WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Arsène
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ How an A-Rank Hunter Lives ◈
Chapter 50: Baron of Gyeyang-gu Kim Seok-hee - [1]
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I still keep having that dream these days. It is the same tiresome dream that always ends in a nuclear explosion.
Recently, one part of that dream has become clearer.
The part where I travel through Sword World.
In the dream, I wander Soweol and spend time with the awakened monarchs I meet there. I watch how they care for their sheep and rule over them.
Of course, dream details vanish in an instant, so I cannot remember exactly what I saw and heard.
Still, there is one thing I remember clearly.
I was deeply impressed by the lives and ways of the awakened monarchs there...
I do not know why. Was it because my conversation with the awakened person Usori last time had left such an impression on me? Or because the version of me in that hallucination had spent a long time in Soweol after crossing a Gate to save Baek Dambi?
Or was it really because the rulers of Soweol governed far better than Earth's rulers?
* * *
Before boarding the official vehicle, I spoke to my fan holding a camera.
“Don't shove that camera in other hunters' faces and bother them. Don't make people move out of your way to take photos, like TV stations controlling pedestrians while they film and causing trouble. And don't get in the way during a hunt.”
My fan, who had previously uploaded footage of my hunts to YouTube, wanted to come along and film this hunt too. He answered loudly.
“Understood!”
“See that cameraman following Naito around? Just act exactly like that guy. Then no one will curse at you.”
My fan nodded wildly. I gave him a thumbs-up and grinned.
Then I got into the official vehicle carrying my hunter teams.
The vehicle set off.
As we drove, Seong Munyeong kept glancing at my fan fiddling with his camera in the back and muttered.
“That guy's fucking annoying. He keeps following us... Isn't he acting like that because you keep indulging him and he doesn't know when to stop?”
“What are you unhappy about now?”
“Even if he follows us and films stuff, only his YouTube income goes up. We have no reason to accommodate him, right? But he keeps being a pain in the ass... Last time, he kept asking you to explain things while you were resting. Then after we killed a few Deathclaws, he kept asking you to strike a pose. Wasn't that annoying?”
I did not bother telling him that I was happy enough just knowing footage of my exploits was being recorded, so I could gladly put up with that much annoyance.
I simply answered like a gentleman.
“He doesn't bother anyone except me, so what's the problem?”
“What if he isn't really your fan and is only doing it for YouTube money?”
“Then he's doing it to make a living. Let him be.”
When I said that firmly, Seong Munyeong continued grumbling.
“Seriously, you're way too easygoing. Come to think of it, isn't that weird?”
“What's weird about it?”
“Didn't you act like you had anger-management problems in your old interview? You said you beat up the school discipline teacher and a training camp instructor and left them disabled.”
“I did. So what?”
“You gave that kind of interview, but you seem really patient. What's with that? You seem to have a better personality than me now.”
I was about to snap that no one could possibly have a worse personality than him, but stopped. It was too sensitive a question to brush aside with irritation.
After choosing my words for a moment, I answered.
“Back then, I thought acting like that was cool.”
“You mean not holding back when you're angry and just beating people up?”
“Yeah. I thought holding it in made you pathetic. I thought you had to beat someone up yourself to solve the problem properly.”
“But you've turned over a new leaf now?”
“No, there's just nobody left who picks fights with me. So I don't have to throw punches anymore.”
“Then if something makes you angry again, are you going to beat someone up and go to prison like before?”
“Well...?”
My evasive answer seemed to make Im Hyeongtaek uneasy. Im Hyeongtaek, who loved acting like an adult, cut in.
“Not ‘well’! You absolutely have to control your temper even when you're angry! How many people are counting on you now?”
After that sharp rebuke, Im Hyeongtaek started lecturing me. He went on about how countless people's lives and hopes, including his own, rested on the shoulders of Kim Geuk, Incheon's protector. Then he talked about how disappointed those people would be if I caused trouble and ended up in prison.
Im Hyeongtaek never missed a chance to flatter me, even now. He slipped praise into his lecture so I'd enjoy hearing it, and I was listening quite pleasantly when the vehicle carrying the hunters ahead of us stopped.
The vehicles behind it stopped one after another.
The official vehicle I was in stopped too, so I got out.
“Is something wrong?”
When I asked, one hunter answered.
“Some guys are blocking the road. They've occupied it and won't move aside.”
I looked ahead.
Just as the hunter had said, a group had occupied the road and blocked the path our hunters needed to take. Every one of them looked like a thug.
I could roughly guess who they were.
Seong Munyeong got out behind me and muttered.
“Those guys, they're probably from that group, right? The lackeys of that Baron of Gyeyang-gu guy.”
I nodded.
It was not particularly surprising. I had expected them to show up.
Seok Jangsil, a hunter active in Seoul whose Huntweb username was Stonehead Youth, had sent me a private message to warn me.
There was an awakened-person gang in Gyeyang-gu, and Kim Seokhee, the gang boss there, did not seem happy that I was coming. Apparently, he wanted to drive me out because he did not want me setting foot in his territory.
What had the reason been again? Gyeyang-gu had long since been abandoned because it was crawling with Monsters. Despite its excellent transportation, its residential areas had turned into slums. Kim Seokhee's gang had settled there by exploiting the resulting vacuum in public authority, and they wanted Gyeyang-gu to remain an empty slum.
If residents returned to Gyeyang-gu because of the Incheon Recovery Project I was leading, the police would return too. The area would also draw the attention of other public authorities, making it troublesome for him to keep playing lord in Gyeyang-gu as he had until now.
That was why Kim Seokhee's gang seemed intent on stopping me from hunting in Gyeyang-gu.
Naturally, I did not hear that and agonize over solving it alone. I immediately called Park Mihyeong, and she contacted the mayor, the police commissioner, and others, demanding they take action.
That was why police officers were accompanying the hunters on this operation. I expected I would not need to step in and throw punches during this confrontation.
Rather than us hunters, who could run into legal trouble if a fight broke out, the police could handle everything themselves.
But my expectation was wrong.
Completely wrong.
“Officers?”
It looked like the gang members had shown up, so I demanded that the police who had come with us deal with them. Yet the police hesitated instead of acting immediately.
“What are you all standing around for?”
Only after I pressed them did the police approach the gang members blocking the road.
Watching them, though, it was hard to tell whether they were trying to make those punks leave or bowing and scraping before their masters.
Even an elderly apartment security guard chasing away street vendors would have shown more spirit than that.
In the end, the police exchanged a few words with the gang members and returned to where the hunters stood.
The gang members were still blocking the road, so I stared at the police in disbelief.
“Aren't you going to clear those guys off the road?”
A police officer trailed off in response.
“That would be difficult...”
“Is that bastard the son of a member of the National Assembly or something? Are you afraid of touching him because it'll cause some kind of trouble?”
“He's scarier than the son of a member of the National Assembly. That bastard's a Body Enhancement user.”
The police officer pointed to one of the gang members blocking the road, but I frowned, unable to understand.
“You all brought guns, didn't you? Just point them at him and tell him to get the hell out of here.”
“Do you think bullets would pierce a Body Enhancement user's muscles?”
“It depends on the Body Enhancement user, but they usually would, wouldn't they?”
The police officer looked like he wanted to argue that mere bullets would not pierce a Body Enhancement user, but then shut his mouth. I was a Body Enhancement user myself, so I probably knew better.
Of course, nothing changed just because I had won the argument. The gang members still blocked the road while the police backed off and watched.
It was frustrating. Why were these people acting like this?
I had no choice. As I stepped forward, I quietly asked Baek Dambi.
“Which one of them is an awakened person?”
Baek Dambi closed and opened her eyes, then answered.
“The one on the far left.”
I looked at the man Baek Dambi had pointed out. He was a Body Enhancement user?
He did not look like one at first glance. I had bulked up as much as possible, even sacrificing flexibility, while he had a sleek build like a leopard.
He looked about 175 centimeters tall, several weight classes below me at a glance. Still, I could not let my guard down. It did not matter that he had probably never worked as a hunter and therefore had never improved his ability by killing Monsters.
Kang Jun-chi had already been S-rank the moment he awakened. The strength of awakened people varied wildly from the very beginning, so even if this guy looked weak, it would not be strange if he was strong enough to knock me down with a single blow.
Without letting my guard down, I put down the Hunter Rifle, which would be useless in this situation anyway, and approached the gang members empty-handed.
“Ah, this bastard's Kim Geuk!”
The gang members who recognized me grinned. Their expressions made it obvious they had come looking for a fight, and I felt the urge to drive my fist into their faces.
Still, I could not just start throwing punches, so I stared at them in silence.
“Did you come for a staring contest?”
One of them provoked me, so I answered.
“Are you doing this because you want an actual wrestling match instead?”
“No? You stink, so I don't even want to touch you, you bastard!”
The gang members snickered again, as though something was funny.
As I held back my anger, I figured out what they were after.
It was obvious. They were trying to provoke me. If I threw a punch, they might immediately claim their bones were broken and complain to the police watching from behind.
Understanding the situation did not make me any less angry, so I was taking deep breaths when the guy Baek Dambi had identified as an awakened person approached me.
The Body Enhancement user poked my chest several times and spoke.
“Buddy. Looking at your body, you seem like a bodybuilder.”
“Yeah. Thanks for the compliment.”
“That wasn't a compliment, idiot.”
The gang members snickered again.
The Body Enhancement user said, “Don't those bodybuilder idiots strut around thinking they're strong, then get hit once by a boxer and go straight to the afterlife? You fucking bastard, have you ever even done combat sports in your life?”
That provocation did not make me angry because it was more absurd than anything. My UFC career would come up if he searched my name on Naver. Did this guy not have a computer or smartphone at home?
I was still thinking when he abruptly threw a punch.
An uppercut aimed at my chin.
He must have thought it was a lightning-fast surprise attack. The fist cutting through the air was actually very fast.
But compared to the speed of bullets or leaping Deathclaws, it was nothing special. Since I could react to both, it would have been difficult for me to miss that punch.
Calmly but quickly, I brought my left hand beneath my jaw to protect it.
The next moment, his fist stopped, caught in my palm.
My hand held his fist in place.
The snickering among the gang members stopped.
The expression of the Body Enhancement user who had punched me stiffened as well. He strained to pull his fist back, but it could not escape my hand.
Mm, that settled the question of who was stronger. There was no surprise reversal. I was strong, and he was weak.
Once I knew that, I could assess the situation calmly. It would get troublesome if I kicked this guy's shin and broke it, right?
With the police watching from behind, I did not need to use direct violence.
“Are you not going to let go, you bastard? Right now...”
Still holding him, I used Spatial Teleportation.
We moved to a room in an abandoned building about 2.3 kilometers away, where everyone had left. The Body Enhancement user caught in my hand came along with me.
His surroundings had suddenly changed, but perhaps he was mentally and physically superior as befitted an awakened person. He tried to punch me again with his free hand. When that fist was also blocked by my right hand, he growled.
“If you don't let go in five seconds, I'll smash your mom's head and kill her.”
Since he was a gang member, should I take that as a threat against my family?
Of course, it was not very threatening.
“After you kill my mom, give me her bones. I'll cremate them properly and flush the ashes down the toilet.”
My joke at my own mother's expense threw him off. He opened and closed his mouth, trying to say something, then shut it.
More than ten seconds passed like that, but he still could not pull free from my hand.
Finally, I let him go myself and smiled.
“Five seconds passed, right? I trust you'll send my mom's bones cash on delivery.”
“You fucking lunatic...”
“But, buddy, is it really okay to talk that harshly? There's only the two of us here.”
I held his gaze for a moment as I said that. This was obviously a place with no witnesses or CCTV, so perhaps it would be fine to smash his head instead of my mother's. I conveyed that thought with my gaze.
Fortunately, he understood what I meant and shut his mouth. I was satisfied.
Smiling, I patted his shoulder, then used Spatial Teleportation.
I left him far away and returned alone to where I had been.
The police were still just watching. I walked over to the pathetic bunch and spoke.
“I got rid of the Body Enhancement user. You officers can clear away the scraps that are left now, right?”
Fortunately, the police did not refuse even that. I watched them shove the remaining gang members off the road and sighed.
Why did I have to practically beg them to do their job?
* * *
Footnotes:
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