I Became a Swordsmanship Instructor at the Academy Chapter 18

Became a Swordsmanship Instructor at the Academy

Chapter 18

“What do you mean? You can’t come next week?”

“If the work gets prolonged, I might not be able to come the week after, either.”

In truth, it’s not because of work but because I have no money.

Of course, I haven’t lost all my money and become completely broke from stocks.

After one big drop, it’s been repeatedly rising and falling slightly.

I can’t concentrate on my classes, and feeling like my blood is drying up every day, I even took out a short-term credit card loan and put everything into stocks.

It’s too complicated to explain this situation to my master, so there’s no choice.

“Since you say you have your reasons, I can’t help it, but… Disciple, then you should have brought more today. And you didn’t bring sesame ramen but different ramen, and it seems like there’s less ramen than usual?”

“A… Actually, there was a fire at the place that makes sesame ramen.”

Even if I’m short on money, I didn’t deliberately buy cheap ramen to save a few thousand won.

Unfortunately, the store I happened to visit was out of sesame ramen.

Other stores were too far away, so I just tried to find something similar among the available options and bought whatever, but being short on money, I unconsciously chose the cheapest one.

“What?”

“I tried my best to find some, but they said the technicians who make the ramen were injured, so production will be difficult for a while. I’m sorry.”

Cho Yu-ryang silently stares at me—did he figure it out?

“…If that’s the case, it can’t be helped. You must have had a hard time. Good job.”

“Ah… Not at all.”

PHEW, I’m glad the excuse I had prepared in advance worked.

“Do you want to eat one too?”

“Ah, I’m fine.”

“Are you really not going to eat? If you ask for a bite later, you’re dead.”

Watching my master excitedly boiling water after I said I wouldn’t eat, I feel overwhelmed with guilt.

Even if it was far and troublesome, I should have gone to another store and bought sesame ramen for him…

If I just sell my stocks, I’ll really have to treat him well.

Not just ramen and snacks, but also Chinese liquor and Chinese cuisine.

Yes, and I should also replace the laptop with an expensive one so he can watch videos longer and in higher quality.

“Disciple!”

“I’m really okay… Huh? Master, what did you just say?”

Just now, my master called me “disciple” in Korean, not Chinese.

“Am I speaking correctly?”

It’s completely strange and the pronunciation is a bit off, but it’s definitely Korean.

“How did you learn Korean when I never taught you?”

“I learned from one of the books you brought last time for me to read when I’m bored.”

“What? The books I bought for you?”

When my master grumbled that the laptop battery runs out too quickly and asked me to buy another laptop, I stopped by a bookstore on my way here and bought several books in Chinese for him to read if the battery runs out.

But they were all novels.

I didn’t buy educational books because it would be a waste if he found them boring and didn’t read them.

But it was all wasted effort from the beginning.

He didn’t even bother to look at them, saying he had no interest in reading from birth.

Since there’s no way Chinese novels would have content about Korean, I wondered what book he learned from and asked to see it.

“Wait a moment.”

My master went into the back of the cave and brought five thin books, all of which were Korean textbooks for young children.

I never bought these books, so I was confused and tried to recall my memory… Ah, could it be that?

At the bookstore where I bought books for my master, they gave a drawing ticket if you bought more than two books, and I won fifth place.

It was wrapped, but it looked like a book, so I just brought it without thinking and then forgot about it.

So that’s what it was.

“It was packaged separately, so I thought it might be food, but it turned out to be these books.”

“Didn’t you say you had no interest in reading?”

“I was bored so I looked at it, and unlike other thick books that are just full of text, this book had many pictures, so it was okay. The pictures were well-drawn too. And since the bottom of the laptop also has this language, I thought it would be useful to learn it.”

The bottom of the laptop? Ah, he must mean the keyboard.

Learning Korean from just one book—are martial arts masters smart too?

Judging from my master’s usual words and actions, it doesn’t seem like it.

That’s right. It’s not that my master is smart, but King Sejong who created such an easy writing system that it can be learned just from a book without anyone teaching it is truly great.

“Next time I come, I’ll prepare videos in Korean as well.”

“Really? It might be difficult to understand if they speak too fast.”

“There’s a function to play it slowly. And anyway, your skills will improve quickly as you watch. Would you like me to prepare similar books as well?”

“If they have more pictures than text like these books, that would be good.”

I thought he would say no, but seeing his willingness to learn makes me want to help him.

The current books are labeled for 4-5 year-olds, so should I find and buy ones for 6-7 year-olds?

“By the way, does this character mean the same as the ‘manufacturer’ I’m saying now?”

He pointed to the word ‘manufacturer’ written on the back of the ramen package, so I answered that it means the place where it’s made.

“Then the one behind it must be a place name.”

“Yes, that’s right.”

He’s asking such questions, so he must have developed quite an interest in Korean.

Wait, but why is his expression like that?

He went back into the cave and suddenly came out with a bunch of ramen packages.

“Disciple, if that’s the case, looking at these, the sesame ramen you bought today, the sesame ramen you bought last week, and the sesame ramen you bought before that were all made in different places, right?”

“What? Y-yes. They all had fires.”

“According to what’s written here, there seem to be quite a lot of places that make sesame ramen. Did all these places have fires?”

Wow, is this old man really a genius?

How did he figure it out so…

“Y-yes. They’re all in nearby locations.”

I felt guilty inside but answered as calmly as possible.

“Really?”

His voice is full of suspicion.

“Master, do you not believe your disciple’s words? That’s too much.”

I looked down with a hurt expression.

Thinking this would be enough to convince him, I slightly raised my head to check, but somehow my master’s expression seemed to have worsened.

“Then can you explain why the manufacturer written on the ramen you bought today and the manufacturer written on this sesame ramen are exactly the same?”

Ah. That was also a ramen from the same company.

“Um… Master, that’s…”

“I don’t want to hear it. A disciple lying to his master. Oh, how pitiful my life is. When you get old, you should just die.”

He seems thoroughly upset… I’m sorry, Master.

Please wait a little bit. ‘Patience’ will eventually lead to victory.

***

“Teacher Kang, how about a drink this evening after work? My wife said she’s going to her parents’ house today.”

“I think it’s going to be difficult for me today.”

“Are you busy? Tomorrow’s the presidential election so we’re off… Alright. Let’s eat together next time then.”

That’s right. Tomorrow is the presidential election.

So many things have happened over the past three weeks.

First was the stock market surge.

A week ago, a corruption scandal involving the son of Kim Joon-seok, who had been leading in the polls, caused Kim Joon-seok’s approval ratings to plummet.

On the flip side, Kim Chul-hwan rose to first place in approval ratings in one go, and related stocks soared to unprecedented heights.

“Teacher Kang, about that stock you asked me about last time, saying your friend bought it. What did he do? Don’t tell me he sold it?”

This is Teacher Gu, whom I became friendly with at the gathering Teacher Min suggested last time.

“Ah, that… I can’t reach him, but I guess he probably sold it?”

“Did you happen to tell him what I said about it possibly falling more? If so, I feel really bad.”

“No. I’ve heard that giving stock advice or recommendations to others only leads to trouble, so I didn’t say anything. When we talked last time, he seemed to be considering selling because it had fallen so much.”

“Then he must have sold it. PHEW, it’s fortunate that you didn’t pass on what I said… No, wait, if you can’t reach him, could it be that he sold it and now regrets it so much that he might be having, you know, bad thoughts?”

Teacher Gu looks quite serious, but I feel like laughing.

“Who knows? Maybe he didn’t sell and is doing well, so he’s not contacting me?”

Of course, I didn’t sell.

The second thing was the closure of our school’s YouTube channel.

Our school’s YouTube channel, which had been initiated as a pilot program, was eventually shut down.

It wasn’t because it only had a brief moment of popularity and then viewership declined.

From the beginning, its purpose was to promote the school and show parents their children’s activities.

In fact, the viewership for the second video was much higher than the first.

I don’t remember exactly, but it was close to 3 million views.

Initially, they didn’t want to include footage of students receiving practical classes due to security concerns, but the vice principal and principal must have negotiated with higher-ups due to the explosive response, so it was included.

Plus, there was even a joint interview with three pretty female teachers, including Teacher Min.

The number of subscribers was also increasing explosively, and everything was going well.

But increased attention isn’t always good.

With increased attention comes more malicious people.

In the “See More” section below the video, we had already posted a notice that legal action would be taken against abnormal content or comments that crossed the line, given that minors from the school appeared in the videos, but the world is wide and there are many lunatics.

Comments like “She’s good enough to be my bride” about students and teachers in the videos are problematic, but there were many more comments evaluating appearances or seriously sexually harassing, which could be considered even worse.

Naturally, the school took measures to hide such comments and requested cooperation from YouTube headquarters to obtain information on malicious commenters in order to file lawsuits.

In my previous world, foreign companies valued personal information and didn’t cooperate well, but fortunately, it was different here.

YouTube Korea actively cooperated and even articles came out saying they would sue all the malicious commenters, but it was of no use.

It was impossible to catch all the trolls.

Even when they found email addresses, most were dummy accounts with no personal information.

It was also impossible to monitor every single comment one by one, and there wasn’t enough manpower to keep track of other community sites that shared video links and harassed students.

Eventually, the story made it to internet articles, and parents became aware of it.

Although consent was obtained from all students who appeared in the videos, the school was almost paralyzed by complaint calls from parents worried about their children.

Complaints and petitions poured into not only the school but also the Education Department and the Hunter Management Bureau, and the policy was eventually discontinued.

From what I heard, the student council president, vice president, and Teacher Min, probably due to her pretty appearance, received the most malicious comments. Not only the students but also Teacher Min are truly pitiful.

For the ridiculous reason of being a technology teacher, she became the editor, but she seemed to be doing it with more enthusiasm than anyone else, saying that she found it fun once she got into it…

When I spoke with her a few times in passing, she said she was fine, but I remembered a line from a movie I once saw:

Saying you’re fine originally means you’re not fine.

Just looking at her expression, she didn’t seem fine at all.

Although I’m just a third-rate writer, I’ve received quite a lot of malicious comments and have developed some immunity from seeing many of them, but regardless of immunity, I think malicious commenters deserve to die.

Recently, it seems she went to the police station due to the lawsuit process… I really hope they catch all those malicious commenters and punish them severely without any settlements.