Chapter 23 – 9. First Day of School
One.
[Then see you at lunch in a bit.]
After returning her to her house last night, after a soggy yas with her winter, I went straight into her academy dormitory.
Winter doesn’t even need to leave the room anymore, so he asked if he really needed to, but he just covered it up because he liked being at the academy 24 hours a day to get in contact with as many characters as possible.
And right now, I was leaving the dormitory and heading to the class I was assigned, checking the text message sent by Winter, who couldn’t go to school with me.
[Uh, yes.]
After exchanging messages with Winter through messenger, class A begins to appear before you know it.
A number of students were walking around the hallway.
It was definitely the first day of admission, so the excitement was strong.
“School…”
It wasn’t that the word school reminded me of nostalgic memories.
That’s right, in reality, it’s been less than two years since I graduated from college.
I was cool in my heart, but I was not at an age where I would miss school yet.
But,
‘Something… Freshman? No, is this feeling a return student…’
Superman society was subtly narrow.
The rate of awakening from ordinary people to superhuman is 0.2%.
Currently, Korea is a safe country with few threats from gates, one of the world’s best.
And I will say this separately, but the whole world is difficult enough to be called the 2nd Miracle on the Han River, whereas Korea is showing rapid economic growth every year to the extent that even the general public can feel it.
Korea in this world was showing a considerable stability in the birth rate as if it was worried that it might be entering the stage of demographic extinction.
An average of 500,000 newborns are born each year in Korea.
However, only about 1,000 of these children awaken as superhumans.
‘Additionally, if you consider that this place is a special environment where only superhumans, even peers, are gathered…’
In addition, considering that even half of those 1000 people were ordinary people, and they were F-class Awakeners with little ties to the superhuman society, everyone had no choice but to know each other.
If you think of a community site where you can join only by verifying that you are an awakened person, it is a structure that is inevitably intertwined with each other.
Even if they’re not friends of friends, they’re acquaintances who cross each other.
‘If I don’t know anyone here, that’s…’
Like Kim Tae-yang, whose human relationships have completely collapsed, or like the main character, who lived completely away from the superhuman society and has recently awakened.
‘…In the original work, there was also a case where he was living in a remote place, severing ties to the world, maybe?’
And again…
In any case, it did not belong to the general case.
‘Ah, I suddenly miss winter.’
When I returned to college after being discharged from the military after a long time, I opened the class with a feeling of awkwardness that I could not express in words.
Just as expected.
It seems that there is no place for a singularity like me to have conversations with people I already know in huddled groups.
Naturally, I found a seat at the end of the classroom and sat down in a place that was least visible to the instructor.
It hadn’t been long since he had graduated from college, so he hadn’t forgotten the fact that he had to be able to properly avoid the instructor’s gaze.
However,
‘Why? What, again…’
What was obviously noisy outside the door turned into a chilling silence when I entered the class, hovering around the class.
Then, shortly after I sat down, they started chatting with each other again, and if you listen closely…
– He, isn’t he? That why? 3 minotaurs…
– That sounds like… No, that’s right. At that time, it seems like all the guys who fought there were gathered here.
– Wow, that was shit.
– At that time, I didn’t look closely because I was distracted, but when I looked back at Orhom, in the meantime, I was fighting while holding a child. Where else am I going to see a pro hunter belonging to a guild…
-Where the hell are you from?
‘Are you talking about me…’
Hey, I was too rambunctious back then…
I didn’t know it was moderate.
No, but that was unexpected for me too.
He should be able to take care of himself, but he just recklessly steps on the full accelerator and goes gang gang gang gang.
I had to be the best in any situation at any time.
Especially in front of women.
‘In the first place, it’s one of the things I hate the most, but there’s nothing wrong with hiding a secret number, right?’
…
…
…
‘Yeah, I know you can’t, man. I just asked.’
As I said, I hate strength so much that I tend to prefer the main character to smash the looming threat with all his might.
It’s just that this isn’t fiction, it’s reality, and since it’s real to me, I just wished there was something called a trump card!
It seems that I will have to face a threat that I do not have to face in the future and do my best to overcome the crisis without backing down.
At that time, it is essential to train at least so that you do not overdo it and fall ill.
I thought about how to deal with it a few times, but it seemed that the effect would be ineffective unless I knew when and under what circumstances an unexpected situation would occur.
‘Either way, it’s a rice cake.’
If I make good use of my characteristics, at some point I will become improbably strong like the main character, and there will be no crisis.
It was the best I could think of to greet that moment as quickly as possible.
By the way,
‘No, but why is this here again…’
There’s nothing to do while waiting for the instructor.
I went to the homepage of Orhi Academy, which they say, because the children keep saying Or Home, Or Home.
Then, a close-up of me fighting the Minotaur was decorating the main screen.
In the real-time popularity rising video, there is also a scene where I am fighting a Minotaur…
I was embarrassed to look at it and immediately left the page.
It’s a video uploaded like that, so you can watch it even if you don’t log in, so the general public won’t come in and watch it.
‘I suddenly became a celebrity in an instant…’
No.
The reality is that even 1 million youtubers won’t recognize you if you happen to meet them on the street.
I’m sure this interest will fade quickly if I don’t step out and attract it.
So let’s not worry about this any more.
It didn’t seem very good for my mental health.
I quietly put my phone into my pocket.
As I was trying to sit down and spend time like that, the empty seats were filled one by one, and I started to see the faces I knew little by little.
Starting from the genius swordsman of the thief explained earlier, to the wizard who assisted 6 teams, and the two combinations of guild brilliance.
And,
‘Still, it’s nice to see you again in a place like this, hey.’
Protagonist too.
I made eye contact with the main character, who was also wandering around alone, with a very happy heart.
But the guy looked at me once and then turned his head and ignored it, so it’s not long since we’ve been close to each other.
‘Ah, well, yes.’
I can’t get along well with a guy who stole a woman I thought was an elimination.
What’s more, they’re nominally childhood friends of 16 years…
Even so, winter will be no different from other people to the possessed protagonist.
However, he was acting like a man who had really lost his childhood friend.
‘Ah, did I say Winter is her favorite heroine?’
If so, it’s not that the main character’s actions don’t make sense at all.
Still, if you’ve fallen out like that, wouldn’t it be better to just find another heroine?
It’s not like she’s the only heroine in this world.
Anyway, there was still a subtle atmosphere with the main character.
‘Eh, I’m glad though.’
I looked around the class again and breathed a sigh of relief.
I was really glad that my unique appearance wasn’t so special here, where there are usually 40 people in my class.
Orhi Academy, like the best academy in the world, had a lot of international students.
Half of them were natives, and the other half were international students who came from abroad to learn about Korea’s advanced hunting system.
More than 60% of them were evenly occupied by Southeast Asians.
This is because of the current special relationship between Korea and them…
‘In fact, in this worldview, Korea is the same as their suzerain.’
Of course, I’m not really in a relationship like that.
That’s why they have so much influence.
Korea is the only country in the world that always has a surplus of domestic hunters and dispatches them overseas.
This wasn’t just because of opportunistic reasons, such as the fact that there are a lot of hunters with great skills in Korea, or that the percentage of hunters is particularly high compared to other countries.
‘It was a slightly understandable reason.’
It’s just that, compared to the population, the land mass to be protected was too small.
Ironically, the vast land mass, which was a blessing and symbol of the great powers in the era before the cataclysm, became a curse in a changed world and a shackle that prevented the state from recklessly releasing its power to the outside.
The land to be protected is wide, but there are no people.
Things that would have been worrying only in ancient countries have come to be a serious problem in this world.
However, Korea, and only Korea, could be a little free from these problems.
Size of Korea: 100,210 km²
Population: approximately 50,000,000
Korea’s disproportionately high population compared to its land area eventually led to its population density compared to its land area being twice that of Japan and Britain, four times that of China, and ten times that of the United States.
In the end, it was really funny that Korea, which stabilized the domestic situation faster than any other country through the humane tactic, was able to turn its eyes abroad.
…
…
…
‘Did I say…?’
I guess there was a reason why it had to be that way.
Korea, too, did not take valuable human resources out of the country without any benefit from the beginning.
Korea, which stabilized the domestic situation relatively quickly after the gate was first opened, played around with the by-products of the gate, which were useless at the time, and realized that this was money.
‘From then on, the awakened people who gathered with the lofty purpose of rectifying this confusion and protecting the citizens, the gathering of supermen, and the guild became private companies chasing money.’
Gate detectors were also a by-product of this period.
‘For a while, when other countries were rushing to close the gate, they said everything to the extent that each other said they bought the right to close the gate at an auction.’
Then, when the work grows to the point of causing social controversy, he decides to do something crazy to send the remaining hunters abroad.
So, the final destination was Southeast Asia.
There was a reason why Korea had no choice but to leave its neighbors behind at the time and make such a choice.
Although it was close enough to go to the next country, Japan, they seemed to be holding on well even with their own power.
On the contrary, China is so open-minded that it would be difficult to see any benefit even if they were dispatched.
Russia?
Russia was a little… I seriously considered it, but it seemed like it wouldn’t be worth it to suffer even because of the environment there.
And the United States, at the time, was a little different from the United States.
The United States, realizing that the situation in Korea was better than that of other countries, took advantage of it, such as attracting high-ranking Korean hunters to its country, as always.
‘But fortunately, the situation over there was such a mess that some of the high-ranking hunters who immigrated like that risked their embarrassment and returned home.’
Korea, overflowing with superhumans who wanted to close the gate by grabbing money, was truly a blessed country.
‘Honestly, there is no better country to live in than Korea if you have money.’
In the midst of such a catastrophe.
Most superhumans have no popularity, no money, no power.
I thought I had everything I wanted in my hands. I didn’t have much thought of leaving my dear hometown where I had lived my whole life and heading to an unfamiliar foreign country where I didn’t know what kind of hardships awaited me.
Korea is so excited to go to a Southeast Asian country with its own hunters and close the gate with all sorts of condescension.
Get paid for closing the gate, make money by producing value again as a by-product of the gate, process it again, export it, and sell it.
In an environment that is literally creating an economy, while other countries are putting their economic graphs in the air, I am careful not to overwhelm myself and secretly watch the international community, I spend exciting days with myself busy rising high. .
Decades later, in a somewhat stable world, an incident that made Korea a great power that did not need to be noticed by the international community in name and reality broke out.
15 and 30 years ago, during the 1st and 2nd flooding of gates, when the number of gates increased by as little as 2 times and as much as 5 times, it was the only country that had experienced various types of gates in many countries even before that. .
Thanks to accumulated experience and information, Korea, which overcame the situation faster than anyone else, did not simply overcome the crisis in its own country.
Rather, [Hey, this can be done quietly?] And even showed off the leisure to go to other countries to apply.
‘Of course, Korea’s international status rose once again because of this incident.’
As a result of eating moderately and giving to other countries, it has now become a country that must be friendly with in order to receive help in case of emergency.
Because of the long-term exchanges with Southeast Asian countries, they have become inseparable economically and security-wise.
Currently, they are semi-arbitrarily subservient to Korea, and the world’s view of history is that their country recognizes Korea’s regional hegemony.
Wow that was a lot of things I didn’t need but was told about