Jin's authorised assistant had brought a whistle.
That was how Jin knew the relationship could not continue.
Thirty people stood on rented mats behind the Academy gym. Each had two cups. The man from the poster moved among them, correcting shoulders with the brisk confidence of somebody who had personally invented joints.
His badge read CHOI DAE-SIK — E.
“Low stance,” he announced. “Explosive travel. That is the secret.”
Theo looked at Jin.
“I thought it was being terrified of the bill.”
Jin walked onto the mat.
Dae-sik's whistle stopped halfway to his mouth.
Then his expression rearranged itself.
“And here's our special instructor!”
People turned. Somebody applauded.
“Nobody asked me,” Jin said.
“A scheduling issue. We can discuss—”
“You sold thirty scheduling issues.”
The applause died.
Dae-sik spread his hands. “I was going to approach you. The demand was already there.”
“So you approached their wallets first.”
Theo took out his phone with his good hand.
Several students looked at their cups.
SPECIAL QUEST — RETURN TO THE BENCHMARK
FROM THE START OF THE DEMONSTRATION, SPEAK ONLY IN BIRD CALLS UNTIL A PAYING ATTENDEE CORRECTS THE INSTRUCTOR'S ADVICE.
BOW TO THAT ATTENDEE.
REWARD: EXP +20.
Jin read it twice.
He had been willing to fight for his dignity. Apparently he could sell it instead.
“Put me on the mat,” he told Dae-sik. “If you can, I'll teach this session and you can pay me. If I put you down, everybody gets refunded.”
Dae-sik glanced at the students.
His E-rank badge swung over the mat between them. Jin could still see the pigeon benchmark if he closed his eyes.
“No strikes to the head,” he said. “No joint locks.”
“Agreed.”
Theo moved the nearest cups off the edge of the mat.
“A terrible day for the catering.”
Dae-sik rolled his shoulders. His stance changed. The salesman went out of his face; the Hunter remained.
Jin walked three short paces, turned and came back.
This unapproved copy came from a chapter the author publishes on NovelPhoenix, where reading supports their work.
“Watch,” Dae-sik told the group. “The burst is the whole trick. Wait at the end and it's over.”
He nodded to Theo.
“Begin.” Find the original chapter at g.com.
“Coo,” Jin said.
Dae-sik blinked.
Jin advanced.
The man's hand snapped toward his collar. Jin swayed out of reach, felt the fingers catch his shirt anyway and lost half a step to the pull.
E-rank was still E-rank.
He put his foot down wide, where Garran had shown him. The pull stopped tipping him over.
Dae-sik changed grips.
Jin slipped free, registered the short approach he'd just made and reset at its first mark.
“Coo.”
A student made a tiny choking noise.
“Concentrate on his feet,” Dae-sik said.
Jin selected Replay.
The mat flashed under his boots. Dae-sik stepped aside at the last moment, just as Theo had.
Jin reached the endpoint with his target already gone.
This time he didn't grab the place where a sleeve used to be.
He let the burst finish.
Then he turned.
Dae-sik came in to take his balance. Jin caught the man's wrist, stepped outside the reaching foot and drove his shoulder against the chest behind it.
The old Academy turn. The one he'd spent three years knowing and failing to make work.
His legs held.
Dae-sik tried to plant the trapped foot.
Jin swept it clear.
The instructor landed flat on the crash mat.
The noise emptied the yard.
Jin stayed on his feet, clutching an E-rank Hunter's sleeve.
In his hand. The badge was right there.
For a moment he forgot to release it.
“That,” Dae-sik said into the sky, “was—”
“Not the burst,” a girl at the front said. “You told us waiting at the end would stop him. He moved after it.”
Jin released the wrist and bowed to her.
“Coo.”
Theo bent over his phone. His shoulders shook.
SPECIAL QUEST COMPLETE: EXP +20
LEVEL UP: 9 → 10
Jin spent them: two Strength, two Agility, one Endurance.
MODIFIERS: STR +14 | AGI +20 | END +11
AP REMAINING: 0
Dae-sik sat up.
He looked at Jin's feet, then at the waiting class.
“Refunds,” Jin said.
The man rubbed the back of his head.
“Yes. Fine. Refunds.”
He took out his phone. A queue formed with remarkable efficiency.
One student raised a hand at Jin.
“Can you show the turn again?”
Jin looked at Theo.
“Free,” Theo said, before the gray sock could acquire a business.
They demonstrated slowly. Dae-sik, still seated, interrupted when one boy put his knee in a position that would hurt him. Jin let him correct it.
The man knew things. He'd just put Jin's name on the wrong promise.
The girl who'd spotted the turn tried it against Jin. She caught his sleeve, forgot her feet and shoved him with both arms.
He rocked backward.
“Like that?”
“More hip. Less attempted mugging.”
She tried again. This time his heel lifted.
“There.”
Her grin arrived before she could hide it.
Jin found himself grinning back. Three years of being the example nobody should copy, and somebody had just learned something from him.
Twenty minutes later, someone had drawn a pigeon on the practice board.
Under it: LAND FIRST. THEN RUIN SOMEONE'S DAY.
Jin photographed it.
“For the research archive,” he told Theo.
“You've become unbearable.”
“I was promoted.”
That afternoon, he left the phone beside the kitchen anchor and went back to the forest.
Garran had the winged-creature board ready. Beside him stood a younger man carrying two bundles of dull gray feathers.
“Bram,” Garran said, introducing him.
Bram put a feathered hood on Jin's head.
Jin looked at the little person drawn beneath the predator.
Then at the matching feathers hanging over his own chest.
Oh.
Not a person they wanted rescued.
The bait.