Hunter Kindergarten, Dolphin Class! - Chapter 161

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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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Chapter 161

 

Nabi settled snugly into my arms.

 

Her warm body temperature wrapped around my neck and clung tightly.

 

“Hyung!”

 

“Uh, uhh….”

 

I instinctively hugged and patted her, when suddenly a barrage of flashes rained down from above my head.

 

In the pitch-black space, the light that unilaterally struck only my face caused my eyes to squeeze shut involuntarily.

 

However, as if the purpose was just confirmation, the light quickly moved aside, and at the sound of several voices that followed, I reflexively opened my eyes wide.

 

“Ah…. Really, I can’t live like this.”

 

“Is this him? The teacher that unnie was talking about?”

 

“…Teacher!”

 

What, what’s this?

 

For a moment I thought this whole situation was a dream.

 

Yu Jin-chae was looking down at me with her hand pressed to her forehead, and in the distance, Kwon Hae-seong was approaching in surprise.

 

“Teacher Jin-chae? No, how did Teacher Hae-seong know about this place…?”

 

I don’t know who the other person is…. No, more than that, how did these two know to come here?

 

If I wasn’t currently out of my mind, this place seemed to be like the dark room that was inside the museum I had seen just before being trapped by the restraining item.

 

‘That…. place where the video of sunlight streaming down was being projected by the beam projector.’

 

As I stood there dazed, unable to immediately grasp the situation, Kwon Hae-seong quickly approached and brought his face close to mine.

 

I could see his pitch-black pupils carefully scanning up and down as if checking my condition.

 

“When you were leaving work, Teacher, I followed you a bit… You don’t remember giving me a note, do you.”

 

A note?

 

Had I given Kwon Hae-seong something like a note?

 

“You said your body felt strange…. This is it.”

 

Kwon Hae-seong pulled out a note folded like a scab from his inner jacket pocket and handed it to me.

 

-My body feels strange. I think I need to take a day off-

 

‘I wrote something like this? Did I unconsciously know something was wrong with my body and instinctively act without realizing it….’

 

But I had no memory of writing this content and giving it to Kwon Hae-seong.

 

The back of my neck felt cold.

 

‘Did I take the item’s side effects too lightly.’

 

I rubbed the back of my neck for no reason.

 

Anyway, with the note and explanation Kwon Hae-seong gave me, I roughly understood how things had unfolded.

 

‘That day, my condition must have looked pretty terrible. He even received a note like this.’

 

So that kind, worry-prone guy followed me that day and inadvertently became a witness to a disappearance case, which led him all the way here.

 

Once the full story was organized in my head, I immediately bowed my head to the floor.

 

“Thank you.”

 

It seems Kwon Hae-seong mobilized his connections, including Yu Jin-chae, to find me…. I felt both sorry and grateful at the same time.

 

‘And to think he even took care of Nabi makes my heart feel even more….’

 

“But as expected, you were with Nabi! Hae-seong was so worried that I was secretly worried too.”

 

“No matter how much we searched, we couldn’t see Nabi, and we only found your mobile phone and this doll you carry every day, so we were worried…. Even on the day you went missing, I don’t remember seeing Nabi. But you were together. I didn’t see her earlier though.”

 

Kwon Hae-seong handed me the White Dog Doll and mobile phone while looking at Nabi nestled in my arms.

 

I took them while following his gaze down to Nabi. Below her fluttering pink hair, two eyes that sparkled like embedded stars were looking up at me intently.

 

Then, as if wanting to whisper, she pulled my ear and whispered.

 

“I waited quietly because I lost hyung!”

 

“…!”

 

A voice that was half air.

 

“I waited quietly until we met again! I did well, right?”

 

Seeing Nabi giggle and grab both my cheeks with her hands, I slowly nodded.

 

‘The education… paid off.’

 

The regular children’s safety education we did at kindergarten and the separate ‘Nabi-specific’ education I conducted at home had paid off.

 

-“Now, suddenly I’m not visible. So what should you do?”

 

-“I should ask Kwon Hae-seong to take me!”

 

-“Wrong, incorrect. What did Kwon Hae-seong do wrong…. You wait quietly in that spot. What do you say?”

 

-“Wait quietly in that spot!”

 

‘So that’s how this misunderstanding arose.’

 

It seems Nabi also noticed something was wrong with me midway and stayed in the form of the White Dog Doll from then on.

 

‘But I dropped it….’

 

Looking at the situation, it seems Kwon Hae-seong picked it up, and she had been in the White Dog Doll form the whole time before popping out as soon as she discovered me.

 

From their perspective, Nabi wasn’t visible and then suddenly appeared, so they’re misunderstanding that she had been missing together with me.

 

Hmm…. That made sense.

 

“Are you okay now? You were so strange! Your face kept being poop-colored.”

 

“I’m okay now….”

 

That aside, poop-colored… You learned that from Noah, didn’t you?

 

“Oh my, that’s a relief though. Making the walkie-talkie took longer than expected, so if this attempt didn’t work either, we really would have had to file a missing person report.”

 

As I got up and dusted myself off, my eyes naturally widened at what Yu Jin-chae said.

 

“Making a walkie-talkie? Don’t tell me, a trace walkie-talkie?”

 

Why were you trying to make that cursed item again?

 

But instead of answering my questioning gaze, Yu Jin-chae pointed at someone with her thumb.

 

Only then did I…. make direct eye contact with someone other than Kwon Hae-seong and Yu Jin-chae.

 

“Her name is Yeong Won-ha…. She’s an S-rank crafting hunter and she’ll explain.”

 

S-rank?

 

Actually, I hadn’t noticed because I was too flustered, but even in this darkness, she had quite a striking appearance.

 

The jet-black hair flowing down from the crown of her head became pure white toward the ends…. Above all, she had such a pretty appearance that I could mistake her for a doll.

 

But what was truly unparalleled were those eyes.

 

I unconsciously tensed up as her gaze, which had been looking around with eyes that seemed completely uninterested, finally fell on me.

 

‘What kind of person has such presence….’

 

Perhaps because she was S-rank, her presence was tremendous.

 

But then again, her eyes were lifeless like a frozen fish’s eyes, which paradoxically created tension.

 

“Originally, items that forcibly contain the frequency of special job hunters all end up like that.”

 

Crack. That kind of sound came from Eternal Hunter’s hands.

 

‘That looks like a beam projector.’

 

“The trace walkie-talkie that Bear will use was made by me as an upgraded version, so it has some stability…. Honestly, I thought it couldn’t be helped if he died from side effects, but he was lucky.”

 

“….”

 

Ah, this person also has a bit of a suspicious smell.

 

I glanced sideways at the people next to me.

 

‘But why are all these people avoiding my eyes.’

 

Eternal Hunter continued speaking while turning around. Kwon Hae-seong and Yu Jin-chae also followed her steps, so I stood up while holding Nabi in my arms.

 

‘I guess we’re leaving now.’

 

-Thud.

 

“?”

 

It sounded like something fell on the floor.

 

Since I was holding Nabi with both arms, instead of turning on my mobile phone flashlight to check, I just bent my waist and squinted my eyes.

 

Just then, the flashlight held by the people leaving the dark room briefly illuminated behind us….

 

The moment I confirmed what had fallen on the floor, I almost froze in place.

 

‘Hey, Nabi, you…!’

 

What had fallen on the floor was a clump of fine golden hair pulled out by the roots.

 

“You…. did it!”

 

At that time, the black hand that rushed toward Sang-jwa must have really grabbed and torn out his hair.

 

“Right! I did it! But what?”

 

She had done something so amazing, yet the fact that the person involved didn’t know felt like pure talent.

 

“I’ll buy you snacks if you come out.”

 

I should buy them for her. Of course, naturally.

 

“Really? Then can I eat Choco Pang Pang Fried Soboro snacks?”

 

What a grandiose name.

 

“Sure.”

 

Chuckling, I gently kicked the lump of Sang-jwa’s head into a corner with my foot.

 

When I finally came out of the dark room, those who had been waiting for me began moving again.

 

I was startled to see the figure unconscious on Kwon Hae-seong’s back and approached them.

 

‘Section Chief Gwak Cheol-man came out with us too!’

 

“Where did you find him? He was trapped in the item with me.”

 

“Ah… We found him in that corner over there. This person seems to be the missing Section Chief Gwak Cheol-man – I saw his photo while looking for Teacher. Like Nabi, he seems to have come out along with Teacher…”

 

Wow, what a relief… How would it feel if I convinced someone who didn’t want to come with all sorts of words to escape together, only to disappear by myself?

 

‘That would make me a bastard who deserves to die.’

 

I don’t know if Sang-jwa gave permission on a whim, or if there was some principle I didn’t understand that allowed escape.

 

However, the relief from the fact that we all came out safely together was greater.

 

And at that moment, Eternal Hunter, who had slowed her pace to match mine, walked alongside me and spoke.

 

“I recreated the trace walkie-talkie and used the side effects in reverse. Of course, I reduced the risks and attached mental barrier items just in case.”

 

“Uh… So you mean you followed the exact same method I went missing with?”

 

“You understand quickly.”

 

For a moment, her eyes flashed.

 

Trying to survive had made thinking on my feet a habit, so now I had developed the talent to piece together most things even when the context was cut off…

 

But I was more amazed by their initiative than my own circumstances, almost dropping my jaw.

 

Wait a minute.

 

‘I think Kwon Hae-seong was holding a trace walkie-talkie that looked exactly like mine inside the item?’

 

So this guy became the test subject?

 

When I looked at Kwon Hae-seong with eyes filled with surprise and alarm, he avoided my gaze and muttered.

 

“At that time… there was no other way.”

 

Oh my.

 

I wanted to smack his back with my palm and give him a piece of my mind, but as someone who survived thanks to their reckless actions, it wasn’t my place to say that.

 

‘I should just shut up and be grateful.’

 

“Looking at this, it seems like a restraining item. More precisely, this thing inside it.”

 

Meanwhile, something fell from between the beam projector machine that had been folded exactly in half by Eternal Hunter’s power.

 

It was a photograph that appeared to be about 4×4 in size.

 

‘That’s the manor photograph.’

 

Inside was a photograph of the manor where I had stayed, taken from the front.

 

“This doesn’t seem to be manufactured, but rather an item found in special dungeons… like EX-grade.”

 

I could clearly hear Yeong Won-ha’s voice muttering as she examined the photograph from various angles.

 

“It looks like someone modified it in the middle. Who could it be? I wonder who…”

 

Leaving behind Eternal Hunter who suddenly seemed lost in thought and began walking ahead alone, the two familiar figures stood beside me again.

 

‘She’s really a unique person.’

 

Yu Jin-chae placed her hand on my shoulder with a cheerful smile.

 

“Teacher, how do you always get involved in things like this? No, and why did you use that trace walkie-talkie? Were you trying to find some lost AirPods or something?”

 

“…Well, something like that.”

 

I did use it to find something. Not AirPods, but I did use it to find Cheonji.

 

“Please, just buy them. Why would someone who makes money so tenaciously do this?”

 

You really think I used the walkie-talkie to find AirPods.

 

“Should I buy them for you~?”

 

No, you’re just teasing me.

 

“Teacher, really… Please be careful.”

 

Kwon Hae-seong… I have nothing to say to you this time.

 

Under the pressure of Kwon Hae-seong’s hand firmly pressing on my shoulder, I couldn’t argue back and quickly nodded my head.

 

‘Wow, look at this kid’s strength.’

 

“Let’s go home quickly! I want to eat snacks!”

 

Nabi shouted while still not letting go of my cheeks.

 

You’re spitting on me, you brat.

 

“Huh? But Teacher, isn’t Nabi eating too many snacks?”

 

“I don’t eat a lot of snacks.”

 

“You do eat them.”

 

“I don’t eat them!”

 

“You do eat them…”

 

“Kwon Hae-seong, I don’t eat them!”

 

“That’s… informal speech.”

 

In the rather cheerful atmosphere for such a dramatic escape, I raised the corners of my mouth.

 

However, contrary to what I thought would be pure liberation, one corner of my heart felt uncomfortable.

 

-“You have a problem with your memory.”

 

“…”

 

Those words were starting to particularly bother me.

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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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