WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Arsène

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◈ How an A-Rank Hunter Lives ◈

Chapter 19: Ice Ability User Baek Dambi - [4]

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When the academy instructor taught us how to deal with different Monsters, most of it was about Deathclaws. That was only natural, since they were the monsters we'd encounter most often.

And what about Flame Elementals?

The academy instructor, who'd spent about a minute teaching us about Rock Elementals because they didn't think we'd ever have to fight one, pointed at a picture of a Flame Elemental and said this.

‘If you run into this bastard, ask a nearby teammate to quickly put a bullet through your head. Better to go early and comfortably than burn to death, right?’

Had the instructor been talking to the non-awakened Hunter hopefuls there that day, or had the instructor included me, the only awakened person in the room?

I didn't know.

I spoke into the radio.

“I'll go. Make sure you send the transport aircraft...”

Using Spatial Teleportation after that wasn't easy.

I'd abused it far too much already. How many times had I teleported beyond my field of vision?

The dizziness was unbearable. Fuck.

I hadn't noticed while the adrenaline was pumping, but now that I thought the hunt was over and my tension had eased, my body kept swaying on its own.

I failed my first attempt at Spatial Teleportation and only reached the familiar apartment rooftop on the second.

“Mom...”

“I love you, okay? I love you...”

Even through the haze, the survivors on the rooftop looked like they were already panicking.

It made sense. One floor after another in the apartment building was exploding with loud booms.

I didn't know much about Flame Elementals, but it wasn't hard to guess what this one was doing. It was setting the entire building on fire to cut off every escape route.

Another floor exploded with a roar. It felt like being on a battlefield.

Then a man on the rooftop looked at me. He recognized me.

“Hunter Kim Geuk?”

“Yes, long live Incheon.”

“Could you teleport us somewhere...”

I needed to save even the energy it would take to refuse. I shook my head, and the man tried to persuade me, but I was too dizzy to make out what he was saying.

I headed down through the rooftop stairwell to do my job, which was to hunt the elemental alone.

It quickly became clear that even that was impossible.

The stairs were full of heat and smoke. I couldn't suffocate to death before even meeting the elemental, so I went back up to the rooftop and shouted.

“The elemental's coming up soon. Everyone hide along the sides. Get along the sides...!”

After I barked that order a few times, everyone did as they were told. Then I closed my eyes to recover even a little focus.

The radio blared.

「Hey, you said a Flame Elemental appeared, right? Are you going to fight it?」

It was Seong Munyeong's voice, and I answered as briefly as I could.

“Looks like I have to.”

「Can you win? Is a Flame Elemental even a monster a Body Enhancement user can deal with?」

This bastard.

What answer did he want from me? He couldn't help, so was he going to lecture me about what I should and shouldn't do? He was probably saying it because he was worried, but honestly, it annoyed me.

This was why non-awakened people were hopeless. If they couldn't help, they should at least cheer me on. How dare they...

Then a voice that wasn't from a non-awakened person, but from someone society treated as worse than one, came through the radio.

「Kim Geuk? If you're going to fight the Fire Elemental, take me with you.」

Even while I kept my mouth shut to contain my irritation, I blinked.

Baek Dambi? What was this woman, who usually never said a word, suddenly talking about?

“Have you... hunted a Flame Elemental before?”

「I've... never even... seen one, though.」

Her voice kept breaking up. I could hear her panting too. What the hell was she doing right now...?

A strange instinct made me look down toward the building, and I frowned.

Someone was sprinting toward this building.

It looked like Baek Dambi. She seemed to be getting as close as possible so I could take her with Spatial Teleportation. That proved she wasn't just saying she wanted to help.

But could she really help me? I didn't have time to interrogate her.

After thinking for a moment, I used Spatial Teleportation and appeared in front of her.

“Uh...”

Baek Dambi stopped beside me.

I looked at her through the dizziness.

She was hugging an armful of bottled water. I had no idea how she'd run all the way here carrying that much. Why had she brought it in the first place? Was this crazy bitch planning to pour bottled water over a Flame Elemental and put out its fire?

Before I could ask, Baek Dambi spoke first.

“You look really bad...”

Her gaze moved between my face, where part of my ear and cheek had been cut off, and my left hand, which was missing three fingers. I spoke quietly.

“Looks like the bleeding stopped, right?”

“Yes, but...”

“Then it's fine.”

“Are you really going to fight in that condition?”

“What got into you, volunteering to do something?”

“It's just, well...”

“Anyway, you're saying you'll fight with me, right?”

Baek Dambi nodded. I didn't have time for small talk, so I grabbed her shoulder and returned to the rooftop.

I didn't know what she was thinking, but if she turned out to be completely useless, I could just toss her off the apartment building. Based on how she'd explained her ability when introducing herself, something like that wouldn't kill her.

Baek Dambi immediately started doing something.

“I'll try to keep you from burning too badly...”

She flung the bottled water she was holding over me. Once the water scattered through the air entered her line of sight, it turned into tiny shards of ice. At Baek Dambi's gesture, the floating ice fragments clung to my body.

She said she'd keep me from burning as badly, so this must have been what she meant. Since awakened people couldn't use their abilities directly on other awakened people, it probably took effort to apply her ability indirectly, but she looked fairly skilled at it.

Then I rested for a moment. Amid people begging me to teleport them away, people endlessly murmuring that they loved someone in their family over the phone, and people praying, I quietly closed my eyes.

I couldn't rest for long.

Before long, screams rang out.

“Ah!”

I turned my head toward where everyone was looking.

A deep-red glow came up the rooftop stairs, which were full of smoke, entering my blurred vision. Every step it took came with flames and smoke.

The Flame Elemental was coming up.

Through the smoke, its form climbing the stairs was visible as a burning silhouette. It looked like a ball of fire was coming up. It probably was.

You could tell just from that it was a monster that rifle rounds and autocannon rounds wouldn't affect. I'd heard that its form could at least be disrupted by the blast pressure from high-explosive rounds, but it was an extremely rare monster. Since it could make a tank's engine and ammunition explode at the same time just by looking at them, there had only been a few successful cases.

Would an ice ability user's power work on that thing? I didn't know. Still, I wouldn't expect too much.

I'd already resolved to face it alone.

Before confronting it, I looked around one last time.

First, the crowd. Positioned well along both sides. I didn't like that they all looked terrified, but whatever.

The round girl. I had no idea why she was wearing a crop top instead of a tank top, but she was standing properly off to the side...

Good. Everything was perfectly prepared. I closed and opened my eyes for a moment to overcome the dizziness.

I was standing in the octagon.

“Ddu, ddududdu. Ddu...”

I performed my entrance theme with my mouth and glared at the opponent who had entered the octagon.

A flaming hyena had just stepped onto the rooftop.

It was a Flame Elemental.

Its head, body, limbs, and tail were all made of fire. Golden eyes and nostrils flickered on a face made of flames.

Judging by its appearance, it must have been an elemental born after a Deathclaw awakened to a flame ability and spiritually developed. Its distinctive hooked claws glinted with force fields.

“Long live Incheon.”

I tried to touch gloves before the match, but the referee was nowhere to be seen.

The elemental didn't wait for the referee's signal either. It moved first.

The Flame Elemental opened its burning jaws wide. Something dark red rippled inside its mouth.

I didn't know what it was about to do, but it didn't look good. I had to decide quickly.

Should I get ready to dodge sideways?

No. The crowd was standing on both sides.

As I took a deep breath to brace myself for impact, a thick, violent stream of fire burst from the elemental's mouth.

Its flames were absurdly thick.

The instant I saw the flames fill my entire vision, I moved without thinking. Charge.

I ran straight forward. With my eyes shut, I pressed on using the information provided by my mental net.

“Ah!”

Apparently, watching me charge headfirst into that stream of fire must have looked extremely alarming to the crowd.

The screams rising behind me pleased me even as my whole body heated up. If they empathized with my pain, that made them a crowd cheering for me. I was this popular.

With adrenaline helping me, I ignored the pain of all my skin peeling away and my blood boiling. I kept kicking off the ground.

Once I finally reached it, I brought down my hammer hard enough for the strike to carry a shockwave and for that shockwave to put out even the flames.

‘Boom!’

Sure enough, the hammer strike and the shockwave it created disrupted its form. The stream of fire it had been spewing stopped with it.

So, had I killed it?

No. I hadn't extinguished its flames completely.

The fire that had scattered in all directions from my blow gathered in one place again. The hyena's form reappeared before me. Having regenerated in an instant, it swung its hooked claws and cut across my chest.

The blood that spurted out evaporated at once in the flames.

I gritted my teeth and brought the hammer down again. ‘Boom!’

As the shockwave disrupted its form once more, I felt a chill wrap around my entire body and ease the pain.

I cracked my eyes open to see what was happening and was startled.

A snowstorm had begun raging violently...

The round girl had intervened in the match. It would've been better if I could've handled it alone, but I wouldn't criticize her.

The elemental's flames remained intact even in the swirling snowstorm. It stared at me as its body started to restore itself.

Still, its size had clearly shrunk.

The Flame Elemental formed itself again and charged at me.

I put even more force into the hammer blow I'd already begun.

‘Boom!’

Its form collapsed again without fail. The shockwave from the hammer strike extinguished its flames and blasted the fire making up its body in every direction.

The flames driven far away were caught in the part of the snowstorm where it raged hardest. Steam erupted like an explosion and swallowed the elemental's flames.

At the same time, it was regenerating in front of me again. Unlike before, though, it was a pitiful flame, and something translucent gleamed within it.

Anyone could see it was its final spark.

When I swung the hammer once more, the flames that had tried to burn one final time in front of me went out.

The raging snowstorm soon subsided as well. I turned around amid the steam.

The survivors, barely visible through the haze, filled my vision.

The crowd's cheers echoing within me overlapped with the shouts coming from them in reality. My name kept being chanted, as if it were echoing everywhere.

“Kim Geuk! Kim Geuk! Kim Geuk!”

As the defeated elemental's soul seeped into me, I raised an arm high and declared my victory.

When I came to my senses, Baek Dambi's face was in front of me. She had taken off her sunglasses, so I could see her expression.

To my surprise, Baek Dambi looked excited right now. This was the first time I'd learned that she could show any expression other than annoyance or irritation... She had both fists clenched, with a look on her face that said, ‘Yes!’

Then our eyes met.

Apparently, I looked terrible to Baek Dambi. She flinched and hurriedly asked.

“Are you okay? No, don't answer. Oh my god, all your skin's burned. The blisters are coming up right away, so I don't think you burned all the way through, but...”

This was the first time I'd seen her fuss over someone like that too.

Even though I was dizzy and felt like I was dying from the pain of my entire body burning, I suddenly thought she was cute.

Had the elemental's soul seeped into me and transferred some of its heat? I could also feel something, which had always hung limp since my awakening, heating up between my legs.

Drunk on victory and an unfamiliar feeling, I smiled. Baek Dambi, who had been watching me carefully because I didn't look well, smiled awkwardly too.

I'd won.

* * *

「It was seriously an insanely tough bastard. Everyone saw it in the broadcast station helicopter footage, right? It didn't die even after getting pelted by autocannon rounds like rain. When I got to the scene, it looked like a foreign awakened person had already fired at it several times before I started fighting it. Yeah, that person everyone's shitting on for dying pathetically after failing to earn their pay.

At the point where that awakened person landed a few shots, that fucking Force-Field Creature should've been blown to pieces. Nobody could've expected something that tough to show up, so they were really unlucky. I don't know that awakened person's original nationality, but judging by how they died, they're definitely an honorary Incheon citizen. Let's observe a moment of silence for them.」

「At the academy, you know, I learned that if around ten Deathclaws came out when a Gate opened, that was considered a lot. But there were obviously dozens of them swarming in one place. It was completely ridiculous.」

「I killed more than two-thirds of the ones that crawled out of the Gate by myself? How can you verify that... Oh, it's obvious when something got blown apart by autocannon rounds? That's right. My will to protect Incheon is just that strong.」

「Honestly, I think I did almost everything, but my teammates definitely helped too. When I fought that fucking Force-Field Creature and got supporting fire, I was so touched I almost cried. I was worried because there are some older people on the team, but everyone did their part well despite those concerns, so I'm happy.

My teammates and I trained at Bupyeong Hunting Academy. It's about a five-minute walk from Bupyeong Station, and the curriculum is solid while the price is affordable for what you get...」

「Oh, and Baek Dambi. Honestly, I didn't expect much, but she was amazing. When she introduced herself, she said she'd reached the realm of elementals. At the time, I didn't understand what kind of fucking nerd shit this woman was saying.

But after seeing her this time, she has every right to introduce herself with that kind of fucking nerd shit. Everyone saw how insanely awesome that snowstorm was in the footage, right? Baek Dambi did that. The circumstances were a little unusual, but she was a huge help either way. If possible, I'd like to keep taking her with me from now on.

So if you have any shame, you Seoul scum who sneaked into Incheon and tried to slander this young lady and get her contract terminated should atone by hanging yourselves immediately. What? Anyone doing wicked things in Incheon is Seoul scum. I know it all.」

「I'm the first person in Korea to kill a Flame Elemental? Really? Then do I get some kind of title? If you can't give me a real title, can't you at least give me a Dungeon Fighter title? I'd like a top-tier one with 22 elemental damage. I'm on the Cain server, and my adventure group name is...」

「A++-rank Hunter Kim Geuk, everyone says I more than lived up to the over fifty billion won Incheon paid to recruit me despite the city's finances being exhausted... Mm, that's right. I'm that amazing. Don't any of you forget that Park Mihyeong, an Incheon city councilor, invited me here to work as a Hunter.」

「Long live Incheon! Everyone living in Incheon, these are hard times, but I hope you somehow pull through. If you keep surviving no matter how hard it gets, aren't you the winner in the end? What? People who live outside Incheon? Well, they can live or die on their own... I'll end by chanting the spell of victory once again. Long live Incheon!」

Footnotes:

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