Hunter Academy: Revenge of the Weakest

Astron didn’t need to look to know she’d been there.

The moment the connection terminated and silence fell back into the room, he had felt the faint shift in mana—barely a ripple, a breath of attention caught between the hall and the kitchen’s edge.

But only now did he turn.

Irina stood by the doorway, her silhouette framed by the soft morning mana-light bleeding in through the filtered windows. She had a blanket loosely gathered around her arms, but her posture was straight. Awake. Observant.

Her amber eyes were already locked on him. Watching. Measuring.

“You had a call?” she asked.

Her voice was quiet. Not suspicious. Not sharp. But… steady. Intent.

“Yes,” Astron replied simply, his tone unchanged.

There was no need to explain what kind of call. No need to fill the space with extra words. She wasn’t asking for details yet. She didn’t have to.

Not with that look.

Her eyes didn’t soften. If anything, they sharpened slightly.

And then the real question came.

“You’ll leave soon?”

Astron didn’t answer right away.

His gaze drifted slightly—not to avoid the question, but to acknowledge what he could and couldn’t say. The field surrounding the projection had been deliberate. A zone-filtered buffer, constructed with Organization-level encryption woven into a temporary glyph array. No echoes. No bleed. No chance for even her senses to breach it.

He trusted Irina.

But that didn’t mean he could let her hear that conversation.

And judging by the way she was looking at him now—head tilted just slightly, brow furrowed in that familiar way—she already knew what her ears hadn’t caught.

He nodded once.

“Yes,” he said finally. “I’ll be leaving tonight.”

Irina didn’t move. She didn’t sigh. Didn’t scowl or ask what for.

But her fingers gripped the edge of the blanket a little tighter.

“You’re being sent out,” she said.

It wasn’t phrased like a question.

Astron didn’t deny it.

Her lips pressed into a thin line, and then she looked past him—toward the place the projection had been just moments ago.

*****

The blanket slipped off her shoulder as Irina sat up slowly, blinking at the faint wash of daylight filtering through the curtains. Her body felt warm, slightly heavy, and when her eyes drifted to the side of the room—empty—she exhaled through her nose.

She’d fallen asleep.

A glance at the digital clock confirmed it: late morning, edging toward noon. Which meant she’d definitely passed out without realizing it. Tch… she rubbed the side of her head, strands of loose hair falling across her cheek. Last night had bled long into early hours. Not because of anything important. Just a game. A stupid match where the enemy mid refused to rotate and her carry refused to shut up.

She hadn’t been able to sleep.

And apparently, it had finally caught up to her.

The apartment was quiet. Too quiet.

She stood, stretching once, then moved through the short hallway barefoot—her senses slowly extending. Mana feelers brushed softly across the corners of the walls, windows, kitchen wards… and then caught something.

A presence.

Astron’s.

She followed the faint trace—subtle, tight, almost absent if she hadn’t been looking specifically. But the moment she rounded the corner, the air shimmered.

A barrier.

Irina stopped.

It wasn’t loud or obvious. Just a thin shell of interwoven glyphs, the kind that wasn’t meant to block force—but sound. A zone-filter, the kind used by instructors and hunters who didn’t want a single whisper escaping past the radius. She couldn’t hear anything. Couldn’t see who was on the other end of the projection.

Her lips pressed into a line.

She wasn’t the type to eavesdrop. Not on him. Not when it was like this. Still… her fingers twitched slightly.

Who is it this time? Reina?

She remembered the woman from the last exam period. The figure who had watched quietly from the observation deck during the third trial. Cold presence. Pale coat. That kind of pressure didn’t belong to some academy administrator. That was a field hunter. A top-ranked one.

Reina. That was her name, wasn’t it?

Irina narrowed her eyes slightly. The name had stuck because it felt too deliberate. Too placed. And she had seen how Astron reacted—not flinching, not tensing, but sharpening. Like he knew he was being evaluated by someone who mattered.

So… he was tied to her?

Or someone like her?

She crossed her arms, stepping back slightly from the edge of the ward, keeping her gaze on the boundary but resisting the pull of her own curiosity. Even now, she could feel it crawling through her chest—the need to know, the desire to understand just what world Astron was threading through without ever saying a word.

She exhaled slowly, the tension in her chest melting just enough to let reason settle in again.

If Astron could tell her, he would’ve.

That was the thing about him. He never said anything unless it mattered—but when it did, when the situation allowed, he never kept it from her either. If he wasn’t speaking now… then there were boundaries. Restrictions. Things he’d agreed to that tied his words down.

And it wasn’t her place to unravel that. Not by force. Not by pressure.

She trusted him.

Didn’t mean she liked it.

When the projection finally dimmed and the wards faded into the walls, Astron stepped away, his face as composed as ever. But she could see the faint shift in him—the small recalibration in posture, like someone slipping out of one mask and back into another.

She waited until his eyes found hers.

And then, with a dry, tired sigh, she offered a lopsided smile. “So. You’re leaving tonight.”

Astron gave a faint nod. “Yes.”

Irina rolled her eyes, more resigned than annoyed. “Shame.”

He tilted his head slightly. “Because I’m leaving?”

“No,” she said, walking past him toward the window, letting her blanket fall around her shoulders again. “Because I was planning a whole damn game day.”

That made him pause.

Irina didn’t stop, voice casual as she reached for the curtain and pulled it open a little, letting more light spill into the room. “You, me, a couple of controllers, and no missions, no scouts, no damn exams. Just a full-blown match marathon. Wouldn’t that be fun?”

Astron blinked once. Slowly.

She glanced over her shoulder, the corner of her lips twitching. “Don’t give me that look.”

“I wasn’t giving a look.”

“You were.” She stepped toward the console shelf, nudging a spare controller with her toe. “It would’ve been fun.”

Irina let the words sit in the room for a second, her toe still lightly tapping the controller as if the sound might coax him into staying just a little longer.

“Duoing,” she muttered, almost to herself. “It’s been a while.”

Her voice lowered, softened—not melancholic, but laced with that rare tint of vulnerability she rarely let show. “I wanted to see how much you’ve improved.”

Astron didn’t move, but his response came quietly. Steady.

“Then I’ll try to come back early.”

That made her pause.

She turned slightly, looking over her shoulder at him, brows arching—not sharply, but with faint surprise. “You’ll try to come back early?”

Astron met her gaze evenly, as if he hadn’t said anything out of the ordinary. No shift in tone. No hesitation.

Just that.

Irina blinked. Then let out a dry, almost disbelieving breath.

“…You know,” she murmured, shaking her head slowly, “sometimes you say things like that, and I honestly don’t know what to do with you.”

She straightened up from the console, letting the controller rest in place. Then she stepped toward him—slow, unhurried—and came to stand at his side.

“What?” Astron asked, voice still calm.

She didn’t answer. Instead, she reached up without a word and wrapped her arms gently around him from behind, her chin coming to rest lightly against the back of his shoulder.

No theatrics. No dramatics.

Just her, holding him.

“…Don’t take too long,” she said quietly.