My Students Regret It After I Retired

6 – The dead Feredin. Foolish knights of the Empire.

“If… if you kill me, you won’t be able to handle the con-”

Feredin thrashed, desperate to survive, but his words were cut short.

“You should have begged for your life instead.”

He was already a corpse, but as his former mentor, I gave my student a final piece of advice. Threats are for those who have something to lose. I’d lost my rank, status, reputation, even my place in the Empire.

And now they want me to be their dog, doing as the Empire says, and in return, they’ll clear my false charges?

Don’t give me that shit. If they were going to do that, they wouldn’t have tossed me aside like this, a man who dedicated his entire life to serving the Empire. Feredin’s words echoed in my head again.

‘Isn’t the Empire scary? Why should *I* fear the Empire? They’re bugs who can’t even close one damn Red Gate.’

Cleaning out a Red Gate doesn’t mean you can seal it. Unless you seal the gates, monsters will keep respawning and pouring out. The ones in a rush aren’t me, it’s them.

“Tsk.”

I clicked my tongue, looking at the blood splattered all over my clothes. The stench of blood was so overpowering that I craved a change of clothes, but the clothes of the corpses around me were also soaked in blood.

There was plenty of food in the bunker, but no extra clothes. Of course, I didn’t bring any clothes either, so I went back into the bunker as I was.

“Are you alright? What happened!”

Heresia, who was waiting for me in the bunker, cried out, frantically examining my body.

“There were intruders.”

“You should have told me if there were people! You said you were going out for a moment and now you come back so injured! Where’s the medicine? I’ll treat you right away!”

“Don’t make such a fuss. I’m not hurt.”

I took off my shirt, and her face flushed crimson. But after seeing my smooth, unblemished body, she asked, confused,

“So… all that blood, it’s all from them? How many did you fight…”

“Ten people. My head’s pounding, stop asking. I wanna rest a bit.”

Heresia didn’t say anything more, she just shut her mouth. Then she quietly picked up the clothes I’d thrown down, put them in a basket in the corner, and paused before turning on the faucet. I looked over at Heresia like, what are you doing? And she explained, almost matter-of-factly.

“There’s… like, a rainwater tank artifact here! I sniffed it, and it’s not really fit for drinking, so… I thought it’d be good for laundry or when we need water for other things. Looks like you don’t have any clothes, so I was gonna wash yours, is that okay?”

“Yeah, go ahead. From now on, you can use the bunker’s resources without asking. If you’re hungry, eat whatever you want from the food supplies too.”

“Still, that feels kinda rude…”

I didn’t really pay attention to Heresia’s hesitation and just lay down. It’ll be awkward now, but she’ll adjust soon enough. So I wasn’t too worried about it.

I reached out and started examining the weapons the attackers had been carrying, one by one. After searching everything, even what they had on them, I found seven ranged interception artifacts called mana cannons. Twenty daggers, and just one distance device.

‘Bigger haul than I expected.’

Two of the seven small mana cannons were busted, worn out from the fight. So they were junk, but that still left five. They might not have many uses left, but they’d come in handy in different situations. And there were so many daggers, they’d be useful for all sorts of things too.

I dumped all the loot into my inventory first, then checked out the distance device Peredin had been holding.

‘It’s encrypted to prevent location tracking.’

Fitting for a distance device used by the Empire’s Shadow Unit, a closer look revealed layers of encryption and mana nullification formulas slapped all over it. It was clearly a safety measure, to make sure the info wouldn’t fall into the wrong hands if Peredin failed and died.

[To access data normally, you must infuse it with registered mana.]

Hoping I could dig up something on the Empire’s Shadow Unit, I poked and prodded at the distance device’s buttons, trying to get into its internal data, but without Peredin’s mana, it was impossible. There was no way to infuse it with the mana of the already dead Peredin, so this distance device was pretty much just stolen goods now.

‘Should I toss it?’

Just as I was sighing in disappointment, she came up beside me, looking shocked and saying,

“Wow… this is a brand-new model! And it’s got all sorts of security on it too. Who did this?”

“You can figure this out?”

Distance devices were basically the same as cell phones back on Earth. And like back then, if you weren’t interested in electronics, you wouldn’t know much about them, except maybe a few fancy brands. And finding someone who actually knew about this limited-edition device, that was surprising.

“Yeah! Absolutely, I’m an artifact fanatic! I read lots of books, look stuff up online, scour community sites, do breakdowns, and all sorts of stuff, so I know a lot!”

“Is there a way to disable this distance?”

I’m good at fighting and battles, not at understanding the inner workings of artifacts like this. Even in novels, the explanations of artifact structures are just short sentences, so Herisia being an artifact fanatic is a good thing.

After all, the distance was just another artifact made with mana stones.

“Um… this is… probably difficult. It seems they’ve made it so that you can’t access any internal information unless you drain the previous user’s mana. I can break the distance, but I absolutely can’t extract the internal data.”

I made a disappointed face, and she spoke up.

“But the devices inside this are useful! It’s filled with anti-tracking magic. In terms of security, it’s top-tier.”

“So what? I can’t use it anyway. A useless artifact is just trash.”

“Huh? You can reset it. You can reset it and use it!”

“…”

I stared at her silently, and she spoke, dumbfounded.

“You were just going to throw this away? This precious thing? Why not reset it and use it?”

“It’s the distance the enemies had. There’s a risk of being tracked.”

“No! Absolutely not. It’s structured so that even the person who made it can’t track it. It’s a little hard to explain, but it’s physically impossible to track.”

“I don’t know how to reset it.”

Unlike normal distances, the distance Pereddin carried had its basic reset function disabled. Probably a measure to prevent whoever acquired it from using it freely.

“Don’t worry, leave it to me! I can finally earn my keep! “

Herisia grinned, her voice booming, and looked at me. I said to her,

“Then, please reset it.”

“Yes! I have the related artifacts in my bag, so wait a bit and I’ll reset it for you. I’m glad I’m useful. Bring me stuff like this in the future! I’ll tell you everything!”

What was she so excited about? Herisia was practically bouncing as she moved to a corner, rummaging through her bag. I spoke to her calmly.

“Aren’t you going to ask who I fought, or why?”

“…If it was near the bunker, it was probably a looter. I don’t think there’s much to ask. It’s been weeks since monsters started coming out of the gate. I’ve had people approach me with bad intentions, people who held knives to try and steal the food from my backpack. It’s all the same. In these situations, the ugly side of human nature comes out.”

Herisia’s eyes turned cold.

As if remembering something, she shook her head with a disgusted expression.

“Before this Red Gate incident, Leos-nim risked his life to close the gates for people, with nothing in return. It’s been over five years… if someone who dedicated themselves to helping people like that fought so fiercely with someone, there’d have to be a reason.”

“I never worked without pay as a gatekeeper. I got paid all the money.”

Feeling a little embarrassed, I spoke curtly, and she chuckled, replying.

“You closed almost all the gates in the country alone, of course you deserve to get paid a lot. You also helped people who got lost in the gates or were hurt by monsters around them, didn’t you? The mission is to clear and seal the gates, but if you only cared about money you would have ignored those people. The selfless dedication I’m talking about is stuff like that.”

“…”

Herisia had laid out the devices she took from her bag, and she talked while fiddling with them.

“Do you know why I started writing on places like Leos Gallery? I’ve been helped by you, too, Leos-nim.”

“I don’t remember.”

It wasn’t a lie. If I had to count the number of people I had saved when I was working as a gatekeeper, it would be easily over thousands. Remembering every single face of the many people I rescued in dire, life-or-death situations was next to impossible.

“It’s okay if you don’t remember! The important thing is that I remember.”

“Can you tell me what happened? Maybe if you explain the situation, I’ll remember.”

She paused for a moment, then sadly shook her head.

“Later, please remember it yourself, Leos-nim. Okay?”

I looked into her mournful eyes and said nothing more. I stared blankly at the ceiling, listening to the clinking sounds of Herisia fiddling with her devices.

‘Something bad must have happened.’

I decided not to dig any deeper into her personal affairs. Just hearing her story brought a certain relief. It didn’t seem like she was following me for no reason.

There’s nothing more terrifying and suspicious than unprovoked human kindness. But if there’s a reason behind it, then nothing could be more welcome.

‘Judging from Peredin’s reaction, it’s clear the Empire doesn’t know my exact location. The bodies have been cleaned up, and I confirmed that no separate contact was made via Distan. It’ll probably take the Empire several days to grasp the situation. As long as I don’t use my old Distan to call or text, they’ll have no way of knowing where I am. For now, it’s better to stay hidden and observe rather than running around and showing myself.’

Having made my decision, I spoke to Heresia.

“I’m going to sleep for a bit, wake me if anything happens.”

“Yes! I will!”

I fell asleep staring at the empty bunker ceiling.

The world had collapsed, but I slept more soundly than I had in a long time. The pressure that had been tormenting me, about saving the world and rescuing people, was gone.

*

Keltazar, the commander of the Empire’s Shadow Corps, spoke.

“Any news from Peredin?”

“Not yet. It seems like the pursuit is taking a considerable amount of time.”

“No news is good news, they say. I’m looking forward to seeing that vermin Leos come crawling back with an arm or leg missing. Once he’s brought here, we’ll make it clear that abandoning the Empire comes with consequences.”

Bellen, who was listening nearby, said to Keltazar.

“Commander, it’s taking longer than expected to bring Leos in. I think we need to at least temporarily establish a Gate Management Headquarters and start taking action. The imperial citizens are already heavily criticizing us for practically abandoning the Red Gate.”

“Ah, don’t worry about it.”

Keltazar replied, then waved his hand casually. One by one, those waiting behind him began to emerge.

Knights in full plate armor, all emanating tremendous power.

“These are the new Gate Management Headquarters personnel the Empire has selected. They are all volunteers from among the knights. Leos, that street thug, was able to handle the gate so well. These individuals were raised in the Empire! They are capable of breaking the Red Gate even more effectively. The sealing can be done later once Leos is captured, for now, they will handle the communication.”

Keltazar spoke to the man at the front, clad in full plate armor.

“Tepirion. Your mission is to eradicate the Red Gates. Can you accomplish this?”

Tepirion, as if it were obvious, spoke with a sardonic smile.

“I heard the previous Gatekeeper Captain, Leos, was a severely lacking vermin. The disparity between someone who’s only ever hunted monsters, never even deployed in a real battlefield, and knights like us, who have gained practical experience fighting in countless wars, is immeasurable. If even someone who’s never killed a single person could do it, can’t we? Even if we can’t seal the gates, if we just kill all the monsters inside, the area will be clear for 24 hours. I’ll destroy 10 Red Gates within a day and come back.”

Tepirion then grasped his sword, and said,

“We will show, with our own hands, that our Empire is unwavering, without needing the aid of scum who abandoned the Empire and ran away!”

*

[Crack…crack…]

A bizarre sound began to resonate from the Red Gates. Then, the system’s warning message was loudly broadcast in all directions.

[Red Gates have been active for over 300 hours. The energy of the internal monsters is intensifying, and mutations have begun to occur.]