I’ll Retire After Saving the World - Chapter 119: Favorite Disciple (6)

TL: SHW

I did not avoid Hong Seok-young’s gaze.

“There’s nothing more to hide, is there?”

Hong Seok-young also looked me straight in the eyes and spoke smoothly.

Nothing to hide?

Why wouldn’t there be?

Slowly, the rational part of my mind caught up to the senses that had been paralyzed by Hong Seok-young’s words.

Reason chewed over what Hong Seok-young had said and sneered at it.

Me, his successor? Nonsense.

Externally, the one most often mentioned as Hong Seok-young’s successor was Oh Hyun-wook. However, within the Ability Management Agency, many voices speculated that it might be Yoo Ji-eun. I was one of those voices.

Oh Hyun-wook, being from an outside guild, was never going to be a perfect successor to Hong Seok-young. On the other hand, Yoo Ji-eun came from within the Agency, and even during her days at Pilot High School, my father had kept her close and taught her. Among all the graduates of Pilot High, no one received as much of my father’s instruction as Yoo Ji-eun.

Me?

I wasn’t even a graduate of Pilot High.

…This is a joke.

No, actually it’s not a joke. What I was able to learn from father had nothing to do with Pilot High School at all.

Why do you think I learned from him? Because I was his son.

And putting aside whether it was because of Pilot High or because I was his son, could someone become a successor simply because their movements resembled those of Hunter Hong Seok-young?

Hong Seok-young’s status in South Korea isn’t that insignificant.

The reason Yoo Ji-eun was treated as his successor instead of Oh Hyun-wook?

Because she attacked dungeons at a terrifying pace like my father, made efforts to raid unexplored dungeons, and additionally led volunteer work whenever she had time. At official events, it was always Yoo Ji-eun standing beside my father. Not me.

Why do you think I called Yoo Ji-eun my father’s favorite disciple? All these circumstances led to that conclusion.

Yoo Ji-eun was the successor. That was decided the moment I chose not to become a Hunter.

That’s why, when I entered the dungeon in place of Han Tae-kyung, whose license had been suspended due to disciplinary action, my father stepped in to divert attention away from me. My Hunter rank was treated as classified information.

The reason Yoo Ji-eun called me a nepo-baby was because of that. She said I received only my father’s protection without ever stepping forward myself.

…Maybe I really was my father’s favorite disciple. The disciple who inherited everything from him. But that was all. I had no other role. Because I didn’t want one.

‘Hwijae. I’ll make sure you can do whatever you want.’

I relaxed my shoulders. Only now could I admit it.

I had a rough idea of what Hong Seok-young was expecting of me right now. Around the time Pilot High was turning into the Hunter Academy and the Agency was being established, my father often lamented about how he lacked enough hands. He frequently said he wished there were two of him.

Then suddenly, a man presumed to be his successor appeared from the future?

If he were the successor, he’d probably understand his intentions well, right? If he came from the future, he’d know the shortest route to achieving those goals, wouldn’t he? He’d know what not to do and what would be helpful, wouldn’t he?

Even I have to admit, it’s excellent labor. That’s what a successor is. Big Yoo Ji-eun also played substitute whenever father was away.

But I didn’t want to be treated like that. I was my father’s son. A child is supposed to rely on their parent, isn’t that right? I also wanted the assurance that no matter how I acted, my father wouldn’t abandon me.

And now that I think about it, back then, I was plagued with a sense of inferiority, thinking my father was trying to achieve through me what he couldn’t do for his biological son. That was also the root of my intense adolescence. Honestly, I was just… a kid.

My father said he saw himself in me, not his biological son, but I wasn’t naïve enough to believe that at face value. Saying I wouldn’t become a Hunter, yet still working by his side, both were part of the same thread.

In the end, I realized something.

I am my father’s son. The son of Hong Seok-young.

A father who wanted to teach everything he knew to his son,

And a son who wanted to follow everything about that father.

Once I found myself in the position of teaching kids, I understood. How adorable it is when they squirm around trying their best to follow what I tell them.

Damn it.

Those things are meant to be expressed in words.

…No, now that I think about it, Father did express himself plenty. I just didn’t accept it properly.

‘Uncle, is it okay if I’m not a Hunter?’

‘Hm? Didn’t you say you didn’t want to be a Hunter?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then don’t. It’s a job that’s good for dying early.’

‘But you’re a Hunter too.’

‘I keep doing this crap because I didn’t learn anything else. Hwijae, you’re smart, so you’ll do well at whatever you do.’

That was probably his sincere belief too.

If my father had truly intended to make me a Hunter to carry on after him, he would’ve convinced me no matter what. Couldn’t he have coaxed a young teen into doing what he wanted?

Somehow, I looked at Hong Seok-young, who was watching me with eyes full of expectation.

Successor. Successor, huh.

“What if I’m not the successor?”

“Hm?”

“If I’m not the successor, is that a problem?”

“Rather than a problem…”

Hong Seok-young blinked.

“You mimic my moves so well, and you’re saying you’re not?”

“I could be a doppelgänger.”

A monster that imitates a person’s appearance and abilities exactly. A doppelgänger.

At my words, Hong Seok-young just kept blinking, then burst out laughing.

“So monsters of the future reveal they’re monsters themselves?”

“……”

“Or what, in the future, have you solved the monster lifespan problem? Can they live more than a month outside a dungeon? If so, let me know in advance. It’ll cause a lot of headaches.”

“…No. Even in the future I came from, they still can’t live more than a month.”

That’s the reason humanity is still the dominant predator on this planet, despite dungeon breaks happening like eating meals.

Monster lifespan.

In Korea, since the land is small, when a dungeon breaks open, Hunters quickly clean it up. But in the US, Africa, or even Japan where there are lots of untouched mountains, monsters often slip through.

If monsters don’t attack civilians, people leave them be. They’ll die on their own in a month anyway. It’s a blessing, really. Without that, half of humanity would’ve become monster food by now.

“From what I can tell, what happened in Myeong-dong seems to have been right after you arrived in the past. So… it’s been about four months? Monsters can’t survive that long.”

“……”

Why… is he being so logical?

It’s really annoying.

Of course it’s better to believe I’m a human, his successor, even, rather than a monster. It’s better, but for some reason, looking at that smiling face, something welled up inside me.

“What if I’m a monster and stole this human’s body?”

“Did you?”

“……”

Damn it!

“I don’t even know if there’s a monster that wears a human body like a disguise…”

I don’t know either.

“…But the first thing that monster does upon arriving in the past is save fifty or so civilians and aspiring Hunters? Whether it’s a monster or a human, it doesn’t matter. Either way, I’m grateful.”

“……”

Is that so.

In the end, saving those kids back then was the right choice. Not that there was ever a choice to not save them to begin with.

Even so, if that act, done while following Father’s teachings, led to his trust, then it’s enough.

Of course, I know well that the man in front of me is not my father. Just as Mini-me can’t grow up to be a version of me with Hong Seok-young as his father, this man also cannot become someone who has Woo Hwijae as a son.

That’s why I will not become Hong Seok-young’s son.

I won’t say I became your son and inherited everything from you.

Because I can never have it again.

I let out a sigh. Like someone who had realized that arguing further was pointless.

“Yes.”

“Hm?”

“Well… I was something like a successor. You never said it outright, though.”

“Really?”

“To be honest, I didn’t want to do it either…”

“Did I make you?”

“Rather than making me, you just handed over the work.”

“That’s exactly something I’d do!”

Hong Seok-young laughed heartily, completely oblivious to what was going on inside me.

***

I got caught up into talking nonsense because of Hong Seok-young’s talk about successors.

But in truth, that wasn’t the real issue.

“Please tell me in detail about the monsters that came from the future.”

Father never talked about such things even once.

“I didn’t tell you that?”

“You didn’t.”

“Really? In the future, I might have solved it somehow. What year did you come from?”

“…2041.”

“Twenty years ahead, huh. I only got bits and pieces from them myself, so I don’t know much. Most of them treated me like a mortal enemy and tried to kill me.”

Hong Seok-young said it casually, like assassins from the future didn’t even phase him.

“Were there none other than fairies?”

“There were. Fairies were the most common. Aside from them… there was a dragon. There were ghost types, too…”

A surprisingly diverse group of monsters were named by Hong Seok-young. He had said he only encountered them in a handful of dungeons, maybe ten or so. For that, the variety was extensive.

I glanced at my mana watch. I didn’t have information on foreign Hunters, but it was different when it came to dungeons. Information on conquered dungeons is usually made public as a good reference source. Since these dungeons were cleared when Hong Seok-young was young, I didn’t know if data still existed… but there’s no harm in looking.

No. Thinking about it, I don’t even need to hide the mana watch.

I don’t want to reveal the fact that I’m an adopted son, but aside from that, there’s no need to hide any information. In fact, sharing more from my side makes it easier to prepare for what’s ahead.

For example… like the Bangi-dong Dungeon with the centipedes.

“Still, I haven’t seen them for a while. Maybe they changed their strategy…”

Hong Seok-young grinned slyly.

“Maybe, thanks to you coming to the past, they lost the way to come back themselves.”

“……”

That’s probably not it.

I debated whether or not to correct Hong Seok-young.

There’s another plausible reason, isn’t there?

They might have had no more need to come to the past.

They succeeded in killing the father they so desperately wanted to destroy, and humanity was essentially facing extinction. What had that mysterious clock told me again?

The last survivor?

Since it said it was a confirmed qualification, so there must’ve been more survivors at that point. But it was all the same.

“Just before I came to the past.”

“Hm?”

“Everything was destroyed.”

“…Hm?”

“Isn’t that obvious? Would I have come to the past if the future was peaceful? I came because it was in ruins. No, to be precise, I had no intention of coming back in time.”

That day comes back to me. The acrid smell clinging to my nose. The pilot’s face who dropped me off. The charred black bodies strewn across the streets. And in the middle of it all, quietly exhaling…

Yoo Ji-eun.

Th𝚤𝕤 𝓬h𝖺pτɛr 𝐢𝙨 pοѕ𝑡ҽ∂ b𝐲 𝒦𝚒𝑡ᥱ𝑛ℴ𝖛𝙚𝙡

“Everyone died. You too, Yoo Ji-eun too.”

I closed my eyes.

“I wanted to run away. Even in that situation, I didn’t want to die. The bastard that burned Seoul saw me, but there was no way I alone could stop it.”

“……”

“I didn’t know if I could escape or not, but I took a desperate chance. If I had known it would send me to the past, I wouldn’t have done it.”

For the first time since arriving in the past, I spoke honestly from my heart.

“It would’ve been more peaceful for me to just die there.”

Slap.

“Don’t say things like that so carelessly.”

Then I got slapped across the face by Hong Seok-young.

***

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