Chapter: 04
“Your… son? The son I know?”
“Does the son you know look any different? Haram, introduce yourself.”
“Hello. I’m Haram. I’m seven years old, but starting today, I’m eight.”
The child, bowing politely, seemed completely unaware of how tense the conversation around him was.
Unable to decide what to do, Saebyeok first grabbed Dongbaek by the collar and yanked him forward.
“Ouch!” Dongbaek was pulled along, his forehead pressing against Kong’s.
Through her sunglasses, Saebyeok glared at Dongbaek’s surprised eyes, gritting her teeth and whispering as quietly as possible:
“What do you mean by ‘son’? Weren’t we supposed to be pretending to be a married couple?!”
“Well… to be precise, it’s a couple with a child, right?”
“Why are you telling me this now…! And you want to involve such a young kid in such a dangerous situation? Dongbaek, are you out of your mind?!”
“Wow, finally Dongbaek is using ‘excuse me’ instead of ‘hey,’ huh?”
“Excuse me!”
“Haha, don’t get so worked up. Don’t let it fool you—Haram is a fully capable magician despite being just one person.”
When Dongbaek gave him a subtle glance, Haram again nodded politely toward Saebyeok.
The child looked so young that Saebyeok’s complexion went even paler.
“Ah… no. Leave the kid out of this. If you need extra hands, I’ll work harder myself…”
“Saebyeok? That won’t work~”
“You won’t know until you try. I’ve done all kinds of part-time jobs before. If there’s anything I haven’t done, let me do it instead. Right?”
“Anything you haven’t done?”
Dongbaek rubbed his chin, smirking meaningfully.
“Well then, how about an elementary school student?”
“…What?”
“Haram’s role is that of an elementary school student.”
Snap! Dongbaek snapped his fingers, and Haram repeated his greeting.
“Hello. I’m Haram. I’m seven, but starting today, I’m a first grader.”
“For the next year, we’ll be spending time at the school. Haram will be a student, Saebyeok will be a teacher, and I… will take some suitably idle position?”
Dongbaek started the car and expertly steered.
“It’s a rather unusual school, so to gather clues, we need as many perspectives as possible. You understand how important a student’s role is without me having to say it, right?”
“But he’s so young…”
“Haram has already completed the knowledge and skills required for this mission. Considering his age, his role will be limited to information gathering.”
Saebyeok looked at her sandwich, losing her appetite completely. It felt as tattered as her mental state.
“If a student is really necessary, why not get a slightly older kid?”
“Hmm~ With this face, claiming to be a dad of someone older than me wouldn’t be very convincing, would it?”
At twenty-eight, Dongbaek whined as if it were tragic to be a father so early.
Saebyeok, giving him a cold glare, thought: How would I feel at twenty-five, suddenly becoming a mother?
“Even if the magical society still has a custom of early marriage, we need to at least look somewhat plausible. The people at the school aren’t idiots.”
“……”
“Oh, your next question must be: why do we have to pretend to be a family?”
Saebyeok flinched at being hit right on the mark.
“As you might guess, the school we’re going to is for training magicians. It’s highly exclusive. To quickly blend into the faculty there, the best way is to adopt the typical form of a family. That way, our frequent interactions won’t seem suspicious.”
The explanation was flawless, as if prepared in advance.
Saebyeok, having lost the will to argue, chewed her sandwich like a cow on fodder and leaned listlessly against the car window.
A school—a place in the 21st century that is both the safest and most systematically managed.
A place where she could simply exist as someone’s wife, mother, and teacher without being chased by monsters or having her life threatened.
Saebyeok felt a strange sensation at the thought of a normal life she had never imagined for herself.
Could I really do this?
Being the wife of a man she had met three times in her life, a mother to a boy she’d never seen before, and a teacher to students whose names she didn’t know…
Teacher?
“…Huh.”
Her head slipped down the window. Blinking, she turned blankly to look at Dongbaek.
“A teacher?”
“Haha.”
“Me, a teacher?”
“I was waiting for your reaction. Saebyeok, do you know how funny you are?”
“No, that’s impossible! How could I suddenly become a teacher?”
“You graduated from the teacher’s college, didn’t you? That’s enough.”
“I didn’t pass the licensing exam!”
“You took the test three times, right? And you couldn’t even finish all three.”
Well, that was true…
“The exam venues are a bit rough. Maybe it’s because the test-takers harbor so much resentment, but the likelihood of aggressive mystical entities appearing is higher than elsewhere.”
She had seen it all: students scratching blackboards with their nails, monsters crawling hallways with crushed skulls, and even maniacs waving knives.
Last year, she had endured until the second period, but a madman almost doused her with oil and a lighter, and she couldn’t handle it.
After that, she thought she’d never teach again and would just drift from part-time job to part-time job…
And yet, now she was about to become a teacher.
The fear came first. Saebyeok looked at her long-abandoned hands, helplessly.
Can I really do this?
Me?
“Anyway, since it’s a private school, you don’t need a teaching license. Normal teachers wouldn’t even want to come to this magician school, so someone like you, a properly trained graduate, will always be welcomed with open arms.”
The car sped up on the highway.
“You’ll be assigned as the first-grade teacher. Advanced magic starts in the upper grades, so it won’t matter that you’re not a magician.”
“….”
“If you’re worried, do you want to check some files from the glove compartment?”
Inside the file were some exam papers. Dongbaek pulled a pen from his suit pocket and handed it over.
“Try these. They call it a magician school, but it’s a really chaotic one. For an elite like you, it’ll be a piece of cake.”
Despite repeated encouragement, Saebyeok’s confidence remained at rock bottom.
With a troubled expression, she hesitated over the first question:
1. Which statement about mystical beings is incorrect?
- Mystical beings are entities that belong to the category of mysteries.
- The modern classification of mysteries applies the system created by the 15th-century Indian magician Roshanara Nisa.
- Of the mystical regions humans have encountered, the Galactic Union has two, the Planetary Alliance seven, and the Galactic Empire four.
- Historically, the most powerful mystical being in Korea was the famine of Gyeongsin year.
- The World Magic Federation grades mystical beings from F to S based on danger, anomaly, and management difficulty.
‘It’s number 3.’
Saebyeok marked her answer calmly.
The so-called ‘Galactic Empire,’ XB-NVDK32, isn’t actually an empire.
In the 17th century, when Ottoman magician Ahmet made contact, rebels claiming to be emperors were in power, but they were soon destroyed.
‘And this was proven through modern astronomical observation by magician Jincheong. The text is too boring to be widely known…’
Recalling the only book she had fallen asleep reading in her grandmother’s study, Saebyeok smiled faintly.
Dongbaek, glancing at her, asked:
“By the way, where did you learn all this?”
“I just learned it over my grandmother’s shoulder.”
“That kind, elderly lady—did she leave any notes about the school’s collection?”
“I only just found out she had a connection to the school.”
The sound of her pencil scratching on paper filled the car peacefully.
Dongbaek, glancing repeatedly, suddenly made a comment:
“Oh, isn’t it number 5? Pegasus has purification abilities, right?”
“No. The horn of a unicorn has purification abilities.”
“Ah… didn’t know that. Wait, why is number 2? Isn’t the best way to deal with rats that have transformed by eating human nails to chase them with a cat?”
“Nowadays, rats aren’t even afraid of cats.”
“Are you speaking from experience? Then how did you get rid of them?”
“They disappeared after I returned from a part-time job. Our boarding house’s AC also broke… and I had been left penniless because they didn’t pay me.”
“Ah… a story you can’t hear without tears. …What, Haram? Keep your eyes forward?”
The highway leading to late-winter Gangwon was eerily empty.
Dongbaek drove fast, sipping a half-melted iced Americano.
“Saebyeok, there are answers in the back. Check your work.”
“Yes…”
“And also sign our contract.”
Contract?
Saebyeok stopped her pencil and turned to the last page of the file. There, a fully prepared contract awaited.
[Employment Contract]
Saebyeok Ham (hereafter ‘Party A’) and Dongbaek (hereafter ‘Party B’) enter into the following agreement:
- Party A and Party B will disguise themselves as a married couple to infiltrate Beodeul School.
- Party A and Party B will prioritize finding the hidden sparrow, pigeon, and seagull within the school.
- In this process, Party B will do their best to protect Party A.
- All salary received by Party A for work at Beodeul School will belong to Party A. Additionally, 300,000,000 KRW will be awarded for each critical mission target obtained.
- Party A and Party B will remain loyal to each other until the contract ends.
Saebyeok froze while scanning the contract.
There was one part that immediately caught her eye:
‘How… much is all this?’
“Three hundred million?!”
“…Saebyeok, if you really care, shouldn’t you read the other parts carefully too?”
Ah.
Saebyeok calmed her racing heart and scanned the rest of the contract.
“Uh… what are the sparrow, pigeon, and seagull in section 2?”
“These are your grandmother’s collection items that we need to retrieve. They have code names because they are top secret.”
“I see. So each item is 300 million? If we find all three, that’s 900 million in my account?”
“Exactly. I told you to look at the other parts, but you’re ignoring them.”
Her complaints didn’t register.
‘Nine hundred million—enough to buy a house. If the contract finishes safely, I can even retake the teaching exam.’
A dream life with a stable job and a comfortable home would begin.
Without realizing she was grinning like a madwoman, Saebyeok signed the contract.
“Just sign here? Is there anything else I need to do?”
“…You’re surprisingly easy to deal with.”
Clicking his tongue, Dongbaek pulled out an envelope from his suit pocket.
Inside was a neatly folded sheet—similar to the contract, but this time a marriage registration form.
“Once signed, the system will show you married eight years ago.”
Dongbaek, chewing his straw, continued softly:
“After signing the contract, it’s mostly meaningless, but… it means there’s no turning back. No matter how scary it gets or how much you want to run, you’ll be stuck in the remote mountains of Gangwon for a year.”
His warning felt like a premonition of future disasters.
But since her grandmother disappeared, Saebyeok’s days always began with new calamities.
She’d already been living in hell—why fear tomorrow’s hell?
Determined, Saebyeok signed the marriage registration.
From now on, there was only one way forward.
