign. It meant they were finally starting to lose it, a sign of that kind.

This wasn’t the Agency, so I didn’t need to feel quite so uneasy, but old habits die hard.

I mean, think about it. Han Tae-kyung always went around smiling like that right before getting sued. Do you think I’m being overly sensitive for no reason?

“I’m sorry!”

The unpleasant memories of Han Tae-kyung were cut off by Park Seo-hyun shouting with her eyes tightly shut.

“It’s all my fault!”

She bowed her head deeply.

“S-sorry. I failed to control my magic….”

Even Yoo Hye-eun, who had been checking on her younger sister, Lee Seung-yeon and Sun Sun-jin, who were still bickering, Seo Han-seong, who had been giggling at his friends, and Han Eun-young, who had been grimacing in the corner and pushing her oppa away.

All of them stopped what they were doing and looked at Park Seo-hyun.

And so did I.

I opened my eyes wide.

I’m not easily surprised, but this was truly unexpected.

Park Seo-hyun was doing something I had wanted to teach her all along.

Recognizing her own mistake.

And remembering that such mistakes are things anyone can make.

Her trembling hands showed just how nervous she was.

“If, if it weren’t for Jin-woo, you guys might have gotten seriously hurt. I’m sorry, really… I’m sorry.”

“……”

“……”

The kids stared blankly at Park Seo-hyun.

“Uh, yeah…”

The longer the silence dragged on, the more anxious Park Seo-hyun became. Then Lee Seung-yeon shrugged his shoulders.

“No one got hurt, so it’s fine.”

“Yeah, right. No one was hurt. It’s not like you did it on purpose.”

Han Seung-yeon chimed in too.

"Huh? It's, it's okay?"

Park Seo-hyun looked flustered, as if this wasn’t the reaction she’d been expecting from her friends.

“I-I failed to control my magic? Do you not understand how dangerous that is?”

So flustered she was, Park Seo-hyun began to sweat coldly as she explained just how terrible things could be if magic control failed.

“You guys could’ve been stuck there, wandering endlessly. You couldn’t see anything, couldn’t tell what was in front of you, couldn’t find anyone. It was a space cut off from reality, so you couldn’t even call for help!”

But despite Park Seo-hyun’s desperate words, the kids just blinked calmly.

Unable to listen anymore, Oh Hyun-wook cut in.

“So. Hey, Park Seo-hyun.”

“Y-yeah?”

“Did you do it on purpose?”

“Of course not!!”

“Then it’s fine.”

“Huh…?”

“Anyone can make a mistake. As long as it wasn’t on purpose, it’s okay.”

I was just as surprised as Park Seo-hyun.

Was Oh Hyun-wook always this generous?

No, more than that, what I had wanted to teach Park Seo-hyun was now unfolding right before my eyes. From my position, this troublesome situation actually saved me a lot of effort, so I should be welcoming it with open arms, yet somehow, it left me feeling unsettled.

Maybe it’s because I felt more like a bystander than a teacher.

When it comes to the growth of major figures like Park Seo-hyun, I feel at ease only when I’m involved. Why is she growing all on her own?

“……”

No, thinking like that makes me sound like a terrible teacher.

I should be celebrating the kids’ growth. But I should still make sure they’re not picking up bad habits, shouldn’t I?

Knowing Park Seo-hyun’s personality, she’s definitely going to have some strange thoughts now.

Why on earth…

The Lantern that lit up the darkness.

Was it because of Choi Jin-woo? Because of him? Or thanks to him?

“Yeah. As long as it wasn’t intentional, it’s fine.”

One by one, voices began to agree with Oh Hyun-wook.

“But isn’t it amazing to even be able to use a spell like that? What kind of spell was that, exactly? That wasn’t the villa, right?”

“Like that would be the villa. Isn’t it a spell similar to subspace? I saw something like that on TV before. They said subspace was derived from a unique magic.”

“Isn’t it like an evolved version of subspace?”

“Since people went in, maybe that’s it. Ah! Then can you put monsters in there too? Wouldn’t that be awesome if you could?”

“Right? Just throw monsters in there and starve them to death!”

Before anyone realized it, Park Seo-hyun’s apology was completely forgotten.

While Park Seo-hyun stared blankly at her friends, Choi Jin-woo leaned in and whispered softly next to her.

“See? I told you everything would be fine.”

So it really was your doing!

Damn it, even Lee Seung-yeon and Kang Tae-woo got close behind my back, and now them too?

Whatever happened, I want to know about it too. How can a teacher not know what’s going on at school?

***

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