How To Survive as a Class a Hunter

8. Rock Spirit – [1]

“Spirits, you’ve all seen them in fantasy novels or games, right? They come out romantically. They protect nature and bless swords or something…

And there’s something more important than their diet. If you ever encounter a spirit, don’t think about trying to do something. You have to hide. Run unconditionally. You can’t catch them with the fire extinguisher you’re carrying.

On the other hand, spirits? They can kill you just by glancing at you.

Why, look at the ice ability users. They can’t catch monsters, so they get called ‘ice flakes,’ but they can kill a person or an elephant just by looking at them, right? Spirits are the same. They can burn your brain or generously fill your blood vessels with oxygen just by looking at you. You have to avoid being caught in their sight.

Ah, Mr. Kim Geuk, you don’t have to worry. Why, awakened ones can’t use their abilities directly on each other’s bodies, right? The abilities used by spirits or monsters are the same as awakening abilities, so they can’t use them against awakened ones. Just like ice ability users can’t freeze the insides of monsters or freeze a body part to necrosis…

Oh, Mr. Kim Geuk, you have something to say? Why do I keep using ice ability users as an example… I’m sorry. Then what should I use as an example from now on? Rock ability users? They’re too strong, so it wouldn’t be very relatable…”

*

On the day of the hunter exam, honestly, I was nervous.

The amount of support the academy had provided me so far was by no means small. If I failed, what a nuisance it would be. To calm my nerves, I turned on my smartphone.

Ⓐ BabyBerserker: Is the hunter exam really that easy? If I fail, the principal will scold me.

Anonymous: It’s easy. I’m not kidding, it’s as easy as enlisting in the military.

Ⓐ BabyBerserker: BabyBerserker is too small and young to enlist.

Anonymous: BabyBerserker? Are you crazy?

Anonymous: You must have been a public service worker, but it’s the same. Just finding the hunter exam site means you’ve passed. The association doesn’t intend to fail anyone.

Anonymous: I’m a guy attending a hunter academy in Bupyeong, Incheon. I think I know who Berserker hyung is, but can you stop with that concept? It’s too scary when someone over two meters tall does that…

I frowned for a moment. Over two meters? It’s two meters and eleven centimeters, is that guy blind?

Ⓐ BabyBerserker: BabyBerserker is 111cm tall! So small and cute like a hamster!

And when the test began, I realized that all the testimonies the senior hunters had given me were true.

I don’t even want to explain how the physical test in the morning went. To put it bluntly, it was a one-hour and forty-minute waste of time prepared by the government.

I asked the gathered students as if asking if they had breakfast.

“Did everyone pass?”

At our academy, twelve people went out to take the test at the same time. There was no one who couldn’t pass.

“Unless you took a nap in the middle, there’s no way you couldn’t pass. It felt more like checking if your limbs were properly attached rather than a physical test.”

It was a comment from Mr. Im Hyung-taek, who, due to his age, would become half-dead after running on the treadmill for a bit.

Even Kim Jin-jun, who was confident in his physical strength, had something to say.

“I heard that the physical test for the hunter exam is the same standard for both men and women? So I worked out like crazy. But when I took the test, I felt like they were determined to pass everyone regardless of gender or age.”

“If they’re going to do it like this, why not just send the license to your home if you apply to be a hunter? Instead of calling you to take the test.”

“If they do that, they can’t collect the application fee. The association must be making a good profit from this, so they can’t give it up.”

The written test wasn’t much different.

As I marked the test paper, I just felt like punching the criminal law instructor. The difficult legal terms he always recited were nowhere to be found on the test paper.

Even a foreigner who didn’t know Hangul could easily get a perfect score on this test. It’s no exaggeration.

Each question had a picture attached, as if to prepare for someone who didn’t know Hangul. If you chose the number of the picture where the character had a fierce expression, it was definitely the correct answer.

You can’t fail this unless you intentionally try to. It’s a fact guaranteed by me, a middle school dropout who got expelled on the first day of high school.

In the end, we all passed the first stage of the hunter exam. There was no sense of accomplishment. Of course.

After that, there was a training camp for the first-stage passers, which was originally a one-month curriculum, but it was shortened to a week after an amazing diet.

“This is awesome, right? After a week, there’s the hunter job performance evaluation? If you pass that, you can start working as a hunter and make money right away.”

At the words of the young student Lee Jong-ho, Mr. Im Hyung-taek shook his head.

“It’s not something to be so happy about.”

“Why not?”

“Passing everyone like this means that many active hunters are dying recklessly. And the fact that they shortened the training period despite that means they don’t care whether you live or die…”

“I guess so.”

“When they first issued hunter licenses, the tests and training were tough, but what is this now? The atmosphere of this training camp is just like reserve army training.”

I’ve never participated in reserve army training, but I could roughly understand what he meant. It must mean it’s a joke.

Indeed, this training camp was so relaxed that it was hard to call it training. During training hours, trainees could use their smartphones or lie down and sleep, and the instructors didn’t care at all. I could understand why we had to learn shooting techniques and information about monsters in advance at the hunter academy.

Mr. Im Hyung-taek still spoke in an angry voice.

“I’m scared to death seeing how everything is so half-assed. What will happen to my wife and kids if I die? There’s no compensation for the family even if you die while working as a hunter.”

“Exactly. Why is there no compensation if you die working as a hunter? You’re dying to protect the country.”

As Lee Jong-ho grumbled, Sung Moon-young interjected. He was the friend who introduced me to HuntWeb and often pretended to know a lot about the industry even at the academy.

“They say the hunter system exists because they don’t want to give compensation in the first place. If they were going to give compensation for dying in battle, why would they create a rootless organization like the Hunter Association, subcontract it, gather unemployed people, and give them guns, calling them hunters?”

“So they don’t care if the overflowing unemployed people who become hunters die or not?”

“Except for the awakened hunters. The awakened are so valuable that they have to be brought in from abroad with big money, and if anyone gets hurt, the local government goes crazy. I saw on HuntWeb that awakened hunters are acquitted or given suspended sentences even if they commit crimes and are allowed to continue their hunter activities. They say the local government pressures the district court in the area where the awakened are active.”

“Anyway, I’m jealous of the awakened… What was it, S-class? That crazy guy acts like he’s above the law.”

As a former human rights activist who worked with the Korean Awakening Alliance, there were countless things I wanted to point out, but I was holding back.

My expression must not have been good as I listened quietly. Sung Moon-young, who had been babbling, suddenly looked at me with a startled expression and quickly said,

“Oh, sorry, Kim Geuk-hyung. I didn’t mean to pick on you. You know that, right?”

*

After the long and ultimately pointless training camp finally ended, the last procedure remained.

The hunter duty performance evaluation.

It’s the final practical test where the examiners observe how you act when dispatched as a hunter and give you a score.

Seeing the sleepy expression of the examiner, I guessed that passing wouldn’t be too difficult.

“But don’t be too careless. They often pretend to evaluate you roughly and then demand bribes at the end, saying you didn’t meet the evaluation criteria.”

I looked at the people who were taking the final test with me.

Kim Jin-joon, Lim Hyung-taek, Lee Jong-ho, Sung Moon-young, Jung Jin-young… Eight people from our academy and twelve unfamiliar faces. A total of twenty people were taking the test together.

Everyone taking the test was carrying a K-1 rifle.

The examiner, in a voice that made it clear he wanted to finish quickly and go home, said,

“Alright, everyone has their guns? Don’t point them at people… Let’s go.”

So, the students from our academy followed the examiner and set off.

Before long, we arrived at the final test site.

It was a large, eight-story building. Like many buildings in the provinces, it was an abandoned structure left empty after everyone had left.

Leading the way up the stairs, the examiner explained the setup of the evaluation.

“Alright, there’s a monster in this building. The reconnaissance team has already scouted and confirmed that the monster is fixed on the 6th floor. Now, you need to show how you will move to the target location as the strike team.”

It seemed we just had to move to the 6th floor like hunters. In other words, as long as we had the stamina to climb the stairs while maintaining a rough posture, we would pass.

Indeed, everyone was climbing the stairs with expressions devoid of any tension.

However, it seemed I was different.

“Kim Geuk-hyung, why are you so serious by yourself? Are you worried because you have to undergo the awakened evaluation alone after the test?”

“No…”

“You’re already confirmed as an A-rank anyway. Why, are you feeling unwell?”

I shook my head and gritted my teeth. Damn, it’s hard to explain the hardship I’m going through right now.

I silently climbed the stairs, frowning. 3F…

A sense of déjà vu, a strong sense of déjà vu was dizzying my head. It felt like I had already been to this place, and I had done this exact action before.

It’s been four months since this sense of déjà vu started. Since I began intense exercise, I hardly felt it, but today, the déjà vu was as strong as it used to be. Why?

Something felt ominous. 4F.

But just because it felt ominous, I didn’t know how to act. I didn’t even know the cause of this déjà vu.

I couldn’t just say, “Let’s go home and consider the expensive application fee a donation,” just because it felt ominous. Both I and those people would starve to death if we did that.

On the 5th floor, I asked,

“Our guns don’t have live ammunition, right?”

Mr. Im Hyung-taek answered,

“That’s right. It’s training, so we only have a few blanks.”

And then 6F.

The examiner declared upon reaching the destination,

“Target point confirmed! Strike team, enter…”

Following the instructions, the examinees entered the 6th floor and immediately took positions to guard all directions.

And I didn’t have time to follow their posture.

“Kim Geuk, what are you doing? Don’t be so careless.”

I couldn’t even pay attention to Seong Moon-young’s reasonable criticism.

I looked at the floor of the 6th floor.

That floor, the concrete floor with all the wallpaper peeled off, was so familiar.

Because of the déjà vu? Yes. But it wasn’t just because of that…

I had seen that floor many times. When?

Probably, in hallucinations…

“Is it over? My stomach hurts, let’s go back quickly—”

I was speaking hastily when it happened.

Behind me, there was a series of thudding sounds. Thud, thud, thud. Something heavy kept falling.

I turned around and opened my eyes wide.

The emergency stairs we had climbed, the ceiling right above them had completely collapsed.

Thus, the emergency exit was blocked. A pile of concrete, deliberately stacked around the emergency exit, completely sealed off the exit.

And from the front, I heard the voice of the examiner. It was the dumbfounded voice of someone witnessing an unknown situation.

“Huh?”

Looking forward again, I saw it.

A monster from beyond the gate, an otherworldly being armed with all sorts of bizarre supernatural abilities and overwhelming size.

The middle wall of the 6th floor had already completely collapsed, reduced to mere concrete debris.

The concrete debris began to float in the air by itself. The floating debris gathered together and started to form a shape.

A human shape? No. A shape similar to a human-like ape.

If I had to compare, it was like a goblin I had learned about in the past…

“What is that?”

A 4-meter-tall concrete monster looked this way. More precisely, the small face between its ridiculously broad shoulders looked this way.

The concrete monster’s mouth opened.

“I love you. I won’t hurt you.”

A voice that was not vocal, but directly transmitted into my mind.

“I love you. Walk towards me. I will hug you.”

We were educated on the characteristics of many monsters at the academy. I could immediately tell what kind of monster it was.

“It’s a spirit. A rock spirit…”

Only then did the examiner, as if realizing the situation, take a step back. Was he trying to run away? Didn’t that fool even look back when he heard something collapse earlier?

The concrete monster—the rock spirit—laughed at that foolish attempt. It was probably a sneer.

“Free hug declaration! Free hug declaration!”

With that bizarre mental wave, I felt a sensation of being sucked in somewhere.

It was a hallucination after three months.