How To Survive as a Class a Hunter

9. Rock Spirit – [2]

Mr. Lim Hyung-taek, 43 years old, is someone who can be as servile as needed, as you can tell from his flattery towards me. But he is not a sly person.

He has a sense of responsibility as an elder. Even in this hallucination, where everyone else kept their mouths shut, he alone spoke up.

‘Mr. Kim Geuk, teleportation…’

In the hallucination, I stammered a response, unable to take my eyes off the enormous concrete monster.

‘With teleportation, I can’t even evacuate half the people here.’

‘No, I mean, teleport to the association and bring a hunter rifle. Or a rocket launcher.’

They told me to bring a weapon to be devoured by that monster. It seems like a pretty good instruction. Especially in this situation where I don’t know what to do, it’s good to have some guidance.

‘When you teleport, if possible, take a few people with you…’

At Mr. Im Hyung-taek’s words, I reach out to him. If we are to teleport together, physical contact is necessary.

Mr. Im Hyung-taek knows this too.

Smack. Mr. Im Hyung-taek slaps my hand away.

Mr. Im Hyung-taek tightly closes his eyes and shakes his head vigorously with his lips pressed together. It’s a gesture that a child might make, but it is a mature refusal.

There is no time to admire or ask if he meant something else.

While still glancing at the concrete monster, I grab one academy student and another person whose name I don’t know.

Then I spread out my mental net. This is a necessary task when teleporting to a place out of sight.

I try to do this as quickly as possible, but whether it’s due to tension or unfamiliarity with the area, it’s not as easy as usual to pinpoint the location.

The fortunate thing in this situation is that the spirit is just looking at us with a grin and not immediately attacking.

I wonder if it’s staying still because it’s wary of me, and if it will act as soon as I leave, but there’s no time to think about that while teleporting. That thought just brushes my mind without changing my actions.

Finally, the coordinates are set, and the teleportation is completed.

The surroundings change completely.

We are inside the association building. The two people I brought with me are also here.

‘Don’t just stand there, report the situation immediately!’

I shout as I run. I shout while running.

‘Hunter rifle! Where’s the hunter rifle!’

I need the biggest weapon possible. If it’s a hunter rifle heavier than an elementary school student, it should be able to shred that concrete monster.

After shouting and running frantically, I finally get my hands on the desired item. A 55kg hunter rifle.

I try to teleport back to the abandoned building with the item, but it’s still difficult to do it quickly.

Still, I somehow manage to succeed.

The inside of the abandoned building comes into view again. I struggle to endure the dizziness that rushes over me.

I look around to grasp the situation.

Then an even greater dizziness overwhelms me. This time, it’s not dizziness from nervous system overload, but from mental shock.

‘Oh.’

The first thing I see is Mr. Im Hyung-taek with his neck elongated like a deer’s. Next, I see crushed chunks of meat and the military boots connected to them, belonging to Jung Jin-young.

I also see Lee Jong-ho with both arms torn off, Kim Jin-joon with his brain oozing out, and Sung Moon-young with his body full of holes as if he was hit by a shotgun at close range, all coming into view one by one.

And the rock spirit that caused all this is smiling at me.

Its concrete face is smeared with blood and brain matter. The former hunter instructor was right. A monster crazed with cannibalism.

I instinctively aim my hunter rifle at the spirit, but it doesn’t seem to care. It has already completed its escape route.

A purplish energy flickers behind the spirit.

A gate. Even though it’s the first time I’ve seen a gate, I can’t pay attention to the fact or to the myriad emotions and metaphors constantly pouring out from within it.

I try to put strength into my index finger on the trigger, but it’s not easy. The mental shock is too great. My hands are trembling, and I can’t seem to muster the strength in my fingers. What am I doing? Pull it, pull it!

“Thanks for yielding, kind young man.”

As my hunter rifle spits fire, the concrete monster’s form collapses. It’s not because the power of the fired 30mm bullet is excessively excellent.

Something translucent slips out from the collapsing concrete. That translucent thing is sucked into the gate.

The monster that succeeded in the hunt is returning to its homeland.

In an instant, the spirit’s main body disappeared beyond the gate. The gate then contracts.

Soon, the gate itself disappears, leaving only me and the disgusting corpses behind.

With a low-frequency mixed scream that burst from my mouth, my consciousness is expelled back to reality.

*

As always, when the hallucination ends, the emotions felt during the hallucination remain. In greater anger than ever, I struggled to take a deep breath.

It didn’t work.

Still, I must remain calm. If I act without restraint when angry, everything will be ruined. Just like the middle part of my life.

I now know the cause of the anger and despair I’ve experienced. That fact is not pleasant. Damn it.

“Mr. Kim Geuk? Teleportation…”

Mr. Lim Hyung-taek’s voice. I answered briefly.

“No.”

“Not to run away, but to go to the association and—”

He tries to give some instructions. It must be an order to bring a weapon that will work against that guy.

In the hallucination, I listened to that man’s words. Not because I trusted him, but because it was difficult to decide how to act, so I had to follow someone else’s decision.

But the result was not good. Inevitably, I have to make the decision here.

“I said no. If I leave, everyone will die.”

Mr. Lim Hyung-taek asked in a trembling voice.

“If you stay here, is there a way?”

Well, is there a way?

I don’t know.

I looked at the rock spirit. A concrete monster with a height of four meters and a width no less.

In martial arts, weight class is absolute. And no matter how you look at it, that monster seems to weigh several tons. It must maintain that weight even normally, so it means that guy is always exercising with equipment several times heavier than me.

How powerful is the strength that resides in that heavy body? How destructive will the mass wielded by that formidable power be?

I don’t know.

I’m a superhuman body enhancer, but can I even stand a chance?

I don’t know that either.

The only thing that comes to mind is that even a super heavyweight fighter can’t handle a 500kg gray bear.

“Call the association while I stare down that b*stard. Ask them to send reinforcements…”

To bridge this gap, I need a weapon. And all I have in my hand is a skinny K-1 loaded with blanks.

Damn it, Mr. Lim’s instructions weren’t entirely wrong. And the fact that the worst outcome came despite my best efforts makes me even more despairing.

Even while making these calculations, I didn’t take my eyes off that monster.

The monster was the same. The rock spirit was also staring at me blankly.

Yeah, keep staring at me like that, you b*stard.

That monster’s gaze must not be directed at anyone else. I learned in class that rock spirits can solidify stones in a creature’s body. Whether it’s in the brain’s blood vessels or the middle of the spinal cord. It can’t do that to me.

The suffocating standoff continued. Neither the monster nor I could move.

Yeah, just as I’m not sure if I can beat that thing, it seems unsure too. And I’ve heard that when beasts face a formidable opponent, they tend to retreat rather than fight.

I desperately hoped that it would retreat first.

Open your gate and leave, please. Or let the association send another awakened one while we stand off like this.

As I prayed inwardly, I heard footsteps. Someone was moving.

Who is it? What are they trying to do?

I glanced and saw an unknown examinee. He seemed to be trying to escape through the window while the spirit and I were in a standoff. This is the 6th floor, but maybe he calculated that he might survive if he’s lucky?

But beasts never let their prey escape.

The rock spirit’s gaze turned to that poor guy…

“Ah.”

With a short exclamation, the unknown examinee staggered. It seemed the spirit had solidified something inside him.

The examinee collapsed, bleeding from his nose. Then I heard a gasp, someone swallowing their breath.

Next came a “Huh” sound, followed by a scream.

“Shit!”

The scream seemed to paralyze everyone’s rationality. Or maybe it was a desperate attempt to find a place to hide from the spirit’s murderous gaze.

Either way, the examinees gathered here began to scatter in all directions.

And it wasn’t good. Their prey-like movements excited the monster.

The rock spirit stomped the ground. The time I had been away in the hallucination through teleportation wasn’t long, but in that short time, I could see how that monster had managed to kill everyone and open the gate so quickly by watching its speed.

A chimpanzee’s running speed is much faster than a human’s, about 40 km/h. It’s similar to the speed of Usain Bolt, who was the fastest in human history until a few years ago.

A four-meter-tall, several-ton Usain Bolt sprinted towards one of the examinees. Towards whom?

Sung Moon-young.

Seeing the spirit charging at him, Sung Moon-young widened his eyes.

“Ah, damn it!”

He let out a scream, then closed and opened his eyes. And even while looking at me holding his arm, he blinked rapidly as if he couldn’t grasp the situation.

I gritted my teeth. Fortunately, the aftermath of continuous teleportation was more bearable than I thought.

“Stop messing around and hide behind the pillar, you idiot!”

I pushed Sung Moon-young aside and picked up the tool that was underneath him.

A sledgehammer that seemed to have been abandoned after being used for the demolition work of this building. It wasn’t particularly heavy.

Meanwhile, the spirit looked this way. Seeing its expression without a hint of a smile, it seemed angry at missing its prey and making a futile effort.

I looked at it too. I felt the same way as it did. I had been holding back my anger since the hallucination ended.

The standoff was already over. Both it and I were already excited.

“Me too, me too!”

I ignored the pleas and various screams asking to be evacuated.

I gripped the handle tightly.

And for a very brief moment, I felt a sudden sensation of being sucked in somewhere. It felt like a phenomenon I had experienced once before. Like when I learned to shoot without aiming…

I returned to reality almost simultaneously as the spirit charged at me.

“Free―”

As the rock spirit charged at me, I swung the sledgehammer I was holding.

To someone nearby, it might have seemed like I swung it prematurely from a distance where it wouldn’t even reach the monster. The monster probably thought the same. It must have seen it as an immediate opportunity to attack.

“―Hug!”

The rock spirit reached me. As it moved its rocky shoulder, I focused my mind.

When teleporting within my line of sight, there’s no need to spread a net. So it’s much easier and faster.

At the moment the spirit’s killing punch extended, I was standing behind it.

And the sledgehammer I had swung before teleporting fully swung and hit its target.

At the back of its knee made of concrete fragments.

‘Bang!’ The impact sound was loud, and the sensation in my hand was tingling. The stone fragments that broke off from its knee splashed onto my face.

Without caring, I struck again. ‘Bang’, ‘Bang!’ Two, three times, and the concrete that made up one of its legs was almost gone.

I felt like I could completely destroy it with just one more hit. But it didn’t let me.

“You’re the kind of person who hits your wife with your fists!”

The spirit’s upper body rotated. It swung its arms to strike me. If it even slightly touched me, I would be crushed.

And then I teleported while swinging the sledgehammer.

With the shift in my vision, my foot landed on the shoulder of the spirit that had just stopped moving.

At the same time, the fully swung sledgehammer struck its head.

Indeed, it’s easier to put force into a downward swing. ‘Bang!’

*