How To Survive as a Class a Hunter

37. The Sower of Sorrow – [1]

Once you leave Incheon, it’s all barbaric land. It’s a mental wasteland with no trace of civilization or intelligence, a chaotic mess of tribes jealous of Incheon’s wealth and honor.

What this means is, I have come to Seoul.

The official car carrying me sped along. Turning my head to look out the window, I saw the Han River flowing majestically today, as if to swallow up as many Koreans as possible.

Soon, I saw a supermarket, and when I saw the lettuce and watermelon displayed there, I couldn’t help but frown.

Isn’t Incheon in the midst of a food desert? In Incheon, vegetables or fruits are things you can barely see in large supermarkets, but here in Seoul, they’re selling them in a small corner store?

No wonder everyone is desperate to live in Seoul.

“Welcome, Mr. Kim Geuk! I’m really sorry to call you in the middle of your busy schedule.”

When I got out of the car at my destination, a man in a suit greeted me. Just by looking at him, I could tell he was a non-awakened Seoulite, so I didn’t feel it was worth talking to him.

So, without answering, I just nodded, and the man in the suit continued to speak.

“Please, come inside. The arrogant Sower is waiting.”

We walked down a brightly lit corridor (which I didn’t like either. Incheon’s buildings no longer turn on lights during the day) and arrived at a room with a firmly closed iron door.

Through the glass window of the iron door, I saw a man. He was bound in restraints that made his arms and legs look very thick.

“You recognize him, don’t you? That guy…”

Of course, I immediately recognized the captured Sower.

He was the one I had defeated in a fight last time. The large awakened Sower.

“As you know, we’ve never had any success trying to talk to those raiders, right? I mean, the awakened Sowers. They claim to rule Sower…

We’ve never succeeded in trying to talk to them. Whether we tried to talk with a white flag or with gifts, they just took the gifts and didn’t say a word.

The man in the suit frowned as he continued.

“That guy even refused to talk after being captured.”

However, according to the analysis of the battle at the detention facility through CCTV, the awakened Sower tried to talk only to me.

Even the captured guy seemed to acknowledge me as a conversation partner, as he agreed to my request to put down his weapon and fight with fists.

“Maybe they only consider awakened ones as conversation partners? If you don’t look like an awakened one, they think you’re a lowly slave and ignore you?”

If that’s true, he’s an arrogant madman. I thought so, keeping my mouth shut, as I didn’t feel it was worth responding to the suit who seemed to be waiting for my reaction.

“Anyway, that’s why we called Mr. Kim Geuk. Mr. Kim Geuk looks like a physical enhancer, and it seems that guy will recognize him as a conversation partner, just like last time. Ah, the interpreter is here! Let’s go inside now.”

The iron door opened. The suit, the interpreter from Sowol, and I entered.

And the big Sowol man looked at me.

There was no need to make an effort to get him to speak. He spoke right away.

“Ah, the master of martial arts? Nice to see you again.”

It was surprising, but I decided not to show it, fearing they might suspect I wasn’t from the sacred Incheon. I just guessed it might be an ability I gained from the aftermath of the hallucination.

“Tell him I’m glad to see him too. And that I’m sorry to see him captured like this.”

Soon, I started a conversation with the big guy, with the interpreter and the suit on either side of me.

“Name?”

“Usori.”

“How old are you?”

“Four hundred and fifty. I haven’t counted exactly since four hundred, so it might be a bit off, but around that.”

The big guy claimed he had lived for hundreds of years. Does that make sense?

Wondering if a year here and there might be different, I asked how long ordinary people live, and this was the answer.

“Usually, they live for about twenty-something years and then die.”

That confirmed that the big Sowol man was indeed a monster who had lived for hundreds of years.

When I asked how he lived so long, the big guy answered.

“For awakened ones like you and me, if we have the ability to heal quickly, we don’t age. If we’re already old, we revert to our younger selves.”

Then the suit whispered to me.

“It seems he’s talking about super-regeneration. If you have super-regeneration, aging stops. Well, it’s not surprising since we already suspected it…”

I nodded, feeling both the joy of confirming that I had an immortal body and the pride of having defeated a powerful awakened one who had lived for hundreds of years.

Then, before the suit could continue with the questions, I spoke.

“I have a question too. Do spirits not age? More precisely, do humans who become spirits not age?”

“Of course, they don’t age. Their essence isn’t flesh.”

No wonder my ring girl looked just as young in photos from a few years ago as she does now. It wasn’t just makeup. This was also good news.

When I grinned, the big guy asked.

“Master of combat, how old are you?”

“Not even thirty yet.”

“You’re young. It’s very impressive that you’re so strong at that age. Even though you had that cowardly yet powerful weapon, you put it down and fought barehanded. That was a very cool suggestion. Even though I lost…”

“You too, even when you were losing in the fight, you didn’t draw the dagger at your waist until the end. Regardless of the outcome, it was very cool.”

Was it annoying for the suit guy to see me and the big guy exchanging compliments? He urged me to ask his question instead.

A non-awakened scum who doesn’t know his place dares to…

I didn’t like it, but I complied with his request.

“Do you have any intention of defecting to South Korea?”

“No.”

“Why don’t you want to defect?”

“Because this is a strange world where the shepherd doesn’t act like a shepherd.”

“What is a sheep?”

“This and this.”

The big guy pointed to the suit guy next to me and the interpreter from Sowol.

It seemed that he roughly treated non-awakened people as sheep. It seemed to be true that non-awakened people were treated like livestock among the awakened people of Sowol.

This fact was revealed in the next Q&A as well.

“Why have you ignored all attempts at communication from this side so far? Why have you ignored all negotiation requests and only looted?”

“Because talking to sheep is strange.”

“Do you mean there’s no reason to talk to non-awakened people? Why is that?”

And the big guy’s answer wasn’t even in the nuance of ‘non-awakened people are too lowly to talk to.’

“When wild sheep are gathered and you want to take a few, trying to talk to the leader of the flock is strange. Of course, if they were not wild sheep but sheep with an owner, you would have to talk to the owner.”

Literally, the big guy seemed to consider talking to non-awakened people as something ‘strange.’ Not something that would hurt his dignity, not something a noble shouldn’t do, just something strange.

In other words, it’s like saying we don’t talk to livestock not because we think they’re lowly, but because there’s no value in talking to them in the first place.

“Are you a lord who rules over a territory?”

“Of course.”

“How many do you rule over in your territory?”

“Two thousand.”

“There are fifty million people living in South Korea. In Incheon, there are 1.8 million people.”

And the big guy asked indifferently.

“There are quite a lot of sheep. So?”

The man in the suit seemed flustered by this reaction. He had intended to intimidate him by showing how great South Korea was compared to the small territory he ruled, but it seemed that attempt had completely failed.

“Do you think I’m lying? Do you not believe me?”

“I believe you. But those are wild sheep, not your own. No matter how many there are, they have no value.”

“Why are they worthless? Isn’t a land strong if it has many people?”

“What do you mean by saying that having many sheep makes it strong?”

When he mentioned the country, population, and the consequent mobilization of troops, the big man scoffed.

“Using sheep in battle? Why would you do such a wasteful and foolish thing?”

Then, as instructed by the man in the suit, I turned on my smartphone. I showed the big man pictures of overwhelming groups of soldiers in formations like the Tercio and Phalanx, which would be easy for pre-modern people to understand. It was probably to ask if even ordinary people gathered in groups seemed useless.

But again, the big man just scoffed.

“Giving iron to sheep? What a strange way to waste metal.”

“Why? Don’t they look strong at a glance?”

The big man shook his head at my question.

“It looks like if I swung my sword once, they would all die. It would be easy to cut them all down at once since they are gathered together.”

He added that if they were to fight separately, they would be something not even worth swinging a sword at, so giving iron to sheep was indeed a strange thing to do.

“That ignorant b*stard, really…”

The man in the suit expressed his frustration, but I agreed with the big man.

With the increase in firepower, dense formations had become a foolish thing of the pre-modern era.

And the awakened one in front of me wielded a three-meter-long force field blade. A single swing of that sword would have the power of a grenade.

So, in Sword World, dense formations against awakened ones had no tactical value, and dispersing soldiers would also be useless against the overwhelmingly powerful awakened lords.

I suddenly thought of the great warriors of this world, Xiang Yu and Richard I. Xiang Yu, who was said to be a match for ten thousand men, eventually died fighting numerous cavalry, and Richard the Lionheart was killed by a crossbow bolt shot by a mere boy soldier.

Such unpleasant things would not happen in Sword World.

Didn’t that Sword World person easily annihilate even soldiers armed with modern weapons last time? Just as it is difficult to defeat an awakened one with modern weapons, giving non-awakened ones bows, spears, and swords, which are less effective than rifles, would be useless against superhuman awakened ones.

For that reason, arming non-awakened ones as soldiers in Sword World seemed to have no tactical value. Battles were purely the role of the awakened ones, and the concept of an army composed of numerous soldiers did not seem to exist at all.

To me, it sounded truly wonderful.

A world where great heroes and warriors do not fall to the common masses? How could such a splendid world exist…

On the other hand, for the same reason, the logic that a country is stronger and superior if it has a large population did not apply to the awakened lords.

So, the persuasion to defect by emphasizing how great and livable South Korea was did not work on him at all.

“If you defect, we will treat you better than you can imagine. You can eat whatever you want and have plenty of wealth…”

“No need. With just the sheep I have, I can get everything I want. Plenty.”

After that, similar conversations repeated, but there was no feeling of persuasion at all. Just as it would be impossible to persuade Kim Jong-un to defect to South Korea for a better life, it seemed the same for this friend.

“Since I’ve answered all your questions, can I leave now?”

And I conveyed the words of the man in the suit.

“He says absolutely not.”

I gave the man in the suit a glance, but the bulky man didn’t even look at him.

“I wasn’t asking the sheep, I was asking you. I’ll ask again, can I leave now?”

“Are you asking me to release your restraints?”

“No, I plan to leave on my own. Anyway, I think I’ve paid enough for recklessly plundering your territory. Can I leave now?”

“If you can leave, then leave. But don’t hurt anyone while doing so.”

When I answered that, the man in the suit looked appalled. He glared at me and urged the interpreter.

“Tell him absolutely not.”

But wasn’t the interpreter also a So-wol person? He knew whose words to follow between the non-awakened dregs and the awakened ones.

“I can leave, but don’t hurt the sheep while doing so? I won’t. But let me ask one thing, is the one who came with me dead?”

He seemed to be referring to the exoskeleton user I killed with a single kick, so I answered ‘yes’. Then the bulky man grinned.

“Impressive, he was very strong, yet you defeated him! In that case, would you consider coming over to our land?”

I blinked at the unexpected proposal.

“To the Sword World?”

“Yes. Since he’s dead, the sheep he raised have lost their master. If you come over, you can live without having to fight anyone and tend to those sheep.”

“Tempting offer, but… I refuse.”

“Why?”

“Because I have to protect my land.”

That was the end of the conversation. We left the iron gate, and the man in the suit sighed.

“Really, there’s no communicating with him. It seems like to make that guy defect, we need someone like Park Mi-hyung, who can use hypnosis and brainwashing abilities that even work on the awakened to make him loyal to Korea…

But that guy, is he planning to escape? What a bold dream. If we suppress him while escaping, will he become more docile?”

However, it is very difficult to confine a powerful awakened person. Even if their limbs are bound.

That night, the news reported the escape of the So-wol awakened person.

CCTV footage of the escape was also released, showing the bulky man’s fingers cutting through the restraints like they were tissue paper.

In the video, the bulky man’s nails glowed faintly as he quickly freed himself from the restraints.

It seemed he could use the exoskeleton blade ability not just with a sword, but with his nails as well. Just as I didn’t use spatial movement, it seemed he hadn’t utilized that ability either.

And until now, he pretended he couldn’t escape, quietly eating the food given to him here. But when a gate opened in Seoul, he sensed the sign and immediately escaped, entering the gate.

It was amazing. Truly.

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