“Hunter Kim Giryeo!”
I had just left the item auction house and was on my way home after spending roughly three hours browsing magical tools on my rare day off when an unfamiliar voice called out to me.
The man looked to be in his thirties. The moment I heard him speak, I knew immediately that we had never met before.
“Hmm?”
Apparently, he had rushed over from somewhere. He hurriedly introduced himself.
“Hello! I’m Cho Sangoh from the Hanshin Guild.”
Hanshin...
Hanshin?
“Phew, good. You’re still at the auction house, just like I was told. Ah, but that’s not the point! I heard Hunter Kim rejected our guild’s proposal last week. Do you remember that?”
As Cho Sangoh continued explaining, I finally remembered where I had heard the name Hanshin.
I didn’t know every detail, but broadly speaking, it was the guild that had been trying to recruit Jung Haseong.
But then why was one of their members suddenly looking for me?
“Personally, I was disappointed by your decision. I heard you turned us down because A-ranks were too weak or something along those lines...”
“....”
“To be honest, I’m very confident in my abilities. So if it isn’t too much trouble, could you give me just one chance?”
“A chance?”
“I’ll prove myself as a Hunter by clearing a gate! That’s why I came all the way here to meet you.”
A chance?
In other words, he wanted to prove his worth through gate clearing.
As expected, it was not the sort of proposal I could readily accept.
This Hunter was essentially asking me to hire him for a position that did not even exist.
“I’m sorry. Like I said before, that would be difficult.”
I had no intention of forming a team.
And if people discovered that I was merely taking advantage of Jung Haseong for his money, there was every chance it could turn into a scandal on the streets of Seoul someday.
So I firmly rejected his request.
But if a single refusal had been enough to end things, he would never have gone to the trouble of tracking me down in the first place.
“Wait, Hunter Kim Giryeo! I even obtained a Level 1 Monster Dismantler qualification from a private company. I can genuinely be useful in a support role...”
Judging by his clothes, had he come straight from a gate?
He strode toward me in glowing orange armor.
The metal plates clanked loudly with every step.
“And I’m not even asking for money. I said I’d work for passion pay. Is that still not enough?”
“That...”
“Are you really refusing to give me even one chance just because I’m A-rank? Absolutely no chance at all?”
To be fair, if I had not suddenly interfered, Hanshin probably would have completed its contract with Haseong without much trouble.
So I could understand why he might feel wronged.
Maybe the idea of becoming a hero’s companion meant that much to him.
He had come so close to gaining that kind of glory, only to lose it at the last moment.
Naturally, he found it difficult to let go.
Still, every situation had its own circumstances.
“I’m sorry. I’ll be going now.”
I decided there was no point continuing the conversation and turned away.
But the moment I did, Cho Sangoh hurried ahead of me and planted himself directly in front of the main entrance, blocking my path.
“You’re ignoring me again...! No, excuse me.”
Then came Cho Sangoh’s direct provocation.
“What if I’m better than you?”
“....”
“Hunter Kim Giryeo, I’m not saying that because of some vague confidence in myself.”
“....”
“I genuinely think I could beat you in a race to clear the same gate, even though you’re an S-rank.”
After saying that, Cho Sangoh loudly boasted about his abilities.
And with that degree of confidence, I had to admit he had caught my attention.
‘An A-rank beating an S-rank in clear speed? What kind of awakening ability does he have?’
Of course, I couldn’t ask that aloud.
No matter how capable he was, there was no reason to introduce unnecessary complications into a contract whose sole purpose was making money.
‘His name was Cho Sangoh, right? I’ll look up his skills when I get home...’
I stayed silent and tried to leave.
But seeing me continue to ignore him, Cho Sangoh finally seemed to lose his temper.
“Ah, seriously. You’re really going to hide behind your rank and act all high and mighty?”
I was only trying to avoid the conversation.
I hadn’t meant to make him this angry.
“Hey, are you scared you’ll lose?”
“....”
“Sorry for saying something so childish, but it’s honestly ridiculous. You acted like A-ranks weren’t even in the same league as you, but when it comes time to actually compare yourself to one, you just shut your mouth.”
His criticism grew harsher and harsher.
“Well, I already knew from the Siren incident. Looks like you’re the same, Kim Giryeo. The kind of Hunter who only chooses dungeons that suit his strengths and are easy for him to handle.”
“....”
“And with that attitude, you still walk around acting superior just because you’re S-rank? Seriously?”
No matter how I looked at it, those were remarkably rude things to say to a complete stranger.
Still, I could understand why Cho Sangoh was behaving like a thug.
He was probably trying to provoke me badly enough that an S-rank would finally sit down at the negotiating table with him, even if he had to trample on my pride to do it.
‘So this is a provocation tactic?’
But what could I do?
It had already been several months since I took over Kim Giryeo’s body.
By now, I had become rather accustomed to living as an F-rank.
“Stop ignoring me and answer! You’re saying that if the attributes don’t match, you can’t even clear a dungeon properly, right? Huh?”
Being called weak didn’t even sound like an insult anymore.
It was simply the truth.
‘Yeah~ That’s me. A bottom-tier loser.’
I let Cho Sangoh’s insults go in one ear and out the other.
Unfortunately, by this point the situation itself was becoming troublesome.
Cho Sangoh, who had been shouting aggressively, suddenly fell silent when he saw me turn away again.
Then he began gathering a dense concentration of magical power in one arm.
‘Wait. Magical power?’
In the past, the moment I noticed that change, I would have acted immediately.
But as I had already said, I was an unfortunate mage trapped inside Kim Giryeo’s body.
There was nothing I could do.
And so the magical power Cho Sangoh had gathered exploded outward without interference.
Swish!
A gust of wind tore through the still air.
The pressure came from Cho Sangoh drawing his weapon.
With a speed too fast for my eyes to follow, he unsheathed an axe and brought the blade toward my throat.
Debris scattered across the road was caught in the violent wind and hurled backward as though it might shatter apart.
All he had done was draw his weapon, yet the resulting force was overwhelming.
....!
But one more thing happened.
Cho Sangoh had apparently only intended to provoke me.
He did not actually swing.
Instead, he stopped the axe blade roughly ten centimeters from my Adam’s apple.
Tuk...
Unfortunately, the monstrous acceleration produced by an A-rank Hunter had already done enough damage to this miserable body.
My neck was cut.
The gust of wind and the faint magical energy spilling from the axe blade were enough to tear my skin open.
Blood began flowing.
Blood...
“An S-rank got cut?”
“Did he actually hit him?”
Cho Sangoh and I were shocked at exactly the same moment.
But for completely different reasons.
Even he could never have imagined that such a small action would produce this result.
“W-wait, what? I knew you were suppressing your mana, but... what the hell is going on?”
Thump.
I turned my back on the flustered Cho Sangoh and pressed one hand against my bleeding neck.
This was bad.
We were on the road near the Dungeon Item Auction House.
Too many Hunters passed through this area.
Trying to heal myself physically in a place like this would be difficult.
“Wait. Don’t tell me you’re actually bluffing without anything to back it up? Your reaction speed definitely looked slower just now.”
I had been trying to decide whether I should risk revealing the existence of healing magic.
Then I saw Cho Sangoh sneering at me, and irritation finally burst out.
“Is this really the time to say something like that? You suddenly pull out a weapon on someone and now you’re asking me what’s wrong?”
“Then sue me later.”
The Hunter arrogantly cut me off.
“I didn’t expect this either. I figured if a pathetic little A-rank grazed our mighty S-rank, maybe I’d manage to leave a scratch at most.”
Cho Sangoh glanced at me as I held my neck and gave a hollow laugh.
“Hunter Kim Giryeo, let me ask you something. If I beat an S-rank right here and send him to the ICU...”
“What?”
“Wouldn’t it actually benefit me more to spend a little time in prison afterward?”
“...What?”
An A-rank Hunter defeating an Awakened worshiped as a transcendent existence.
Yes.
Nothing like that had ever happened before.
Naturally, the entire world would make a spectacle of it.
Even if he received moral condemnation, no one could deny his ability afterward.
An uprising against those at the very top would leave an enormous impression.
‘Damn it.’
Unfortunately, everything about this situation was going wrong.
Because on my side, there was only an F-rank body with artificially inflated magical power.
A walking bundle of bluffs.
“What’s going on?”
“Are they fighting?”
Murmur.
Hunters passing nearby began stopping and looking in our direction.
“Hunter Cho Sangoh... I’ll overlook this mistake, so let’s stop here.”
I pointed toward the onlookers and tried to convince him to end things before they escalated into an actual incident.
But Cho Sangoh seemed to enjoy the attention.
“Huh? Sure, let them watch if they want. Anyway, the ICU thing was a joke. I’m just going to pop some of that bubble around you.”
The complete lack of hesitation in his voice told me everything I needed to know.
This was not someone I could talk down.
Drawing a weapon on another person required a certain level of resolve.
It was not something an ordinary person did.
Unless, of course, they were a psychopath.
‘...I see.’
In any case, this Hunter clearly had an unusually strong fixation on S-ranks.
And now that I examined him more closely, I could more or less understand why he was overflowing with confidence.
From the armor covering his body to the small accessories on his ears, he was equipped with two Epic-grade items, or at least equipment of comparable performance.
That meant he belonged to the absolute upper tier even among A-ranks.
Now I understood.
Cho Sangoh’s equipment was impressive enough to make even me envious.
But this Earth mage had overlooked one important detail.
‘Every single piece of his equipment is just mindlessly boosting his magical output...!’
Whenever magical tools were specialized that heavily toward a single ability, they inevitably came with a serious weakness somewhere else.
“Bubble?”
After a moment, I drew in a deep breath and muttered,
“Let’s see whose bubble gets popped.”
But the words themselves were meaningless.
They were merely a tactic to buy time.
In truth, I had already made my move earlier, when Cho Sangoh turned around to check the gathering witnesses.
I had used the thing inside my pocket.
[Surprise Box!]
[Rank: Unique]
[Description: Inflicts a powerful [Stun] effect across the surrounding area.]
Hmm.
In any case, the rabid hyena blinded by fame was dealt with successfully.
Unfortunately, a small problem arose in the process.
“Huh?”
“Gasp!”
Thud—!
The magical item’s effective range turned out to be much wider than expected.
Even the nearby spectators collapsed unconscious.
Oh my.
I counted the bodies.
About five victims were sprawled across the ground.
This shouldn’t count as assault, right?
It should probably be considered self-defense.
Right?
...Right, Korean law?
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