WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Arsène

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◈ How an A-Rank Hunter Lives ◈

Chapter 54: Baron of Gyeyang-gu Kim Seok-hee - [5]

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After making a long-distance Spatial Teleportation, I arrived outside my fan's house. When I knocked, he came out and looked surprised to see me.

“Kim Geuk? What are you doing here at this hour?”

“I have to fight some gangsters now. Could you film it for me, by any chance...?”

I had planned to explain that I would upload the footage to my YouTube account without revealing who had filmed it, so he would not have to worry about retaliation or being punished as an accomplice later. In exchange, I would give him the revenue.

It turned out to be unnecessary. Before I could explain properly, my fan started nodding wildly.

“Gangsters? Ah, so you're finally going to fuck those bastards up! I'll grab my camera right away!”

Seong Munyeong seemed to suspect this guy followed me for money, but as far as I could tell, he really was a true fan.

My fan and I shared a laugh, then I used Spatial Teleportation again. I dropped him onto a rooftop with a good view for filming, then teleported once more. Angry shouts pierced my ears.

“Hands up! Put your hands up if you don't want to die, you son of a bitch!”

A gang member was shouting. He was holding a K2 assault rifle, the kind every idiot carried around these days. Apparently rattled by my sudden disappearance, he waved the muzzle around wildly and kept yelling.

I did not need to worry about that idiot. I was standing behind the guy who had fired at me earlier, the one holding an anti-materiel sniper rifle.

I kicked the back of his knee.

Since he was carrying such a huge weapon, I thought he might be a Body Enhancement user. He was not. One kick twisted his leg grotesquely, and he fell backward.

“Urgh...”

His upturned face had a pretty funny expression.

An incomprehensible scream came out of his mouth. He trembled for a moment, then lost consciousness.

“You bastard!”

The guy who had been ordering me to raise my hands finally noticed me. He aimed his rifle at me and pulled the trigger.

The selector was set to automatic. Gunshots rang out in rapid succession, but I did not care. I raised an arm to cover my face. The bullets embedded themselves in my skin because he was firing from so close, but that was all.

Right after they hit me, the bullets lodged in my skin were forced out by my regeneration. They popped free one by one and dropped to the ground.

“Uh...”

The shooter's gaze wavered in shock. I could guess what he was thinking just from that expression.

What the hell is this?

Want to see something even stranger?

I plucked out a bullet still lodged in my skin with my thumb and forefinger, then flicked it.

The bullet flew off with a sharp snap and struck him in the stomach. I had launched it with the strength of a Body Enhancement user, so it must have hurt. He clutched his stomach and groaned, unable to move.

A guy who had been about to rush me with a bat froze in place with a shocked expression.

I flicked another bullet I had pulled from my skin at him too. He made an amusing noise before collapsing.

Until all the bullets had fallen out of my skin, I kept doing the same thing. The gang members had already lost the will to fight and tried to run, so I flicked bullets into their calves and thighs. Watching them fall one after another was fairly entertaining.

Still, I did not feel any great thrill.

I felt like an 800-kilogram grizzly bear rampaging among sheep. No matter how easily a grizzly endured a sheep's headbutt or tore one apart with a swipe of its claws, it would not have anything to be proud of.

“Are there no awakened people here? I heard there were plenty. Is there not even one right now?”

When I shouted for them to stop sending out weak non-awakened people, an awakened person finally attacked.

He did not come at me openly.

He ran up from behind without even shouting something like, “Die!” Judging by how he ran faster than Usain Bolt, he was either a Body Enhancement user or a force-field exoskeleton ability user.

My mental net even told me what he was holding. An aluminum bat. What a disappointment. If he was going to charge at me with that speed and strength, he should have found a cavalry lance or something. Calling himself a gangster while showing that little creativity was pathetic.

I did not even want to find out how hard that bat could hit. Without turning my head, I simply reached an arm back and grabbed his head.

Apparently, he found that shocking even though I had not used much force. He dropped his bat and flailed his arms, screaming as he tried to pull free from my grasp.

“Ah! Ah!”

Then another guy charged at me from the front. The Western medieval-style longsword he had probably bought overseas shimmered with heat haze in his hand.

Force-field blades. It was an ability that could kill anyone regardless of the gap in physical strength, but it did not make me tense. Deathclaws were scary because those blades that cut through anything were paired with absurd jumping power. This guy seemed to have only force-field blades. In other words, he was boringly slow.

I threw the guy whose head I was holding at him. It would have been funny if the swordsman had sliced him with his blade, but it did not happen.

“Fuck!”

The swordsman recoiled in horror and swung his sword aside, and the guy I threw crashed into his body.

Direct hit.

The two of them tumbled to the ground together. I used Spatial Teleportation to appear in front of them as they tried to get back up.

I kicked the leg of the force-field blades user, who had just begun to rise. His physical abilities were no different from an ordinary person's, so he could not endure even a single kick.

The swordsman's leg twisted so badly that people would curse at the photo online for being disgusting. He babbled something incomprehensible, then his eyes rolled back completely when I stomped on his leg again.

The other guy still had intact legs. Since he had rolled across the ground just now but did not have a speck of dirt on him, I assumed he was a force-field exoskeleton ability user. He looked at me.

When I looked at his legs, his eyes began shaking wildly. His trembling mouth opened too.

“Stop, stop... Please spare me. I can't become disabled. I need to become a Hunter...”

He did not seem to be wanted. I stared at him for a moment, then spoke.

“I'll spare you if you promise to sign a Hunter contract with Incheon.”

“What? Yes!”

“And make sure you vote for Park Mihyeong when she runs for mayor of Incheon as candidate number two. Got it?”

“Yes, I promise...”

I smiled and patted his shoulder. He smiled back with a face that looked like he was about to cry.

When I whispered for him to go home right away, he did. I was smiling as I watched him run away when someone shouted from nearby.

“You traitorous bastard!”

Another guy rushed at me as he yelled that.

I could tell just from his muscular body. A Body Enhancement user. He was over 190 centimeters tall and built like a brick wall, so I thought he might be fairly strong.

That meant I could not let my guard down.

When the big guy approached and swung a fist at me, I kicked forward and used Spatial Teleportation. The moment I appeared behind him, my fully extended foot struck the back of his knee.

He really was a fairly powerful Body Enhancement user. He made a choking sound and dropped to one knee, but did not fall over completely.

He even turned his body while kneeling and swung an arm at me. It did not look like a move he had practiced much, so it was clumsy.

I immediately countered. My straight punch hit his face, sending yellow teeth flying from his bloodied mouth.

Even then, he desperately threw a punch at me. I blocked it with my hard head, making him scream.

I followed up by kicking him in the stomach once, and he fell. Even then, he would not submit.

“You fucking bastard, you son of a bitch, you wanna die...”

He had no skill to match that spirit, so I did not feel like praising him.

The moment someone met a person stronger than themselves, they should immediately get on their knees. Trying to protect his pride instead was unacceptable. That was not the right of the weak.

Show respect to an obvious superior. That was how you survived in Soweol, you weak bastard.

I decided to teach him a lesson. Climbing onto his body, I drove my fists down again and again.

With one punch, several more teeth came out of his mouth. With two, his face was crushed. With the third, he began convulsing.

His legs were still intact. I did not like that, so I stomped on them.

He seemed to have Super-Regeneration, so I expected him to endure it better. I stomped on his leg again and again until the bones were completely pulverized. He made horrible noises, then screamed and lost consciousness.

Someone gasped.

I turned toward the sound and saw another man. He had brought some kind of sashimi knife, but he seemed to have already lost the courage to stab that pointed blade into any part of my body.

“Did you awaken too?”

He looked frightened after seeing the big guy who had just gone down. If so, he was probably weaker than that guy.

“Don't you have a Hunter Rifle? I think you should. I'll wait, so do you want to go get one?”

I asked, but he did not answer. It did not seem like he was ignoring me. He was simply too frozen with fear. His legs shook as he shook his head.

“No, no...”

I liked his submissive attitude, so I became kind.

“No matter how I look at it, you need to bring one if you want to fight properly. Why has no one brought a Hunter Rifle? I told you to bring one.”

As I approached, he stepped back. Then one carefully controlled low kick made his whole body shake.

“Ah!”

He screamed, but his body seemed unharmed. A force-field exoskeleton ability user. The guy whose head I had grabbed earlier had not been hurt either, yet he screamed first. This guy was the same.

I liked that he knew his place, so there was no need to traumatize him. I made him swear that he would become an Incheon Hunter too, then sent him home. Only then did their leader arrive.

“Kim Geuk?”

I had never heard the voice or seen the face before, but I could tell who he was. Looking at the surprisingly ordinary-looking man, I greeted him warmly.

“You're Kim Seokhee, right? Marquess of Gyeyang-gu. The Duke of Incheon has come to this borderland.”

Kim Seokhee did not answer my noble greeting.

He seemed busy taking in the situation, looking back and forth between me and the devastation around us.

His gaze wavered wildly. He must have seen all of it at once: men with broken or twisted legs, the big guy with his ruined, bleeding face, and his other subordinates collapsed and convulsing all over the place. He must have realized I had done all this.

A shocked voice came from Kim Seokhee's mouth.

“Why...”

I could tell what he meant. He was asking why I had invaded.

I knew that even if Kim Seokhee had wanted to make me angry, he would not have wanted things to get this bad. And naturally, you had to do what your enemy did not want. That was why I did this.

Kim Seokhee soon regained his composure. The fire of fighting spirit rose in his eyes.

Gritting his teeth, he slowly raised the huge autocannon in his hand and aimed it at me.

“I'll kill you, you bastard.”

Looking at the 55-kilogram Hunter Rifle in his hands, I admired it inwardly. Since I carried one around all the time, I had not really noticed it before. Seeing someone else hold it made it look extremely cool.

“A Hunter Rifle... I told them to bring one over and over, but you finally brought one.”

“I said I'll kill you, you bastard.”

He growled, and I urged him on.

“Yeah, then shoot.”

“You think I can't?”

“If you haven't forgotten how to shoot, of course you can. Shoot already. That way I can kill you fairly, so hurry up.”

As I spoke, I crooked a finger at him. With my mental net spread out, I prepared to use Spatial Teleportation the instant a 30 mm autocannon round left the barrel.

Kim Seokhee never pulled the trigger.

Maybe he was afraid because I said I would kill him if he shot. Or maybe he really did not have the courage to fire it at a person. Perhaps it was both.

Kim Seokhee set the Hunter Rifle down on the ground with a heavy thud and glared at me.

“Fighting someone who can use Spatial Teleportation with a gun is for idiots.”

When Kim Seokhee muttered that like an excuse, I felt intensely annoyed. He clearly did not seem confident, yet he wanted to fight me bare-handed?

Naturally, he was not a Soweol person. I felt that fact anew.

Usori, a Soweol person, had put down his sword and had not swung his force-field blade-covered nails or daggers against me because he was tactically afraid of my Hunter Rifle. He had also believed he could win with his fists alone because my physical strength was weaker than his. This guy was different.

Kim Seokhee knew that putting down the Hunter Rifle would greatly reduce his chances of winning, yet he put the weapon down anyway. He seemed willing to fight me from a disadvantage.

If he had been a Soweol awakened person, he would have fired the Hunter Rifle or run away in a situation where he clearly considered himself outmatched. Or he would have submitted.

Still, acting like a Soweol person did not make someone one. Strength was power and status. Earth's civilized people had forgotten that obvious truth, so they acted beyond their place.

In Soweol, raising your head proudly before someone stronger than you was unacceptable. Usori, who had been about as strong as me, could do that. This guy could not.

The school disciplinarian who hit me despite my obvious superiority, and the training camp instructor who provoked me, had paid the price. This guy would have to pay too.

When Kim Seokhee charged at me, I did not think he was worth moving my feet to dodge.

“Die, you son of a-”

I used Spatial Teleportation to appear behind him and drove my fist into his back.

His expression did not twist in pain from my blow.

They had said he was a force-field exoskeleton ability user so strong that even a police SWAT team would not dare try to subdue him. He really was hard. He clearly had not taken any damage at all as Kim Seokhee twisted his waist and swung a right fist at me.

The hand I used to block that fist tingled painfully. I smiled a little.

He had a force-field exoskeleton and Body Enhancement too. He was much stronger than I had expected. In that case, he had some right to hold his head high.

I caught the left fist he threw at me next. Then I put strength into my grip and threw his whole body into the air, making him scream.

“Fuck!”

Kim Seokhee rose about ten meters into the air before falling.

His body had been vertical when I threw him, but horizontal when he came down.

After kneeing him in the stomach, I used Spatial Teleportation and drove both feet into his back. My fan's cheers rang out from far away.

“That was fucking awesome! Kill that bastard already!”

I gave him a thumbs-up and thought.

I would not really do as he said. But I would teach Kim Seokhee a lesson. I would properly show him what kind of attitude he should have in Soweol.

I would make him submit.

And if he did not submit, then I would really kill him.

Footnotes:

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