WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Arsène

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◈ How an A-Rank Hunter Lives ◈

Chapter 75: Spatial Ability User Kim Geuk - [4]

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On the first day I tried Spatial Teleportation inside the Gate, I had nothing worth recording.

I couldn't even set coordinates through my mental net, let alone use Spatial Teleportation. Every time I spread out my mental net, dizziness washed over me. It was horribly difficult to concentrate enough to use my ability.

After repeating pointless attempts for about two hours, I had no choice but to leave the Gate with nothing but terrible dizziness.

Time continued to pass.

"Let's do our best again today! And, Kim Geuk, don't push yourself too hard. You still have something to do after the hunt, so let the other Hunters handle more of the work this time..."

On the third day, I couldn't stop working as a Hunter just to devote myself entirely to rescuing a little girl. I resumed the Incheon Recovery Project with the other Hunters.

Only after finishing the hunt did I enter the Gate Baek Dambi opened and repeat the same attempts.

Of course, there were no results. Not yet.

On the fourth day, I succeeded in setting coordinates through my mental net.

I didn't know whether I'd picked up some trick or simply adapted to the environment inside the Gate. I'd only succeeded in setting the coordinates, not in Spatial Teleportation itself.

Still, it was the only progress I'd made so far.

"Long live Incheon!"

On the tenth day, a Gate opened in Gyeyang-gu, Incheon.

Behemoth had pushed deeper into Seoul. The horde of Monsters it led around moved with it, and Incheon suffered the fallout too.

The Monster horde pouring out was enormous. Only after pushing Spatial Teleportation to its limit could I bring the situation under control.

Exhausted from that, I entered the Gate.

「No, you should rest today. You're pushing yourself too hard...」

Baek Dambi tried to stop me, but she couldn't. If anything, my male instinct to show off in front of a woman exploded.

「I'm fine. A little overwork won't kill me. Look.」

The moment I spread out my mental net and tried Spatial Teleportation anyway, I realized something was wrong.

Huh? Uh...

A wave of dizziness swept over my consciousness like a tsunami. Just as someone caught in a tsunami would sink beneath the water, my mind sank too.

That was how I lost consciousness inside the Gate.

No, maybe "lost consciousness" wasn't the right phrase. It might have been more accurate to call it an out-of-body experience.

My consciousness, which I thought had been swept away somewhere and would vanish for good, began to faintly sense what was around me.

I'd heard that Monsters trapped in a Gate for a long time sometimes entered a kind of hibernation. Maybe I'd reached a similar state.

Caught in some current, my consciousness drifted through the Gate like a mind in a dream...

The Astral Plane within the Gate was a place where the emotions and thoughts of all kinds of intelligent beings had accumulated.

The emotions and thoughts built up in the Astral Plane over long years formed a kind of energy. Awakened people were those who gained power by taking in that energy.

First, my consciousness passed through a realm where warriors shouted and gladiators roared in a colosseum. In a sense, I relived the vision I'd seen when I awakened as a Body Enhancement user.

Then my consciousness passed through a realm of people suffering through all kinds of suffocating situations.

I experienced them as though they were happening to me. A man buried underground inside a coffin, scraping at the lid with his fingernails. A prisoner locked in a cell, waiting for the day of his execution. I guessed these were probably the visions seen by force-field exoskeleton users.

At last, I relived the vision I'd seen when I awakened to Spatial Teleportation. Scenes of escape and movement experienced by others filled my consciousness once again...

What made this different from a dream was that my consciousness still clearly existed in reality.

More precisely, it existed inside the Gate. Thanks to that, I could even hear my ring girl roaring in panic when I failed to wake up after collapsing.

「You crazy bastard!」

Since I could tell what was happening around me, I could feel the passage of time too.

I knew I'd been like that for hours, and that Baek Dambi had stayed beside my unconscious body the entire time.

How much time passed like that?

At last, I opened my eyes.

「Are you okay?」

I spoke with Baek Dambi for a moment to get a clear grasp of the situation. Then I asked.

「I was out of it for at least nine hours... and you stayed beside me the whole time?」

「Was I supposed to leave you here alone, go home, and sleep peacefully by myself?」

「I'm really sorry...」

While Baek Dambi opened a Gate for us to return to Incheon, I absentmindedly spread out my mental net.

Then I blinked at the change I felt.

The dizziness that had always washed over me whenever I spread out my mental net inside a Gate was gone. Why?

I had no idea. All I could do was guess that after my consciousness had drifted through the Gate once, it had adapted further to the Gate's environment.

When I came out, reporters were waiting. I shouted, "Long live Incheon!" for them and went home.

After that, word seemed to spread about what a heartwarming story this was. The story of a Hunter who, despite being tired from fighting all day, entered a Gate and stayed up all night to rescue a little girl. Honestly, I thought I was pretty cool myself.

For the first time in a while, I did an interview with a broadcasting station. That day, the news reported that Hunter Kim Geuk was carrying out the Shin Mirae Rescue Operation.

On the fifteenth day, some middle-aged men and women came to see me and said they wanted to help.

"From what I can see, none of you are awakened people, let alone spatial ability users. How exactly are you going to help?"

When I asked that, I got an absurd answer.

They said they were meditation practitioners from some training center, and that they would teach me how to sink deeper into my inner self so I could use my ability more easily.

I searched Huntweb and found out they were cultists who had wormed their way into several awakened-person centers in Seoul.

I got angry immediately. The things these non-awakened scraps did were always utterly disgusting.

I barely held myself back from beating up those non-awakened scraps. Instead, I threw them into the Gate and took them out the next day.

They must have suffered in there. The inside of a Gate was full of every kind of emotion and metaphor. That was why, whenever a Gate opened, nearby people were affected by the emotions and metaphors pouring out from it.

Non-awakened people were far more sensitive to that stimulation than awakened people. There was a reason only Baek Dambi and I had been entering the Gate.

Sure enough, after they came out, they made a huge fuss about suing me, but I didn't care. The incident was only mentioned in an online article.

On the twentieth day, Shin Mirae's mother entered the Gate with us.

We brought her to her daughter. We wanted to let her meet the daughter who was trapped under a bear and crying for her mother.

In front of her daughter, who was pinned beneath the bear, the woman held the whining girl's hand and began spreading feelings of sorrow around her.

After doing that for quite some time, the woman refused when I told her it was time to leave the Gate.

「You're saying you won't come out and want to keep staying here?」

「Yes...」

She wanted to remain beside her daughter.

She had probably seen the online article about the cultists being trapped in the Gate overnight and only then realized that even if a non-awakened person entered a Gate and stayed there, they would suffer but not die. That was likely why she made that decision.

Unable to think of any argument that could persuade her, we left the Gate.

A month passed, and then more time went by.

Three more Gates opened during that time. I had to rush around stopping every incident and hunting Monsters in Incheon, but I entered the Gate every day without fail.

Even a non-awakened person had entered the Gate to stay with her daughter. As an awakened person, I couldn't start whining about how hard it was.

And so, one month and seventeen days later...

I finally succeeded in using Spatial Teleportation inside the Gate.

「Ah, Kim Geuk. Finally?」

It wasn't as proper a teleport as the ones I usually performed outside. I'd only moved a tiny distance, about ten meters.

Still, that was enough for now. I finally knew I could use my ability inside the Gate.

Now that I'd seen the possibility, I could no longer give up. I pushed myself even harder.

A few more days passed. Teleporting alone was gradually no longer difficult, so it was time to try teleporting with someone else.

I considered hiring another person. I wanted to bring someone into the Gate and practice Spatial Teleportation while in contact with them.

Then Baek Dambi, who'd heard me, said,

「Why hire someone? Can't you just hold onto me and practice Spatial Teleportation?」

After hesitating for a while, I accepted her offer.

And that was what we did. Holding hands, Baek Dambi and I repeatedly tried to use Spatial Teleportation.

When we failed to teleport at all, I became stressed out again. It went on for days, but it would have been ridiculous to give up after coming this far.

I convinced my exhausted self that I could succeed.

I was the Duke of Incheon. The Duke of Incheon wasn't that pathetic idiot who watched a stupid terrorist kidnap his ring girl with his eyes wide open, then couldn't even stop her from leaving later.

Then I used Spatial Teleportation.

Together with my ring girl.

「We succeeded, right? So now, finally...!」

The joy spreading from her reached me too. I grinned and nodded.

I was ready to reclaim my lamb.

* * *

"Hunter Kim Geuk, you can do it!"

On the day I decided to carry out the rescue operation, several reporters somehow found out and gathered with cameras. Even the fan who filmed me and uploaded the videos to YouTube came here and clenched a fist at me.

I'd be lying if I said I didn't feel pressure. Especially since the situation wouldn't end with just one use of Spatial Teleportation.

I spoke to Shin Mirae's mother, whom I'd just brought out of the Gate.

"I already told you this before, but your daughter might die. You saw it yourself. That bear bastard has her firmly in its jaws, so firmly that they don't even come apart inside the Gate."

The bear was an awakened creature with Body Enhancement. It might be every bit as strong as I was. I told her that too.

"The moment that bear bastard comes out of the Gate and receives outside stimulation, it may panic and bite down harder on your daughter. It would be cruel to explain exactly what would happen if that occurs..."

Shin Mirae's mother answered with a stiff expression.

"It would be better than leaving her like that forever. Please, I beg you."

That was how the operation began with so many people watching.

Baek Dambi opened the Gate. While the other Hunters waited, I entered the Gate alone.

A moment later, I stood before the little girl and the bear crushing her body beneath it.

I stretched out both hands. I gripped the bear's upper and lower jaws, one in each hand, where they were clamped around the girl's head. I couldn't grip them tightly. Then I closed my eyes and focused.

I couldn't fail. Absolutely not.

I used Spatial Teleportation with the bear and Shin Mirae in its jaws.

Outside the Gate.

My view changed. The purple world disappeared, sunlight poured down, and our bodies, which had been spiritual bodies, immediately returned to organic bodies without any delay.

I could feel my heartbeat, the bear's flesh beneath my hands, and its disgusting breath.

The waiting Hunters and reporters shouted.

"They're out!"

At the same time, I put strength into the hands gripping the bear's jaws so it couldn't close its mouth.

But it was far easier to put force into simply closing one's jaws than to pull them open with both hands.

The bear reacted convulsively to the sudden situation, and I struggled to stop it from closing its mouth.

My heart pounded wildly. Did I have to let her die like this? After suffering for two months for nothing?

Then, in the next moment, I sensed a flow through my mental net.

As always when a Gate opened, all kinds of emotions and metaphors were pouring out from within it.

At that moment, I could sense the pressure and stress pouring from the Gate seeping into Shin Mirae's small body.

A groan soon escaped Shin Mirae's mouth.

"Ah, ah...!"

It was the first time I'd seen an awakened person awaken.

After repeatedly making attempts inside the Gate, my mental net had become more detailed. I could now sense things I hadn't been able to detect before.

My mental net told me of the transparent membrane covering Shin Mirae's skin.

At that moment, I realized the little girl had awakened to a force-field exoskeleton ability. Even if the bear bit down now, she wouldn't die.

At the same time, I felt the energy of pressure and stress that had seeped into Shin Mirae flowing into me too.

Another vision flashed through my mind.

A woman buried alive with the dead. A sewer rat caught in the beak of a giant bird. A prisoner locked in a cell as he waited for the day of execution. A thief tied to a tree and pelted with stones. A traitor hanging from a cross...

Moments of pressure and stress. All kinds of abstract symbols.

It wasn't hard to understand what was happening. Hadn't I already experienced it twice before?

Footnotes:

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