My Students Regret It After I Retired

7 – A Dead Knight. Encountering Monsters.

Tepirion, appointed as the new Head of the Gate Management Headquarters, spoke with a stern expression as he headed toward the gate.

“Report the current personnel.”

“Current personnel, 35 knights.”

“Excellent. With this number, we can easily destroy 10 Red Gates. No, perhaps we can destroy even more Red Gates than that.”

One of the Gate Management Headquarters personnel who was listening spoke.

“Headquarters Chief, generally, it takes 20 personnel to eradicate one Red Gate. Wouldn’t we need more troops to eradicate 10 in a row…?”

“Nonsense!”

Tepirion shouted as he stepped forward.

“We are all knights! Knights trained to protect the Empire! The statistic of 20 is just the story of the gatekeepers who held the headquarters before. If they are ordinary people, then we are human weapons. Our swordsmanship, stamina, and even the skill of slaughter are incomparable to theirs. We are knights who have survived countless wars! Real, battle-tested knights.”

“Waaah!”

“That’s Commander Terepian for you. No, General now! We just need to trust and follow! Let’s wipe out these filthy monsters!”

The honorable knights had high self-esteem, and in turn, tended to look down on others. The reason was simple. Becoming a knight required enduring brutal, hellish training, not to mention going through multiple filtering processes to select only the elite.

Especially someone like Terepian, who became a knight commander, there was no need to say more. Mere monsters, beings without reason, were considered unworthy to be his opponents. This idea had spread like an accepted truth in society. The community’s reaction was also favorable.

[Did you all hear? Terepian’s going on a subjugation mission this time.]

[The former knight commander Terepian? No way lol]

[Wow, those Gatekeepers all dipped out, and now knights are being incorporated into the Gate Management Headquarters? Even better lol]

[If it wasn’t for that trash Leo, there wouldn’t be a need for all this complex stuff. The Gatekeepers would have just resolved it.]

[Nah, Leo’s a hero lol. Thanks to his dumb act, we’re protected by even stronger knights.]

The public perception was also strongly ingrained with the idea that knights were more honorable and stronger than Gatekeepers. The reason was simple. The history of Gatekeepers was barely a decade old, while the history of knights spanned over a hundred years.

Even as the empire rose and fell, knights were always there with them. It was unreasonable to compare them to Gatekeepers, a term that hadn’t even existed for ten years.

Leo was also watching their reactions.

“…”

As Leo quietly stared at the distance, Herisia, standing next to him, shook her head and said,

“Don’t pay attention to such words. Who was it that has been smashing gates until now, and now they’re saying that crap! It’s truly infuriating.”

“It’s not like I’m watching because I’m bothered. Before being deployed on the battlefield, it is always necessary to grasp the current situation. I check not just the communities but all kinds of media regularly. These spaces are the only way to see the state of the empire and the reactions of the people.”

Leo’s browsing of the community was part of his information gathering. It wasn’t like he was just killing time because there was nothing to do inside the gate. After checking everything, the knights, media, and news outlets, the last thing he always looked for was the community, and their reactions were quite useful in grasping the overall situation.

Isn’t that the case now? Knowing that a new Gate Management Headquarters composed of knights had been established was a considerable gain.

‘Knights, huh…’

Among the knights, Terepian. He hadn’t heard the man’s name that often, but he had vaguely seen it pass by a few times among the knights. A man who was promising in swordsmanship since he was young, and who became a knight commander in quite a short time. That was all the information he had. He wasn’t even a significant character in the novel.

‘Predictable.’

They went to attack the Red Gate, but the outcome was obvious without even looking.

“Heresia. Is the analysis of the Distance I brought finished?”

“Yes! Just the final touches!”

Heresia fiddled with this and that, and soon white smoke began to rise from the Distance.

“…”

As I stared silently, Heresia waved her arms in a fluster.

“I-it’s not broken! There’s a process in the initialization where one of the internal components has to be physically removed, so…”

I didn’t reply and just laid back down.

With the gate open, this kind of leisurely behavior felt really alien. Even while imprisoned for three years, I was constantly fighting with inmates, so this peaceful life was unlike anything I’d experienced since possessing this novel’s body.

– Hyung, you’re really going too far… telling us not to touch the other inmates. We need to collect protection money to make a living…

– Shut your mouth. If I catch you collecting one more time, I’ll cut off your arm. If protection money is more important than your arm, then go ahead.

– But Hyung…

– Work for money. Isn’t that enough?

The inmates I met in prison flashed through my mind, one by one.

‘I wonder if those b*stards are doing well.’

Some had been released earlier than me, and some were still stuck in prison. Most of the inmates were bad pieces of trash, but some, like me, were wrongfully imprisoned, or had reformed while serving their sentences.

I took in and treated the ones who were capable of reforming pretty well. I wanted them to live normal lives without doing stupid things when they got out into society. To be more honest, I felt a sense of kinship with them, as their situation seemed similar to my own, being rejected by society.

– Leo Hyung. During lunch, another cell leader hit me. Can you see my eye? Look at my eye! Hyung! Don’t sleep, look at my eye! It’s all swollen!

– I heard it all. You got your ass kicked for messing around, why are you tattling? If you’re that mad, go tell a guard or something.

– How can I do that with no pride? I, Bendict! I’ll die before I snitch on a weaker guard.

– Then why are you tattling to me?

– How is it a blow to my pride asking the strongest guy in our prison to get revenge for me? Even if all the guys here jumped me at once, they wouldn’t stand a chance against you. You’re a living, breathing human toilet.

*Whack!*

– I told you to pronounce “toilet” right.

As I smacked him on the head, he muttered with an aggrieved expression.

– Isn’t it because my teeth got busted from getting hit by you…you’re being so unfair…

– Enough. Now tell me the name of the b*stard who did that to your eye.

– Are you gonna get revenge for me?

– If you’re gonna talk nonsense, I’m going back to sleep.

– Ah! Wait! Brother! Brother!

I slowly opened my eyes.

Bendict. He was a pathetic guy. Big body, but he didn’t learn anything, so he was always getting used by others.

His father had been swindled by a con artist, losing all his wealth and racking up massive debt. And shortly after, his father took his own life, saying he would take responsibility for everything. In his will, he apologized and told Bendict to renounce his inheritance and live a life free from debt.

The day he saw the will. Bendict grabbed the con artist who had scammed his father and beat him to death with his bare hands, and was imprisoned for that crime.

Even though Bendict had no property to inherit from his father, he did not renounce the inheritance. He had to shoulder the massive debt, but the man kept saying that he would pay off his father’s debts.

– Huh? Why pay it all back like an idiot? Hey, brother, my father took his own life because of money, right? If something like that happened to the people who lent money to my father, what would they do? They lent money because they trusted my father. I can’t let them be disgraced. I’ll pay it all back. No matter how much time it takes.

– And that same guy steals money from other inmates?

– Ah, brother! Those b*stards deserve it! They’re crazy, evil criminals! They don’t need human rights… aaah! Brother, my ear is gonna tear! I’ll work to earn it! Work… Waaah!

While in prison, the only reason I could bear it was because of guys like Bendict. You could call it shared suffering. Seeing these guys, unjustly imprisoned, but striving to overcome their situation made me feel like a fool for not doing anything at all.

‘I wonder if he’s doing okay.’

That’s when I was thinking that.

“Leos! It’s all reset! They can’t track us anymore if we contact or call with this!”

I immediately checked the distance device Herycia handed me, and crushed the old device I had underfoot.

“Thanks.”

I thanked Herycia, took out the distance device, punched in Bendict’s number, and called.

-Ring, ring, ring…

After a few rings, a familiar voice answered the call.

“Who is it?”

“It’s me.”

“Who the hell is me, you punk!”

“You wanna die?”

“…”

Bendict was silent for a moment, then asked me quietly.

“Is that…hyungnim?”

“Yeah.”

“No way, Leos hyungnim! Why are you calling now! I went to the prison on the day you were released! Why didn’t you see the distance calls? Did you maybe block me?”

I hadn’t blocked him or anything. Just in case, I asked him.

“You memorized my distance number? Tell me.”

“Isn’t it 000922227336?”

“Every single number is wrong.”

“Ah… I thought I was blocked when it said the number didn’t exist, but that’s not it.”

I ignored his sigh and asked him,

“Where are you now?”

“I’m near the prison.”

“Why are you still near the prison? You should’ve run the moment you saw the Red Gate.”

“How could I leave you behind, bro? I thought you’d be suffering alone, so I kept searching… but honestly, I’m fucked now. There are too many monsters, I’m trapped. I asked the Empire for help, but these b*stards won’t even look. Assholes. They can find you even if you’re hiding when they want to put out a warrant, but…”

This guy who couldn’t even remember his Distance number would have no way of finding a bunker. There was no way he could survive on his own, avoiding monsters. Left like that, he would literally die.

I sighed and said,

“Tell me your location.”

“You’re gonna help me?”

“You’re alone, right?”

“Yeah, I’m alone!”

“If I save you, you owe me your keep.”

“Of course. I’ll send you my location!”

Looking at the location he sent, I slowly packed my inventory and bag.

“I’m going out for a bit.”

“Can I come with you?”

Whether she was scared of being alone, or worried that something might happen to me again, Herisia said, and I nodded.

“Just don’t get in the way.”

“Of course! You saw my Distance! I’m kinda useful, you know!”

Leaving Herisia, who was thumping her chest with a proud expression, behind, I stepped out of the bunker door.

*

Terepian, the new director of the new gate management headquarters, stared at the bright red gate and commanded his subordinates.

“Everyone, charge! Today! We’ll break down the gate and protect the empire!”

The moment his subordinates surged forward,

-Thwack!

A chilling sound pierced the air, and a knight collapsed to the ground, coughing up blood.

“Uh…?”

Terepian stared ahead, dazed.

-Sssshhht!

Before him, a mantis-like monster, easily several meters tall, was glaring at him with a fierce glint in its eyes.

“Don’t joke around…The Red Gate mutant was supposed to be Leos’ responsibility…? He…he fought…something like *this*…?”

His heart plummeted.

What he faced was a mutant, one of the countless monsters Leos had killed.