WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Arsène

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◈ How an A-Rank Hunter Lives ◈

Chapter 42: Non-Awakened Person Jeong Jinyeong - [1]

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Jeong Jinyeong looked at Kim Geuk, who was sitting across from him. That awakened person from the UFC was about two heads taller than him, and so broad that comparing their builds would have been embarrassing.

He had already been working with that man for over half a year. He no longer shrank back just from seeing him, but it was still hard to act naturally around him.

He was thirty-four, older than Kim Geuk, but that did not mean he could treat him confidently. He had been a shut-in before the Gates opened. How could he dare...?

"How have things been lately? Manageable?"

Jeong Jinyeong trailed off at Kim Geuk's question.

"Yeah, well..."

Kim Geuk frowned, and that alone made Jeong Jinyeong feel as if his heart had shriveled up.

"From the way you're talking, it doesn't sound fine at all. Is there a problem? Did that punk Seong Munyeong pick a fight with you or something? That bastard gets under my skin too, always saying shit that puts me in a bad mood..."

"No, no. Everything's great. Really."

He said it in a rush, but surprisingly, it was not an empty answer.

Jeong Jinyeong genuinely liked the hunter team he belonged to now.

First of all, the money was good. Working with Kim Geuk, Jeong Jinyeong had earned an enormous sum he had never imagined making in his life.

Only a few years ago, his parents had looked miserable because they had to support their unemployed son and feared their retirement savings would dry up. Now, thanks to the money he earned, they could survive. That fact filled Jeong Jinyeong with both pride and a twisted sense of victory.

He liked his teammates too.

Just having Baek Dambi on the team was a great comfort. He had worried that even if he managed to join a hunter team, he would be the only person who was bad at conversation and end up isolated. Yet this team had Baek Dambi, who spoke as little as he did, and that reassured him immensely. Having two quiet people on the team was less awkward than having just one.

Im Hyeongtaek was such a good person that Jeong Jinyeong never had to watch his mood, which was another comfort. Seong Munyeong and Lee Jongho annoyed him by treating him like an easy target and teasing him, but he could put up with that much.

If he had worked on another hunter team, there probably would have been people so much worse that those two would seem cute by comparison. From what he had seen of other hunter teams, were they not full of real thugs?

Most of all, the Body Enhancement user sitting before him, whom he had assumed would be the most dangerous kind of thug, was a far better person than expected.

"If anything's hard, tell me whenever you want. I know it can be hard to say things like that because you're worried about how it'll look, but still, make sure you tell me."

"Yeah..."

"And if you ever feel like it's time to retire, tell me that too. I'll need to prepare your severance pay in advance."

Jeong Jinyeong's eyes widened.

"You're going to give us severance pay? Why...?"

"Ah, I'm not trying to indirectly tell you to leave the team!"

"That's not it. If you gave us severance pay, it seems like you'd have to pay it out of your own pocket. I don't understand that. Strictly speaking, we're not even people you hired. Do you really need to spend that money...?"

Kim Geuk sighed at Jeong Jinyeong's question.

"One person on the team died, and it got me thinking about all sorts of things. I gave Jinjun's family more condolence money than people normally would, but what good was that to the person who died? Someone dies without getting to enjoy all the money they earned, and it just feels awful.

"Besides, things have been getting more dangerous lately, haven't they? Because of that damn Behemoth. It looks like things will stay dangerous for a while, so if someone's earned enough before it gets even worse, I think retiring would be a good idea."

"That's true. When I hear other hunters talk, they say you should retire once you've made a decent amount of money. If you keep forcing yourself to work, you'll die someday..."

"Right? So I thought it might be good if I gave severance pay, so anyone on our team who decides to retire can do it immediately. It might even cost less than paying condolence money..."

Jeong Jinyeong blinked. Judging only by his appearance, Kim Geuk looked like the sort of man who would throw him into a factory and take half his pay. Yet he was offering to pay condolence money and severance pay that he did not need to pay at all.

When they had first met, or rather, when he had only seen Kim Geuk's appearance, he would never have expected him to be this good a person.

More precisely, he had not expected Kim Geuk to care this much about the people around him.

The academy director seemed to feel much the same way. Jeong Jinyeong vaguely remembered hearing the director say that he had worried Kim Geuk would cut ties with the academy after making his hunter debut. Yet even after debuting, Kim Geuk kept promoting the academy and deliberately attended the academy gym far from his home, making a point of displaying his connection to the academy. The director had said he was grateful beyond words.

"So, do you feel like retiring anytime soon?"

Jeong Jinyeong immediately shook his head.

"No."

"Really? Haven't you made quite a bit of money?"

"Still..."

"Well, aside from rice and ramen, the price of everything is rising by the minute, so having a few extra zeroes in your account probably doesn't make you feel secure. You said the apartment you live in with your parents is a rental, right? Seoul apartments are too expensive, but I think you could buy a good apartment in Incheon. Buy one before prices rise any more."

It was not particularly surprising advice, but Jeong Jinyeong blinked at those words.

Something swelled in his chest. What was this feeling supposed to be called? Moved? Overwhelmed?

Whatever it was, it did not feel bad. No, to put it crudely, it felt fantastic. Far more than when Kim Geuk said he would give them severance pay.

He even remembered that the apartment Jeong Jinyeong lived in with his parents was a rental? Jeong Jinyeong could not even remember when he had told him that.

Even his parents never remembered what he said. On his birthday, they would grill yellow croaker even though he had clearly told them he did not like it, then proudly say, "You like this, right?" Kim Geuk seemed to listen to him better than his parents did...

"Anyway, you worked hard today, and since you're going to keep at it, let's keep fighting. Long live Incheon."

"Yeah, long live Incheon...!"

Kim Geuk patted Jeong Jinyeong on the shoulder and told him to get going. Jeong Jinyeong bowed, then headed home.

As he walked, he reflected on the conversation they had just had.

Really, filming that fight with the Rock Elemental might have been the best thing he had ever done in his life. If he had not filmed it then, he would never have dared ask Kim Geuk to let him join the team. If he had not, he would not be this happy now...

Once home, he logged onto Huntweb.

Jeong Jinyeong's account had a certain presence on Huntweb. People knew he was the porter on Kim Geuk's famous team.

5myJesus: Another fulfilling day. Holy shit. Kim Geuk has deployed four days in a row now, and is it for real that nobody on the team got hurt?

As usual, he made a post praising Kim Geuk, partly to express his respect and partly to show off that he was a member of Kim Geuk's team. A comment appeared immediately.

Ⓐ syberMagneto: You're the porter on Kim Geuk's team, right? What's that icehead there like lately? When it's just the men, do you talk shit about that bitch behind her back?

As a fellow quiet person on the team, he could not bring himself to say anything bad about her.

5myJesus: I think you mean Baek Dambi, but not at all... She's the second most active person on the team after Kim Geuk.

Ⓐ syberMagneto: Good. You're not lying, right?

5myJesus: Not lying at all. In the past, I wouldn't have wanted an ice ability even if someone gave me one, but seeing Dambi makes me think ice abilities are pretty good too. So I'm thinking about dressing lightly on purpose this winter and trying to awaken an ice ability.

Ⓐ syberMagneto: ?

5myJesus: They say feeling cold is the awakening trigger for ice abilities. I'm going to try awakening one by really feeling the cold. Even if ice abilities aren't as good as other abilities, they seem way better than not awakening at all.

Ⓐ syberMagneto: It's admirable that an inferior non-awakened person has realized the superiority of awakened people, but don't ever do anything that weird. It'll get too hard to find a place to live...

He had not been joking when he said he wanted to awaken, even if it was only an ice ability.

After taking part in hunts for the last half year, Jeong Jinyeong had realized that awakened people did not receive huge amounts of money for no reason.

Really, everyone on the team besides its two awakened people was nothing but a porter. Even Jang Byeonggon, supposedly a veteran, had so little presence compared to the team's two awakened people that he could not act smug at all.

He thought of Kim Geuk and Baek Dambi. Just looking at them, they seemed far more special than other people.

How nice would it be if he could awaken like them? If that happened, could he, who had been nothing more than a shut-in in his thirties until recently, become special like them?

Kim Geuk seemed exceptional even among awakened people, so becoming like him would be difficult even if he awakened. Still, he would surely become far superior to the likes of Lee Jongho or Seong Munyeong. Maybe even to the veteran Jang Byeonggon...

He had actually been quite interested in awakened people for a long time. That was why he had occasionally glanced at Kim Geuk while attending the academy. Seeing an awakened person he had only seen online in real life had been fascinating and enviable.

'It seems there are still people newly awakening these days. Maybe I could too...'

On a whim, he searched online for "how to awaken" and read through the results.

Ice ability users awaken when they feel cold. The condition was absurdly easy, and because Korea happened to be in winter when the Gates opened, there were an unusually high number of ice ability users in the country.

Flame ability users awaken when their whole body is engulfed in fire and they experience the sensation of burning. It sounded similar to the condition for ice abilities, but it was far more difficult. If someone jumped into a fire on purpose to meet the condition, they were much more likely to burn to death before awakening.

Body Enhancement users awaken while training their bodies or studying martial arts. Since his body was still the same no matter how much he worked out at the gym, he thought he should give up on that.

People awakened to the force-field blades ability while swinging swords, which was why there were supposedly many places teaching kendo with real swords these days. Maybe he should enroll in a kendo dojo someday.

Then there were force-field exoskeleton users...

Jeong Jinyeong thought he might actually have a chance of awakening this ability. They said the awakening trigger was feeling pressure and stress, and he was confident in his ability to feel pressure and stress.

Still, he had heard that meeting the trigger alone was not enough to awaken. Aptitude was far more important.

That was why not just anyone could awaken by continually meeting the conditions. Korea was full of people who felt pressure and stress, yet only a tiny handful had awakened that powerful force-field exoskeleton ability...

He was imagining himself awakened when his smartphone rang.

Jeong Jinyeong immediately checked it. It was a hunter mobilization alert. Another Gate had opened.

It also said the Gate appeared to be large-scale and requested that as many hunters as possible deploy.

There was no way Kim Geuk would stay still in a situation like this. Jeong Jinyeong immediately shut off his computer, grabbed his rifle and ammunition, and prepared to deploy.

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Footnotes:

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