I’ll Retire After Saving the World

TL: SHW

[Han Tae-kyung - S-Class]

[Main Weapon - None]

[Team Leader of Dungeon Raid Division Team 1 at the Ability Management Agency]

[2nd Principal of Hunter Academy]

[Raided Dungeons (Total: 503 cases) ▼]

[Disciplinary Records ▼]

[*Refer to attached appendix for trial records]

*

Sizzle….

I pour oil into a well-heated pan, put in the pre-sliced green onions and stir-fry them well. After thoroughly frying the onions, I push them to the corner of the pan, then pour in the prepared egg mixture.

Sizzle.

The egg mixture starts cooking quickly. Stirring it before it's fully cooked creates soft scrambled eggs. After stir-frying the onions and eggs together, I season with soy sauce, then add rice. After stirring everything together one more time, I finish it off with a bit of pepper and sesame seeds.

I served the fried rice in a bowl that would easily cost hundreds of thousands of won per piece. Maybe it was because the bowl was expensive, but it looked quite presentable.

However, Mini-me’s expression darkened as he looked at the fried rice placed before him.

“Fried rice again?”

He began to complain about the food. Clearly, he was getting spoiled.

I was about to frown but changed my mind and awkwardly smiled instead. This approach works better with him.

“I made it for you, and you’re not going to eat it?”

“I’ll… I’ll eat it, but….”

Mini-me’s spirit was slightly dampened.

“…Still, I’m tired of fried rice.”

Mini-me said, puffing out his cheeks.

He’s not the type to say something like that lightly, so hearing this made me wonder if I had overdone it.

…Did I really make fried rice that often?

But this was the first time I’d made a meal for Mini-me.

My profession is not a chef. Fried rice shows enough effort. I couldn’t let him go hungry, could I?@@novelbin@@

To be honest, there’s no chef here at the moment. Due to security concerns, we couldn’t bring in external personnel, and Lee Mi-seon had already sent away the staff that were here.

As for cleaning, the kids were told to handle their own rooms, and for the shared spaces, the Daseon Hunters and adults were only tidying up the visibly messy areas. Laundry was the same. From what I can see, the school’s motto seems to be: “Take care of your own tasks.” As for the vast garden… well, if it all gets destroyed, there won’t be anything to maintain.

For tasks that are too difficult for the kids to handle… such as cooking, we’ve had no choice but to take care of those ourselves. Relying on packed meals can only go so far.

Among the unhelpful adults staying in the villa, the only one who could somewhat cook was Ji Yoo-geon. Thanks to him, he’s been stuck with, no, I mean, taking on this responsibility. He even volunteered for it enthusiastically. At least, he did until Lee Seung-yeon ran away. After that, it became much harder for him.

You can’t really blame Lee Seung-yeon for that. It’s unreasonable to ask someone who only cooks as a hobby to prepare meals for over ten people at every meal. Not to mention, there are seven teenage boys who eat a lot because they spend all day using their bodies.

It didn’t take long for the meals, which initially showed some effort, to become much simpler. After Lee Seung-yeon left, it was almost exclusively fried rice, kimchi fried rice, vegetable fried rice, curry fried rice….

Fried rice is at least something that even Hunters, who’ve never cooked a day in their lives, can be trained to help with. If someone can’t even handle a knife properly, they don’t deserve to be called a Hunter.

…Well, recognizing the ingredients in their original form is now a thing of the past.

I couldn’t take it anymore, so I decided to take charge of Mini-me’s meals. Anyway, because Mini-me doesn’t want to see people, even my mealtimes were getting disrupted. Ji Yoo-geon looked apologetic, but when I said I was fine, he didn’t refuse. Besides, packed meals were starting to reappear anyway.

When we build the Pilot High School building, let’s make sure we don’t forget a cafeteria. Even Hunters will die if they don’t eat. Hunters aren’t invincible, after all.

So, for now, I made Mini-me’s meal.

Of course, the menu was fried rice.

I’m not a chef either. Cooking has never even been a hobby of mine.

What are you expecting?

“Alright, let’s have something tastier for dinner.”

Still, I didn’t have the ability to make a ten-year-old understand all that, and knowing his personality, he probably wouldn’t get it even if I tried.

This is why kids need to be disciplined while growing up. If you keep indulging them, they end up like this.

“…I’m not saying it doesn’t taste good, hyung. I swear, it’s delicious!”

Still, the fact that he tried to read the room and pretended to be considerate because I’m his hyung almost brought me to tears.

It’s not that he’s clueless about social cues, he just chooses not to act on them because he doesn’t want to.

When I didn’t say anything and just kept smiling, Mini-me flailed desperately. Even though he’s technically another version of myself, it was still funny to watch.

…The old man had told me to fix this about myself. Let’s not torment an innocent kid for no reason.

But wait, is he really innocent? Can we even say that?!

“Hyung, hyung. Since when could you make stuff like this?”

“It just happened somehow.”

I shrugged my shoulders.

My hyung never cooked for me. Sometimes, he’d bring snacks when he returned from work, but that was it. I used to love those snacks, chocolates with toys inside.

Maybe I should find something like that and give it to Mini-me later. If I show him memories like that, he’ll have no choice but to firmly believe I’m his hyung.

Not that there’s much room for doubt when he has the concrete proof of my name… but maybe because his mind isn’t fully matured yet, he tends to fixate on something once he latches onto it.

“Can you make anything else?”

Mini-me asked, his eyes wide with curiosity.

“Well… if it’s something like instant noodles.”

“Ramen?”

“…I’ll make it for you later.”

I pointed at the leftover fried rice.

“Finish that first.”

I don’t make my fried rice for just anyone. Making it for Mini-me was a pretty big deal for me.

The only other people who’ve had my fried rice were probably old man and Yoo Ji-eun.

In the first few years after adopting me, old man avoided entering dungeons unless it was absolutely necessary. During that time, the Ability Management Agency was still newly formed, so there weren’t many situations where he had to go into a dungeon anyway.

But because of that, he was also incredibly busy during those years. Still, old man tried to stay by my side as much as possible. He even sent away annoying people like Oh Hyun-wook or that irritating man who insisted I call him “uncle” just to ensure I wasn’t left alone.

He’d barely return home before sunrise, see me for a brief moment as I woke up, send me off to school, and then head to work. Despite being so busy, he never once ignored a call from my homeroom teacher. On weekends, he always made time to go out with me, to the library, amusement parks, for hamburgers, or to watch movies.

When that kind of lifestyle continued for over a month, then two months, I couldn’t pretend not to notice anymore.

The fried rice I made was a sort of gesture. A way to say thank you for taking me in from the orphanage.

I don’t know if he understood it, but the old man was the kind of person who had an uncanny ability to notice things he wasn’t supposed to. So he probably did.

The first fried rice I made was a disaster. The green onions were burnt, the eggs were undercooked, and the rice was bland from lack of seasoning. But the old man smiled as if he’d won the world.

After that, I occasionally made egg fried rice. On days I fought with friends at school and got called to the principal’s office. On days I got into fights after hearing things about old man’s biological son.

Whenever I felt like I had done something wrong, or even when I hadn’t, but I somehow felt like I owed the old man an apology.

It’s a special fried rice, tied to precious memories.

Mini-me, unaware of the emotional history tied to the dish, focused entirely on filling his stomach as I reminisced.

I looked down at the top of Mini-me’s head and said,

“The Hunter who delivered your study materials stopped by. Make sure to thank him later, alright?”

Gratitude is the first step toward socialization, after all.

I frowned slightly, wondering what Hong Seok-young was planning to do with Ark. He had made it clear that he had a task for me. While Mini-me wasn’t around, I had occasionally enjoyed the relief of being free from the Pilot High School kids, but…

Let’s at least get Mini-me to the point where he doesn’t randomly bite people. Since he hasn’t fully awakened yet, even if he does bite someone, it’ll just leave teeth marks without drawing blood.

Not that that’s particularly reassuring.

Ding.

My phone buzzed.

At this hour, the only people who would contact me are insurance companies, spam callers, or debt collectors. Ever since Kim Chae-min took over, the number of calls has significantly decreased, but they still come in occasionally.

Well, now there’s one more thing added to that list.

[Today’s lunch!]

Even that obnoxious hamster is starting to seem cute to me… Is this what brainwashing feels like?

Even though I never respond, Lee Seung-yeon keeps sending photos without fail. The friendliness of these old kids is something else.

The photo shows Lee Seung-yeon and Kang Tae-woo grilling pork belly for lunch. At first, they took separate photos and looked awkward even when photographed together, but now they’ve grown close enough to throw their arms around each other.

Is that a good thing? Well, I suppose it’s nice that Kang Tae-woo has at least one person he can bond with. I stared at a photo of Kang Tae-woo shyly smiling, holding tongs in one hand and scissors in the other. It seems that this so-called "youth trip" is having a positive effect on him.

…Though he doesn’t seem to realize he’s being watched.

What is that man even up to?

I squinted and zoomed in on the photo Lee Seung-yeon had sent. In the corner of the barbecue restaurant, there was a man wearing sunglasses, sitting alone. Lucky it’s summer, nobody would think it’s strange to see someone in sunglasses.

Still, wouldn’t people glance at least once if someone’s sitting by themselves grilling meat like that? When the kids get back, it’s time for a special lesson. A Hunter should always be aware of their surroundings.

I looked at the man again. Han Tae-kyung. How old is he now…? A year or two younger than me, I think. The fact that that annoying man is younger than me… life really is full of surprises.

“Hyung.”

“Yeah?”

“I’m done eating.”

“Do you want more?”

“No…”

Mini-me frowned, dissatisfied about something again. No matter how you look at it, he needs to go to school. He’s too… high-maintenance for me to handle. I might be able to manage kids the age of the Pilot High School students, but ten years old is too young. The Pilot High kids are the same age as the Hunter Academy students who visit the Ability Management Agency on field trips, after all.

I cleared the empty bowl from in front of Mini-me.

Life feels too monotonous. What would the old man have done with him? What did we do when I had just been adopted by old man…?

“Want to go for a walk?”

“…A walk? I don’t want to go into the garden.”

“Not the garden.”

I took Mini-me over to the window. In one corner of the garden, some kids were eating their packed lunches. On the other side was the parking area where Lee Mi-seon and Kim Chae-min’s cars were parked. In that corner, there was a stone staircase. A staircase that leads down to the beach.

Lee Mi-seon had mentioned it. That the beach down there was technically private property.

Well, to be precise, the entrance was blocked off by the villa, so it had essentially become a private space. The kids didn’t go down there either, so she had told me to take Mini-me down there to get some sunlight.

“You said you wanted to see the ocean.”

Mini-me’s eyes sparkled.

“Shall we go?”

Without even answering, Mini-me bolted toward the front door.

So this is what it feels like to take a dog out for a walk.