WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Arsène

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ How an A-Rank Hunter Lives ◈

Chapter 6: Academy Student Kim Geuk - [4]

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The same thing happened the next day, and the day after that.

I kept seeing the gruesome corpses of the academy students I ran into.

Lee Jongho. Both his arms had been torn off, and he bled to death.

Kim Jinjun had died with his head crushed and his brain exposed in twisted folds.

Seong Munyeong. Several huge holes had been punched through his chest...

Of course, they were all hallucinations. They were alive and well in reality. Still, it was hard to feel relieved. Every time I came out of one, I was overcome by terrible anger and depression.

Then there were the dreams. Those goddamn dreams kept coming, and today was no different.

* * *

"Fuck..."

I woke up gasping for air. As I wiped the drool from the corner of my mouth, a thought crossed my mind.

Something was seriously wrong. Should I see a psychiatrist?

As I washed up and got ready for the academy, that thought gradually solidified. Did I really need to go to a hospital?

The aftereffects of the dream were still lingering. My heart kept pounding, and even making ramen left my head spinning with deja vu.

But I didn't have money for a hospital visit. If I went in over nightmares and deja vu, the doctor would probably laugh at me for being an easy mark...

I didn't know. I turned on my computer out of habit, hoping to settle my troubled mind.

When I logged into Huntweb, which had become fairly familiar by now, a user with a familiar nickname had posted something strange.

Ⓐ syberMagneto : A non-awakened person I passed by didn't bow deeply to me, so I wiped out three generations of their family. Praise me.

Even though nobody ever replied, this guy consistently posted the same kind of nonsense on the board. That shouldn't have been possible under the forum rules. How did he get away with it?

BabyBerserker : Misters! Don't you get warned and then banned for posting nonsense on the Hunter board? Why doesn't that syberMagneto guy get banned, huh?

Huntweb had an incomprehensible number of users. Even in the morning, replies came right away.

Anonymous : Because of the A Badge.

BabyBerserker : What's an A Badge, huh?

Anonymous : It gets added next to your nickname once you verify that you're an awakened person.

The A must have stood for Arisen or Awaken, the English-language names for awakened people.

BabyBerserker : If you have that badge, you don't get banned for posting nonsense? Why?

Anonymous : It's a special privilege granted to awakened people.

What a wonderful custom, I thought as I started typing.

BabyBerserker : That's not very democratic, is it? T_T

Replies immediately flooded in.

Anonymous : Listen to this scrub Porter bastard whining about democracy lol.

Anonymous : If you act democratically, will the Spirit of Democracy descend and hunt Monsters for you?

Anonymous : A casual post from an awakened person is often more valuable information than Hunter reports painstakingly written by a hundred Porters, idiot.

Ⓐ syberMagneto : If you don't like it, hang yourself with your mom and die.

As angry comments kept coming in, I looked up how to get awakened-person verification and went ahead with it.

There was a notice on the document-submission page. I had to download the dedicated app, take pictures of my awakened-person documents, and submit them. A part-timer would check them and issue the badge.

The notice at the very bottom made me frown.

- As of June 5, 2012, awakened-person badges will no longer be issued for the 16 types of paranormal abilities deemed unsuitable for Hunter duties. We ask for your understanding.

At the top of the list of abilities deemed unsuitable for Hunter duties, for which awakened-person badges were not issued, was my little sister's ice ability. It was shocking and appalling that they went so far as to discriminate that thoroughly.

Of course, my ability wasn't the kind unsuited for being a Hunter. Absolutely not.

I photographed the required documents with my phone and submitted them.

It seemed the site's part-timer was already working. Before long, I received a system message saying my badge had been issued.

Ⓐ BabyBerserker : Does my A Badge look good on me, huh?

The instant I posted my little boast, replies started rolling in.

Anonymous : In your last post, you acted like you weren't an awakened person. Were you setting this up just to flex? Holy shit.

Anonymous : That deception was smooth as hell...

Ⓐ syberMagneto : I thought you were non-awakened trash, but you're one of us? Welcome!

More comments kept pouring in, and I smiled as I read through each one.

Jealousy and envy. The response to proving I was an awakened person was hotter than I'd expected. All kinds of people suddenly tried to act close to me, from guys calling me bro to a stranger who thought I played a particular RPG and asked for my nickname so they could add me as a friend.

I even got a private message. Before then, system messages were the only messages I'd ever received. The sender claimed to be an active Hunter and offered to buy me a meal and tell me about the industry as a senior if I contacted them.

Ah, another message came in. This one was more serious. Looking through their past posts, I saw that they didn't seem to be an active Hunter yet, but they asked whether I planned to add a veteran Hunter to the hunter team I would form someday. They sent me their phone number and work history. They must have wanted to work with me. Cute guy.

I was enjoying every comment and message when I suddenly felt as if I were being sucked somewhere, and another set of comments came into view... Fuck.

Disgust suddenly surged through me. I clenched my fist.

Anonymous : You motherless bastard. Putting on an act, deceiving people, you've got every trick in the book, you piece of shit. You awakened through dumb luck and think you're hot stuff?

Anonymous : Go die already and catch the bus to hell with your mom and dad who are already there.

Why was this bastard suddenly spewing insults? Filled with anger, I looked through the comments again and frowned.

Where the fuck did those comments go?

I checked again, but those abusive comments were nowhere to be seen. I hadn't refreshed the page, so they should have still been there even if whoever posted them had deleted them. Why weren't they?

Had I hallucinated again?

That had to be it. Come to think of it, I might have felt that familiar sensation of falling into another hallucination. Then those comments must never have been posted in the first place.

I sighed and refreshed the page. Then I widened my eyes as I read the newly posted comments.

Anonymous : You motherless bastard. Putting on an act, deceiving people, you've got every trick in the book, you piece of shit. You awakened through dumb luck and think you're hot stuff?

Anonymous : Go die already and catch the bus to hell with your mom and dad who are already there.

The exact comments I had seen in the hallucination were there.

I held back my anger while trying to understand what the hell was happening. What was this? What the hell was going on?

Unable to find an answer, I went to the academy.

The same thing happened on the way there. I experienced similar incidents over and over again.

"Ah, fuck!"

I got pissed off after stepping in some shit, but when I came to my senses, I hadn't stepped on anything.

Another hallucination.

Still, I carefully watched the ground as I continued walking, just in case. Then I stopped in my tracks.

What the hell...

With my eyes wide open, I stared at the pile of shit coiled up ahead of me. It was as huge as the shit I had seen in the hallucination, hidden in the shadow of a tree. If I'd kept walking, I definitely would've stepped on it.

As I continued down the road, a drink vending machine pissed me off this time. I put coins into it, but it didn't dispense my drink.

That was another hallucination too. When I came to my senses and looked around, there wasn't a single vending machine nearby.

The goddamn machine didn't appear until I had walked another ten minutes.

I put in a coin to test it, and sure enough, it didn't give me a drink.

* * *

Similar things happened after I arrived at the academy.

The hallucination I experienced during criminal-law class was especially specific.

The criminal-law instructor was deeply dissatisfied that students barely attended class, and when they did, they just used their phones.

Maybe they were looking for an excuse to get annoyed, or maybe they wanted to make their presence felt. Either way, they occasionally threw class-related questions at random students.

This time, I was the target.

"If a Hunter arrests or confines a criminal, that's the crime of unlawful arrest and confinement, as I mentioned before. A Hunter's status under criminal law is ultimately that of a private individual... Of course, there are always exceptions to the law. What might that exception be, Kim Geuk? Want to answer?"

I swear, there was no way I should've been able to answer that. I didn't know what "status under criminal law" meant, or what a private individual was. How was I supposed to answer?

But I did.

"If the act of arrest or confinement constitutes self-defense, necessity, or self-help?"

The reason I could recite words I didn't know was simple. I had seen that answer in a hallucination.

"Mr. Kim Geuk? You were wonderful in class. Keep this up from now on!"

The criminal-law instructor must have decided I was a better student than expected. After class, they got me a cup of coffee. I wasn't particularly happy about it, though. I had to endure the anger and frustration that came after every hallucination.

Once all those emotions settled, I started to think.

Maybe the hallucinations I was experiencing weren't a mental illness, but some kind of superpower.

I mean, if I could teleport, why couldn't I see the future?

Maybe I had awakened yet again without realizing it. Maybe I had become a not particularly impressive prophet.

Sure, it was also possible that I had schizophrenia that altered my memories to make me think I was seeing the future. I decided not to consider that possibility for now. I didn't have money to see a psychiatrist right away.

Anyway, if I was seeing moments from the future in advance...

Could the death of one of the academy students I had seen earlier be something that would happen someday?

If so, I couldn't ignore it. I wasn't enough of a psychopath to calmly overlook people around me dying horrible deaths. Even when I tried to think about it as coolly as possible, hadn't I felt my own anger and despair in every hallucination?

That meant their deaths probably wouldn't happen somewhere far away with nothing to do with me. There was a good chance I would be involved.

Why would they die? Would they die fighting alongside me? Was it because I failed to protect them? Was that why I felt anger and despair every time I fell into a hallucination?

I didn't know.

Still, I thought I had a rough idea of what I needed to do.

* * *

Footnotes:

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