Hunter Kindergarten, Dolphin Class! - Chapter 19

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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 019

 

After confirming that the children had each entered their bathroom stalls, I waited quietly outside.

 

‘Why isn’t Kwon Hae-seong following?’

 

However, it wasn’t particularly a situation where manpower was needed right now, and the children would come out soon, so I waited without complaint.

 

-Click.

 

Before long, the children finished their business and came out one by one, saying they wanted to wash their hands. I didn’t bother to stop them from doing it themselves and simply followed them to the washbasin area.

 

And when we reached the washbasin area, I saw Kwon Hae-seong.

 

But something seemed a bit strange.

 

“Teacher Hae-seong? Is something wrong?”

 

Kwon Hae-seong, standing in front of the washbasin, was staring intensely at the bathroom door as if trying to bore a hole through it.

 

“….”

 

Leaving him still without an answer, I first picked up Tae-jae and turned on the faucet at the washbasin.

 

“This washbasin is quite high. It’ll be difficult for the kids to use.”

 

Adding those words, I looked back at Kwon Hae-seong.

 

“…?”

 

I could see the side of his head, still looking at the door with quite menacing eyes.

 

‘What are you doing?’

 

I also checked toward the door. It was just an ordinary door.

 

Except that unlike before, it was slightly open.

 

“Teacher Hae-seong, please help wash the kids’ hands.”

 

I didn’t know what had gotten into him, but this wasn’t a situation where I could wait for that guy. Looking at the three pairs of eyes waiting behind me, you’d understand my feelings.

 

“Ah… Yes.”

 

Only then did Kwon Hae-seong suddenly look this way and awkwardly pick up Noah. I could hear the sound of water flowing from the adjacent washbasin.

 

“Teacher! A little closer please!”

 

“Is… this close enough?”

 

“Oh! That’s perfect! You’re doing great, Teacher!”

 

“…Thank you.”

 

Watching the two who were getting along quite well, I picked up the next batter, Cheonji.

 

“The person who was here earlier seems to have left. I was trying to finish quickly and leave, but was it inconvenient?”

 

“…He’ll come back.”

 

That was a strangely confident tone.

 

“Is that so?”

 

What happened in the meantime?

 

I tried to recall the man I had encountered in the bathroom earlier. His whole body was covered in dirt as if he had been rolling around in some garden.

 

I couldn’t see his face properly because of his hat.

 

My impression of the man was something like ‘He must have had quite a tough day today too.’

 

‘Other than that… there wasn’t anything particularly notable.’

 

Since Kwon Hae-seong was uncharacteristically glaring at the door with sharp eyes, I worried whether some unnecessary conflict had occurred while I was away, but I hadn’t heard any such sounds.

 

…If he had attacked that Big Guy, I would have rightfully cheered for his opponent.

 

‘He’d have to earn points through courage.’

 

But even so, what worried me was that from what I’d observed over the past few days, I judged this guy to have a personality that was surprisingly mismatched with his appearance.

 

 

Wait a minute, this guy didn’t get into a fight but got one-sidedly beaten up in that short time, didn’t he?

 

I held back a sigh looking at Kwon Hae-seong who seemed to be naively waiting again.

 

“For now, shall we go? We’ll probably run into that person by chance while going around the field study. Were you in the middle of an important conversation?”

 

What are you, a dog? Waiting just because someone said to wait.

 

“…No. It’s just… nothing important.”

 

As Kwon Hae-seong mumbled and nodded, I pushed him toward the door. Let’s just go. That person probably won’t come anyway.

 

“Now we just need to visit the remaining Research Department and then go to the Field Team Office at the right time. But is it really okay for us to go there?”

 

“…Mm, it should be fine. The Field Teams usually just do paperwork in the office. Like regular office workers…”

 

That would be fortunate.

 

‘Why do I feel so uneasy?’

 

The back of my neck feels cold, and this feeling is really unsettling.

 

“Is that so? Then….”

 

-Creak.

 

-Thud.

 

“What the.”

 

I stopped in place for a moment at the arm blocking my path. I held my breath and opened my eyes wide.

 

Right, what is this?

 

I saw Tae-jae open the door and go out. Three children followed behind him.

 

Kwon Hae-seong and I were no different. We were closely following behind them.

 

Yes, that’s definitely what happened.

 

The door closed, and as we entered the hallway, the surroundings were strangely dark. As if we had entered a darkroom.

 

My hair stood on end. It was perhaps natural to instinctively feel fear at the sudden darkness.

 

I waited for a moment in that silence, but the situation didn’t change.

 

I clenched and unclenched my fists to maintain my composure.

 

‘Let me pull myself together.’

 

I mustn’t forget my duty.

 

With that thought, the fear seemed to fade slightly.

 

“…The door won’t open.”

 

I immediately turned around and grabbed the door handle, but it wouldn’t open. Moreover, the texture was different from the bathroom door we had just been going through.

 

It was eerily cold and much heavier.

 

“Let me try.”

 

“Does it open?”

 

“…No. It doesn’t seem like a door we can open right now.”

 

Only rattling sounds echoed, and not even a crack was visible.

 

I immediately reached out and pulled the heads of the children who should be around me toward me one by one.

 

One, two, …three.

 

“What kind of situation is this all of a sudden? It’s too dark to be a power outage.”

 

“It doesn’t seem like a power outage. Since there are no windows….”

 

Even though Kwon Hae-seong roughly muted the following explanation, I fully understood what he meant.

 

As if to prove it, goosebumps rose all over my back.

 

‘Come to think of it, there were long glass windows at the end of each hallway.’

 

The scene of midday sunlight illuminating the hallway through the windows vividly played in reverse in my mind.

 

…Just before my head overheated from the situation contradicting reality, an even more unwelcome reality struck.

 

‘Missing.’

 

One of the children is missing.

 

No matter how much I reached out, I couldn’t grab one of them.

 

I felt like all the blood was draining from my body, but I tried to maintain my composure and spoke.

 

“Teacher Hae-seong, is one of the children over there with you? I have three with me right now.”

 

“…No…. I’ll look for them.”

 

Urgency was evident in Kwon Hae-seong’s voice as he answered. I was conscious of the presence I felt nearby and spoke to the children around me.

 

“Were you scared? It’s nothing serious. The teachers will figure it out. Is Noah here?”

 

I called out names while feeling for their slight height differences.

 

“Yes! I’m here!”

 

“Cheonji?”

 

“Yes….”

 

“Good, is Seo-ro here?”

 

“Yes, Teacher, it’s too dark here.”

 

Whoa, wait a minute.

 

My ominous imagination turned out to be right as expected. I was horrified alone in the darkness.

 

The kid who’s not here is the real Tae-jae? Not Noah?

 

“Tae-jae?”

 

There was no answer when I called. I shouted Tae-jae’s name toward the pitch-black darkness, but no matter how long I waited, there was no response.

 

“…It seems like Tae-jae has disappeared.”

 

Saying it out loud makes it even more dismal.

 

“He might be hiding somewhere because he was startled…”

 

Please, I really hope that’s the case.

 

 

After that, Kwon Hae-seong and I decided to move around to find Tae-jae after a mind-splitting discussion.

 

Since we couldn’t leave the kids here alone, we each grabbed a child’s hand and walked forward.

 

“Tae-jae!!”

 

“Tae-jae! Can you answer us? Your teachers are here!”

 

“Tae-jae!”

 

“Nam Tae-jae, come out right now!!”

 

“Tae-jae, I’ll give you the ‘I Don’t Know Sweet Potato’ doll from my house.”

 

Even his friends joined in calling Tae-jae’s name, but there was no noticeable response.

 

After walking like that for quite a while, we finally discovered something.

 

…Something else instead of the Cheonghakdong Kid.

 

“That’s…”

 

“…!”

 

In my entire life, I had never seen anything like this.

 

A green aurora that could only be seen in polar regions was undulating in a circular formation.

 

This doesn’t… make sense, does it? How could there be an aurora created by Earth’s magnetic field at the end of a blocked hallway?

 

I blinked my eyes and silently stared at the aurora that was emanating an unpleasant aura.

 

However, unlike me, Kwon Hae-seong seemed to have realized something and opened his mouth with a weak exclamation.

 

“Ah… I think I know why this happened.”

 

Along with a sigh, he delivered what seemed like good news.

 

What is it? Why did Tae-jae disappear, and why is there an aurora here?

 

Kwon Hae-seong looked troubled about how to explain this, but he began to speak with difficulty.

 

His slender index finger pointed toward the undulating aurora.

 

“First of all, that’s a gate.”

 

“…A gate. The kind of gate you enter dungeons through?”

 

“Yes, and most likely Tae-jae went inside that gate…”

 

Wait, hold on.

 

What is this guy saying?

 

***

 

Perhaps reading my murderous expression, Kwon Hae-seong unusually spoke quickly.

 

“First, this place is where they separately manage only the Safety Management Grade dungeons in the company basement… And if my guess is correct, the man we saw in the restroom earlier seems to have dragged us here…”

 

Kwon Hae-seong continued his explanation while watching my reaction.

 

So, to summarize what he said, our current situation is as follows.

 

The place where we are now is apparently where the company separately manages dungeons they bought at auctions.

 

Safety is guaranteed since they go through several rounds of testing.

 

But the problem is… I don’t know what those standards are.

 

I mean, who is this ‘safety guarantee’ based on?

 

From what I’m hearing, it seems like Field Teams and Security Teams mainly enter dungeons, so wouldn’t the safety standards be too high?

 

And furthermore…

 

“That Male Person has no reason to drag us here, does he?”

 

What was his intention in bringing 2 innocent teachers and 4 harmless children to the Dungeon Basement?

 

And Kwon Hae-seong also seemed to be struggling with this part, as his face showed uncertainty.

 

“It’s just speculation, but I think that person is probably a D~F grade Spatial Movement Awakener…”

 

He rattled off everything he knew about the characteristics of Spatial Movement.

 

Then he talked about situations that could arise if there were ‘mistakes’ or ‘variables’ in That Man’s ability, concluding that the current situation could have occurred.

 

…I had no choice but to nod at his fairly plausible logic.

 

There was nothing else that could explain it besides this theory.

 

In the end, if what he said was true, this happened because That Man didn’t close the door properly… We ended up in the BOND Underground Dungeon where we’d never have reason to come in our entire lives.

 

…Haha.

 

We’re screwed. This is.

 

I turned my head again to look at the problematic gate. More precisely, I was looking at one white sneaker that had fallen in front of that gate.

 

When he suddenly cut off all the explanations and said the kid had gone in there, I felt like I was going to fall backwards, but now I was dizzy in a different sense.

 

“…Would it be better to wait for rescue?”

 

“No. Waiting for rescue would be difficult. The Security Team does regular patrols, but they don’t open the door and check every time. Besides…”

 

“…”

 

“That door is designed to only open from the outside for security purposes. So… there are two methods.”

 

In this worst-case scenario, there were actually two methods. I guess that was somewhat fortunate.

 

Fingers showing the number 2 were thrust in front of my eyes.

 

“One, forcibly clear the dungeon to trigger an alert to the Security Team. …Actually, this is nearly impossible.”

 

I guarantee that my face right now must look corpse-like, having gone beyond pale white.

 

“Two, we… tear off the door.”

 

This was a more realistic option than clearing the dungeon.

 

Tearing off the iron door.

 

“Can you tear off that door?”

 

“Yes, it’s possible… It’ll take some time though.”

 

…Good. That means he’s confident.

 

 

If it were just Kwon Hae-seong and me, we would have entered the dungeon without hesitation to find Tae-jae.

 

But right now, we have three more preschool children besides Tae-jae.

 

‘Rather than taking the kids in there, it’s better to go alone.’

 

In that case, there’s really only one method.

 

“I’ll enter the dungeon to find Tae-jae. Teacher Hae-seong, please take the kids and get out of here to request rescue.”

 

Since I can’t tear off the door, this is the best method in a way.

 

However, Kwon Hae-seong didn’t seem to think so and presented an opposing opinion.

 

“No. I’ll tear off the door, so Teacher Hwiyeon, please take the kids and get out of here to request rescue. I… would be more efficient at finding Tae-jae.”

 

Yeah, looking at your arms and shoulders, I know that’s right, but.

 

“There’s no more time to wait. Actually, I’m anxious even now. How can we leave Tae-jae alone when we don’t know what’s in there.”

 

“…Still, compared to you, Teacher…”

 

This conversation was taking place at some distance from the children.

 

It was to prevent them from being disturbed by Tae-jae’s absence.

 

However, there was something that Kwon Hae-seong and I, who had aged completely, had overlooked.

 

Seven-year-old growing children have sharper eyes and ears than expected.

 

“Nam Tae-jae!! No!!”

 

Noah picked up Tae-jae’s white sneaker that had fallen in front of the gate.

 

“…!”

 

“…Is Nam Tae-jae dead?”

 

No, that’s not it, kids.

 

“Teacher, did Tae-jae go in there?”

 

That’s correct, but Cheonji…

 

“…”

 

For a moment, my eyes met with Kwon Hae-seong’s.

 

Ah, his mental state has already collapsed.

 

Noah fallen into sadness and despair, Seo-ro who had already confirmed his friend’s death, and Cheonji calmly asking about the cruel reality.

 

I ignored my throbbing head and barely managed to open my mouth.

 

“Tae-jae will be fine. Teacher will go find him, and our friends just need to wait a little and follow Teacher Hae-seong out.”

 

Cheonji and Seo-ro seemed to understand… The problem was that Noah looked completely out of it.

 

“Noah, Teacher will…”

 

I had to somehow calm him down.

 

The moment I slowly approached and tried to grab Noah’s shoulder.

 

“Wait! Nam Tae-jae!! I’ll save you!”

 

“W-wait…!”

 

With just a span’s distance remaining, Noah threw himself into the gate.

 

My hand flailed through empty air before landing flat on the ground with a thud.

 

As soon as I came to my senses again.

 

“Hey, Kim Noah, go slowly.”

 

“Huh? Seo-ro’s going too? Then I should go too.”

 

Before I could stop them, even Cheonji and Seo-ro slipped into the gate…?

 

This is insane!

 

“Noahhh! Cheonji! Seo-ro! You little rascals!”

 

My desperate cry didn’t reach them.

 

I threw myself like a madman toward the gate that had instantly swallowed three preschoolers—no, four of them.

 

“No!!”

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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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