Hunter Kindergarten, Dolphin Class! - Chapter 10
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Episode 010
A silent space where only the sound of the ventilation fan turning could be heard.
Kang Ho-won, a member of Field Team Na, finally couldn’t endure the silence that had continued for an hour and opened his mouth.
“Rice mixed with milk VS using pizza-flavored toothpaste.”
Even while whispering, his voice couldn’t hide its playfulness as it rang in their ears.
“If I had to choose, I’d eat rice mixed with milk.”
“Why?”
“Pizza-flavored toothpaste would feel gross even after brushing. I’d just cleanly eat rice mixed with milk and rinse with normal toothpaste.”
“Our Un-seong is… how should I put it. His answer is too boring because it’s overly practical.”
“Should I make it more interesting for you?”
“…How?”
“Let’s tie up senior’s legs and throw him down to see how those guys below react. I’ll rescue you if things go wrong.”
“…You’re joking, right? There are only gun-toting brainless guys down there.”
“Senior, if you want fun, you have to risk your life too. Right, team leader?”
Then, team leader Moon Chae-yeong shrugged her shoulders and said.
“Well, if you’re really that bored?”
Can’t they hear this from below?
Even amid all the idle chatter, Lee Seo-hyeok’s attention was entirely focused downward.
He recalled the brief information Moon Chae-yeong had given him just before being deployed on the mission.
Yesterday afternoon, an emergency mission requested by the government.
And…
-Enter the building to assess its structure and the number of civilians inside.
-Report immediately if there are any unusual circumstances.
It was a simple mission, but there were more than a few suspicious points.
First, the fact that the building was a concrete building standing alone in the Gyeonggi-do outskirts.
While it looked like a simple shabby building resembling a mixed-use commercial facility on the outside, the interior had state-of-the-art security sensors running 24 hours a day.
And the most unsettling aspect was that, from what they could roughly assess, there were at least 3 floors of underground space.
‘There’s definitely something in the basement.’
Looking at how the security became stricter the deeper underground they went, it seemed like his guess wasn’t wrong.
Moreover, the additional message from the director had been bothering him throughout the mission.
-Killing civilians inside the building is prohibited.
They mustn’t be discovered, but even if discovered, killing was forbidden.
He’d rather enter a dungeon alone and face monsters.
Telling them not to think about killing civilians armed with guns was no different from telling them to just run away.
“What about our youngest, Seo-hyeok?”
Tap tap. At the small movement touching his arm, Lee Seo-hyeok quickly raised his head. Kang Ho-won had raised his seagull-like eyebrows high, demanding an answer.
Hmm, so the question was…
“…I would also choose eating rice mixed with milk.”
“Oh, what’s your reason?”
“I often ate rice mixed with milk when I was young. From what I remember… it seemed edible.”
“…Are you serious?”
“There was a terrible guy hiding here.”
Lee Seo-hyeok felt somewhat wronged by Kang Ho-won and Choi Un-seong’s disgusted reactions.
What’s wrong with eating rice mixed with milk?
“Our youngest, hyung will buy you milk on the way home from work today. Don’t mix it with rice, mix it with cereal instead.”
Kang Ho-won grinned and patted his back. Not to be outdone, Choi Un-seong chimed in from the other side.
“That’s right, senior. Buy the kid some food too. Something like soup with rice. Since it’s already mixed, he won’t mix that with milk, right?”
“No, is that really so…”
-Thud!!!
strange?
It was the moment Lee Seo-hyeok was about to ask back.
A loud impact sound came from below the floor they were standing on, and their bodies shook violently.
The four immediately flattened themselves on the floor and quickly read Moon Chae-yeong’s signal.
Stop moving.
“….”
Where they were now was a hidden space above the 3rd floor ceiling of the building, so cramped that even an adult woman would struggle to crouch down.
Inside this passage-like space, the members of Field Team Na—two adult women and two men—held their breath and pressed their bodies against the floor.
…What was this situation.
After a moment, urgent footsteps and voices could be heard.
“Damn it, intruders got in! Scatter and find them right now!”
“Isn’t it another sensor malfunction? Thinking about how we suffered like hell last time makes me furious, so check properly before you speak.”
“Hey, you bastard. I told you then too, it wasn’t a sensor malfunction! Do you think the Security Program is a joke? You think it all works just by pressing one button? Don’t show off how stupid you are!”
“What? You don’t want to see tomorrow’s sun?”
“I never liked you guys they brought in as bodyguards in the first place! Taking money and secretly slacking off!”
“Well said. I was also pissed that you bastards who just sit around get paid more than us.”
Chinese? It seemed like Japanese could be heard intermittently too.
‘Just from the atmosphere, it looks like they’re fighting.’
He couldn’t understand exactly, but it seemed like internal strife had broken out.
And, as if the other team members had the same thought, they each added their comments.
“If they self-destruct like this, wouldn’t that be good for us?”
“I wonder. Looking at how they’re running their mouths, they don’t seem to have any intention of actually fighting.”
“I think just lying here like this wouldn’t be bad either~”
“….”
He needed to pull himself together at least….
No matter how he looked at it, his team members didn’t seem to have any particular plan.
“Something seems wrong, doesn’t it?”
Moon Chae-yeong asked as if troubled. Everyone nodded without disagreement.
‘It’s become difficult to proceed with the request secretly anymore.’
Since it was a request they had no choice but to take on due to pressure from the director, no one had any regrets.
They had only been pretending to work on it, but dug deeper because it seemed suspicious.
“Let’s end it here today. We’ve done what we could.”
Moon Chae-yeong, having reached a conclusion, looked at the situation below the spinning ventilation duct and asked Kang Ho-won.
“Ho-won, is your Teleportation cooldown ready?”
“Ah, could you give me just a little more time? It’s been a while since I’ve been on a regional assignment, so it’ll take a bit longer to use it again.”
“How long?”
“About, 10 minutes?”
10 minutes.
It meant they had to endure in this building for at least 10 minutes before Kang Ho-won, the Teleportation Awakener, could use his ability again.
“Then, from now on our goal is immediate return to the company. We’ll hold out for 10 minutes, and if it really doesn’t work out, we don’t have to return to the company—let’s just get out however we can.”
Kang Ho-won, an A-rank Teleportation Awakener, had different mana consumption rates depending on distance.
In other words, to go from the Gangwon-do Mountains to the Seoul Branch, he needed to secure time to replenish the mana required to travel that distance again.
…In that case.
-Structure Analysis ✔
-Personnel Analysis ✘
NEW! Final Goal: Safe Escape
He categorized the completed and incomplete request contents in his head and re-established the final goal.
Then, he set a 10-minute timer on his Watch.
“I’ll keep track of the time.”
“If my guess is right, this request seems like they gave it to us to screw us over.”
Moon Chae-yeong’s words, muttered like a sigh, made three pairs of eyes contort in their own ways.
“Why? Didn’t the government request this first?”
“To be precise, a director with government connections brought the request directly and desperately dumped it on us.”
They went that far just to screw us over?
What could have caused them to harbor such ill feelings?
As if Moon Chae-yeong knew all these questions too, she shook her head back and forth.
“How would I know what’s going on in their heads? Those snake-like directors. Whether they’re young bastards or old fools, they all act the same way. But… I do have a guess.”
“What is it? What exactly does this place do anyway?”
“…No. Not that. I mean the reason they want to screw us over.”
“…”
‘I think I have an idea.’
Lee Seo-hyeok felt like he already knew without hearing it. And looking at the faces of the other two seniors, they weren’t any different from him.
Obviously… she must have done something.
“Last week at the Board of Directors meeting, I was called in with the Field Team Ga leader, and one of the directors started mocking our field report.”
“So…?”
“You know the Team Ga leader, right? Gyeon-i. As usual, Gyeon-i did what Gyeon-i does. She calmly chewed through logic against the director, and since everything she said was right, I just threw in a few encouraging remarks from the side.”
“…”
“That seems to have been the problem. But I really only added encouraging remarks, so I feel wronged.”
“What did you say?”
Lee Seo-hyeok, who was getting exasperated listening to this, interjected with a question.
“Excellent! Good! That’s right! You’re absolutely right!”
“…”
Why on earth does this person act like this?
“If I were in the Team Ga leader’s place, I think I’d hate you more than her.”
“Why?”
“If you keep living like that, you might figure it out when your life flashes before your eyes as you die.”
“…Me, Un-seong is scary sometimes.”
Of course. There’s no way she didn’t do something to earn their dislike.
Now the situation was starting to make a little sense.
Our team leader, who had properly gotten on the bad side of one of the directors, had taken on a very troublesome request.
‘Since it’s a government request, we can’t reject it, so we’ll have to come back again next time.’
If we at least try about twice, they’d think we showed sincerity, wouldn’t they?
“Did I really do that wrong? Then they shouldn’t have been talking shit.”
“Yes, team leader, you stay here. We’re going.”
He tried to think of the best route and future methods somehow…
Despite the serious situation, the atmosphere kept turning into a comedy routine, and Lee Seo-hyeok finally let out a hollow laugh.
…I don’t know either. Let’s just endure for 10 minutes.
“Ah, then should I lie down comfortably for a bit?”
Kang Ho-won crumpled his body and put his back against the floor. Truly, he couldn’t be anything but a carefree person.
“It would be perfect if we just stayed like this for 10 minutes and then went home. Nothing happening would be… Ack!”
-Whoosh.
It was instantaneous.
Kang Ho-won disappeared.
Downward, no less.
…?
“What the?”
-Whoosh.
The team leader disappeared.
“Hey Seo-hyeok, stay still. I’ll go down…”
-Whoosh.
“…Senior?”
Lee Seo-hyeok called out to the vanished Choi Un-seong with a dumbfounded expression.
No one… was there.
When he hurriedly felt around the floor, he touched a gaping open space.
“Huh?”
-Whoosh.
Wind rushed up from below. His body temporarily floated up before falling downward.
-Crash crash crash clang!
-Rumble rumble rumble.
He realized what had happened just before crashing onto the hard hallway floor.
They were caught.
They had been caught by an insider.
“Hey! Seo-hyeok! Roll! Roll!”
Between the rapid gunfire, Kang Ho-won’s shout could be heard.
Lee Seo-hyeok curled his body and rolled before his feet touched the ground. Gunshots and screams filled the air.
He hid his body toward the corner and caught his breath. At a glance, Kang Ho-won was using his ability extensively while trying his best to handle things without killing civilians.
…Un-seong seemed to have already moved his body and was using his ability.
“Kid, get it together.”
“Team Leader.”
The team leader was right in front of him.
With blood smeared all over her face.
“Wipe your face first.”
Moon Chae-yeong roughly wiped the blood away with her hand and grabbed Lee Seo-hyeok’s shoulder as she instructed him.
“Change of plans. We’ve been caught.”
“Yes, please tell me.”
Lee Seo-hyeok immediately discarded the objectives stored in his mind.
And began to engrave her words exactly as they were.
“The moment I deploy my ability, you search this entire building. From the 4th Floor Above Ground to the 3rd Floor Underground. Since things have come to this, we need to find out what this place is for. Time limit is 1 hour, wait at the 1st Floor Back Door after 1 hour.”
NEW!
-Search entire building
-Time limit 1 hour Wait at 1st Floor Back Door after 1 hour.
“Yes, understood.”
At his response, Moon Chae-yeong grinned and disappeared around the corner.
Lee Seo-hyeok briefly closed his eyes and opened them.
Slowly, an illusion overlaid the colorless hallway.
A corridor-style apartment hallway with distorted spatial properties unfolded.
It was an old corridor-style apartment.
Warm, pleasant sunlight shone down, but the atmosphere was somehow desolate and terrifying.
That midsummer afternoon, darkness began to fall over memories that had once been nothing but warm.
“Let’s go.”
Team Leader Moon Chae-yeong, A-rank Illusionist.
An ability that could create fake things that seemed real.
And within those illusions, she was no different from a god.
…Lee Seo-hyeok calmly walked down the hallway at the signal.
The hallway, now completely engulfed in night, had a bleak atmosphere.
Occasional breathless screams could be heard.
However, the scenery around Lee Seo-hyeok was quite different.
Above his hair, instead of evening darkness, the fluorescent lights from the hallway moments before shone down.
And the hallway he was walking on was also clean ceramic tile, not old mosaic tile.
“She said to start from the 4th floor.”
Lee Seo-hyeok leisurely got on the elevator and pressed the button.
On his way home from work today, he was thinking that he absolutely had to apologize to the Dolphin Class teacher.
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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