WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Oblivious
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ Surviving as a B-Rank Hunter ◈
Chapter 6
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“...”
The smile slowly faded from Dohyeon’s lips as he gave a hollow laugh. The green-eyed Valkyrie merely watched him in silence.
With a stiff expression, Dohyeon met her gaze, then turned again to look at the space reflected in the mirror.
The tall female warrior was still nowhere to be seen in the mirror.
[Do you feel fear, Helisbyorn?]
Dohyeon slowly faced forward after looking around the empty apartment. His eyes took in his reflection in the bathroom mirror, along with the winged ancient warrior standing behind him.
The Valkyrie’s green eyes looked like green suns burning in the reflection.
“...”
After silently looking at the Valkyrie, Dohyeon turned around and left the bathroom. He walked straight into the kitchen and took a cleaver from the cupboard.
Then he placed his left hand on the cutting board with a thunk.
The large cleaver rested over his left index finger like a guillotine blade.
This time, he intended to cut off the finger that might have been causing these strange phenomena.
[Vargband, the Beast’s Fetters, has already become one with you. Cutting off that index finger will change nothing. Still, if you insist on trying, I will not stop you.
A true warrior ought to be missing an ear, a nose, an eye, or perhaps a hand. A finger would not be bad, either.]
“...”
The cleaver, which had been about to come down without hesitation, stopped cold.
The Valkyrie’s voice was calm. It was the sort of calmness one used when stating an obvious fact that required no other emotion.
But was that calmness the truth? No, was this ring, or tattoo, even really the reason he could hear her voice?
Could it simply be an inherited defect from his mother, the mental illness he had secretly feared for years finally manifesting?
Have I finally lost my mind?
[I tell you again, Helisbyorn. You are not mad. Your mind is merely still and quiet.
Though old wounds, rage, pain, and loneliness remain like deep furrows in its depths... you still retain a lucid mind.]
“...”
How would you know? Crazy people never know they’re crazy.
Dohyeon raised the cleaver he had meant to use on his index finger and used its gleaming side to look at his face.
Over his shoulder, reflected just like him, stood the female warrior with the winged helmet that glimmered with ancient light and green eyes beneath it.
[I said a true warrior may lack an ear, an eye, a nose, or a hand. All of yours remain intact, yet deep within your chest, inside your heart, is utterly desolate. A heart split in two. You are already a true warrior, Helisbyorn.]
“...Why do you call me Helisbyorn?”
[It is merely an affectionate name for the warrior I hold dear.]
Even in the blurred reflection on the blade, Dohyeon could tell that the Valkyrie was smiling with her eyes. For some reason, he felt truly deep affection and intimacy flowing from that smile.
“I’m seeing you for the first time today.”
[A child begins preparing to love their parents while still within them.
That is the strongest bond, and the greatest thing. Helisbyorn, my warrior. You, too, can love in that way.]
“What kind of crazy bullshit is that?”
Dohyeon immediately frowned. The word parents yanked his consciousness sharply back to reality.
He drew the side of the cleaver closer to his face. It was like two people looking through a narrow horizontal window. His gaze and the Valkyrie’s met.
“You... got inside my head?”
[If that is what you wish to think, then think it.]
“Does that mean yes or what?”
[It is your freedom.]
“Then what if I want you to get out of my head?”
[Thought is free.]
“How long are you going to stay?”
[A moment and an eternity are not different. It may become my moment and your eternity, or my eternity and your moment.]
“What the fuck... Are you that sort of thing? Yggdrasil’s vanguard, finally invading reality?”
[The invasion of Odin and the gods has already begun. It is plain to see in the warriors endlessly entering the rifts of space and time for blue stone powder.]
Dohyeon narrowed his eyes.
“Odin...? Does the Odin Yggdrasil speaks of really exist? An actual god?”
[An actual god. What is actual? What is an actual god? What are gods, an absolute origin, indestructible truth, and the universe’s idea?
What is the choice of existence, the substance of emptiness, and the meaning of sunyata? What are the polar points of meaning divided beneath matter that can no longer be divided?]
Green light flashed in the Valkyrie’s eyes reflected in the blade.
[Do you dare believe that a mere human who cannot even live a hundred years can understand that vast will?]
“...”
As Dohyeon hesitated before the blazing light and sudden barrage of words, the Valkyrie’s eyes smiled again.
[Of course, humans can understand. Humans who can contain the whole universe in their small minds are more than capable. But, Helisbyorn, your time has not yet come.]
Dohyeon stared at that smiling gaze in the blade with a rigid expression before quietly asking,
“...What are you?”
[I will be a guide if you desire a guide. I will be a battle overseer if you desire one. If you desire the one-eyed god’s dís who will lead you to the golden palace of the high heavens, then I will be that as well.
My armor, spear, and wings can lead you to a great battlefield, to a death that will truly make history. If you desire a Valkyrie of heaven, then I will be one.]
Her voice was magnificent. All he could see was the blurred reflective surface of the blade, yet her voice alone turned Dohyeon’s dark apartment into the center of an ancient longhouse.
It was as though a messenger of the gods were promising heaven to warriors.
But after saying that much, the Valkyrie fell silent.
Then, in a softer voice, like a mother whispering to a child before sleep, she spoke.
[But Helisbyorn, my warrior. By the faint will I possess, I only wish to hold you and comfort you. If you ask what I am, that is my only answer.]
“...”
Dohyeon stood there silently for a while. His face remained expressionless, giving no sign of what he was thinking.
After some time, he returned the cleaver to the cupboard and muttered,
“Tomorrow... I should see a psychiatrist.”
For now, he decided to sleep. Perhaps all of this was merely a hallucination that would disappear neatly once he woke up.
So Dohyeon no longer spoke to the Valkyrie and went straight to his bedroom, where he collapsed onto the bed, as if denying the Valkyrie’s existence and the conversation they had shared.
The Valkyrie did not speak to him again, either.
He only faintly seemed to hear the sound of a low lullaby as he drifted off.
* * *
“I’ll process your consultation fee.”
“...”
Dohyeon stood before the hospital’s administrative office and looked at the person seated across from him. He could not tell whether she was a nurse or an administrative employee.
She was the only person there. The office was fairly large, with computers, medication dispensers, and several humanoid robots, but she alone operated them.
The reason she was alone was simple. The office had become automated enough for one person to handle its work.
Only six or seven years ago, there would have been at least five or six employees behind that counter.
Now, one was enough. Before long, even that one person would no longer be needed.
“Your payment of 128,000 won has gone through.”
She handed him a sealed medicine packet along with the receipt. Dohyeon gave a silent nod of thanks and left.
After leaving the hospital, Dohyeon immediately checked the medicine packet. Its heavy exterior listed the medications and precautions, and one drug among them was familiar.
A drug he had grown sick of handling because of his mother. That bastard doctor had prescribed such a potent medication after just ten minutes of consultation, without even properly warning him.
It was the sort of drug that left you sluggish all day, barely able to speak.
[Then you definitely could not enter a dungeon if you took this medicine, could you?]
“...”
The Valkyrie’s voice rose naturally in his mind. Without answering, Dohyeon stared at the medicine packet with sunken eyes.
A moment later, he threw it into a nearby trash can and headed for the parking lot.
Dohyeon had gone to the hospital early that morning, only to waste the consultation fee and the cost of the medicine before getting back on the road.
Though it was still morning, the sky was gloomy, and personal flying vehicles drifted through the gray air. Each one cost well over a billion won, yet there sure were a lot of them.
[Flying is dangerous. If you were attacked up there, you would simply fall.]
Coming from a ghost with wings, that was a bit rich.
Dohyeon caught himself thinking that and frowned. He had to ignore the Valkyrie. It did not matter whether she was an early symptom of mental illness or an illusion created by Vargband.
Either way, no one else could see or hear her, so Dohyeon had to act as though she did not exist. He had to do that if he wanted to seem normal.
[You are thinking something you do not believe. You have never considered yourself normal, have you?]
Dohyeon glared at the rearview mirror. The Valkyrie sat cross-legged in the back seat, wearing a faint smile. Somehow, it was a rather irritating smile.
“...”
In the end, Dohyeon did not open his mouth. He simply kept his eyes forward and continued driving.
After arriving at his apartment parking lot, Dohyeon parked his car and walked outside. Unlike last night, he did not immediately go upstairs. Instead, he headed toward a nearby convenience store.
He had gone straight to the hospital after waking up and had not eaten anything yet.
With a small jingle from the bell, the interior of the modest convenience store came into view. There was one convenience store employee and one customer at the register.
In the convenience store’s security mirror, he saw the Valkyrie looking around the interior.
[This small space seems to have crammed in every object and food necessary for a human life. It overflows with material things, yet is empty at the same time. Splendid.]
It was a grand impression for someone who had only looked around a small convenience store. Still, it did seem plausible.
“...”
The next instant, Dohyeon came to his senses and hurriedly grabbed a lunchbox and several instant meals, lowering his eyes as he headed for the counter.
He wanted to pay quickly and return home. At least it would be easier to ignore the Valkyrie in a room without mirrors.
“Stop it. If you’re done paying, please leave.”
“Come on. If a phone number is too much, just give me your Instagram ID.”
“I said no. If you keep doing this, I’ll call the police.”
“What the fuck? The police?”
Dohyeon raised his eyes at the suddenly raised voice and profanity. He saw a burly man in a tight tank top and a young woman in a convenience store uniform.
The man looked pale, while the woman had somewhat darker skin and prominent features. She looked like she might have been a second-generation immigrant, and she was quite pretty. The pale bastard had probably approached her because of that.
“Did I hold a knife to you and demand money? I’m just asking you to have a drink with me, fuck. Is that so hard? Huh? And now the police? You crazy bitch, are you trying to die?”
Caught in the sudden situation, the woman looked flustered. Her hand reflexively moved toward the police-call button on the register.
The man saw it, too.
“Where the fuck do you think you’re moving your hand?”
His hand shot over the counter and grabbed her wrist. Neon lines embedded like tattoos across his artificial skin flashed brightly. It was a prosthetic arm with an obnoxious style.
Before the Odin Shock, tattooed pigs had been the typical thugs. Now that place had been taken by people with prosthetic arms and legs flashing ridiculous neon lines.
Their bodies had grown sturdier, so they did not easily die in motorcycle accidents, and they caused bigger problems. They were practically gangsters.
“Wait, that hurts...!”
As the employee let out a pained groan, the tank-top man’s gaze slid toward Dohyeon.
“What are you looking at? Don’t stand there like an idiot. Get lost.”
Dohyeon immediately turned away. He intended to put the lunchbox back and leave. At his immediate response, the tank-top man snickered.
Dohyeon was a hunter. He had held his license for a long time and had considerable experience, so the local police station knew Dohyeon. If the police showed up because of some incident, they might fire live rounds first without asking questions.
His strength, reflexes, and speed were far beyond those of an ordinary person. He even made his living entering dungeons and fighting monsters with swords and arrows.
That was why the local police considered Dohyeon not a person, but something like a potential killer bear or wolf equipped with reason and experience. They regarded most hunters that way.
And it was true to some extent.
Knowing full well how the police viewed him, Dohyeon had no intention of getting caught up in a pointless situation and causing himself trouble. He was already unsettled because of the Valkyrie.
More than anything, it was annoying. Whatever the thug did, and whoever suffered because of it, had nothing to do with him.
Just as he was returning the lunchbox to its place, he saw the scene at the counter reflected in the large security mirror on the ceiling.
“Let go, let go of me...”
“Who said I was going to kill you? Come on. Stop doing this stupid job and come with me. Yeah? I’ll take you somewhere nice.”
The employee was still terrified, her wrist trapped in his grip. Tears welled in her large eyes.
At the same time, he saw the Valkyrie standing rigid as a statue at one side of the convenience store, staring in his direction.
Her green eyes seemed to burn with green light. That gaze pierced his insides like a blade.
In that instant, heat flared along Dohyeon’s spine and behind his eyelids, and he saw a face from the past.
A woman’s face.
The crying employee looked nothing like her, yet their faces overlapped in his vision.
The tank-top man had been grinning as he pulled on the employee’s wrist when he suddenly felt something like a blast of hot air approach from the side. He turned his head.
Dohyeon’s expressionless face was suddenly right beside him.
“What? Don’t start acting up for no reason, you lit-”
At that moment, the edge of Dohyeon’s hand struck the tank-top man’s Adam’s apple. As the man made a choking sound, the hand that had struck his throat continued moving, grabbing his hair.
Then Dohyeon slammed him down onto the counter.
Bang!
The tank-top man’s forehead split open, and he crumpled to the floor with a groan.
“...!”
The employee, her wrist now free, stared at Dohyeon with wide eyes.
After meeting her gaze for a moment, Dohyeon grabbed the hair of the man sprawled on the floor.
“Argh! You fucking bastard, you son of a-”
The man was dragged straight outside the convenience store. Dohyeon moved so quickly and without hesitation that by the time the man regained his senses, he was already rolling across the paving stones outside.
“You piece of shit...”
Blood streamed from his broken forehead as the man jumped to his feet. Then he charged straight at Dohyeon. His prosthetic arm seemed to have considerable output, and the neon afterimage flashed like lightning.
But Dohyeon easily caught and twisted the fist he threw.
Creak-crunch.
Gears broke and rubber tore.
“Huh?”
The man made a stupid sound as he stared at his right arm, its joint twisted around two or three times. Part of its artificial skin had torn away, lubricant flowed from within, and rubber hoses dangled loose.
“You, you... H-Hunter, right? You are, aren’t you?”
The man had stared in shock at his ruined arm, but then twisted his face as he glared at Dohyeon. His expression was a mixture of rage and fear.
“Fuck, i-if a hunter hits an ordinary person, it’s an aggravated offense! I’ll call the police right now and...”
“Go ahead.”
“What?”
“I said call the police.”
“You fucking bastard, you think I can’t do it just because you told me to-”
For someone who had just destroyed a mechanical arm, Dohyeon looked remarkably calm as he watched the tank-top man.
But when the man met his eyes, he saw something burning beneath that stillness.
Something like the strange heat he had felt against his cheek earlier. A wildness boiling far more violently than it appeared.
A beast was holding its breath beneath the surface of those eyes.
“...”
That beast was telling him that if he crossed the line, it would immediately pounce on him, cut him apart, and tear him to pieces.
To survive on the streets, you had to recognize something stronger than yourself. A rule that might have applied in the wilderness or slums now applied here in Korea as well.
The violence before him, no, death itself, was more certain than distant police officers.
And the tank-top thug was a man who faithfully followed that rule. He shut his mouth tightly and slowly lowered his eyes.
Seeing that, Dohyeon said,
“If you have nothing to say, get lost.”
“...”
After furtively gauging Dohyeon’s expression, the man slowly backed away. At some point, he spun around and ran. His figure vanished around the entrance to an alley.
After confirming that the man’s footsteps were growing distant, Dohyeon turned around.
“E-Excuse me...”
The employee called to him in a voice that barely carried as she stood awkwardly inside the convenience store, holding the door.
But Dohyeon neither answered nor turned around.
Leaving the convenience store, Dohyeon crossed the parking lot and got into the elevator. As he glared sullenly at the elevator advertisement, he felt the Valkyrie’s gaze.
[As expected of my Helisbyorn. You are a bold and outstanding warrior.]
The elevator had mirrors on both sides, so it was impossible not to see the Valkyrie.
Still, Dohyeon cleanly ignored her and walked through the opening doors.
As he passed through the hallway, he heard the couple next door arguing loudly in broad daylight.
He passed by the noise as though it were background sound, opened his apartment door, and realized that he had ultimately failed to buy anything from the convenience store.
“...”
Looking at the empty apartment, Dohyeon grimaced and went inside. He took out a frozen ready-made meal from the kitchen freezer and put it in the microwave.
Then he opened the Dungeon Integrated Board, Duntong, and checked his messenger. There was a message from an Observer he traded with often.
[a113: Please reply by 2 p.m. If I don’t hear from you, I’ll pass it to another client.]
Dohyeon immediately sent a response. There was not much time left until 2 p.m. If the information was good, he could enter a dungeon before the afternoon was over.
As the microwave holding his meal gave a ding, a reply arrived through the messenger as well.
[a113: Once payment is confirmed, I will send the location and data.]
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