Hunter Academy’s Battle God

—An unexpected sneak attack from the centipede.

EunAh was holed up under her thin blanket.

She kept muttering, “it… it’s dangerous… the world outside is dangerous,” to herself, much like Sumire.

Sumire tried to console the other girl. “Eu-EunAh-ssi? P-please calm down! I already got rid of the centipede!”

EunAh peeked her head out from under the covers.

“O-of course I know that! it just feels gross, that’s all…” she complained. “Why are there so many bugs around here? And why have all the ones I’ve seen so far happened to be centipedes, anyways? With all of those… creepy, crawly legs…”

Sumire smiled bashfully. “Aren’t they rather pretty, considering they’re insects, though? They’re so ful when the light hits them at a certain angle…”

“Oh my god, did everything beautiful die off when I wasn’t looking? What are you talking about?” 

EunAh glared at the other girl, who just awkwardly grinned back in reply and laid down next to her in preparation to sleep. 

The black-haired girl turned her gaze towards the tent entrance and sighed.

“Just what’s taking him so long, anyways?”

“H-he’ll probably take a while. Shin YuSung-ssi always… goes outside to train around this time.”

“What a busy guy. Guess I have to wait for him. It feels weird to sleep before he comes back,” she grumbled.

Sumire tilted her head to face the other girl.

“…Would you like me to tell you a fun story to pass the time, then?”

Her smile was soft, but a corner of her mouth was tilted up. EunAh had never seen her make an expression like that before and was taken aback.

“Wh-what kind of story?” she asked.

To that, Sumire lowered her voice to a whisper and continued.

“…There’s an interesting legend regarding Mount Everline. H-have you… heard about it?”

Gulp.

EunAh shook her head. She was already scared.

“I-I haven’t…”

“I remember everything about it… because I even heard the story back when I was in Japan. It’s about a ghost that copies other people’s voices…”

Sumire grinned ominously. EunAh pulled her blanket closer to her body and leaned away from the other girl at the same time.

“A ghost… that copies other people’s voices?”

“…Yes. I heard that it wanders the woods whenever the sun sets and day becomes night. Looking… for humans.”

Woosh.

A foreboding wind struck the tent.

Even the sound of leaves and grass dancing in the breeze, ordinary as it was, sent a chill down EunAh’s back.

“Why? Just… why… Does it look for humans?”

Sumire’s eyes were cold. “To steal… their voices.”

Her near-perpetual stutter had disappeared. She locked eyes with the other girl.

“…If the ghost finds people still wandering the forest well into the night, like us, it uses the voice of someone they’re familiar with and calls out towards them.”

Step step.

Even before Sumire’s ghost story had finished, the two girls could hear someone outside approaching their tent.

“Sumire?”

YuSung’s voice called out to her.

“H-hieek!”

The girl in question immediately teared up, abandoning all notions of maintaining the atmosphere she had curated. EunAh had thrown her covers to the wayside and run towards Sumire.

“Wh-what the hell!! What the hell is this?!” she screamed. EunAh was terrified and clung to the other girl.

Sumire’s eyes were wide open. “It… it really exists!!”

EunAh’s face was drained of all blood. “What do you mean?! The ghost found us because you were talking about iiiiit!!”

If you could call her relationship with insects one of distaste, her relationship with ghosts was one of fear.

“EunAh?”

YuSung, still outside the tent, called out EunAh’s name. She grimaced.

“Y-you’re YuSung, right? Not a ghost? Right?!”

“…A ghost? What are you talking about? I’m coming in now.”

He lowered the zipper that closed the entrance of the tent.

Zzzzip!

A cool, refreshing breeze entered the space.

“I… I thought so! It was YuSung!”

As soon as she confirmed the identity of the intruder, EunAh quickly rolled back into her spot on the tent ground.

YuSung entered the tent and began taking out his own blankets. “What happened while I was gone?” he asked.

EunAh coughed in a fake manner, hidden under her sheets.

“Ahem! Nothing. Don’t worry about it.”

“EunAh-ssi, you’re… more of a scaredy cat than I thought you would be.”

“…Shut it.”

It seemed like the two girls had already bonded. Seeing the two of them act like so, YuSung, the party leader, relaxed.

“Time to sleep, then?”

He approached the lamp lighting up the interior of the tent, but before he could turn it off, EunAh started threatening him.

“…Hey. I’m gonna say this in advance. You know what’ll happen if you do anything funny, right?”

“Shin YuSung-ssi would never…”

And Sumire defended him again. 

EunAh slapped a hand on her forehead and glared at the other girl.

“Augh! You, be quiet!”

“…Heh heh.”

However, Sumire laughed at the other girl’s actions instead of being terrified by them. 

“Then, everyone. Good work.”

YuSung turned off the lamp, calling an end to the day.

Flash!

“…Yeah. You guys sleep well, okay?”

And in the pitch-black tent, EunAh sent her own quiet night greetings.

Shin YuSung, Kim EunAh, and Sumire. The three had lived completely different, separate lives from each other up to then. At that moment, however, they had become a full-fledged party.

* * *

* * *

The office of the Shinsung group’s president…

Kim SeokHan was diligently working, despite the sun setting on the horizon. It was due to the philosophy he held. He believed wholeheartedly that his passion for his work was the sole reason for how he had been able to create and grow his business to what it was.

The lights in the office did not turn off until the midnight oil had been burned off. Lee SuHyun bowed after finishing her report.

“Then, Mr. President, I’ll be heading back now.”

“Mhm, go ahead.”

She tried to leave the office after her boss’s acknowledgment. However, the man seemed to have suddenly recalled a question to ask of her.

“Hold on a minute. Come to think of it… I never got to hear any news about my EunAh. I know she went out on an extracurricular activity, but not much else…”

“The young miss is out on a monster-hunting excursion with Shin YuSung at the Academy City branch of the Association.”

Kim SeokHan nodded at SuHyun’s explanation.

“That sounds about right, but shouldn’t she have returned to her dorms by now?”

“The monster hunting assignment is scheduled to last one night and two days.”

Kim SeokHan’s face stiffened at her calm reply.

“Wh-what is that supposed to mean?”

His face was drained of all blood.

“An o-o-overnight trip! Are you saying that, m-my EunAh! My EunAh! Is out on an overnight trip?!” he yelled. 

A hand slammed down on his desk. SuHyun flinched.

“What?! Y-yes, yes!” she replied immediately. “She is… is there an issue?!”

“Of course there is. What are you saying?! There’s no saying what that wretch could do to my EunAh! An overnight trip? Overnight?!”

In face of the news about the overnight trip, YuSung’s label had changed from ‘a hunter with incredible potential’ to ‘a wretch’, just like that.

“And just what were you doing, not stopping her? Huh?!”

The normally cold Kim SeokHan was shouting at SuHyun. She broke out into a cold sweat.

“B-but… that’s the typical amount of time that monster hunt missions are assigned.”

“And that’s supposed to make this alright? All boys in their teens—no! All men, really! They’re nothing but animals…”

And so the man droned on. SuHyun found the entire situation rather unfair.

‘Come on. She’s the one who said she wanted to go on the trip! What was I supposed to do, stop her?’

SuHyun was the one who had helped and convinced EunAh to send the message to Shin YuSung in the first place, though. If that fact got out, there was no chance of the man with the granddaughter complex letting her off easy.

“And my EunAh is still young. You should have dissuaded her more! A boy and a girl, two different sexes, going on an overnight trip together?! And she’s at the age where even the slightest action can send her heart into a frenzy…”

The lecture from the man of iron blood, the man standing at the top of the financial world, continued on. It was enough for SuhYun to want to lose her mind.

‘Please, just let me off work.’

* * * *

Sleeping in the middle of the wilderness…

YuSung’s senses were on high alert, even when he was asleep. He had fostered this habit while living on the Martial Spirits’ Mountain.

But what made him wake up at that moment was not the sneak attack of an enemy but the ramblings of someone disturbed yet fast asleep.

“U-ugh… don’t go…”

YuSung, wide awake, channeled mana into his eyes. Slowly, his vision improved. Only then could he see EunAh, grimace on her face, being hugged by him.

“U-urk…”

She had broken out in a cold sweat. He wasn't sure what sort of dream she was having at the moment, but judging by the overturned sheets, it was definitely some sort of nightmare.

‘…Probably one related to her brother.’

The EunAh that YuSung had first met was strong. No, at the very least, she pretended to be strong on the outside. It was how she had always presented herself up to that point. 

But as he got closer to her, he realized that the EunAh he had gotten to know was different.

She had surrendered to a villain for the sake of her brother and begged YuSung for his help to the point of spilling tears—that was how delicate her true feelings were.

“…Don’t leave me.”

EunAh tightly grabbed YuSung’s clothes as if saying that she would never let him go. Left with nothing else he could do, YuSung began patting her head.

He had no idea if Kim JunHyuk had ever done so to his little sister before.

He had just done something that he had deduced was likely to have happened.

Slip.

Only then did EunAh loosen the grip she had on his clothes. The boy easily lifted the girl from that spot and placed her next to Sumire.

YuSung had gotten a glimpse into her fragile side. It was nothing new or revolutionary to him, however. He believed all people had some sort of damage in their hearts that they kept secret from others.

Just because one was strong didn’t mean they could be strong all of the time.

Just because one was fine didn’t mean they could be fine all of the time.

‘A person’s body isn’t the only thing that can get hurt, after all.’

YuSung returned to his own spot and draped his sheets over himself. The last thought he had before drifting off into slumber was about EunAh.

‘…EunAh’s sleeptalking habit is pretty bad, huh.’