Chapter 25 – Indoor Class (4)
The Black Dragon’s training ground was located in the outskirts of Gyeonggi-do, a little far from Seoul. He was confident that he could find Ichie on his own, but Black Dragon Bang, who did not trust the foreigner’s wayfinding skills, sent Seong Ha-yeon to bring Ichie.
Seong Ha-yeon and Ichi-ae were able to see her face with cigarette smoke in front of the subway station. Seong Ha-yeon’s silver hair was still attracting people’s attention. When she saw her ichi approaching, she rubbed her cigarette on the sole of her shoe and threw it into her trash can. She then lifted her head, she said.
“Uh, Konnichiwa.”
“It’s okay to say hello in Korean.”
“Uh, yes hello.”
“Hello.”
Ichie bowed her head and greeted her. And after she looked around once, she asked Seong Ha-yeon.
“Where are we going now?”
“I have to go to the training ground. I heard you said you were taking a test at the academy this time? The academy has become very complicated. Is not it?”
“I don’t know.”
It was too old a question to ask Ichie, now a freshman at the academy. Seong Ha-yeon realized that she was asking a question that seemed a little older, and she cleared her throat as she moved on to the subway. Seong Ha-yeon was looking at the route map on the platform. Commercials were playing on the TV, which is common on the platform. It was a health drink advertisement advertised by an S-class hunter.
[I’m an S ranker and I definitely drink this shiitake mushroom juice!]
Seong Ha-yeon couldn’t hide the corners of her mouth going up. She was looking at Ichie’s route map. She had heard that Japan’s subway system was complicated, but how would the Korean subway approach Ichie? She asked Seong Ha-yeon.
“How is the Korean subway? Wasn’t it difficult to ride?”
“At first, it was difficult because it was difficult to read the station names. It’s okay now.”
Ichie nodded her head and said so. And the conversation was cut off again. Seong Ha-yeon was at a loss about what to talk about with a Japanese outsider. While she was looking for her subject, Ichie started talking.
“By the way, how do you learn when you go?”
“Mask… First of all, each guild sends monsters as samples for research, or there are clients who want them alive, so there are kids who are captured and protected. Among those kids at the training ground, I’m going to release some of the kids that the client rejected, show them their ecology, teach them how to kill them, and so on.”
She could be said to be an experiential training ground. The problem is that everything they experience is dangerous monsters. Even just listening to Ichie’s explanation seemed quite interesting. Seong Ha-yeon added,
“Any large guild has a system like this. Because it would be a waste to just kill the monsters you captured alive.”
“Are there any high-level monsters?”
At Ichie’s question, Holy Hayeon hardened her face and shook her head.
“Doesn’t exist. You can’t be captured after grade B or higher. It’s blocked by the law Class C is not usually captured alive. You have to look at it, it’s up to D-class.”
“Why aren’t you captured?”
“It’s dangerous and it all looks like shit.”
“Is it that dangerous? Even in the encyclopedia, it doesn’t appear from the A grade onwards.”
“A grade kids… Uh…”
Seong Ha-yeon shut her mouth. After thinking it over, she said:
“You’ll find out later.”
“Have you ever seen Grade A?”
“Once. I was told to bring our ark, so I drove there, but I saw a dead body there.”
“How was it?”
“A little… It doesn’t seem real that it is alive.”
Seong Ha-yeon stopped her and raised her head. She said, tapping her Ichie’s knee.
“Let’s go, we have to transfer at the next station.”
“Yes.”
After two transfers, the two were able to come to the Black Dragon’s training ground. The unused gym was renovated, so all doors except for the main entrance in the middle were blocked with steel frames and stones, and all the windows in the corridor were blocked as if preparing for a zombie apocalypse. The electricity came on brightly in the gloomy hallway, and Ichie felt that the whole building was rather gloomy.
After passing through the lobby where the stuffy air flows, I was able to enter the center of the gym. There, too, there were large iron bars and real-time monitoring personnel walking around, all of whom were wearing strange clothes with black dragons on them. Ichie pointed to the clothes and asked.
“Is it a uniform?”
“It’s very embarrassing to point to that, so just pretend you don’t know.”
Seong Ha-yeon originally thought that the uniform would become the regular uniform of the Black Dragon Room, but she met fierce opposition and decided not to mention the fact that it was changed to a uniform worn only on internal duty. Even if she didn’t bother to bring up such a story, it was because the Black Dragon Room was a shameful guild.
The cages were scattered like the dwelling place of an illegal dog dealer. It seemed to be placed in a mess without rules, but if you look closely, the cages were divided into four zones. The iron bars furnished in Area 1 were still under negotiation with the client. The items placed in Area 2 were items to be taken after negotiations were completed, and the items in Area 3 were monsters to be discarded when negotiations failed.
District 4 was empty, but in the presence of the senior hunter, it was a system in which the monsters in the cage and the junior hunters sparred. She made acquaintances with her staff who were working on her.
“Hey, how are you?”
As soon as the employee saw Seong Ha-yeon, she vomited out her sorrow like a quick-fire gun, as if she had someone to share her grievance with.
“No. Not very good. Some cub asked to capture Strong Boar, so I sent it the way it was originally caught? But that crazy bastard made a claim that Strong Bore’s leg was broken. No, how do you catch a strong bore without breaking its leg? How expensive are iron bars that are strong enough to confine them in the first place? She gave a lot of money or paid a little more than the purchase price, ah… Sister, no… That… What did he say Sister Hayeon. So what did you come here for?”
The moment she heard that she was a sister-in-law, Seong Ha-yeon’s face frowned for a moment, then straightened again.
“To train.”
When Seong Ha-yeon pointed behind her, Ichie was looking around as if looking for something, leaving the monsters behind bars. Because we had to keep a safe distance, a long safety line was drawn between the cage and Ichi. The guild members looked at her and frowned at her.
“Hey, what are you? Aren’t you going to say hello to your seniors?”
The guild member urged Ichie with a stern voice out of nowhere. Ichie, who was staring at the monster, looked at the guild member with an absurd expression, then pointed at himself and asked.
“Me?”
Seong Ha-yeon slapped the back of the guild member’s head. She was looking at my junior with her spirited eyes.
“What are you doing sick? Not our guild member. Are you fucking fucking juniors?”
The guild members protested as if they were unfair.
“No, but you have to have the basics. Basic. Did I do anything weird? You don’t have to say hello. Like Yu-jeong and sister-in-law Ha-yeon, aren’t they letting the kids go too much?”
“…Ugh it’s frustrating. Sick bastard. I’m going to take him to see some monsters, so bring that record book.”
After Seong Ha-yeon sent her guild members away, she struggled to make excuses.
“I am not a bad kid. A little… It’s because my head is weird.”
She said nothing. She was thinking that she should never go in here. Seong Ha-yeon took her record book to her junior and started looking through her monsters again.
“Well, I’ve seen Jungle Cat a few times, so I’ll skip it, let’s try this one for today.”
At the barbed wire Seong Ha-yeon pointed to, a black monster stood as if it had emerged from the ashes. He was about the same height as a human, but only the part with eyes was shining white, giving off an eerie feeling. She looked at the monster and then looked around again. From the moment she came here, she was looking for something.
“What are you looking for?”
“Soo Hyun-sang. Where are you?”
“Oh, he? He’s not coming here today?”
“To?”
Ichie opened her eyes again, blinked, and asked again. She reacted as if she made a mistake in her communication and that Seong Ha-yeon gave her the wrong answer.
“Soo Hyun-sang. Aren’t you coming here today?”
“Yes. I’m not coming. Are you saying you’re the only one coming? What’s wrong with you? Wait. I’m going to call Yoojung right now.”
Seong Ha-yeon put her reason on the spot, and she called Kim Yoo-jung. Because it was the weekend, and since she was off work, it was clear that she would answer the phone. Seong Ha-yeon said that while she was talking to Yoo-jung Kim about her reasoning, she thought something was conveyed wrong.
“Hello?”
“Ha… Ha… Yes. Ha-yeon’s older sister Why did you call?”
Seong Ha-yeon frowned when she heard Yoo-jung’s harsh voice. Was she exercising? She heard a man’s voice over her receiver as she tried to compose her words.
“Senior. Who is it?”
“It’s Hayeon sister. Did you see it last time?”
“Ah… That, Seong Ha-yeon Hunter?”
“Yes. Yes.”
It was Jung Soo-hyun’s voice. Seong Ha-yeon let out a blank laugh at her astonishment. Kim Yoo-jung hadn’t explained the situation yet, but she seemed to know what had happened without her knowledge. Seong Ha-yeon said she jumped before Kim Yu-jung answered.
“Oh, yes. Okay. Have a good rest okay.”
As soon as she hung up her phone, Ichie sprinted over and asked.
“Aren’t you coming?”
“I was originally going to come, but I heard there was an urgent appointment. I want you to tell me I’m sorry.”
“Is it so?”
Ichie seemed a little disappointed. She could tell just by the slight furrow of the corners of her eyes. Seong Ha-yeon found this situation quite amusing. The two of them stood in front of Shadow to enter the monster practice again. To take the monster out, you had to write down the serial number, submit it to the register, and open the cage in the presence of the management staff.
“His name is Shadow. Doesn’t that sound like a grandiose name?”
Seong Ha-yeon said as she watched the guild members open the bars. Ichie replied with a nod of her head.
“That’s right. It doesn’t touch me. I think it would be better if I expressed that I am a bit black.”
“…The original name was Blackman, but it was changed to be racist.”
Ichie silently nodded her head. Practice has just begun.
And the same time. Jeong Su-hyeon was also practicing at Kim Yoo-jung’s house.
With the body.
