How To Survive as a Class a Hunter

21. Younger Sister Kim Sun – [1]

It’s been a while since I entered a supermarket, and I can’t help but sigh.

The store’s name is ‘Fresh Produce,’ but there are no vegetables or fruits in sight. Only rice, ramen, and long-lasting processed foods like canned goods are visible.

I scanned the prices of the products.

First, rice and ramen… They’ve doubled compared to before the gate opened, but this is considered cheap. It’s the result of the government desperately trying to fix the prices.

However, looking at the prices of products not managed by the government makes me dizzy. Seventeen thousand won for rubber gloves, sixty-eight thousand won for a 30-roll pack of toilet paper…

Especially the prices of flour-based foods have skyrocketed. Most of Korea’s flour is imported, but the water spirits swarming in the sea have driven up maritime logistics costs.

Meanwhile, the countries that used to export wheat are in bad shape. India officially stopped exporting grains due to a food crisis, Ukraine was invaded by Russia without any justification, and Australia is no longer a land for humans.

For these reasons, ramen’s main ingredient is now rice, and flour-based foods are all classified as luxury items with absurd prices.

Snacks are priced at market rates. Just look at that bag of MatXsan priced at 120,000 won over there.

Oh, that’s ridiculously expensive.

Other snacks are around 66,000 won, so why is this one particularly expensive? I was so baffled that I asked.

“Why has this one gone up so much?”

The store owner, who I was on friendly terms with, answered in a tired voice.

“I heard the factory stopped operating and there’s a rumor that it will be discontinued, so the price went up again. I saw on the news recently that a congressman got caught hoarding three boxes of MatXsan.”

“A congressman hoarding? Does he have a side job?”

“He wasn’t planning to sell them later at a higher price. He just really liked the snack and thought he wouldn’t be able to eat it anymore, so he bought it for himself.”

The store owner muttered that it was the first time he had seen someone get criticized for just buying snacks, saying it felt like the country was falling apart. Meanwhile, I picked up a bag of MatXsan.

When I brought it to the counter, the store owner looked surprised.

“Oh, are you really going to buy it? You must have a lot of money, young man.”

“I can afford to buy a bag of snacks.”

I left the store with a bag of MatXsan in hand, humming a tune on my way home.

Being able to buy food that even congressmen eat without much thought? I felt like I had really made it.

I didn’t buy that 120,000 won snack to eat it myself. I planned to take it to a prison visit.

This afternoon, I’m going to visit my younger sister.

I wasn’t particularly looking forward to it.

*

I saw my younger sister through the bars.

It had been a while since I last saw her, and she looked gaunt. Seeing her, who used to be chubby, like this didn’t make me feel good.

But before I could offer words of comfort, she spoke first, grumpily.

“Why did you come, you b*stard?”

Her voice, resembling our mother’s, made me choke up.

“I heard the pig succeeded in dieting, so I came to see. Wow, the country even helped you lose weight. Good thing you went to prison, right?”

I realized my mistake immediately after making the sarcastic remark. What an idiot psycho I am.

Before another curse could come out of her mouth, I hurriedly handed over the items I brought.

“Eat this feed first, you pig.”

She probably wanted to throw away the food I handed over to protect her pride.

But wasn’t she always someone with an incredible appetite? Seeing the bag of MatXsan and a plate of flounder (raised in an indoor farm, ridiculously expensive) I handed over, a great conflict appeared on her face.

Well, in a world where ordinary people chew on raw ramen to get through a meal, it’s easy to imagine what prison food would be like.

In the end, her appetite won. She picked up the chopsticks, put a few pieces of sashimi in her mouth, then grabbed a MatXsan and started eating faster.

When she was halfway through, I asked.

“Is it good?”

Did my words sound like mockery? She stopped eating and glared at me, then repeated what she said earlier.

“So why did you come, you b*stard?”

“Why are you acting like a lunatic after eating so well?”

“Did you think I would at least say thank you? Do you know whose fault it is that I ended up like this… huh?”

“Whose fault do you think it is that you ended up like this?”

“You, you b*stard. You! If you hadn’t beaten me so badly, I wouldn’t have ended up with this messed-up personality…!”

This isn’t the first time I’ve heard such claims. During the last visit, he shouted similar things, blaming me for his current state.

According to him, my frequent beatings at home twisted his personality into something anti-social, leading to him being bullied at school, and ultimately resulting in his current situation.

“That’s because you never learned jiu-jitsu. If you had, you could have fought back when I hit you, and you could have broken the limbs of those bullies at school. But instead, you just stuffed your face and ended up like this, didn’t you?”

My sister glared at me.

“You b*stard…”

“Isn’t it your fault for doing things that got you hit in the first place?”

“What did I do?!”

“I still can’t forgive you for selling all the books on my shelf to a secondhand bookstore while I was on the school trip and using that money to buy shoes. What the hell were you thinking selling even the reference books? Mom just defended you, saying that as your brother, I should treat you to gifts, so why was she angry?”

“That was Mom’s idea! The day before, during their fight, you sided with Dad, and Mom got mad, right? While I was at school, she sold all the books and told me to say I did it for half the money!”

“I figured as much. That b*tch should have been beaten more before she turned into a monster.”

“It was wrong of you to side with Dad in the first place! Why would you side with that b*stard who doesn’t even give proper living expenses and just goes hiking?”

“Because if I didn’t side with Dad during their fight, it would have created a situation where the whole family was oppressing him, and I was sure that b*stard would unleash all kinds of hell on me when it was just the two of us.”

“What kind of hell did Dad unleash on you?”

“Do you know what that b*stard did when I didn’t side with him during their fights? I was just trying to eat my own can of soup when suddenly he flipped the table, yelling at me for not offering him any food.

The burn mark from the soup spilling on my thigh stayed for a long time, even before my healing powers kicked in. I screamed in pain, and that b*stard pretended to be angry and just walked out?”

Even now, thinking back to that time fills me with rage. Why did both parents have to turn into monsters? If their ashes remained, I would have poured them down the toilet, but alas, that was not to be.

“Was that what Dad did, or was it me? Why are you angry at me?”

“Then keep talking about what you did. In the end, you didn’t even give me money to buy the reference books again, and when I was studying for exams online, you ran to Mom whining that I wouldn’t let you use the computer. Do you not remember that? I had barely turned on the computer for ten minutes, and Mom ordered me to give it up?”

“Stop milking that! You used that incident as an excuse to make sure I could barely use the computer for even five minutes a day later on…”

I almost launched into a new story to counter, but stopped myself. What a moron. What is this nonsense during a visit?

I wasn’t usually the type to lose my temper like this, but since middle school, my personality had been ruined like this. Damn it.

I took a deep breath. In a deliberately calm voice, I said, “Let’s stop. What good would it do to talk about how much we’ve been awful to each other? It would just make us angrier… Just eat while we talk. Keep eating.”

My sister continued to glare at me as she chewed on a piece of candy. I continued speaking.

“I can’t say I’m reflecting on how I treated you badly. You probably aren’t reflecting on it either. Right?”

It seemed like my sister was about to say something again. Not wanting to fight, I quickly continued.

“If time could go back… I don’t want to do it the same way again.”

“What?”

“If I could turn back time, I would only beat up mom and dad again. Just those b*stards… I wouldn’t hit you, only those jerks.”

She seemed to roughly understand what I meant. My younger sister glared at me, then lowered her head and picked up another piece of sashimi.

“When you got arrested, I felt bad. Didn’t I protest and try to get you out?”

Finally, my sister opened her mouth.

“You only visited me once.”

“After getting kicked out of the UFC, I lost my pride. I couldn’t bear to hear anything bad from you in such a miserable state.”

“Has anything changed now?”

“Yes. Your brother is making some money now.”

I started talking about how I was currently working as a hunter, and how my contract alone was worth over fifty billion won. I tried to convey my recent activities without sounding too boastful.

“So when you get out, I’ll take care of you. Let’s live together. I’ll cover the expenses…”

“I want to live alone.”

“I figured it would be tough, so I looked into it. Isn’t it true that gates frequently open around ice ability users? Monsters inside the gates can see the souls of intelligent beings in the outside world, and awakened ones shine particularly brightly like lighthouses. They also know that ice ability users are weak…”

In RPG terms, capturing an awakened one gives much more experience than capturing a regular person. And among the awakened ones, weak ice ability users are like a chance to gain experience.

So when monsters see the soul pattern of an ice ability user inside the gate, they drool and open the gate. There was no need to explain further.

“I know. Every time a gate opens near the prison, the inmates blame me.”

It seems prison life isn’t easy either. The inmates also bully her. Why didn’t this stupid girl learn jiu-jitsu to avoid this suffering?

“Anyway, it seems difficult for an ice ability user to live alone. It’s hard to buy a house, and even if you manage to buy one, the neighbors won’t leave you alone.”

In a subdued voice, my sister hesitantly asked.

“Then is it okay to live with you?”

“Probably… They say it’s okay to live with a body enhancer. Monsters tend not to open gates near body enhancers because they’re not easy to deal with. If an ice ability user and a body enhancer live together, it balances out. The neighbors are also scared of body enhancers, so they don’t complain…”

My sister’s lips moved. She seemed like she wanted to say something but then closed her mouth.

I continued speaking alone.

“So when you get out, let’s live together. I haven’t bought a house yet, but I have the money to buy one. I also have money to buy you a car. If you get a driver’s license, I’ll buy you a Porsche.”

“A Porsche?”

“Yes, a Porsche. I only know Mercedes and Porsche when it comes to luxury cars, so I can only promise you a Porsche. If you know a better car, I’ll buy that too. So…”

My vision blurred. I closed my eyes and then opened them again to continue speaking.

“Let’s start over. We’re the only family we have. We don’t need to do anything grand for each other. Just living together is enough, okay?”

I told her that she wouldn’t need to cook or do the dishes, and that I planned to hire a housekeeper when she got out. I assured her that I had enough money and ability to do so, and that she only needed to get out without worrying about anything else.

Then I wiped my eyes. I could see something flowing down my younger sister’s cheek as well.

After the visit, I left the prison alone.

Back when I was in middle school, my mom and dad fought constantly.

If they had only fought with each other, it might have been better, but they didn’t do that. Every time they argued, to confirm who was right, they would each pick one of us kids to side with them and turn it into a brawl.

In those long, exhausting fights, my sister always sided with my mom, while my dad insisted that I, as a fellow man, should be on his side. Each time I reluctantly sided with my dad, my mom would glare at me as if she wanted to kill me, but I was just sick of it all.

Then, in my third year of middle school, one day I was forcibly woken up in the early morning and dragged into another one of their fights, and I finally couldn’t take it anymore.

“Do you think I’m right, or do you think that damn girl who ignores everything is right?” my dad demanded, forcing me to take his side, and I struck him in the gut.

At the time, I was over 190 cm tall, and with one kick, my dad couldn’t breathe properly. Even after he fell, I kept kicking him for a while.

I couldn’t forgive my mom, who was staring at me with wide eyes. She was just as much a tormentor to me. I also hit that woman, who was frozen in shock instead of calling the police.

And then, peace came to our home. Both my mom and dad began to fear me. They stopped fighting in the house and behaved themselves, and I realized what it meant that fists were closer than the law.

But misfortune came to my sister.

Whenever my sister and I fought, my mom would always side with her, so despite the difference in strength, our sibling relationship was relatively equal.

However, once I stopped being so mindful of my mom’s gaze, my sister was no longer my equal.

The difference in our strength soon became the measure of our hierarchy.

Looking back now, my sister, who was just an elementary school student, was also forcibly caught up in the domestic violence. But at that time, I, a mere middle schooler, had no understanding to consider that fact.

To me back then, my sister didn’t seem like a victim of domestic violence; she looked more like a woman like Lee Wan-yong, who clung to foreign powers to assert her dominance.

I often hit my sister to take revenge and vent my anger, and that girl, who no longer had my mom’s protection, had to endure being beaten unilaterally. This continued until I ended up in a juvenile detention center.

I can’t turn back time and change any of that. It wouldn’t matter if I had the superpower to see the future.

But can’t I change things from now on?

If I treat her well from now on, and share what I have without holding back, can’t our twisted relationship finally move in the right direction?

I believe it can.

On my way home, I turned on HuntWeb to lift my gloomy mood.