I Became the Gate Summoner Hunters Obsess Over - Chapter 4

WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Ceaseless

◈ I Became the Gate Summoner Hunters Obsess Over ◈

Chapter 4: Explored the Unknown. Became Rich.

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Perhaps supernatural phenomena were much closer to us than anyone thought.

Now that Kang Yul had approached a truth about the world that ordinary people should never know and stepped into the curse of knowledge...

What was Kang Yul doing?

Clang! Clang!! Clang!!!

"Huff... huff... haah...!"

...He was gripping a pickaxe with both hands, drenched in sweat as he diligently dug at one side of the cavern wall.

Forget the truth of the world. If he could not find something worth money within five days, he would be thrown out onto the streets.

Kang Yul feared that reality more than any supernatural phenomenon, so instead of holding a pen to reveal the world's truth, he held a pickaxe that could make money right away.

But...

"Please...!"

Clang!

"Something worth money...!"

Clang!

"Come out...!"

Clang!

Three hours had passed since he began mining without rest.

Kang Yul had not found a valuable mineral, nor even a bone fragment large enough to break off and sell.

'Why are these damn bones so huge and uselessly hard...!'

The enormous, unidentified bones supporting the cavern.

They were so hard that a pickaxe could not even scratch them, and every one of them was gigantic.

Even a small piece would surely be worth a fortune, but their size and hardness left Kang Yul unable to do anything with them.

That was why he had settled on mining the wall instead.

He hoped to get lucky and find minerals, or perhaps dig an exit leading outside.

But...

Clang!

There was one fact Kang Yul had overlooked.

Clang!!

Mining was not easy enough for an ordinary person to do just because they wanted to.

Clang!!!

Even experienced miners found it difficult. How could an ordinary person manage it?

Clatter!

"Huff... huff... I, I can't...! I can't do this!"

Kang Yul threw down the pickaxe and lay flat on the ground, gasping for air.

At this rate, rather than striking it rich, he would dry up and die first.

He needed to find another way.

After lying there for a while, breathing hard and considering his options, Kang Yul chose...

Ding!

*[Title: Buying all rare minerals or supernatural byproducts. Barter OK.]

...A supernatural something hiding among the Hunter Gallery users and imitating a human.

It was suspicious, but Kang Yul's situation was so hopeless that there was no way to change it without placing his hopes in a being like that.

'So this is what it feels like when you have no one you can share a secret with....'

He had thought about it countless times.

What if he just closed his eyes and went to the Hunter Management Bureau or a major corporation, then told them about this class and these skills?

But after imagining thousands of possible outcomes, the result was always the same.

No matter what he did, it led to a bad ending where he became either a slave or an experimental subject.

He had also learned that greedy humans were more dangerous than an unknown supernatural being.

'Thinking like that was going to give me a mental illness, so I decided to rule out telling anyone at all....'

He had to, for his own mental health.

Once doubt took root, it would bloom again and again. The only solution was to leave no room for it in the first place.

Anyway, after thinking through every other possibility, Kang Yul had reached the conclusion that he should contact the supernatural being on the Gallery.

'I remember the Gallery making a fuss because intelligent beings had supposedly been found in gates. Maybe this is connected to that.'

At the time, it had only been an urban-legend-level rumor, so he had let it pass.

But gates had appeared in the world, and Hunters had emerged. Why would beings from other dimensions not exist?

More importantly, his skill specifically identified it as a "being from another dimension."

'So no matter what happens, I need to make contact with it at least once.'

Continuing not to know something was ignorance.

But pretending not to know when he could learn was irresponsible.

And if he was going to live as a Hunter, such behavior would surely come back to harm him someday. Sooner or later, he needed to face this.

Having reached that conclusion, Kang Yul clicked the Gallery post.

───

[Title: Buying all rare minerals or supernatural byproducts. Barter OK.]

[Friendly Merchant*]

Buying minerals, ores, and supernatural byproducts.

Purchases will be made using the author's Exchange Skill.

Unknown grade OK.

Unappraised materials OK.

Items with unknown names OK.

Post a photo or a brief description to check the approximate value.

Cash transactions available.

Barter preferred for rare materials.

Barter list

: Weapons, armor, exploration gear, potions, skill books, special items, etc...

※ Anything obtained inside a gate is welcome.

※ No scammers or fishing for offers.

Slow to check comments.

Leave a private message and I will check it.

※ For selling items of uncertain origin, this way <Link>

───

[Comments]

"...."

The content of the post was exactly as Kang Yul remembered.

He had heard that its contents had not changed for years.

Perhaps because of that consistent concept, the merchant was fairly well-known within the Gallery.

But only for a moment.

As Kang Yul read through it, he saw a line at the end of the post that he had never seen before, and instinctively understood.

※ For selling items of uncertain origin, this way <Link>

That final link probably was not visible to ordinary people.

It was a link made so that only supernatural beings living among humans could see it.

#####

※ For selling items of uncertain origin, this way <Link>

It was suspicious by anyone's standards.

Normally, Kang Yul would have clicked back without hesitation and gone to read another post.

Reading even one more information post would be more useful for his future than visiting a site that looked likely to spread viruses.

But this time was different.

'There must be a reason.'

There had to be a reason his newly acquired skill specifically distinguished beings from other dimensions.

Perhaps he could obtain something through this that would help with gate exploration.

Or perhaps the beings were dangerous, which was why they had been marked separately.

Maybe it was both.

So Kang Yul decided to click the link, even if it meant taking a risk.

If he had to learn about it either way, he judged that now, while he had the least to lose, was the best time.

It might have been an irresponsible choice, but ten years ago, being a Hunter had been considered a dangerous, dirty, and demeaning job where all that mattered was coming home alive.

'Exploration has been standardized enough now for it to be relatively safe, but the advance parties are probably still the same.'

Whether it was a gate where they hunted powerful supernatural creatures...

Or a gate that had to be cleared by uncovering hidden rules...

In the end, the advance party Hunters who went in first had to suffer through it and establish the rules.

And those who took all those risks and returned alive received rewards to match. Entranced by those rewards, they could not give up the life of a Hunter.

That was what being a Hunter meant.

'I guess what I felt yesterday is part of the reason too.'

He could still remember it vividly.

The relief of surviving after gaining a skill, followed by the dopamine rush that made his brain feel like it was melting.

Maybe the Hunter industry was really full of people whose brains had gone strange after repeating that cycle.

'I don't want to become that crazy, but....'

Still, he might want to try having a dopamine party where he bathed in 50,000-won bills.

If he was being greedier, he wanted to pile up gold and eat it with every meal too.

So, to enjoy that kind of luxury someday...

※ For selling items of uncertain origin, this way <Link>

Kang Yul clicked the link to investigate the unknown supernatural phenomenon.

And at that moment...

Thud!

Something fell behind him.

Startled by the sudden noise, Kang Yul reflexively turned his head.

An old wooden box and a single note lay on the ground.

"...."

A box had suddenly appeared in a place where nobody was present. It was suspicious and bizarre.

Kang Yul's heart pounded madly, warning him to run out of the gate immediately.

But Kang Yul did the exact opposite. Ignoring his racing heart, he unfolded the note and read it.

──────────

Think of what you desire.

Place inside what you can afford to lose.

Close the box.

Then the box will pay its price.

──────────

"...."

The note's contents were vague, as though it lacked a subject.

Still, it was not impossible to infer its meaning. If I interpreted it in my own way, it was probably explaining how to make a trade.

Think of the payment you want, then place what you want to sell in the box.

After that, close the box and wait. It will pay a price befitting its value.

Something like that.

'I want to see if I'm right....'

Checking would not be difficult.

All I had to do was put in any item and close the box.

But the problem was that I did not know what disadvantage this might bring.

For example, what if the item I put in was not good enough?

There was a high chance that something bad would happen to me.

The general consensus among Hunters was that supernatural phenomena involving offerings usually punished people if they failed to meet the required value.

So if possible, I should put in something valuable...

'...Come to think of it, the author said anything obtained inside a gate was welcome, didn't they?'

I looked around.

There were those impossibly hard bones, the crude tunnel I had been digging, and a pile of weathered soil nearby that looked halfway between dirt and stone.

I grabbed a handful of the weathered soil and thought:

'It was obtained inside a gate, so it should be fine, right...?'

It was a bit of a stretch, but this was weathered soil from a gate with the grand name Primordial Land - Terra.

Surely it had some use somewhere.

'It's not like I have anything else to put in.'

I wanted to put one of those enormous bones in the box, but what could not be done could not be done.

So, thinking I might as well take the gamble, I put the weathered soil into the wooden box.

At the same time, I prayed with all my might.

'I need money! Money I can use right now! I need money to put into my bank account, which only has 921 won left!'

How long had I prayed like that?

For a moment, I wondered if I should have poured water from a purifier onto a plate and prayed with it.

Click!