“This is all part of your training.”
“T-training?”
Tak, tak.
I walked over to where the country’s number-one Hunter stood and stopped directly in front of him. Then I raised my index finger.
“Do you know what the common problem among Korea’s S-rank Hunters is?”
“Yes?”
“They don’t cooperate with each other.”
“...”
“Because you’re S-ranks, your innate awakening stats are so high that your skills end up harming your teammates. That’s more or less why none of you have ever managed to form a proper team.”
Of course, one of the S-ranks had a personality problem rather than a skill problem, but let’s set that aside for now.
“So we’re going to practice. At the moment, I’ve adjusted my physical barrier to be as weak as an F-rank Hunter’s.”
Swish.
I showed him the back of my burned hand.
“From now on, every time we meet, we’ll also train you to make sure I don’t get caught in your skills. Understood?”
Then I added confidently,
“Of course, I’m not really an F-rank, so don’t worry. A wound like this doesn’t hurt me.”
In other words, I would personally serve as a living target to improve the precision of his skills.
That should explain away my poor defense.
“W-wait a minute! No matter what, how can you use your own body for something so dangerous...?”
“Well, I think you’re misunderstanding something.”
I cut him off and spoke firmly.
“Just so we’re clear, this isn’t optional. It’s a requirement. Sorry, but I have no intention of working with a Hunter who can’t even manage this.”
“...”
“If you really want to team up with me, then take responsibility for fixing these shortcomings. Don’t avoid the problem.”
Yes.
This was the excuse I had prepared.
“Besides, I haven’t acknowledged you in the slightest yet, so revealing all my resources to someone at your level would be a little...”
“Hunter-nim.”
“Do you understand what I’m saying? I mean it’s still too early for me to reveal the full extent of my awakened abilities.”
I won’t reveal my true strength until you’ve reached a level worthy of my recognition!
It was an incredibly arrogant thing to say, but surely the young guild master could understand the logic behind it?
“Just hold out a little longer. If we really do end up working together later, you’ll naturally learn about my abilities then, won’t you?”
After all, Jung Haseong was a proud Hunter who had kept his guild as a one-man organization precisely because he claimed there was no one competent enough to stand beside him.
***
Come to think of it, Jung Haseong’s life was rather unfortunate.
He lost his father at a young age and grew up with only his mother...
Well, considering that mother and son had a close relationship, perhaps that alone wasn’t enough to call his childhood miserable.
But after the Gates appeared, a student who had once dreamed of becoming a veterinarian ended up walking the path of a Hunter, slaughtering all kinds of beasts instead.
And then his only remaining family member fell into a coma because of a modern incurable illness known as magic addiction.
Honestly, if Haseong-ssi became embroiled in some sort of scandal, there probably wouldn’t be a single person in this country who could sleep peacefully.
And that wasn’t even mentioning the severe pressure he had been under until recently.
The Korean Hunter Association had frequently used absurd arguments to ensure that S-rank power was always used for the public good.
Their favorite tactic was to say things like,
“If you, an S-rank, refuse to act, countless people will die.”
In reality, the ones actually killing people were the monsters pouring out of dungeons.
Yet public opinion was stirred up as though disasters happened because awakened Hunters were lazy or selfish.
And just when he had finally begun escaping the effects of that gaslighting, an alien had come along and set his sights on his bank account.
“Jung Haseong-ssi, you still haven’t understood my intentions.”
How could that not be called an unfortunate life?
If Jung Haseong had possessed even a slightly more suspicious personality, perhaps things would have turned out better for him.
But he wasn’t that sort of person.
If anything, he was exactly the kind of man most likely to fall for Kim Giryeo’s empty bravado.
The constant threats.
And the shocking behavior Kim Giryeo had shown in the Labyrinth of the 13th Month.
Thanks to all the seeds that had been planted over time, a very specific image of Kim Giryeo had already taken root in Haseong’s mind.
Come to your senses, Haseong-ah! Damn it!
With skills like that, are you really worried people will treat you like a monster? Isn’t that a little arrogant?
Stop fooling around with that insignificant power.
Those were all words Jung Haseong had heard from the other man.
If you thought about it objectively, every single one of them amounted to verbal abuse.
Yet strangely enough, those very words had caused Haseong to develop goodwill toward him.
Compared to the sycophants who showered him with empty praise simply because he was ranked number one, those merciless criticisms had actually been more useful.
‘Come to think of it, it was thanks to that person’s honesty that I managed to come to my senses and receive treatment.’
Of course, everything had unfolded exactly according to someone else’s intentions.
Speaking recklessly to an S-rank Hunter was an extremely effective way to disguise the speaker’s own weakness.
He can treat the country’s top-ranked Hunter like that because he’s no ordinary person!
Anyone who didn’t know the truth could easily interpret the shameless behavior of an F-rank in completely the wrong way.
And Jung Haseong was no exception.
Kim Giryeo must be powerful enough to look down even on other S-ranks.
Without that assumption, it was difficult to explain the behavior the man had displayed until now.
“So we’ll practice. At the moment, I’ve adjusted my physical barrier to be as weak as an F-rank Hunter’s.”
“...”
“From now on, whenever we meet, we’ll also train you to make sure I don’t get caught in your skills. Understood?”
Jung Haseong firmly believed that Korea’s fourth S-class was overwhelmingly powerful.
Because of that, he felt no particular discomfort with the idea of working to gain finer control over the talent he had been born with.
If anyone looked only at the sheer amount of time he had spent training until now, no one could ever claim that his effort had been lacking.
“Still... even so, if we train like this...”
But even Haseong had one thing he simply couldn’t trust.
“Hunter Kim Giryeo will get hurt... You’ll be burned every time.”
The hero did not trust himself.
As the blond Hunter had repeatedly pointed out, Jung Haseong was an awakened individual whose control over his own ability was severely lacking.
‘This is insane.’
But had he ever wanted to live this way?
From the moment he awakened, Jung Haseong had invested an enormous amount of effort into mastering the magic he had been born with.
No one could possibly call the time he had spent training insufficient.
Yet no matter how much he practiced, he had never been able to fully rein in that volcanic heat.
‘And besides, that Hunter doesn’t even seem to have the same attribute as me.’
In that situation, was it truly possible for him to learn to wield his flames without burning someone as physically fragile as an ordinary person?
The longer he thought about it, the more his confidence in himself eroded.
Eventually, Haseong asked,
“Can I really achieve something like that just by learning your secret technique?”
At those words, the blond man quietly turned toward him.
***
If it couldn’t be done, then he would simply make it possible.
Giryeo listened to Haseong’s question and thought for a moment.
His plan to fix the problem of S-rank Hunters—whose absurdly high awakening stats caused their skills to affect allies and made teamwork difficult—was not a lie.
‘It benefits me too.’
Did he think Giryeo had begun this deal purely for money?
In truth, training the S-classes was something this alien would eventually have needed to do regardless.
No matter how skilled the magicians of Earth might appear, in the eyes of the Archmage they were still little more than helpless infants.
Even if Giryeo eventually recovered his original strength after repairing his lungs, he had absolutely no intention of working himself to the bone for the sake of Earthlings.
“Hmm.”
This was an investment of sorts.
If he properly raised a Hunter like Jung Haseong now, life in Korea would become much safer for him in the distant future.
‘Come to think of it, there’s really no reason for me to personally deal with the Gisimche problem. If I interfere on my own, it might only turn into a massive headache...’
He could leave the conquest of Gates to the other S-classes, retreat somewhere into the countryside, and live a quiet, leisurely life.
That was the ideal plan.
And so Giryeo hardened his resolve once again.
He had to polish the man standing before him until he became genuinely useful.
And the first thing that needed fixing was obvious.
“Haseong-ah, do you know why S-class skills cause so much secondary damage?”
Rather than answering his disciple’s question directly, Giryeo introduced a new topic.
He continued passing on his knowledge.
“It’s because you awakened an inhuman amount of mana all at once, while the precision of your control remained far lower than everyone else’s.”
“Precision?”
“For example, suppose you tried to create a flame this large.”
Giryeo extended his index finger.
“The amount of magic you’d actually release would be closer to this.”
Then he placed his right hand behind the extended finger.
A single finger and an entire palm.
The difference in area was obvious.
“You’re unconsciously releasing mana you don’t even need. That waste is what causes the side effects.”
“Waste...”
“You could also call it dispersion. That might be easier to understand.”
As he spoke, Giryeo fiddled with the collar of his shirt.
Hanging there was a low-grade magical artifact worth 50 million won.
“This is only my personal opinion, but if we can control that dispersion, then forming teams between S-classes should become fairly easy.”
The black-haired awakened man visibly reacted to those words.
“Of course, no matter how precise your control becomes, if you mess up when defining a skill’s area of effect, your teammates will still get burned.”
“...Ugh.”
“But the techniques I’m going to teach you can help prevent that as well, so don’t worry.”
“Really?”
“If you stop wasting the mana that currently scatters and disappears, you’ll naturally have surplus energy left over.”
Kim Giryeo’s explanation flowed effortlessly.
That was only natural.
He had once been a magician with countless accomplishments to his name.
And beyond that, his soul had accumulated enough magical knowledge to deserve the word monster.
“You can redirect that wasted mana toward defense. That way, S-classes can avoid harming their teammates while also protecting themselves from each other’s secondary effects.”
Then shall we begin the first real step?
[Session 1: Conscious Positioning of Magic]
Giryeo finally began putting into practice the meticulously designed curriculum he had created for the nation’s hero.
As time passed, Haseong’s emotions began changing rapidly.
Admiration.
And anticipation.
Fortunately, the alien’s teaching had a positive effect on Haseong as well.
‘Hmm. Judging from his reaction, even an S-rank seems to find 3 billion won in cash per month a little burdensome. In that case, maybe 5 billion is about the highest I can raise the tuition.’
At that moment, the F-rank Hunter, busily tapping away at the calculator inside his head, quietly swallowed a sinister laugh.
‘Let’s squeeze him dry for about six months. After that, I can always find some excuse to break off the promise of teaming up.’
As should already be obvious, Kim Giryeo had absolutely no intention of honoring the collaboration proposal he had made.
“Just hold on a little longer. If we really end up working together later, you’ll naturally learn about my abilities then, won’t you?”
In truth, every word of that was a lie.
Working alongside a top-tier Hunter?
Logically speaking, there was no way an F-rank like me could even consider such a thing.
‘Pretending to be an S-class while standing beside a real one is far too dangerous.’
The fundamental condition of this training contract was that once the apprentice, Jung Haseong, became skilled enough to earn Kim Giryeo’s recognition, the two of them would begin working together as a team.
But that also meant that if Giryeo simply kept delaying that recognition, he would never become obligated to work with Haseong at all.
And honestly, even if the contract ended that way, Jung Haseong wouldn’t exactly be suffering a serious loss.
It might have begun as a scam, but the conclusion would still be heartwarming enough:
I finally learned how to control my magic safely.
Anyway,
‘Who said I wouldn’t teach him? I’ll work exactly as much as I’m being paid for~ A person has to have a conscience, after all.’
Once Haseong’s control improved enough for him to cooperate safely with other S-ranks, Giryeo planned to connect him with someone like Esther and then quietly slip away.
It was a perfect roadmap.
Giryeo, having thoroughly justified his own deceitful behavior, sank into a brief moment of self-satisfaction.
‘And if I use forming a team as an excuse, I might even be able to squeeze money out of Esther later... This completely solves all my financial problems!’
Hahaha!
But at that moment, he had no idea what consequences awaited him.
He couldn’t possibly know what kind of repercussions his careless scheme would eventually bring.
Blindness and anxiety.
His new apprentice looked upright and dependable on the outside, but in truth, he possessed a genetic tendency to sink far too easily into absurdly negative thoughts.