Visitors To The Academy City

After the lecture ended and Ro-un left the classroom, Cheon Su-ho and Joo Hee-jun followed behind him.

“Lee Ro-un, that was amazing!”
“You taught better than anyone I know.”

Wasn’t that praise too much?
Joo Hee-jun, the people you know probably include expensive private tutors too, so compare things that can actually be compared.
Ro-un let Joo Hee-jun’s exaggeration pass by and walked while holding his Hyung.

[Pant pant pant pant.]

Ray, held in Ro-un’s arms, stuck out his tongue and wagged his tail energetically.
Seeing his Hyung looking happy, Ro-un held him even closer.
The textbook said that sharing communion with a spirit was important, and just as it said, his Hyung liked being stuck to Ro-un the most.

“Hahahaha! Right. Lee Ro-un. Do you have any thoughts of entering education after graduation?”
“Hey, say something that makes sense. Would Lee Ro-un stay at the academy after graduation? Do you know how many places are trying to take Lee Ro-un? If Lee Ro-un says he’s dropping out, there won’t be just one or two guys flying in from overseas right away.”
“Is that so? Joo Hee-jun. How do you know that?”
“T-there are ways to know things.”

He must have picked up stories circulating among the upper class.
Ro-un ignored the two chattering behind him and kept walking.
While ignoring their conversation, Ro-un reviewed the contents of the lecture.

‘The kids listened more diligently than I expected. They actively asked questions too. They’re not the type to do that though.’

It felt strangely unsettling.
What were they plotting?
The students had merely focused without realizing it because it was the first good lecture they had heard in a long time, but the attitudes and abnormal states Ro-un had experienced from the students until now complicated his thoughts.
In the end, Ro-un’s thoughts reached one conclusion.

‘Did these brats cause trouble somewhere again while I wasn’t around?’

Because they had prior offenses, he suspected them even more.
There were too many suspicious points to pinpoint just one.

“Lee Ro-un! Are you listening?”
“Don’t yell in the hallway.”
“No, I mean. Are you listening to what we said?”

At Ro-un’s sharp glare, Joo Hee-jun hunched his shoulders and answered.

“I’m listening. You’re talking about passage irregularities increasing and how I presented new clearing strategies, right? I don’t know why you’re asking something so obvious.”
“Obvious? A juvenile Awakener rattled off clearing strategies for passages that haven’t even been cleared yet, and you’re calling that obvious? You even know about recent passage trends!”
“Hmm! Lee Ro-un, you’re excellent, so it isn’t strange for you to know recent passage trends. Ah! Come to think of it, Lee Ro-un, you had that item. Was it an item that tells you clearing information for passages?”
“Ah!! Did you secretly enter passages and use that item?!”

As if he had only just remembered, Joo Hee-jun pointed at Ro-un and shouted.
That was why he told him not to yell in the hallway.
Ro-un looked back at Joo Hee-jun with a crooked posture.

“Can’t you be quiet?”
[Woof! Whiiine.]
“Sorry, Hyung. It was loud, wasn’t it? Joo Hee-jun, you’re banned from entering my room.”
“Why?!”

Seriously, he screamed at the top of his lungs over every little thing.
Cheon Su-ho, who had been quietly standing beside them as if thinking about something, finally spoke.

“But Lee Ro-un, you seemed to be thinking about something just now. Is something the matter?”
“The kids listened to class more diligently than I expected. It looked like they definitely had something to feel guilty about, so I was organizing the kinds of trouble our kids might’ve caused.”
“Lee Ro-un. That’s,”
“It seemed to me that everyone listened diligently because your lecture was good, Lee Ro-un.”
“R-right! That’s it!”
“There’s no way those bastards would listen to class diligently.”

It was so correct that Cheon Su-ho also lost his words.
He also knew that the students of this school had rather poor class attitudes.

“Still, Lee Ro-un. Everyone listened diligently to your class, didn’t they?”
“That’s right! Your class was really good! If they’re aiming to debut as pro Awakeners, they couldn’t just let it go in one ear and out the other, could they?”
“Hahahaha! I agree as well. It was useful, Lee Ro-un.”

For once, these two were saying something nice to hear.
Were they flattering him?
Ro-un looked back and forth between the two, then turned around again and walked toward the dormitory.
Cheon Su-ho and Joo Hee-jun lined up on either side of him.

“But Lee Ro-un. Did you truly not receive help from that item when making this class material?”
“I did.”
“What?! Lee Ro-un, you entered and came out of passages by yourself?!”
“Yeah.”
“Y-you, you, you! It’s only been a few days since you started preparing the class materials. You’re saying you went into passages and came back in that time?”
“Entering passages is something I did before that too.”
“That’s dangerous!”
“What’s dangerous about it? I just have to enter the entrance and come back out.”

If he was unlucky, he could have been attacked the moment he entered, but if it was a passage whose clearing strategy he had heard about in the future, it wasn’t dangerous.
The two were taken in by Ro-un’s confident attitude.

“Huh? Is that so?”
“Lee Ro-un, you can’t clear one alone, so of course you would do that!”

Was there a need to say that much?
Ro-un looked at Cheon Su-ho with displeasure.
He had been hanging around with Joo Hee-jun lately and only learned the bad things.

[Woof!]
“Right. Hyung. I only have you.”
“Lee Ro-un. I am here too.”
“Me too!”

Why would I have you?
Ro-un turned and walked with an indifferent face.

“But Lee Ro-un. Am I really banned from entering? Really? For real?”
“Yeah.”
“Why only me?!”
“Hahahaha. It is fine. Lee Ro-un’s kind, so he’ll forgive you.”
“Lee Ro-un is kind?”
“I’m not.”
“See!”
“Shut up. Before I extend the ban, close your mouth.”

Joo Hee-jun could not say anything and followed behind Lee Ro-un with his mouth tightly shut.
At that moment, someone ran over from the end of the hallway.

Dadadadadadada!

“Presideeeeent!”
“I told them not to run in the hallway….”

A fierce light flashed through Lee Ro-un’s eyes.
Joo Hee-jun sent a look telling the guy running this way to stop, not knowing Lee Ro-un’s mood, but the guy seemed not to have Joo Hee-jun in his sights and ran while looking only at Lee Ro-un.

‘Don’t run, walk over here, you bastard!’

Whether Joo Hee-jun was horrified beside him or not, the guy running from the far end of the hallway calling Ro-un had a deathly pale face.

“Presideeent! Presideeeent!”

Ro-un’s eyebrow twitched upward.
Joo Hee-jun, feeling nervous on the runner’s behalf, called Ro-un.

“Uwah, ah. Um, Lee Ro-un.”
“Wait.”

Ro-un stopped Joo Hee-jun, who was about to say something, and stood still in the middle of the hallway.
Let’s see what they did this time to come looking for me like that.

[Whine?]
“I’m not angry at you, Hyung.”

It meant he was angry at someone else.
The only person who understood the meaning hidden between the lines was Joo Hee-jun.

“Lee Ro-un? Why are you angry?”

It seemed Cheon Su-ho had understood too.
However, Cheon Su-ho asked Lee Ro-un directly with a carefree face.
It was only natural that Joo Hee-jun’s face turned a little paler.
And finally, the student who had come running from the far end of the hallway while calling Ro-un stopped in front of him.

“P-president, something terrible happened.”
“I’m not the president. No, I am… Fine. So which bastard is it this time? What did they do?”

Ro-un asked with a gentle smile, as if he was used to it.
Joo Hee-jun saw that face and took a few steps away.

‘It’s over! Whoever gets caught is dead!’

Danger!
Danger!

Alarm bells rang in his head.

“You see. They said our academy students were taken by some other guys!”
“What?”

Who did what?
Joo Hee-jun, who had retreated as if trying to get away from a bomb about to explode, and Cheon Su-ho, who had been listening without knowing anything, both couldn’t immediately accept the words of the student who had run over.
The first to come back to his senses was Lee Ro-un.

“Did another illegal gambling den appear in the city below the mountain? I left them alone for a while, and it seems they crawled back in again.”

They really were as persistent as cockroaches, no matter how many times he had them thrown in.
If they had been taken by the gambling den bastards, then it was probably those seniors who shouted “YOLO.”
Ro-un recalled the faces of a few seniors who often went in and out of gambling dens because of employment stress and raised the corners of his mouth.

“That’s not it!”

It’s not?

“Then who? Did they drink and cause a disturbance or something?”
“N-no! Ever since they did that last time and the president shoved liquor bottles into their mouths saying they should drink all the alcohol they’d ever have in their lives while they were at it, there hasn’t been a single person like that!”

Were you guys actually that thoughtful?
Ro-un looked at the student who came to deliver the message as if slightly surprised.

“Then who exactly was taken, and by whom?”
“Our kids! By guys from another academy!”

Guys from another academy?
At the cause he was hearing for the first time, Ro-un’s focus blurred.
Had something like that happened before the regression too?

“Did they happen to cause trouble somewhere else? As if going down below the mountain to cause trouble wasn’t enough, they went on an expedition to cause trouble?”

Rage filled him in a gradient.
To think they would go so far as to cause trouble on an away trip!

“If that’s the case, tell them to go die. And tell them that if they show up in front of me, they should be prepared to die by my hand.”
“President, I don’t know what you’re thinking right now, but that’s not it!”
“It’s not?”
“Right now, guys from another academy are down below the mountain! Those guys suddenly picked a fight with our kids, and our kids got dragged away by them!”
“Guys from another academy are really here?”

Ro-un asked again, his eyes going round.
There were five academies in Korea in total.
At the other academies, the mood was that they disliked being treated the same as Jiri Academy.
So they never even looked this way at all… but those guys came here?

“That can’t be.”

He didn’t know why those other academy guys had come here, but putting that aside… he told these guys not to cause trouble, and they got dragged away by others?
Who told them they could get dragged away?
Ro-un grimaced at the situation he did not like.

[Whine.]
“Sorry, Hyung. I must’ve tightened my arms without realizing it.”
[Woof!]

Hyung licked his cheek as if saying it was fine.
Whenever Ro-un cried or got angry, Hyung would lick his cheek as if telling him to calm down.
Ro-un’s anger melted away like snow.

“President! I know you’re angry, but this time, we really didn’t do anything. I mean it! They picked a fight first!”

Seeing the guy even tear up from feeling wronged made him feel sick.
He didn’t care about some guy’s tears.
But it was extremely rare for students from another academy to come all the way down here to the edge of the Korean Peninsula and pick a fight.

‘For something that didn’t happen before my regression to happen again right after I realized the future had changed.’

It was annoying, but he would have to find out why they had come down.

“So. Where did those guys come from?”
“They’re from Bukhan Mountain!”

Flinch!

The guy in front answered, but the reaction came from the guy behind him.
Ro-un ignored the reaction that happened behind him.
There was something more important than that.

‘Why did the guys from Bukhan Academy, the most arrogant among the other academies, come here? They were people who never even glanced this way.’

What in the world had brought them down here?
While Ro-un organized his thoughts, the student stamping his feet in front of him could not hold back and grabbed Ro-un’s sleeve.

“Anyway, now isn’t the time for this! They said they won’t leave our guys alone!”

Ro-un stopped thinking about the reason and spoke.

“Fine. Let’s go there and think.”
“We have to hurry!”
“Lee Ro-un. I’ll help.”
“Huh?”

Cheon Su-ho grabbed Lee Ro-un and put him on his back.

“Wait,”

While Lee Ro-un, who had floated up and somehow settled on Cheon Su-ho’s back, was feeling bewildered, Cheon Su-ho circulated mana through his body.

“Hold on tight, Lee Ro-un.”
“What?”

Without giving him time to ask back, Cheon Su-ho launched himself through an open window and flew through the air with Lee Ro-un on his back.
A feeling of floating washed over Ro-un.
Cheon Su-ho, you damn colt-like bastard!

“Hey, heeey! Wait for us!”

Behind them, the student who had come to look for Ro-un and Joo Hee-jun could be seen hurriedly climbing over the window.
Without even thinking of taking care of those two, Ro-un tightly held his Hyung with one hand and Cheon Su-ho’s shoulder with the other, pressing his body close.

‘Just wait until we land, Cheon Su-ho!’

Cheon Su-ho went down the mountain as if flying like a bird released from its shackles.

After the <Otherworld Invasion>, Awakeners established themselves as another ruling class.
Through the byproducts Awakeners brought back after clearing passages and the new civilizations discovered inside passages, humanity faced an enormous upheaval.

「Awakener Tax Benefit Bill Proposed」
「A New Security Framework, How Many High-Ranking Awakeners Do We Possess?」
「Proud Korean Awakeners Who Ranked in the Top 100 Awakeners」
「Are Awakeners the Advertising Models Preferred by Major Corporations?」
「What Do You Want to Be in the Future? 1st Place. Awakener 2nd Place. Content Creator 3rd Place…」

As a result, society was reorganized to fit the emergence of a new power holder called Awakeners.
Real estate prices around where high-ranking Awakeners lived soared through the roof, and products they wore or used sold out in an instant.
Of course, there weren’t only good things.

「S-rank Awakener ‘Poet of the Wind’ Kwak Min-han, Family Business Caught on Suspicion of Tax Evasion」
「School Violence Controversy Involving the Child of a High-Ranking Awakener」
「Gaeseong D-rank Passage Accident, 1 Dead and 5 Seriously Injured」
「Awakener A Causes Disturbance at Incheon Airport」
「Again! Another Awakener Crime!」
「Awakener Arrested in Uijeongbu on Charges of Attempted Murder of a Civilian」

An Awakener with immense power was themselves a weapon and a being capable of causing mass slaughter.
There were those who used that power for good, but there were also people who used it in bad ways.
Opinions on Awakeners were divided, but everyone agreed on one perception.

‘Awakeners make money.’

Even low-ranking Awakeners lived better lives than part-timers.
That was because they received life-risking hazard pay, and if they died while clearing a passage, the state paid out a pension.
Since Awakeners were directly tied to national security, it was one of the benefits the state offered to keep Awakeners.
In that way, areas connected to Awakeners were always bustling.
The same was true of the areas around places where young Awakeners stayed.

“For a while, the Jiri guys showed up often, but these days, we barely see them around.”
“They started showing up often after the rumor that the Saint was going to drop out of the academy.”
“The Saint must have gotten sick of them too. He tried to chase those problem children around and reform them.”
“I can understand.”
“He suffered a lot by himself.”

The people living in the academy city that had formed together with Jiri Academy glanced at the mountainside where the academy was located and spoke.

“Is the Saint really trying to drop out?”
“Surely not.”
“That’s right! The Saint stopped chasing the other students around, but he’s still at the academy.”
“But after that rumor spread, the number of foreigners here increased.”
“They’re all overseas scouts, right?”
“It seems even more foreigners increased because of the sudden passage incident in Seocho-dong a few days ago.”

The people of Jiri Academy City grew gloomy.

“It would be nice if those guys came to their senses even now.”

In the direction the people were looking, students wearing Jiri Academy’s black uniforms passed by.
Seeing them out and about even though they should have been at the academy right now made it impossible not to feel pathetic.
Someone visiting the academy city saw that sight.
Young men and women wearing white uniforms that looked as if they would not tolerate being stained picked up on the surrounding people’s words and put their heads together.

“As expected, it seems there’s no one worth anything in that place except the Saint.”
“I really don’t understand. Why in the world is the Saint stuck in a mountain valley like this?”
“I can’t understand either.”
“We’ll use this chance to bring the Saint to our academy!”

The four young men and women steeled their resolve.

“Then let’s go. To save the Saint!”

This was something that happened while Lee Ro-un was in the middle of lecturing.