Surviving as a B-Rank Hunter - Chapter 9

WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Oblivious

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Surviving as a B-Rank Hunter ◈

Chapter 9

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Dohyeon raised the crossbow and pulled the trigger the moment he saw that greasy face.

“Fuck!”

The hand axe hunter cursed and ducked. Unfortunately, the bolt only grazed his hair.

The moment Dohyeon saw it miss, he turned and ran.

The three had hunted a solo hunter without warning or hesitation. They had also survived being chased by more than ten Mask Men without any of them seeming injured. Clearly, they were different from the worthless rabble Dohyeon had encountered over the past few days.

“Is shooting bolts and running all this bastard can do? Stop if you don’t wanna die!”

The hunter with the hand axe shouted that pointless nonsense and immediately chased after Dohyeon.

The spearman and crossbowman followed behind him. The crossbowman Dohyeon had shot earlier had bandages wrapped around his chest, and his face was twisted with anger.

The inside of the shopping mall was dark. The ceiling skylights were coated in dust and grime, letting in only murky light.

In that dimness, gray mannequins lay scattered everywhere like corpses, while others stood blankly like living people.

The gloomy light from above made their pale colors look unnervingly like human skin.

As Dohyeon ran between those plastic corpses, he glanced back. He saw the faces of three men twisted by rage and greed.

He had thought the men might choose the safer option of collecting the spoils from the solo hunter they had killed first instead of pursuing him. Apparently, safe choices were not their style.

Then the crossbowman, running with a deep frown, slid down onto one knee. Gritting his teeth, he pulled back the string, loaded another bolt, and aimed at Dohyeon.

Dohyeon immediately threw himself sideways. A bolt whipped past his back with a whoosh.

Still rolling from the dive, Dohyeon was kicked in the back by the hand axe hunter, who had closed the distance in a few strides.

For an instant, Dohyeon felt as though he had been struck by a hammer, his breath cut off. Even through the backpack, the impact was this strong. The man’s strength was clearly far beyond ordinary.

Now Dohyeon understood why he had been so confident from before they entered the dungeon. Just as expected, he was no common fool.

Dohyeon rolled from the kick and crashed into several mannequins. The old mannequins shattered under his weight, arms and legs flying everywhere.

Rather than force himself up, Dohyeon rolled aside. A moment later, the hand axe hunter’s combat boot slammed down where he had been. The floor tiles cracked with a crack, spiderweb fractures spreading across them.

As Dohyeon pushed off the floor to rise, another kick came flying in. Just as expected, this man knew how to fight.

Against an opponent already on the ground, kicking was far more effective than trying to chop them with a short hand axe.

Of course, Dohyeon knew how to fight too.

“Ghk!”

The hand axe hunter let out a low groan and stepped back. The fabric around his calf had been slashed open.

A sharp dagger was in Dohyeon’s hand as he slowly rose.

The hand axe hunter grinned at him.

“Why aren’t you pulling out the long one? Is it just decoration?”

He jerked his chin past Dohyeon’s shoulder, indicating the hilt of the long sword sticking up behind him.

“This is enough for someone like you.”

Dohyeon answered carelessly and checked the other two.

The spearman, who had caught up, was slowly circling behind Dohyeon with his spear aimed at him. The crossbowman, having just fired, was pulling back the string again.

“Big talk from a little punk.”

The hand axe hunter dismissed Dohyeon’s taunt and glanced toward the crossbowman. As long as he and the spearman controlled Dohyeon’s movements, the crossbowman could fire from afar, leaving Dohyeon no way to defend himself.

But things did not go as he expected.

“Cough! Cough!”

The crossbowman, who had been pulling the string, hunched over with a harsh cough. Several bolts fell to the floor with a clatter. Blood showed between his trembling hands.

The bolt that had struck him when they entered the dungeon must have injured his lung.

“What are you doing, you idiot!”

As the hand axe hunter shouted at him, he sensed someone suddenly closing in and hurriedly turned his head.

Dohyeon filled his entire field of vision.

“You fu...!”

Dohyeon tackled him, and the two tumbled together. They rolled in a chaotic heap before slamming into a glass railing. The old glass could not withstand the force and shattered with a crash.

Still tangled together, they fell down one floor.

Broken glass struck the ground with a deafening racket.

After falling three or four meters, both crawled across the floor for a moment, unable to gather their senses. But the hand axe hunter had landed on his back, so Dohyeon had taken far less of the impact.

Staggering upright first, Dohyeon picked up the crossbow. The man’s strength was no joke, so he intended to put a bolt through his head rather than approach him.

“No, fuck...”

Dohyeon cursed as well. When he lifted the crossbow hanging from his lower back by its anti-theft tether, he found one side of the bow had snapped with a crack from the fall.

How much did this thing cost?!

Anger surged through Dohyeon, but he quickly unfastened the anti-theft tether and discarded the cumbersome equipment.

At the same time, he gripped the dagger in his other hand and rushed at the hand axe hunter, who was starting to rise.

There was no other choice.

“You dogshit bastard!”

The hand axe hunter, groaning from the fall, regained his senses. Still on the ground, he lifted his hips, rolled backward in a fluid motion, and rose to his feet.

It was a movement that looked like something from a movie, but his hunter-enhanced body made it possible in a real fight.

The instant he got upright, he kicked at Dohyeon’s wrist.

The dagger flew into the air with a ting.

“How do you like that, you little...”

Even after losing the dagger, Dohyeon’s charge did not stop. He pushed in even deeper.

Startled by Dohyeon’s approach, the hand axe hunter tried to swing the axe he had been holding. But Dohyeon seized his arm and collar first.

“Ghk!”

He had been standing on one foot after kicking, so before he could react further, the hand axe hunter’s view spun.

A moment later, his body was flipped upside down and slammed into the floor.

The tiles shattered with a crash.

Dohyeon had grabbed him and thrown him down.

“Ghuurk...!”

He had already fallen on his back from the upper floor, and now this upside-down slam piled more shock onto him. His mouth hung open as he made only choking sounds, unable to breathe.

Dohyeon reached over his shoulder and gripped the hilt of the long sword.

He needed to draw it and finish him.

But at that moment, the hair on the back of his neck stood up. Rather than draw the sword, Dohyeon threw himself aside.

The instant he rolled, a bolt bounced off the floor nearby.

The coughing crossbowman had recovered enough to shoot. He had positioned himself on the upper floor and was reloading. On top of that, the spearman was racing down the stopped escalator as if he were flying.

In that brief interval, the hand axe hunter had also struggled into a fighting stance. His eyes were bloodshot with pain and his teeth clenched, but he was still fast to recover. He was a proper hunter, at least.

Yet the next instant, bewilderment appeared on his face instead of pain.

Dohyeon had turned and started running away.

“You fucking... really love running...”

The situation had turned against Dohyeon the moment he could no longer finish off the hand axe hunter. Dropping him down one floor with that sudden tackle had only been a surprise attack.

He was already recovering and getting back up, while the spearman was nearly upon Dohyeon. If both of them caught him, the crossbowman’s bolts would finish the job.

At this point, running was Dohyeon’s only choice.

[Wise, Helisbyorn. Those who recklessly seek a frontal battle may be brave, but they are foolish. The flame of that moment may shine brightly, yet it leaves nothing behind.]

Instead of praising me, why don’t you stab those guys with that long spear? Is that something ghosts can’t do?

Dohyeon had made it a rule not to answer the Valkyrie’s voice, but there was no time to worry about that now. Not while bolts were flying at his back and murderers with axes and spears were chasing him.

“Stop right there, asshole!”

“Stop if you don’t wanna die!”

Hearing the voices behind him, Dohyeon felt a little miserable. He was running away without even recovering his crossbow or dagger. It was the unavoidable plight of a solo hunter facing a team.

One person defeating three in a direct fight was never easy. It was even harder when it was not a street brawl, but a fight where everyone intended to kill one another.

And if those people were hunters, whose physical abilities surpassed ordinary humans after entering dungeons? If they were not the useless rabble everywhere these days, but real B-rank hunters? Unless someone was at least A-rank, facing them head-on was nothing but suicide.

Dohyeon abruptly changed direction. He slid around a corner of the shopping mall, and the moment he turned, a bolt skimmed past his hair.

Did that mean solo hunters were doomed to die the moment they encountered a team?

Of course not.

Dungeons were unpredictable and chaotic. And they did not allow anyone to monopolize them. The reason a team consisted of three people in the first place was that if a group of more than three entered together, the dungeon scattered them far apart.

So solo hunters could hunt teams if they used the dungeon environment well enough.

That was how Dohyeon had survived until now.

As he ran around the corner, Dohyeon saw stores lined closely along both sides. The stores were as dark as caves without any light reaching inside, with only mannequins and trash faintly visible.

Something was moving in that darkness.

Then a message from Yggdrasil appeared.

[The dance of empty beings draws near.]

Mask Men.

“Fuck! Them again?”

The hand axe hunter’s group, following behind, also spotted the Mask Men creeping out. The hand axe hunter looked between Dohyeon and the Mask Men with irritation before stopping and shouting at his companions.

“Stop! Gather over here!”

It seemed they had decided to stop pursuing Dohyeon and deal with the Mask Men. Leaving those things behind to continue hunting a person was not a wise choice.

They could end up being hunted by the Mask Men instead of hunting Dohyeon.

Mask Men crawled out of the mall’s dark shadows, their breathing making a hiss, hiss. Their masks varied, from gas masks to hockey masks, helmets, and even simple pieces of cloth pulled over their heads.

Their numbers were as varied as their masks. There seemed to be more than fifteen of them.

The figures that had crept out soon began swarming toward the hand axe hunter’s group in the middle of the mall corridor.

“We pull back for now. If we really can’t get that bastard, we’ll get him later, even if we have to wait outside...”

The hand axe hunter trailed off.

The fleeing Dohyeon had reversed direction and was running back toward them.

Dohyeon was charging at the hand axe hunter’s group alongside the Mask Men.

“You insane bastard!”

Saying they were running together was not quite accurate. The Mask Men were targeting Dohyeon too.

Still, both Dohyeon and the Mask Men were heading toward the hand axe hunter’s group.

As he ran toward them, Dohyeon drew the long sword from behind his shoulder. It was so long that he had to pull the scabbard with his left hand.

Holding that long sword, Dohyeon secretly hoped the index finger of his left hand and his spine would grow hot.

This would be the perfect time for Vargband to activate.

But all he felt was the hilt in his grip and the sword’s weight. There was no sign of that heat suddenly flaring up again.

“...Of course not.”

Dohyeon whispered and gripped the hilt with both hands as he charged at the hand axe hunter.

The man had drawn a second hand axe and now held one in each hand.

His lips were tightly pressed together and his eyes wide. At least outwardly, he showed neither fear nor confusion.

As he glared at Dohyeon, a Mask Man suddenly lunged at him from the side.

“You little...!”

The hand axe hunter and the Mask Man tangled together and fell. Dohyeon swung his sword naturally at the spearman who appeared behind them, as though he had been his original target all along.

The spearman had been skillfully using his extended spear to hook masks off Mask Men. He noticed Dohyeon, but rather than panic, he spun the spear shaft and deflected Dohyeon’s strike.

Sword and shaft collided with a ting.

Apparently, the shaft was metal, not wood.

The spearman immediately swung the spinning shaft at Dohyeon’s temple. Dohyeon ducked low to avoid it.

After exchanging one blow each, neither followed up. Both had to deal with Mask Men rushing at them.

“Hieeeek!”

A noise came from inside a Mask Man’s mask.

Dohyeon drove the sword tip into its heart, then immediately released the hilt. It was not as if stabbing them with swords killed them anyway.

Still, it made the creature hesitate.

In that opening, Dohyeon tore off its hockey mask. The instant its face was exposed, its body collapsed, and its clothes and sword fell to the floor.

Before Dohyeon could retrieve the sword, he had to face another Mask Man.

The situation became a complete mess in an instant. Mask Men and hunters tangled together and rolled across the floor.

As though proving they had no reason at all, the Mask Men crashed into and shoved one another as they pleased, making the chaos worse.

“Cough, hack! S-save me! Save me...!”

The first victim appeared amid the confusion.

It was the crossbowman, who had been standing furthest away to fire bolts.

He had been fighting Mask Men with a dagger in each hand, held in reverse grips. But another sudden coughing fit left him unable to avoid their hands.

Mask Men rushed him at once and grabbed his arms and legs. In a one-on-one fight, he might have found a way out. But there was no resisting five or six pairs of hands attacking him together.

“Ghk...!”

His limbs were smashed in an instant.

After breaking his arms and legs and knocking him down, the Mask Men each pulled out masks and tried to force them onto his face.

The crossbowman thrashed and tried to avoid them. But when rough hands seized his hair as though they would tear it out, he could no longer resist.

A gas mask was forced over his face.

“...Hiss, hiss...”

The crossbowman trembled violently.

But the trembling did not last long. Once the strength left his body, the Mask Men slowly released him as well.

Then a new Mask Man rose to its feet.

“What a fucking idiot...”

The hand axe hunter muttered as he glanced at the crossbowman slowly getting up while finishing off another Mask Man.

The crossbowman, now wearing a gas mask, was perfectly fine, as though his broken limbs had been a lie. With those restored limbs, he immediately rushed at the closest person, the spearman.

The spearman stabbed at him without hesitation.

The spear pierced directly through the center of the crossbowman’s chest, stopping his charge short.

Though the crossbowman had been stabbed, the one wearing a pained expression was the spearman.

“...Don’t worry about your sister-in-law and the kid, Daehyeon.”

Muttering that, the spearman twisted the spear free and kicked the crossbowman in the face.

The gas mask, hastily put on and not secured properly, flew off through the air.

At the same time, the clothes and bag that had lost their support fell to the floor with a clatter.

The crossbowman, who had been alive and moving only moments ago, vanished like smoke.

Just like the other Mask Men when their masks came off.

Before anyone could reflect on that futile scene, other Mask Men attacked the hunters.

The Mask Men tried to grab the hunters. The hunters tried to avoid their hands while tearing off their masks.

Amid the frenzy, Dohyeon threw three Mask Men in quick succession and immediately rolled aside.

The back of his neck had gone cold.

A hand axe whirled past his hair with a whoosh.

“Does that bastard have eyes in the back of his head?! Nothing’s hit him since earlier!”

The hunter who had thrown the axe screamed.

He could not continue venting his anger. Another Mask Man pounced on him from the side.

Dohyeon understood his frustration. He had avoided both the bolts and the suddenly thrown axe.

That did not mean he had any intention of letting himself get hit.

When Dohyeon rolled away from the axe and rose, the long sword he had dropped earlier was in his hand.

The moment he stood, a Mask Man grabbed the blade barehanded and lunged at him.

Rather than shake it loose, Dohyeon yanked the sword hard and cut off its fingers. Severed fingers fell to the floor with a clatter.

He kicked away the creature flailing without fingers, then drove the blade into the center of another Mask Man’s mask as it rushed in from the side.

If it had been a real human, it would have died instantly. But the Mask Man only stiffened for a moment before moving again.

As it began to move, Dohyeon twisted and pulled the embedded sword with force.

The mask’s fastening straps snapped with a rip, and the hockey mask came away on the blade.

Naturally, the creature’s body scattered as well.

After dealing with another one, Dohyeon quickly assessed the situation.

Rather than clear out every Mask Man, the hand axe hunter and spearman were trying to help each other escape. The Mask Men were charging at those hunters even more aggressively.

That made things a little easier for Dohyeon.

Honestly, the surest way to raise his odds of survival would be to cooperate with those two, drive away the Mask Men, and escape. At the very least, they could definitely get out of this place.

Of course, Dohyeon had no intention of doing that.

He intended to kill both of them here.

The reason was simple.

Even if they worked together and escaped, those men would never let Dohyeon live.

Then the Mask Man whose fingers Dohyeon had cut off rushed at him again with a perfectly restored hand.

Dohyeon swiftly lowered his stance, caught it with his shoulder, and threw it backward. Rather than finish it as it rolled away, he gripped the long sword in both hands and prepared to charge at the hand axe hunter’s group.

“...?”

Dohyeon stopped.

Something sour reached his nose.

Then he tasted a strange metallic flavor on his tongue, and his stomach churned faintly.

The moment he recognized it, Dohyeon’s eyes widened.

It was something he only felt outside when a dungeon gate opened.

But inside a dungeon, it was a common sensation.

The sign of an anomaly.

The next moment, not only the hunters and the Mask Men lunging like rabid dogs, but also the mannequins and debris scattered on the floor, abruptly rose into the air.

“Argh!”

The hand axe hunter screamed.

As though falling from a great height, people, monsters, and all the mall’s debris shot upward into the ceiling and smashed against the skylights.

* * *

Gravity Reversal.

It was the most common anomaly in Chernoblock. Simply put, it reversed up and down. Among anomalies, it was a relatively straightforward phenomenon.

But even after sensing its warning signs, there was no way to avoid it. The affected range was too large.

It seemed that at least the entire inside of the shopping mall had been reversed.

As Dohyeon fell upward, he grabbed a Mask Man beside him and used it as a cushion.

The creature thrashed and tried to grab Dohyeon, but Dohyeon seized its head and slammed it into the mall ceiling, mask and all.

The gas mask’s glass shattered with a crack, and the creature froze briefly. Dohyeon tore off its mask in that opening and finished it.

The body without a mask plummeted away.

“Urgh...”

The cushion had helped, but the impact still hurt. The pain from falling one floor with the hand axe hunter earlier remained, leaving Dohyeon’s back and legs aching.

As he staggered upright, Dohyeon saw the hand axe hunter kneeling on one knee.

Their eyes met. His gaze was also heavy with exhaustion and irritation.

You were the one who attacked first. What are you irritated about?

Dohyeon said that with his eyes and raised the sword.

The hand axe hunter glared at him for a moment, then snorted.

“Fuck, you’re a creepy bastard. Enough already. Just go.”

“...?”

What the hell was he talking about?

Dohyeon frowned, then noticed the floor where he knelt, which was now the mall ceiling, and the floor where he stood.

Unlike him, Dohyeon was standing on top of a skylight.

“Fall out of the sky!”

The instant Dohyeon understood, the hand axe hunter swung the axe in his hand into the skylight.

His strength could break floor tiles, and the glass, already dirty with years of dust, shattered at once.

“Ha!”

As his body suddenly dropped toward the pale sky, Dohyeon quickly reached out and grabbed the frame left behind after the skylight broke.

His fall stopped with a jolt.

Below his feet, glass fragments scattered toward the hazy sky.

When he looked up, the shopping mall appeared upside down. Mannequins and bits of stone were falling, rising, all around him.

“Wow, you really are creepy. You caught that already?”

The hand axe hunter, who had broken the skylight, laughed as though mocking Dohyeon.

But Dohyeon had no time to care.

Mask Men were clinging to the skylight frame Dohyeon held and crawling up it like spiders.

The hand axe hunter had not shattered the entire shopping mall skylight. He had only broken two or three of the panes where Dohyeon had stood.

But for Dohyeon, gripping that thin skylight frame, that made things even more hopeless.

The Mask Men had surrounded him from every side.

“Have fun suffering, bastard.”

The hand axe hunter sneered at Dohyeon and the Mask Men before running to help the spearman, who was struggling with another Mask Man.

Dohyeon hurriedly tried to pull himself upward by the frame.

He was not sure whether he should praise himself for still not letting go of the sword.

But before Dohyeon could regain his footing, the Mask Men’s hands kept reaching out and grabbing him.

At a glance, they looked like hands trying to rescue someone hanging from a cliff.

In truth, they were only the grasping hands of drowning ghosts trying to put masks like their own onto Dohyeon’s face.

Listening to the Mask Men’s hissing breaths, Dohyeon clenched his teeth.

There were six Mask Men in sight.

He could fight if there were distance between them, but trapped like this, things were hopeless.

Still, he could not give up.

He had to survive.

Even if it was a barren life of entering dungeons, killing people, seeming to go half-mad from anomalies, and gaining nothing despite it all, a life that made him wonder what he was even living to obtain, he still had to survive.

He had promised.

It was the promise that had kept him alive for the past ten years, and the binding that had made it impossible for him to leave the dungeon behind.

He would survive somehow.

In Dohyeon’s eyes, the Mask Men’s hands reaching for him were reflected.

Beyond those hands, it seemed as though old faces were visible inside the Mask Men’s masks.

Faces he could never forget.

The past.

Facing that past, Dohyeon clenched his teeth and gripped the sword.

Rage and fear mixed together, swirling from the depths of his chest.

Then someone whispered in his ear.

[Be angry at life, warrior. Awaken from delusion, bear in the cave.]

The Valkyrie’s voice.