Chapter 50

35. Alma Mater (1)

I remember the first day I went to school.

I recall sitting alone in a secluded, shaded spot, as if it were the most natural thing, while some of the new students, accompanied by their parents and siblings, took photos, laughed, and talked about their future.

There was someone already in that spot.

A boy who shared my loneliness.

Was he also a new student?

“What’s your name?”

He spoke first.

Though I wasn’t particularly outgoing, I smiled at him because the boy next to me looked so timid and depressed.

He barely met my eyes, his gaze filled with fear, and then averted it, whispering his name in a barely audible voice.

“...Kang Hanmin.”

I felt intrigued by his timidity, or perhaps I felt a slight sense of superiority typical of adolescence, and for a moment, I forgot the miserable reality around me, smiling at him.

“That’s a strong-sounding name. I’m Park Kyu. My surname is Park, and my given name is Kyu.”

He was the first school friend I ever made.

Despite his name, Kang Hanmin was weak-willed, and his physical strength and skills were below average.

At first, I tried to help him, but perhaps due to the Spartan atmosphere prevalent in the school, I eventually turned my back on him, as he showed no signs of improvement.

Perhaps my young self, just beginning to form, was strongly influenced by the teachings of my mentor.

“People can make mistakes. No one is perfect. But we, the Hunters, cannot afford to make mistakes. Our enemies are not human. To face non-human entities, we must shed some of the trivial aspects of our humanity.”

Jang Gi-yeong, a first-generation Hunter and a former soldier, was a man of illustrious career, known as a hero.

Many students aspired to be his disciples, drawn by his reputation, but Jang Gi-yeong was a picky and nervous instructor.

He demanded perfection, a virtue that humans rarely possess.

Excessive training and harsh criticism were the norm, and he would go to any lengths to expel students he deemed below his standards.

“Kang Hanmin. Is it you again?”

“Kang Hanmin. Aren’t you ashamed of your teammates? Because of you, your teammates and team members have been penalized.”

“Kang Hanmin!”

Kang Hanmin was a constant target of Jang Gi-yeong’s attacks.

In Jang Gi-yeong’s eyes, Kang Hanmin was a defective product that should never bear the label of a Hunter.

Eventually, Jang Gi-yeong issued an ultimatum to Kang Hanmin in front of everyone.

“Kang Hanmin. You are not needed in my class. If you have a conscience, if you have a heart, walk out on your own.”

Kang Hanmin did not leave.

He was more resolute than he appeared.

Perhaps he hated monsters as much as I did.

Jang Gi-yeong’s harassment and criticism only intensified, but Kang Hanmin stubbornly held on until the school year changed.

I will never forget Jang Gi-yeong’s expression and words when Kang Hanmin barely passed the final exam.

When Kang Hanmin, using a hologram, pretended to shoot a Necromancer-type monster, then entered the reverse field and split it in half with a high-powered shotgun, Jang Gi-yeong, who had been nervously crossing his arms, uncrossed them, shook his head, and muttered,

“That guy will eventually harm us! I guarantee it!”

It didn’t seem like Jang Gi-yeong had any prophetic abilities.

Given that he couldn’t even predict his own fate, it was unlikely.

“About Jang Gi-yeong.”

Time passed, and we were in China.

During the days when I was carefully gathering data while keeping an eye on the Chinese government, the then-healthy Woo Minhee suddenly handed me a high-powered shotgun’s buckshot and said,

“Did you hear that his career is a complete lie?”

“What?”

“His old comrades who fought alongside him exposed it. Jang Gi-yeong, they say, didn’t even fight with an axe against the monsters; he cowered and cried like an ostrich, burying his head.”

Jang Gi-yeong could be so cruel to Kang Hanmin because he was a hero.

He had the qualifications to berate and belittle others so openly.

Even the axe, my primary close-combat weapon, was heavily influenced by Jang Gi-yeong’s heroic tales.

According to the now half-legendary story, when a crack appeared in the Gochang area of North Jeolla Province, Jang Gi-yeong and other soldiers stood up to protect the citizens from the monsters.

The soldiers were helpless against the monsters’ ability to reflect bullets, and the dead soldiers began to rise and attack the living.

The defense forces were quickly annihilated, and the two tanks were destroyed by the reflective field, forcing the survivors to flee.

In that hell, Captain Jang Gi-yeong made a decision.

He discarded his weapons, feigned death, and waited for the monsters to come close.

He glared at the fire axe lying nearby.

When the monster finally approached, Jang Gi-yeong rose, axe in hand, and with superhuman skill, “felled” it.

This is the beginning of Jang Gi-yeong’s heroic legend.

The legend spread widely through the media, and no one doubted it.

Jang Gi-yeong was a typical elite soldier who had completed the difficult training program of the North American special forces with high scores and had a story of knocking out a towering black soldier in a bar who was 40 cm taller than him.

Most importantly, when the reinforcements arrived, the monsters that had appeared in the crack were completely gone.

All that remained were Jang Gi-yeong and several zombies he had felled with his axe.

Even as the reinforcements arrived, Jang Gi-yeong, with the strength to knock out a towering American soldier, felled two more zombies with his axe.

It would have been hard to doubt his heroic deeds in that situation.

“The monsters probably didn’t attack him because he had lost his fighting spirit and did nothing. As you know, monsters can sense human hostility and react to it. You didn’t feel that, right? I’m a bit different from you.”

At the time, I took it as an extension of Woo Minhee’s usual complaints, which had expanded from her colleagues and the Chinese to her mentor.

Though not to the extent of Kang Hanmin, Woo Minhee was one of the students Jang Gi-yeong disliked.

Jang Gi-yeong’s favorite disciples were me and Kim Daran.

He publicly praised Kim Daran more than me, but that was because she had reached the highest level a normal person could achieve.

The one he truly considered his persona was only me, Park Kyu.

“Yeah, that’s how you do it. That’s how you swing an axe.”

In the past, the weapon used to fight monsters inside a reflective field was a high-powered grenade.

Actually, this was more destructive, easier to use, and less dangerous than an axe.

However, the monsters seemed to have developed a new ability to detonate the Hunters’ explosive weapons in close combat.

This new ability, called “detonation,” led to the deaths of many Hunters, who had their fingers torn off, holes in their chests, or were mutilated beyond recognition.

To counter this, humanity developed new weapons using separated propellants, which were not explosive until the moment of ignition, but even these were not safe from detonation.

Some monsters could detonate the separated propellants the moment they combined and became explosive.

To address this, new Hunter equipment was developed, which was faster to fuse, more powerful, and more convenient, but traditional cold weapons remained free from this guessing game.

Jang Gi-yeong was the most fervent advocate of cold weapons.

He particularly believed that the axe, which made him a hero, was the best of all weapons.

“The axe is the superior weapon. Just like I did 15 years ago.”

I learned everything from him.

Though he was a cold, strict, and picky instructor, his vast knowledge and excellent skills shaped who I am today.

However, his insistence on using an axe in close combat was a bit puzzling.

Why an axe when there were other good weapons available?

The techniques he taught me with the axe had some flaws, and many of them were acrobatic and difficult to use in real combat, leading me to wonder if they were imagined.

In real combat, I realized that his axe techniques were not very effective against monsters.

Jang Gi-yeong assumed that monsters in close combat were extremely fast, agile, and relentless, but the monsters I faced were more like moving trees than animals, as he had described them as “felled.”

When I used an axe to fell my first monster, Jang Gi-yeong was the first to contact me.

“So, Park Kyu. How was it? My techniques? Was the close-combat tactic using the axe effective?”

At that time, I was extremely tired, many of my classmates had died in the battlefield, and I had an interview with a Chinese investigator scheduled, so I fudged my answer.

“It seems to be fine.”

Jang Gi-yeong seemed very pleased.

Finally, I saw him after the era of the old-school Hunters had passed and his past misconduct became controversial, leading him to step down.

The former hero lived in a tiny rented apartment.

If he had retired from his position as principal, he might have kept his wealth, but he was involved in many lawsuits and lived a modest life.

He had a wife and children, but he seemed to have been as harsh to his family as he was to his students.

The small house, which was barely visible, showed no signs of anyone else living there.

“Park Kyu, is that you? Come in. It’s a humble place, but I can offer you a cup of tea.”

There was only one chair at the table, so he had to bring over the chair from his computer.

While he was making coffee, I saw his computer screen.

He had a word processor open and was writing a long text.

I couldn’t see what he was writing due to the distance, but I could easily recognize the mark in the bottom right corner of the screen.

[ WINDOWS Genuine Activation ]

[ Please go to settings to activate your WINDOWS Genuine ]

“...Yeah.”

Jang Gi-yeong brought out the coffee.

“Was my technique effective?”

I hesitated.

Should I tell the truth, or should I comfort my mentor with pleasant words?

Suddenly, Kang Hanmin’s face flashed before my eyes.

Kang Hanmin, who was cornered by Jang Gi-yeong’s constant criticism, often appeared in front of me with a look of hope as I returned to the dormitory.

What did I do back then?

I threw him a soulless consolation.

“It’ll be fine. If you work a little harder, Principal Jang will see you again.”

Throwing a similar consolation to Jang Gi-yeong was not just a coincidence.

“Yes, it seemed to be effective.”

Jang Gi-yeong was pleased, even with the soulless praise.

His harsh eyes glistened with moisture.

It seemed he had been struggling quite a bit.

“I think I’ve developed a way to become an Awakened.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes. Zombies. Zombies are human mutations, right? When human life activity stops, the mutation factor adheres to the corpse and infuses it with otherworldly energy. I’m using that. I put a person in a near-death state, making the mutation factor think the person is dead and activate! Then, I revive them! With otherworldly powers, perhaps even the mental abilities of an Awakened and an immortal body could be born!”

Seeing my former strict instructor casually spout such crazy talk was deeply disappointing.

I stood up to leave, but the instructor’s story continued.

“...People call me a fraud, but I saw it. The true nature of the monsters. There is a leader among the monsters. There is definitely a commanding entity!”

“Do you mean the General type?”

“What’s the General type?”

He seemed unaware of the new entity.

Given that I discovered it two months ago, and he had retired a year ago, it made sense.

My discovery seemed to hurt Jang Gi-yeong unintentionally.

“No! That can’t be! That’s not it! You must have seen it wrong. It’s just a hypothesis, right? A hypothesis is just a hypothesis.”

“Maybe.”

“Song! Yes! There was a guy singing. I couldn’t see him inside the crack, but he was definitely singing something! It was like their language! I heard it clearly when I was feigning death. When he commanded, the monsters all went into the crack... No! One stayed! The one I felled with my axe!”

I left, making up a non-existent appointment.

As I was leaving, Jang Gi-yeong hesitated and said to me,

“...Do you keep in touch with Hanmin?”

I could understand his meaning and answered coldly.

“No.”

Jang Gi-yeong lost one lawsuit after another.

The former hero, who once gave interviews to major media outlets, now appeared on YouTube live streams, criticizing government policies and begging for Super Chats.

Seeing him mention his former disciple, now a savior of the era, Kang Hanmin, and claim he had raised him, I turned off the video.

Now Jang Gi-yeong is dead, and the school he dedicated his life to is about to be demolished.

I thought for a moment.

Should I go to the site or not?

I decided not to.

The world is dangerous enough as it is.

A message changed my mind.

Personal Identification Number: REDMASK

I received a message from Woo Minhee.

“Do you know the school is being demolished this weekend? I think it would be good if you came.”

“Me?”

“Are you far away?”

“...”

“You don’t want to say, do you? Well, there’s nothing good in telling me, a person like me. But I think it would be good for you to go there.”

“Why do you think so?”

“Kang Hanmin also hopes for it.”

“Kang Hanmin?”

“Yes. He thinks you would be the most fitting person for that place.”

“...”

I thought for a moment.

Was the message he left for Woo Minhee a mockery or a sign of respect?

I could hear Woo Minhee smacking her lips in the silence.

Is this the main point?

“And one more thing. Do you know about Jang Gi-yeong?”

“Principal Jang Gi-yeong? I heard he died and that his funeral was held.”

“He’s alive.”

Woo Minhee laughed.

“He’s alive and desperately waiting for you to come.”