I’ll Retire After Saving the World

Chapter 5: Going Back (1)

The Hunter Academy is an educational institution established with great effort by the Director. Although it was harshly criticized for its tacky name, the initial intention was good, and despite some initial hiccups, it has been running smoothly up until recently.

The purpose of establishing the Hunter Academy is simple.

To prevent underage Hunters who have not received proper training from dying en masse in dungeons.

After it was revealed that some guilds were 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 idea was to gather newly awakened kids and educate them.

“Is that guy really okay?”

The kids, wearing the uniform of that very educational institution, started whispering about me.

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

Where did they even get that old uniform from?

“Is his head injured?”

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

“No, think about our teacher. Hunters are a bit strange in the head, to begin with.”

“Let’s not forget we’re Hunters too, okay?”

I looked at the kids with a bewildered face and slowly stood up.

My dulled senses were gradually returning. As I wiggled my numb hand, I realized I was still holding the Director’s dog tag.

…My brain also started working gradually.

“No matter what’s wrong with that guy’s head, we can’t just stay here like this.”

“Then what should we do? We can’t make calls or anything.”

Yoo Ji-eun’s sword is still in my hand. It’s proof that the scene I saw just before losing consciousness wasn’t my imagination.

I looked around again. Other than the old computer that made me wonder if it was still functioning, there was nothing distinctive. It’s an office you could see anywhere.

An office.

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 a hobby of hanging a twenty-year-old calendar on the wall?

“Hey! Mister!”

“Hyun-wook!”

“Hey, let me go.”

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

Oh Hyun-wook.

Strange. Why does that name sound familiar?

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

“Kwaaah!!”

I heard the sound of a monster from outside. The boy frowned.

“…You hear that, right?”

I looked at the calendar.

“If we stay like this… Mister?”

This is not good. I have a bad feeling.

I cautiously headed toward the window. The blinds were down, but I crouched just in case.

Through the gap in the blinds, I could see the ruined street.

It wasn’t a complete ruin. It was a mess, but it could be recovered.

The cars left on the road were rolling around, crushed like trash. The glass windows of the shops on the first floor were all shattered, and a Black Buffalo was sniffing around and wandering. Its horns, which seemed large compared to its body, were positioned on its head.

I confirmed the sign of the restaurant that the buffalo had wrecked. Although I had never heard of the name, there was no problem recognizing the letters in the corner of the sign.

Myeong-dong Branch.

April 2021. Myeong-dong. Black Buffalo.

Civilians huddled in a corner of the office.

Kids wearing the old uniform of the Hunter Academy.

…What if that uniform isn’t the old one? What if it’s the current one?

“Hey!”

“Quiet.”

So….

“Hey. You, boy.”

I called the boy who was standing there with a discontented face.

Oh Hyun-wook. Damn it. Not only do I know the name, but now I realize I also know the face. He looks about twenty years younger than the face I remember, so I didn’t recognize him right away.

“…What?”

“What’s the date today?”

Oh Hyun-wook’s face blurred.

“Mister, do you feel nauseous or dizzy?”

“I don’t have a concussion, so what’s the date?”

“…April 5th.”

April 5th, 2021.

“Ha, fuck.”

I ended up cursing.

I traced back my memory.

The events before I lost consciousness. The monsters overflowing on the highway and the dead people. Yoo Ji-eun. The Director.

The suspicious item that appeared when the centipede disappeared.

The numbers on the item that looked like a date.

As unbelievable as it was, everything pointed to one thing.

Time travel.

Does this even make sense?

I’ve never heard of an item that lets you time travel. It makes more sense to say it’s a hallucination you see before dying.

If this is really time travel, aren’t there better dates?

…If it’s the lab, I might understand, but why this date, in Myeong-dong?

It would have been better if it was right before my vacation. Then, I wouldn’t have ignored Yoo Ji-eun’s warning and would have raided the damn Bangi-dong Dungeon.

Why, of all days, why this day!

April 5th, 2021.

If I’ve really gone back twenty years.

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

* * *

Twenty years ago, a dungeon break happened in Myeong-dong.

At that time, the mana meter was just about to be developed, so dungeons were managed manually.

Of course, since the Myeong-dong Dungeon was in the middle of Seoul, they managed it meticulously by the standards of that time. But dungeons being what they are, they could seem calm yesterday and break the next day.

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

It was later revealed that the responsible public official didn’t do their job properly. While it wasn’t entirely the official’s fault, the alarm was delayed because of it. The dungeon break was only reported after the initial damage had occurred.

The guild in charge of the Myeong-dong Dungeon deployed immediately upon hearing the news, but they couldn’t handle the monsters alone. While waiting for support, the monsters began roaming the streets of Myeong-dong.

In the process, five students from the Hunter Training Pilot High School, who were there for field training, were isolated in the guild office. Together with civilians and non-Hunter guild office staff in the same building.

There were forty-one civilians. Including those who fled into the building to escape the monsters.

Including the students, that made forty-six.

In a situation where they couldn’t call for external help, the monsters noticed the presence of people in the building and started attacking. The students tried to protect the civilians, but the newly awakened students didn’t know how to respond to a dungeon break.

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

This incident crippled the newly launched Hunter Training School. I know because I saw the Director struggle with it for several more years.

The name change from Hunter Training Pilot High School to Hunter Academy was also because of this incident. Honestly, I think the new name is tackier, but they say it’s to honor the deceased students.

Anyway, the Myeong-dong Dungeon Break is a case frequently mentioned during mandatory safety education for awakened individuals. To demonstrate what happens if dungeon management is poor, how crucial initial response is during a dungeon break, and so on.

Of course, I know it well. I was an instructor, so I had to know it even better.

I even wrote a thesis on it in college. About how the inexperienced underage Hunters could have escaped safely.

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

…In other words, if you have useful future knowledge and proper equipment, there’s a way for all forty-six to survive.

What? Don’t I care about time paradoxes since it’s time travel?

I don’t even know how I ended up here, so why should I worry about such things? I don’t know how to get back, or if I even can get back, and thinking about the unknown monster, the corpses of the Hunters, and the burning Seoul makes me not want to return.

In that case… I need to think about how to survive here.

I have Yoo Ji-eun’s sword. If I were alone, I’d be confident in escaping this predicament.

But….

“How long has it been since the dungeon overran?”

I can’t pretend not to know they’re all going to die. Seeing it in text and witnessing it in reality are different things.

I’m not that heartless.

Forty-six… no, forty-one lives.

“Mis… What?”

“You guys are students at the Hunter Academy, right? Haven’t you learned about dungeon breaks?”

“Um….”

I know the Hunter Academy curriculum of 2041 by heart, but I’m not sure about this period.

Still, survivors Oh Hyun-wook and Park Seo-hyun are renowned genius Hunters of the century. As the saying goes, a promising tree shows its worth early, so I hope they can handle at least one person’s worth of responsibility.

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

“…….”

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

It’s okay.

That can happen. They’re still kids. The Oh Hyun-wook I know is a potbellied, hairy old man, and Park Seo-hyun is a creepy, grinning, gloomy woman.

But right now, they’re just kids. Maybe around D-grade? Typically, D-grade Hunters are the ones who’ve just become Hunters and think they’re something special. They were such a nuisance during mandatory training…. 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 overran?”

“Uh, how long has it been, guys?”

“About four hours….”

“I don’t need ‘about.’ Specific numbers are crucial in a dungeon raid.”

The kids, still confused, shifted uncomfortably. One of them answered clearly.

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

Yoo Hye-eun. The girl who was slapping my cheek earlier.

“What about contact with the outside?”

“It doesn’t work. Sometimes there’s a signal, but no connection.”

“What’s the last piece of information you heard? Include the time.”

“…Uh, two hours ago, they said Hunters were gathering to raid the dungeon boss.”

I know what kind of life the Director led. The Director was in the boss raid team. He blamed himself for not knowing his students were dying and casually went after the boss.

At least this time, that won’t happen.

“Wait a minute, mister.”

Hyun-wook, who had been silent, spoke with a sour expression.

“Who are you, anyway?”

“Hyun-wook!”

“Hey, let me handle this. How can we trust someone we don’t even know? Do you have a Hunter license, mister? If you do, show it to us.”

Ha.

So there was a time when piggy Oh Hyun-wook was this sharp. Time does change things….

But it was a keen question. A question I was grateful for.

I nodded.

“I don’t have it.”

It’s safely stored in my wallet, but how can I show a license with the date 2029 written on it?

“What did you say?”

“I lost it.”

“…You lost it?”

“It’s in my wallet, but my wallet is gone. I must have dropped it when I passed out earlier.”

What are you going to do when I say I lost it?