Hunter Kindergarten, Dolphin Class! - Chapter 12

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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 012

 

 

“…Ugh!”

 

When he regained consciousness, he found himself half-sitting up on a bed.

 

Beeeeeep. Lee Seo-hyeok quickly grabbed his head due to the sudden tinnitus and intense headache.

 

‘What happened? The plan was definitely proceeding smoothly without any issues?’

 

“Huff, huff. Huff…!”

 

His memory was cut off midway.

 

It had completely vanished from a certain point.

 

“Definitely…!”

 

Although he had been suddenly attacked, he had formulated a new strategy, and with support from his seniors, he was able to carry out his mission without difficulty.

 

‘I had swept through the ground floor and went down underground.’

 

He occasionally encountered civilians along the way, but he knocked them all unconscious so no incidents occurred.

 

The problem was… it happened on basement 4th floor.

 

At the end of the basement 4th floor hallway, he faced a blocked wall.

 

And there he discovered a gate of enormous size.

 

But… what caught Lee Seo-hyeok’s attention there wasn’t something like a gate.

 

A gigantic hand that was hard to believe belonged to a human.

 

A long, elegant black hand with five fingers… was there.

 

Between the gate and the hallway. The thing that was positioned there with its wrist halfway through swayed playfully upon discovering him.

 

Sway, sway.

 

As if entranced by that action, he moved his feet, then stopped walking due to an eerie feeling.

 

White characters were inscribed on the black hand in an indecipherable way, and whenever it moved slightly, the characters also writhed.

 

…Except for the color and characters, its appearance was so human that it gave an even more grotesque impression.

 

‘I’ve entered dungeons dozens of times, but I’ve never heard or seen anything like that.’

 

And there, Lee Seo-hyeok began to confuse reality with hallucination.

 

…Could it be that he had unknowingly been consumed by Moon Chae-yeong’s hallucination?

 

‘When did my ability get released?’

 

This had never happened before? Numerous question marks followed, and in the end, only a conclusion remained.

 

Fire, car, hospital

Mobile phone, younger sibling, money

 

He didn’t know why, but his head seemed to be completely filled with those characters.

 

“…”

 

…This was his last memory.

 

He saw the gigantic hand swaying as it approached, coming right up to his dazed self.

 

He was staring blankly at the thing gradually descending over his head, when at some point… he opened his eyes and was here.

 

Hospital ward?

 

Looking at the clothes he was wearing, it seemed like an emergency center hospital gown.

 

“…Is this a dream?”

 

“Seo-hyeok.”

 

Tap tap. At the touch of someone on his shoulder, he reflexively covered his face with his arm.

 

“Are you hurt anywhere else?”

 

At the familiar voice, Lee Seo-hyeok quickly lowered his arm to check the other person.

 

“…Team Leader?”

 

Short hair close to a bob cut.

 

It was Moon Chae-yeong wearing the same hospital gown as him.

 

“You’re alive…?”

 

“Yes, alive with all my limbs intact. What did you do to end up unconscious alone at the back door? Ho-won was the first to find you and made such a fuss saying you were dead-“

 

“I, I was at the back door?”

 

“Yeah. You were sprawled out spread-eagle at the back door?”

 

That couldn’t be.

 

If he had indeed fainted, he should be on the basement 4th floor.

 

‘Or I should have become a corpse.’

 

Lee Seo-hyeok frowned at the current situation that couldn’t possibly connect to his last memory.

 

“Your body is fine. But no matter how much we tried to wake you, you wouldn’t get up, so I called for a healer. Thanks to that, I got chewed out big time. They said I called them when you weren’t even injured.”

 

“…Ah.”

 

“Seo-hyeok!! Our youngest!”

 

“Oh, Seo-hyeok’s awake?”

 

Though he was still confused, the tension quickly disappeared with the appearance of Kang Ho-won and Choi Un-seong.

 

…Well, at least I’m alive.

 

“Are you seniors alright?”

 

Kang Ho-won, who had come close, flipped his body this way and that to check on him.

 

“Yeah, only you were in that state. We just had minor scratches. You’re okay now, right? You didn’t hit your head or anything? And Seo-hyeok, the seniors went through hell so you could take it easy, but if you’re going to faint alone on the floor, how panicked do you think we’d be?”

 

“That’s right. Did you encounter some strange guy while searching?”

 

“No way, our kid may lack sense and awareness, but his skills are outstanding, so this kind of thing never happened before?”

 

“…Then, don’t tell me you’ve been slacking off in training lately?”

 

“Huh??? Really? Has our youngest been slipping lately? Did you get cocky and walk around the field site with your hands behind your back? Is that why you let your guard down and even fainted?”

 

…This is ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous.

 

Lee Seo-hyeok looked around at his team members with enlightened eyes.

 

“Would I faint just because I slacked off a bit in training?”

 

However, despite Lee Seo-hyeok’s reasonable statement, team leader Moon Chae-yeong said seriously.

 

“Let’s increase your training hours.”

 

“I feel sorry for our youngest.”

 

In his first year, she used to stick right next to him, treasuring him as the youngest, but once he entered his second year, Moon Chae-yeong let him roam free frighteningly.

 

‘Something about raising kids tough.’

 

In reality, among them, only he was the one raising kids, but anyway, that’s what they claimed.

 

“Now that we’ve confirmed the youngest is okay, let’s all clock out for today. You stay here until you’re completely recovered before leaving.”

 

At the team leader’s declaration of going home, Lee Seo-hyeok watched the seniors turn around and disappear without regret, and the team leader leave saying she had things to check, then lay back down on the bed.

 

…Lying down made him feel sleepy.

 

Even though he had experienced that strange incident, now that he thought he was alive, it felt like something from the distant past.

 

‘Come to think of it, I can’t remember sleeping properly recently.’

 

His eyes began to close drowsily. The afterimage of hands waving sporadically came to mind, but extreme fatigue instantly covered him.

 

It was around the time when a hazy feeling spread around his eyes and he was entering a stage where the boundary between reality became ambiguous.

 

“Big brother!!!!!”

 

“Hyung!!!!”

 

“Is there perhaps a …Mr. here?”

 

Huh? That’s a familiar voice.

 

Lee Seo-hyeok’s eyebrows twitched. The handful of remaining reason grabbed hold of his consciousness that was trying to go to sweet dreamland.

 

“Big brother!!! Lee… hyeok!!!”

 

“Hyung!!! Are you dead??!”

 

The voices sound young. They seem similar to Seo-ro and Seo-ra.

 

“Ugh…”

 

“What’s this, kids? Oh my… How unusual. Kids have been coming to the center ward frequently these days.”

 

“They look like Ocean Kindergarten kids.”

 

Wait.

 

What did they say?

 

“…!”

 

He tried to ignore the sounds that kept coming, but his body shot up like a bullet at the murmuring of people beyond the curtain.

 

It was simple intuition.

 

The feeling that his own blood was nearby.

 

And the feeling that they had caused trouble…!

 

“…Gasp!”

 

Lee Seo-hyeok’s eyes widened even more than when the gun barrel had been shoved in his face.

 

Through the transparent glass door of the center ward, he could see a familiar silhouette.

 

“Why are they here…!”

 

***

 

Lee Seo-hyeok forgot that he had been lying down just moments ago and jumped out of bed, only to land flat on his bottom on the hospital room floor.

 

“…!”

 

And before embarrassment could even set in, his body shot up.

 

This wasn’t the time for this.

 

Clutching his aching lower back from the pain, he quickly approached the glass door of the ward.

 

Then, the automatic door opened and sure enough, just as he expected, the twins came into view.

 

‘…What?’

 

However, their appearance was so bizarre that for a moment he thought he was seeing things.

 

Carrying children covered in tears and snot in both arms, looking half dead…

 

“Teacher, are you alright?”

 

Ridiculously, those words came out first.

 

Lee Seo-hyeok took the younger siblings who burst into tears upon seeing him into his arms one by one.

 

The man whose face was red as a tomato was completely disheveled, with no trace of the neat appearance from this morning.

 

‘His hair is a mess, and more than anything, the sweat… How much did he suffer…!’

 

The teacher roughly wiped the sweat dripping down his forehead with his sleeve, caught his breath, and then spoke.

 

“…I’m not alright.”

 

“I’m, I’m sorry.”

 

If he could, he wanted to bang his head on this hallway floor right now.

 

“Big brotherrrr… Huuuuung… I thought you were dying! I thought you wereee…!”

 

“Waaaaaahhh… Hyung, don’t die! You can’t die!”

 

“Hah…”

 

Big brother is alive.

Hyung is alive.

 

Only after confirming his survival to the twins several times could he finally escape from the choking pain around his neck.

 

And Lee Seo-hyeok looked at the other person who was still choking his neck.

 

…He felt so sorry he wanted to die, which made it seem that way.

 

Lee Seo-hyeok, who had been moving his lips while choosing what to say, barely managed to select a decent apology and opened his mouth.

 

“Huh? Why are the twins here?”

 

But a woman with dark blue hair who suddenly appeared cut off Lee Seo-hyeok’s words.

 

“…Team Leader.”

 

Moon Chae-yeong was standing between him and the teacher, though he didn’t know when she had arrived.

 

“Oh, Seo-hyeok. You suddenly bolted out like a puppy that needed to poop, so I was worried and followed you.”

 

She spoke without malice, with frighteningly innocent eyes.

 

“…I don’t know what you were worried about, but nothing like that happened.”

 

“Yeah, I have eyes too, so I can see. But who might this person be…?”

 

Moon Chae-yeong’s palm gestured toward the teacher who was standing there awkwardly.

 

Even in this situation, he’s giving us a smile… How kind.

 

‘Thank you. Thank you.’

 

“I’m a new teacher at Ocean Kindergarten.”

 

Lee Seo-hyeok looked back and forth between the teacher and his team leader with anxious eyes.

 

…Moon Chae-yeong is a good boss.

 

She’s cheerful, doesn’t hold grudges, and does her job well.

 

But, but…!

 

Don’t you know?

 

That this person is someone who exists outside the bounds of common sense.

 

It’s not just about not having meetings before being deployed to the field site.

 

‘There’s always a reason why everyone complains about someone.’

 

Lee Seo-hyeok also had years of experience watching Moon Chae-yeong from the sidelines.

 

‘She’s a good boss, but whether she’s a good person… I’m not sure.’

 

As for Lee Seo-hyeok himself, this was a team he had to stick with until the end, and whether he liked it or not, she was his boss, so he endured it.

 

‘This won’t do.’

 

He had finally met someone who seemed capable of handling the twins, and he couldn’t lose them like this.

 

From the warm consideration shown at their first meeting to the phone that didn’t ring despite burning down the kindergarten.

 

He couldn’t let this slip away.

 

“Team Leader.”

 

After much deliberation, Lee Seo-hyeok made his decision.

 

Separate them. Quickly.

 

“Oh, oh Seo-hyeok, wait a minute… I feel like I’ve seen this person somewhere before.”

 

“Yes, you probably saw them in a dream.”

 

“…What?”

 

“Or maybe you saw them in a hallucination. Team Leader, you’ve never seen Teacher in real life. And you never will. Oh, and isn’t it time for you to get off work? Thank you for your hard work today.”

 

“Were you always this fast-talking?”

 

“And on your way out, please take care of my siblings. Just put them on my bed.”

 

He thrust the twins, who had fallen asleep exhausted from crying, into Moon Chae-yeong’s arms.

 

“You’ve become quite… shameless. I didn’t raise you to be like this.”

 

“…I’ll see you tomorrow.”

 

Fortunately, Moon Chae-yeong backed down there. After briefly greeting Teacher and turning to disappear, Lee Seo-hyeok hurriedly bowed deeply.

 

“I’m sorry.”

 

As if he was about to bury his head in the ground.

 

Just, just sorry for everything.

 

“I’m sorry.”

 

***

 

I watched Lee Seo-hyeok, whose forehead was about to kiss the floor, and leaned my back against the wall as I crouched down.

 

A cool sensation slowly awakened my entire body through the wall.

 

…Ah, I can live.

 

“I’m fine.”

 

As my head cleared a bit, a natural smile formed.

 

Just a moment ago I felt like I was really going to die and didn’t even know if I was laughing or crying.

 

“Still, I’m really… sorry.”

 

Goodness, I’m really fine though.

 

Even though I had done something unbefitting of my experience – unauthorized absence from work – and crossed the company hallway with two 7-year-olds tucked under my arms.

 

I’m really fine, I tell you.

 

Now that I felt like I could live, I thought this was more like field work rather than unauthorized absence from work.

 

‘I don’t know if they’ll count a 10-minute distance as field work, but let me hope for now.’

 

“Are you really okay?”

 

To Lee Seo-hyeok, who asked with an expression that said he was dying of guilt, I casually said again.

 

“I’m really fine.”

 

The back of my neck was throbbing like hell, but it was manageable enough to cover with a smile.

 

Only after the look of disbelief gradually disappeared did I barely manage to get up from my spot and sit on a nearby bench.

 

Lee Seo-hyeok carefully sat down next to me.

 

“How did you come here?”

 

“I was out at the outdoor playground during playtime when the announcement came on. Injured person, all Field Team Na members return.”

 

“Ah.”

 

He would know what happened after that without me having to say it.

 

He too buried his face in his palms like someone who had seen without looking.

 

“I’m sorry.”

 

What for.

 

“I keep saying this, but I’m fine.”

 

“Still… They’re not usually like that. After our parents passed away, their obsession with me became severe.”

 

“…”

 

“I thought I was filling the void left by those two, but seeing today, it seems I haven’t done that properly either.”

 

I quietly watched Lee Seo-hyeok as he rambled on.

 

At a glance, he looked about five or six years younger than me.

 

I couldn’t tell if he had just become an adult, or was maybe a year or two older than that…

 

‘This kid who looks like the ink on his high school diploma hasn’t even dried yet has grown up too fast.’

 

I had a lot to say, but I chose silence for now.

 

His shoulders were tense, and he looked like someone who had been holding back and finally burst.

 

‘The harder stories are to tell, the easier it is to share them with a stranger you’ve never met.’

 

I decided to gladly become his bamboo grove.

 

“As you can see, there’s a big age gap between me and my siblings…”

 

The formal speech he had been strictly maintaining also temporarily evaporated.

 

“They’re the youngest and twins, so our parents raised them with incredible love and care… Then suddenly both of them passed away… Ah, they died in a car accident.”

 

“I see.”

 

“Yes, both of them were professors, and they were rushing home after attending a seminar when the accident happened… At that time, I had just finished my college entrance exams and was so busy hanging out with friends that I heard about the accident much later.”

 

…That must have been quite difficult.

 

Even with his tired face as he rubbed it with his palm, he didn’t stop talking.

 

“They said a large truck overturned and caused the accident, but I couldn’t even properly see my parents’ bodies. Our relatives stopped me. I still regret that…”

 

Still, he said he tried to live strong for his remaining siblings.

 

His voice cracked and trembled at the end.

 

The rambling words carried heavy guilt and sadness.

 

“Fortunately, I manifested as an Awakener, so I was able to get a job here right after graduation. So I really tried to just give the kids a normal life without any shortcomings…”

 

It must be difficult.

 

“…It’s been a bit hard lately.”

 

Perhaps this kid who probably hasn’t even done military service yet trying to maintain that formal speech pattern might stem from that kind of consciousness.

 

The kid is trying to act like an adult.

 

“…!”

 

Lee Seo-hyeok seemed to realize his last words were a mistake and glanced at me nervously. His finely trembling eyes were already deeply stained with self-blame.

 

I spoke as calmly as possible to Lee Seo-hyeok, who was carrying responsibilities and anxieties I couldn’t even begin to imagine.

 

“That’s natural. If you’re raising kids and earning money alone and it’s not difficult, then you’re not human.”

 

This wasn’t comfort, but sincere truth.

 

I heard that even Kwon Hae-seong collapses as soon as he gets off work.

 

So what about Lee Seo-hyeok, who has to do childcare even after coming home from work?

 

“So you don’t need to feel guilty about finding it difficult.”

 

I could see his pale eyes gradually reddening. I naturally turned my head to look at the hospital ward blocked by the glass door.

 

“Did you have breakfast?”

 

“…Ah, no.”

 

“Then, what about lunch?”

 

“Now that I think about it, I haven’t had lunch yet either.”

 

Damn company. At least let the kid eat before working him to death.

 

“…You’ll have dinner, right?”

 

Eat. Just because you’re young doesn’t mean you should skip meals, or you’ll get chronic illness when you’re older.

 

“Ah, yes…! I’ll eat dinner when I get home.”

 

“Yes, that’s good. Then, Seo-hyeok and the twins are planning to have another ordinary day today.”

 

“…You call this ordinary?”

 

“Yes, you said so just a moment ago, didn’t you? That you wanted to give them a normal life without any shortcomings.”

 

“….”

 

“You’re doing well.”

 

What’s so special about being ordinary?

 

Being able to share a meal with your family is also a very precious kind of ordinary.

 

I looked at Lee Seo-hyeok again. He seemed quite different from when I saw him this morning.

 

‘Now that I look at him, he’s completely just a kid.’

 

…Ha. I really shouldn’t be doing this.

 

I hesitated for a moment before finally bringing it up casually.

 

“If you have any concerns in the future, feel free to contact me occasionally.”

 

“…Thank you. I’ll definitely do that.”

 

…Well, it doesn’t have to be ‘definitely.’

 

When I suddenly checked the clock, an hour had already passed since I arrived here.

 

‘Now that I’ve confirmed everything’s fine, I should take the twins and head back.’

 

“There’s still some time left before dismissal, so I’ll take the twins and….”

 

Just as I was saying that and getting up from my seat.

 

A bombshell message dropped from thin air.

 

 

 

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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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