WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Arsène
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ How an A-Rank Hunter Lives ◈
Chapter 69: Veteran Sergeant Kim Yo-han - [6]
──────
Kang Jun-chi was exactly average height. Standing among the larger Body Enhancement users, he was the sort of person who could easily get lost in the crowd.
But among the awakened people now, Kang Jun-chi stood out more than anyone. He almost seemed to be shining, as if he had a sun strapped to his back...
Kang Jun-chi stood there like the Sun God himself.
Only the god's followers could celebrate his descent. The rest could not even look at him directly. And me?
Ah, this felt incredible.
I savored the fear, anxiety, and confusion flickering in the Special Forces members' eyes.
This had to be deeply confusing for them. Their leader, Han Heeseok, did not seem to have anticipated it either. That was what happened when awakened people followed the orders of non-awakened scraps. Even they became this pathetic.
Kang Jun-chi continued.
“Why are you all just standing there? I said try killing me too. Can't you hear me? ...You really can't hear me, can you? Is this microphone broken? ...Aren't you going to answer? You think I'll just leave because you disgusting bastards stay quiet after pulling that shit? ...The power button? I can't see it. Press it for me... You fucking sea roaches, I said answer me!”
Kang Jun-chi's final words thundered through the area. He had finally managed to turn on the microphone.
Whether they were overwhelmed by his presence or the volume was simply too loud, the Special Forces members gathered there stepped back.
The Special Forces members who had retreated said nothing. They simply froze in place.
Not a single threat came from their mouths, and every sword and Hunter Rifle in their hands was pointed at the ground.
They only stared at their radios, waiting for instructions from above in this absurd situation. More precisely, instructions from Special Forces Commander Han Heeseok.
Still, Han Heeseok would not have any remarkable orders to give.
Only four years and a few months had passed since the Gates opened. Who could have grown accustomed to the existence of superhumans? Who knew how to handle an awakened person capable of overwhelming an entire corps alone?
I walked over and spoke to him.
“Thanks for coming. Seriously.”
Kang Jun-chi did not even turn his head. His gaze remained fixed on the Special Forces members, filled with anger, as he lowered the microphone and answered.
“This makes us even for calling you to that hotel last time... More importantly, there are a lot of fucking guys carrying swords. There have to be nearly twenty of them. Are they all force-field blade ability users?”
“Probably?”
“This is driving me crazy. Stay next to me and keep an eye on those bastards. I'm worried they might rush in and stab me at any moment...”
Ah, that was not a look filled with rage.
It must have been a look filled with anxiety. Kang Jun-chi's eyes never left the pointed blades in the Special Forces members' hands.
He had come here despite feeling such a strong threat of assassination. That really was something.
Had he come to honor his loyalty to me?
That was probably part of it, but this incident must have provoked Kang Jun-chi badly too.
The forced mobilization of awakened people, and the habit of trying to kill powerful awakened people immediately because they were difficult to control.
Two things that set Kang Jun-chi off had come together. That was why a god had descended upon the earth.
“I'll give you three minutes. Anyone still here after three minutes dies by my hand.”
Kang Jun-chi made his declaration, and before even thirty seconds had passed, the Special Forces members had vanished.
As they withdrew, they looked exactly like a defeated army. There had not been a single clash between us, yet they ran away as if fleeing for their lives.
Then cheers of victory rang out.
“We won!”
The Incheon citizens gathered there, the public servants, the Incheon Hunters, and the awakened people all cheered.
I was slightly surprised to see Naito among the cheering crowd.
Wasn't that non-awakened scrap obsessed with managing his image? On the day the Special Forces' awakened-person mobilization issue was announced, he had kept his mouth shut on Huntweb. I thought he would avoid a place like this, where he might end up looking bad in the news.
I had not expected him to come out and help me despite all that. It was ridiculous that he had gone through the trouble of coming only to hide among the crowd...
“Jun-chi, it's reassuring to see you here, but what about Seoul if you're here?”
Kang Jun-chi gave a brief answer to Seok Jangsil, who had returned to human form at some point.
“Why should I care?”
“I should care! What am I supposed to do if Behemoth or the Monsters around it show up in Seoul? I live in Seoul!”
“Well, if Behemoth moves, someone will probably report it...?”
Baek Dambi, who had apparently heard their conversation, spoke up.
“If you're worried about Behemoth, I'll take a look.”
“How?” Seok Jangsil asked.
“By opening a Gate...”
Then Baek Dambi did exactly as she said.
She closed her eyes and held out her hand. Purple light began to ripple before her, and I realized she really could open Gates now.
Purple. The color inside a Gate... A few people who had seen Gates before widened their eyes in surprise.
Once the Gate had expanded enough, Baek Dambi stepped inside.
With the Special Forces gone, the winners spent some time chatting.
My Huntweb comrades and my hunter team gathered around me and started talking.
“Whew, Kim Geuk, you had it rough! But what were those bastards thinking, coming here to arrest you? Do they have any way to catch someone who can use Spatial Teleportation?”
I answered Im Hyeongtaek's question.
“Maybe they came because they expected me to surrender quietly?”
“Could they really be that brain-dead? They must have had some sort of plan when they came, but they withdrew so easily... Now we'll never know what they were thinking.”
Just as people had gathered around me, plenty had gathered around Kang Jun-chi as well.
Kang Jun-chi's followers wanted to know why he had come and what he planned to do next.
“Jun-chi, you came because you got fucking pissed off after seeing what the Special Forces were doing, right?”
“Yeah, so?”
“Then what are you going to do now? You're not ending it here, are you? We've all gathered like this, so it'd be nice if we did something!”
“You want to have a group dinner or something? I already ate, so...”
“Not that! You didn't abandon Seoul's defense just because you wanted to chase off the Special Forces, did you?”
For a brief moment, an awkward expression crossed Kang Jun-chi's face.
Seeing it, I realized he really had only come to stop the Special Forces. He had no goal beyond that and had simply come here on impulse.
The other awakened Hunters did not have eyesight as sharp as mine, so they failed to notice.
They seemed to want to accomplish something more with Kang Jun-chi. They continued discussing it.
“Come to think of it, nothing has really changed except that we stopped them from arresting Kim Geuk. They could try arresting him again, and that crazy bastard Han Heeseok will still be in command of the Special Forces...”
As they traded ideas back and forth, Baek Dambi emerged from the Gate.
My ring girl shouted.
“Behemoth is moving inside the Gate...!”
As everyone looked at her, Kang Jun-chi flinched.
“Behemoth is moving?”
The Incheon public servants who had been listening from behind us also looked horrified. The Mayor of Incheon stood there blankly before suddenly coming to his senses and urgently calling someone.
The awakened people seemed to decide to use this situation as an opportunity.
Kim Hyeongman, Huntweb's ElmayaKaeyo, spoke.
“Then what's there to think about? We should go to Seoul as we are and drive off Behemoth.”
“You mean Kang Jun-chi should just go back to Seoul?”
An awakened Hunter asked with an unhappy expression, and Kim Hyeongman smiled.
“Not Kang Jun-chi alone. All of us together! We go to Seoul together. What do you think?”
Kang Jun-chi seemed to consider it for a moment, then nodded.
That settled it. We would go to Seoul.
Kang Jun-chi probably thought it would benefit him to head to Seoul under the protection of all the awakened people gathered there. The awakened people probably thought the exact opposite.
Park Mihyeong called a company she knew and arranged for two large forty-five-seat buses.
The awakened people gathered there split up and boarded the buses.
Then the buses carrying the awakened people began crossing the wide expanse of Incheon.
The bus carrying us headed toward Seoul, this country's false capital.
And on the internet, all hell broke loose.
* * *
“Dambi, I'm hurt. You can open Gates now, so why didn't you call and brag about it?”
“I kept hearing terrifying news related to you, Kim Geuk, about how you had fought the Special Forces and fled with Kim Seokhee, a violent wanted criminal. How could I do that? What am I, a psychopath...?”
I was casually talking with my ring girl on the moving bus when Kim Yohan, who had been looking at his smartphone, shouted.
“The internet is going crazy right now!”
When I looked, he was right.
Message boards across various websites were full of news about us.
From an article posted earlier, “Kang Jun-chi Abandons Seoul...,” to one posted not long ago, “South Korea's Awakened Advance on Seoul...”
“News outlets usually don't report much about awakened people. How does everyone know about this? Didn't the government control the media?”
“The domestic media is quiet, but it seems foreign media learned about this and reported it. Those articles must have been translated and spread everywhere.”
While talking with Kim Yohan, I clicked on the article titled “South Korea's Awakened Advance on Seoul.”
The comments under it made it seem as though North Korea had invaded.
Park1994: Is the country seriously about to be overturned?
FriedSquid: Is Korea going to turn into some third-world country too? The awakened take over the executive branch, behead lawmakers who won't listen, and control the military?
Guest23: Tomorrow's KOSPI should be interesting...
These reactions soon spread to every awakened person on the bus. Everyone started talking about it.
“Why are these idiots making such a fuss? It's not like we wrecked a few tanks.”
“It seems foreign media is portraying us as coup rebels. The way they describe it is hilarious. ‘A bus filled with several corps is heading toward the capital, Seoul...’”
It was not actually an exaggeration.
Look at the awakened people riding this bus. More than a few of them could destroy a company or battalion by themselves.
Most importantly, Kang Jun-chi was on this bus. A single bus was carrying more strength than an entire corps.
“They have reason to panic. There are plenty of cases overseas.”
I asked Kim Hyeongman about that.
“What cases?”
“Well, apparently there have been several cases where a group of awakened people got drunk while complaining about the government, then stormed somewhere like parliament and actually overthrew the country. This is a little different, but even nearby Taiwan had a military coup that the military carried out successfully using awakened people, I think?”
“How?”
“There are awakened people in the military, right? Some division commander persuaded them and sent them on the subway as if they were on leave, then had them capture all the government officials. After that, reinforcements arrived and began taking control of the capital in earnest. They say it's currently a civil war... Because of cases like that, China and North Korea apparently don't even allow more than a certain number of awakened people to gather.”
It was not easy for a regional division to stage a coup in South Korea. Military forces could not head toward the capital for no reason, so they would have to pretend they were conducting training as they marched. They would also need to carefully manage the soldiers and officers so they could not post about the situation on social media.
Even then, moving a large force was extremely conspicuous and difficult. If anyone realized what was happening and blocked the road along the way, the entire attempt would fall apart.
A coup by awakened people was different.
If awakened people wanted to overthrow the government, getting to the capital would be easy. They could walk, ride bicycles, or use public transportation. It was difficult for the state to notice and stop awakened people whose movements looked no different from those of ordinary civilians.
They did not need supplies from follow-up units either. All they needed was a box of hardtack.
Handling the aftermath was the problem, but entering the capital and taking control of key facilities would be far easier for them than it would be for military forces.
Looking at it that way, Han Heeseok had his reasons for desperately trying to monitor gatherings of awakened people.
Despite all his efforts, dozens of awakened people dissatisfied with the government were now gathered there and advancing on Seoul.
For the Korean government, it was an unprecedented situation.
Of course, the awakened people on the bus did not look or sound that serious.
Kang Jun-chi, who had come over to ask me something, was a good example.
“Do I smell? It's really fucking bothering me.”
“I don't know. Why?”
“I haven't been able to wash properly lately. I couldn't find any public baths that were open, so whenever I felt sticky, I had no choice but to check into a hotel again and shower...”
“Are you still living underground?”
“Of course. It's safe down there.”
I was about to say something when Seok Jangsil joined our conversation.
“Kim Geuk, Jun-chi? Going to Seoul is one thing... but what are you going to do?”
Kang Jun-chi asked Seok Jangsil in return.
“What do you mean, what are we going to do?”
“If this keeps up, high-ranking people will come out one after another and ask why you're doing this and what you want. So how far do you two plan to take this?”
Footnotes:
Join our discord at https://dsc.gg/wetried
