WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Arsène

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ How an A-Rank Hunter Lives ◈

Chapter 16: Ice Ability User Baek Dambi - [1]

──────

In the hallucination, I see a Gate shimmering purple.

I see Otherworlders standing before it. Then I see Baek Dambi with both arms held by the Otherworlders.

Baek Dambi is being kidnapped. She is being dragged to a distant otherworld!

“Baaek Dammbiii!”

A shout bursts from my mouth, but even making a sound isn't easy right now. My throat is full of bloody phlegm.

Even lifting my upper body to glare at them is difficult.

My lower body won't move. The two legs that were cut off earlier lie sprawled beside me. The only reason I am still alive in this state is Super-Regeneration. It isn't because my wounds are any less severe.

Filled with horrific resentment and frustration, I scream curses that even I can't understand. Curses aimed at those skinny Otherworlders.

Those vermin in that otherworld who supposedly live like beggars, worse off than North Koreans. Invaders who came to plunder this abundant land...

Bound by them, Baek Dambi looks at me, squeezes her eyes shut, and murmurs.

“Don't stay here trying to do something. Hurry and use Spatial Teleportation. You need to live-”

Baek Dambi's words are cut off as the Otherworlders pull her away.

They glance at me, then continue forward.

In the end, the Otherworlders disappear into the Gate, taking her with them.

I glare at their backs for a while, vomit a bucketful of blood, then stare at the Gate.

I have to do something before that Gate closes. But what?

Forcing myself to concentrate, I use Spatial Teleportation. I move directly in front of the Gate, then wriggle like a caterpillar, forcing my body inside with only my upper half.

And so, the Gate that swallowed my companion and the Otherworlders swallows me too.

My vision fills with a purple world...

* * *

My vision shifted, and I returned to reality.

I tried not to gasp for breath. I also had to keep my turbulent emotions from showing.

Fuck, I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs and smash something.

Still, I had to hold it in somehow. I knew the source of this anger wasn't normal. If I let it out here, I could already guess how people would see me.

While fury continued to churn inside me, Park Mihyeong spoke. Thankfully, she wasn't speaking to me.

“Dambi, if you're changing teams, your activity area will change too. You'll have to move, right? Want me to show you some vacant buildings I own?”

“It's okay. You don't need to do that much for me. You know I'm rich.”

“What do you mean, I don't need to? Who would readily rent a place to ice ability users like us? Even when I show them my city councilor business card, they refuse to sell me an apartment because I'm an ice ability user. This is driving me crazy. How are you supposed to find a place?”

“There are plenty of low-rise apartments in neighborhoods nobody lives in that sell for dirt cheap. I already bought one and live there just fine.”

“What? Are you insane? You're seriously insane...”

While they talked, I kept taking deep breaths. I finally managed to get my emotions under control.

Then I spoke.

“Then I'll report that you're officially joining the team and add your name to the roster. When should the team meet? Tomorrow?”

Baek Dambi answered without a change in tone.

“Set a time, and I'll be there.”

Her voice was so lifeless that it sounded like she might go limp at any moment. She'd sounded like that while talking to Park Mihyeong too. Was this woman depressed or something?

Not only did she have no manners, but she didn't even show emotion. Even now, Park Mihyeong seemed more grateful than Baek Dambi, who would be directly benefiting from me.

“Kim Geuk, thank you so much for today. You probably had to say something unpleasant to the academy because of me. I'm really sorry. You're doing better than I am now, so it feels strange to say I'll help you. Still, if you ever need my help later, call me right away without hesitating, okay?”

Park Mihyeong saw me off, and I parted ways with the two of them. I sent the Association a roster for the hunter team I would lead, including the current members, those the academy had promised to send, and Baek Dambi, who had agreed to join.

Then, wanting to let the team members know, I called Seong Munyeong first.

When I told him a woman would be joining the team, Seong Munyeong sounded puzzled.

「A female Hunter? Women don't usually do Hunter work unless they're awakened people.」

“She's an awakened person. Though she's an ice ability user.”

「Come on, an ice ability user might as well be non-awakened... So, is she pretty?」

When I said she was, he didn't seem pleased. He even seemed to realize something was wrong and asked this.

「If she's a pretty ice ability user, fuck... Her name isn't Baek Dambi, is it?」

“That's right. Do you know her?”

Seong Munyeong answered with a sigh.

「Baek Dambi? You don't know? She's one of Huntweb's supervillains!」

* * *

「I guess you might not know. She was famous about a year ago. Look her up!」

Seong Munyeong said that, so I did as he told me.

Sure enough, when I typed Baek Dambi's name into Huntweb, the search results went on for pages.

I read through the posts and clicked my tongue. Well, this woman really wasn't right in the head.

It was no wonder Seong Munyeong hadn't been happy to hear that a pretty woman was joining. Baek Dambi was an infamous psycho on Huntweb.

It wasn't that Baek Dambi was active on Huntweb, posting disgusting photos herself.

People avoided Baek Dambi herself in real life, and there were two reasons for it.

First, the fact that she, an ice ability user, had received a signing bonus worth tens of billions of won enraged everyone on Huntweb. Whether they were awakened Hunters or non-awakened Hunters, they couldn't accept some mere icehead getting that much money.

Anonymous: With the money they gave that bitch Baek Dambi, they could've bought three awakened people from overseas...

Ⓐ syberMagneto: People are going crazy because that icehead won't return the money and just keeps working lol

The evaluations from Hunters who had worked with Baek Dambi weren't good either. Based on the accounts posted on Huntweb, this was how people described her.

“A psycho who thinks she's still a celebrity.”

“The kind of bitch who'd wear a crop top to a colleague's funeral.”

Apparently, Baek Dambi had been normal at first, but after about a year of working as a Hunter, she'd lost it. People said you could tell just by looking at how she dressed.

Anonymous: One day we had to go hunting, and that bitch Baek Dambi showed up in sunglasses, a crop top, and a jacket. She even had a full face of makeup on, so I thought she'd been on her way out to have fun and rushed over to hunt.

But she dressed the same way the next day, and the day after that. Crop top, makeup, sunglasses...

She used to dress normally like every other Hunter, then suddenly started showing up styled like some idol. It wasn't just for a day or two either. She kept doing it after that.

A little eye candy is fine for a day or two, but when it's every day, it starts feeling uncomfortable. I wondered why the hell she was acting like that. Was she really trying to return to being an idol? So I looked into it online and found out her agency had gone under recently.

That's when I understood. She went crazy because any hope of returning to entertainment was gone.

She especially never took off those fucking sunglasses. Not while talking, not while eating, not during situation briefings...

She only finally took them off when it was time to shoot during a hunt. You could tell why she never took them off normally. It was obvious she didn't even want to talk to or make eye contact with her teammates. She wore them to hide that rotten expression, that crazy bitch.

It seemed her attitude on a team had truly been awful. There were plenty more complaints from teammates who had worked with her.

Anonymous: If someone buys her a drink and tells her she did a good job, maybe she thinks they're trying to hit on her because she's pretty. She says no thanks and refuses it to the bitter end. Then if they give everyone else a drink except her, maybe she thinks they're snubbing her and has a depressive episode. She ignores them for days, even if they try to talk to her.

Even if teammates tell her to fix her attitude, she absolutely won't listen. She doesn't even listen to higher-ups. The Mayor of Incheon openly hinted that her outfit didn't suit hunting, and she didn't even pretend to hear it.

Ⓑ GoodHunter: I hate to say this, but if she won't listen to reason, has anyone on the team ever tried to correct her attitude with violence? I can't imagine Hunters stayed sweet to her forever just because she was a woman.

Ⓐ syberMagneto: How would they? Non-awakened trash can't beat even an icehead, dumbass.

Anonymous: I hate to admit it, but that bastard's right. That bitch was an awakened person, so she could toy with ordinary people. If someone actually got mad and raised a fist, she'd beat the shit out of them instead. Nobody could beat her up, so the team members just had to stew in their frustration.

According to what I found on Huntweb, there was a separate reason Baek Dambi couldn't find a new hunter team.

Her reputation in the industry was horrendous. It wasn't because great Incheon City had pressured anyone, as Park Mihyeong had guessed.

So the next day, when I saw Baek Dambi dressed like an idol just as Huntweb had described, and just as she'd been when I met her the day before, I let out a sigh without realizing it.

Seong Munyeong seemed to feel the same way.

“She's exactly as described on Huntweb. A crop top, sunglasses... They said even when someone important told her not to dress like that, she kept doing it.”

“She really does.”

“Can't you do something?”

“What do you want me to do?”

“From what I read on Huntweb, nobody has been able to straighten her out because she's an awakened person, so ordinary Hunters can't touch her. But you're an awakened person too, and her ability won't work on you. She'd probably be scared of you.”

“So you want me to lower my voice and threaten her, telling her I'll treat her like shit if she acts like shit?”

“Yes!”

“I don't know. Do I really have to? I'd say something if she were wearing high heels, but that doesn't look like an outfit that's hard to move in. Let her wear whatever the fuck she wants.”

“Whether or not she fights well dressed like that, we'll still have to worry about what other teams think. It could hurt the team atmosphere too...”

I stared at Seong Munyeong for a moment before speaking.

“Munyeong. Ever since I was young, I've hated it when people ordered me around. Whether it was my father telling me to bring him water or a teacher telling me to cut my hair to a certain length, it all pissed me off.”

“I can see that. So?”

“So I don't order people around unless I have to. I figure other people would feel bad about it too, just like I do.”

After I went out of my way to explain my principle, Seong Munyeong didn't seem to get it.

“You aren't trying to get on her good side because you want to seduce her, are you?”

“My dick doesn't get hard, you bastard.”

“Huh? Why?”

“Since I awakened as a Body Enhancement user, all the nutrients that should go toward reproductive function have gone into my muscles. At least I don't lose muscle mass because of it, so isn't that just fucking great?”

A little later, my entire hunter team had gathered.

I knew everyone except one person.

A veteran Hunter who had worked for about eight months, and whom the academy director had recommended for the team, introduced himself.

“I'm Jang Byeonggon! Wow, I honestly never thought I'd benefit from attending that academy. More precisely, I owe Kim Geuk for allowing me to join, right? Thank you so much for accepting me onto the team! I look forward to working with all of you...”

About a week passed after that, and we learned a great deal from Jang Byeonggon: how the industry worked, how to buy ammunition cheaply, the latest ways of dealing with monsters...

It was easy to get close to Jang Byeonggon too. He was a veteran and older than most of us, but he treated me with the utmost respect, like I was his superior. He was also polite to everyone else instead of throwing his weight around and acting senior.

It was smart of him. Of course he would bow his head to me, an awakened person. And since five of them already knew each other, acting like the senior just because he was a veteran could have isolated him from the team.

Naturally, Jang Byeonggon blended into the team.

Baek Dambi was the exact opposite. There was no twist whatsoever. She was exactly as Huntweb had described.

Baek Dambi normally didn't say anything, offered no advice as a veteran unless someone asked first, and never took off those damn sunglasses.

Looking at Baek Dambi sitting quietly with sunglasses on even now, I thought to myself.

Could I ever get close to a woman who looked like a depressed patient?

I didn't know, but it seemed my hallucination self had managed it.

My hallucination self had seemed to have a deep relationship with her. When she was kidnapped, I had screamed and followed her into the Gate. Maybe our relationship had been closer than that of ordinary teammates.

Perhaps the rage from the hallucination had carried over, because even now, thinking about that scene made anger rise inside me.

Rationally, though, it was hard to identify with my hallucination self and sympathize with that rage.

After all, in the first hallucination I saw, everyone had died horribly. Seeing that terrible scene had made me feel a sense of danger.

But that woman? Maybe because she was kidnapped unharmed in the hallucination, it didn't feel as serious. I didn't feel a strong sense of duty that I absolutely had to stop it...

My phone suddenly vibrated.

Not just mine. Everyone's phone did.

Jang Byeonggon checked his vibrating smartphone and shouted.

“A Gate has opened. Everyone, get ready!”

Footnotes:

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