WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Arsène

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ How an A-Rank Hunter Lives ◈

Chapter 27: The Eolregis - [1]

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I woke up with that damned mushroom cloud again today.

What followed was horrible, as always. Unable to bear the anger and depression consuming my mind, I sobbed as tears streamed down my face and waited for those negative feelings to leave my head as quickly as possible.

Even after I calmed down a little, I still had no energy.

Damn it. Starting every day like this was just awful.

My hands were still trembling as I picked up my phone and opened Huntweb. I was about to tap “Write Post,” but instead focused on the screen.

YYY: “Incheon Recovery Project” Led by Hunter Kim Geuk Achieves “1/7 Great Success” in Just Three Months

I could really feel how well things had been going for me lately. I was about to write a post for attention, only to find one about me already waiting there.

I looked at the article attached to the post.

It praised the accomplishments of my recent work.

It said that in just three months, we had completely cleared an area equal to one-seventh of Incheon’s designated danger zones. It said casualties from wild Monster attacks in and around our operational areas had fallen to zero for the first time in years. It said Hunter Kim Geuk had more than earned his 52.5 billion won contract fee in less than half a year...

Even while I was suffering, the praise and attention directed at me felt sweet.

As I read through the article, my eyes eventually moved to the comments.

Anonymous: Did you see the Incheon redevelopment announcement? The property owners in the areas restored through Kim Geuk’s operations hit the jackpot;; They’re gonna tear down every villa, multi-family house, and country home regardless of when it was built, then put up fortress-style apartment complexes.

Ⓐ ElmayaKaeyo: When I first saw this guy’s interview, I thought some punk had come in to muddy the waters, but the more I see of him, the more amazing he seems. Respect from a fellow A-rank!

Anonymous: Four operations a week is fucking brutal. How many people died?

5myJesus: Three total. One on the first day, then two more killed in action over the next three months.

I spotted one of my followers too. Oh my Jesus, a follower I had gained about three months ago.

Anonymous: ? Why did so few die? No way only three people died after that many operations.

5myJesus: Incheon City must’ve been encouraged by the results because they gave them much better equipment support. Since someone died on the first day, Kim Geuk must’ve been shocked. After that, he worked even harder himself and took on everyone else’s risks.

5myJesus: Even with him trying that hard, it was impossible for nobody to die, so two more eventually died. Still, whenever someone died, Kim Geuk gave an insanely large amount of condolence money.

Anonymous: How much did he give?

5myJesus: Don’t know. Kim Geuk made the bereaved families promise to keep the amount secret. He said if a custom formed that awakened Hunters had to give a certain amount of condolence money, it would burden other awakened people.

5myJesus: The other Hunter team members probably gave quite a bit too, but the bereaved families only grabbed Kim Geuk’s hands and wailed, so I think he really gave a lot.

If I were the Duke of Incheon, I would’ve granted that guy Ganseok-dong as his territory and made him the Knight of Ganseok-dong. What a shame. Why had something like democracy taken root and stolen my rightful authority?

Anyway, ah...

I could feel the good energy that had left my body filling me back up.

Bathed in that pleasant energy, I reassured myself. The nuclear explosion wasn’t a future that could happen while everything was so perfect. It had all been nothing but a stupid dream, so there was no need to suffer every morning.

It seemed to work. Fully energized again, I gulped down a protein shake.

After breakfast, I showered to wash away the cold sweat clinging stickily to my body, then left home.

Another day of hunting.

* * *

The operation conducted over the past three months had produced visible results.

It felt awkward to say so myself, but even I thought they were astonishing achievements unlike anything seen before.

As the article praised, we had wiped out Monsters from one-seventh of Incheon’s designated danger zones. We had done the same in areas not designated as danger zones and reduced the frequent wild Monster attacks nearby to nearly zero.

Naturally, real estate prices in the areas where I conducted operations and their surrounding neighborhoods had risen noticeably. Even villas and multi-family homes that had been so cheap there was no prospect of their value increasing had reportedly gone up several times over. Apparently, even buildings with no residential value now had hope of being redeveloped into apartment complexes.

News that commercial districts in certain areas had recovered and large numbers of residents had returned was hardly surprising anymore.

The certificates of commendation I received from the city and the flower bouquets given by resident representatives had left me with no room to store them. I was seriously considering moving.

That was how considerable my popularity had become. Whenever we gathered for a hunt now, not only public officials but all sorts of other people came too. People who had come all this way to cheer us on.

This time too, fans, residents, and reporters had somehow learned our assembly point and gathered in large numbers.

One of my young female fans shouted.

“Mister! Do you remember me?”

“Ah, were you on the rooftop of Dongyang Apartments? I remember you sending nothing but KakaoTalk messages on your phone. They looked like final goodbyes. Didn’t you feel embarrassed later?”

“I was incredibly embarrassed... Anyway, mister, I was worried you’d talk strangely in person like you do online, but you’re normal in real life after all. What a relief!”

“Ah, YYY?”

“How did you know!”

I grinned at her, shouted, “Long live Incheon!” and even signed her phone case.

One corner over there was noisy. When I looked that way, I secretly frowned a little.

“Naito-san, look over here!”

Damn it. There was only one thing I disliked while everything else was perfect.

Naito-san. That fucking non-awakened piece of trash had grown in popularity and fame too.

It made sense. That bastard had faithfully participated in the operations I led and uploaded videos. People had started thinking he had contributed to this operation, which would’ve been perfectly fine with just me. They thought he was one of Incheon’s saviors too.

It was horrible. Truly.

Fans had gathered around him too. Thankfully, there were fewer of them than the residents and property owners clustered around me, but the very fact that he had fans was disgusting.

Even the lovely Baek Dambi had no fans, yet there were people following that piece of trash?

I glanced at Baek Dambi, and sure enough, she didn’t look pleased either. I could tell just from the way she had her lips pressed tightly together.

A reporter had come today too, for some reason.

A woman held a microphone out to me.

“Hello, Mr. Kim Geuk! You’re the hero revitalizing all of Incheon these days, aren’t you? It’s an honor to meet you in person!”

The interview with her, which began with praise, wasn’t too bad. There were ordinary questions about which area I would conduct my next operation in, followed by stupid questions about whether I would choose Incheon again when I renewed my Hunter contract next year, since it was expected to be record-breaking.

I answered sincerely enough, until an unpleasant question suddenly came up.

“Mr. Kim Geuk, you’re being called the greatest awakened Hunter in history, not just in Incheon! In contrast, Matsumoto, who has achieved all this despite being a non-awakened person... Many people find the comparison with the so-called Naito-san interesting!”

I had no idea why that non-awakened piece of trash had suddenly been mentioned.

“Is that so?”

I tried to keep the smile on my face, but it wasn’t easy.

The next question was especially unpleasant.

“There are many online opinions treating the greatest awakened Hunter and the greatest non-awakened Hunter as rivals! Could you share your thoughts on Naito-san, your current colleague?”

I felt the smile disappear from my face.

The best I could do was keep my anger from showing on my face. I resisted the urge to ask whether the woman in front of me was from Incheon or Seoul, then opened my mouth.

“Mr. Matsumoto is genuinely skilled. He would’ve become hugely successful even if he had gone into sports instead of becoming a Hunter. It’s more than just having lots of experience and being good with a gun.

“His reflexes and composure are beyond anything you can reach through training. He’s exceptional, even beyond natural talent. There have been many times during operations when I’ve watched him and wondered how he can possibly be like that.”

“I see! Thank you so much for the detailed answer...”

“But there’s a reason weight classes exist in combat sports, isn’t there?”

I smiled on purpose. Glancing at Naito-san, I mentally flipped him off and continued.

“No matter how experienced he is, no matter how good his reflexes are... No matter how calm he stays in a crisis, there’s a bigger weight class gap between us than between a fifty-kilogram human and a seven-hundred-kilogram grizzly bear.”

“What do you mean by that...?”

“I’m much stronger. It’s not even comparable.”

I thought my final words had come out as something close to a growl.

The reporter in front of me was clearly from Seoul, though. She didn’t notice my displeasure in the slightest.

“Wow, what incredible competitive spirit! Is that passion the secret behind your recent achievements? Now, could you share a few words about your resolve for today’s hunt...”

The unpleasant interview ended after I shouted, “Long live Incheon!”

Seong Munyeong, who had been listening from behind, quietly approached me. He spoke with a worried expression.

“Why are you so angry?”

“I’m not angry.”

“It’s obvious you’re really angry. The veins in your clenched fist were sticking out like a spiderweb. It started around when Naito-san came up, you know?”

“Was I like that?”

“You were. I heard he apologized to you before, so why do you still hate him that much?”

It was a difficult question to answer. How was I supposed to explain this?

I chose my words as carefully as possible so I wouldn’t sound like a lunatic.

“They keep going on about how he’s non-awakened.”

Whether it was Marvel, DC, or Japanese shonen manga, there was always a character whose defining trait was having no special abilities.

Everyone around them had special powers, but they stood out more because they alone had none. Those ability-less characters were popular too, so favored by the writers that they sometimes accomplished several times more than other characters with actual powers.

Ever since I saw Naito-san, I had come to hate all those characters.

Batman, Hawkeye, whoever. If they were inferior ordinary people, I wished they would know their place and quietly eat popcorn while superpowered heroes did the important work.

“Why is that a problem?”

“They keep emphasizing how amazing that bastard is despite being non-awakened. Isn’t that their way of saying that I’m only amazing because I’m awakened? Aren’t they putting him on a pedestal by saying that if we had the same conditions, he would be far more amazing than me?”

“No, why are you reading so much into it? He’s amazing because he’s non-awakened yet performs on the level of most awakened people...”

I sighed.

That was how Huntweb evaluated Naito-san too. ‘Despite being non-awakened.’ ‘Even though he’s non-awakened.’ ‘As a non-awakened person...’

Naito-san was being treated as special because he was non-awakened.

They said that since he performed on the level of awakened people without awakening and had secured a contract comparable to theirs, he was a true triumph of the human spirit. They said that made him far greater than half-baked awakened people.

To me, that was an incredibly unfair evaluation. I felt that way even more because Baek Dambi was on our team, an awakened person who didn’t receive proper recognition.

Unlike the harsh assessment Baek Dambi received on Huntweb, that ice ability user clearly contributed more than the non-awakened Hunters.

She didn’t do anything flashy, but she always took the most dangerous position and accepted the dangerous role. That was what she did throughout the operation over the past three months too.

How much help had the way she quietly carried out her role, drawing the Monsters’ attacks toward herself, been to me as I tried to save even one more person?

Objectively speaking, Naito-san was astonishingly skilled, but he didn’t have some amazing weapon and hadn’t contributed more than the other Hunters. Baek Dambi’s contributions had been far greater than his.

Yet look at her. She had carefully put on makeup and even worn a crop top so she would look pretty, but received no attention at all.

I had grabbed the reporters who came by several times and explained how enormous her role was, but they were all indifferent. Their attitude was that she was an icehead, but still an awakened person getting paid, so she should at least be doing that much. They would add one or two lines of praise to an article, then move on.

With Naito-san beside her, if a passable A-rank Hunter rather than a mere icehead had been standing here, wouldn’t that Hunter have been treated much the same as Baek Dambi?

If that Hunter had protested, what answer would they have received? Wouldn’t people curse them, saying that since they had awakened yet failed to outperform a non-awakened person, they should realize they were the ones lacking?

Anyway, it made me angry.

If I had the authority to change all this, I would ban non-awakened people from acting as Hunters. As I had seen three times over the past three months, weak non-awakened people who played at being Hunters were not much help and only got themselves killed. It would be better to stop them from doing it altogether.

I would take the title of “B-Rank Hunter” that Naito-san had and give it to somewhat lacking awakened people like Baek Dambi. People would cheer when they passed by too.

If a non-awakened person who didn’t know their place tried to stand equal to us, and they weren’t from Incheon, I would beat them senseless...

As I was thinking that, Naito-san approached. He grinned and called out.

“Let’s work hard today too. Um, is this how I should say it? Long live Incheon!”

Wouldn’t it have been much easier if I had seen a future where that bastard was a traitor hiding sinister intentions and planning to harm me?

But my unpredictable precognitive ability showed me no such future, so I had no choice but to nod.

“Right. Long live Incheon.”

I didn’t think I had responded particularly enthusiastically, but Naito-san seemed pleased even by that. He grinned and headed off to lead his team somewhere.

Since I knew my hatred for him was irrational, I took a deep breath.

I tried to calm myself, overwhelmed by emotions that were difficult to explain to anyone else.

I forced myself to think rationally.

Naito-san was undeniably contributing to Incheon. He didn’t seem likely to harm me, and for now, he was one of the colleagues fighting beside me.

Together with that uncomfortable colleague, I headed for Manwol Mountain, Eurasia’s greatest sacred mountain, where countless Monsters swarmed within and had created vast slums in nearby Bupyeong and Ganseok-dong. If we could only wipe out the Monsters inside, many residents would return, and the surrounding land values and commercial districts were expected to come back to life.

* * *

Footnotes:

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