WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Arsène

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◈ How an A-Rank Hunter Lives ◈

Chapter 67: Veteran Sergeant Kim Yo-han - [4]

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Honestly, I was taken aback the moment they challenged me to a duel.

It felt like a cop challenging me to a fistfight. Those bastards were civil servants, yet they were saying that to a civilian like me?

For a moment, I wondered if they were not just trying to cut off my limbs, but planning to kill me outright and silence a witness. But after thinking it over, that did not seem likely.

When I suddenly appeared, they had not looked panicked, like they were thinking, We're fucked. They had only reacted like someone caught illegally dumping trash.

It was the same now. Their attitude did not suggest any cold calculation. They just seemed annoyed that someone was interfering with their usual work.

This alone told me enough about the atmosphere within the Special Forces, how they operated in Seoul, and how they kept the peace.

So they did not care about the law. They just beat and stabbed people first, did they? Civil servants, my ass.

Come to think of it, the bastard I had knocked away with one punch earlier was the same. He got angry, tried to grab me by the collar, then threw a punch. Even at my worst, I had never pulled that kind of shit.

You would think I would feel some kinship with people who valued their fists more than the law, but I did not.

This whole thing just disgusted me. Why?

I acted first and crooked a finger at them.

“If you've got the guts, come at me.”

The Special Forces members' mouths curled up, apparently pleased that I had accepted the fight.

Park Juheon openly grinned.

I looked at the bastard standing in front of me.

He looked like the kind of guy who had enjoyed serving on the school disciplinary committee. The kind of guy who took pleasure in bullying smaller kids while hiding behind a teacher's protection. He was supposedly a former Hunter, so I suspected he had joined the Special Forces to feel that thrill again.

Sure enough, even the way Park Juheon fought was trashy.

“Um, before we fight, let me make a quick call...!”

Park Juheon pretended to fiddle with his radio, then suddenly adjusted his grip on his sword and kicked off the ground.

He charged at me.

The speed at which he closed the distance was chillingly fast, but it no longer surprised me. I had fought Force-Field Creatures many times, and I had also fought a Soweol person swordsman.

He was definitely slower than the Soweol person I had killed with one kick.

The tension stimulated my nervous system.

With my perception of time slowed, I carefully assessed the situation.

One of the Special Forces members was quietly moving behind Park Juheon. He was trying to cover Park Juheon's back. He expected me to use Spatial Teleportation behind him, then strike me the moment I appeared.

But I did not even need to use Spatial Teleportation.

I charged at Park Juheon too.

As we closed in on each other, I thrust out my hand just before he swung his sword.

I grabbed the wrist holding his sword.

Park Juheon's face twisted as I seized his wrist. He tried to pull free, but my hand did not budge. The difference in strength was obvious.

Once it became clear that I was physically much stronger than him, his eyes wavered.

“You...”

He looked like he wanted to say something, but I did not want to hear it. I punched him in the jaw and shut his mouth.

As a force-field exoskeleton ability user, Park Juheon did not go flying or cry out in pain from one hit.

Still, when his head snapped back and returned, his face showed panic and humiliation.

I wanted to hit him again, but I did not. One of the Special Forces members was attacking from behind me.

There was no need to turn around. My mental net told me everything about his surprise attack and movements.

He was going to slash at my shoulder. The path of his raised sword made that obvious.

Before he could bring it down, I threw a spinning kick. My foot struck both arms of the Special Forces member trying to ambush me from behind.

“Ghk!”

His force field shattered instantly from that strike. So did the arm bones and flesh it had been protecting.

I could feel both his arms being crushed at once through my foot.

When I finally turned my head, it was a horrible sight. Ugh...

Both of the Special Forces member's arms had been torn apart as if they had been hit by artillery shells. It was gruesome enough to make it hard to look at them directly.

He could not even scream properly, only gurgle. Before long, his eyes rolled back, and he collapsed, foaming at the mouth.

That caught me off guard. I had not meant to be this brutal. Even the pathetic force-field exoskeleton ability users Kim Seokhee had brought along had not had their force fields shattered by a single punch from me, but this guy was even weaker than them.

“Too weak.”

The Special Forces members' expressions changed completely. I did not know whether it was because I had muttered too honestly or because one of their comrades had been mangled.

“You bastard...!”

It looked like they had finally decided to come at me together.

While Park Juheon still could not pull his hand free from my grasp, the rest of the Special Forces members rushed me.

There were six of them.

Since I needed both hands free, I shoved Park Juheon away. He crashed into one of the charging Special Forces members, and I looked at the rest.

First was the bastard charging in front, trusting in his sturdy force field. Running straight at me looked reckless, but it was not a terrible choice.

He was planning to withstand one or two of my attacks and stab me with his sword, was he?

That was certainly possible. So I decided not to hit him.

“You fucking...”

The moment I waved my hand and used Spatial Teleportation, I grabbed his wrist.

Keeping the movement going, I swung the wrist I had caught in a wide arc.

His entire body flew through the air.

“Aaaaargh!”

I let go and threw him off the apartment building. It was pretty high up, but he seemed confident in the durability of his force field, so he would not die.

What about the rest?

They were busy trying to figure out where I had teleported.

“Where is he?”

“Over there!”

They spotted me too late and tried to rush me together again.

There were still six of them, including the now-free Park Juheon.

Obviously, I could not fight all of them at once. But I was a Spatial Teleportation ability user. There was no reason to face them together or let them surround me. I could move wherever I wanted at any time.

So I did.

As I threw a low kick and used Spatial Teleportation, my foot struck the thigh of the bastard charging from the rear. More precisely, it collided with his force field.

His groan was drowned out by a sound like an artillery shell exploding.

“Urgh!”

His force field did not shatter from that one strike, but the sudden impact must have thrown off his balance. He dropped to one knee.

I kicked him hard in the back. He rolled wildly across the ground, screaming.

“Argh!”

The others were still slow to react. Two of them closed the distance in an instant and attacked from both sides, but I avoided getting caught in their joint attack again.

I used Spatial Teleportation and appeared in front of the bastard I had just kicked, who was getting back up after rolling across the ground.

I was much, much bigger than him. My entire body filled his vision.

“Uh...!”

The shock in his wide eyes was sweet.

With the help of my enhanced nervous system, I struck his face, chest, and stomach as fast as I could, kicked his knee, then headbutted him.

That barrage shattered his force field.

I stomped on the leg of the bastard who had finally fallen. His bone seemed to break at once, and the scream that burst from his mouth was pleasant to hear.

“Argh! Aaaagh!”

That one was incapacitated, leaving five enemies. I looked at them.

“You fucking weaklings.”

Fear finally appeared on the Special Forces members' faces, along with grim determination.

The one with the especially grim expression was dangerous.

He gripped a sword wrapped in force-field blades and kicked off the ground. He ran faster than my eyes could track.

Where was he going?

He was not charging at me. He was targeting Kim Seokhee behind me. It seemed he thought subduing me would be difficult, so he was trying to complete the mission at least.

I had to move quickly too.

“Get lost!”

I used Spatial Teleportation behind the bastard running toward Kim Seokhee. I grabbed him by the neck and lifted him up. When I turned around, I saw the Special Forces members rushing at me together.

Four of them were about to slash at me. I made a quick decision. Should I use Spatial Teleportation to escape the danger easily, or protect Kim Seokhee, who could not move right behind me?

The answer was obvious. The Duke of Incheon did not abandon his vassals.

I roared.

“Kim Seokhee!”

I decided to deal with the big guy charging from the middle first. I threw the bastard I was holding by the neck at him.

The big guy tumbled across the ground with the one I had thrown, leaving three enemies I had to deal with immediately.

“Turn off your force-field exoskeleton!”

The bastard charging from the far left reached me first.

His sword swung at my shoulder, but I did not dodge. Dealing with the other two was more urgent, and I could afford to give up an arm.

As my left shoulder was sliced by his blade, another bastard on my right tried to swing his sword. I stopped that one.

I grabbed his wrist and swung it.

That made the sword in his hand my weapon. I brought the blade wrapped in force-field blades down on Park Juheon's shoulder just as he reached me.

I did not even feel it cut.

Park Juheon's shoulder was sliced off cleanly and fell to the ground.

A moment later, Park Juheon jerked his shoulder stump and blinked.

The bastard who had been filled with rage just moments ago needed some time to understand what had happened.

Park Juheon staggered back and stared blankly at his own arm lying on the ground.

Maybe it had been severed so cleanly that the pain came late.

“Aaaaargh!”

As Park Juheon screamed a few beats late, the bastard whose wrist I held looked utterly dumbfounded.

If he had been quick on the uptake, he would have withdrawn the force-field blades from his sword by now. But he did not, so I could keep swinging him around.

“You son of a bitch!”

The bastard who had cut my shoulder swung his sword at me again. This time, I did not offer him my body. There was no need.

I met his sword with the sword of the bastard whose wrist I held. By swinging his wrist, I made the two force-field blades collide.

In cases like this, both force-field blades either got cleanly cut apart or exploded altogether.

This time, it was the former.

Both swords were cut at once, and blank disbelief appeared on the two swordsmen's faces. Then came shock.

I grabbed the two bastards who had lost their will to fight after losing their swords and slammed them into the ground together.

As I stomped on their backs, I glared at the remaining two.

“Are you going to keep going?”

The two remaining bastards shook their heads wildly. I liked that attitude, so I decided to forgive them.

I looked back and forth between Park Juheon, still busy screaming, the Special Forces members sprawled across the ground, and my own severed arm.

The pain from my cut shoulder came late. It would regenerate if I left it alone, but reattaching it would be much faster, so I picked up my severed arm.

Then I picked up Kim Seokhee's ankle, which had been cut off earlier and was lying on the ground.

“Kim Seokhee, you turned off your force-field exoskeleton, right?”

Kim Seokhee, who had been staring blankly this whole time, nodded. I grinned, grabbed his shoulder, and used Spatial Teleportation.

As for the Special Forces members with severed or mangled limbs, they could go to the hospital themselves or not. I did not care.

Without paying them any attention, I used Spatial Teleportation.

“Healing Ability user, is there a Healing Ability user here? Come quickly!”

I teleported to the hospital with Kim Seokhee and demanded treatment immediately. They gave me what I wanted.

Afterward, I released Kim Seokhee, whose ankle had been reattached, in Incheon.

That was how the Kim Seokhee Subjugation Operation ended.

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Footnotes:

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