#3
Hunters with recovery abilities rather than combat abilities were rare worldwide, with fewer than 10 people, and among them, Seo Yi-young’s ability was overwhelmingly superior. It seemed he had received quite a lot of naturalization offers from overseas, as dozens of related news articles came up in searches.
Actually, calling it hope was too vague a term – it was more like a lottery with somewhat higher odds.
It was natural to have expectations of ‘just maybe, perhaps….’
But a recovery ability?
Does this make sense?
Seo Yi-young, who had been looking at his phone, looked up at the air and opened his mouth. He slapped his cheek with all his strength once more. It was still too painful.
This was really happening.
That ridiculous wish to become the most successful version of himself among countless dimensions.
It had become reality.
It was a problem that came before the question of whether this was possible.
This thing just happened. There was no point in considering the possibility of something that had already been realized. No matter how absurd it was, no matter how slim the probability, there was no need to think about the probability of something that had already occurred.
But an ability?
“Something like a notification window is supposed to appear.”
But nothing happened.
It was strange. Surely something like a window was supposed to appear, wasn’t it?
“Notification window.”
Still, nothing happened.
This couldn’t be right.
“……Notification window? ……Whoa. Crazy……!”
When he repeated it once more just in case, something finally happened. Seo Yi-young was so startled by the notification window that appeared before his eyes that his body jolted.
Something really appeared in front of him. Seo Yi-young reached out to try to touch the window floating in the air, but his hand passed through it emptily. Thinking it might be a hologram, he looked around but couldn’t see any machinery that could create such a thing.
“What is this? It really appeared.”
Seo Yi-young muttered to himself and read what was written in the window.
[Name: Seo Yi-young
Grade: S
Ability: Special
Skill Name: Turn Back Time]
……It really said recovery.
Isn’t this the classification system from games he used to play during commuting hours? Well, this whole situation happening right now was something he’d only seen in web novels he used to read bit by bit when he had spare time.
A status window. But while he had managed to make it appear, he didn’t know how to make it disappear. However, that problem was also easily solved. When he thought about making it disappear, it disappeared immediately.
Pretty intuitive, Seo Yi-young thought, then realized something he had forgotten.
If his consciousness had entered this body, where was the consciousness of the ‘original’ Seo Yi-young who had been in this dimension?
Did he somehow merge with that consciousness when he came here? Then there should be some traces left, but there was nothing. Seo Yi-young didn’t even have any knowledge of life or common sense from this side.
Sitting and thinking about it wouldn’t solve anything, but it wasn’t something he could just ignore either.
No, wait. Seo Yi-young swallowed his breath. The fact that he wouldn’t return to his original dimension and would remain like this meant he had to enter that dungeon instead of the original Seo Yi-young. When he newly realized that obvious fact, cold sweat ran down his back.
It wasn’t even just about entering – he would also have to face hideous and grotesque-looking mobs. Since he was a healer, he probably wouldn’t have to fight directly, but just the thought of entering a dungeon and encountering mobs made his spine chill.
It was when Seo Yi-young’s brow unconsciously furrowed.
“Hunter-nim, you need to leave now.”
At the words spoken while knocking on the door, Seo Yi-young came to his senses. Come to think of it, he hadn’t washed yet and hadn’t changed clothes either. After saying to wait a moment, Seo Yi-young quickly finished preparing. He washed and randomly picked any clothes from those hanging in the dressing room to change into.
As Seo Yi-young was about to leave the place, his eyes caught a small knife that was on display. Butler Choi raised his eyebrows when he saw Seo Yi-young come out with it.
He couldn’t understand why he made such an expression.
He wasn’t dressed strangely.
As Seo Yi-young looked down at his body once more to double-check, Butler Choi greeted him.
“It seems you’re planning to test it out. Please be careful and come back safely.”
“Yes…… I’ll go and come back.”
Only after leaving the house did he realize he hadn’t asked where Seo Yi-young’s car was, but he could find it without difficulty. As soon as he left the building, a driver saw Seo Yi-young and greeted him respectfully.
Just how successful a life was this to have not only a butler but also a personal driver?
As he was enjoying the things that had now become his, he felt nothing but grateful to the original Seo Yi-young of this dimension. Anyway, the Seo Yi-young here and he were the same person, so what would be wrong with using his things a bit?
On the street, citizens who recognized Seo Yi-young’s car waved or acknowledged him. It felt like having a mini parade.
Inside the car, Seo Yi-young didn’t let go of his phone and investigated his previous activities.
When he searched for his name on YouTube, an enormous amount of videos came up. Among them, what caught Seo Yi-young’s attention was a video titled ‘Analysis of Hunter Seo Yi-young’s Pre-Entry Interview Video.’
When he searched with the keywords ‘Seo Yi-young,’ ‘dungeon,’ and ‘interview,’ related videos poured out like rain again. It seemed customary to do interviews before entering dungeons.
An interview. This was a big problem.
He played the video with the sound off. Seo Yi-young, who was him yet not him, was appearing on screen.
In the screen, he was moving with his back straight, answering reporters’ questions with a confident yet friendly expression.
He had seen a similar scene before.
It was when he exposed the company’s corruption. As if he had become some kind of fighter, he had straightened his back and confidently given interviews, which were broadcast nationwide through the news. He didn’t know how many times he had watched it on YouTube. Seo Yi-young had been proud of himself fighting against injustice. Once upon a time, that is.
“……”
Seo Yi-young, who had been lost in reminiscence thinking of the past, soon came to his senses and focused on his phone again.
He had to minimize the gap with his previous self.
He scanned through the list of related videos to watch other videos. But the titles of the videos were somewhat strange.
‘Hunter Seo Yi-young’s Back View’
‘Seo Yi-young’s Two-Faced Aspect’
‘S-Class Hunter Mr. S’s Rude Usual Behavior’
Though they processed which S-Class Hunter it was with initials, Seo Yi-young could recognize it immediately.
“……”
Seo Yi-young frowned.
What kind of life had he lived for there to be videos with such titles? Even the view counts of the videos easily exceeded 2 million.
It was a complicated feeling. He wanted to learn more, but that wasn’t what was important right now. There wasn’t time to find out more about other things.
This wasn’t the time for this. He had learned enough about how dangerous dungeons were when searching for information earlier. But Seo Yi-young had no idea about how to actually heal. He had to do something. He couldn’t just sit still with his hands folded saying he didn’t know.
Seo Yi-young took out the knife he had brought. Though he hesitated for a moment, thinking that if he didn’t practice now, it wouldn’t end with just this small wound when he entered the dungeon, he closed his eyes tightly and cut his fingertip. He felt something hot pass through. He seemed to have cut quite deeply, perhaps due to poor strength control. Quite a bit of red blood welled up. For now, he absorbed the blood with tissues that were inside the car while staring at the bleeding part.
As Seo Yi-young observed the wound, he realized that the amount of flowing blood wasn’t decreasing. It seemed it wouldn’t heal naturally. Seo Yi-young began to panic. If the ability didn’t manifest on its own, there seemed to be a separate method for using it. The problem was that Seo Yi-young had no idea what that method was.
What should he do? As he blinked rapidly in panic, Seo Yi-young thought he should stop the bleeding first and wrapped the wound area with his other hand. Right then, a small light leaked from inside his hand. When the surprised Seo Yi-young removed his hand, the bleeding had stopped and the wound was perfectly healed. He even frowned and pressed and checked the part he had cut with the knife, but the wound had really disappeared.
“……Whoa……”
Seo Yi-young made a sound without realizing it and glanced toward the driver’s seat. He wondered if it had been heard, but fortunately it didn’t seem like it. With this level of ability, it seemed like he could live comfortably as a doctor outside rather than as a hunter risking his life entering dungeons. Though being S-Class probably came with various restrictions that would make that difficult.
Seo Yi-young, who had been indulging in brief fantasies, immediately returned to reality. He had healed this small wound like this, but he didn’t know if large wounds would be possible in the same way. Seo Yi-young looked down at his palm. If he made a slightly larger wound here…… But unfortunately, he didn’t have the leisure to experiment with that here and now. Deciding to try it alone in the dungeon, Seo Yi-young put the knife back in his pocket.
As Seo Yi-young was watching another video that might be helpful, he noticed that the car he was in was approaching the scene.
He could see people controlling access and several broadcasting station vehicles were parked there.
It was when he realized this might be an even bigger deal than he thought. The car stopped. They hadn’t even gone inside yet, but something was strange. People who appeared to be reporters from broadcasting stations surrounded the car in a line. They were dressed completely in hard hats and special vests.
As Seo Yi-young looked at the scene outside the window with his mouth open, the driver made eye contact through the rearview mirror and said,
“Please be careful and come back safely, Hunter-nim.”
Only after hearing the driver’s greeting did he realize that the original Seo Yi-young usually got off here. After answering that he would go and come back, he hesitated and got out of the car.
As soon as Seo Yi-young appeared, people poured out questions.
“Do you have anything to say before this raid?”
“What do you think about concerns regarding the void that will follow with two S-Class Hunters entering the dungeon?”
“How long do you expect this dungeon raid to take?”
Various questions poured out like thunder, leaving him completely scattered. There was no time to answer.
He couldn’t even open his eyes properly due to the flashing lights.
Really, there were an incredible number of reporters. Among the cameras, he could see not only Korean but also foreign broadcasting stations. The dozens of layers of people looked like one big barrier by themselves.
He had never seen this many reporters even in his previous dimension.
Han-young had handled media people very well, and there were no reporters who wanted to make enemies with ‘that’ Han-young Group. That is, until they gained public attention through the reporting of one reporter from a public broadcasting station who had a calling. That person’s help was really significant. Without that reporter, it would have been buried without anyone knowing, let alone becoming known to the public.
Seo Yi-young, who had been reminiscing about the past, soon came to his senses and stood facing the reporters waiting for his answer. Recalling the past videos of Seo Yi-young he had seen while riding in the car here, he first corrected his posture. He pulled in his chin, put strength in his stomach, and stood straight.
The gazes of all the reporters gathered there poured onto him. They waited only for Seo Yi-young to open his mouth. So he had to handle this. It was when Seo Yi-young took a breath and was about to answer. He saw someone approaching from over there, parting through the crowd of reporters. The person who appeared was a man with neatly swept hair. He had a white face and a smiling expression that seemed very likeable.
“Oh my, I’m a bit late. I’m Seo Yi-young-nim’s media representative. If you ask me, you can hear the same thing as Hunter Seo Yi-young’s answers. Please consider the tension and pressure of the Hunter-nim who is about to enter an S-Class dungeon. Isn’t completing the dungeon raid safely the top priority? All I can tell you right now is that we will finish the dungeon raid accurately and safely. We’ll end the interview here for now. We’ll hold a proper press conference after completing the raid.”
Seo Yi-young was impressed by the man’s eloquent words.
Most of the reporters seemed convinced by his words and were satisfied and left, but one or two had slightly dissatisfied expressions. Still, they seemed unable to argue against the man’s words that dungeon raiding was most important, so they packed up the recording devices they had pushed forward and left.
It was really fortunate. Even if Seo Yi-young had tried to speak, there would have been limits to responding with improvisation. Even if he tried his best to imitate, he had only seen a few minutes hastily, so he couldn’t have properly mimicked it. To avoid arousing suspicion that something was strange, he needed to minimize the time exposed to people’s eyes, and this man’s appearance saved him that trouble.
“Um, thank you.”
Since he didn’t know the man’s name, Seo Yi-young called him with a vague title and offered his thanks. Then the man’s eyes widened greatly in surprise. Just for saying thank you. Wondering if giving such a greeting was such a big deal to the man that he would be so surprised, Seo Yi-young had to think deeply about himself in this dimension.
“Oh, no. I’m Seo Yi-young Hunter-nim’s media response representative.”
He seemed to have a somewhat moved expression. The man made a gesture as if pushing up glasses with one hand, but there were no glasses. It was probably a habitual action.
“Ah. I’m sorry. It came out like a habit.”
“No, no. Did you switch to contact lenses?”
“Ah. Yes. Hunter-nim recommended that I try switching to contact lenses.”
“……Ah.”
Looking at the situation, he could guess how he had ‘recommended’ it.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
