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“Kids, fall back, now!”
His voice cut through the chaos.
“But teacher, we can help!” Seung-Yeovil shouted, sword trembling as he faced the incoming swarm.
“No!” Hwi-Jae shouted, turning his body between them and the monsters. “Get off the mountain. Find your aunt. Tell her everything. I’ll buy time until the principal arrives.”
Still, the students hesitated. Fear and stubbornness clung to their faces.
“I said go!” His voice cracked with more than command — it was desperation.
Hyun-Wook, the most experienced of them, moved first. His younger brother resisted, crying out that he didn’t want to leave him behind, but Hyun-Wook scooped him up over his shoulder. He met Hwi-Jae’s eyes — one silent look filled with guilt and fear — and began leading the others down the slope, barking instructions with shaky authority.
Hwi-Jae watched them disappear into the forest below.
They weren't ready. Not yet.
He couldn’t risk it — them.
He wouldn’t.
They’d trained under him for less than a year, and though their potential burned bright, they were still just kids. Bringing them into this fight would only make it harder for him to swing his blade freely. Their deaths would be in his hands.
And… something was wrong.
This wasn’t just a dungeon break—he knew it before the first monster even emerged.
There was mana in the air, thick and unnatural. It poured from the shadows of the forest, coating the creatures in glittering, metallic particles that clung to their bodies like enchanted armor. The average eye couldn’t see it, but to him, the current sole successful experiment, able to see and manipulate mana, it was glaringly obvious.
These weren’t just some beasts.
They were being controlled.
A Beast Tamer.
An actual Beast Tamer. One powerful enough to manipulate a horde and cloak them with enhanced mana. Those were rare, even considered to be a myth. Most believed they never existed.
And to think Ark had one hiding among their ranks all this time…
He reached for his sword — the one his aunt had given him before her passing — and pulled it free.
It was only him here. The students and his brother were on their way to safety, and the principal was out on a mission with Ms. Chaemin. He was the only adult nearby when the monsters appeared, the only one who could give the kids a survival chance at this moment.
“I’ll survive,” he whispered. “No matter what.”
And then he charged.
__ - __
He couldn’t understand.
The students stumbled over their words, trying to explain what had happened — there were no monsters, no dungeon signatures, no warnings, just a sudden wave of violence and chaos.
That wasn’t how dungeon breaks worked.
Dungeon breaks were loud, erratic, and often preceded by pulses of unstable mana. Entire systems existed to predict and monitor them. For a level-2 break to occur without a trace, before anyone even realized a dungeon existed nearby? Impossible.
Unless…
Unless it wasn’t a break at all.
Unless someone made it look like one.
Hunter Hong Seok-Young’s chest tightened. His strides grew longer, faster, as the forest blurred around him. He barely felt the wind slapping against his face.
He only prayed he wasn’t too late.
When he arrived, the scene was devastating.
The once-quiet school grounds were drenched in blood. Crushed gates lay beneath clawed corpses. The grass had been charred away by flame and lightning. Craters were gouged into the Earth. The smell of burning monster flesh clung to the air.
And in the center, crumpled behind a pile of monster corpses, Teacher Woo lay dying — slashed open, ghostly pale and still.
His chest was torn open, bleeding freely, and he was breathing shallowly. A claw had raked through his ribs like paper.
Seok‑Young rushed to him, heart pounding.
“Damn it,” Seok-Young muttered, dropping to his knees. He pressed his hands to the wound, trying to slow the bleeding.
“Hold on. I promised your brother I’d bring you back alive.” He flattened cloth against the wound, pressing with all his strength.
Hwi‑Jae’s breathing was shallow. Weak light flickered in his eyes.
“Hwi-Jae, can you hear me?”
And then—
“… Dad?”
Everything stopped.
Seok‑Young’s heart seized. Not Master. Not Principle. Dad. Simple, perfect, world‑shattering.
Seok-Young froze, his breath catching in his throat. He stared down at Hwi-Jae, who gazed up through half-lidded eyes, dazed but watching him.
He wanted to dismiss it. A delusion. A dying hallucination. But somewhere deep inside, something shifted.
And it all started clicking into place.
The way Hwi-Jae sometimes looked at him, not like a disciple, but like a son starved for attention. The way he’d get possessive, annoyed when Seok-Young paid too much attention to Ilrok. At first, he thought it was the protectiveness of an older sibling towards a younger brother he had already almost lost before. But it wasn’t just that.
It was jealousy.
The same kind of jealousy he’d seen when Hwi-Jae competed with Taek-yung. Not like a student eager to earn praise, but like a child desperate for a father’s love.
And the puzzle pieces slammed together.
He had never planned to take a disciple. When Hwi-Jae appeared — a mysterious man from a future written with a tragic end — he’d simply assumed he’d change his mind in the years to come.
But now…
He realized why Hwi-Jae had such skills, such pain. Why hesitate to let people close, even while caring for everyone around him so easily?
Why, with each day, only more and more questions about him popped out.
He wasn’t just his student from the future.
He was his son.
His future son.
He had seen him die… the realisation was like an ice-cold shower, his son saw him die in the future and is now trying to fix whatever went wrong, one step at a time. On his own.
And now, bleeding out before him, Hwi-Jae had finally let the truth slip.
“Hey,” Seok-Young whispered, brushing damp hair from his forehead. “Stay with me. You’re not dying here. Not now.”
He’s not a disciple.
He’s my son.
Realization burned in his chest.
“I... I’m here and I’m not losing my family again.”
Hwi‑Jae’s eyes closed again. “Yeah…”