Damn Hunter Life Chapter 22
Somehow, I ended up enjoying the breeze alongside a former idol, current hunter. Jin Seol-woon pulled something out of his inventory and held it out to me.
It was a beer bottle with cold water droplets beaded on it. I let out a hollow laugh first.
“Giving alcohol to a drunk.”
Though I was tempted. I accepted it without hesitation. Jin Seol-woon lightly shrugged his shoulders.
“That works out well. So when you act up, I can just think ‘that’s what you’d expect from a dog successor’ and feel at ease.”
I wrestled with the bottle for a moment. I don’t have the strength to open bottle caps… damn it.
‘Should I ask if he has a bottle opener?’
I gave up and handed it back to Jin Seol-woon. Then Jin Seol-woon bit it open with his teeth and gave it to me.
The cold liquid flowed down my throat. My body naturally shivered. Jin Seol-woon watched me quietly.
After taking a few gulps, I let out a long breath and took the bottle away from my mouth.
“So you’re not comfortable now?”
Jin Seol-woon’s eyes darted around briefly, as if he hadn’t expected me to catch onto words he thought would just pass by.
“That’s right.”
I was pouring it down my empty stomach refreshingly for a while, when Jin Seol-woon belatedly pointed out—
“There’s only one bottle.”
I wondered what he meant, then soon understood.
“You drank from it.”
“I’ll let it slide.”
Jin Seol-woon muttered calmly as he put the bottle to his mouth and tilted it. After reducing it by a similar amount as I had, he handed it back.
There’s barely any left. Is this revenge? This guy’s more petty than he looks.
By the time I set down the empty bottle, heat rose to my head and my body felt hot.
“You’re drunk from just that much? Gyeon Gang-hyeon-ssi’s reputation is meaningless.”
The original Gang-hyeon wasn’t strong with alcohol. It was economical. He could get completely drunk with about two bottles of beer.
Plus, he’s the type whose face and nape turn red first, so anyone could tell at a glance ‘ah, he’s been drinking.’
I got up first and swayed slightly.
“Should I take you home?”
Jin Seol-woon suggested with a strange expression. It seemed like a polite question. He was observing my face unusually closely and thoroughly.
“Shut up. Don’t butt in.”
I left Jin Seol-woon behind and came down.
With each step I took, what little sense of balance I had grew increasingly blurred. I was close to home.
‘It wasn’t even a full bottle of beer.’
My body must be weak. I should have thought my alcohol tolerance was much lower based on this body’s standards, but I made a mistake…
I was almost home when I bumped into someone. The other person grabbed my waist and steadied me.
“Are you alright?”
It’s not a familiar voice. Or is it? Just a student maybe. I don’t know… My stomach was churning too much to lift my head and check.
“Ah, thank you…”
I answered hazily and slowly pulled my body away from the other person. The other person slowly let go of our clasped hands. Their hands were really hot.
Captivated solely by thoughts of my bed, I staggered into my house.
* * *
He was lucky. The target came back drunk on his own.
Choi Jung-do completed the mission Woo Sae-geon had given him in half a day. Thanks to the unconscious Gang-hyeon collapsing toward him without any guard up.
Even when he touched those arms that looked like they’d snap and break, and those bony hands at length, there was no feeling. Even when he risked danger and fondled the pale flesh, it was the same.
So the result is clear.
‘Gang-hyeon is not an awakened one.’
Good. He can report this cleanly to Woo Sae-geon. But—
The recent situation raised another question. Choi Jung-do stopped and stared at the mansion entrance Gang-hyeon had entered for a while.
‘He was so compliant even while drunk? He was even more polite than when we first met. Where’s the drunk troublemaker?’
Should he report this to Lord Woo Sae-geon too?
Meanwhile, Gang-hyeon collapsed onto his bed and slept, reeking of alcohol.
A small spirit mouse squeezed and wriggled its way out from inside his clothes.
The mouse familiar looked down at the sleeping Gang-hyeon with disgust.
{He said he’d quit drinking, this abominable…}
Well, might as well cause some trouble while we’re at it. The mouse familiar’s blue eyes sparkled.
Ja Hyeong-woo—he’d been firmly determined to teach that bastard who threatens his master a lesson, but hadn’t had the opportunity until now.
{Should I eat this guy’s fingernails and shapeshift, then go down to the interview site and cause a scene?}
Perfect! The mouse familiar got excited and hopped around for a while at his perfect plan, but soon became dejected. He remembered that damn pact that bound him to Gang-hyeon, leaving him unable to move freely.
That’s when it happened.
Gang-hyeon’s phone in his pocket rang.
The person in question lay there without moving a muscle. The mouse familiar burrowed toward Gang-hyeon’s thigh and pulled out the phone.
‘I’ll answer for him. But I can’t guarantee what I’ll say.’
The caller’s name was ‘Association Manager Park Yoon-seok’. The mouse familiar’s eyes flashed at the word association. He quickly answered the phone.
[“Hello, Successor Gang-hyeon-nim. This is Park Yoon-seok.”]
{Yeah, hello.}
[“…Who am I speaking with?”]
As expected of Gang-hyeon’s manager, he immediately recognized it was a different voice. The mouse familiar rattled off what he’d been thinking.
{I’m a student at this school. That Gang-hyeon guy was passed out drunk on the street, so I brought him here.}
[“Oh dear, I heard he’d quit drinking. Thank you, student. Do you happen to know how much he drank?”]
{Obviously he drank himself stupid! Stupidly, more than he could handle!}
The mouse familiar chattered away, hoping the association manager would find Gang-hyeon disgusting, but the other person laughed heartily instead. The mouse familiar was bewildered.
[“Is that so? I heard his health has improved recently, and with such nice weather, he might have had a drink to lift his spirits.”]
Gang-hyeon’s health improved? This guy doesn’t get better no matter how well he eats or exercises, though? The mouse familiar’s curiosity was piqued by Park Yoon-seok’s incomprehensible words and he found himself asking back.
{His health improved? In what way?}
[“Ah, I misspoke—”]
Park Yoon-seok tried to hastily cover up, then stopped mid-sentence. He seemed to be pondering something in his head.
Yes, Park Yoon-seok rather… now hoped the truth would be known to someone. Even if Gang-hyeon himself didn’t want it.
Park Yoon-seok began speaking, hoping that what a student would hear now would become a story everyone knew later.
[“Successor Gang-hyeon-nim’s current condition is better than before.”]
{Then previously, surely not worse than this?}
Park Yoon-seok was silent for a moment.
He recalled Gang-hyeon from a couple months ago. Park Yoon-seok’s face on the phone darkened and his voice sank.
[“Yes. Because he couldn’t awaken… he suffered greatly from the side effects. Enough to wake up screaming in agony every other day.”]
This was a fact known only to Park Yoon-seok, his manager. He described, correcting his words several times, the pain Gang-hyeon used to writhe and struggle with every night in the past.
[“Modern medicine couldn’t alleviate that pain.”]
The mouse familiar listening gradually became haggard. Then, as if trying to deny what he’d just heard, he asked more coldly.
{If that human was in so much pain, why did he keep drinking? Was he dying to kill himself?}
[“The Hunter School shop theoretically can’t make anything, right? Things like anesthetics or drugs, for instance. But relying on such substances to forget pain without a prescription is illegal, isn’t it? So what he chose was alcohol.”]
The mouse familiar was speechless. Park Yoon-seok, thinking he might have told too harsh a story to a student, belatedly added a joke.
[“Successor Gang-hyeon-nim had quite a strong sense of law-abiding, didn’t he?”]
The mouse familiar shook his head in front of the phone screen as big as his body. He couldn’t believe it. He didn’t want to believe it.
{Lies. That guy is fine now. No, not completely fine, but…}
[“Yes. I heard that too. That at some point the pain was alleviated. How happy I was.”]
However, Park Yoon-seok didn’t know the detail that the ‘some point’ Gang-hyeon mentioned coincidentally happened to be the night the ‘semi-awakened window’ appeared to Gang-hyeon, who had realized his possession.
It seemed like he was speaking sincerely. The mouse familiar tried hard to deny it, but eventually had to acknowledge that all of Park Yoon-seok’s testimony was true. Still, there was something left to question.
{Why didn’t he tell anyone about this?}
And with Park Yoon-seok’s answer, the mouse familiar finally felt a shock like being hit in the head.
[“Successor Gang-hyeon-nim refused.”]
Park Yoon-seok still remembered that day from the past vividly.
* * *
Over the phone came the sound of Gang-hyeon clutching his chest and gasping. From the pain vividly conveyed through sound alone, Park Yoon-seok bit his lips as if it were his own problem. He frantically thought of what to say.
[“Successor-nim… please don’t misunderstand and listen. I’m saying this because you’re similar in age to my son. Let the world know about your current situation. Tell those who curse Gang-hyeon-nim that you’re in this much pain, that you’re carrying such a burden.”]
His charge, who was painted with all kinds of words like alcoholic, scoundrel, idiot, rolled on his bed and swallowed his screams.
Even though he had become so weak, even though he had given up on both himself and others from unbearable pain, he didn’t break the resolution he had made.
“No, don’t tell them. Don’t tell anyone.”
After gasping for breath with difficulty for a while, the last words he barely squeezed out were:
“If Hyeong-woo finds out…”
He won’t be able to do anything because he’ll be worrying about me from then on.
And now. The mouse familiar stared blankly at Gang-hyeon, who was sleeping with even breathing.
A long, quiet silence continued.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
