WeTried Translations

Translator: Botanica

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ I Became a Generation Zero Hunter ◈

Chapter 1

──────

The Youth Who Was a Hunter (1)

Ian thought of himself as a hunter.

Those who stood on the boundary between day and night and hunted the fiends that devoured people.

Hunts, as a rule, took place in dim shadow.

Deep in the mountains, there was the Great Tiger. The Mountain Lord swallowed not only flesh but souls, bending the spirits of everything it had devoured to its will.

In the shade of graveyards, there were ghouls. Man-eaters that fed on rotting corpses to build their strength, they went after the hearts of the living and lured their prey with the voices of the dead.

Beneath the bell towers of cathedrals, dullahans foretold death, and in the tangled woods, wolves that walked on two legs lurked with their true nature hidden.

And above all else, there were vampires.

Not in ancient castles, but beneath the skyscrapers of modern society. Vampires who had seeped into human society, armed with eternal youth and a presence that bewitched people.

Hunters were the ones who fought such Night Folk.

In secret, never once exposed to the world of daylight.

That was why, as Ian remembered it, "hunter" had been a kind of cant.

No one had ever dragged them out under the bright sun and given them a name, so with nothing else to call themselves, they'd taken what they did as their name.

So it was...

"Yes, Hunter Number 429. Please come to Window 7!"

Ian could never have imagined a civil servant calling out the word "hunter" like this, in broad, glaring daylight, in a sleek government office.

* * *

'What on earth is going on?'

Ian found it hard to accept.

All around him, people were shouting "status" and "status window," words he knew of but never expected to actually hear.

Other people were loudly sharing information about hunting grounds. That the Gate that had just opened had lots of fire-attribute monsters, that ice-attribute gear was only good for keeping warm, and so on.

It was an unfamiliar conversation.

Starting with the fact that they were having it out in the open at all.

Ian recalled how he used to prepare for hunts with his comrades.

Familiars and lackeys planted by the Night Folk could be eavesdropping anywhere, at any time, so conversations like that had been held in the strictest secrecy.

The word "Gate," for a place cut off from reality, was unfamiliar too.

To Ian, a hunter's hunting ground was a place as hard to reach as a remote island, or hidden by magic, but in the end an extension of reality.

A concept like a "Gate" was something that only appeared in novels.

And even those novels weren't from this world.

"Hunter Number 432! Please come to Window 9!"

He heard his number being called.

Unable to get used to the present, Ian headed to Window 9 in a daze.

The receptionist seated at Window 9 was a demihuman. The pointed ears and the faint scent of grass reminded him of the fairies he'd often run into as a hunter.

...The word "fairy" sounded nice enough. But the average fairy Ian knew either played lethal pranks that put human lives on the line, or charged at you screaming that they hated you for ruining nature.

If he'd met this receptionist back when he was active as a hunter, he'd have leveled a weapon at them on the spot.

"Reason for visiting the Hunter Support Agency... Oh my. You were missing inside a Gate?"

Ian's story was far too complicated to be lumped under "missing inside a Gate," but explaining it properly would take until sundown and then some.

So Ian nodded and said yes.

"Hunters who go missing during Gate exploration often have problems with their memory. Do you remember your own name, by any chance?"

A moment of hesitation flitted through him. Ian finished his calculation and gave his name.

"It's Ian."

The fairy receptionist tapped at the keyboard and tilted their head.

"Hmm. I don't see any hunter on the Agency's missing persons list who matches your name and description, Hunter Ian. Do you remember the time period before you last entered a Gate?"

He retraced his last memory, from before he'd been driven off Earth.

The turn of the century. When the stars crossed paths. The fateful day when the vampires had run wild, trying to resurrect the king of their kind.

"It was 1999."

The fairy receptionist tilted their head again.

"1999? Um, do you mean the Common Era calendar?"

Ian nodded.

"Wow. You're really from the old days!"

A person from the old days. Ian was thrown by the unfamiliar label. He'd been on the young side even among hunters. Add the memories of his past life and the story would change somewhat, but...

"Back in the Common Era, the Hunter Support Agency hadn't even been established yet, so a lot of information is missing."

The receptionist explained various things in a friendly voice.

It was a time before the constellations had properly begun to influence Earth and before magitech engineering had been established, and above all, most of the hunter information from the Common Era had vanished during the Great Cataclysm, they said.

In other words.

There was nothing at all in this world that could prove a person called "Hunter Ian" had ever existed.

"So what happens to me?"

Ian tensed up. Back when he'd been active, the government hadn't looked kindly on hunters.

Hunters in name only, they were closer to armed terrorists from the government's point of view. And some of the hunters Ian knew had actually committed real acts of terror.

Madmen who'd gone out to assassinate a multinational corporation's CEO with silver bullets because he was a werewolf, or blown up a dam on the pretext of drowning a vampire.

The hunters had their own backers who smoothed over the government's pressure, but at a fundamental level, hunters and public authority had never been compatible.

That was how it went with a force the government couldn't control.

Out of habit, Ian looked around. To find an escape route he could run for right away.

But the fairy receptionist just smiled brightly and answered.

"Well, we'll start the new hunter registration process right now! First, could you place your hand on the Rank Measurement Crystal Orb here?"

Ian thought.

'...Wow.'

Something he'd only ever seen in constellation fiction had popped up right in front of him.

* * *

"Oh dear, you're F-rank."

In a way, it was only natural.

From what he'd half overheard, and from what he'd read in constellation fiction novels, the Rank Measurement Crystal Orb sorted its subject into a rank based on their mana.

In Ian's era, the ways to accumulate mana on Earth had been limited. Even if you were lucky enough to obtain some, you had to burn through every last drop the moment you met one of the higher-ranking Night Folk if you wanted to survive.

'The mana on Earth now is absurdly abundant, though...'

Honestly, it was enough to make his skin sting. The overwhelming mana presence that used to be felt only in a vampire noble's castle was now felt everywhere.

What on earth had happened?

Ian resolved to go to a library the moment he finished this so-called hunter registration process.

"Cheer up, though! Constellations take an interest in Generation Zero hunters. If you sign a contract with a constellation and receive a status window, you'll be promoted in no time!"

An unusual word reached Ian's ears.

"Generation Zero?"

"Oh, it's not an official term. At the Hunter Support Agency, we sort things into 1st, 2nd, and so on, every time the Hunter Support Policy is revised."

Hunters of this era told each other's generations apart by the support policy in effect when they'd been certified as hunters. If you'd registered under the 1st Hunter Support Policy, you were a first-generation hunter, and so on.

So Generation Zero was the term for the hunters who'd been active before the Hunter Support Agency was founded.

Ian gave a small nod. From what he was hearing, he had actually been active even earlier than that "Generation Zero."

"F-rank hunter, Ian. Registration complete."

The fairy receptionist issued Ian a card printed with a hunter serial number and his rank.

A Hunter Registration Card. It doubled as an ID and a payment card.

"What happens if I lose this?"

"Oh. It contains your unique mana signature, which was just scanned by the Rank Measurement Crystal Orb. So even if someone else picks it up, they can't use it."

Ian remembered something a druid he'd once hunted with had said. That the shape of the mana a person built up differed depending on the shape of their soul, or something like that.

'Anyway, all I need to understand is that it has some kind of security built in.'

When Ian took the card and tried to stand up, the receptionist hurriedly stopped him.

"Hunter Ian, just a moment! Right now, the Agency is running a public job placement program for people who've just started their hunting careers!"

They said that if he went to the Agency Public Works Department in the Hunter Support Agency annex, he could pick up requests that paid little but were safe. Ian nodded.

He'd had no idea what to do first, so information like this was always welcome.

"And we have housing welfare programs for Gate returnees, too. There's a guide pamphlet, so please give it a read!"

Ian took the pamphlet and let out a dry laugh.

Public rental housing for hunters, of all things.

'Should I call this the world getting better?'

Ian said a last goodbye to the receptionist and rose from his seat. The receptionist answered in a cheerful voice.

"Then, Hunter Ian, may the stars' blessing be with you!"

* * *

Under the warm sunlight, hunters of every variety strolled the streets.

A crossbowman fully sealed in powered armor straight out of a sci-fi movie. A young man in a hooded robe, holding a staff decorated with platinum and silver, announcing "I'm a mage" with his whole body.

And the crowds that had been shouting "Status window!" since inside the Hunter Support Agency.

The sky was clear and the sun was bright, yet the city's scenery was more chaotic than the midnights when the Night Folk had roamed free.

Join our discord at https://dsc.gg/wetried