WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Arsène
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◈ How an A-Rank Hunter Lives ◈
Chapter 28: The Eolregis - [2]
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The hunt on Manwol Mountain went smoothly too.
Monsters had dug hidden tunnels throughout the mountain, so if troops advanced recklessly, the casualties could've been severe. But that was only a limitation of non-awakened trash.
The Hunters I led simply repeated the same process.
If a Monster was standing around blankly out in the open, I only had to tell the others where it was. They'd take care of it with sniper fire.
If a Monster was hiding in some tunnel, we just tossed grenades or whatever else into it and waited.
Then we'd wait at the tunnel entrance, and the Monsters would come rushing out on their own. Every time, I spread my mental net in front of it in case something happened.
The mental net could identify anything moving fast enough to be bothersome within its range. If it detected something like that, I stepped in. I took care of it with autocannon rounds that even a Force-Field Creature would struggle to withstand...
After repeating the process several times, both the others and I got used to it.
I'd become so used to tracking their movements through the net that sensing and judging things through it felt as natural as doing so with my own eyes.
After hunting all morning, we finished another meal the residents had prepared for us. I kept telling them not to, but they wouldn't stop. Then we headed up the mountain again.
As we walked, I reported what I'd found.
“There are nine Goblins in those bushes.”
Not a single Hunter looked tense. Then again, Goblins were nothing more than food for Deathclaws.
Except for Deathclaws, which had become an exception to the rules that came later because they were the first Monsters to emerge from a Gate, Monsters were generally named after fictional monsters famous in as many countries as possible. Calling one Anomalous Entity-183 might sound classy, but apparently even idiot Hunters had trouble remembering names like that, and they weren't easily understood across national borders either.
The Goblins that came out of Gates didn't really look like RPG Goblins. They just looked like hairless gray monkeys, but their standing was about the same as Goblins in an RPG.
They were intelligent enough to make fires, but that was it. They were smaller than people, so they weren't much of a threat. They were only beasts that had to be killed on sight. They were strong for their size and could attack children or women, and if we let them breed, even the Deathclaws that lived by eating them could multiply.
Click.
Naito-san loaded his shotgun.
“We'll handle this!”
He said it in the same tone someone might use to say they'd take out the food waste. I nodded without giving it much thought, and Naito-san headed toward where I'd pointed with a few Hunters.
Out of slight paranoid concern, I spread my mental net in case something happened, but that was all. Once they disappeared from sight, I quickly lost interest.
Then something happened.
I wasn't even closely monitoring whether the Goblin hunt was going well through the net when I detected something moving fiercely enough to tear through it.
A bullet fired from this side? No.
A bullet coming from the opposite direction.
The moment I sensed danger, every nerve in my body reacted. What was happening outside my field of vision was relayed to my brain in an instant.
As I grasped the outline through my mental net, I saw that one Goblin was holding a K2 assault rifle. A high-speed projectile had burst from its muzzle.
It was definitely a bullet.
What was in its path?
Naito-san. No question. He was a foreigner, and automatic firearms weren't available for him to use in Korea. It was obvious just from the shotgun he always carried.
But this wasn't the time to care whether it was Naito-san or anyone else. The instant I made my decision, I used Spatial Teleportation.
Into the space between the Goblin and Naito-san.
I thrust both arms forward as if blocking, and the flying bullet lodged right in my forearm.
Sound traveled slower than bullets, so the gunshot came afterward.
“Bang!”
Since no adrenaline had kicked in, I felt the pain in full, but I didn't need to do anything else. The Hunters beside me weren't idiots, so they each fired their weapons.
Several gunshots rang out, and every Goblin was left sprawled on the ground as a corpse.
The Hunters stared at me with wide eyes.
“Kim Geuk? How did you get here... No, I'm not asking because I don't know you used Spatial Teleportation, but how did you know what was happening...?”
Instead of answering, I groaned.
“Fuck.”
They seemed to understand the situation only after seeing blood running down my forearm. The Hunters around me started making a fuss.
“Fuck, what do we do? It's lodged in there!”
* * *
“So the moment you sensed that bastard Naito-san was in danger, you teleported over and took the bullet for him?”
I answered Seong Munyeong's question modestly.
“You don't need to hold back your praise for my self-sacrifice.”
“Praise my ass. What kind of crazy thing was that?!”
“I saved a life. How's that crazy?”
“Come on, if some huge guy suddenly teleported in front of you, wouldn't you panic and fire first instead of thinking, ‘Oh, he came to protect me in my moment of danger’?”
“Would they?”
“More importantly, the Goblin was aiming a gun. It was a situation where you had to shoot it as quickly as possible. Couldn't someone have been trying to shoot the Goblin and shot you instead?”
I scolded him, asking how I was supposed to make calculations like that in an emergency, but I thought about it.
It really had been dangerous.
Come to think of it, I could've been shot from either direction. And if I'd been shot in the back rather than somewhere like my arm, there was no telling what might've happened.
I was only injured in the arm because Naito-san, who had been behind me, hadn't fired at me.
No, thinking about it again, why hadn't he fired even in that situation?
Why didn't that bastard Naito-san shoot?
The Goblin had fired first, but Naito-san must've already spotted the deadly enemy in front of him by then. He should've fired right after that.
So why hadn't he?
Had that guy, who was always calm, frozen up when faced with death?
There was no way Naito-san had noticed my Spatial Teleportation and stopped himself from pulling the trigger. The Goblin's bullet had already been fired, and I'd inserted myself in between. Reacting to that was beyond human reflexes.
Unless you were a special case like me, or a special kind of awakened person...
I couldn't dwell on that thought for long.
“You shouldn't have taken a bullet for that guy in the first place. Why'd you save someone like him...”
Baek Dambi was pressing ice against my gunshot wound and, unusually for her, nagging me. It didn't feel bad to have someone worry about me like this.
No, it felt incredible.
It wasn't just because I was happy that a ring girl was taking care of me.
I was happy about the whole situation, the one where I'd saved Naito-san.
As expected, whether their contract fee was at an awakened person’s level or how skilled they were, non-awakened people needed awakened people to protect them. Otherwise, they'd just die helplessly.
I felt good because I'd proven that fact once again.
At the same time, I finally understood why I hated that bastard Naito-san so much.
It annoyed me that, despite being non-awakened, he acted as if he were such an excellent Hunter. His very existence destroyed my theory that non-awakened people were no help at all and should quietly offer praise from behind while awakened people defeated the Monsters. This time, I'd saved him, proving that theory again, so naturally I felt good.
Mm, that wasn't a reason I could tell anyone about...
“Kim Geuk got shot, so let's call it a day, right?”
I nodded at Im Hyeongtaek's words. Seong Munyeong and Lee Jongho then shouted, “We're done, we're done!” Normally, that would've been followed by enthusiastic cheers, but not today. Everyone just hovered awkwardly, watching my reaction.
This feeling of being the center of attention was thrilling.
Naturally, Naito-san awkwardly approached me and spoke.
“Um, I don't know how I can thank you. You've saved my life twice now. How could I possibly...?”
I was in such a good mood that I could smile at him.
“It's fine. We're both fighting with our lives on the line. If we can help each other, of course we should.”
“Still...”
“If you're that grateful, write a post praising me on Huntweb or something. I'll make a special exception and leave you a comment in a nice tone this time.”
Naito-san continued babbling his thanks for a while before finally stepping away.
A little later, something popped out of my forearm.
It rolled across the ground.
A bullet.
The bullet had been pushed out by my regenerated flesh. My eyes widened when I saw it.
It had originally been supposed to be removed at the hospital. My Super-Regeneration hadn't been this strong before. Just as the range of my Spatial Teleportation had increased, my regenerative ability seemed to have improved noticeably too.
“You really are a monster...”
I ended the day's hunt by punching Seong Munyeong once.
On the way home with the team, I regretted ending the hunt early. My wound had healed faster than expected. It felt like a waste to let the remaining time pass like this.
I could go to the academy and do strength training, but Teacher Yang, who needed to help me exercise, would be busy with something else at this hour. What should I do?
“Munyeong, have you ever thought about taking a part-time job?”
“What kind of part-time job? I've made a lot of money thanks to you lately. I don't need another job.”
“I'm the employer, and the pay's great. If you want to make more money, come with me, okay?”
I lured Seong Munyeong home and made him hold the K2 assault rifle I had.
Then I had him point its muzzle at me and gave him an order.
“Good. Shoot me with that.”
“Are you insane?”
“It's not like that. I'm training, idiot.”
“What kind of training?”
“I reacted to a fired bullet today, didn't I? Just because it came from the opposite direction, I sensed danger and even saved someone's life.”
“I get that you're amazing, so stop bragging...”
“So my nervous system reacted to the speed of a bullet. Do you have any idea how incredible that is? It's more impressive than hitting a 180-kilometer-per-hour knuckleball for a home run.”
“Now that you mention it, it is impressive, but so what...”
I explained that something so incredible couldn't end with just one time. I needed to be able to do it again in the future.
Rather than hoping for another lucky punch, I needed to train properly, and to train properly, I had to recreate a situation like the one earlier.
“Then use BB pellets...”
“Can BB pellets reach the speed of real bullets?”
“Even so, do I really need to shoot at you? Can't you react to me shooting another target instead?”
“Of course there's a reason. My brain seems to accelerate my nerves more when it recognizes that I'm in danger.”
“Then why are you making me do this?”
“You're a sociopath who hurts people with words all the time, so wouldn't you feel comfortable hurting someone with a bullet too?”
“The one hurting people with words right now is you...”
“Don't worry. I won't die.”
“They say that's the number-one thing people say right before they die...?”
After complaining for a long time, Seong Munyeong finally fired one shot at me.
As I felt the bullet leave the muzzle, tear fiercely across my spread mental net, and stimulate my nerves, I trembled with exhilaration. I could even faintly see its movement with my own eyes.
Over the past three months, I'd gradually found it easier to catch the movements of Deathclaws, movements that sometimes exceeded human dynamic visual acuity.
That wasn't simply because I'd grown accustomed to my enemies' movements. Even my nervous system had reached superhuman territory.
My guess was that because I'd consistently used Spatial Teleportation and the mental net, both of which stimulated my nervous system, it too was developing beyond human limits.
I'd heard that some awakened people with nerve-acceleration abilities could truly react and respond to bullets. At this rate, I might reach that realm too. No, I'd already responded to the speed of a bullet once, so from now on, even more...
Only then did the gunshot ring out.
“Bang!”
Seong Munyeong's voice followed, piercing my ears.
“Doesn't that hurt? Why are you smiling? Seriously, you're driving me crazy...”
Footnotes:
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