WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Arsène

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ How an A-Rank Hunter Lives ◈

Chapter 53: Baron of Gyeyang-gu Kim Seok-hee - [4]

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The next day and the day after that, we climbed Gyeyang Mountain and kept hunting.

Then something apparently happened while everyone was heading home.

I had just arrived home and was washing up when I got a call. It was from an unknown number, but I had a bad feeling about it, so I answered right away.

“Is this Kim Geuk?”

A deliberately lowered voice came through the phone.

“Who is this?”

“Your friend from last time. What was this old man's name again... Im Hyeongtaek? Anyway, we've got one of your old lackeys with us.”

I bit my lip. So something had finally happened.

The voice I did not want to hear kept talking through the receiver.

“You're coming to get him, right? Come alone. Bring anyone else, and this old man dies.”

After threatening me, he gave me the location. I headed there immediately.

When I arrived at the meeting place, I glared.

Im Hyeongtaek's already thinning hair had been pulled out even more. He looked miserable and pitiful. His clothes were torn all over, and blood streamed from his injured face like a creek.

The punk gripping Im Hyeongtaek's hair spoke.

“You came?”

It was the guy I had seen last time. The Body Enhancement user who had blocked the road, the one I had teleported somewhere else.

The same guy who had lowered his eyes before me last time now spoke with remarkable confidence.

“I felt pretty bad about what happened last time. So I came for revenge.”

“Let go of his hair before you talk, you bastard.”

“Should I?”

He let go of Im Hyeongtaek's hair, then kicked him as he staggered free.

Im Hyeongtaek flew back, collapsed on the ground, and trembled.

At the sight, my eyes blazed. Veins bulged in the arm holding my clenched fist. My body temperature rose until the heat was hard to bear, and the urge to rush forward and throw a punch consumed my mind.

I wanted to kill that bastard. Right now.

But despite the misunderstanding people had after I gave such an impressive interview, I did not have anger-management issues.

Even when I beat up the school discipline teacher and the training-camp instructor, rage had not overwhelmed me and paralyzed my reason.

Back then, I had simply remembered what I had learned at home. The law was far away, fists were close, and violence was the surest way to resolve an unpleasant situation.

I acted according to that experience, used violence, and spent several years in prison.

Since the outcome had been so bad, I learned that living according to my temper would only waste my life...

So had I turned over a new leaf, as Seong Munyeong asked?

Well, I did not know.

Still, I knew one thing. Childhood experiences lasted a long time. And the childhood experience where all my suffering disappeared after I beat my parents still remained clearly within me.

Even as my anger refused to fade, I thought quickly.

Why had this guy come here?

Obviously, Kim Seokhee had sent him.

But why send someone who had already proven weaker than me?

I could not believe his bullshit about coming for revenge.

He knew he was weaker than me. With this much of a gap between us, he had to know he stood no chance in a fight. So why?

Kim Seokhee had sent him here to get the shit beaten out of him.

If I beat him up and broke an arm or leg, he would run to the police. Then he would turn it around and file a complaint against me for assault.

He would get arrested for assaulting Im Hyeongtaek too, but he would accept that much. Unlike himself, who had little to lose, I was a famous Hunter working openly and legally. The damage I would suffer would be greater. He would hope this could stop the hunting in Gyeyang-gu.

In other words, Kim Seokhee wanted me to get swept up in rage and beat this guy senseless. Looking at my assault record and interview, anyone would think I had a short temper. It was not hard to guess that he had made this petty plan based on that assumption.

On the other hand, the situation Kim Seokhee did not want was for me to act like a model citizen even now.

Like those Nazi bastards who reported their Jewish neighbors and sent them to gas chambers because the government told them to, I could uphold the law, subdue this guy without hurting him too badly, report him to the police, then continue hunting. That was what Kim Seokhee did not want.

I knew he was even more anxious than I was. This situation had already made the news, after all. He had to be scared shitless by now.

And I knew of another outcome I could choose, one Kim Seokhee would find unbearable.

That was...

“Aren't you coming? Getting scared?”

He provoked me, and I rushed at him.

He took a boxing stance, but it was not worth paying attention to. It was nothing more than a featherweight amateur trying to resist an openweight champion.

Of course, he knew that too. The instant my arm shot forward, I saw fear flicker across his face. I felt his arm trembling in my grip.

That confirmed it again. This guy had come here to let me beat him up.

Without any difficulty, I slammed him onto the ground.

“Urgh-”

When I stomped on his back, Im Hyeongtaek's voice reached my ears.

“Don't!”

“Yes?”

He seemed to be in too much pain to speak properly, but Im Hyeongtaek still opened his mouth wide and shouted.

“Don't do any more! Don't hit that bastard! You've subdued him, so be satisfied with that, okay?”

“Sir.”

“I'll say it again, don't hit him. It would be one thing if the others got hurt, but you can't lose your head because I got hurt! That's what that cowardly bastard Kim Seokhee wants. This guy might have nothing to lose, but you have a lot to lose, Kim Geuk. Okay?”

This old man had been thinking the exact same thing I had. As if what had happened to him did not matter at all, Im Hyeongtaek kept talking.

“You'll take him to the police station now, right? You have to do that. I know they'll let him out after a day even if they put him in a holding cell, but you still have to do it. You have to follow the law, follow the proper procedure, so there will not be any problems. You know that, right?”

He seemed worried I would get angry and beat this guy senseless.

I felt bad saying this while Im Hyeongtaek was passionately trying to convince me, but I definitely did not have anger-management issues.

Even now, while I was angry, I was thinking about this.

Why had they specifically taken Im Hyeongtaek?

Why had they taken this shabby old man instead of Baek Dambi?

From the perspective of a third party who did not know us well, the person in my hunter team whose abduction and mistreatment would make me angriest would not be this old man. It would be my round girl.

I had defended her several times on Huntweb. There were even rumors on Huntweb that Baek Dambi and I were dating.

So why had they kidnapped Im Hyeongtaek instead of Baek Dambi, the person whose kidnapping should have made me angriest?

And even though that Body Enhancement user had just kicked him, how was this old man still alive and healthy enough to talk this much? That guy must have held back. No doubt about it.

They must have worried I would get too angry.

Kim Seokhee wanted me angry, but he would not have wanted me to completely lose my mind.

He would not have wanted me to get so furious that I went beyond beating this guy up and did something worse.

And if I acted while completely out of my mind, would I really be able to continue this life as a Hunter?

Could I avoid losing everything I had now...?

I closed my eyes and organized my thoughts for a moment. Then I reached my conclusion.

When I opened my eyes, Im Hyeongtaek was looking at me with trembling eyes. I smiled and told him.

“It's okay. You can relax.”

“Really? I can trust you, right? I'm telling you again, I'm fine. I can walk, so you don't need to get so angry, okay?”

I smiled at him once more, then closed and opened my eyes.

That was how I used Spatial Teleportation.

* * *

My vision changed, revealing a place I had never seen before.

It was a slum in Gyeyang-gu where people had fled because Monsters swarmed there. Yet people still lived there.

First, there were the gang members...

I saw the members of the organization led by Kim Seokhee, the Marquess of Gyeyang-gu. They saw me too. Recognizing me, they panicked.

“Uh, Kim Geuk!”

They immediately scattered in every direction. Every one of them grabbed a smartphone and started calling someone. I let them.

I looked around further.

I had come to the right place. It was definitely the gang's base, the place I had heard about.

Besides the frightened gang members, I also saw the vagrants they kept around.

Times were hard, so vagrants with no money or means of surviving lived under Kim Seokhee's gang's protection.

They handled the gang's tobacco farming and, protected by the gang from the Monsters swarming this area, managed to stay alive.

In other words, those ordinary people lived here like the sheep of Soweol. Kim Seokhee had not called himself this place's lord for nothing.

Even now, I found that appealing.

“You fucking bastard! Why are you-”

Before long, gang members gathered around me. They surrounded me, and I greeted them while still stomping on the Body Enhancement user.

“Hello.”

As I said that, I pressed down harder with the foot on him. The guy who had been struggling to get free groaned.

“This bastard is your friend, right?”

The gang members glared at me, but their eyes were full of confusion. They had not expected me to storm right into their base without the slightest hesitation.

I continued.

“From now on, I'm going to stomp hard on this bastard's spine. Just like I did to the school discipline teacher and that instructor when I was younger, I'm thinking of turning him into a cripple...”

I put even more pressure on him, and his groaning stopped. Without smiling or getting angry, I looked down at him. Only when I saw foam spilling from his mouth did I feel satisfied.

“He's a Body Enhancement user with Super-Regeneration, right? Did he get cocky because he trusted that? I hear Super-Regeneration has its limits. Let's see if it can regenerate a crushed spinal cord.”

I raised my head and looked at everyone gathered there. Were any of their leaders awakened people? Thinking there probably were, I spoke.

“So, who has a Hunter Rifle?”

“Get your foot off that bastard right now, you piece of shit! Or else-”

One of them shouted, but I decided not to care. I just kept saying what I had to say.

“Bring it here. You know nothing else can even scratch me, right? I do not know about the others, but Kim Seokhee? He's a former Hunter, so he must have a Hunter Rifle. Tell that bastard to hurry over too.”

At my words, they seemed to start making calls. At the same time, several of them charged at me.

They came at me confidently. Were they awakened people? Body Enhancement users? Or force-field exoskeleton users?

It did not matter. I knew none of them could handle me. I also knew it would be fine if I beat every one of them up.

“You fuck-”

The first guy to rush in swung an axe, but I did not care how strong he was. He was so slow I did not even think he was worth using Spatial Teleportation to dodge.

My lightly thrown fist struck his jaw, and he fell.

Then, the moment I sensed someone pull a trigger, I finally used Spatial Teleportation.

That was how the fight began. Those guys would understand it as a very serious situation, the natural consequences of criminals provoking a powerful Hunter.

But that was not it. I still liked how they disregarded public authority. Their way of ruling was worthy of Soweol people, and even now, while I was furious at their lord Kim Seokhee, I could gladly praise him.

And I had come to take this lord's territory from him.

As an awakened person like him, I had the right to do that.

Footnotes:

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