"Don't tell me you skipped class?"
Skipping, with tuition as high as it was.
Had puberty finally arrived, perhaps?
When Garam looked at Ha-yeon with wistful eyes, she shook her head hurriedly.
"Th-that's not it!"
"Then why are you here?"
Her coming to visit him was something to be thankful for, but it was only around two o'clock now.
Wasn't this still the middle of the school day?
As he looked at Ha-yeon with that thought in mind.
she hemmed and hawed, fiddling with her pocket.
"So... the thing is?"
After hesitating a long while, Ha-yeon seemed to make up her mind, pulled a sheet of paper from her pocket, and held it out to Garam.
And on the paper Garam took from Ha-yeon was written this.
[Notice of Guardian Consultation: Risk of Failure.]
"F-failure?"
The contents written on the paper were shocking, to say the least.
"I left school early today because of this. To be exact, the school sent me home."
"Failure? Was there some difficult exam? Is that why?"
Ha-yeon was nineteen now.
At the Hunter Officers' Academy, which ran four years through the age of twenty, that made her third-year age.
Which meant she had gotten through her second year without any trouble.
So the problem had arisen now that she was a third-year.
At Garam's question Ha-yeon sighed and shook her head.
"No. It's not so much a problem as... it's because of the curriculum change."
"Curriculum?"
For all that it bore the name Hunter Officers' Academy, it was unmistakably a school.
A school holding minors of roughly high school age.
Being that kind of school, its classes would be as theory-focused as possible.
The only curriculum change after becoming a third-year would be the Grade exam he had seen before.......
"Ah."
The moment his thoughts reached that far, an exclamation burst from Garam's mouth.
In the end, again.
It was a problem of the blood channels.
"Practical classes were added, and there were some problems."
She lumped it together as "problems," but in the end it was obvious.
In the end, a problem of endurance stemming from being unable to sustain a skill for long.
Just as one can't show one's true ability on an exam without enough concentration.
Ha-yeon must be in that situation.
"So? By when do I have to go?"
The only guardian Ha-yeon had was him.
Both he and Ha-yeon had come from an orphanage.
If anyone was going, it was right that he go.
At Garam's question Ha-yeon grimaced as if she truly hated to say it.
"A week from now, Wednesday, five in the afternoon."
Exactly when classes ended.
Garam folded the notice neatly and fixed the time in his mind.
***
A week later.
Garam, who had done nothing but train at the training ground all week long, stepped outside for the first time in a while.
"Getting out after so long feels good, like I'm photosynthesizing."
After rotting in the training ground for a week, he had come to miss even the sunlight.
The place Garam headed for was the Hunter Market.
"I've never been to a guardian consultation or anything like that, so I don't even know what to wear."
It was a guardian consultation, something he had never once attended.
Until now he had been living at a hand-to-mouth level, so going to a guardian consultation had been out of the question.
A single day away from the gates could mean not being able to buy medicine.
But now it was different.
C-Grade wasn't high, but he was unmistakably a hunter now.
And he had earned a fair amount of money.
Which meant he was in a position to attend his sister's guardian consultation in decent clothes.
'And I need to buy a weapon.'
He also had to buy a replacement for the axe that had broken a while back.
"Except I've never bought clothes like this before."
Being the Hunter Market didn't mean it sold only gate-related materials.
Taking the form of a shopping mall proper, the Hunter Market was a facility with plenty to appeal to ordinary people as well.
Naturally, it sold suits too.
"Is a suit a bit much?"
[Ugh! How many hours has it been? Just buy that one.]
A sharp-looking suit that Carmilla pointed at.
As Garam's eyes turned to that suit, a young woman who appeared to be the shop's owner came over.
"Oh my~ you have an eye for it. That one is our best seller here."
Hearing the same line that came from every clothing shop, Garam looked at the suit.
Not a bad sense of color or look.
"Would it be all right to try it on?"
"Of course."
When Garam changed and came out.
"Oh, my. It suits you incredibly well."
The clerk flushed, seeming flustered.
Sure enough, laying a suit over the body he had built while working as a porter, the fit was killer.
"I'll say. You look amazing, Garam."
Hae-rang's voice came from right beside him.
Startled, he turned to find Hae-rang in sunglasses looking up at him.
"Are you actually a ghost? Where on earth do you keep popping out from?"
"This time it really is a coincidence. I came to the Hunter Market to buy something myself and spotted you."
As she said it, Hae-rang held out a small case from inside her coat.
"Since I've run into you, I have something to give you anyway."
When Garam opened the case, inside were business cards.
Hunter Association, First Subjugation Team.
Kim Garam.
"You can't exactly go around saying Holy Knights, can you? If anyone out there looks down on you, show them that card first."
"Ha."
Garam tucked the case he had received into his coat.
Because an affiliation, and one that people around you recognized at that, was backing in itself.
In that sense, the First Subjugation Team was the finest backing there was.
'They're the top of the domestic hunter industry, after all.'
Something like Samsung in the electronics world, if you had to compare.
No guild's party you brought could hold a candle to them, so it would come in handy.
"And miss. Bill this fellow's suit here."
Hae-rang held out to the clerk a business card similar to the one Garam had received, and winked.
The clerk took the card, and the moment she saw it she looked ready to faint from shock.
Her manner remained impeccably courteous right up until they bought the suit and left.
"Goodbye, then!"
She bowed a full ninety degrees even as they left.
"So? Does it feel real now, that you've joined somewhere impressive?"
It felt very real indeed.
"Well then. As I said earlier, I came out on business myself."
Waving her hand, Hae-rang receded into the distance again in an instant.
With the impression of a storm having blown through, Garam called out to stop her once more.
"Ms. Hae-rang!"
"Yes?"
"Since you've already helped me, lend me a car, would you?"
If he was going, it was better for everything to gleam, not just the clothes.
In this capitalist society.
***
"Haah, he's probably arrived by now."
Ha-yeon, a wooden sword in one hand and absorbed in her training, let out a sigh without meaning to.
The guardian consultation a few hours away.
Her head was in turmoil because of it.
'If he comes here, he's bound to learn about my situation.'
She hated that idea to death.
Her big brother, who still helped her because of a debt he felt from when she was six.
That was certainly something to be thankful for.
Which made her all the more unwilling to show him her present situation.
When she raised her head and looked ahead, there stood a wooden dummy.
A portable wooden dummy assigned one to each student.
Among them, Ha-yeon's dummy alone bore no mark of a single blow.
"Hey, Yeon Ha-yeon. Move. It's our turn to use it now."
Just then.
A venomous voice came from behind Ha-yeon.
When Ha-yeon turned around, a female student was standing there.
"Cha Seo-rin. I still have ten minutes left."
Cha Seo-rin.
Her classmate, and the top student of their year.
Her parents were said to be quite wealthy as well.
In many ways, a person standing on the complete opposite side from her.
"Ha, are you going to be petty over ten minutes? And I doubt ten more minutes will change anything."
Cha Seo-rin's gaze turned to the wooden dummy behind Ha-yeon.
A wooden dummy still pristine compared to the other students'.
The training dummies were a consumable issued to students as standard.
and also a kind of assignment: raising the difficulty a little each day, they were required to break one.
The only one who had yet to break even a single wooden dummy was Ha-yeon.
"Up through last year I never thought you would be at this level."
"Right? Ha-yeon was ranked second last year, and to think she'd fall this far."
"What good is being good at theory when she can't do anything in an actual fight?"
The other girls beside Cha Seo-rin each chimed in.
Knowing the words were formulaic provocations meant to bait her, Ha-yeon didn't answer any of them.
And it was also true that to some degree what they said wasn't wrong.
'Up through last year I scraped by somehow on Vampir physical ability.'
But from third year, when students were formally granted hunter Grades and began making use of skills, that had its limits.
Especially at this school, where merit supremacy ran rampant, a drop of this size made her easy prey for the other students.
"Well, if you won't move...."
WHOOSH!
A sharp wind grazed past Ha-yeon's cheek in an instant.
Though it barely brushed her, a thin cut opened on Ha-yeon's cheek.
The wooden dummy behind her split clean in two.
"I really don't know how someone like you got in here. Does that precious big brother of yours make a lot of money or something?"
CRACKLE!
In that instant, an ice sword formed in Ha-yeon's hand and was leveled at Cha Seo-rin's throat.
"Don't talk about my brother carelessly."
At those eyes, filled with a chilling, ghostly menace as if she had become someone else entirely, Cha Seo-rin stepped back without meaning to.
'I got scared? Of a mere failing student?'
Unable to accept it, Cha Seo-rin grew angry instead and pressed closer to Ha-yeon.
"Ha, what do you think you'll do with a sword like this? Look at that. Your hand is already freezing over."
When Cha Seo-rin lightly tapped Ha-yeon's hand, the frost that had settled over it broke away.
"Why don't you put that sword away before you have to take your medicine again? It's not as if you'll fight to the death, either. Think of the brother who'd have to clean up your corpse."
"Cha Seo-rin. You're crossing a line."
CRACK—!
The cold pouring off the sword was enough to make skin sting.
It was less the chill of a snowfield than a desolation you might feel only in a graveyard.
Even so, Cha Seo-rin didn't back down to the end.
"Now will you move? I have to fill today's quota and go to my guardian consultation too."
At Cha Seo-rin's words Ha-yeon's expression stiffened.
A guardian consultation.
Because she knew what that meant.
"Your father is coming?"
"Obviously. Do you think I'm top of the year for nothing?"
Why hadn't she thought of it?
If guardians were called in because she was at risk of failing.
then the top student might have a consultation as well.
'Most of the adults who come to this school have bad temperaments.'
To begin with, this school's tuition was expensive beyond any comparison with other schools.
And it was, in a way, only natural that the upper-class people who could toss that kind of money around casually weren't ordinary.
Cha Seo-rin's parents especially so.
There were even rumors that Cha Seo-rin's parents were connected to that notorious guild, the Saryeon Society.
And on top of that, what if her brother saw Cha Seo-rin treating her like that just now?
'It really might get out of hand.'
Even if her brother was a Vampir with the True Progenitor's power.
viewed objectively, he was by no means strong yet.
In that situation, she couldn't let him publicly make an enemy of Cha Seo-rin's father, who might be connected to the Saryeon Society.
'I need to send him back, even now.'
Ha-yeon dismissed the ice sword she held and walked past Cha Seo-rin.
She heard voices mocking her from behind, but Ha-yeon paid them no mind at all.
If anything, she only thought that she had to hurry.
Ha-yeon ran for the faculty office.
At this hour her brother would have arrived and then some.
Ha-yeon ran at full speed and reached the fifteenth floor, where the faculty office was.
And what she could see was.
"I'll leave her in your care, then."
"No, well......."
her brother Garam.
and her own teacher, bowing at the waist before him.