WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Arsène

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◈ How an A-Rank Hunter Lives ◈

Chapter 55: Baron of Gyeyang-gu Kim Seok-hee - [6]

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I drove my right fist straight into Kim Seokhee's face.

A shockwave burst out with the sound of an exploding shell. It wasn't just loud, either. I hit exactly where I aimed.

A clean hit to the temple. Even a tough fighter should've staggered from a punch that landed so perfectly, but Kim Seokhee didn't care.

Without even letting out a pained groan, he threw a punch back at me.

“You son of a bitch! That...!”

So he really was a force-field exoskeleton user after all.

Force-field exoskeletons were highly valued in the market for awakened people. For example, awakened people with force-field exoskeletons commanded higher prices than Body Enhancement users, even though they filled similar roles during hunts.

That was because an ordinary Body Enhancement user could still be fatally wounded by rifle rounds, while even a middling force-field exoskeleton user could casually deflect them.

Their durability was already overwhelmingly superior, and unlike Body Enhancement users, whose movements slowed when injured, force-field exoskeleton users suffered no drop in combat ability until their force field itself was destroyed.

Like a game boss that kept moving perfectly fine until its HP reached zero, whether electrocuted, poisoned, or slashed with a blade, they displayed combat capabilities that shouldn't exist in reality.

That was why ordinary police officers had almost no chance of subduing a force-field exoskeleton user with rifles. Even if they fired diligently and steadily damaged the force-field exoskeleton, the officers shooting had no way to know it. It wasn't a game where they could see the remaining HP, so they had no idea how much more damage they needed to inflict. Apparently, that left them with a horrible sense of helplessness.

On top of that, because they were much lighter at comparable output, they could move faster than Body Enhancement users. It was practically an ability born for combat.

Kim Seokhee had taken several blows from me, yet there wasn't even a sign of a crack in his force field. Without Super-Regeneration, my fist would've broken first.

There was no need to explain how great I was for fighting so well against an opponent with such an advantage.

Ah, Kim Seokhee's fist cut through the air toward my face.

I didn't even try to lean back and dodge it.

When I used Spatial Teleportation to avoid his punch, Kim Seokhee kept shouting as if he'd been wronged.

“fucking Spatial Teleportation...!”

I appeared beside Kim Seokhee and hammered his head with alternating punches. Somehow, he managed to catch my position in the middle of it, so I used Spatial Teleportation again to avoid his wide swing.

I kicked Kim Seokhee in the back from behind, knocking his center of gravity off balance, then followed up with punches. When he regained his footing and tried to counterattack, I teleported beside him again and battered his ribs.

Kim Seokhee shouldn't have felt pain, but he roared as though his anger had boiled over.

“Stop fucking around already!”

I pulled back a little and smiled. I was starting to feel dizzy and was trying to hold back on using Spatial Teleportation, so this worked out nicely.

“Should I?”

I cracked my fingers as I smiled, and Kim Seokhee's face twisted. He seemed ashamed of how relaxed I looked.

He hesitated as though he didn't want to charge in, so I did.

I threw a jab, then immediately used Level Change. With my center of gravity lowered as far as possible, I grabbed his ankle and began swinging his whole body around like a club.

Kim Seokhee's head repeatedly slammed into the ground with loud bangs, but he didn't spill a drop of blood. Still, he seemed dizzy. His flailing hands couldn't reach me.

As I kept swinging him, he tried to kick me with his free leg, so I threw him. Powered by a Body Enhancement user's strength, the throw sent him flying into a building wall again.

Kim Seokhee got back up and swayed.

I smiled when I saw blood running from his ear.

His force field had finally broken.

“Ugh...”

I mocked him as he groaned.

“Does it hurt?”

He glared at me. He hadn't landed a single hit on me, yet it looked like he still had some fighting spirit left. No, maybe he had no hope of winning, but his pride remained.

That was good. It meant I could hit him some more.

Even with his force-field exoskeleton destroyed, he was still a Body Enhancement user and a powerful awakened person.

That made it even better. It meant I still didn't need to hold back.

“You son of a bitch!”

Was he trying to steel himself? He roared and charged at me.

To make him feel the difference in strength between us, I decided to take the punch I could've avoided and threw my left fist at the same time.

Our fists crossed and struck each other's heads. A cross counter.

Unlike before, when he had been covered by a force field, I could feel this punch connect. The sensation alone told me it had landed properly.

I was fine, but Kim Seokhee wasn't. Clutching his bleeding head, he staggered backward desperately to make some distance.

I looked at his face and smiled.

Fear had finally appeared on the face that had been twisted with anger until then. It had to be the first pain he'd felt in a long time as a force-field exoskeleton user.

When I moved, Kim Seokhee flinched.

“Fuck...”

He tried to widen the distance, but I didn't let him run. I charged at him with all my strength, and when he hurriedly took up a defensive stance, I used Spatial Teleportation to get behind him.

I threw a low kick at the back of his exposed knee, and Kim Seokhee fell. When he tried to get up, I kicked his side.

“Urgh...”

He made a strangled noise and rolled away.

Then he looked at me.

I looked at his face too. It was finally full of fear. I liked that.

He couldn't even protest that I had used Spatial Teleportation after deciding not to. That was because I climbed onto his chest and pinned him down with a body twice as heavy as before. Then I started punching his face.

I hadn't even hit him that many times, but his face quickly became a battered mess.

When I raised my fist to hit him once more, Kim Seokhee desperately stretched out a hand to shield himself.

His mouth opened, and a weak voice came out.

“Stop...”

I asked, “Are you surrendering?”

No. Even now, Kim Seokhee tried to preserve his pride. I could tell from his attempt at something like a threat.

“I, if I die, you're fucked too...”

“Why would I be?”

“I, ugh, I'm someone who can't be a Hunter anymore because I killed someone...”

I could guess what he wanted to say. He was trying to say that if I killed him, I would also be wanted for murder.

As his mouth kept moving, trying to say something else, I punched it once more. Then I said to him as he looked at me with a pained expression.

“Senior, it's been a long time since you used Huntweb, hasn't it?”

There was a tip posted on the Huntweb Hunter board about two years ago.

It advised people with short tempers or a habit of drunk driving, people with personalities that meant they never knew when they might cause trouble, to prepare for the possibility that their Hunter license would be revoked. In other words, it said they should spend all the money from their local government contract in advance in case they had to return it.

“Do you think the police only act meek around you? Did you think they'd only act tough around me?”

The post said not to keep the contract money safely in a bank account. Spend it all on luxuries, or convert it into electronic currency and hide it. That way, when they committed a crime and their contract was terminated, the local government would have trouble recovering the money.

It claimed that doing so would greatly reduce the severity of the punishment, even if they committed a crime.

That was because local governments found it difficult to handle the situation where their contract with an awakened Hunter was terminated without recovering the contract money.

If a local government couldn't properly recover the contract money after its contract with an awakened Hunter was terminated, it would be left with a budget shortfall of at least several billion won. In the current climate, wasn't it nearly impossible for a local government to make up a loss that large?

So in such cases, local governments pressured the courts not to punish awakened Hunters too severely. They ensured the contracts remained in place, then expressed their petty anger later by simply refusing to renew them.

My situation was a little different, but similar. That was why I could freely commit violence and even have it recorded on video.

“Anything else to say? I'll keep hitting you.”

Just as I raised my fist high, Kim Seokhee, whose whole head was already bleeding, opened his equally bloody mouth.

“Stop... Please.”

It was almost a plea. He covered his face with both hands as he said it.

I grabbed his wrists, roughly pulled them aside, and shouted at him.

“You mean, ‘Please stop hitting me,’ right?”

Kim Seokhee couldn't even curse anymore. He only looked up at me with eyes full of fear. I continued.

“Say it again.”

“Please stop hitt-”

He said it while lying down, so I slapped him across the cheek.

I looked down at the helpless Kim Seokhee. He had lost to me, lost his will to fight, and was even begging for his life. Was I satisfied?

No, not yet.

I wanted complete submission. So I forced it out of him.

“Not lying down. Kneel and say it politely, understand?”

Just as King Injo performed the three kneelings and nine prostrations before Qing Taizong, Kim Seokhee did the same.

His trembling body raised itself slightly. He watched my reaction as he got on his knees, then bowed his head deeply.

Holding that posture of submission, Kim Seokhee muttered so quietly that someone without the sharp hearing of a Body Enhancement user might not have heard him.

“I lost. Please stop...”

I was about to make him say it louder, but decided against it. A proper lord should treat a surrendered enemy generously.

“I accept your surrender. Now get the hell out of Incheon.”

Kim Seokhee nodded weakly. I continued.

“I'd like to tell you to leave for Seoul, but... you don't have the guts to go to Seoul, do you?”

After I was shocked by the police's disgraceful behavior, I had looked into whether the whole country was this bad. That was when I learned that only the provinces were like this, while public safety in Seoul was actually better than before.

Seoul had awakened-person units meant to deal with awakened people, and its better budget and other conditions supposedly kept the police motivated. Apparently, it wasn't an environment where awakened gangs like this could run wild as they pleased.

“You can go to Bucheon. Right?”

Kim Seokhee remained motionless on his knees.

Then my mental net, which I still had spread out, detected something moving faster than the speed of sound.

Like when I trained with Seong Munyeong, my hand moved on reflex. The next moment, I was holding a 12.7 mm round.

My palm was scraped, but that was all. I had caught it perfectly.

When I turned toward where the bullet had come from, I saw a man holding an anti-materiel sniper rifle. He seemed to have picked it up from someone who had fallen earlier and fired it.

He looked completely stunned. His face was blank with disbelief.

Then again, I hadn't expected this to work either. I couldn't believe I had managed it through sheer luck when I failed every time in training.

“Is that bastard from Incheon? Or is he a Seoul spawn?”

I asked, and Kim Seokhee answered weakly.

“Incheon...”

Then he had human rights, so I decided to be merciful.

The round I flicked away struck the man holding the anti-materiel sniper rifle in the chest. Looking at him rolling around while clutching his chest, apparently with broken ribs, I said kindly.

“His mind must've been polluted by the wicked energy that flowed in from Seoul, making him act so slyly. He needs to be taught a lesson, but don't teach him too harsh a lesson. Just enough. Got it?”

I was telling him to punish the gang member who had made one final desperate struggle for his sake, but Kim Seokhee didn't dare refuse. I gave him one final smile as he nodded weakly.

Then I used Spatial Teleportation to return to my fan.

I teleported somewhere far away with the fan, who was still filming, and asked.

“Did you get that last part?”

His excited answer came immediately.

“Of course I did! Seriously, that was...!”

For a while, I enjoyed his excited fussing about how amazing that scene had been, how flashy and cool the fight was, and how pathetic Kim Seokhee had looked getting beaten one-sidedly without landing a single hit.

Then, in the middle of talking excitedly, my fan asked worriedly.

“But can we really upload this video to the internet?”

“Why? Do you think it'll be dangerous?”

“Yes. Not for me, for you, Mr. Kim Geuk... This is evidence of assault, isn't it? If we upload it, won't you get in serious trouble...?”

“You don't need to worry so much.”

“Really?”

“Of course. Do you think I'd do this without thinking it through?”

He still looked anxious, so I gave his back a few reassuring pats. Then I returned home, received the edited video, and did what I had planned from the start.

I uploaded the raw footage from today's recording to the internet.

As I had expected, the response was enthusiastic.

* * *

From the internet to terrestrial television news, everyone was talking about me.

When I turned on the TV, it was covering my story too.

It talked about the awakened gang that had settled in Gyeyang-gu, and the police response, which had gone beyond passive to absurd...

Then there was Im Hyeongtaek's kidnapping, which had happened despite the police being told to protect the people involved in the operation, and my raid on the gang.

I sat at home, leisurely listening to the anchor say those events had shocked the public.

I wasn't in a detention cell or prison. I wasn't being questioned in handcuffs, and police officers weren't guarding my door to make sure I couldn't escape.

After doing all that, I was still free.

That fact pleased me immensely.

Footnotes:

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