How To Survive as a Class a Hunter

16. Baek Dambi, the Ice Ability User – [1]

In the hallucination, I see a gate shimmering in purple.

I see the otherworldly beings standing in front of the gate. And I see Baek Dambi being held by both arms by the otherworldly beings.

Baek Dambi, she is being kidnapped. She is being dragged to a distant otherworld!

‘Baeekdaambi!’

A shout bursts from my mouth, but even speaking is not easy now. It’s because of the blood phlegm filling my throat.

Even lifting my upper body to glare at them is not an easy task.

My lower body doesn’t move. My two legs, which were cut off entirely earlier, are lying next to me. The only reason I’m still alive in this situation is because of my super-regeneration ability. Not because the wounds are less severe.

In the midst of terrible resentment and frustration, I shout curses that even I can’t understand. Curses directed at those skinny otherworldly beings.

Those vermin who live worse than North Korean residents in that other world. Invaders who have set out to plunder this prosperous land…

Bound by them, Baek Dambi looks at me, closes her eyes tightly, and mutters as if to herself.

‘Don’t stay here trying to do something, just teleport away. You have to live―’

Baek Dambi’s words are cut off. It’s because the otherworldly beings pulled her.

The otherworldly beings glance at me and then move forward.

In the end, the otherworldly beings disappear through the gate. She, who was held by them, also disappears with them.

I glared at their backs for a while, then vomited a bucket of blood and stared at the gate.

I have to do something before that gate closes. How?

I forced myself to concentrate and teleport. I moved right in front of the gate, then wriggled like a caterpillar, forcing my upper body into the gate.

Thus, the gate that had swallowed my comrades and the otherworldly beings swallowed me as well.

My vision was filled with a purple world…

*

With the shift in vision, I returned to reality.

I tried not to pant. I also had to make an effort not to show my heightened emotions.

Damn it, I feel like screaming and breaking something.

But I have to hold it in somehow. I know the origin of this anger is not normal. If I express it here, it’s obvious how I’ll be treated.

As the rage continued to swirl inside me, Ms. Park Mi-hyung spoke. Fortunately, she wasn’t talking to me.

“Ms. Dambi, if you’re moving teams, your activity area will change, so you’ll have to move, right? Should I show you one of my vacant buildings?”

“It’s okay. You don’t have to go that far. You know I have a lot of money.”

“Not go that far? Who’s going to easily rent a house to someone with ice abilities like us? Even if I show my city council member card, they won’t sell me an apartment because I’m an ice ability user. How are you going to find a house?”

“There are plenty of villas sold cheaply in areas where people don’t live. I bought one of those and I’m already living well.”

“What? Are you crazy, really crazy…”

While they were talking, I took deep breaths. Thanks to that, I was barely able to calm my emotions.

I said,

“Then I’ll assume you’re officially joining the team, and I’ll report your name as a team member. When should the team members meet? Tomorrow?”

Baek Dambi answered without any change in tone.

“Just tell me the time, and I’ll be there.”

Her voice was weak, as if she was about to collapse. She sounded like that when she was talking to Ms. Park Mi-hyung just now. Is this woman suffering from depression?

She really had no manners, let alone any emotional expression. Even now, it seems like Ms. Park Mi-hyung is more grateful than Baek Dambi, who directly received my favor.

“Mr. Kim Geuk, thank you so much today. You must have had to say unpleasant things to the academy because of me, I’m really sorry. Now that you’re doing better than me, it’s hard for me to say I’ll help you, right? But if you need my help later, don’t hesitate to call me, okay?”

With Ms. Park Mi-hyung seeing me off, I parted ways with the two of them. Then I sent the list of my hunter team members, including the existing members, the ones the academy was sending, and Baek Dambi, who was joining this time, to the association.

Then I called Seong Moon-young first to inform the team members of this fact.

When I told him that a woman was joining the team, Seong Moon-young looked puzzled.

“A female hunter? Women don’t usually do hunter work unless they’re awakened, right?”

“She’s awakened. She has ice abilities.”

“Hey, if she has ice abilities, she should be considered non-awakened… So, is she pretty?”

When I answered that she was pretty, he didn’t seem pleased. In fact, he seemed to have noticed something unusual and asked,

“If she’s a pretty ice ability user, could her name be Baek Dambi by any chance?”

“That’s right, do you know her?”

And Sung Mooyoung answered with a sigh.

“Baek Dambi, don’t you know? She’s one of the supervillains on Huntweb!”

*

“You might not know her. She was famous about a year ago. Try searching for her!”

So, I did as he said.

And indeed, when I typed Baek Dambi’s name on Huntweb, the search results spanned several pages.

I skimmed through the articles that came up and clicked my tongue. This woman was clearly not in her right mind.

It wasn’t strange that Sung Mooyoung was reluctant about the news of a pretty woman joining. Baek Dambi was notoriously known as a lunatic on Huntweb.

Baek Dambi didn’t post any disgusting photos on Huntweb herself.

The real Baek Dambi was shunned for two reasons.

First, the fact that she, an ice ability user, had pocketed hundreds of billions in contract money was enough to anger all tiers of Huntweb. Whether they were awakened hunters or non-awakened hunters, they couldn’t tolerate a mere ‘ice user’ receiving such money.

Anonymous: With the money given to Baek Dambi, they could have brought three awakened hunters from abroad…

Ⓐ syberMagneto: Everyone went crazy because the ice user kept working without returning the money, lol.

And the evaluations from hunters who worked with Baek Dambi were not good either. According to the experiences posted on Huntweb, the evaluations of her were like this:

‘A lunatic who still thinks she’s a celebrity.’

‘A woman who would wear a crop top even to a colleague’s funeral.’

At first, Baek Dambi was normal, but about a year after she started working as a hunter, she went off the deep end. They said you could tell just by looking at her outfit.

Anonymous: One day, we had to go hunting, and Baek Dambi showed up wearing sunglasses, a crop top, and a jacket. She even had full makeup on, so I thought she was going somewhere else and came to hunt in a hurry.

But the next day and the day after that, it was the same. Crop top, makeup, sunglasses…

She used to dress like other hunters, but suddenly she started dressing like an idol. It wasn’t just for a day or two; she kept doing it.

It was nice to look at for a day or two, but it became burdensome when she did it every day. I wondered why she was doing this, if she was planning to return to being an idol. So I did some research online and found out her agency went bankrupt recently.

That’s when I understood why she was acting like this. She went crazy because her hope of returning to the entertainment industry was gone.

Especially, she never took off those sunglasses. Not when talking, not when eating, not during briefings…

She only took them off when she had to shoot during hunts, and I could understand why she never took them off. It was clear she didn’t want to talk to or make eye contact with her teammates, so she wore them to hide her rotten expression. Crazy woman.

Her attitude in the team was really bad. I found several more complaints from her teammates.

Anonymous: If someone offered her a drink for her hard work, she would refuse, thinking they were hitting on her because she was pretty. So, everyone except her would get a drink. Then she would think they were snubbing her and have a depression fit, ignoring everyone for days.

Even when her teammates told her to fix her attitude, she never listened. She didn’t even listen to higher-ups. The mayor of Incheon himself hinted that her outfit wasn’t suitable for hunting, but she didn’t care.

Ⓑ GoodHunter: I hate to say this, but if communication doesn’t work, hasn’t anyone on the team tried to correct her attitude with violence? I don’t think the hunters would have been sweet to her just because she’s a female colleague.

Ⓐ syberMagneto: How? Non-awakened trash can’t even beat a weakling, you trash.

Anonymous: I hate to admit it, but as that b*stard said, she was an awakened one, so she could just toy with ordinary people. If someone got pissed and tried to punch her, she would reverse it and beat them up, so we couldn’t even hit her. It just frustrated the team members.

According to what I found on HuntWeb, there was another reason why Baek Dambi couldn’t find a new hunter team.

Her reputation in the industry was extremely bad. It wasn’t because of any pressure from the great city of Incheon, as Mr. Park Mi-hyung speculated.

So the next day, as described on HuntWeb, and just like when I met her the day before, I couldn’t help but sigh when I saw Baek Dambi dressed like an idol.

Seong Moon-young seemed to feel the same way.

“It’s exactly like what I saw on HuntWeb. Crop top, sunglasses, and even though the higher-ups told her not to, she still dresses like that…”

“Really.”

“Can’t you do something about it?”

“What do you want me to do?”

“According to HuntWeb, the reason no one has been able to correct her so far is that she’s an awakened one, so ordinary hunters can’t touch her. But you’re also an awakened one, and her abilities don’t work on you, so she might be scared of you.”

“So you want me to lower my voice and threaten her, saying if she acts like a jerk, I’ll treat her like one?”

“Yes!”

“Well, do I really have to? If she were wearing high heels, I might say something, but it doesn’t seem like an outfit that’s particularly uncomfortable to move in. Just let her wear what she wants.”

“Whether she fights well or not, other teams will notice. It might ruin the team atmosphere…”

I stared at Seong Moon-young for a moment before speaking.

“Moon-young. I’ve hated being ordered around since I was a kid. Whether it was my dad telling me to fetch water or a teacher telling me to cut my hair a few centimeters, it always pissed me off.”

“I can see that. So?”

“So I don’t usually give orders to others either. I think it would make them feel bad, just like it does to me.”

When I finally explained my principle, Seong Moon-young didn’t seem to fully understand.

“You’re not trying to impress her, are you?”

“I’m not getting aroused, you b*stard.”

“Oh, why not?”

Jang Byung-gon, it was easy to get close to him. Despite being a veteran and quite old, he treated me with utmost respect as if I were his superior, and he was polite to everyone else as well, not boasting but being amiable.

It was a clever move. It was natural for him to bow to me, an awakened one, and since five of them already knew each other, trying to act as a senior veteran could have isolated him from the team.

Naturally, Jang Byung-gon blended into the team.

And Baek Dan-bi was the exact opposite. Without any twist, she was exactly as described on Huntweb.

Baek Dan-bi never spoke unless spoken to first, never gave advice as a veteran, and never took off those sunglasses.

Even now, looking at Baek Dan-bi sitting quietly with her sunglasses on, I thought.

Can I get close to a woman who seems like a depression patient?

I don’t know, but it seems I did in the hallucination.

In the hallucination, I seemed to have a deep relationship with her. When she was kidnapped, I followed her into the gate, screaming. It might have been a close relationship beyond mere colleagues.

As if my anger in the hallucination had transferred, I also feel a surge of anger when I think of that scene.

But rationally, it’s hard to empathize with that anger, as if I were one with the hallucinated me.

After all, in the first hallucination I saw, everyone died horribly. Seeing that gruesome scene, I could feel a sense of crisis.

But that woman? Since she was kidnapped unharmed in the hallucination, it feels less serious. I don’t feel a strong sense of duty to prevent that from happening…

Suddenly, my phone vibrated.

Not just my phone, but everyone’s phones.

Jang Byung-gon checked his vibrating smartphone and shouted.

“The gate has opened. Everyone, get ready!”