WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Arsène

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ How an A-Rank Hunter Lives ◈

Chapter 4: Academy Student Kim Geuk - [2]

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"You have to come tomorrow too. If you don't, I'll cry. Okay?"

As I was about to head home, the director personally came outside. He even pressed twenty thousand won into my hand for bus fare as he saw me off. At that point, it had gone beyond burdensome and become downright funny.

But as I thought about it on the way home, none of it particularly bothered me.

No, to be honest, I was excited. Why? Because I was getting special treatment just for being an awakened person?

That was right. I hadn't expected to be treated this well.

It wasn't that I hadn't known awakened people were treated like nobles, even gods, in the Hunter industry. The whole reason I'd planned to go abroad and work as a Hunter was because I knew I was perfectly suited for it.

Even though I'd known that intellectually, there was another reason this treatment felt so surprising.

I'd spent too long working for that damn human-rights organization. I'd lived my life seeing only pitiful awakened people.

When I worked for Korean Awakened Solidarity, a human-rights organization for awakened people, I often encountered "pitiful" awakened people.

Not all awakened people were the same. Some drew everyone's attention and envy, while others were treated like lepers in the old days.

The latter really did live miserable lives. Just for having awakened, they were named suspects in crimes, refused monthly rentals and jeonse leases, and even denied the chance to buy apartments despite having money. In the end, they had no choice but to live in special residential facilities. Those were the kinds of awakened people I mostly saw through Korean Awakened Solidarity.

The former, the awakened people who worked as Hunters and lived well like major league players?

People like me. Awakened people who'd clearly gained powerful, useful abilities.

After spending so much time working with pitiful awakened people, I must've started seeing every awakened person as an oppressed social underdog. I must've even identified myself with those poor bastards simply because I, too, was an awakened person.

My pride as an awakened person had sunk without me realizing it. Then I was treated like an honored guest today, and it made me feel smug.

Or maybe I'd finally realized the truth. Back when I was doing human-rights work that didn't suit me, even random people on the street looked down on me. Maybe today had filled that hole in my self-esteem.

Either way, it felt great. I was in a fantastic mood. Really.

* * *

Before going to the academy, I turned on my computer for a bit.

The site that student had recommended was Huntweb, right? Wondering if there was anything useful to get from it, I went to that damn site.

Ⓑ GoodHunter: Eased standards for obtaining Hunter licenses confirmed. Better brace yourselves for the industry going to shit once convicts start pouring in.

Ⓐ syberMagneto: Send every non-awakened person to the gas chambers. Upvote if you agree.

After getting a feel for the site's atmosphere, I quickly made an account.

Then I wrote a post, copying the way a certain group of users talked in a game I play.

BabyBerserker: Misters, I have a questionnn!

A new awakened guy came to our academy!

The academy misters are being super nice to him!

It looks like his tuition is totally free!

And when he doesn't know how to do something in class, not just the instructors but the other students kindly help him out too!

Is there a reason for that? Only non-awakened people go to the academy, so is it because they're fascinated by awakened people?

I was surprised by how many comments appeared every time I refreshed.

There were a shitload of users. Were there really this many Hunters in Korea?

Anonymous: This way of talking is giving me a headache...

Ⓐ syberMagneto: Is the new awakened person one of those iceheads? If so, they're probably being nice so they can bully him into leaving.

BabyBerserker: What's an icehead?

Ⓐ syberMagneto: An ice ability user.

I frowned for a moment. Even on the internet, my little sister was treated like an untouchable. Poor bitch.

BabyBerserker: Nooo! He has Body Enhancement and another cool ability too!!

Anonymous: Oh... That's A-rank. Buy him drinks or coffee sometimes and offer them up.

BabyBerserker: I don't have money T_T

Anonymous: Then kiss his ass once in a while. Anyway, if you're serious about being a Hunter, make sure you get on his good side.

BabyBerserker: Whyyy? What's so good about getting close to an awakened person?

MM: You die way less. You make way more money.

Several more comments tried to advise the cute newcomer. They basically said this.

1. Hunter teams with an awakened person earn dozens of times more than teams made up entirely of non-awakened people. Since an awakened person has the authority to choose the team's members, you need to get on their good side.

2. An awakened person at a Hunter academy is the academy's most important connection.

The academy contacts awakened people who once studied there and recommends that they recruit top students from the academy as teammates.

That way, awakened people can regularly acquire good team members, while the academy can place its students into hunter teams led by awakened people. Everyone benefits.

Anyway, the main point was that both Hunter academies and aspiring Hunters need to get close to awakened people. Now I understood the way the academy students had been treating me.

Overall, I was satisfied.

* * *

After that, my days as an academy student remained satisfying.

Who would've thought I'd wake up in the morning and actually look forward to going to the academy?

Several weeks had already passed since I started attending, but the academy students were still warm and friendly toward me. Even though I wasn't sociable at all, they always greeted me first or came over to talk.

They acted so friendly that I'd become genuinely close with a few of them. There were still plenty I wasn't close with, but not a single one went out of their way to piss me off. Yeah, wasn't that the perfect kind of relationship?

Of course, I hadn't come all the way to the academy just to make friends. I took part in every course the academy offered, learning how to deal with various Monsters and use military equipment.

Most importantly, I began training in earnest as an awakened person.

"Hello, Mr. Kim Geuk. Since we're both Body Enhancement users, let's get acquainted."

I vaguely remembered hearing that only another Body Enhancement user could help train a Body Enhancement user.

Ordinary people couldn't spot someone while a Body Enhancement user bench-pressed, either. They couldn't handle the weight of the equipment Body Enhancement users worked with.

There was one awakened person among the instructors. He was a Body Enhancement user, and I could tell just from looking at his physique.

"My name's Yang Taeja. Sounds really old-fashioned, right? I don't like it much either, so just call me Coach Yang."

"Yes, Coach Yang."

"You might feel a little burdened since I'm acting friendly already, but put up with it. We need to get close quickly. From what I can see, I'll probably be your personal trainer until you stop attending the academy."

"Personal trainer?"

"Thanks to you, my salary went up!"

Yang Taeja gave a quiet laugh and told me to lift some dumbbells, so I did.

I held one dumbbell in each hand. Five hundred kilograms was extremely light, and even one ton felt light. Yang Taeja watched and let out an impressed sound.

"Wow, you must've kept working out after awakening. Then again, you said you used to be a UFC fighter."

Yang Taeja said this would easily get me rated A-rank in the Hunter assessment for awakened people. As long as I didn't suffer any serious injuries before the test, I'd be fine.

Then I cut in.

"It's okay if I get injured. I have Super-Regeneration."

"Seriously?"

"Yeah. It's not like Wolverine in the movies, where a severed body part instantly grows back, but injuries that would take months to fully recover from after surgery heal naturally in a day. Any injury I get while working out will heal after a night's sleep."

"Fuck. Then again, not every Body Enhancement user is the same, huh? I don't have an ability like that. The world's seriously unfair."

After that, I did bench presses under Yang Taeja's guidance. It was far more efficient than exercising alone. Since someone was spotting me from behind, I could lift barbells that I normally wouldn't touch for fear of getting crushed beneath them.

I felt completely satisfied after properly working out for the first time in ages. In the afternoon, I went to the shooting range and fired a gun too.

It was the Hunter Rifle an instructor had said they would borrow, and when I saw it in person, it clearly wasn't something an ordinary person could carry and fire.

I blankly stared at a gun that looked heavier than an elementary school kid.

"This is a Hunter Rifle?"

Yang Taeja apparently had experience using this weapon as a Body Enhancement user. He demonstrated how to replace the magazine and load it as he explained.

"Yep. It's fucking huge and fat, right? That's because it's a heavy weapon modified so it can be used like an assault rifle. Military gear nerds hate it because it's ugly as hell, but that's not important... Anyway, only Body Enhancement users and force-field exoskeleton users can use it. Go on, give it a shot!"

"I'm not hitting very well."

"Because the recoil's strong. Now you need to control your breathing and fire properly. Ammo's expensive, so don't go blasting away too much... This time, try Point Shooting too... Wow. You missed spectacularly. You'll need a lot of practice."

On the way back to the academy from the shooting range, Yang Taeja suddenly made an unexpected request.

"Isn't walking back annoying? How about getting there in one go with Spatial Teleportation?"

"You want us to go to the academy together with Spatial Teleportation?"

"Yeah. Is it too far? It's only three hundred meters."

"I can do it if I have to, but I usually don't use it. Teleportation, I mean."

"Come on! Last time, you said you could take someone else with you if you held onto them. Don't tell me you don't want to hold hands with me?"

"I'm not showing off. I really don't use it much. But since you asked, I'll try it once."

I grabbed Yang Taeja by the shoulder and concentrated.

At the same time, an imaginary mesh spread out in every direction. It was a dense, orderly mesh that only I could perceive.

The mesh extended to the maximum radius of my teleportation, 360 meters, completely covering the area.

The world covered by it was divided into sections like a chessboard. Information about those sections was delivered three-dimensionally into my brain.

I examined the three-dimensional map forming in my mind.

Fuck... My head hurts.

Whenever the mesh detected things like pigeons or people, a throbbing pain shot through my head. I tried to endure the headache and find the academy's location as quickly as possible, but it wasn't easy.

It felt like trying to move a map and click on a specific object with a game controller that had shitty controls...

"Oh!"

An exclamation rang out as the scenery around us changed.

I'd succeeded in teleporting.

Footnotes:

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