Chapter 15
#15. Dropping Out
To put it simply, my mage registration and admission to the Magic Tower went smoothly.
-Congratulations, Mage Kang Hyun-woo. First, you can receive your registration card over here, and we’ve sent information about the relevant benefits and precautions to the contact information you provided, so please check it later.
The mage registration card I received from the female employee was light, yet heavy.
That was because the benefits I would receive from this palm-sized card were anything but insignificant.
The enormous benefits mages received were the result of countries competing to keep these irreplaceable talents within their borders, but the benefit that tempted me most was none other than.
M.I.L.I.T.A.R.Y. E.X.E.M.P.T.I.O.N.
Wow! Is that really true?
Yes, of course! Our Ministry of National Defense will never forcibly conscript you esteemed mages, our first-class citizens, without your consent!
But in other countries, military exemption is something even their other citizens receive as a matter of course, isn’t it?
...
Anyway, with this, men were exempt from military service. Of course, they could still enlist if they wanted. Except that they could enlist as officers, coast along, and take the express lane to promotion or discharge, the experience was similar to that of regular soldiers.
...Was that really similar? Anyway.
Of course, with the mage gender ratio so horribly skewed, it wasn’t exactly an attractive benefit to the other mages.
According to an international research organization, the male-to-female ratio among mages was roughly 1:24. That was also why the Magic Tower was overwhelmingly female.
They seemed to have included the military exemption benefit because there were still some male mages, and they figured someone would be happy to have it if they tossed it in.
“Tax cuts and all kinds of subsidies... Automatic first-class upgrades on domestic airlines? What the hell is this?”
As I skimmed through the messages the Magic Tower had sent me, I suddenly wondered whether the government had ever taken such good care of me before.
I had lost my parents to the war when I was five and had grown up in an orphanage ever since.
Because of the country’s financial problems, I hadn’t received proper support either while living in the orphanage or after leaving it.
“I guess people only get treated well once they raise their own value.”
Of course, I didn’t resent the government.
Back then, it was an era when even people worse off than me were dying without receiving proper support.
Anyway, I put those depressing old stories aside. The most important matter, my admission to the Magic Tower, had been settled for now simply by submitting my application.
I wanted to start attending lectures at the Magic Tower tomorrow, but.
-What? Vacation?
-Yes. The second semester starts in about a month, so you can come then.
Good heavens, the Magic Tower, an organization of mages who seemed to have neither blood nor tears, had a vacation!
It would almost have been more believable if someone had told me the military had vacations.
Of course, the female employee at the counter had no reason to lie to me, so I simply said I understood and left.
The unexpected month of free time left me a little troubled.
What should I do with it?
The deliberation was short. Come to think of it, I had a hell of a lot to do from now on.
First, I had to drop out of university, and then fill the month with mage training. That was my top priority.
According to Iris, I would reach the second circle in no time, so the important thing now was focusing on my training.
On top of that, she’d added that if I reached the second circle quickly, I could even reach the third circle with ease. It was only natural that the smile never left my lips.
A third-circle mage! In small countries, they were treated as quasi-nobility—the upper crust of the upper class.
‘Me, who was a war orphan until recently, becoming quasi-nobility?!’
Ba-dum.
Even a novel with a title like that would probably get cursed out.
Anyway, it hadn’t taken long, but I had received the mage registration card, a symbol of the upper class, and confirmed my admission to the Magic Tower. It was the most productive morning of my entire life.
-Hehe, then, our future son-in-law? See you when the semester starts.
-...
Other than the fact that I’d ended up with a blind-date appointment that had never been in the cards for me because I’d been tempted by a picture of a red-haired woman, it had been a problem-free morning.
‘She said it was just to look at each other’s faces... It should be fine, right?’
I did feel a little guilty when I thought of Iris, but there were almost no S-rank hunters or high-ranking mages who had only one wife.
Ordinary people lived monogamously because they couldn’t handle the financial or physical demands of having multiple partners.
As a future eighth-circle archmage, did I really need to be bound by ordinary people’s common sense?
‘Nope.’
Bang, bang, bang—the case had been dismissed, so worrying any further would have been excessive.
“But what should I do now?”
I’d thought registering as a mage and enrolling in the Magic Tower would take up the whole day, but it wasn’t even one in the afternoon yet.
My time had suddenly become completely open.
“Should I go drop out?”
I’d be going to the Magic Tower for lectures next semester, so there was no need to keep attending university.
I’d originally planned to go tomorrow, but there was no reason I couldn’t go now.
I grabbed a taxi and headed to Korea University, the school I was attending—and would never attend again.
Come to think of it, in the old days, I would have taken a bus rather than the subway to save on transportation costs, never mind a taxi.
I’d really changed a lot.
***
If you asked what the best university in our country was, all ten out of ten people would say Korea University.
It had a lofty reputation for historical reasons, but more than anything, its departments dealing with Gates, monsters, and magic stones were considered the best in the country.
Its curriculum, differentiated from those of other universities, and the quality of its professors became the goal of countless students preparing for entrance exams every year.
I had been one of them.
“I never thought I’d come here to drop out.”
I’d studied like crazy throughout all three years of high school because I wanted to succeed somehow, and I’d gotten into Korea University. I’d had countless nosebleeds, and there had even been times when I stayed awake for three straight days.
The place I’d gotten into was Korea University’s Gate Support Department.
Although my grades had been slightly lacking, forcing me to give up on my original choice of major, simply getting into Korea University had made me laugh like a madman for an entire week back then.
Without realizing it was a classic case of being stuck with something too good to give up and too useless to keep.
On the day of the entrance ceremony, when the chill hadn’t completely faded yet.
-...Why are there only women?
I’d sensed that something was strange from the group chat, and sure enough.
At the entrance ceremony, I realized the truth.
Women here, women there.
The Gate Support Department I’d entered was overwhelmingly female.
In a good way? No, in a freaking bad way.
When one gender is overwhelmingly dominant in a department, it’s usually because the jobs people get after graduating are, according to social convention, jobs only men do or jobs only women do.
The department’s atmosphere seemed unusual, so I belatedly began analyzing my major.
The main career destination for graduates of the Gate Support Department was the Hunter Association, which was treated as a sort of semi-government organization and was famous for its stable jobs and pensions.
Now, what do “stable jobs and pensions” mean here? They’re code for a salary the size of a mouse’s tail—peanuts, in other words.
Wow! How amazing! A man’s salary being peanuts! Then when am I supposed to date, and who’s going to marry me??
That was how it was. A relatively low salary might be a somewhat minor risk for women, but for men, who had to bear a greater financial burden in dating and marriage, it was a fatal risk that couldn’t be ignored.
No wonder it was a department men avoided.
So I considered changing majors, but that wasn’t possible until after the first semester of freshman year, and because of various other circumstances, I ultimately stayed.
Recently, I’d been living with the mindset that I’d get a job at the Association and live as a bachelor.
Besides, it was still Korea University. As long as I had the diploma, I could get a job somewhere else, too. It wasn’t as if I had to view the situation that negatively.
Knock, knock-
“I’m Kang Hyun-woo. I contacted you earlier.”
“Oh, Student Kang Hyun-woo? You said it was about your withdrawal application, right? Would you come this way?”
The department office I arrived at with a fair amount of nervousness still had the department teaching assistant, whose prominent dark circles stood out, along with several work-study students.
“First, fill out the withdrawal application. After that, you can speak with the professor in a little while.”
“...Don’t they usually try to stop you at least once when you say you’re dropping out?”
“Then why don’t you not drop out and try enjoying a diligent campus life again?”
“That’s a little...”
“Right? Dropping out isn’t something people decide on lightly. You must have your own reasons, and it would be awkward for an outsider like me to butt in for no reason.”
She was right. The truth was, I hadn’t seriously wanted her to stop me.
I’d only said it because I wanted to tease the teaching assistant I’d often seen while coming and going one last time.
The teaching assistant was famous in the department for being thoughtful and good at judging people, dark circles and all.
But why was she working as an assistant?
Apparently, being good at judging other people and being good at judging your own future were two separate things.
“I’m done.”
There wasn’t much to write besides my personal information.
There was a space for the reason, and it took me a little while to decide what to put there, but in the end, I roughly wrote “Admission to the Magic Tower.”
‘Oh, right. They told me to wear the mage registration card around my neck, didn’t they?’
I remembered something from the message I’d skimmed over earlier.
It wasn’t mandatory, but the government recommended that mages wear their registration cards around their necks in their daily lives.
I didn’t know the exact reason, but I guessed it was to prevent the insane situation of some passing thug picking a fight with a mage.
Of course, it wasn’t because they were worried about the thug who would end up being carried to the hospital with broken arms and legs. If that were the concern, even the upper-class hunters alone were full of people stronger than mages in one-on-one combat.
They were simply anxiously begging us to wear our cards because they were terrified someone might offend their precious mages.
‘Should I wear it, too?’
Honestly, wasn’t this a bit much? I could just wear a robe. Why did I have to wear a registration card, too...?
How was that any different from wearing a company ID from a major corporation outside the office?
“Um... Student Kang Hyun-woo?”
“Yes?”
“The reason section might seem like it’s just for show, but the other employees see it, too...? Of course, the professor will conduct the interview based on this, so don’t write some overly far-fetched lie...”
At the teaching assistant’s look—the look of someone who had never seen me before thinking, What kind of lunatic is this?—I realized my mistake.
Common sense dictated that simply writing “Admission to the Magic Tower” in the reason section left far too much missing context.
Anyone who didn’t know the circumstances was bound to think I was just insane.
“Ah, I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. Some people don’t want to reveal why they’re dropping out. I’ll get you a new sheet of paper, so rewrite...”
“Here.”
I pulled the mage registration card out of my pocket and handed it to the teaching assistant.
It was freshly issued, complete with the Magic Tower and government emblems stamped on it.
“...Huh?”
The teaching assistant’s eyes went round when she received the card.
She had such severe dark circles and was always frowning, so I’d thought her eyes were small, but they were actually quite large.
“Uh... Student Hyun-woo? Impersonating a mage is a serious felony punishable by at least ten and no more than fifteen years in prison...”
Whoosh—the small fireball that flared up above my palm made not only the teaching assistant’s eyes but also those of the work-study students widen.
Who was I?
A first-circle mage and a future eighth-circle archmage.
Revere me. Praise me.
“I registered at the Magic Tower this morning.”
The moment they witnessed Kang Hyun-woo’s miniature magic demonstration, a single thought suddenly flashed through the minds of everyone present except Kang Hyun-woo.
The Gate Support Department was overwhelmingly female, so naturally, everyone from the teaching assistant, Kim Hye-rin, to the work-study students was a woman.
Marriage had historically been an opportunity for social advancement, and upper-class hunters were socially recognized as members of the elite.
It was a dangerous profession with a high risk of casualties to match its enormous income, but hunters who frequently faced threats to their lives also tended to have high libidos.
In particular, the time when they returned from a Gate and visited the Association to settle their earnings was, in a sense, peak time. The female employees working the Association counters were desperate to lure those hunters.
Rather than the benefits of being a semi-government employee, one of the main reasons women applied to the Gate Support Department was to hook one of those upper-class hunters and climb the social ladder.
And what had appeared before their eyes was a young, newly minted mage from their own department—with relatively little competition, whether a classmate or an upper- or lowerclassman.
Of course, the work-study students other than Kim Hye-rin barely knew Kang Hyun-woo’s face. Even if his classmates knew his name, the upperclassmen and underclassmen were practically strangers who didn’t know either his face or his name.
Kang Hyun-woo tended to skip department events and always sat in a corner during lectures, so it couldn’t be helped.
Still, the fact that he was from the same department was encouraging in its own way.
His name? Who cared if they didn’t know it? They could start thinking about their children’s names from now on.
‘They say mages rake in money like crazy...’
‘I saw a mage’s wife on NewTube saying she was worried because her husband worked overtime as a matter of course and didn’t even want to come home.’
‘A first-circle mage... I might actually have a shot, right? He probably hasn’t properly entered the Magic Tower yet, so there won’t be many competitors.’
‘Damn, I barely put on any makeup today.’
‘It’s a matching top-and-bottom set, but if I make an obvious move on the first day, I’ll look cheap, right...?’
While each of them had countless thoughts and concerns fueled by their hidden motives, Kang Hyun-woo felt a strange chill.
It felt as though he were the only male lion left among a pride of lionesses in heat.
He thought he needed to get away from this place as quickly as possible.
“That assistant... It’s all over-”
“Hyun-woo.”
A man’s instinct was to spread his seed among as many women as possible, while a woman’s instinct was to give birth to and raise children in a more stable and favorable environment.
There was no reason to condemn a woman for pursuing a man with the goal of hypergamy. Succeeding in hypergamy meant she was exactly the kind of woman a man’s instincts favored.
At some point, she must have put on makeup, and her lips, usually dry and dark, were bright red.
When she let down the hair she normally tied up carelessly, its length, healthy texture, and pleasant scent wafted up to my nose.
I’d always known it, but her curvaceous figure, clearly visible even through her clothes, was also a sight for sore eyes.
“Do you happen to have time tonight?”
“Uh...”
Kim Hye-rin, the Gate Support Department’s teaching assistant, was nearing the end of her twenties, and she was more serious about marriage than anyone else here.
A woman’s value plummeted the moment she turned thirty.
Twenty-nine and thirty were worlds apart in the weight they carried.
At twenty-seven, she couldn’t afford to delay any longer. She was living proof that three years could pass in the blink of an eye.
‘A six-year age gap... People might call me a cradle robber, but it’s not as if wives older than their husbands are unheard of.’
What if she used the appeal of an older woman to firmly hold on to him?
Not a bad idea.
Of course, if you asked whether she’d been interested in him before, the answer was no. She’d only known his face and name and had never even had a personal conversation with him.
You could call her materialistic.
Everyone living in a capitalist world was materialistic in one way or another.
‘Today just happens to be one of my dangerous days.’
Under Kim Hye-rin’s heated gaze, Kang Hyun-woo broke into a cold sweat.
‘...I think I’m screwed.’
He was usually bad at reading the room, but he wasn’t so stupid that he couldn’t tell what was happening now.
Of course, it would be a lie to say he wasn’t interested. Objectively speaking, the teaching assistant was a curvaceous beauty.
But if the relationship came with marriage as a prerequisite, that was a completely different story.
‘Iris might be one thing, but marriage is a bit much...’
Pleasure without responsibility was always welcome, but he refused the absurdly heavy responsibility that came with it.
Maybe if she were at least that old mage’s granddaughter.
“Th-that...”
“There’s a great restaurant I know. Come on?”
The way she subtly pressed her breasts against my arm was terrifying in itself.
Just as I was trembling at the thought that I might be forced into marriage.
“Hye-rin, can’t you see you’re making the boy uncomfortable?”
“Pro-professor?”
A light descended to save me.
“Student Kang Hyun-woo? Long time no see.”
It was Professor Shin Ye-hwa, the advisor for the Gate Support Department.