How To Survive as a Class a Hunter

32. The Stragglers – [6]

I started the fight with a counter to the face, but it didn’t feel like a good start. I glared at him.

The big guy who had put some distance between us was smiling.

His confident face seemed to say, ‘Is that all you’ve got?’ It wasn’t just a blatant provocation; it seemed my punch was just about bearable. Given that my punch should have crushed his face and broken his neck even if he was physically enhanced, it was surprising that he only had a nosebleed.

I realized this wouldn’t be easy. It wasn’t about winning fairly; it was about rescuing them, so I called for reinforcements.

“Come to 27 Haedong Villa, as fast as you can…”

I watched him while secretly communicating. He had a dagger at his waist that looked like a backup weapon, and seeing that, I decided not to use teleportation during the fight. Not for a fair victory, but because if I did something ‘sneaky’ like teleporting, he might draw and swing that dagger.

The big guy snorted, clearing the blood from his nose, and took his stance again. He approached me, then bent his knees and lowered his stance. It was a typical tackle stance. I thought he might be changing levels, but he wasn’t.

Like an enraged tiger, the big guy charged straight at me with his arms outstretched, trying to grab me.

His movements were incredibly swift, but since he came at me head-on, countering wasn’t difficult.

I slipped my arm under his armpit and threw him down. ‘Thud!’

I kicked his side as he lay on the ground. It wasn’t the sound of flesh hitting flesh, but the kind of sound you’d expect when a hammer strikes concrete.

The big guy’s face twisted in pain, but he didn’t lose consciousness or freeze up in agony.

“Yak―!”

He roared and slammed his palms on the ground.

His body lifted into the air, and as his legs whipped through the air, he quickly stood up straight.

There was no time to be amazed by this cartoonish recovery method that only a physically enhanced person could perform, whether in taekwondo or wrestling.

As soon as he regained his stance, he attacked. His waist and legs moved fiercely.

I could tell what he was going to do just by the prelude to his movements.

I struck down his mid-kick with my elbow as he flew at me, tearing through the air. Then I hit his jaw, making him retreat again.

His expression grew serious as he put some distance between us. He seemed to be thinking ‘Damn it,’ but I felt the same way inside, even though I appeared calm on the outside.

Damn it, really.

Whether it was a kick, an elbow, or a punch, it didn’t seem to have done much damage. It felt like I was attacking a rock, not flesh.

Meanwhile, he seemed shocked that all his attack attempts had been blocked. He seemed to realize the difference in skill between us.

No matter how much he had trained in martial arts, he probably hadn’t competed with as many fighters or sparred as passionately as I had. Before evaluating the level of martial arts in this other world, he had never stood on the kind of stage I had.

So, he’s just an amateur.

But in martial arts, weight class is crucial. A featherweight champion can’t guarantee victory against a heavyweight amateur.

And after a few exchanges, I judged that even though he was shorter and had less muscle than me, his weight class was far superior. He seemed stronger as a physically enhanced person.

Well, he’s probably a more seasoned monster than I am, having awakened less than five years ago. He’s likely trained longer and hunted more monsters.

*

I didn’t let the tension flowing through my body show on my face. Nor did I roar, but I spat out.

“Come at me, you amateur.”

Even if he didn’t understand the words, he seemed to grasp the provocation and roared in my place.

He charged at me. My middle kick to stop his rush failed.

My ankle was caught by his wrist.

It didn’t matter. There was no need for teleportation.

The moment my ankle was grabbed, I spun my whole body. My spinning kick, with all my weight behind it, struck his neck, and this time, he seemed to find it hard to endure.

The grip on my ankle loosened.

I lunged at him to finish him off. Pinning his body to the ground, I wrapped my thick arms around his equally thick neck.

For a moment, he seemed to lose consciousness, then he realized he was being choked.

Desperately trying to escape, his fists pounded my body repeatedly. The impact, which was hard to believe came from someone deprived of oxygen, struck my body, but I endured.

As I continued to choke him, he twisted his body and rolled us both over. It became clear that he was much heavier than me.

In a situation where a multi-ton truck is crashing down, neither guard nor clinch is of any use. I was swept away by his terrible weight and strength. He seemed to have superior bone density and muscle density as a more powerful body enhancer.

If he had used his superior strength to press down on me, I might have been the one to lose, but he didn’t.

When we stopped rolling and lay facing each other, he pushed me away violently, breaking free from the choke, and scrambled to put distance between us.

Only after getting quite far away did he stand up.

Meanwhile, I slowly and leisurely, but actually struggling to endure the pain, stood up and looked at him.

I read the fear and astonishment on his face.

A gorilla was scared of a human fighter.

He must not realize that if he gave up on techniques and just grabbed my neck and pounded me, it would be over. Absolutely not.

So I charged at him.

When I jabbed, he stepped back to avoid it, but his back hit the wall.

Cornered, he threw a punch with a distorted face. I parried with my left hand and struck his face.

Of course, it didn’t faze him. We kept hitting each other.

I dodged his swinging punch by leaning back and countered. My punch landed squarely on his nose, but he still didn’t stagger.

So he was able to throw a punch immediately after being hit.

I guarded with my left arm, but his punch grazed my forehead.

I climbed on top of the fallen guy and punched him a few times on both sides. He stopped moving. He wasn’t dead, but he was unconscious. I whispered softly into his ear.

“I’m speaking for the referee, I won. You b*stard.”

After slapping his cheeks a few times to confirm it, I shivered with excitement. This wasn’t just a victory in a fight between fighters.

I had just overcome the dreadful future I saw in my vision.

I felt the reward of all the hunting and training I had done with my whole body. If my reflexes hadn’t developed this much, I would have been killed by that swordsman long ago. If I hadn’t built up my body to the point of death, I would have been killed instantly regardless of skill difference…

I barely held back the urge to shout in victory.

I stood up and looked at the audience.

First, I saw the two Sowolins. Those two, who were probably the henchmen of the fallen giant, were really just spectators. From start to finish, they didn’t interfere in the fight at all. And now that the fight was over, they were staring at me with terrified eyes.

“What are you looking at?”

The moment my gaze reached them, they flattened themselves on the ground just like the Sowolin I had met earlier.

Then I looked at the women with ice abilities.

A scream erupted from the mouth of one of the women with ice abilities. Following her gaze, I saw the front paw of a Deathclaw emerging from the purple gate.

I wasn’t surprised or startled. My mental web had already alerted me to the approach of my minions.

Footsteps echoed. I turned my head to see my hunter team sprinting towards me.

As always, Baek Dambi was at the forefront. As soon as the Deathclaw that had just emerged from the gate was hit by the 5.56mm bullets pouring out of her machine gun, it collapsed.

Another Deathclaw that had foolishly emerged from the gate couldn’t withstand Baek Dambi’s shooting either. There were no missed shots. Baek Dambi fired her gun right in front of the gate, as if she wasn’t afraid of those claws touching her body.

Two Deathclaws that had come out of the gate in succession were killed by that point-blank shooting.

Even I thought it was incredibly cool. Really.

The three women with ice abilities, who had been trembling in fear, were incomparable to Baek Dambi. I asked one of the women with ice abilities, as if scolding her.

“Why didn’t you subdue these two Sowolins and run away while I was fighting? It looks like neither of them are awakened.”

“Subdue them? With my ability?”

When she said something obvious, I just stared at her without answering, and she mumbled.

“I don’t really know how to do it.”

“Don’t you instinctively know how to use your ability?”

“Even if I know, I tried to forget. I even practiced not using my ability unconsciously.”

“You practiced not using your ability? Why?”

“Because you can’t unconsciously kill people, right? So…”

Come to think of it, I had heard that during the Daehan Awakening Alliance era, they forced the awakened in the facilities to undergo some strange training to not use their abilities.

I closed my eyes and then opened them again, saying.

“I said something unnecessary. I’m sorry. Are you hurt anywhere?”

“No… Thank you so much for saving me. And you seem to be already badly hurt. Your neck and t-shirt are covered in blood…”

“I’m tough, so I’ll be fine after a good night’s sleep.”

I shrugged my shoulders and stared blankly at the gate. The purple gate from which no more monsters emerged, the gate I saw in my hallucination, was right there. In the hallucination, I had crawled into that gate with both my legs severed.

Now, there’s no need for that. No need to crawl on the ground, no need to enter the gate…

I was thinking that while looking at the fallen figure that couldn’t move. Baek Dambi’s voice pierced my ears.

“Hey, should we go into the gate?”

Startled, I looked at her and asked.

“Why would we go into the gate?”

“You know. It’s recommended to enter the gate if you have the chance to gather information about the monsters inside. They say the achievements and rewards are significant if you report the information you see inside the gate…”

I was about to say that neither of us needed to be greedy for rewards, but I stopped.

As I confirmed when the fire spirit appeared last time, my round girl doesn’t want to miss the opportunity to make a contribution.

This time too, she seemed to want to prove her worth to the world by making a contribution. Yet, she seemed scared to go in alone.

“Alright then.”

And with her, I stepped into the gate.

The purple world welcomed us.

*

It was about ten minutes later that the two of us emerged from the gate.

“Oh, we made it out!”

“How was it? Were there really monsters swarming inside?”

Lee Jong-ho and Sung Moon-young were asking various questions, but I ignored them. I wasn’t in the mood to focus on their words.

I saw Naito, who seemed to have arrived late. That b*stard, a representative of the impure non-awakened ones.

I looked at him and forcibly swallowed the words that almost escaped my throat.

Those damn non-awakened scum…

*

Q. The recent achievements of Hunter Kim Geuk have been a hot topic. Despite the appearance of more than twelve Deathclaws, there was only one civilian casualty, which is particularly remarkable. Within just five minutes of the dispatch signal, Hunter Kim Geuk single-handedly cleared all the monsters in the area.

– The distance was close, so I was lucky in many ways. And actually, I didn’t take them all down; Matsumoto also took down a few. In the end, a civilian died, and the deaths of non-civilians were even more, so it’s hard to be purely happy.

Q. Are you referring to the soldiers guarding the awakened facility?

– Yes. They all died with weapons in hand. They were brave men of Incheon who died protecting it.

Q. I understand they were from the Seoul Infantry Division, not Incheon.

– Do not insult the fallen.

Q. As is well known, the Third World countries are currently ruled by Awakeners. Among them, those with a certain level of force field exoskeleton abilities are particularly powerful, making it difficult to subdue them with personal firearms and mortars. As a result, they are notorious for easily overpowering the Third World armies and their leadership, which typically have weak air forces.

And according to CCTV analysis, one of the So-Wol people who appeared this time was at a level far superior to the Awakeners notorious for ruling the Third World. It was assessed that in a typical situation, subduing them would be out of the question.

– You mean the force field exoskeleton ability user, but didn’t I subdue them?

Q. Yes, that’s why it’s surprising. This remarkable achievement of defeating powerful enemies one after another, following the force field entity from the Incheon Gate incident, is gaining attention both domestically and internationally. If you have a secret, what is it?

– The secret to defeating that guy who died from a single kick of mine? He was such a pathetic guy that I’ve already forgotten how I fought him.

Q. Checking the CCTV footage, it seems his neck was half cut.

– Claiming to have seen such an absurd scene suggests that the guy had illusion abilities as well. Of course, it didn’t work on me, an Awakener.

Q. Got it (laughs). After subduing the said Awakener, it was confirmed that Hunter Kim Geuk moved immediately to rescue the kidnapped ice ability users, even with his neck half cut. He is famous for showing determination despite injuries in the previous Incheon Gate incident. Where does that indomitable spirit come from?

– It’s because I learned well at the Bupyeong Hunting Academy. It’s a 5-minute walk from Bupyeong Station (······) Of course, it was also possible because of my super regeneration ability. However, I hope there won’t be a perception that all body enhancers should be like this. It’s special because I learned well at the Bupyeong Hunting Academy.

Q. After rescuing the ice ability users, Hunter Kim Geuk entered the gate. According to Hunter Baek Dambi’s testimony, the supernatural giant monster ‘Behemoth’, known for devastating Australia, is approaching the Korean Peninsula, and its direction is Seoul. If you have anything to add?

– I don’t care. As long as it doesn’t come to Incheon, whether it’s Behemoth or Lotus.

Q. Did you receive the Dungeon Fighter title?

– I did. I would like to take this opportunity to express my sincere gratitude to NeXple and the citizens of Incheon. And to Councilor Park Mi-hyung, who suggested I become an Incheon Hunter (······)

*