WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Oblivious

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◈ Surviving as a B-Rank Hunter ◈

Chapter 3

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Right after the bright light faded, Kang Dohyeon lowered his stance and held his breath.

The change in space also changed the air and pressure, so he had to take short, measured breaths for a moment to let his lungs adjust. As he did, Dohyeon raised his crossbow to his shoulder and quickly but thoroughly surveyed his surroundings.

He searched with his eyes while paying close attention to his hearing. Dungeons were full of visual distortions and hallucinations, so sound was extremely important.

Of course, there were cases like Kowloon Walled City, where sound itself was dangerous. But such abnormalities were rare in Flower Hill.

Dohyeon had entered at a spot where rolling hills met and dipped into a deeper hollow. If the hills had been a little taller, it would have been a place where water ran and a valley formed.

There was plenty of grass, with fairly tall trees scattered about. Fallen leaves that seemed to have dropped from those trees covered the ground. Kneeling on one knee with his crossbow aimed, Dohyeon calmly checked all around him.

A faint sound of wind. The trees swayed, and their leaves brushed together with a soft rustle. The temperature was around twenty degrees. The sky was overcast, but it was not night.

“...”

After silently checking his surroundings, Dohyeon lowered his crossbow and stood. Then he checked the wind direction. Moving with the wind at his back was not a good idea.

Before long, he began moving to the left of where he had entered.

The best places to loot in Flower Hill were usually bunkers. This dungeon pattern had bunkers of all sizes hidden beneath bushes and fallen leaves.

They were filled with things one might find in a real bunker, or, as was common in dungeons, utterly random objects.

Hunters packed those items into their bags, got out, checked their Vanaskelium reactivity, and sold them for money.

They could also search the small mountains of tires piled around the hills. Most of it was trash, but valuable artifacts could occasionally be found among it.

That was why beginners and hunters too scared to enter more difficult dungeon patterns wandered around there, hoping to strike it rich.

There were also flower fields. True to its nickname, this dungeon pattern always had a vast flower field.

Among its flowers were deep blue ones that looked as though blue paint might drip from them. Rumor had it that refining a single flower could yield tens of millions of won worth of pure Vanaskelium.

Dohyeon knew the rumor was true. He knew one or two people who had actually dug up those flowers and escaped. He also knew that at least three or four of the blue flowers were always hidden in the Flower Hill dungeon.

But Dohyeon did not go after them.

He did not want to die.

For all its low threat level and rare abnormalities, the most dangerous place in Flower Hill was that very flower field.

Appropriately enough for something so conspicuous, countless people had died trying to obtain those flowers. So many had died that the Dungeon Integrated Board was filled with posts telling people to give up on trying to get them.

Still, as Dohyeon remembered, there definitely were people who had picked the flowers. And there were plenty of idiots who believed they would be different. The flower field of Flower Hill flourished beautifully, feeding on people as fertilizer.

Dohyeon had no desire to risk his life for those flowers. He had entered the dungeon in the first place because he needed somewhere to organize his thoughts, or rather, because he needed meditation.

Meditation. Dohyeon gave a bitter smile at the word. What kind of lunatic called exploring a dungeon they had entered at the risk of their life meditation?

Unfortunately, that lunatic was him.

Here, where he could not let his guard down for even a moment and had to react with extreme sensitivity to the smallest change, Dohyeon instead felt at ease.

At home or outside, he felt more anxious and empty. Of course, he knew it was a kind of post-traumatic syndrome. That did not mean he wanted to treat it.

That pain and those scars were who Kang Dohyeon was now.

Having accepted that, the next thing he needed to do was truly meditate. More specifically, he needed to figure out what the hell had happened in Kowloon Walled City that morning.

Dohyeon proceeded slowly, paying attention to his surroundings as he walked. At the same time, he replayed what had happened in Kowloon Walled City in the back of his mind.

When he lightly rubbed his left index finger with his thumb, Yggdrasil's message quietly appeared.

[Vargband]

Vargband. Was it from some Nordic language? It obviously meant some sort of ring. Artifact names were often nothing special once you knew what they meant. Of course, that did not mean he knew the artifact's exact use or side effects.

One thing was certain. After the ring had put itself on him, Dohyeon had lost consciousness.

The smell of blood from the corpse must have drawn in a whole swarm of Orphan Horde monsters. Yet when he came to, he was covered in blood but otherwise uninjured.

Did that mean his body had moved on its own while he was unconscious and torn all those monsters to pieces? The situation made that seem like the answer, but he could not be sure. Artifacts came in all sorts of strange and bizarre varieties.

What was the last Yggdrasil message he had seen before losing consciousness?

‘Rage. Rage and rage, lost warrior.’

Artifacts that sent their users into a berserk state were fairly easy to find. Many of them multiplied the user's strength several times over.

However, their side effects were severe. Dohyeon had seen a sturdy hundred-kilogram man move for only ten minutes and turn into a skinny fifty-kilogram skeleton. Not being able to distinguish friend from foe was practically standard.

For teams, such berserk artifacts were a last resort. And for solo hunters? As in Dohyeon's case, they left the user defenseless once the frenzy ended. They were still only a last resort, or a means of suicide.

Their activation method and timing were also problems. Other artifacts could simply be left unworn, but Dohyeon's artifact was now tattooed onto his finger itself.

He had no idea when it might activate or when he might lose consciousness again. What if he entered a berserk state outside a dungeon, in the real world?

Dohyeon continued thinking as he watched the trees swaying in the wind out of the corner of his eye.

There were very few cases of artifacts fully activating outside a dungeon, including research cases. Most could not activate at all, and even when they did, their effects were extremely limited.

That was why corporations spent hundreds of millions, even billions, buying artifacts. They wanted to find ones that could be fully used in reality.

In any case, even a severely limited berserk state would be a problem for Dohyeon. He had no idea how bad it would be, but the thought of having something like uncontrollable rage made him dizzy.

Hunters were stronger than ordinary people, so when the police encountered one causing a disturbance, they shot first. In Korea, of all places.

Some A-rank hunters could crumple steel with their bare hands like the super soldiers in superhero movies from before the Odin Shock. They could run a hundred meters in three or four seconds, barely tire, and leap several meters without a running start.

Of course, they would still die if they got shot.

Reality was not a superhero movie. In those movies, protagonists slipped through special forces soldiers and beat them down with ease. In reality, even in close combat, one pistol shot would make someone gasp as their breath caught and their movement froze for a moment.

That brief moment was enough time for a bullet to enter their head.

Moreover, after the Odin Shock, methods for dealing with hunters had developed to avoid close combat as much as possible. Once battery technology advanced and the robotics industry grew significantly, the problem was easily solved by sending in robot soldiers instead of people.

There was an even simpler way than robot soldiers. Just hit them with drone bombs or missiles.

Some hunters were superhuman, but not enough to transcend their era.

That was why they became celebrities or bodyguards for corporate heads. Some even reached A-rank, then left to find ordinary jobs.

“...”

Dohyeon stopped walking. He was about halfway up a small hill, and the bushes and fallen leaves looked slightly unnatural.

He brushed aside the leaves with the tip of his shoe and found a narrow, hidden entrance. It was covered with a tarp and scattered with leaves.

Pulling back the tarp, he took a small light stick from his bag. It was a light made by scientists outside, who had blended dungeon materials together.

Gunpowder would not even ignite inside a dungeon, but something like this could be synthesized without much trouble. Once again, it showed just how twisted Yggdrasil and the being it called Odin must have been.

He tossed the light stick inside. It revealed a short vertical passage and its floor. Nothing looked particularly strange. Still, Dohyeon listened quietly for any sign of movement inside.

There was no sign of people, nor any human scent.

“...”

Why had he suddenly thought of human scent? His hearing was good, but there was nothing special about his sense of smell.

That was what he thought, but his movements did not stop. He slung the crossbow over his back and grabbed the iron-pipe ladder in the passage. Then he carefully climbed down, watching for traps he might have missed.

Inside the bunker, Dohyeon picked up the light stick he had dropped and slowly looked around.

It was a stifling, square space without a single window. There was an old table and chair, assorted junk, three or four cardboard boxes, and a filthy mattress shoved into a corner.

There was no obvious threat. No dangerous smell.

Dohyeon first examined the junk on the table.

[Broken Glasses: Fragments of glass that once gave their wearer a clear view. Now, they reflect only a cracked world.]

[Stopped Wristwatch: The second hand that once represented the passage of time has stopped. Whether memory or sorrow hangs from its tip, no one can know.]

[Box of Nails: Nails sealed tightly enough to escape rust. They are filled with a sharp longing to pierce the flesh of wood.]

Dohyeon took the box of nails and wristwatch, then checked the boxes in the corner. They were filled with old, crumbling textiles, but one piece was intact.

[Sturdy Yellow Fiber Cloth: It looks as though it could be made into new clothes at once. It is durable, long-lasting, and above all, it will hide someone's shame.]

Fiber was always a popular item. Whether it contained a lot of Vanaskelium or little, there was demand for it.

Dungeons did not accept materials from outside. Unless someone wanted to enter such a dangerous place naked, they needed clothes made from dungeon materials.

Even the clothes and bag Dohyeon currently wore were made from fiber cloth like this. Besides, non-hunters also wanted clothes made from dungeon fabric, hoping they might contain some special power from within a dungeon, so they were highly sought after.

“...I really earned today's wages.”

Dohyeon smiled bitterly. He had earned his wages, but lost a huge chunk of his assets.

He folded the cloth neatly and put it in his bag, then searched the cramped space further. However, he found nothing else worth taking. After checking his bag straps, Dohyeon left the small bunker.

After that, he continued forward slowly, remaining alert in every direction. He could not leave the dungeon yet. His bag had plenty of room, and despite that morning's incident, he still had plenty of stamina.

The memory of losing consciousness and chewing raw meat was shocking, but he had experienced far too much in dungeons to be brought to his knees by that alone.

Then Dohyeon's steps stopped.

It was because of a faint sound coming from afar.

“...Please... save... me...”

A groan steeped in pain and despair. Dohyeon identified the direction of the sound and began moving toward it.

Passing through the bushes and trees, he crossed the ridge of the hill. His view opened up, revealing the wide landscape beyond.

A flower field.

“Save... me... Please... save... me...”

“...”

Yellow, red, and white flowers bloomed in a dazzling spread along the hill's slope. Amid them stood a single flowering tree that was unusually tall.

“S-save... me...”

Flower stems and vines were tightly wrapped around her body. Some pierced through her flesh, their ends blooming with beautiful open flowers. Flowers also bloomed on the stem that had burst through her nose and one eye.

Even then, she spotted Dohyeon and trembled as tears fell from her remaining eye.

“Here... There’s someone... Save... me...”

“...”

Dohyeon merely stared silently at the being halfway between a flower and a person.

Perhaps sensing something in his quiet demeanor, the hope that had begun to bloom in her eye slowly faded. A teardrop rolled down her face, only for a thorny vine to slither over and drink that up as well.

After watching her, or it, for a moment, Dohyeon raised his crossbow.

He aimed precisely at her head and pulled the trigger.

The bolt flew with a thump and a whoosh. It pierced her temple and burst out the other side. The pupil in her remaining eye went slack.

The next moment, a flower bud rose from the crown of the dead woman's head. It was a beautiful bud, far larger and deeper blue than the other flowers around it.

As it bloomed wide, an overpowering fragrance spread in every direction, as though it could numb the nose.

A blue flower. The special feature of Flower Hill that could easily earn tens of millions of won once refined.

“...Sniff.”

Then, amid the flower's piercing fragrance, Dohyeon caught another scent.

The scent of sin.

Turning his head, Dohyeon spotted a crossbow aimed at him from far away. Following his instincts, he sharply twisted his head aside, and a black bolt flew past, grazing his hair.

The one who had fired seemed startled that Dohyeon had dodged it. But the other two with them apparently thought it was luck. Rather than being surprised, they drew their weapons and started running toward Dohyeon.

A three-person team. One ranged fighter and two close-combat fighters. A textbook hunter team.

Though it looked like they hunted people rather than monsters.

“...What a fantastic day I'm having.”

Muttering that as he watched the two men charge at him, Dohyeon abruptly turned and began running in the opposite direction.

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