WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Oblivious
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ Surviving as a B-Rank Hunter ◈
Chapter 7
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Anonymous Novice: Shall we each name the dungeon pattern we hate most?
For me, Kowloon Walled City. The auditory hallucinations seriously make me feel like I’m losing my mind.
Anonymous1: The hallucinations in Kowloon Walled City are rough. But when a silent-zone anomaly happens, that’s even scarier.
⤷Anonymous2: Silent zones can appear in Kowloon Walled City? Sounds like this bastard’s never even been there.
Anonymous3: Dragon Palace for me. There are no monsters, and anomalies rarely occur, but struggling beneath a ceiling low enough to brush your head in water rising above your waist feels like it’d give me claustrophobia.
⤷Kyokyo793: Don’t monsters sometimes show up in Dragon Palace? I saw a few people who had lost their legs there.
⤷⤷EyeOfHorus: The First Hunter, Choi Sangguk, who people were talking about recently, lost a toe in Dragon Palace.
EyeOfHorus: Kowloon Walled City is rough, and so is Dragon Palace, but personally, Chernoblock. The atmosphere of that ruined Eastern Bloc city is creepy, and the frequent gravity reversals are hard to deal with. More than anything, the Mask Men there are the hardest to fight. They look too human.
⤷Anonymous3: You can’t even see any of a Mask Man’s skin lolololol
⤷⤷EyeOfHorus: They look just like people until you take off their gas masks. It’s scary when they charge at you like lunatics and try to put masks on you, too.
⤷⤷⤷Ppakdori: Sometimes you get a Mask Man with really clean clothes. That’s a huge score. Take off its mask and neatly fold up the clothes, and you’ve got a whole day’s pay, sweep-sweep kimchi.
EyeOfHorus: What kimchi? Where’d that meme come from now?
⤷Ppakdori: Boomer.
⤷⤷EyeOfHorus: ...Honestly, I can never keep up with internet trends.
* * *
Dohyeon turned off the car and stepped outside.
Beyond the illegally parked cars, Dohyeon saw a dark alleyway. It was still only late afternoon, but the overcast sky kept out the sunlight, making it look even darker.
Most of the shops deeper in the alley were closed. Old signs, unlit buildings, and storefronts cluttered with odds and ends that might have been trash or might have been useful items filled his view.
According to the data he had received from a113, the Observer, a dungeon entrance would appear somewhere around here.
It was impossible to say exactly where it would form. Still, without Observers, he would not have been able to find even an approximate location like this.
They hacked CCTV cameras, deployed drones, tracked changes in magnetic fields, temperature, infrared radiation, and more, then located rough dungeon-entry points.
Of course, if such predictions could be made from data alone, AI would have surpassed them long ago.
Human asset managers had dwindled to a tenth of their numbers from ten years earlier because they had failed to win that battle of data prediction.
What mattered most was an Observer’s instinct. More precisely, their feeling. An irrational sense that could not be mathematically measured or quantified. An unconscious perceptive ability possessed only by living humans.
No matter how much deep learning AI ran, it could not learn that sense. Some people claimed it was proof that humans possessed souls, or that it was because Odin did not permit it, just as gunpowder weapons did not function inside dungeons.
Dohyeon thought the soul talk was bullshit. Still, he did believe that only humans could intuit a dungeon entrance’s location because Odin, or Yggdrasil, did not allow otherwise.
That was what dungeons were like. They had propelled modern civilization into its next stage with Vanaskelium, yet did not allow humanity to control dungeons using the fruits of that advanced civilization.
That was why they sometimes felt like bottomless antlion pits that endlessly devoured people.
[Other hunters can be seen as well.]
Dohyeon had been staring into the dark alley, lost in thought, when the Valkyrie’s whisper brought him back.
She was right. One beyond the illegally parked cars. One farther down the alley. Another near the entrance to the shopping arcade. Hunters. Competitors.
“Tch...”
He had wondered why the information had been sold off so hastily. It seemed several Observers had detected this location at the same time.
Fortunately, none of them appeared to be in teams. They all looked like solo hunters. Maybe they could all enter quietly, grab what they could, and leave cleanly.
As he took his bag and gear from the car, an old van came rattling between the illegally parked vehicles.
The van stopped in the middle of the road with a jolt. Its door opened with an old grinding sound, and three or four people poured out.
They were men in old but thick jumpers, grimy beanies, fingerless gloves, with unkempt beards and gloomy expressions. It was clearly the hunter team he had been worried about.
There were five of them. Three hunters going into the dungeon, one driver, and one assistant. As the three hunters grimly took out bags and weapons, the assistant pulled out something resembling night-vision goggles and began looking around.
Then the assistant spotted Dohyeon, who had parked at one side of the alley and was taking out his equipment, and tapped the shoulder of the hunter beside them.
The hunter, who had been taking out a hand axe, noticed Dohyeon at the touch and grinned. He idly toyed with the hand axe, even smacking his lips, clearly trying to intimidate Dohyeon.
Dohyeon met the smile with an expressionless face. He simply put on his backpack, sling bag, dagger, and the belt loaded with equipment.
But even that lack of response only made the other hunter’s grin more malicious. The other hunters openly kept Dohyeon in mind as they took out and displayed their equipment. There was a long spear made by connecting two poles, a heavy jungle machete, and a compound crossbow. The crossbowman even openly aimed his unloaded weapon in Dohyeon’s direction.
As Dohyeon ignored them, the Valkyrie whispered.
[They are showing off their size. Childish, but undoubtedly effective bravado for that very reason. Do you intend to ignore them?]
Dohyeon ignored the Valkyrie’s voice just as he had ignored the hunters. Maybe if he kept doing that, she would disappear someday.
Then he took out what he had shoved into a corner of the back seat. A long, slender sword. It was the blade he had picked up at Flower Hill last time.
“...”
Normally, Dohyeon did not use swords this long. He preferred firing a crossbow and finishing the job with a dagger.
Still, holding the sword, he glanced at the hunters. Since Dohyeon had remained stubbornly unresponsive, they seemed to have lost interest and were smoking and bantering with the driver, who had come outside. Only the assistant with the equipment over their eyes was diligently scanning the surroundings.
After watching them for a moment, Dohyeon strapped the sword across his back. Then he picked up his crossbow and shut the car door. A dull thunk rang out.
The hunters’ gazes briefly gathered on him at the sound. The one who had first taken out the hand axe saw the sword hilt sticking up from behind Dohyeon’s back and muttered.
“Always these bastards drunk on looking cool...”
Then he spun his hand axe in his palm, apparently showing off how practical his own weapon was.
Dohyeon did not care. Something more important than that childish contest of nerves had happened.
The air in the alley had changed.
The atmosphere seemed to have taken on a faintly rustling texture. A light metallic taste touched the tip of his tongue, and something glimmered in a dark corner of the alley as if someone had scattered a spoonful of cheap glitter there.
Machines could not detect this feeling. They could pick up subtle changes in temperature or flickering light, but not the same thing people sensed.
“Sirs, over there.”
As Dohyeon focused on the strange sensation, the team’s assistant pointed at one of the closed shops in the alley. Alternating between the night-vision-like device and their naked eye, the assistant nodded at the other hunters.
The hunters immediately crowded toward the shop. After checking the unlit interior and the locked door, they kicked in the lock.
The doorknob shattered with a bang, and the door flew open. The hunters stepped back for a moment and watched for a response from the shop, checking whether someone was inside or whether an alarm would go off.
When nothing happened, they all went inside. It was obviously illegal entry, but unless the building’s owner was present in a busy commercial district, few people these days would make an issue of it.
[Breaking down a door and entering without an invitation. What rude people. Shall you teach them courtesy with the tip of your blade, Helisbyorn?]
Not a person but a ghost was making an issue of it. However, since Dohyeon also had to trespass, he merely adjusted his backpack and approached the broken door.
He was not the only one. Solo hunters who had been waiting silently throughout the alley emerged. They watched one another without speaking, yet headed unhesitatingly toward the dark shop.
The van driver and assistant only smoked instead of stopping them. The driver was probably the team’s representative or management handler. They would deal with the shop owner later to prevent any trouble. In exchange, until this dungeon entrance closed, the driver’s company would implicitly occupy it.
They would also offer to buy Vanaskelium from solo hunters who came out, whether their own team returned or not.
After glancing at the cigarette burning between the driver’s lips, Dohyeon entered the unlit shop.
It had apparently been a restaurant before. Tables, chairs, plates, and other items were piled around inside. Farther in, an entrance covered by a curtain came into view. It led to the kitchen. The metallic taste lingering on his tongue grew stronger.
When he drew aside the old curtain and entered, he saw a dungeon entrance glowing bright blue. A fresh one.
[Fresh? It is an amusing expression, like one for fish. A fresh dungeon.]
The Valkyrie’s voice read his thoughts without permission. As he tried to ignore her, he caught a faint scent. The peculiar dusty smell found inside damp, humid concrete buildings.
“Chernoblock...”
When Dohyeon muttered that, another solo hunter entering the shop glanced at him. Their look seemed to ask how he knew that without even entering.
Dohyeon did not bother explaining. It was a sense he had learned through long experience, and at the same time, his own know-how.
“...”
Silence passed through the restaurant for a moment. There were four solo hunters, including Dohyeon. It was a small contest of hesitation over who would enter the dungeon first.
[Stride in boldly, warrior! Were you not going to teach courtesy to those uncouth fools?]
He did not agree with her, but Dohyeon moved first. It was certain that the earlier he entered, the more he could pick up. He had also lost that expensive chainmail last time.
When he stepped forward, the other solo hunters backed away slightly. Perhaps they wanted Dohyeon to go first and run into the team that had already entered. It was known that entry order and landing location were unrelated, but still.
As he passed into the light, bright light and the stale smell of dust stung his nose.
As soon as the light faded, Dohyeon immediately lowered his stance, controlled his breathing, and aimed his crossbow forward.
[As the rust of a city crumbling with age and the dance of the empty ones hold celebration and rite, what will you steal from the land of dying plaster?]
It was a message from the Yggdrasil system. Beyond the words, he could see gray concrete buildings, broken windows, rusted window frames, cracked parking-lot asphalt, and military vehicles half-collapsed there.
Dohyeon stood in a corner of an old apartment complex beneath a cloudy sky.
“So it really is Chernoblock.”
It was an old, low apartment complex built in a featureless style without decoration or aesthetic sense. If he left the complex, he would likely find shopping malls, hotels, banks, and the like nearby.
Chernoblock. Just as Kowloon Walled City was named after an old slum, it was a dungeon pattern named after a declining Eastern Bloc city.
Many hunters hated it because of its bleak monochrome scenery, broad and complicated urban area, and frequent anomalies.
“At least I probably won’t run into the other hunters right away.”
Chernoblock was an enormous dungeon pattern. Its urban layout differed from dungeon to dungeon, but it was always the size of an actual city.
Unless an exceptional number of hunters entered, they would not easily encounter one another.
Then the Valkyrie whispered.
[Knowing the dungeon’s malice so well, you still think such things?]
At the same time as her whisper, broken glass crunched.
Dohyeon aimed his crossbow precisely at the sound.
“...”
The hunter with the hand axe stood frozen atop the remains of a broken window. Behind him, the other hunters stood in a triangular formation, their expressions equally strange. One held a spear, while the other aimed a crossbow, as Dohyeon did.
The hunter with the hand axe spoke.
“Lucky me. A score right after coming in. I’ll put your bag and equipment to good use...”
“...”
Dohyeon watched that filthy smile for a moment, then lowered the crossbow he had been aiming. Confusion appeared on the faces of the hand-axe hunter and his companions.
Unless they were complete rookies, no hunters would surrender without any resistance in a situation like this. They would die either way. It would only give their attackers more time to toy with them.
That was why such people did not buy information from Observers and enter dungeons in the first place. They died before they got that far.
The hand-axe hunter understood at once and immediately turned around. His smiling face twisted.
“Fuck, are Mask Men spawning already?”
At the corner of the apartment parking lot where they stood, the entrance to the apartment building across from them was visible. It was dark inside, with little light reaching it. Someone was standing there.
The thing slowly emerging from the darkness wore an old camouflage uniform and a gas mask whose interior could not be seen. Its hissing breathing carried all the way to them.
The hand-axe hunter saw it, swung around to Dohyeon, and barked.
“You! We’ll deal with you later!”
“Fuck off.”
With that short reply, Dohyeon pulled the trigger of the crossbow that had seemed to be lowered halfway.
The bolt struck the crossbowman on the opposing team in the chest.
“Agh!”
Without listening to the man’s scream, Dohyeon turned and started running.
“You fucking bastard!”
The hand-axe hunter shouted, but Dohyeon did not care. They would not have time to chase him anyway.
When he glanced back, he saw the Mask Man spring from the apartment building like a beast. Its movement and momentum were those of a predator.
Unlike the Orphan Horde of Kowloon Walled City or the flower people of Flower Hill, every Mask Man was stronger and faster than an average hunter.
He had compared them for one reason only. Like those monsters, this one did not travel alone. It came in packs.
“Fuck! Run!”
As the hand-axe team ran in the direction opposite Dohyeon, ten to fifteen Mask Men came rushing out of the apartment building.
Most chased after the hand-axe team, but three followed Dohyeon.
Dohyeon gave a brief sniff and wiped his nose. Fortunately, one of the three wore very clean clothes. They were practically new. Just taking those clothes would earn him a day’s wages.
“Yeah, lucky me. A score right after coming in...”
Dohyeon gritted his teeth and muttered as he ran deeper into the city.
[Is that truly lucky...?]
The Valkyrie’s slightly dumbfounded voice sounded in his ear, but as always, he casually ignored it.
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