WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Arsène

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ How an A-Rank Hunter Lives ◈

Chapter 15: Incheon Hunter Kim Geuk - [3]

──────

After that, my final interview about why I chose Incheon spread all over the internet, across every site imaginable.

I did speak pretty much without a filter, and I guess that's why it developed this weird cult following. Search “Park Mihyeong,” and “brainwashing ability user” comes up in the related searches. Search “Kim Geuk,” and “Incheon crazy awakened person” appears.

The same interview had already been posted on Huntweb three times, and the comments were hilarious.

Ⓐ StoneheadedYouth: I thought that guy was only weird on Huntweb, but I guess he isn't normal in real life either;;

Anonymous: Isn't he just keeping up the act in real life too?

Ⓐ StoneheadedYouth: That's definitely not an act. If it were, he couldn't give up Seoul and go to Incheon.

Anonymous: If the interview were the only thing like that, I'd think he was deliberately making it funny for attention, but he actually chose Incheon, where he'll obviously earn less and have a much harder time. I think that guy might really be insane......

Ⓐ syberMagneto: Is that guy really like that in real life too?

Anonymous: I went to the same academy as him, and he isn't like that in real life;

Anonymous: He's seriously stern at the academy. He doesn't talk much, and he never chats during class.

Anonymous: During physical training, he'd work out until his arms broke, saying he was going to make use of Super-Regeneration. I'm not exaggerating. That's why I respected him.

Ⓐ ElmaYaKaeyo: What the hell;;

Anonymous: He doesn't usually smile much, and the way he talks is pretty aggressive, so he wasn't easy to approach at first, you know? I'm seriously thrown off seeing that stern, dignified guy turn into a lunatic online and in interviews.

Ⓐ syberMagneto: So how did your academy react to him deciding to work in Incheon?

Anonymous: Why would the academy react?

Ⓐ syberMagneto: Don't they dislike that he went somewhere difficult? For an awakened person, working in Incheon will be ten times harder than working in Seoul. Doesn't the academy dislike that one of its awakened students went somewhere with such poor conditions?

Anonymous: No, our director clearly loves it. If he went to Seoul, it'd be hard to get people from our academy onto his hunter team. Since he chose Incheon, the academy can send him a lot of people.

Anonymous: The director's even praising Kim Geuk as a saint or something.

As I kept reading through the comments, I remembered something I had to do.

I needed to report the hunter team I'd assembled to the Association soon.

I'd already decided on everyone who would be on the team. I planned to keep taking the members I usually had with me.

Seong Munyeong, Kim Jinjun, Lee Jongho, Jeong Jinyeong, Im Hyeongtaek......

Of them, Im Hyeongtaek and Jeong Jinyeong were far from the best possible choices.

First, Jeong Jinyeong's reflexes were about as bad as they could be, and he was usually so scatterbrained that I worried he might freeze in a crisis. Still, the video he filmed had contributed a lot to raising my market value. I decided to keep him around if only to repay him.

As for Im Hyeongtaek, he had so little stamina that he might collapse in an extreme situation......

Well, honestly, I didn't think it mattered who I took with me.

I remembered the day I first brought down a Monster, when I fought the Rock Elemental.

Whether it was Kim Jinjun, who worked harder at the gym than anyone else, Seong Munyeong, who loved showing off how much he knew about the Hunter industry, or forty-three-year-old Im Hyeongtaek, who lacked confidence in his stamina, they had all been equally useless that day.

Really, they were all the same.

At that abandoned building that day, the non-awakened Hunter aspirants had been nothing but machines that praised me.

They weren't comrades fighting beside me. They were spectators. Popcorn would have suited their hands better than rifles.

Just as they had been that day, wouldn't all non-awakened people be similarly useless anyway?

Well, that incident might have been too extreme an example. None of them had proper weapons in the first place.

But the encounter afterward had been even more shocking.

I remembered the Hunters I ran into after the situation was over.

I'd thought Hunters who had worked in the field for a long time would give off a different aura from ordinary people. In other words, I thought veteran Hunters who had fought Monsters at the edge of life and death would have something special about them, even if they weren't awakened.

They didn't. Those Hunters were nothing more than punks carrying guns, and every gun they had brought was a K2 assault rifle, which could barely scratch that rock monster.

The Rock Elemental's appearance had clearly been broadcast, so why had they only brought small arms? When I asked, what had they said?

They said they'd never intended to fight the Rock Elemental in the first place, I think.

‘A monster like a Rock Elemental will be dealt with by an awakened Hunter who arrives later. We're just here to move around as the Association tells us to and collect the allowance we get. They pay us just for responding to the scene, don't they?’

My impression after hearing that was simple: trash with no intention of doing their jobs properly.

When I asked how long they had been active, they answered as if bragging that it had been a whole year. I was shocked to learn that those punks were veterans who had worked longer than the former Hunter who was now an instructor at our academy.

That day, every illusion I had about veteran non-awakened Hunters was thoroughly shattered.

From what I saw that day, Hunters who hadn't awakened were nothing but worthless parasites with no intention of protecting the city or taking responsibility for anything important.

Seeing that, I figured there was no need to specifically put skilled people on my team. From what I could tell, all non-awakened people were the same anyway.

Whether non-awakened people had great stamina or had been active for a long time, weren't they all pretty much at the same level? An ordinary person and a world champion sprinter were both far slower than a cheetah.

So I formed my team thinking that as long as its members could react enthusiastically whenever I did something impressive, that would be enough. The director was delighted, saying I was taking good care of people from the academy.

While I was still sorting out my thoughts, I got a call.

It was Park Mihyeong. When I asked why she was calling, she said this.

「Well, there's someone I'd like to recommend.」

“Someone you'd like to recommend? Are you talking about a Hunter?”

「Yes! Kim Geuk, you haven't finished putting together your hunter team yet, right? I looked into it, and apparently veteran Hunters need to join new hunter teams and teach them various things. So I'd like to recommend one veteran Hunter to you.」

“Uh, the academy I attend already said they'd recommend two veterans.”

「Really? Is there no way around that?」

Park Mihyeong sounded flustered, so I made my decision right away.

“Well, I can contact the academy and tell them to recommend one less person, right?”

「Oh, I'd be really grateful if you did that, but would that really be okay?」

“Of course I should look after you first, ma'am.”

After the call ended, I contacted the academy. Sure enough, the director immediately accepted my decision with, “Really? Okay!”

That afternoon, I met Park Mihyeong at a café.

Beside Park Mihyeong sat the “veteran Hunter” she had brought along. I frowned when I saw her.

Was that woman really a veteran Hunter?

She didn't look like one at all. She was wearing sunglasses, but I could tell from the visible lower half of her face that she was beautiful. Her long, straight hair reached her armpits, and she wore a crop top that exposed her navel, like something out of a fashion magazine.

I was starting to suspect that Park Mihyeong had brought me here under the excuse of recommending a veteran Hunter to set me up on a blind date.

Then Park Mihyeong introduced the woman she had brought.

“This young lady has worked as a Hunter for two years and four months. She's only two months short of the longest Hunter career record. That makes her a veteran among veterans in the industry. Isn't that amazing?”

Hmm, two years and four months of experience. Considering that most Hunters died or retired within a year, that was certainly impressive.

Still unconvinced, since she still didn't look like a Hunter, I asked.

“What’s her name?”

“Baek Dambi. Pretty name too, right?”

I'd heard that name before.

“Is Baek Dambi the person you mentioned before? The ice ability user the city tried to drive out......”

“That's right, that's right. Wow, I heard Kim Geuk was a bookish boy until middle school, but you really do have a great memory!”

Park Mihyeong clapped her hands, then suddenly began explaining the history of this veteran with two years and four months of experience.

“Do you remember when it had only been a year since Gates started opening? By then, everyone had gotten used to the existence of awakened people......”

Right. That was when various things, including drafting awakened people, were being discussed, and the Hunter system was eventually established.

Back then, there had been this insane atmosphere where every awakened person was expected to become a Hunter.

“Back then, wasn't there this atmosphere that anyone, regardless of age or gender, was a traitor if they awakened and didn't fight Monsters? Baek Dambi had just debuted as an idol, so she caught people's attention. Baek Dambi is especially powerful even among ice ability users, you see? People at the time were angry that she was doing fan service instead of fighting Monsters with such a powerful-looking ability.”

According to Park Mihyeong's explanation, all kinds of malicious comments and protest letters had been sent to Baek Dambi's idol group. Her agency had apparently caved in to the heated public backlash calling her a traitor and worse.

So Baek Dambi began working as a Hunter, at least temporarily, for appearances and to appease public pressure. At first, she had planned to work as a Hunter for only a few months before returning to her group. Things hadn't gone as planned.

“The recession was horrible then, just like it is now. While this young lady was working as a Hunter, her agency went bankrupt and the group disbanded. What could she do? She had to make a living, so she kept working as a Hunter when she'd only meant to do it briefly. But you know what happened?”

When Baek Dambi had no choice but to continue working as a Hunter, it became clear too late that her ice ability wasn't very useful for hunting Monsters.

Then, not long ago, Incheon City had signed her to a four-year long-term contract, wanting to keep her for as long as possible because Incheon City believed that she merely lacked training, that her ability was obviously powerful, and that she would become a powerful awakened Hunter. In other words, they had completely thrown away a 16 billion won signing bonus.

So Incheon City had repeatedly made all sorts of nasty attempts to terminate her contract and recover the signing bonus. Since the good people of Incheon couldn't possibly do something like that, someone from Seoul must have taken office in Incheon City and been working behind the scenes. Apparently, those attempts were still continuing.

“Kim Geuk, your contract says you have to go on at least a certain number of deployments each month too, right? Baek Dambi's contract says the same thing, but she's having trouble getting deployed lately. At this rate, they'll probably terminate her contract without leniency, claiming she's in breach.”

“Why is she having trouble getting deployed lately?”

“Her original hunter team disbanded, but no other hunter team will take this young lady. I guess they're all wary of crossing Incheon City......”

“So you want me to add this young lady to my team?”

“That's right. The city pays her anyway, so you don't have to worry about money. And this young lady will teach you various things as a veteran Hunter...... Could I ask you to do that?”

Park Mihyeong said that she had tried to help this young lady since the days of Korean Awakened Solidarity, so she couldn't bear to abandon her. She added that even if I accepted someone Incheon City disliked onto my team, they wouldn't dare give me trouble when they had signed me for over 50 billion won.

After hearing everything, I nodded uneasily.

“Well, there's no reason I can't.”

“Oh, Kim Geuk, thank you so much!”

After making a big fuss for a moment, Park Mihyeong looked at Baek Dambi.

“He'll let you join the team. That's great! What are you doing? Hurry up and thank him!”

At that, Baek Dambi greeted me in a quiet voice.

“Thank you......”

That answer apparently didn't satisfy Park Mihyeong. She scolded Baek Dambi for speaking so softly, then kept pressing her.

“First, take off those damn sunglasses! Looking at you now, you've had them on this whole time, haven't you? Don't you know it's rude not to take off your sunglasses when you're talking to someone? I said take them off already!”

Unable to withstand the nagging, Baek Dambi took off her sunglasses.

Her sky-blue eyes were revealed.

As our eyes met, I thought that she really was beautiful, considering she had debuted as an idol.

Uh......

A sudden dizziness hit me. I felt like I was being sucked somewhere.

The hallucination I had grown used to by now began.

* * *

Footnotes:

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