Hunter Kindergarten, Dolphin Class! - Chapter 44

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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 044

 

The first thing I saw when I opened my eyes was mercilessly swirling snowflakes.

 

Just as I was registering the much colder air temperature, the cold sensation hitting my cheeks left me stunned.

 

‘Snow?’

 

It was real snow.

 

White and cold, disappearing as soon as it touched…

 

Na Hwi-yeon blinked his eyes. The movement was stiff and didn’t reflect his will at all.

 

Looking down in that state, he could see snow piled up to his thighs.

 

“Ha-“

 

Hot breath traveled up his throat and burst into the air.

 

However, Na Hwi-yeon immediately closed his mouth.

 

It wasn’t… a mistake.

 

The body he had regained consciousness in was not his own.

 

The blinking eyes, the mouth exhaling hot air, even the two legs buried in the snow pile.

 

Two hands were visible below his vision blurred by snowflakes.

 

Large hands clenched into fists.

 

‘Just moments ago, these were hands that had been crumpling a memo pad.’

 

Kwon Hae-seong.

 

These were Kwon Hae-seong’s hands.

 

With this sudden realization, his frozen brain finally began to work.

 

 

The Status Window he had pressed without knowing anything.

 

Only a few seconds had passed since then, yet he had awakened in a different place in someone else’s body.

 

‘What on earth happened?’

 

At that moment.

 

As if providing an answer the moment the question arose, fragmented information began flooding into his mind. Na Hwi-yeon couldn’t resist even once and accepted all that information.

 

 

BOND’s Field Team Da, dispatched on an emergency call at dawn upon government request.

 

Though it was deployment to a relatively low-grade E-rank Dungeon, given the nature of the request, it was decided that the entire team would be deployed.

 

The request was as follows:

 

Eight Children and two Adults presumed to be Teachers had gone missing on the School Route, caught up in a suddenly appeared Dungeon.

 

Naturally, the ultimate goal of the request was to rescue them safely.

 

It was undoubtedly very tedious and persistent work requiring patience, having to move using only a special item that detects human vital signs as a Compass.

 

“We should just find the boss and kill it…”

 

Kwon Hae-seong muttered while rubbing his large hands together.

 

“You’re saying that again? But I agree. We should go in hot.”

 

A Senior next to him adjusted his Goggles and spoke while holding up his palm.

 

‘As expected, I knew Senior would agree.’

 

What this meant was…

 

Rather than searching for Missing Persons one by one in this endlessly sprawling Snow Mountain Dungeon, it would be faster to find and eliminate the Dungeon boss.

 

Moreover, this was an E-rank Dungeon.

 

If they could just find the boss, Dungeon Clear would be no problem at all.

 

After some time passed, the blizzard that seemed ready to swallow the group disappeared without a trace.

 

Kwon Hae-seong briefly surveyed the clear sky and the vast snow mountain landscape spread below it, then opened his mouth without hesitation.

 

“Let’s just clear the Dungeon…”

 

No matter how he thought about it, relying on just one item to find the Missing Persons was inefficient.

 

And at those words, the team leader’s brow furrowed.

 

“Hae-seong, you Bear bastard. Who doesn’t know that? Do you know where that boss is to go looking for it?”

 

“…Then do you know where the Missing Persons are to go looking for them?”

 

The boss and the Missing Persons.

 

Both were equally unable to pinpoint the exact location.

 

If they just killed the boss, the gate would close and all the humans here would be ejected from the dungeon at once.

 

In terms of efficiency, he couldn’t help but lean toward this option.

 

“I’ll abstain. Either way, my situation won’t change regardless of which option we choose.”

 

One abstention.

 

“I’ll cast my vote for Bear’s side. How long would it take to escort all 10 civilians down from here?”

 

One vote for Dungeon Clear.

 

This created a 1:2 standoff between the team leader and Kwon Hae-seong.

 

Finally, the team leader opened his mouth with a sigh.

 

“Ah, fine… Alright then. But Junior Member and I will search for the missing persons while you two handle the boss elimination.”

 

Only then did Kwon Hae-seong nod lightly.

 

It was a conclusion he was pleased with.

 

He was confident this would be better for both the missing persons and themselves.

 

“Keep checking your watch carefully.”

 

With the team leader’s final reminder, the four split into two groups at the crossroads and moved out.

 

With steps as calm and swift as the eye of a storm.

 

Without fear.

 

***

 

Meanwhile, Na Hwi-yeon sighed inwardly. He had tried everything he could for hours now, but the result was the same.

 

‘I can’t move.’

 

The only thing he could do was roll his eyes.

 

However, perhaps in exchange, he could feel everything about Kwon Hae-seong.

 

Smell, touch, taste, pain.

 

Even emotions.

 

Right now, even at this moment, anxiety and unease mixed together, making his stomach churn.

 

It would have been much better if he didn’t know the cause of this unpleasant feeling…

 

But even this couldn’t be ignored due to the information and memories that had been drilled into his head.

 

‘No wonder. So much time has already passed.’

 

For a full 14 hours… Kwon Hae-seong had been unable to find the dungeon boss.

 

Certainly, when he had boldly proposed the Dungeon Clear, there had been definite confidence and even a hint of boredom.

 

But finding the boss was taking longer than expected.

 

And the problem wasn’t just that.

 

Communication with the team leader had been cut off three hours ago.

 

The team leader, who had been reporting the situation every hour, had suddenly stopped communicating.

 

However, Kwon Hae-seong and his senior decided to continue with the Dungeon Clear rather than search for their missing teammates.

 

They judged it would be faster to keep moving forward to find the boss rather than backtrack to look for the team leader and missing persons.

 

It certainly wasn’t the wrong choice.

 

But…

 

‘Still, is this really the right choice?’

 

Na Hwi-yeon’s concerns soon became reality.

 

About 14 hours after they started searching for the boss, and 3 more hours after that.

 

Finally, the two came face to face with the dungeon boss.

 

 

Kwon Hae-seong wiped the blood from his cheek with his hand and quietly stared at the monster before him.

 

About 20 wolf-type monsters.

 

The ice shards embedded between their white fur scratched his skin every time they charged and attacked.

 

But aside from this annoying aspect, they weren’t particularly difficult to handle.

 

Considering only one remained now.

 

He looked down at the last wolf collapsed on the floor, breathing heavily.

 

As soon as this one dies, we can go back.

 

“Damn! I thought I was going to die. Still, it’s fortunate. If we’d been any later, it would have been a disaster.”

 

Senior collapsed onto the floor with a thud. There were monster corpses scattered around, but he didn’t seem to care.

 

I could understand why he was acting like that. The physical exhaustion was considerable. Seventeen hours of exploration followed by non-stop battles with twenty monsters.

 

Kwon Hae-seong let out a long sigh.

 

Before Field Team Da was deployed to the dungeon, seven hours had already passed since the kindergarten group went missing.

 

Now seventeen more hours had passed since then… So this would be a rescue after twenty-four hours.

 

Roughly a full day had been consumed.

 

At this rate, there was a high possibility that all the missing persons would be rescued safely.

 

Just as he was letting out a bitter laugh at having worked an entire day unexpectedly, Senior’s voice from beside him struck his ears.

 

“Hey… Why is the time like this?”

 

Seeing Senior looking down at his watch with a serious expression, Kwon Hae-seong also checked his own.

 

“…!”

 

December 25th, 20XX.

 

Christmas Day.

 

The moment Kwon Hae-seong’s eyes met with Senior’s, he felt that something had gone terribly wrong.

 

The date he had checked just before entering the E-rank dungeon was December 11th. He remembered it clearly since it was exactly two weeks before Christmas.

 

No, it would be ridiculous not to remember.

 

Only a day had passed at most.

 

But somehow, there was a two-week gap between that memory and the date displayed on his watch.

 

…The two fell silent.

 

There were situations and worst-case scenarios that came to mind, but they didn’t rashly open their mouths.

 

As if speaking would make everything become reality.

 

However, time was still flowing, and they couldn’t just stay still forever.

 

“This seems like big trouble. No wonder… It was strange that my stamina hit rock bottom after just one day of hardship.”

 

Saying that, Senior suddenly stood up and muttered while pulling off his goggles.

 

“The actual time that passed is different from the time we perceived… If this is the case, rescuing the civilians…”

 

Two weeks, no, if you consider the seven hours they were missing before, in reality another three to four days could have passed here.

 

Are they… still alive?

 

He blinked his eyes shut and open. His reflection was visible on Senior’s discarded goggles.

 

He looked so gaunt that it was hard to believe only a day had passed.

 

***

 

If Kwon Hae-seong could help it, he didn’t want to see the scene unfolding before his eyes.

 

However, he couldn’t bring himself to turn his head away. He needed to see clearly the results of what he had caused.

 

Ten bodies covered in white shrouds being carried away.

 

Eight of them were children who would soon turn six years old.

 

A heavy silence descended over Field Team Da as they watched the scene.

 

It was quite a while later that the Team Leader, her face deathly pale, managed to speak with difficulty.

 

“…When we found them, they had already lost consciousness. They had hidden in the Snow Mountain Cave so their body temperature was maintained, but the problem was they had no nutritional supply at all…”

 

Nutritional intake.

 

It was a matter of life and death that any human would naturally feel.

 

When Kwon Hae-seong heard their cause of death, it felt like he’d been struck in the head.

 

The fear of death he felt every day wasn’t about things like this.

 

The life-threatening fear he experienced was… monster attacks, attacks from other Awakeners, or traps encountered during missions.

 

But at this moment, the devastatingly primitive cause of death called ‘lack of nutritional intake’ felt more terrifying.

 

So what she’s saying now is… they starved to death?

 

When the Team Leader and I split up, we had divided the food supplies in half.

 

“Bear, don’t whine about being hungry again and take more.”

 

Would the situation have been different if I hadn’t eagerly taken more food supplies at those words?

 

Suddenly remembering how I had laughed carelessly while taking the food, my stomach churned.

 

“You guys must have felt it too, but inside that dungeon, the time we perceived and the time that actually passed were different.”

 

The Team Leader said that when she found the missing persons, two weeks had already passed according to watch time.

 

The missing persons they barely found were in a state where they could barely maintain breathing and were just barely alive.

 

“There was nothing I could do. Whether it was a distance issue, contact with you guys was cut off, and I judged it impossible for just me and the junior member to take all 10 unconscious people to the exit.”

 

Still, he said he tried to take them somehow.

 

Carrying them on his back, lifting them, holding them, even if it meant dragging them.

 

“I really thought I was going crazy…! The 10 minutes I spent briefly thinking had actually turned into several hours…”

 

The junior member who had been speaking through tears finally broke down crying.

 

“It’s my mistake.”

 

With these words, the team leader disappeared saying he would handle things, and the senior left while cursing himself with self-blame.

 

Kwon Hae-seong looked at the junior member who was still crying, then turned his gaze away.

 

The gate that was slowly disappearing.

 

The dungeon he had cleared.

 

The team leader said it was his mistake, but to Kwon Hae-seong, everything sounded like it was his fault.

 

If only he had started by looking for the missing persons first, as the request originally stated.

 

If only he hadn’t forced the dungeon clear with baseless confidence.

 

At the very least, if he had moved to find them when contact with his companions was lost…

 

Wouldn’t this worst-case scenario have been avoided?

 

…He couldn’t even cry.

 

No, he thought it would be shameless to shed tears.

 

In the end, it was the team leader and junior member who came out of the dungeon holding corpses the moment it was cleared.

 

All he had done was mindlessly throw punches at monsters.

 

Kwon Hae-seong looked up at the sky. White snow was falling.

 

***

 

Na Hwi-yeon quietly watched the city streets where white snow was falling heavily.

 

By now, he couldn’t help but know.

 

The fact that what he was seeing now was Kwon Hae-seong’s past.

 

However, the problem was that this was 5D Screen Sharing where even sensations and emotions were shared.

 

If he too was feeling his whole body being crushed by guilt and emotions where even breathing felt regrettable, then it was indeed a problem.

 

Cheerful Christmas carols continued to flow through the streets.

 

‘Around this time, I saw it on the news too.’

 

The news about the daycare center dungeon accident.

 

Na Hwi-yeon tried not to be conscious of his stiff eyes as he looked around.

 

Just a few hours ago, a terrible accident had occurred where 8 children and 2 adults died after being caught up in a dungeon… But the world hadn’t changed at all.

 

Songs still flowed, the streets were still crowded with people, and warm conversations fitting for Christmas continued.

 

He easily accepted this strange yet natural scene.

 

The same misfortune is felt differently by each person.

 

Some would feel it like daily life that could be seen by turning on the news.

 

Others would find it sad and regrettable, but still manageable.

 

Still others might completely collapse from despair and pain.

 

And Kwon Hae-seong…

 

Would choose to endlessly blame himself and scrutinize himself.

 

Na Hwi-yeon recalled his own school days, which had now become such distant past.

 

Specifically, the memory of that day when the building where his parents worked collapsed in an instant.

 

Life’s turning points appear in more unexpected ways than one might think.

 

Like himself, who lost both parents in an instant and became an orphan.

 

For Kwon Hae-seong, this incident might be an event that shook his life.

 

‘Perhaps the reason he came to the kindergarten is also related to this incident.’

 

Na Hwi-yeon fell silent.

 

He hadn’t expected to unintentionally see such a heavy past of his colleague.

 

However, the situation was changing too quickly for him to feel uncomfortable about it.

 

Because a familiar sensation was slowly wrapping around his mind.

 

‘Ah, are they waking up now?’

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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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