I’ll Retire After Saving the World - Chapter 5

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Chapter 5 – Even When You Fall Backward (1)

Hunters under the age of 19 and with a D grade or lower are eligible to enter the academy.

The Hunter Academy is an institution founded with great care by the director.

While its name was often mocked for sounding outdated, the purpose behind it was good, and aside from some initial hiccups, it has been running smoothly up to now.

The purpose of the Hunter Academy is simple:

To prevent untrained minor hunters from dying in dungeons.

After it was revealed that some guilds had been trapping newly awakened young hunters in slave contracts and using them as meat shields, the director gathered like-minded hunters to create the academy.

The aim was to educate newly awakened kids.

“Is that guy really okay?”

The kids wearing the academy uniform began to whisper about me.

They must have thought I couldn’t hear them, but I could hear everything.

Where did they even get that old-fashioned uniform?

“Did he hurt his head?”

“My ability can heal external wounds, but if he has internal injuries, there’s nothing I can do… What if it’s a concussion?”

“Think about our teacher. Hunters are usually a bit off in the head.”

“Don’t forget we’re hunters too, okay?”

I looked at the kids with a bewildered expression and slowly got up.

My dulled senses were gradually returning. As I flexed my tingling hand, I realized I was still holding the director’s identification tag.

… My mind was starting to clear up.

“No matter what’s wrong with his head, we can’t just leave him here.”

“Then what are we supposed to do? Nothing works, not the phone, nothing.”

Yoo Jieun’s sword was still in my hand. It was proof that the scene I saw just before losing consciousness wasn’t a hallucination.

I looked around again. Other than the incredibly old computer that seemed unlikely to work, there was nothing particularly noteworthy. It was a typical office you could find anywhere.

An office.

An office….

The calendar on the wall caught my eye.

2021.

“2021?!”

“What?”

“Mister! Are you finally coming to your senses?”

I looked at the calendar again.

April 2021.

I rubbed my eyes.

The calendar still said April 2021.

Why… why that date?

How likely is it that the owner of this office has such a quirky taste to hang a twenty-year-old calendar on the wall?

“Hey! Mister!”

“Hyunwook!”

“Hey, let go.”

A boy came stomping over. He had a name tag on his chest.

Oh Hyunwook.

That’s strange. Why does that name sound familiar?

“Mister. We don’t have time to wait for you to come to your senses.”

“Roaaaar!!”

The sound of a monster came from outside. The boy frowned.

“…You hear that?”

I looked at the calendar.

“If we stay here like this… Mister?”

This isn’t good. I have a bad feeling about this.

I carefully moved towards the window. The blinds were down, but just in case, I lowered my body.

Through the gaps in the blinds, I could see the wrecked street.

It’s not a complete ruin. It’s a mess, but it’s still salvageable.

The cars left on the road were crushed and scattered like trash.

The windows of the stores on the first floor were all shattered, and a black buffalo was sniffing around, wandering aimlessly.

Its horns seemed disproportionately large for its head.

I confirmed the sign of the restaurant that the buffalo had wrecked. I hadn’t heard of the place, but I had no problem recognizing the writing in the corner of the sign.

Myeongdong Branch.

April 2021. Myeongdong. Black buffalo.

Civilians huddled in the corner of the office.

Kids wearing the old uniform of the Hunter Academy.

…What if those uniforms aren’t old but are actually the current ones?

“Excuse me!”

“Be quiet.”

So…

“You there, the boy.”

I called the boy standing there with a disgruntled face.

Oh Hyunwook.

Damn it.

I didn’t just know his name; now that I look closely, I recognize his face too. He just looks about twenty years younger than the face I remember, so I didn’t recognize him right away.

“…What?”

“What’s today’s date?”

Oh Hyunwook’s face blurred with confusion.

“Mister, are you feeling nauseous or dizzy?”

“It’s not a concussion. What’s today’s date?”

“…It’s April 5th.”

April 5, 2021.

“Shit.”

I ended up swearing.

I retraced my memories.

What happened before I lost consciousness. The monsters overflowing on the highway and the dead people. Yoo Jieun. The director.

The strange item that appeared after the centipede vanished.

The numbers on the item that looked like a date.

As unbelievable as it was, there was only one conclusion.

Time travel.

Does that even make sense?

I’ve never heard of an item that allows time travel. It’s more plausible to think this is a hallucination before dying.

If this really is time travel, there could have been better dates.

…Why today, why Myeongdong?

If it was just before I went on vacation, I wouldn’t have ignored Yoo Jieun’s warning and I would have tackled the damn Bangi-dong dungeon.

Why, of all days, today?!

April 5, 2021.

If I’ve really gone back twenty years.

Everyone in this building, except for five people, will die today.

* * *

Twenty years ago, a dungeon burst in Myeongdong.

Back then, just before the development of mana measuring devices, dungeons were managed manually.

Of course, given that the Myeong-dong dungeon was in the heart of Seoul, it was managed quite thoroughly for its time.

But as with all dungeons, even if it seemed calm yesterday, it could erupt today.

That’s what happened with the Myeong-dong dungeon.

It was later revealed that part of the problem was a negligent public official who didn’t do their job properly.

While it wasn’t entirely their fault, the delayed warning resulted in the first casualties. The news of the dungeon break only spread after initial victims had fallen.

The guild responsible for the Myeong-dong dungeon immediately dispatched upon hearing the news, but it was too much for them to handle the monsters alone.

While waiting for backup, the monsters began rampaging through the streets of Myeong-dong.

During this chaos, five students from the Hunter Training Pilot High School, who were on a field training session, got trapped in the guild office.

They were stuck with civilians and non-combat guild staff in the same building.

There were forty-one civilians. This number included people who had entered the building to escape the monsters.

Including the students, there were forty-six people.

Unable to seek external help, the monsters sensed the presence of people in the building and began attacking it.

The students tried to protect the civilians, but being newly awakened, they had no idea how to handle a dungeon break.

There were five survivors: two students from the Hunter Training Pilot High School and three civilians.

This incident became a burden for the newly established Hunter Training School. I saw firsthand how the director struggled with this for several more years.

The name of the school was later changed from Hunter Training High School to Hunter Academy because of this incident.

Frankly, I think the new name sounds worse, but it’s said that it kept bringing up memories of the deceased students.

Anyway, the Myeong-dong dungeon break is a regular feature in mandatory safety education for awakened ones.

It highlights the consequences of poor dungeon management and the critical importance of initial response during a dungeon break, among other things.

Naturally, I know this well. As an instructor, I had to be well-versed in it.

I even wrote a thesis on this during my university days. It was about what inexperienced minor hunters could have done to escape safely.

For the record, that thesis concluded that it was impossible for everyone to survive, considering the technology and armament levels of the students at that time.

…In other words, if we had useful future knowledge and decent equipment, there might be a way for all forty-six people to survive.

What? Aren’t I worried about time paradoxes and such with time travel?

I don’t even know how I got here, so why worry about that?

I don’t know how to get back, or if I even can, and thinking about the unknown monster, the hunters’ corpses, and the blazing Seoul makes me not want to return.

So… shouldn’t I be thinking about how to survive here?

I have Yoo Jieun’s sword. If I were alone, I could get out of this mess by myself.

But….

“How long has it been since the dungeon went wild?”

I can’t pretend not to know when I know everyone’s going to die. Seeing it in print and seeing it in person are different.

I’m not that heartless.

Forty-six… no, forty-one lives are at stake.

“Mister… what?”

“Aren’t you students from the Hunter Training Pilot High School? Haven’t you learned about dungeon breaks?”

“Uh… uh….”

I could recite the 2041 Hunter Academy curriculum by heart, but I don’t know about this time period.

Still, survivors Oh Hyunwook and Park Seohyun are renowned genius hunters. They say the potential shows early, so hopefully, they can handle their part.

“…We were supposed to learn about it today.”

“……”

“Well, we originally came to the guild for field training. To learn about dungeon management and raid procedures….”

It’s okay.

That can happen. They’re still kids.

The Oh Hyunwook I know is a hairy man with a beer belly, and Park Seohyun is a creepy, grinning woman.

Right now, they’re just kids. Maybe they’re around D-rank?

Typically, D-rank hunters are those who have just become hunters and act like they’re something special.

They were so annoying during mandatory training sessions.

Compared to those hunters, at least these kids are paying attention to what I’m saying.

“Then learn now. Do you know when the dungeon went wild?”

“Uh, how long has it been, guys?”

“About four hours….”

“We don’t need ‘about’. Specific numbers are crucial in dungeon raids.”

The kids, who were bewildered, shifted uncomfortably. However, one of them answered clearly.

“It’s been three hours and fifty minutes.”

Yoo Hyeeun. The girl who was fervently slapping my cheek earlier.

“What about contact with the outside?”

“We can’t. Sometimes there’s a signal, but it doesn’t connect.”

“What was the last piece of information you received? Include the time.”

“Um, two hours ago, we heard that hunters were gathering to raid the dungeon boss.”

I know the life the director lived.

He was part of the boss raid team. He blamed himself for not knowing that his students were dying while he was calmly fighting the boss.

At least this time, that won’t happen.

“Wait a minute, mister.”

Oh Hyunwook, who had been quiet, spoke up with a skeptical look.

“Who are you, anyway?”

“Hyunwook!”

“Hey, hold on. How can we trust someone we don’t even know? Mister, do you have a hunter license? If you do, show it to us.”

Ha.

To think that pig Hyunwook was this sharp once. Time, huh….

But it was a sharp question. A helpful one, too.

I nodded.

“I don’t have it.”

It’s safely tucked in my wallet, but how could I show a license dated 2029?

“What did you say?”

“I lost it.”

“…You lost it?”

“It was in my wallet, but the wallet is gone. I must have dropped it when I fainted earlier.”

What can you do when it’s lost?

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