WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Arsène
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ How an A-Rank Hunter Lives ◈
Chapter 97: Guardian Deity of the Korean Peninsula Kang Jun-chi - [3]
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I headed to Seoul in an official car with Baek Dambi.
As the car sped along, I asked the minister over the phone for the details. The conversation went something like this.
What do you want from me?
We want you to bring back Kang Jun-chi, who left for Sword World. We understand you're acquainted with him...
When did Kang Jun-chi leave for Sword World?
About two hours ago.
As far as I know, Seok Jangsil went to Kang Jun-chi's home today. Did he leave while Jangsil was there?
Yes.
Then why ask me instead of Seok Jangsil, who was closer to the scene? I thought Jangsil was closer to Kang Jun-chi than I was.
That is... difficult to answer.
If I'm supposed to persuade Kang Jun-chi to come back, I need to know what happened. Don't hide anything. Tell me straight. What exactly happened?
So I asked.
“What did he do that made Kang Jun-chi leave? Did Seok Jangsil do something while he was with him and get exposed as an undercover agent?”
There was silence after that last question. Then the person on the other end of the call changed.
Seok Jangsil spoke in an aggrieved voice.
“I-I'm not an undercover agent! I don't know why Jun-chi and Kim Geuk both keep suspecting me...”
“Then how did this mess happen? What did you do that made Jun-chi lose his mind and immigrate to Soweol?”
When I asked, Seok Jangsil gave me a long explanation.
With my own interpretation mixed in, it went something like this.
Today, Seok Jangsil visited Kang Jun-chi's home with technicians there to estimate the cost of water and electrical work.
When Kang Jun-chi asked why he had brought them, Seok Jangsil apparently answered like this.
“You don't know when you might leave here, so shouldn't you at least get the electricity and water connected?”
“Even so, you know perfectly well why I haven't called any technicians. Why would you...?”
“Don't worry. I carefully picked people I know! They might overcharge you because they know you're rich, but they aren't the kind of people who'd hide listening devices because the government told them to!”
Kang Jun-chi must have felt suspicion before gratitude at that thoughtful suggestion.
After all, he had already been suspicious of Seok Jangsil.
More specifically, he suspected the government had approached Seok Jangsil and turned him into their puppet.
His suspicions had been so intense that, even when his life was in danger after getting attacked by a Deathclaw, he called me instead of Seok Jangsil, who was closer.
The only reason he found Seok Jangsil suspicious was the ridiculous thought that the government must have known Jangsil and him were close, so they would have contacted him separately. Still, what mattered was that Kang Jun-chi had already been suspicious.
So when his close younger friend made that suggestion, Kang Jun-chi would have become wary. He probably thought:
“Why is he making this offer? What does he want?”
In the end, Kang Jun-chi let Seok Jangsil and the technicians into the underground cavern because he must have wanted to clear up his suspicions.
Seok Jangsil spoke in a trembling voice over the phone.
“Jun-chi asked to borrow my smartphone for a moment. He said he couldn't charge his because there was no electricity underground, so I lent it to him. I even unlocked it...”
Kang Jun-chi had not borrowed Seok Jangsil's smartphone to browse the web.
He searched through Jangsil's KakaoTalk and text message history.
Then he found what he had been looking for.
He found call logs between Seok Jangsil and Han Heeseok. He also saw the text messages Seok Jangsil had exchanged with the National Security Ministry minister, and that was when he lost it.
Apparently, Kang Jun-chi had furiously interrogated him after showing him a text from the minister that read, “Special Forces plans to hide a listening device in Kang Jun-chi's room in a few hours. We'll give you one too, so plant one yourself.”
“Jun-chi, that's not what...”
“What do you mean, it isn't? You fucking spy bastard.”
The technicians Seok Jangsil had brought with him all had their fingernails and toenails ripped out on the spot. Kang Jun-chi must have assumed they had been brought in to hide listening devices.
Kang Jun-chi's actions were not simply him venting his anger.
His rage could not have been a brief outburst caused only by learning that his close friend had betrayed him.
Stress must have piled up inside him, layer upon layer. The stress of believing the government wanted to get rid of him. The stress of believing the government was watching him. The stress of not knowing whether he could trust even a close friend. The stress of being forced to live in a hot, uncomfortable underground cavern because of it all...
Then, when his suspicions finally proved true, Kang Jun-chi would not have felt the pleasure of knowing his deductions had been right. All the stress he had been carrying must have exploded at once.
He must have felt unbearable disappointment and rage.
His disappointment and rage would have been directed at the government he believed had sent Seok Jangsil, and beyond that, all of South Korea.
That must have been why he left Korea. For Sword World. He must have acted on something he had casually mentioned on Huntweb before.
He must have done so not because he believed Soweol would be a better place to live than Korea, but to get revenge on Korea. To make his delusions real.
Awakened Hunters on Huntweb sometimes had this sort of delusion.
The delusion that if they, Hunters who served as their region's guardians, left, everyone living there would panic. The delusion that someday, if they became Hunters powerful and important enough to protect the country, the entire population would beg and plead with them not to leave.
Kang Jun-chi had the ability to turn that delusion into reality. And instead of holding back, he must have done exactly that.
He must have left so everyone in Korea would feel his absence. So they would understand what would happen if he vanished from Korea.
He must have gone to Soweol so they would realize he was the guardian deity of the Korean Peninsula and understand the crisis Koreans would face after losing their guardian deity.
“So you've been in frequent contact with Han Heeseok and the National Security Ministry minister all this time?”
Seok Jangsil answered weakly.
“Yeah. I have.”
“And you're still saying you aren't an undercover agent? Then what are you? An Interpol agent or something?”
“I'm not anything that grand!”
“Then what are you?”
“I'm just a civilian collaborator! I tell them what awakened people are thinking and try to mediate between awakened people and the government...”
After saying that, Seok Jangsil explained that he had not received a single cent for doing this, nor had he received any other perks.
Since the relationship was unofficial, he had no particular connection with the other Special Forces members, aside from Han Hee, who had naturally found out because Jangsil occasionally visited Han Heeseok's home. He said he did receive instructions from time to time, but he only did what they asked.
“So you're saying you acted as a government lackey without getting paid a cent?”
Seok Jangsil shouted.
“It was necessary!”
“Spying was necessary?”
“Yes, that spying! I thought we couldn't let Korea turn into the same mess as those other countries! And the government wants to crack down hard on awakened people to stop that from happening, so someone needed to mediate and make sure they didn't go too far!”
“And did it work?”
“Just look at the bus protest last time! If I hadn't relayed that the awakened people had no intention of overthrowing the country, who knows what hard-line response the government might have taken instead of having lawmakers and ministers come out and negotiate peacefully! And this time, Jun-chi seemed too stressed, so I really was only trying to get his water and electricity connected...!”
I remembered something Seok Jangsil had told me before.
He said that around six months after the Gates opened, when public safety had rapidly collapsed, he had been attacked by robbers while working at a grocery store. After they hit him in the head and knocked him down, the robbers assumed he was dead and panicked. They buried him alive while trying to hide the body, and that was when he awakened as a rock ability user.
Maybe having his ordinary life destroyed by outlaws like that had affected him somehow. Or maybe he simply liked doing this.
Either way, it was not important right now.
I checked Kang Jun-chi's streaming channel on my smartphone.
A new video had been uploaded.
It was a three-minute clip with no signs of editing. The shaky footage showed only Kang Jun-chi's furious face, but his anger came through clearly.
“You fucking sea roaches. Even my existence pisses you off, doesn’t it?”
Kang Jun-chi spoke in the video, his face twisted with rage.
“I'll get lost. I'll get lost just like you want, so try living well on your own, huh?”
Looking through the comments, it seemed no one fully understood what was happening.
Guest23: What is this? Kang Jun-chi says he's emigrating?
Park1994: If you want to leave Korea, then get the fuck out, you bastard.
Yok1974: Isn't Behemoth still around? Kang Jun-chi can't just leave whenever he wants. Did the country even approve this?
Guest115: We're fucking doomed lol
I refreshed the page to see the comments that must have been pouring in, but the video was gone. It looked like the government had deleted it to prevent confusion.
The government's response was swift in more ways than simply deleting an internet video.
When we arrived in Gyeyang-gu, the scene already looked like an emergency.
Had they activated the manuals and response plans prepared since Behemoth arrived in Korea?
The government was evacuating people from dangerous areas. Cars filled the roads and moved in a single direction under the guidance of police officers deployed in advance. Tanks and soldiers moved in orderly formation along routes that would not interfere with civilian evacuation.
The sound of propellers filled the sky. Helicopters and transport planes flew in the same direction. It seemed they were deploying forces from both the Air Force and Army while evacuating civilians.
Civilian Hunters were no exception.
My smartphone rang, and I received a message in the Hunter app.
“I got a deployment order too. It says I have to report to Seoul. I'm an Incheon Hunter, so what authority does Seoul have to summon me?”
Baek Dambi replied.
“I got one too. Looking at the order, it seems they're mobilizing not only us, but every Hunter in the Seoul metropolitan area.”
It seemed the government had begun preparing for the worst as soon as they confirmed Kang Jun-chi's absence.
In other words, the possibility of Behemoth appearing in Seoul.
The Monster that had avoided appearing in Seoul because it feared a confrontation with Kang Jun-chi would have realized that powerful enemy was gone.
We had to prepare for the same disaster that happened in Australia, an all-out battle against that four-hundred-meter giant Monster and the horde of Monsters following it.
“Let's use Spatial Teleportation from here. Dambi, take my hand.”
Holding Baek Dambi's hand, I used Spatial Teleportation again and again.
That brought us to Kang Jun-chi's temporary residence, the underground cavern eight hundred meters below the surface.
At the entrance, the National Security Ministry minister, several civil servants, and a bloodied Seok Jangsil with torn clothes were waiting for us.
I asked, “Who opened a Gate for Kang Jun-chi? Did he enter one of the Gates opened by the Monsters?”
“I... I opened it.”
It was Seok Jangsil.
“Didn't you say you couldn't open one last time?”
“I could open one, but I hid it. I thought if Jun-chi found out I could, he'd get drunk and keep begging me to open a Gate so he could leave for Soweol...”
Still, Kang Jun-chi could not have simply accepted Seok Jangsil saying he could not open a Gate. No matter what Jangsil said, had Kang Jun-chi relentlessly threatened his life and ripped out his nails while demanding that, as an elemental, Jangsil should be able to open one?
Unable to withstand the threats, Seok Jangsil had apparently opened a Gate for him. That was apparently how things had reached this point.
Tears fell from Seok Jangsil's eyes. Seeing him like that, I no longer felt like getting angry.
“I really...”
I sighed.
“What can we do? This is where we are now.”
There was still time. Last time, Behemoth had not appeared the moment Kang Jun-chi left Seoul. It had only opened a Gate quite some time after he was gone.
If we brought Kang Jun-chi back before then, the whole crisis would disappear.
Maybe he was still lingering inside the Gate right now. Or perhaps he had reached Soweol but had not gone far, hesitating somewhere near where he came out of the Gate.
In that case, I just had to go and bring him back.
Baek Dambi soon opened a Gate for us.
It did not lead to the Astral Plane we normally traveled through, but the Astral Plane on the Soweol side.
Once we entered that purple world, there were surprisingly few Monster silhouettes in sight. It seemed Soweol's Monsters had already left for Earth, where prey was plentiful.
The problem was that not only were there no Monsters, but the person we were looking for was nowhere to be seen.
“This is Soweol territory, right?”
Baek Dambi answered my question.
“Yes, it is, but... I can't see him!”
“Fuck.”
As I cursed, Baek Dambi cried out in despair.
“I can't see Kang Jun-chi!”
Couldn’t she see Kang Jun-chi's soul in Busan even from Incheon? As huge as the sun...
Then the fact that she could not see his soul now meant he was farther away than the distance between Incheon and Busan.
Kang Jun-chi could not easily move his own body with his force field, but he could move something he was riding. He must have done the same thing this time.
He must have climbed onto the work lift prepared for moving between the underground cavern and the surface, gripped its railing tightly, and flown far away. In an instant, he would have crossed dozens of kilometers and gone even farther.
“We need to go back.”
Baek Dambi questioned me.
“We're not going to keep looking for Kang Jun-chi?”
“If he's gone this far, I can't find him even with Spatial Teleportation! He has to be within a few kilometers for us to search at all. We don't even know which direction he went... We can't focus on bringing Kang Jun-chi back anymore. We need to prepare for the worst.”
Then we left the Gate.
When we told the people waiting for us what had happened, everyone sighed, but they each got to work.
“This is Ryu Jiseon. We couldn't find Kang Jun-chi. Continue the current measures...”
That was when everyone gathered there began to tremble.
Behemoth had opened a Gate during the bus protest too.
Back then, I had been with other awakened people, and having them around made me feel secure. I had not trembled or flinched then. This time was different.
The strange sensation in my head did not seem much different from before, but I flinched this time.
Not because the sensation itself was unbearable, but because I could imagine what would happen next. I clenched my teeth because I could not bear the scene in my imagination.
“Over there!”
I turned toward where a civil servant was pointing. Then I closed my eyes and opened them again.
A faint purple glow in the darkness of the city...
A Gate had begun to open.
* * *
Footnotes:
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