Chapter 9

Chapter 9

His panting shoulders rose and fell sharply. He tried to say something more, but whether his anger had risen all the way to his throat, all he could do was repeat, “That man is seriously! Seriously!”

Then Lee Seong-ha, who had entered as quietly as a shadow behind Kang Hoon, answered as if it were nothing.

“Who are you calling ‘that man’? So rude.”

He was wearing an aqua-colored shirt and black slacks. His outfit was neat and refined, but the way he sat on the sofa with his back straight and the composure of his gestures somehow brought to mind an ascetic priest in a black cassock.

“You, Hyung! You! Seriously!”

Kang Hoon now clutched his face with both hands and reacted with his whole body in utter disgust. At that desperate gesture, Go Gyeol held back the laugh that almost slipped out and turned his head to look at Lee Seong-ha.

“What did you do to make the kid like that?”

“Nothing?”

Lee Seong-ha asked back without so much as twitching an eyebrow. That calm word seemed to become the fuse, and Kang Hoon exploded.

“Nothing? Nothing?! What do you mean, you didn’t do anything?!”

He took a crumpled sheet of paper from his chest and slammed it onto the desk with a bang. When Go Gyeol picked up the paper indifferently, tightly packed letters entered his eyes.

[Kang Hoon Lifestyle Improvement Plan]

05:00 AM ~ 05:10 AM Wake up and stretch

05:10 AM ~ 06:00 AM 5km jog (including interval training)

06:00 AM ~ 07:00 AM Home training (strength training by day of the week)

07:00 AM ~ 07:30 AM Breakfast (high-protein, low-sodium meal) and school preparation

...

As Go Gyeol skimmed the contents, a faint smile spread across his lips.

“You’re laughing right now? Even when I lived with my parents, I didn’t live like this!”

When Kang Hoon shouted as if in despair, Lee Seong-ha, sitting on the sofa, nodded coldly.

“That’s exactly why your body is like that. You’re always sitting or lying around, so your stamina is at rock bottom. How are you going to compete properly anywhere with that kind of mental strength?”

“Then what about studying! Fine, I’ll give you the exercise part a hundred times over, but what’s with this insane amount of studying?!”

Below the murderous morning workout schedule, the after-school routine came into view.

02:00 PM ~ 04:00 PM Practical class at the Hunter Administration training ground

04:00 PM ~ 06:00 PM Advanced math problem-solving (two past CSAT sets)

06:00 PM ~ 07:00 PM Dinner and English vocabulary memorization (150 words)

07:00 PM ~ 09:00 PM Korean Language nonfiction passage analysis and essay prep

09:00 PM ~ 11:00 PM Science inquiry online lecture and wrong-answer note organization

11:00 PM ~ 11:10 PM Prepare for bed (secure required 6 hours of sleep)

It was a timetable one could believe belonged to a college entrance exam repeater.

“I’m not some state exam candidate! How am I supposed to handle a schedule like this! Do you think this makes any sense?!”

“What’s impossible about it? You’ve been doing it well so far.”

When Lee Seong-ha shrugged, Kang Hoon thumped his own chest and said,

“What do you think, Go Gyeol-hyung? This is too much, isn’t it?”

Just as Go Gyeol smiled faintly, Lee Seong-ha clicked his tongue.

“There’s something you’re misunderstanding. I’m not the one who made that.”

Kang Hoon looked at Go Gyeol with wide eyes, like someone who had been betrayed.

“No need to look at me like that. It’s all for your own good.”

“For my own good?! This is abuse!”

“Hey. Right now, you might somehow get by with your talent, but do you think that will last your whole life? If you don’t have solid fundamentals, you’re bound to collapse eventually. An ignorant bastard who carries his head around as a decoration can’t become a proper professional no matter what he does. It’s all for your own good. Besides, do you think the world will stay like this forever? If the Tower disappears someday, and your Hunter abilities vanish overnight, what are you going to do for a living?”

Lee Seong-ha’s voice was quiet, but it carried strong persuasiveness.

“You don’t know this, but Hunter work isn’t simple labor where you just beat up monsters and call it a day. Every step, from identifying a monster’s weakness to using the terrain and coordinating with your teammates, requires precise calculation and preparation. An ignorant Hunter who carries his head around as a decoration dies first in the end. It’s all for your own good.”

“Stop doing things for my own good!”

At Kang Hoon’s shout, Lee Seong-ha merely shrugged. There was not the slightest compromise or agitation in that movement.

“I’m the type who does my best at the work I’ve been given. If you’re that dissatisfied, complain to the person who ordered all this.”

When the arrow returned to him, Go Gyeol propped up his chin as if he found it interesting. With all hope gone, Kang Hoon now looked up at Go Gyeol with the eyes of someone searching for a savior, as if he might drop to his knees at any moment. On that pitiful face, the six words “Please save me, I beg you” were written clearly.

“You’re in Hunter High, aren’t you?”

“Yes!!”

In that instant, hope appeared on Kang Hoon’s face.

“Then let’s add to the schedule. Introduction to monster linguistics, magical engineering theory, Dungeon terrain analysis, and Hunter-related laws.”

“Hyung!”

The expression on Kang Hoon’s face said that the axe he had trusted had cut his own foot. His face went pale. On the other hand, Lee Seong-ha stroked his chin seriously and nodded.

“Should we? I thought basic stamina and basic knowledge came first.”

“Yeah. In the beginning, like you said, he can endure with talent, but the higher he climbs, the more he’ll have to use his head. We need to make him dig into specialized fields like these.”

“Aaaaaaah!”

Seeing the two of them discuss his future education plan so seriously, Kang Hoon eventually tore at his hair in despair. Seeing that, Go Gyeol set down the plan and finally burst into laughter.

“Don’t follow the schedule too strictly. Give him proper breaks and things like that. What are you going to do if he runs away?”

“Let him try running. I’ll very kindly let him experience the process I used to reform all the delinquent students I was assigned before.”

For some reason, a chill could be felt in Lee Seong-ha’s gentle voice, and Kang Hoon shuddered without realizing it.

“How is he at learning?”

At Go Gyeol’s question, Lee Seong-ha leaned back against the sofa, and the training scene that had just ended flashed through his mind.

---

BANG—!

Training Ground 3 of the Hunter Administration training facility. The floor where Kang Hoon had been standing until just moments ago was crushed down by an invisible force. He threw himself away with beastlike reflexes to avoid the attack, then gasped roughly, drenched in sweat.

“Fuck… are you seriously trying to kill me?!”

From the control room on one side of the training ground, beyond the reinforced glass, Lee Seong-ha mocked him into the microphone.

“Slow, brat. If this were real combat, your waist would already be folded in half.”

When he flicked his finger like a conductor, the gravity fields throughout the training ground changed. One moment Kang Hoon’s body suddenly became heavy as if it weighed a thousand geun, and the next moment it became light as a feather, making it hard even to keep his balance.

“Getting cocky just because you cleared a single D-Grade Dungeon. Learn the fundamentals again, the fundamentals!”

Lee Seong-ha was merciless. He fired one 'Gravity Bullet(Gravity Bullet)' after another at Kang Hoon, who was barely passing between obstacles generated by holograms. Spheres of invisible pressure. Kang Hoon had to predict and evade their trajectories using only his hearing and the faint currents of air felt against his skin.

CLANG—! CRUNCH—!

The Gravity Bullets he failed to dodge struck the walls and obstacles with thunderous noise. Kang Hoon gritted his teeth, crawled across the floor, kicked off walls, and twisted his body in midair. His movements were unrefined, but they were filled with raw survival instinct. Without a single Skill, he was enduring the training with only his trained body and animal-like senses.

“Get up! It’s not over yet!”

Beneath Kang Hoon’s feet, as he faltered for a moment, Lee Seong-ha spread an even stronger 'Gravity Swamp(Gravity Swamp).' A horrible sensation, as if his feet were stuck to the floor. The moment Kang Hoon struggled to escape, Lee Seong-ha was already standing behind him.

“I told you. The bastard who looks away on the battlefield dies first.”

Along with that cold voice, a light touch pushed Kang Hoon’s back. But inside it was pressure weighing hundreds of kilograms.

“Kheuk!”

Kang Hoon could not even scream and was slammed straight into the floor. His breath caught, and it felt as if every bone in his body was creaking.

“……This crazy old geezer….”

Sprawled spread-eagle on the floor, Kang Hoon barely spat out the curse. He was at his limit. He did not have the strength left to move even a finger.

Lee Seong-ha looked down at him indifferently, then pressed the training end button. Only when the brutal pressure disappeared could Kang Hoon finally breathe properly.

“…It’s… over now, right…?”

“For today.”

Lee Seong-ha answered briefly and left the training ground. His student looked like a complete mess, sprawled out in ruins, but a faint satisfaction lingered in his eyes.

---

Lee Seong-ha leaned back on the sofa, organized the memory from moments ago, and answered.

“He’s not bad. Fundamentally, his movements are good. He follows training pretty well too. I think he could clear a D-Grade alone.”

“Without Skills?”

At Go Gyeol’s sharp question, Lee Seong-ha nodded.

“Yeah. Without Skills. For someone from the Witch line, both his strength and agility stats are at the level of a B-Grade combat Awakened.”

Go Gyeol stroked his chin as if intrigued.

“Hm. Oh. He’s more of a find than I thought.”

Kang Hoon, who had been perfectly excluded from the conversation the entire time, finally could not endure it and frowned.

“Um… isn’t it kind of wrong to say that openly in front of the person himself?”

“Not at all?”

“Not particularly?”

At the two answers that came without the slightest hesitation, Kang Hoon let out a sigh.

At the answers of the two men, who showed not the slightest hesitation, Kang Hoon let out a deep sigh. He felt as though he understood now. Why two people who seemed to have completely opposite dispositions went around together. The two of them did not seem to possess the concept of consideration toward others at all.

“No, but how did someone like that become a priest? Isn’t that blasphemy?”

Kang Hoon tilted his head and was pondering “Lee Seong-ha’s priestly appointment,” a mystery that rivaled the Seven Wonders of the Continent, when it happened.

“The problem is, his danger-sensing ability is at a disastrous level. That’s something he has no choice but to learn by rolling around in real combat.”

“Hm. Then should we roll him around right now? A clear request alarm for the Clocktower of Stopped Time just appeared from the Hunter Administration.”

“Good idea. If it’s D-Grade, he probably won’t die even if we throw him in alone. Let’s go.”

In an instant, every stray thought filling Kang Hoon’s head vanished as if cut away by a knife. Like a stiff gearwheel, he forced his frozen neck to turn and looked at the two men.

“…You’re joking, right?”

“No. It’s practical education.”

While Lee Seong-ha grinned as if amused, Go Gyeol was tapping his laptop a few times. With a “beep-,” a reservation complete notification appeared.

“Reservation complete. The briefing starts in 5 minutes. Get ready.”

“Hey! You crazy bastards!!”