How To Survive as a Class a Hunter

7. Academy Student Kim Geuk – [5]

Yang Tae-ja is not only my strength training coach but also my shooting instructor.

Today, I stepped into the shooting range with him again. After practicing various things today, I asked him during the break.

“Mr. Yang? Why don’t you become a hunter even though you’re an awakened one?”

It seemed like an unwelcome question. Yang Tae-ja frowned a little and sighed before answering.

“I did become a hunter, but only for a short while.”

“How short?”

“About a month? Actually, most of it was training time, and I only participated in one hunt, so it’s funny to even call myself a former hunter. But still, I get paid more than other instructors because I’m a physical enhancer, so it’s a bit embarrassing.”

When I asked why he quit so early, Yang Tae-ja sighed again.

“It’s not something I should say to a student who came to become a hunter, but… I couldn’t stand it.”

“What do you mean you couldn’t stand it?”

“Everything. I didn’t know people would die so meaninglessly. I thought monsters were just like an upgraded version of wild boars. But they weren’t. People didn’t die heroically fighting monsters; they just died helplessly. Someone in front of me had their stomach slashed open and spilled their guts, and while I didn’t vomit like in a cartoon, I just stood there in a daze…”

His voice started to tremble. As I regretted asking, Yang Tae-ja continued.

“I couldn’t move a single step. I couldn’t move at all, but people on either side of me were yelling at me, asking what I was doing… In the end, I just stood there and quit.”

Yang Tae-ja forced a joke, saying I shouldn’t end up like him, or the headmaster would cry, and then instructed me to shoot.

Now, I’m pretty good at aiming shots. The problem is with hip shooting. If I attach something called a laser sight, it becomes easier to shoot without aiming, but he says I shouldn’t rely on it too much in battles with monsters. The engagement distance with monsters is farther than expected, so the laser dot isn’t visible. So, he makes me practice without it.

“Damn, I can’t hit anything.”

Once again, I fired at the target without aiming, and when I missed, I almost cursed out loud. Yang Tae-ja, who was supervising from behind, spoke to me in a comforting tone.

“There’s no need to be so impatient. From what I see, you’re improving well. I assure you, just keep doing what you’re doing.”

No. I used to think that way until recently, but now the situation is different.

I gritted my teeth as a sharp pain throbbed in my head.

I wondered if I was going to see hallucinations again, but this time it wasn’t. However, I did feel like I was being sucked into something.

It felt like being sucked into a dream and then coming out of it. I brought something out from within the dream…

“Wait a moment.”

I closed my eyes and opened them again.

As I focused my mind, a net spread out in front of me. It’s a mental net that appears when I want to teleport. Just as teleporting to a visible location is less burdensome, spreading the net within my field of vision is also less burdensome.

I looked at one line of the spread-out net. That line extended straight out from the muzzle of my gun. The amplified synesthesia that occurs whenever I use this ability informed me of that fact.

I focused my gaze on that spot. And then pulled the trigger…

“Oh, I hit it!”

I hit the target without aiming, that is, with a hip shot. But there’s no need to get excited. I’ve occasionally hit targets by luck before.

I fired repeatedly without aiming. And hit all of them.

“Oh!”

Amidst Yang Tae-ja’s cheers, I decided to try shooting from a farther distance.

First, at a distance of fifty meters, I hit the target again with a hip shot.

“Huh?”

Then, at distances of one hundred meters, one hundred fifty meters, and two hundred meters, I hit the targets consecutively without aiming, leaving Yang Tae-ja dumbfounded.

“What? Why are you suddenly hitting so well?”

“I think I understand the technique.”

“What kind of technique did you realize to suddenly become a sharpshooter with perfect accuracy? Moreover, hitting targets at one hundred fifty meters and two hundred meters isn’t something you can do just by knowing some technique…”

It’s hard to explain how I just realized the method.

Still, to put it briefly, in my dream, it was possible to do it this way. I was able to recall that method just now.

Of course, I didn’t bother to explain it in detail. Just saying it works would make it seem more impressive.

After that, I continued to shoot from the farthest distance without aiming, and each time the bullets almost never missed, leaving Yang Tae-ja astonished.

“What? What the heck?”

Instead of just being surprised, can’t this guy give me some praise? It seems all the nutrients that should go to his brain went to his muscles, as he has no sense.

Eventually, after testing this new shooting method for dozens of minutes, we returned to the academy.

It was time for physical training again. Yang Tae-ja asked.

“It’s the finishing exercise. Are we going to do some running and then bench press today?”

I didn’t answer and just stared at Yang Tae-ja.

Yang Tae-ja is a skilled trainer with a professional sports instructor certification, and he himself is a body enhancer, so he has the ability to guide other body enhancers with the methods he has trained. He is even diligent enough to read several foreign papers to teach me.

However, he didn’t suggest any particularly radical or surprising training methods to me. It’s not because he’s insincere. A responsible coach doesn’t give advice recklessly for fear of ruining the athlete.

And now, I am going to train radically.

I will take a risk. I said that.

“Mr. Yang? Please help me differently today.”

“Differently? How?”

“I need to overtrain today.”

“Overtrain?”

“I’m a body enhancer, remember? With super regeneration ability.”

Yang Tae-ja nodded with a smirk.

“So, you want to train more intensely today… Wow, you’re motivated. How exactly do you want to do it?”

“I’m going to exercise until my muscles tear and my cartilage gets damaged. So, watch me while I bench press, and if it looks like I’ve broken my arm, please lift the barbell off me.”

“What?”

I repeated what I had already said to the bewildered Yang Tae-ja. He was still dumbfounded.

“Why?”

“I’ve been having bad dreams lately.”

“What?”

I explained, showing him examples on my smartphone of foreign body enhancers who explosively grew their muscles in a short period with reckless training that would normally turn an ordinary person into a disabled person.

I also told him that I intended to follow this precedent.

Of course, Yang Tae-ja looked reluctant.

“Do you really have to?”

He was asking why I wanted to do something strange when the current method was sufficient.

I answered again, “I’ve been having bad dreams lately,” and then started the announced exercise.

First, dumbbells… I lifted and lowered the heaviest weight I could handle at a fast pace with the correct posture. If I had done this during my athlete days, the coach would have cursed and punched me in the head.

Sure enough, Yang Tae-ja was looking at me anxiously. And after several minutes, I felt something snap, and I had to put the dumbbell down.

“Tsk…”

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. It’ll heal if I leave it.”

“No, if you’re going to get injured and rest this quickly, wouldn’t it have been better to just do it as usual?”

“No. I’ll rest a bit and then do it again.”

And so, I was sitting and resting.

I made eye contact with a student sitting across from me.

It was a student I vaguely knew.

He was the protagonist of this hallucination.

Jin-young Jung, 34 years old. He confessed with a face burdened with all the hardships of the world that he had been living as an unemployed person at his parents’ house until this age, during a drinking session with other students.

As the economy deteriorated and even his parents lost their jobs, he came to the Hunter Academy with the determination to support his parents.

It was characteristic that he always wore military boots, whether because he couldn’t afford sneakers or because he thought being a hunter was similar to being a soldier.

Jin-young Jung died, leaving behind those military boots. He died without any dignity, looking like something out of a B-grade horror movie.

His flesh, which had been Jin-young Jung, was spread thin and wide on the concrete floor like pancake batter.

It seemed that his upper body to his thighs had been completely crushed.

Jin-young Jung’s body was only intact from his shoes to his knees, and it was thanks to the military boots he brought out when he was discharged that I could identify him, not because any part of his face remained.

As I came out of the hallucination, I thought again, panting. Should I warn that man whose death was just foretold? Should I tell him that if he continues being a hunter, he will die?

But even if I said that, it wouldn’t be very surprising. Who doesn’t know that being a hunter is a high-risk job?

I don’t know exactly how that man will die, so I can’t give proper advice. At best, I can only yell at him to quit being a hunter. It’s really hard for me to do that too… Damn it.

As always, when the hallucination ended, a fierce anger began to spread through my nervous system. My body temperature rose, and the urge to smash something took over my mind.

Using that anger as fuel, I picked up the dumbbells with both hands. Yang Tae-ja was startled.

“Are you going to start again already?”

Without answering, I started lifting the dumbbells again and again.

It seemed that the muscles that had been slightly torn just now had regenerated and become stronger. Somehow, it felt easier to exercise than before, although it could be due to some part of my arm being numb, but I decided not to care much.

“Now, spot me from behind.”

Next was the bench press…

As I started lifting the heavy barbell that seemed heavy enough to worry about the floor collapsing, other students who were exercising around me gathered.

The students surrounding me watched my workout.

“Wow…”

From students purely exclaiming in admiration to those filming with their smartphones, there were all sorts of people.

Among the students surrounding me was Jin-young Jung, who was destined to become a bloody mess at the age of 34.

He wasn’t a close person. He had a strong tendency to be a hikikomori, was naturally introverted, and seemed to be scared of me, who looked big and bad-tempered, so he never spoke to me first.

Still, he seemed to find the academy’s only awakened person fascinating. Sometimes, when I shot with the hunter rifle or lifted weights that only those with physical enhancement could lift, I could feel him glancing at me.

Even now, it’s the same. Jung Jin-young is standing among the people, staring at me with his mouth agape, as if he’s utterly amazed.

I find his honest reaction very pleasing. And the enthusiastic cheers and reactions from the other trainees around Jung Jin-young are also good. Just being surrounded by them makes me excited.

I like hearing their praises. I like that these ordinary men around me are cheering for my trivial actions. I like it so much!

When I lifted and lowered the barbell, they started something like a cheer.

“One more time! One more time!”

In fact, I haven’t had any significant emotional exchanges with these trainees. They just flatter or fuss over me, the awakened one, and I just enjoy their praises while pretending to be calm.

So, how many of them will die? How horribly will they die?

I don’t know how their deaths will come about, or what relation it will have to me.

But there’s one thing I know for sure.

I want to continue receiving their praises in the future.

And for me to receive their praises, they have to stay alive. If they die because I couldn’t protect them, it would be even more horrible. Then I wouldn’t receive anyone’s praises. I don’t want that.

In the end, until the muscles in my arms tore and my cartilage was damaged, I continued exercising while receiving everyone’s cheers.

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