This is just such a topic that Hye-jin was not expecting at all. It has not been accounted for in her plans or schemes or anxieties.

"Do.... do polar bears... use tools???"

"Yeah! Not like a lot but they can be induced to if presented with some that are useful, they're pretty smart. They don't like make tools though."

"Oh yeah I've seen a video once of a polar bear using rocks to fight a walrus. I hadn't known they had actual thumbs before that."

?????

She briefly considers what would happen if a polar bear tried to fight her. By throwing rocks at her. The picture is theoretically terrifying, but... eh, she could take it. It wouldn't even incur particularly bad backlash, and at best it would only get one rock throw off before she boiled its insides to the point that it couldn't control its own muscle system anymore. And from there it would swiftly become ash.

"Huh," is what she says out loud, because she is aware that a detached tactical breakdown of if she could personally fight a polar bear and win is perhaps not a normal person thing to say out loud.

"You just thought through whether you'd win a fight against a polar bear throwing rocks at you, didn't you."

"... maybe. You don't know. But for it wouldn't be close, and the polar bear would at best get off like, one rock throw, if I'm being very generous."

"Everyone at this table would win against the polar bear, it wouldn't even be fair."

He giggles.

Hana might have trouble with it, actually, but - no, no, crushing despair probably affects polar bears just fine, wouldn't it. She'd win the fight, though killing it would be a bit trickier. But the conceit was to win, not kill it.

"Poor polar bears. Not equipped for the apex predators humanity started throwing once they started getting snatched by dungeons," muses Hye-jin.

"I think we were pretty apex-y even before that. Maybe not at much in one-on-one fights..."

"Well, sure, but even with a gun it would be dicey with a polar bear? They take a lot of shots to go down." She hasn't personally fought any polar bears, but she is aware of what animals of that size can take before they stop moving, and there is a reason why she is brought in for these problems instead of bullets. "Unless it was the right caliber of gun with sufficient distance, it's very likely you'd get a mutual killing. But in any conceit where the human and the polar bear are placed in an arena naked before espers started awakening, the polar bear just wins. And now it wouldn't, provided we pick the appropriate esper champion for this incredibly amoral hypothetical arena fight."

"I know some espers who would have fun with that."

"Fun with what?" wonders Tae-gun. He is carrying multiple plates on flying ice blades for the others to dispense to their partners, and he serves Kim Hye-jin hers first. It's mostly sushi, but it's specifically the sushi he's seen her enjoy the most.

Yoo-min grabs Seungjoo's plate and serves him.

"Being put in an arena naked to fight a polar bear."

Awwww.

"Thank you," she says, to Tae-gun, feeling a little bad about doubting his ability to successfully get her food.

Hana meanwhile is very confused about why they are talking about fighting polar bears.

"... why would anyone want to fight a polar bear? Whose arena is this???" she asks, but: yes she's also serving Woo-young.

"It just, um, came up in conversation?"

"It would be very illegal to force a polar bear to fight in an arena. They're protected as a vulnerable species."

"Only consensual polar bear wrestling here, gotcha," he says, accepting the food with a slight bow.

"Maybe a polar bear themed dungeon monster would be a better target."

... yeah, but she's not allowed to do dungeons. So.

"I don't think polar bears can meaningfully consent to pit fights. Dungeon monster facsimiles of polar bears would be fine if their dungeon is still alive, but would not necessarily accurately reflect a true polar bear's combat capabilities. And if they were an orphaned dungeon monster it would be an unconscionable waste of a living specimen, even if they're able to consent."

"And for all we know dungeon polar bears are left-handed and that would ruin the experiment!"

"...what?"