WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Arsène
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ How an A-Rank Hunter Lives ◈
Chapter 84: Academy Entrant Shin Mi-rae - [1]
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During my time with the Korean Awakened Solidarity, I saw and heard about many cases involving awakened people overseas.
More specifically, I mostly came across cases where awakened people caused problems for society.
For example, awakened gangs abound in Eastern Europe.
Most Eastern European countries do not have a Hunter system. That means powerful awakened people have no legal means of gaining money or status, leaving them able to do little besides receive special recruitment into the police or military.
Naturally, plenty of awakened people do not want that kind of salaried life. They form gangs and rule their respective territories.
One particularly notorious awakened gang is even running wild across all of Europe.
They ride in a single car, crossing national borders at will. In countries they see as easy targets, they openly commit rape and robbery. In countries that are less accommodating, they watch themselves and lie low.
An awakened special forces unit formed by the EU was deployed once in an attempt to wipe them out, but the operation ended in disastrous failure.
As you know, a fight between awakened people does not become favorable just because one side has more people. That gang had a superhuman suspected to be S-rank, and that one awakened person slaughtered dozens of special forces members.
Perhaps because they became even more fearless afterward, their crimes only grew worse. These days, they rape and murder people in broad daylight, film it, then upload snuff films and sex videos to the internet, where they are praised. Apparently, they are indulging in every kind of crude pleasure besides that.
In Japan, a wind ability user is randomly killing people.
The person is called Kamaitachi. Kamaitachi flicks blades of wind at pedestrians, cutting them all over until they bleed to death.
Kamaitachi is not killing people because of some unusual ideology. They do it with the same mindset as grinding experience by killing slimes in an RPG.
To awaken a wind ability, or more precisely, a Wind Elemental ability, one must feel the wind across the entire body. Because of that, people occasionally awaken while skydiving. In Kamaitachi's case, though, they awakened while attempting suicide by jumping from Tokyo Tower. Their talent must have been exceptional, because they became an elemental immediately after awakening and survived unharmed.
Kamaitachi was deeply dissatisfied with society and had psychopathic tendencies as well. So, as I said earlier, they see people as nothing more than experience points for growing their ability and kill them without hesitation.
Wind Elementals are particularly difficult to subdue, even among elementals, so the Japanese authorities have no real solution despite dozens of citizens dying every day. Apparently afraid another Wind Elemental might be born, the only measure they took was passing a law banning suicide jumps from above a certain height.
Problems involving awakened people arose everywhere else too.
In North Korea, they are desperately producing tactical nuclear weapons to threaten force-field exoskeleton users in each region who show suspicious signs of rebellion.
In Thailand, a general with Body Enhancement is trying to establish a new dynasty, arguing that since none of the royal family have awakened, how could they possibly have a special bloodline?
In the United States, ice ability users hired for assassinations had killed influential politicians...
Compared to all that, Korea was sadly among the countries with almost no problems involving awakened people.
Look at Kim Seokhee's gang, whom even the police feared as an awakened gang. All they did while ignoring public authority was sell cigarettes.
Kang Jun-chi had also threatened the government, warning that if it tried to forcibly conscript awakened people, its officials would all die. Thanks to that, the Hunter system, which had been introduced earlier than in nearly any other country, was working well enough.
Because of the simple fact that anyone who wanted money, honor, and status could become a Hunter, powerful awakened people in Korea were sweating and bleeding as they hunted Monsters instead of taking an interest in crime or overthrowing the government. Even Kang Jun-chi, the strongest awakened person, only bullied citizens now and then. He had never done anything that threatened the existing order.
The worst trouble Korean awakened people caused was ice ability users getting caught by the police after accepting money to assassinate someone. Life was hard enough as it was, but it was not for nothing that those nationalistic TV channels kept praising Korea for being much better than other countries.
Still, there was one country with so few problems involving awakened people that even Korea would envy it. China.
It was famous for even S-rank awakened people, superhumans among superhumans, obediently following the Communist Party's orders. The personal information of awakened people throughout the country was completely controlled. They tracked every registered awakened person's movements through CCTV in real time, and gathered underage awakened people separately to train them to be loyal to the Party.
And in my view, Korea did not seem satisfied with being relatively better off.
In other words, I suspected Korea was trying to go further and imitate China.
Maybe even that damn Hunter Academy...
* * *
The Incheon Recovery Project was finally nearing its end.
In other words, we had succeeded in clearing out nearly all the Monsters remaining on the Incheon mainland.
We had not properly dealt with the Monsters inside Gates or those in Ganghwa County yet, but this was still incredible progress. Especially considering fewer than a hundred people had achieved it in less than a year.
“Long live Kim Geuk!”
“Long live! Seriously, long live!”
Thanks to that achievement, I shook hands with the mayor of Incheon City today, received praise from Park Mihyeong, and broke the wrists and backs of several citizens who tried to toss me into the air.
My entire hunter team even received special bonuses from the city.
While everyone on my team was grinning, Baek Dambi was humming in the car.
She looked obviously excited, so I asked.
“The Golden Arrow Award? Do you think your chances of getting it went up? Is that why you're happy?”
Maybe she was embarrassed that I had noticed her mood. Baek Dambi flinched, then nodded and admitted it after a moment.
“Yes...”
“I figured it was a famous award, so I looked it up online, but the search results barely showed anything. What kind of award is it? The only Golden Arrow Award I found was this modest one with a total prize of 300 million won...”
“Ah, that's the one.”
“The one with ten winners, where each person gets 30 million won?”
“Yes.”
I blinked for a moment.
There was a reason I had never heard of that award. A considerable number of Hunters did not even know it existed or care about it, and these days even the prize money was laughably modest.
Why would she want such an insignificant award so badly? I was curious, but it could have been a rude question, so I held back.
Im Hyeongtaek looked just as pleased as Baek Dambi.
He smiled at me and spoke.
“I've really benefited a lot from you, Kim Geuk.”
“Isn't that a little late to say?”
“It was true before, but even more so lately. When I first said I wanted to be a Hunter, my wife acted like the world had ended, you know?”
“Why?”
“Even then, being a Hunter was considered a job unemployed people chose because they had no other choice, even if it meant risking their lives... She was devastated, thinking the husband who had been doing so well when we married had fallen all the way to the bottom.
“But it isn't like that now. They talk about you a lot on TV, Kim Geuk. And I'm on your team. Maybe because of that, she's finally impressed that her husband has a proper job. That's why she willingly came to the last team dinner too...”
As I listened to that story with satisfaction, Im spoke in a slightly subdued voice.
“Maybe because of that, my wife seems to have become much more interested in Hunters lately. There's something I wanted to discuss with you...”
“Discuss what?”
“As you know, my daughter awakened recently.”
It must have been the first time Seong Munyeong had heard that. His eyes widened.
“Really? The girl we saw at the last team dinner?”
“Yeah, that was her. The one who came dressed in a frilly princess outfit because she thinks she's a magical girl.”
“She was really cute! What ability does she have?”
“Heat Ray.”
Lee Jongho flinched at those words.
It seemed his memory of a friend being horribly killed by a Manticore with Heat Ray was still vivid.
But Seong, who had sociopathic tendencies, remained calm and exclaimed without hesitation.
“Wow, isn't Heat Ray a really great ability for being a Hunter? That ElmayaKaeyo guy on Huntweb supposedly killed tons of Deathclaws and Force-Field Creatures with Heat Ray alone, even at his age!”
“Right? My wife must think it's a waste to let that ability sit unused. It seems like she wants our daughter to become a Hunter. She's trying to enroll her in the new Hunter Academy that's about to open...”
My expression stiffened before he even finished.
Hunter Academy? I had not expected that thing, which felt deeply unsettling for some reason, to come up here.
“Your wife wants your daughter to become a Hunter? She wants to put her in the Hunter Academy?”
“Yes. What do you think, Kim Geuk?”
I chose my words as carefully as I could. I tried to find words to explain the uneasiness I could not quite identify, then finally said,
“It feels... kind of iffy.”
“Iffy? Why?”
“I know it's strange for me or you to say this while working as Hunters, but being a Hunter isn't really something you can casually recommend to your child. It's true that it pays well, and fame can bring honor too, but it's dangerous and difficult work. Pushing a kid who has not even started elementary school into that kind of job is a little...”
“It's too much for parents to decide the career of a preschooler who will start school next year, right?”
“You get it.”
“To be honest, I told my wife the same thing you just said. But she still wants to put our daughter in the Hunter Academy.”
“Your wife? Why?”
“Well, apparently families who send their awakened children to the Hunter Academy get to rent an apartment in Seoul for free. No matter how I look at it, I think she wants that Seoul apartment...”
I clicked my tongue. That damn Seoul, that damn apartment.
These days, living in Seoul was considered a kind of rise in status. And if it was an apartment in Seoul, which people practically treated like a palace, there was no need to say more.
Had Han Hee, who earned 12 million won a month, complained that at this rate he could work his whole life and still never buy an apartment in Seoul?
That showed just how absurdly expensive Seoul apartments had become since the Gates opened. As a result, Seoul apartments were treated as heavenly residences that ordinary people could never afford, no matter how much they earned.
Being allowed to live somewhere like that was tempting enough.
“So if your daughter enters the Hunter Academy, what will you do? Will your whole family move to Seoul?”
When I asked, Im answered in a serious voice.
“I have to work as a Hunter in Incheon, so I probably can't go. My wife and daughter would go to Seoul by themselves, I guess. Anyway, my wife seems to think that even if our daughter does not become a Hunter later, there is no harm in sending her to the academy for now.
“But the Hunter Academy is new, so no one knows what kind of place it is, right? That's why I asked you. You became an executive of the Hunter Association this time, so I thought you might know something...”
Then this man probably hoped, deep down, that his daughter would not enter that damn academy either. Who in the world wanted to become a father living apart from his family?
Still, his wife had asked him to look into it, so he could not ignore her. He had asked me, and I promised I would look into what the Hunter Academy was actually about and tell him properly.
When I got home, I logged into Huntweb to at least keep that promise.
By coincidence, I immediately saw a post about it.
Ⓐ ElmayaKaeyo: What the hell is this Hunter Academy?
Is this actually a school meant to train Hunters?
How can a Hunter Academy have only one former Hunter on its list of instructors and staff?
The rest are crammed full of former soldiers and people with cult backgrounds. Does that make any sense?
Footnotes:
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