Damn Hunter Life Chapter 45
From the beginning, that guy probably never considered Yang Pyo a friend.
The physical education entrance exam academy near the high school he attended. Yang Pyo met him there.
In the wide gymnasium, while other students were running here and there, repeating side steps and practicing sergeant jumps, sweating it out, Yang Pyo’s movement path overlapped with that bastard from a different high school.
He took deep breaths behind the white line. He pulled his body back slightly, then used the recoil to jump in place. His calves burst with strong power, but damn it, being conscious of the surrounding gazes made his ankles wobble.
“Pyo! Hwang Pyo! You bastard, do you want to hurt your ankle? Didn’t I tell you to fix that shrinking habit?”
The instructor yelled loudly. Yang Pyo, who had gotten up from his spot, smiled awkwardly.
Yang Pyo had natural physique and excellent athletic reflexes. However, he was inconsistent and prone to frequent mistakes. Every time Yang Pyo slipped up, someone’s giggling laughter could be heard.
“Fuck, can’t beat that record? He’s actually retarded, that bastard.”
“Kim Sang-ju! I told you to cut out the swearing!”
“Yes sir.”
Yang Pyo didn’t have a bad relationship with Kim Sang-ju, and they had never fought. However, during practice, Kim Sang-ju’s voice often struck Yang Pyo particularly sharply.
But Kim Sang-ju was always like that with other friends too. It probably just felt that way because his way of speaking wasn’t refined. Yang Pyo thought this and let it pass.
And time passed, and Yang Pyo, who was preparing for senior year physical education entrance exams, suddenly dropped into Hunter School.
He was dumbfounded about what was happening. It was bewildering that he, out of South Korea’s sixty million population, had been selected as one of the few hundred hunters. Moreover, he was a successor, of which there were only a maximum of 12 among hunters.
“Hey, Hwang Pyo!”
It was when he was standing anxiously among unfamiliar young people gathered from across the nation. Someone lightly struck Yang Pyo’s shoulder.
“Fuck! So damn glad to see you! Hey, shit, I never dreamed there’d be someone I knew!”
It was Kim Sang-ju. The moment he greeted him, Yang Pyo overlapped the nostalgic scene of joking around with friends in front of the entrance exam academy vending machine.
Kim Sang-ju seemed just as happy to see him. He kept yelling excitedly.
In this reality more novel-like than novels, where gates had opened, meeting a peer he knew was tremendous comfort for Yang Pyo.
“Wow, I got really lucky with the timing, huh? I want to go to the same place as you. Be my backing.”
And surprisingly, even after hearing that Yang Pyo was a successor of higher rank than him, Kim Sang-ju’s attitude didn’t change. He just giggled without any sign of displeasure.
Yang Pyo was relieved. He thought he had misjudged Kim Sang-ju just by listening to his way of speaking.
After the happy reunion with his friend, the intense training under the supervision of Woo Sae-geon, who had risen to leader.
Yang Pyo faced monsters for the first time.
“…Yang Pyo! Won’t you come to your senses?”
Only after Woo Sae-geon’s thunderous shout fell did Yang Pyo, who had been sitting collapsed, raise his head. A monster had charged right up to his nose.
Ugh, uwaaaaah! His scream echoed.
To think that despite having the largest build among the successors, he would show fear and tears. Fortunately, thanks to another successor’s help, he wasn’t hurt, but Yang Pyo couldn’t bear his own shame.
“Do you think you disappointed me?”
The most snow-mountain-like person Yang Pyo had ever seen. That person was none other than Woo Sae-geon, leader of the Twelve Zodiac.
“I’m not disappointed. Not yet.”
Yang Pyo still hadn’t forgotten Woo Sae-geon’s words.
“You’ll have to show me your efforts. Get better day by day. If you’re useless, at least prove your will. I’m telling you to prove you’re human, not an insect.”
Woo Sae-geon was a leader who was both admirable and fearsome. Yang Pyo accelerated his training, deliberately facing monsters more, just as he said.
And so he succeeded in becoming a proper successor. Inexhaustible stamina and bodily toughness. His sheep familiar also resembled him, skilled at taking and enduring attacks. Up to around Stage 10, he was a useful main tanker.
If only burnout hadn’t recently arrived and his skills hadn’t declined.
“You can’t sleep at night? Hmm…”
Yang Pyo met his old friend Kim Sang-ju for the first time in a while and confided the reason why he hadn’t been appearing on stages lately. It was a secret he hadn’t told even the successors, known only to Kim Sang-ju.
“You… hey, isn’t that seriously bad? Not just insomnia, but you can’t even be alone at night?”
“Right…”
Perhaps because his first encounter with a monster was at night, it seemed he had also developed a fear of darkness. He had always had a tendency to fear dark places anyway.
Kim Sang-ju didn’t laugh. He pondered deeply alongside him.
“Isn’t this a national loss? If your form drops, it damages me too. What about my land’s power?”
“…”
“Should I stay with you at night?”
It was an unexpected suggestion. Yang Pyo was deeply moved.
He hadn’t known Kim Sang-ju would care about him this much.
From then on, Kim Sang-ju came to sleep at Yang Pyo’s house. Of course, Yang Pyo couldn’t make Kim Sang-ju stay up all night just because he couldn’t sleep, so even while Yang Pyo was awake, Kim Sang-ju slept beside him. It was just staying together at night, but Yang Pyo was grateful for even that.
The insomnia improved a little, then returned to its original state. Still, Yang Pyo had hope then that he would eventually be completely fine.
If only he hadn’t gone to find Kim Sang-ju without an appointment, feeling they had grown close, and seen what he shouldn’t have seen.
“Oh my, our little shit~. No points? You beggar bastard?”
Kim Sang-ju was assaulting a middle school earth attribute hunter in a CCTV blind spot. Giggling like a demon.
He learned then that Kim Sang-ju had been continuing violence and extortion against middle and high school hunters all this time, using Yang Pyo as his backing. Yang Pyo rushed in and grabbed Kim Sang-ju’s arm.
“You fucking bastard…”
Yang Pyo’s friend had been consistently extorting points from others to fill his dormitory room with valuables.
Rather than being greedy for the valuables themselves, he seemed to feel ecstasy watching younger students tremble and give up everything they had. The items increasingly filling his drawers were nothing more than trophies.
Ah, this bastard Kim Sang-ju must have been living his school life like this all along.
The moment Yang Pyo realized the truth, Kim Sang-ju revealed his true colors. To Yang Pyo, who was angry and threatened to report to Woo Sae-geon, Kim Sang-ju presented a threat that Yang Pyo could never defy.
“Fucking retard. Then I’ll spread word about your insomnia and phobia? How many photos do you think I have of you cowering at night?”
Yang Pyo froze in place. Recognizing that the threat had worked, Kim Sang-ju grinned, stretching his mouth wide.
“Pathetic bastard. I feel sorry for Ma Cheon-ah getting involved with you. Both aiming for physical education, and in Twelve Zodiac lore you’re a couple – the community was really pushing you two hard.”
Yang Pyo ended up squeezing his eyes shut.
He was already often intimidated by Ma Cheon-ah’s achievements when spending time with her. Especially his recent decline was so embarrassing that he could barely lift his head in front of a girl one year younger.
If my secret spreads to the media, how much will Cheon-ah, who has been paired with such a guy as a couple until now, despise me?
Yang Pyo ultimately… turned away helplessly even after witnessing his former friend’s crime.
“Just, restrain yourself from hitting them.”
“Only your mouth is angelic.”
That was the end with Kim Sang-ju. The insomnia improvement that Kim Sang-ju had been helping with naturally ended too.
[Let’s talk]
“…”
The text that just came was from Kim Sang-ju.
‘The business is obvious. He wants to launder the points he extorted from kids by making it look like a successor gave them, erasing evidence.’
Yang Pyo ran with a heart that wanted to die.
Ma Cheon-ah had tried to help him in her own way, even yielding the boss’s final blow to him. But he… had shown disgrace even to that scoundrel Gyeon Gang-hyeon.
He couldn’t lift his head from shame. Guilt settled into each step as he sprinted toward Kim Sang-ju.
‘Yes, even if I become the greatest scumbag in South Korea, let me at least stop this now and repay my sins…’
Even if he was the worst as a successor, let him not become the worst as a human.
He encountered the trashy face of Kim Sang-ju, the betrayer who had been his friend.
Yang Pyo didn’t wait for Kim Sang-ju, who had been leaning against the wall, to speak to him first. As soon as he saw him, he brought out the words he had prepared.
“Stop it all. You bad bastard. Let’s both die.”
Unlike when he had overacted and lectured to show off to Gyeon Gang-hyeon, his mindset and desperation were different. A terrifying voice flowed from Yang Pyo.
Ha. Kim Sang-ju sneered.
The light disappeared from his eyes. Kim Sang-ju tilted his head and glared venomously at Yang Pyo.
“Hwang Pyo. You’re already an accomplice.”
Yang Pyo’s jaw twitched. Kim Sang-ju didn’t miss that agitation.
“Even if I make the news, I’m just some tiny hunter, fucking hell. You’re a successor. Who do you think will have higher moral standards applied to them? Who do you think people will curse?”
Hell unfolded in Yang Pyo’s mind.
A hero’s fall. Malicious comments that would pour out at this opportunity. Muddy water that would splash on other successors too.
…Yang Pyo’s parents who would see the internet.
“Let’s both die? Know your place. If I just die, you die with your head cut off and all your limbs chopped up. Idiot.”
Kim Sang-ju tapped Yang Pyo’s head. Though it was humiliating, Yang Pyo couldn’t move.
After Kim Sang-ju left, thick tears fell to the ground.
A period of desperate silence came. Yang Pyo hung his head and suppressed his sobs.
Step, step.
Because of this, he noticed the white trouser cuffs that had come to stand in front of him a bit late.
Yang Pyo, startled, looked straight ahead. Someone he had never expected was standing there.
Swaying gently, Gyeon Gang-hyeon smiled softly and waved the phone in his hand. The screen showed a voice recording display.
“It’s not something I could just pass by.”
“…”
“Could you spare me some time for a—”
Unable to finish his words, Gyeon Gang-hyeon’s eyes widened.
He immediately dropped his arms limply and collapsed.
Reflexively, Yang Pyo’s hands went out. In an awkward position, he caught the unconscious Gyeon Gang-hyeon.
Even though he had caused it himself, Yang Pyo stood there for a long time, not knowing what to do.
He was so panicked that he unconsciously used his skill!
==
<Homeland’s Rest (Earth Attribute)>
==
Being an accomplice to school violence, and now knocking someone unconscious…! He felt like crying again from fear, but it was do-or-die now.
Yang Pyo slung Gyeon Gang-hyeon over one shoulder.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
