Damn Hunter Life 115

Damn Hunter Life Chapter 115

Woo Sae-geon’s wooden sword precisely aimed at Jin Seol-woon’s openings. Jin Seol-woon was desperately trying to defend.

After watching for a while, I realized. Woo Sae-geon was pressing Jin Seol-woon with just one sword, keeping his left arm behind his back.

Even though Woo Sae-geon had one arm and Jin Seol-woon had both hands, every time Jin Seol-woon blocked Woo Sae-geon’s attacks with his sword, the impact made Jin Seol-woon’s arms vibrate. Jin Seol-woon gradually furrowed his brow and lips.

Like in real combat, Woo Sae-geon didn’t add a single word of advice or criticism. He only pushed with his body and taught with his body.

While doing that, he was also dealing with Yang Pyo’s side by sharing and controlling the Ox familiar’s vision.

Yang Pyo, merged with the Sheep familiar, was immersed in training and growling like a beast.

‘He has that side too. In front of me he always just makes that vacant face.’

It was like a fight between water buffalo. An animalistic fight where they avoided each other’s heads and tried to ram into each other’s flanks. They instinctively sensed when the enemy would charge and induced each other’s charges.

When the full-scale fight began, Yang Pyo took the main tanker role, and Jin Seol-woon became the sub-tanker with a position that combined attacks. This flow also appeared in the original work.

‘But there was nowhere in the original where I was placed in the middle of this battlefield with my limbs tied, playing the hostage role.’

The ground, turned to earth by the attribute, kept rumbling. With my hands and feet bound, I bounced around disgracefully like a caught fish every time the floor vibrated.

Throughout the fight, Jin Seol-woon’s eyes occasionally flickered back and forth to me.

“Don’t keep glancing around. Do you have that kind of leisure?”

Thwack! Woo Sae-geon struck Jin Seol-woon’s abdomen with his knee. Jin Seol-woon, whose body was shaken, barely managed to correct his posture.

‘Even so, you shouldn’t hit Jin Seol-woon’s face.’

“Don’t get distracted by a captured comrade. Open the familiar’s vision simultaneously. Where’s the Dragon familiar? While you’re fighting me directly, the Dragon familiar could come get Gyeon Gang-hyeon, right?”

“I know…!”

Jin Seol-woon rarely spat out words like a tenacious fighter.

Such emotional reactions are usually not advantageous in combat, but for Jin Seol-woon specifically, they’re moderately necessary. Woo Sae-geon drew it out well.

Jin Seol-woon held his wooden sword horizontally to block Woo Sae-geon’s downward strike and gritted his teeth. Behind him, a dragon burst out, splitting the ground.

‘That…!’

I half-raised my upper body. Though Woo Sae-geon never gave permission, I opened my mouth and shouted loudly.

“Put the dragon away! You’re unstable right now! Don’t you know that if reverse summoning happens, your rapport with the familiar drops too?”

Jin Seol-woon was clearly listening to my words while exchanging breathless attacks and defenses. But he still didn’t budge. Instead, he strained the veins in his neck and barked:

“I’ll try it!”

The Dragon familiar coiled its long body. It was a motion to stretch out straight and soar in one go. The direction was toward me, in a straight line.

‘Hey, that’s too reckless! Why is someone who absolutely never does things that might fail acting like this? This isn’t even the first time doing this training?’

The only difference between the past and now was that I was tied up here—

I couldn’t think any further. The moment I saw the head of the Dragon familiar charging toward me with my own eyes, my mind went blank.

‘Isn’t that going to crash right into me?’

I experienced the dizzying feeling of headlights flashing and covering me when a car rushes at you on the road. If the collision actually happened in a few seconds, I could vividly imagine how violently I’d be thrown off. I felt like I’d see my life flash before my eyes.

‘I can’t let the kid commit team-kill!’

As if this was all I could do, I squeezed my eyes shut and shouted. My voice stretched out in all directions.

“Wait!”

…The impact I’d braced for didn’t come.

When I cautiously opened my eyes, I could see the Dragon familiar that seemed like it would collide any moment wrap around me, smoothly make one rotation, then conversely rush at Woo Sae-geon’s back.

“…!”

Woo Sae-geon spun his body and struck up the dragon’s neck with his wooden sword. The dragon’s entire head was slammed into the ceiling in one blow. The sound was tremendous.

Then the training ground became quiet.

When Woo Sae-geon stopped moving, naturally the Ox familiar and Yang Pyo stopped too. Woo Sae-geon, holding his wooden sword with a calm expression, gave what sounded like praise for the first time ever:

“What you just did is the kind of attack I wanted from you.”

Wow… Yang Pyo opened his mouth wide in admiration. He seemed envious of Jin Seol-woon for receiving recognition from the scary and respected leader.

But Jin Seol-woon himself was dumbfounded. Unable to accept the situation, his pupils shook.

“…I didn’t do that.”

A strange silence flowed.

No one moved. However, soon, following Jin Seol-woon’s gaze, other people’s gazes also moved.

To where I was.

The corners of my eyes trembled wildly. If I opened my mouth like this, I felt like I’d ramble incoherently. So I was determined to keep my mouth shut until the confusion in my head was sorted out, but when I came to my senses, I was already stammering:

“Just now I… I did? I don’t know either. I can’t explain it, but I, I just. I was scared the Dragon familiar would crash into me. I think I thought it would be better to hit Woo Sae-geon’s back instead of saving me. Ah, not Woo Sae-geon but Leader…”

It’s probably because of the condition of having the same earth attribute, but anyway, a familiar that wasn’t mine.

The strange phenomenon of a familiar listening to my will when I’m not even its master occurred.

‘I have a question.’

The Dragon familiar is one I’ve always seen. There was nothing special about it until now, but suddenly from today this became possible?

Is my ability expanding?

Then the turning point that made this possible was when I did something I’d never tried before. Probably shooting Woo Sae-geon’s arrow in the friendly match.

The power of harmony that wasn’t in the original work. The range of what I can do keeps broadening. When I try something new and succeed, something else emerges.

‘If my abilities keep expanding like this… then what will I become at the end?’

/Having such doubts will not be helpful to you.

“…!”

I looked up sharply.

The Status Window’s dialogue kept flickering before my eyes, then gradually faded away, ignoring my intense reaction.

The Status Window just read my thoughts and spoke to me first.

The Status Window usually only interjects to the extent of picking fights with my muttering. When I ask others, they say it’s similar.

But this reacted to words I didn’t even speak aloud. Then.

‘I can only see this as having some ulterior motive.’

…Does the Status Window have something like a purpose too?

Woo Sae-geon’s voice shattered my imagination, which was heading toward increasingly serious territory.

“Should we do a breakdown?”

…Of me?

Woo Sae-geon immediately dragged me away to investigate every corner… but he didn’t, and fortunately let it pass quietly.

Because he was busy taking Jin Seol-woon and Yang Pyo, who were groaning from being beaten all over, to the water attribute training ground.

There he’d hand them over to Ja Hyeong-woo and Hae Mi-jun for the training of ‘healing all this with only the most basic heals within 30 minutes.’

I was left alone in the earth attribute training ground. With nothing particular to do.

Of course, the training ground was overflowing with VR equipment and content for solo training… but there’s no way I’d do that stuff voluntarily.

‘Rather than that, to experiment with the ability I just discovered…’

I need other familiars, but there aren’t any here right now anyway. I can’t do it even if I want to.

I keep muttering such excuses one after another and avoiding it, but actually.

Right, let me be honest—I’m intimidated.

By how Woo Sae-geon looked at me like a weapon with continuously discovered new functions, and how Yang Pyo looked at me like some freak.

‘I didn’t want to have this many abilities.’

I just wanted to do enough to receive a decent reward after retiring, that’s all.

If my body is going to be this pathetic, but unique techniques not even in the original work keep appearing, how am I supposed to take responsibility?

Clank, I snapped to attention at the sound of the training ground door opening.

Black Hwarang robes filling the doorframe. Ja Hyeong-woo standing in the doorway stared at me quietly.

“Why…?”

Because my mood was so low, a weak voice came out instead. I couldn’t go out as coldly as needed.

“Training’s over.”

Ja Hyeong-woo, who answered briefly, approached with neither fast nor slow steps, making thudding sounds. That noise echoing through the empty training ground was strangely clear and heavy.

“Did you have a falling out in the middle? How did it end in just 15 minutes?”

“You know it took 15 minutes.”

The single sentence he muttered low unexpectedly pressed against my lungs.

Irritation crept into my exhale.

“It’s been that long since Woo Sae-geon went to your training ground. Do you think I’d be curious about your training time?”

Ja Hyeong-woo didn’t glare as usual, nor did he snap back with the sharp tongue he’d developed recently. He maintained the same consistent tone and calm gaze.

“Our healer training was like this. We each took one of the two injured people, and whoever finished treatment first could go see you. Because you were tired from the familiar and needed healing.”

An unexpected story. I had no idea about this.

Just like Woo Sae-geon used me as a hostage to motivate Yang Pyo and Jin Seol-woon, they did the same over there?

But saying the person who finishes first can heal me… is that really a reward? Isn’t it a penalty?

“Mi-jun also really tried his absolute best, but… I couldn’t go easy on him. Because it was about you, not something else.”

Ja Hyeong-woo stopped in front of me. My sitting body was completely covered by the shadow Ja Hyeong-woo cast.

I didn’t want to crane my neck up stiffly, but avoiding his eyes also hurt my pride. So when I rolled my eyes up as far as possible, my eye sockets hurt this time.

“Don’t look down at me.”

Something welling up inside made me spit out the words. Am I taking my anger out on him?

Then Ja Hyeong-woo bent his knees. He knelt one of his knees on the ground. Then faced me.