TRPM 356

chapter 356

The teachers started holding lessons from the very first day of the new semester.

Of course, it wasn’t advancing into the second semester’s curriculum yet—just going over the answers to the summer homework.

“… Ah?”
“Hmm…”

Ryu Amin, Ryu Ah-yeong, and Jin Cheon-ha were listening to the explanations, checking their graded homework, and glancing at their textbooks.

… Looks like all three of them tried hard, but they still got more wrong answers than I expected.

Summer homework was never meant to be an ordeal—it was just a way to make sure students did some studying over the break. If all they wanted was the correct answers, they could’ve just copied straight from the textbook.

In other words, nothing stopped them from just transcribing.

As long as there were at least traces of thought in their work—rather than a perfect verbatim copy—the teachers usually wouldn’t take off attitude points.

But those three had done all of the homework entirely on their own.

They might not be good at studying, but at least they have the will to try.

Ah, of course…

“Hmm…”

Elliot, who hadn’t even touched his homework, was the exception.

“Sigh…”

Elena glanced at Elliot and let out a disappointed sigh.

By then, the explanation session had ended.

“That’s the last problem done. Any questions?”
“……”
“……”
“No one? Alright.”

The social studies teacher tidied up his files as he spoke.

“Still, your class is doing well. Only one person didn’t do the homework.”

In other classes, nearly ten students had skipped it.

“……”

At that remark, Elliot flinched.

The teacher was clearly praising the class, but Elliot probably heard it differently. What he likely heard was: If only you had done your homework, the whole class would’ve been perfect.

“Well… there’s about twenty minutes left until break, but it’s too short to start a proper lesson, right?”
“Yes!”
“Yeah.”
“Haha, thought so. Alright, that’s it for today. Just don’t disturb the other classes, okay?”

The teacher chuckled at the honest responses and left the room.

Immediately, the students started gathering and chatting in groups.

…Even though the teacher had just told us to stay quiet? Not that he’d expected us to actually listen.

As I was thinking that, Elliot muttered bitterly to himself.

“Ugh… should I try to finish the rest of my homework now…?”
“Can you even? There’s a lot left.”

Thanks to the teacher dismissing us early, we now had twenty minutes plus the ten-minute break—thirty minutes in total.

Enough time to scribble through the next subject’s homework, at least. Just guessing the answers or copying from the textbook would do.

Of course…

The teachers wouldn’t be fooled by that.

The social studies teacher had just quickly graded our homework before explaining the answers, after all. If there were no signs of working through the problems, attitude points would almost certainly be deducted.

Elliot knew that too.

“……”

So he pulled out his textbook and started copying.

… Well, at least copying was better than not handing anything in.

Not wanting to distract him, I moved away.

“…!”
“…”

The spot I went to was where the others were chatting. But although their mouths were moving, no sound came out.

Lee Ha-eun had put up a soundproof barrier.

Probably because the teacher told us not to disturb the other classes.

Carefully, I slipped inside, making sure not to destabilize it—the barrier was flimsy, after all.

Inside…

“Really? There’s a monster in England that only targets machines?”
“Yes. It’s called a Gremlin. They’re not strong individually, but once they leave the dungeon, instead of attacking people, they break equipment, which makes them a real nuisance. Ah, not that I want them to attack people instead…”

Elena was talking about the monsters she encountered in England over the summer.

Plenty of monsters exist in both Korea and England, but there are also many unique to each country. The students listened with fascination.

The gremlin she mentioned, for example, was almost never seen in Korea—though it was famous worldwide.

“And? What other monsters did you see?”
“Well… I didn’t defeat it myself, but one of the Awakeners traveling with us did. Do you know Nessie?”
“Nessie? Oh, the one people talked about even before the Black Fog appeared?”
“Yes! I even managed to take a picture of it. Showing you will be faster.”

Elena pulled out her phone and displayed a photo: a misty lake with what looked like a dinosaur-like reptile.

“That’s Nessie?”
“Looks like a dinosaur…”
“According to the Association’s classification, it isn’t.”

She tapped her phone again as the others pressed her with questions.

“Then is it a dragon-type?”
“Dragon-type? No. It doesn’t have wings or reverse scales, which are traits of dragons.”

She then pulled up a video and let everyone watch it: Nessie fighting an Awakener.

[(Stay back!)]
[(But we came here to clear the dungeon too…!)]
[(I know your abilities, but just in case—stay back!)]

One of the voices was the Awakener’s, the other was…

Elliot’s voice. Copying homework right now, of all times.

Even while fighting Nessie, the Awakener had enough composure to talk with him. Not surprising, I guess—royals wouldn’t be guarded by weaklings.

[ROAR!]

… That Nessie, it even fired a breath attack.

Kang Ga-ram asked what we were all thinking.

“Isn’t that a breath attack?”
“Correct. Apparently quite a few Nessies can breathe like dragons, depending on the individual.”
“… And yet it’s not a dragon-type?”
“That’s right.”

… The Association’s classification system suddenly felt questionable. But I shook the thought off—whatever their reasons, it didn’t really concern me.

Still, Kang Ga-ram looked conflicted.

“Wait, but aren’t all breath-using reptiles considered dragon-types? No wings, no reverse scales… still feels wrong.”

He was confused because of what he’d studied. It wasn’t first-year material, but Awakeners did study monster classifications in high school. Since Ga-ram was already studying ahead to third-year material, it made sense that an exception like Nessie would throw him off.

There are more exceptions than the textbooks suggest.

Not every creature with green skin is a Greenskin, for example. Dryads, with their leaf-like appearance, aren’t Greenskins at all. And among goblins and orcs—both classic Greenskins—many had black or red skin instead.

Hard to know that if you’ve only studied textbooks.

Not that ignorance caused any problems.

“Don’t overthink it. Plenty of active Awakeners don’t know either. Honestly, I don’t know everything myself.”

The Association’s classification system was never meant to be perfect—it was just to organize the monster encyclopedia. The Black Fog didn’t care about human convenience.

“It’s probably debated within the Association too. Whenever a new monster appears, they argue about how to classify it. Sometimes they even create new categories. That’s why the system keeps changing—don’t stress over it.”

… But then, something felt off.

As I finished explaining, I noticed how quiet it had gotten. Elena had been talking a moment ago, hadn’t she?

I looked around.

“……”
“……”
“……”

Everyone else had pulled out their phones or notebooks, recording or jotting down my words.

“… What are you all doing?”
“You sounded like you were saying something important.”
“Thought it might show up on a test later.”

… As if.

“Pfft… no, this won’t be on a test. Regular Awakeners don’t even need to know—well, I guess it could be useful.”

At least it wasn’t harmful.

“Got any other tips we should know?”

Tips, huh…

“Well, yeah. There are tricks only active Awakeners learn.”
“Ooh…”

I started sharing knowledge I’d gained in my past life as an Awakener.

“If you see a party recruitment post that says ‘one of our members had to leave suddenly,’ skip it. Nine times out of ten, it’s a scam.”
“Whoa…”
“And if a guild wants to hire you as mercenaries, don’t trust them. They’ll probably use you as bait.”
“… Huh?”
“Also, if someone in a makeshift party looks suspiciously wealthy, leave. Chances are the party was formed just to rob them.”
“… Geon-woo.”
“Yeah?”
“… What kind of parties have you been in…?”

I realized too late.

Right—because of me, crime rates in Korea were already low.

“I mean abroad. It doesn’t happen much here anymore, but in other countries, it’s still common.”
“… Can’t argue with that.”

Elena, being British, nodded. As a royal, she had only ever gone into dungeons with trustworthy companions, but she knew well enough that it was thanks to her status.

With her uncle being the London Association’s director, she’d be well aware of how widespread such crimes were.

“… Do you have any better tips?”
“Of course.”

I was just about to share some advice that would apply even in Korea when—

“… Kids? What are you doing, setting up barriers during class?”

Our science teacher stepped through the barrier and cut me off.

Apparently, not only had social studies ended, but break time too.

The bell… must have been muffled by the barrier.