WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Oblivious
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ Surviving as a B-Rank Hunter ◈
Chapter 18
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* * *
Ironically, the exit Dohyeon and the Steel Man chose was the same one Dohyeon had first tried to escape through. Beneath a glowing emergency light reading “EXIT” stood a steel door with a single piece of rebar driven into it.
Beyond the door was an exit of light leading out of the dungeon. Like the entrance, it looked like glowing paint spread across empty air.
The furnace’s heat had been breathing down their necks, so neither Dohyeon nor the Steel Man had looked back as they ran.
Just before they entered the exit, the Steel Man suddenly grabbed Dohyeon’s arm.
Dohyeon was about to react, thinking it was an attack, when the Steel Man’s hand caught his. Something was pressed into his palm.
“What the...”
[See you again someday, dog-eyes!]
Dog-eyes?
Then the Steel Man launched through the exit and vanished. Dohyeon hesitated for a moment before diving in after the Steel Man. His back was growing hot. He had no time to waste.
The light, gravity, and feel of the air against his skin all changed at once.
Dohyeon burst out and rolled head over heels. His clothes grew damp against the wet concrete floor.
“...”
After rolling to a stop, Dohyeon dropped to one knee and looked back at the dungeon door he had just come through. The mass of light shifted from gray to nearly white, then slowly faded away. The dungeon had closed.
Once he had confirmed it, he slowly rose and looked at what he held in his hand.
It was a severed finger.
And on that finger was a thick ring.
“What a useless burden to dump on me.”
There was no message from Yggdrasil outside the dungeon. Still, one of Ohwa’s employees had already explained what the ring was inside.
Forseti’s Trick.
It was undoubtedly a powerful tool, capable of allowing three or more people to enter a dungeon at once.
But it was of little use to a solo hunter like Dohyeon. And if he simply sold it, Ohwa’s surveillance network would catch him.
He could not be sure whether all of Ohwa’s employees had died inside, but if they had, the moment a ring made by an Ohwa laboratory surfaced on the black market, they would surely trace it back to him.
Dohyeon pulled off the ring, tossed the remaining finger over the side of the rooftop, and looked up. The rain had stopped, but the sky remained overcast. The drooping clouds looked as if they might spill over his shoulders.
Something occurred to him, and he lowered his gaze. His crossbow dangled at his side from its tether. It probably would not even have pierced someone wearing proper armor.
Yet today, it had served him well.
And it had not even broken.
My instinct was wrong.
Thinking that, Dohyeon gave a faint smile.
Then his stomach growled.
[You must be hungry. Do not skip meals. A full stomach is needed for great deeds.]
“Quiet.”
The Valkyrie’s voice came naturally to him now. Dohyeon adjusted the heavy bag on his shoulder and strode toward the rooftop entrance.
His whole body hurt. It was time to go home and rest.
* * *
The armor that had tightly encased her entire body folded in on itself with a series of clinks, as though it were alive.
Her helmet, breastplate, shoulder pieces, and thigh plates withdrew toward her limbs. Her fingertips and toes folded away as well, exposing bare skin. Before long, all that remained of the full-body armor were the bracers and greaves on her arms and legs.
“Phew...”
Her thick black hair, freed from the helmet, spilled down like wet silk. She wore only a short bra top and leggings beneath the armor, leaving her dark, smooth skin fully exposed. Beads of sweat ran across it.
“Ugh...”
That sweat-covered skin bore bruises, wounds, and old scars. Her side, in particular, was split open in a long gash, blood flowing from it.
Frowning briefly, she reached toward the table. Her long fingers turned up the volume on the speaker resting there.
Heavy thump-thump-thump drums, vicious electric guitar, and soft vocals in contrast to them flowed from the speaker.
The fingers that had raised the volume moved beside it and picked up a medical stapler. She pulled the wound shut, then began fastening it with staples. Along with the rock music, the metallic click-click of the stapler echoed through the dim room.
After stapling the wound, she applied medicine and wrapped it in bandages. She treated every spot on her body that needed medicine and bandaged every spot that needed bandaging. Her movements were as natural as though she had done this countless times.
“Phew...”
As the gentle rock continued, she finished treating herself, then suddenly smiled as if something had occurred to her.
“Not Ohwa, and definitely not Samgyeong... A new A-rank?”
She recalled the man who had drawn his sword without hesitation and cut off his opponent’s head.
She did not even know his name. The industry was so closed-off that she could not begin to guess who he was. Naturally, a skilled hunter’s name spread by word of mouth, but hunters were rarely known far and wide by face and name like modern celebrities.
Most hunters only became famous after reaching A-rank and retiring. Active hunters tried to hide their information.
Naturally, if their artifacts and abilities became known, others could find ways to counter them.
That was why hunters who became known before retirement tended to exist on the Dungeon Forum as ghosts or urban legends.
Of course, those in the know still knew. Someone with broad connections and a sharp grasp of information in the hunter world might know who he was. After all, someone with A-rank ability could not possibly have a short career.
The problem was that her own connections were rather limited. She had plenty of dungeon experience, but most of it had been with someone she knew well.
That person would have known. They might have recognized who that “dog-eyes” was the moment they met him. Their career had stretched for nearly ten years, and they knew many people.
If they were still alive, that was.
“...”
Her expression darkened. With a stiff face, she touched the bracer around her forearm.
Lost in thought for a moment, she soon shook her head to clear it and gathered her long black hair behind her, tying it up.
Then she picked up her smartphone.
Even if her connections were limited, she had her own way of gathering information. She had a source overflowing with information, even if she could not meet people face-to-face or confirm its truth with certainty.
A simple hexagonal logo and text appeared over her smartphone.
<Dungeon Integrated Board>
With rock music playing from the speaker, she lost herself in the small screen.
* * *
Flick.
The lighter lit the tip of the cigarette.
“Phew.”
The man holding it between his lips was middle-aged, with stubble covering his jaw and cheeks.
He wore a suit beneath a somewhat worn trench coat. Instead of dress shoes, he wore heavy combat boots, and the inside of his suit bulged slightly. The sunglasses he wore concealed where he was looking.
He stood on the rooftop of a building on the outskirts of the city. Cigarette in his mouth, he looked around with mild displeasure and muttered.
“Why meet in a place like this? We could’ve just met at a decent café. Media really has ruined people.”
As he grumbled, he spotted a woman emerging from the rooftop door. He hurriedly took a long drag from the remaining cigarette, dropped the butt, and crushed it beneath his combat boot.
The woman approaching him frowned slightly when she saw that. The man, meanwhile, smiled as he looked at her.
She’s young. Very young.
“Ahem... Mr. Jo Gyeongtaek?”
“Yes. I’m Jo Gyeongtaek. You’re the person I was supposed to meet here today, right? What was your Dungeon Forum handle again? ‘Bros-’”
“Ah, I didn’t choose that myself. It was an account owned by the company.”
She held out her hand.
“I’m Yoo Ahyeon of Cartain Energy.”
“As you already know, I’m Jo Gyeongtaek. I investigate case information and handle miscellaneous work for corporations as a profession.”
Even after they shook hands, Jo Gyeongtaek did not lose the smile on his lips.
“I reviewed the materials you sent. I also did some additional research afterward.”
“Is that so?”
Jo Gyeongtaek pulled an envelope from inside his trench coat and offered it to her. Yoo Ahyeon accepted it and, looking somewhat uncertain, took out the papers inside.
Seeing her expression, Jo Gyeongtaek spoke.
“Would you prefer that I send the materials digitally?”
“Mm, no. I like it. It’s classic.”
“Right? Digital documents can always be hacked, after all. Sometimes paper is much safer. Ha ha.”
For a moment, Yoo Ahyeon wore an expression that said, What nonsense are you talking about? But she was more focused on the documents in her hands than on Jo Gyeongtaek’s words, and the expression soon disappeared.
Jo Gyeongtaek watched her with interested eyes.
While her gaze remained fixed on the papers, he spoke.
“He had a rather unfortunate home environment. His father was an alcoholic, and his mother had schizophrenia. It seems his relationship with his parents was deeply destructive from childhood.”
“...I see. Doesn’t the government intervene in cases like that in Korea?”
It was a slightly ambiguous question. It could have been the words of a foreigner looking at Korea, or the complaint of a Korean criticizing their own government’s inadequate handling of such matters.
Jo Gyeongtaek remembered her manner of speaking, but answered aloud.
“It seems he fell through the cracks of the social safety net when he was very young. Only after his father died was he finally connected to the regional youth protection division. That is the interesting part.”
“The interesting part?”
“Turn the page.”
Yoo Ahyeon did as he said and turned the page. It was nearly blank.
“What is this?”
“Kang Dohyeon entered a youth welfare facility at sixteen, but there is almost no information after that. There is only a record that he left the youth facility some time later. There is nothing at all about where he went or what institution took him in.”
“Why... is that?”
“In a case like this, there is only one possibility. Someone erased it.”
“Erased it?”
Jo Gyeongtaek shrugged.
“Do you know when he entered that welfare facility? It’s there.”
Yoo Ahyeon lowered her eyes to check the document.
2020.
“If it was 2020...”
“The year the Odin Shock happened.”
Yoo Ahyeon frowned as Jo Gyeongtaek rubbed his chin and smiled broadly.
“I don’t know whether you remember the early days of the Odin Shock. How old were you then?”
“...Old enough.”
“Is that so? Then I’ll get to the point. At the time, there were rumors going around in the military. Naturally, when dungeons first appeared in the world, military personnel were the first people sent in. You remember what happened then, don’t you?”
Yoo Ahyeon nodded.
“The soldiers who entered the dungeons did not return.”
“That’s right. Only later did they learn that groups above a certain size were all scattered inside, but at first, they had no such information.
“Anyway, after accumulating some data through trial and error, there was a rumor that the military intended to form a kind of special unit. It would explore dungeons with only a very small number of members and collect data on Yggdrasil and samples.”
“...A special unit.”
“Yes. A special unit. The nickname for that training program was the Hunter Training Plan. At the time, internet novels about hunters entering dungeons to hunt monsters were popular.”
Great interest appeared on Yoo Ahyeon’s face as well.
“So that was how things worked in Korea...”
“In truth, it was similar everywhere in the world, but still. As you know, that state-led hunter training plan did not last long. Maybe two or three years. Public opinion grew that government regulations and suppression of the new materials industry were keeping the country from keeping up with global competition. That is why the private-sector hunter industry now leads the way.”
Yoo Ahyeon’s eyes gleamed as she listened to Jo Gyeongtaek’s explanation.
“Then was Mr. Kang Dohyeon a member of that special unit?”
Jo Gyeongtaek’s smile deepened when he saw her eyes.
“That is not certain.”
“What? After explaining all that so enthusiastically?”
Jo Gyeongtaek tapped the documents in Yoo Ahyeon’s hands.
“I made a deduction. A deduction based on the circumstances at the time and those blank records. As you can see in the documents, there is no direct evidence at all. Moreover, Kang Dohyeon was too young at the time. Even if he began training in 2020, he was only eighteen in 2022, when the plan fell apart. I don’t know if you’re aware, but in Korea, eighteen is still a minor.”
“But he received a hunter license at that age. Normally, he should not have been able to.”
Jo Gyeongtaek nodded as if conceding the point.
“That’s true. Perhaps he was the youngest member of that program. That could be why all the records were erased, and after the plan fell apart, he may have entered dungeons using the skills he learned then. In any case, Kang Dohyeon obtained his hunter license at eighteen and has been entering dungeons for eleven years now.”
“For eleven years...”
“It’s an astonishing career. As far as I know, even among retired A-rank hunters, it is difficult to find one with more than five years of experience. Most retire before then, or...”
“...They die.”
Jo Gyeongtaek shrugged again.
“In any case, that is as far as I got. You could call it the basic information covered by the contract deposit.”
“That is enough. I am satisfied.”
Yoo Ahyeon put the papers back in the envelope, then met Jo Gyeongtaek’s eyes.
“To be honest, I had some doubts about you, but after seeing this material and hearing your deduction, it seems I was wrong. Let us work together from now on.”
Jo Gyeongtaek met her gaze with a somewhat oily smile.
“This is not an ordinary case, so once we begin the work in earnest, I expect the fee will become a little higher. If my deduction is right, conducting a thorough investigation into this person will not be easy...”
“Did I not just tell you? I am with Cartain Energy. Do you not know what that means?”
“Ah, of course I do. This will not be a one-time commission. What I am curious about is what comes after Kang Dohyeon...”
Yoo Ahyeon shrugged, just as Jo Gyeongtaek had earlier.
“From now on, Cartain Energy plans to seriously expand its business in the Korean market. Naturally, we will need contracts with many field teams besides Mr. Kang Dohyeon. We will also need outside personnel to monitor and inspect those field teams.”
“Then...”
Jo Gyeongtaek rubbed his hands together with a satisfied expression. But Yoo Ahyeon raised the document envelope with cold eyes, as though it were a sharp blade.
“First, Mr. Kang Dohyeon. He is the first. Confirm his abilities, and make it possible for him to sign with headquarters. Our full contract begins after that. Understood?”
Jo Gyeongtaek brought his rubbing hands to his navel and gave a polite little bow. Somehow, it looked rude.
“Of course. We begin with Kang Dohyeon.”
“Good. Then I will be going.”
With that brief farewell, she turned sharply around. After taking a few steps, a sudden gust of wind made her shiver, and she stopped short. The wind on the rooftop was fierce.
After shivering for a moment, she looked back.
“...Shall we meet indoors next time?”
“I know a café. I will send you the address.”
“Good.”
Yoo Ahyeon turned again and left the rooftop.
Jo Gyeongtaek watched her retreating back for a moment, then ran his tongue over his teeth and muttered.
“She looks Korean, her name is Korean, and she even talks like one... but she’s a Korean-looking foreigner. The fact that Cartain is putting effort into staffing from the start means they really are serious about entering Korea this time. That could get quite noisy. Ohwa and Samgyeong won’t sit still... They might even make peace.”
Muttering to himself, he suddenly looked down at the ground as though remembering something. The cigarette butt he had crushed earlier lay there, misshapen.
He crouched down, pulled a small portable ashtray from his pocket, and put the cigarette butt inside.
As he did, he muttered again.
“Even I don’t throw cigarette butts away carelessly. What a fine adult I am.”
Smiling broadly to himself, he put away the ashtray, stood, straightened the collar of his old trench coat with a sharp tug, and began to walk. The sound of his combat boots echoed across the rooftop.
After he too had left, nothing remained but the sound of the fierce, cold wind.
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