WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Arsène

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ How an A-Rank Hunter Lives ◈

Chapter 13: Incheon Hunter Kim Geuk - [1]

──────

There were tons of internet articles that came up when I searched my name on Google.

The newest one was about my Hunter contract.

“Four Years, 180 Billion Won” Chongqing City, China Offers Hunter Kim Geuk a Massive Contract

They said foreign contract offers could be used as leverage to get better domestic deals, so I revealed the offer from China. That was probably why an article like this had come out.

I read the headline again and again. No matter how many times I looked at it, I couldn't believe it.

The amount was so huge it barely felt real. Just how much was 180 billion won?

I still couldn't quite wrap my head around it. The only thing I could grasp was that I'd never have to give the lottery a second look for the rest of my life.

Grinning, I clicked the article and scrolled down. The headline already said everything there was to say, so I went straight to the comments.

Taeguk0823: Fucking awakened bastards. Every time they shamelessly whine about how hard life is, they need to get beaten with aluminum bats.

↳ DiligentWorker: Whenever they spout that shit about awakened people's rights, it sounds like rich assholes crying about how taxes make life hard. Makes me want to open fire somewhere packed with awakened people.

My smile vanished. I stared at those comments with a hard expression for a while.

How dare those non-awakened pieces of trash.

I immediately drew on my experience with the Korean Awakened Solidarity and wrote a long rebuttal.

I commented that awakened people who made it big like the handsome Kim Geuk accounted for less than 18% of all awakened people, that around 32% lived ordinary lives just as they had before awakening, and that the remaining 50% lived practically like criminals.

Then I immediately bit my lip.

What a waste of time.

Just as my work with the Korean Awakened Solidarity had been useless, I knew this would be useless too.

I'd learned this well during my time there, but those 80% of awakened people almost never appeared on broadcast news.

The only awakened people who made the news were lucky minorities like me. That was why, whenever the Korean Awakened Solidarity appealed for awakened people's rights, we had to put up with ridicule like those comments every single time.

Whenever that happened, I had to force myself not to beat the shit out of people who sneered as though they knew everything there was to know about the world...

Fuck.

* * *

It had already been a month since contract offers started pouring in from all over. Since it was about time to choose a contract, interview requests had also been flooding in. I'd always enjoyed attention, so unless there was a good reason not to, I accepted every interview request.

Q. Where did you train and receive your education?

“There's a place called Bupyeong Hunting Academy, about five minutes from Bupyeong Station, you know? The director seems pleasant, and the prices are great too. My wallet wasn't doing so well, but the tuition was affordable enough that I could attend anyway. Just because it's cheap doesn't mean the classes are crap, either. The instructors are all really capable, and there's one awakened trainer in particular named Yang Taeja. I learned a whole lot from him...”

Q. Congratulations on receiving so much attention before even beginning your Hunter career. Your future looks very bright. Is there anyone you'd like to thank?

“Auntie Park Mihyeong. Ah, is it rude to call someone elected as a city councilor ‘auntie’? Anyway, I'd like to thank Park Mihyeong, who's serving on the Incheon City Council. I've owed her in a lot of ways since my time with the Korean Awakened Solidarity...”

I kindly answered one question after another, and sure enough, they dropped a surprise bombshell too.

Q. We understand that you've spent time in juvenile detention and prison. Is there anything you'd like to explain or apologize for?

I frowned slightly, but I wasn't flustered.

It was only an expected question. They wanted to find some flaw and make me shrink back.

The reporter probably hoped I'd get angry or embarrassed. But I had nothing to be ashamed of. Nothing at all.

I answered confidently.

“Mm, I did spend a long time eating prison food. Want me to explain why?”

Q. We heard it involved assault charges. Could you start by explaining the juvenile detention incident?

“It was self-defense. On my first day of high school, the bus didn't come, so I was about a minute late. The discipline teacher picked a fight with me. I don't remember exactly what he said, but I think he told me to get down on the floor and hold a punishment position. He was holding some wooden club too, and I think he was planning to beat me with it.

“Well, he was shorter than me and had narrower shoulders, so I thought he was pathetic and tried to ignore him and walk past. Then that bastard, who clearly had no idea of his place, started tapping the back of my head with the club. That means he threw the first punch, right? So I sent a straight punch into his face. He went down from one hit. It was so pathetic that I stomped on his face a little. What a fucking loser.”

The reporter looked a little sick at my answer. After hesitating, they continued.

Q. As a result, that teacher reportedly lost sight in one eye. Do you have anything to say about that?

“He was the one who started the fight, and it was his fault for not taking off his glasses, right? I did nothing wrong. Ah, I did hold a bit of a grudge over being sent to juvenile detention because of that. That bastard and his family should hope they never run into me on the street.”

Q. And the prison sentence...

“That was self-defense too. I entered boot camp as a public-service worker, and after meals they made the trainees do the dishes without giving us rubber gloves. The trainees had to wash dishes bare-handed. They said rubber gloves were only for the food service troops. That evening, they handed us a survey and told us to write down anything that could be improved in training. So I wrote about the rubber gloves. Then a drill instructor came over, swearing and demanding to know who wrote this kind of crap.

“What did I have to be ashamed of? I said I wrote it. Then that bastard came up to me and started swearing at me again. Of course I got pissed. When I sprang to my feet, they provoked me by telling me to hit them if I had a problem. That's basically asking for a duel, right? So I beat the shit out of them.”

Q. We heard that drill instructor was left with a permanent disability in one leg.

“They should be grateful to me. The moment I hit them, they fell to the floor and started trembling. They were obviously some scrawny weakling who couldn't take a hit, so I figured if I stepped on their chest, something would break and they'd die. That's why I stomped repeatedly on their leg instead. It's no different from me saving their life. Besides, they got discharged because of the disability, right? The Ministry of Patriots and Veterans Affairs probably compensated them too. They should treat me as their lifelong benefactor.”

Silence fell over the room, and I sat there calmly, staring blankly ahead.

After answering a few more minor questions, the interview ended.

Several more internet articles were written afterward, and apparently our dear Park Mihyeong saw them. She called me right away.

“Kim Geuk?”

“Ah, Park Mihyeong? I mentioned your name on purpose during the interview. I did well, right?”

“Thanks for that, but that's not what's important right now! Why did you answer like that in the interview?”

She seemed to be blaming me for being too honest in the interview. I grinned and answered.

“Don't worry.”

“How can I not worry? You can't cause trouble right before signing a contract!”

“Don't worry. This won't cause any problems.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“I looked into it from every angle, and moral character isn't one of the things that lowers an awakened person's market value. It doesn't matter if they killed someone while driving drunk or bullied someone in school. Things like that don't lower the price. I saw that an ice ability user got caught up in bullying allegations before, and nothing happened to her.”

“Are you talking about Baek Dambi?”

“I don't know the name, but she was a female ice ability user. Do you know her?”

“There was a young woman like that among the awakened people I supported during my time with the Korean Awakened Solidarity. She had an ice ability, and ice abilities weren't undervalued back then, you know? So Incheon City signed an expensive long-term contract with her without knowing any better. Later, they tried to cancel that contract with some cheap little tricks...”

“That must be her. Anyway, just like nothing happened to that ice ability user, I'm definitely not going to have any problems either. Apparently, that's how it is for everyone.”

“Then what exactly would have to happen for there to be a problem?”

“Something like an awakened person taking part in a hunt and then leaving the operation zone without permission, or having mental issues and constantly seeing a psychiatrist. Mental problems like that... Or asthma, or a past surgery that creates the risk of an old injury recurring somewhere in their body. Contracts only run into trouble over mental or physical issues like that. It's fine if they committed a few crimes in the past, but if there seems to be a problem with their mind or body that might keep them from properly taking part in hunts, then that's not acceptable.”

I listed cases I'd looked up on Huntweb, such as awakened people exposed as Ilbe users and awakened people sued for sexually harassing someone. Not a single one of them had run into any problems with later contracts.

Footnotes:

Join our discord at https://dsc.gg/wetried