WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Arsène

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◈ How an A-Rank Hunter Lives ◈

Chapter 12: Rock Spirit - [5]

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“Naito-san? I heard that Jap Hunter is so famous despite not even being awakened that they signed a contract with terms comparable to an awakened person’s. Maybe because of that, land prices have slowly started recovering, so all the residents of Ganseok-dong are happy.”

“A Japanese non-awakened person gets paid like an awakened person?”

“Huh? Yeah. Not at your A-rank level, obviously. You know those middling awakened people? About that much...”

Seong Munyeong trailed off, then suddenly looked to gauge my reaction. My expression must not have looked good.

And hearing that definitely annoyed me.

Why? Because a Japanese person was making a lot of money? No, I didn't care about my nationality or anyone else's. Then why?

Only after thinking it over for a while did I realize why those words had bothered me so much.

I didn't like that some bastard was receiving treatment similar to an awakened person's despite being non-awakened.

Well, I knew that was abnormal too. Was being awakened really enough to make me feel so superior and look down on everyone else?

Only half a year ago, I used to have a victim complex over being awakened. Even to me, it was unsettling that I'd suddenly developed this kind of chosen-one mentality.

There was one possible reason I could think of for why I'd changed so suddenly.

I'd had another hallucination today, and in that hallucination, I...

“Kim Geuk? Kim Geuk! Please come in!”

The one calling out was an Association employee.

I got up from my seat. The academy students who had come to support me rose with me and cheered.

“Good luck!”

“Hey, if you don't get A-rank, don't forget I advised you to rest properly before taking the assessment!”

I gave the middle finger to Seong Munyeong, who was needling me, and entered the testing hall.

Today was the day I would be assessed as an awakened person.

I couldn't see any other awakened people there to be assessed besides me. There weren't many awakened people in Korea to begin with, and even fewer had abilities suited to being Hunters. Fewer still actually wanted to become Hunters despite having suitable abilities.

Out of all the people gathered here, I was the only awakened person. Everyone else had come to evaluate me.

The people in uniform were probably Association employees, but there were also plenty who didn't look like employees.

Those people in suits had likely come from local governments. They must have come to see an awakened person who might sign with them. The people who clearly looked to be of different ethnicities were foreign scouts, and I could see several who seemed to have come from China or Japan.

There had to be around two hundred people gathered here just to see me. That fact alone already made my heart swell.

“Then we'll begin. Please get ready...”

After that, I underwent several assessments.

One-hundred-meter sprint, 5.8 seconds. Slightly faster than a cheetah. I was satisfied because it was 0.8 seconds faster than when I'd been measured at the academy recently.

For long-distance running, they only confirmed that thanks to Super-Regeneration, I didn't get tired as long as I ran below a certain speed, then moved on. To prove my Super-Regeneration, someone brought out a scalpel and made a small cut on my forearm. When the bleeding stopped in just two seconds, I was just as surprised as the people watching.

Weightlifting for Body Enhancement users...

I took various other tests as well, and I seemed to have cleared all the benchmarks by a considerable margin. Just from the reactions I got whenever I completed a test, I could tell the results wouldn't be bad.

“This is such a perfect A-rank that it could go in a textbook...”

After that, I demonstrated Spatial Teleportation. It would've been awkward if they'd asked me to show long-distance Spatial Teleportation, but what the people gathered here wanted to see was the within-line-of-sight Spatial Teleportation they'd seen in the video. They asked me this.

“Can you really do it exactly as you did in the video?”

I'd already gotten skilled at that. I picked up a stick lying around and showed them as requested, drawing gasps from the people watching.

Last came the shooting assessment. Holding the twenty-two-kilogram Hunter Rifle they had brought out, I fired as instructed.

Well, I didn't follow their instructions completely.

“Kim Geuk? Aim your shots instead of using Point Shooting…”

Naturally, I didn't have to listen to what some non-awakened trash said. If that non-awakened person wasn't from Incheon, I could ignore them entirely.

I fired in succession at the hundred-meter and hundred-fifty-meter targets, which I had been instructed to hit with aimed shots, without aiming at either one. The Association employee who had been about to point something out could only stare wide-eyed when every shot hit dead center.

It wasn't difficult to earn full marks on every item in the shooting assessment by hitting the two-hundred-meter target and even moving targets in succession without aiming.

That was how my Hunter license ended up with an A++ stamped on it in gold foil. Apparently, it meant that even among A-ranks, I had met every standard beyond the required level. I was suddenly being treated like premium Korean beef, but it didn't feel bad.

“Now, you can officially work as an A-rank Hunter. You know not just any awakened person can receive this A-rank, right?”

Surprisingly, the Association's standards for appointing A-rank Hunters were the same as Huntweb's standards for giving out badges. Unlike before, when any awakened person was considered an A-rank Hunter, now you had to meet clear criteria to be recognized as A-rank.

More precisely, as an awakened person, you had to be capable of providing at least small-arms-level firepower or support at a substantial level.

I already met the requirement of “at least small-arms-level firepower” because, as a Body Enhancement user, I could carry and fire heavy weapons alone. Since I could also use the clearly useful Spatial Teleportation proficiently, I met the requirement of “support at a substantial level” as well.

According to the Association employee who spoke afterward, that put me among the very top ranks even among awakened Hunters. Maybe because they wanted to give an impressive guy like me proper treatment, the Association president personally came out and even offered me a handshake.

“As someone who bears rights and responsibilities of that magnitude, you must now act with a spirit of patriotism and devotion to the people. Do you understand?”

As I tried to tune out the kind of bullshit a Nazi Party member might say, the loud national anthem began playing and irritated me.

I struggled to resist the urge to use Spatial Teleportation to leave this place, and eventually the appointment ceremony ended.

* * *

That evening, I found seventy-eight text messages and twenty more emails than that waiting for me. They were from agencies or something, but there were too many to check one by one, so I didn't touch them.

There was no need to mention how many missed calls had piled up. Picking out calls from people I knew among them was truly difficult.

「Kim Geuk, are you coming to the academy tomorrow? You're really coming, right? Okay, then I'll order chicken ahead of time, so you have to come.」

「I saw the news. Kim Geuk, congratulations! The moment I entered the plenary chamber, the chairperson saw me and kept urging me to try to win Kim Geuk over.」

Just as Park Mihyeong had said, I appeared on the nine o'clock news yesterday and on the nine o'clock news today. There were stories about a new shooting record for an awakened person, along with interviews with foreign brokers trying to stir up nationalistic fervor by calling me an unprecedented A-rank.

By this point, even an idiot could tell. As of today, my unnecessarily eventful life was a success.

Ⓐ BabyBerserker : BabyMushroom got an A-rank license todayyy!

A bad monster is trying to bully BabyMushroom's friends! BabyMushroom was scared, but gathered up the courage, awakened as the magical girl Hellvinter, and went yah! Yah! and beat it up! So the Association grown-ups came and made BabyMushroom an A-rank Hunter because BabyMushroom was cute and just, okayyy?

Below is proof that BabyMushroom got an A++ rating! BabyMushroom hid the photo everyone will want to see, because all the boys would fall in love if it was revealed~

Anonymous : I checked the Association website and only one person got A-rank today, so I saw this guy's photo there. I'm so scared right now...

Ⓐ Stonehead Youth : I'm fucked. I'm A-rank too, but after seeing the video, I don't think my combat power can stop this bastard if he keeps doing this. Where's Jun-chi?

After spreading this happy news to my comrades on Huntweb, I sat on my bed and thought for a while.

I'd seen another hallucination that morning.

It had been a fairly long hallucination. It continued from the one I'd seen before, showing what happened after I used Spatial Teleportation to leave that scene.

Internet articles portraying me as a coward...

Because of them, my hallucination self suffered from the delusion that every passerby recognized and despised me. I even had to see a psychiatrist with financial support from Park Mihyeong and loans of my own.

Even from my perspective, my hallucination self had enough reason to become an unstable madman.

After that series of events, my hallucination self came to hate non-awakened people. He hated not only the Korean government, but even the Korean people.

I certainly would've been the kind of person who might eventually set off a nuclear bomb in Seoul without surprising anyone.

But hadn't I achieved the exact opposite result from the hallucination I'd seen before? Did the current me have any reason to do that?

No. As an A-rank Hunter who would make astronomical sums of money and live arrogantly from now on, why would I have any reason to commit such a horrible act of terrorism?

Since I had acted differently from the hallucination, would my ending be different from my dream self's too? It seemed likely.

Then would I finally be able to stop having those damn dreams that seemed to be my future?

* * *

The short answer was no.

I dreamed again that night.

Unlike the previous dream, this one didn't feature Im Hyeongtaek, Jeong Jinyeong, or other acquaintances in wretched states. The expressionless director didn't appear either.

But the dream ended the same way. That damn nuclear explosion, that damn mushroom cloud. This dream ended with it too.

I woke up gasping again and wondered.

When the hell would these dreams finally end?

* * *

Footnotes:

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