WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Arsène
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ How an A-Rank Hunter Lives ◈
Chapter 104: Famous Hunter Kim Geuk - [2]
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“Mrs. Im? I don't know what I could possibly say to comfort you.”
When I spoke, Im Hyeongtaek's wife, Seong Miran, turned to look at me.
Her eyes were as swollen as her daughter's. She looked like she'd cried a lot.
I didn't know whether that was surprising or fortunate.
According to Hyeongtaek, back when he was a successful executive at a general trading company, he had relied on his money to seduce Miran, who had been a convenience store part-timer and looked easy to take advantage of.
I had also heard they hadn't had any sweet, loving romance. They'd tried to have a one-night stand, she got pregnant, and they got married.
It was hard to believe there had been true love in a relationship that would've been torn apart if someone posted it online as an anecdote.
Still, seeing her cry like this, maybe she'd grown attached to him in her own way. I hoped so.
After exchanging a few words with her, I asked, “I heard you told Mr. Im to ask me about sending your daughter to Hunter Academy. Do you still feel that way...?”
Seong Miran answered.
“Why would I send Saerom there?”
“Oh, so you won't be sending her to Hunter Academy?”
“Of course not! They say Seoul's completely fucked up now and destitute neighborhoods are on the verge of springing up everywhere. It's better to stay in an Incheon apartment.”
Her vocabulary was really trashy for someone who wasn't even my friend.
Still, I was relieved. If she stubbornly insisted on sending Saerom there, I had no idea how I would've handled it.
After that, I stayed up all night at the funeral, helping her as the chief mourner.
I did the same at Jang Byeonggon's funeral.
Then I spoke with my hunter team for a while.
We had to discuss what we would do next. When I asked everyone about their plans, Seong Munyeong said he planned to keep working as a Hunter.
Then Jongho spoke.
“I'm... going to retire.”
Well, after going through something like that...
I slowly nodded.
“Send me your bank account number so I can transfer your severance pay. You worked hard. Thanks for everything.”
“No, I'm the one who's grateful. Honestly, they said nobody would've put up with me making a fuss and acting like I was mentally scarred if it hadn't been for you, Kim Geuk. If I'd been on another hunter team, they would've just treated me like an idiot and kicked me out...”
I patted Jongho on the shoulder and told him to let me know anytime if he changed his mind. Then I looked at Jinyeong.
Jeong Jinyeong had lost his right arm and left leg, but it wasn't obvious at a glance. He wore long sleeves and pants, and he even wore a glove over the right arm replaced by a force-field exoskeleton. He said that without a glove over the transparent force-field hand, he couldn't see his own hand, which made things confusing in several ways.
“So what about you, Jinyeong? What are you going to do now?”
“Me? Why would I...?”
“You awakened this time. It'd be awkward for you to keep staying on my team. You need to sign an A-rank contract now too. If you need someone to help with the process...”
Jinyeong hesitated before answering.
“I, I don't know...”
“What do you mean, you don't know?”
“I've already made enough money. I'm wondering if I really need to keep working as a Hunter just to make more...”
Jinyeong seemed ready to give up even the huge amount of money he could earn as an A-rank Hunter.
Considering all those halfwits in the Special Forces, it wasn't particularly strange, but I wanted to talk him out of it.
“It isn't really my place to say, but I think you should at least sign a one-year contract and make some money.”
“Why...?”
“The country's only going to get worse, isn't it? If prices rise further, even the money you've made so far might not be enough. Wouldn't it be better to earn as much as possible while you can...?”
I didn't say it outright, but nearly half of the country's A-rank Hunters had died this time, so rates for awakened people in the Hunter market were bound to shoot up. They had even brought in foreign awakened people this time and gotten many of them killed, so the cost of bringing in foreign awakened people would rise drastically too.
Besides, it would be a waste to let an awakened person's abilities go unused in times like these. When I gave him that advice, Jinyeong nodded.
“I'll think about it...”
Afterward, I attended the funerals of other Hunters whose faces I knew.
At Kim Hyeongman's funeral, I thought about how he had been due to become president of the Hunter Association in just one more month.
He would've been able to indulge in his beloved Elementalist antics against the government. Now he never could. That hopeful future had vanished entirely.
The other fallen Hunters came to mind one after another too.
Hyeongtaek would've been able to attend his daughter's elementary school entrance ceremony in a few months.
Now that immature woman had to raise their daughter alone. Hyeongtaek had made enough money, and I had given a generous condolence payment, so they shouldn't have financial problems, but I still worried.
Come to think of it, had Hyeongtaek ever asked me to look after his family if he died while hunting? I would have to keep an eye on them from now on.
Park Juheon had taken his job as a Hunter Academy instructor so seriously. Seeing that, he probably would've been quite good at it, but now he would never get the chance.
Park Juheon had even been the academy's only prospective instructor with a Hunter background. With him gone, that meant there wouldn't be a single teacher with a Hunter background at Hunter Academy besides me. It was horrible in many ways.
I had spent several days staying up all night to attend all those funerals, so I was exhausted.
The moment I got home, I fell into a deep sleep.
As always, I dreamed. That damned dream where a mushroom cloud bloomed over Seoul and ended with my death.
When I woke up, I realized I felt surprisingly at ease.
Usually, after having that dream, I would be drenched in sweat and gasp for breath from the aftereffects of experiencing such a shocking, horrific life. This time, I wasn't.
I'd dreamed it again and woken up, yet my mind and body were simply calm. Why?
Was it because reality had become even more miserable than the dream, so the sight in it no longer shocked me? Or had I become so assimilated with the version of myself in that hallucination that I could no longer feel horror at what I saw there?
I didn't know. Of course, I didn't have time to leisurely go get psychiatric counseling.
I was busy. There was a lot I had to do right away.
* * *
Early in the morning, I answered a summons from the National Security Ministry.
“Oh, Kim Geuk. You're here...?”
Baek Dambi met my eyes and lowered her head in greeting, looking exhausted. As an important awakened person who could open Gates, she had been too busy cooperating with the National Security Ministry to attend her colleagues' funerals.
Then a National Security Ministry civil servant, who looked as exhausted as my ring girl, started briefing me. The civil servant was from Incheon, so I decided not to look down on them.
“Behemoth is still regenerating its lost tail. Inside the Gate.”
The civil servant was telling me the results of observations made inside the Gate so far.
“It hasn't even left Seoul. That bastard Behemoth hasn't moved an inch from that spot. Looking at that... it seems to be planning to come back out into Seoul after it finishes regenerating its tail.”
“Japan and China are right next door, both with huge populations, so why does it insist on crawling back out into Seoul? Why?”
“Behemoth knows about the gap in Korea's military strength. It's an elemental, so it must have absorbed the memories of the people it killed. It probably knows Kang Jun-chi left and that the air force has been nearly wiped out.”
In other words, Behemoth had realized that if it just finished regenerating its tail, it could feast to its heart's content in Korea's current state.
As I listened in silence, the civil servant continued.
“Or maybe it was badly injured this time and is angry, so it wants revenge.”
“It invaded us, and it's angry?”
“If a person tried to slaughter a pig and got bitten by it, drawing blood, they wouldn't calmly accept it as their own fault because they had tried to hurt the pig first. They'd get angry and swear to kill that fucking pig as painfully as possible. Behemoth is probably the same.”
Of course, Monster psychology wasn't important right now. I asked, “So when do you think its tail will finish regenerating? When do you think it will crawl back out of the Gate?”
“Based on the observations inside the Gate, around three to four months...”
I raised one eyebrow. That soon?
“Metabolism nearly stops inside a Gate. And it will still finish regenerating within a few months?”
“We don't know the exact reason... We suspect it may be because it possesses Super-Regeneration and is also an elemental, but...”
The civil servant trailed off, adding that even the prediction of three months might not be accurate. It was only an estimate based on observation. There was no way to know the exact time.
That was only natural. Who could precisely determine a Monster's rate of bodily regeneration?
Behemoth was even a Rock Elemental. It could use the rocks forming its outer shell to repair its damaged body. The estimated date it would regain its tail could move up at any time.
We had to bring Kang Jun-chi back before then.
“You know, right? Some people have already crossed over into Soweol to find Kang Jun-chi. And as you said last time...”
“I'll have to go soon too.”
Wasn't Seok Jangsil currently marked as a spy by Kang Jun-chi? I was now the person closest to Kang Jun-chi.
That meant I was the one most likely to persuade him, and I could use Spatial Teleportation to conduct a wide-area search. There was nobody more suited than me to bring Kang Jun-chi back from Soweol.
The reason I couldn't leave for Soweol immediately was because I had funerals to attend, severance pay and condolence payments to make, and the government's compensation for the fallen needed to be watched closely.
Then, the next day, the government announced its compensation plan for the fallen.
A post about it went up on Huntweb as well.
It wasn't as much compensation as I had hoped for, but people seemed to think it was more than expected.
Anonymous: Did the government finally come to its senses? They're actually going to properly compensate the fallen for once?
Ⓐ Dragon: Even this seems cheap when you consider what the awakened people who died were worth.
Anonymous: I thought they'd give a tiny amount and move on, so this is still pretty good...
As you could see, everyone was interested in the issue. Probably because any of them could die someday and leave only their families behind.
Anonymous: Is this thanks to Kim Geuk growling at them? He threatened to spray the National Assembly and Blue House with autocannon rounds if they didn't compensate people properly.
Anonymous: Did the government really get scared and decide to compensate them properly?
Ⓐ Dragon: Looking at Kim Geuk's record, I can see why they'd be scared. That guy has anger-management issues too, so if he gets pissed off, he might really do it.
After that, it was time to praise Hero Kim Geuk.
They said Kim Geuk was the only one looking out for Hunters at a time like this, and thanked me for stepping up and raising my voice for them.
I was about to feel good reading it, but then I stopped. ElmayaKaeyo, Stonehead Youth, and the others who usually left comments on posts like that were nowhere to be seen.
ElmayaKaeyo, who had always politely left supportive comments under the posts I made on Huntweb, was gone now.
I didn't know whether Seok Jangsil had been trying to get close to me or had done it for no particular reason, but he had always left comments I would enjoy reading under my posts. Now he was no longer active on Huntweb either.
It made me depressed. I was about to close Huntweb.
Then I saw some posts that stood out.
Anonymous: It's bad if the government really took Kim Geuk's threat that seriously, though... That interview went too far.
A rebuttal was posted immediately.
Ⓐ 5myJesus: Then who other than Kim Geuk could've stood up to the country like that?
Ah, this 5myJesus guy.
I already knew they were on my team, but looking at it now, it must have been Jinyeong. He had gotten an A badge, so there was no doubt.
Anonymous: No, it's good that he stood up for Hunters, but threatening terrorism was too much.
Anonymous: Kim Geuk has done so much as Korea's savior that the government wouldn't have ignored him even if he spoke politely... Did he really need to intimidate them that much?
Ⓐ 5myJesus: Speak politely to the Joseon government? Are you insane?
Anonymous: Why are you cursing at me;;
Ⓐ 5myJesus: If Kim Geuk hadn't intimidated them at the level of a threat? The Joseon government would've assumed they didn't need to take better care of them and compensated them like shit, just like before. Guaranteed.
Anonymous: But look how big the Hunters' role was this time. And Behemoth could come out again, so they might need to mobilize Hunters again. There's no way they would do that.
Ⓐ 5myJesus: More precisely, they'll have to mobilize awakened people again, right? Dragging in every awakened person outside Seoul too? And you're not awakened, so you don't need to care.
Ⓐ 5myJesus: Non-awakened trash like you has no right to talk about Behemoth, so shut the fuck up.
When I saw those comments Jinyeong had written, I doubted my eyes. Why was he suddenly acting like this?
Ⓐ syberMagneto: Why are you suddenly stealing my whole persona? It doesn't look good, so stop it;;;
Even my ring girl was flustered, and I reread Jinyeong's posts in shock.
He was quiet in real life, but hadn't he been quiet on Huntweb too? I couldn't believe these were words written by Jinyeong, who had always just posted praise for me...
The way he referred to the Joseon government, sounding as though he was disparaging the country itself, reminded me of Kang Jun-chi going on about sea roaches.
And what was that about non-awakened trash? He had only awakened recently, so why was he already acting like this?
Well... after thinking about it a little, I could understand why he was suddenly like this.
It seemed this incident had traumatized him deeply.
I guessed Jinyeong believed that the government calling in awakened Hunters had caused all these deaths. The government had summoned our entire team, Hunters from Incheon, to Seoul because we were an awakened team. He seemed to think that was the real reason our teammates had died.
I was debating whether I should step in and stop him.
Then a message arrived on my Huntweb account.
Ⓐ SoulOfTheKoreanPeopleIsHan: Kim Geuk, can you help me right now
It was Han Hee.
I didn't know what he wanted help with, but I didn't need to ask.
Ⓐ BabyBerserker: Anything. Just say the word!
Ⓐ SoulOfTheKoreanPeopleIsHan: If you're going to help me, could you come to a place I tell you...?
Han Hee asked me to come as quickly as possible. He also told me to be careful that nobody saw me when I arrived at the meeting place.
Why did he want me to come without anyone finding out? Was he worried that his Special Forces seniors would find out he was close to me after I had insulted the entire Special Forces?
I found it strange, but I did as he asked.
Spatial Teleportation had not yet grown as much as my Body Enhancement and force-field exoskeleton, so it was difficult to reach the place Han Hee mentioned using only Spatial Teleportation. I rode a taxi for part of the way, then used Spatial Teleportation over and over until I felt dizzy.
That was how I reached the place as quickly as possible.
When I got there, I found a lone container warehouse standing there.
As Han Hee had specifically asked, I used Spatial Teleportation to enter the warehouse.
Then I froze for a moment. What the hell was going on?
What I saw inside was five corpses in Special Forces uniforms.
Han Hee stood blankly between the bodies of those Special Forces members.
Only after seeing me did an expression finally return to his face. Looking like he was about to cry, he asked, “What... what do I do now?”
* * *
Footnotes:
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