Damn Hunter Life Chapter 58
Ja Hyeong-woo slowly placed his weight on the bed. Gang-hyeon lay still underneath.
He let his black hair fall to the right side, spilling onto the bed sheets, and supported his body by placing his arms beside Gang-hyeon’s head. He lowered his lips.
“Ha—”
The moment their lips touched, heat rushed abnormally to his throat and lower abdomen. It was hard to understand. Gang-hyeon was the one who actually needed the heat.
Ja Hyeong-woo briefly exhaled the breath he’d been holding. Then saliva dripped from his parted lips, falling onto Gang-hyeon’s delicate lips. He was careful, worried that even his exhaled breath might hurt Gang-hyeon.
After mixing saliva for the second time, he realized. The inside of his mouth was very small. Like his face.
Even as a child, he had been delicate and slender, but not to this extent.
Ja Hyeong-woo’s right hand slowly traveled up Gang-hyeon’s skin.
Contact would help. Rather than skinship, it should be seen as massage to relax muscles and raise body temperature.
Ja Hyeong-woo carefully caressed everywhere his hand touched. He lingered until the cool temperature became lukewarm.
“…!”
While stroking around the chest area, his finger caught on a small protruding bead. Ja Hyeong-woo briefly pulled his lips away, opened his eyes, and looked down.
Finding the expression “balsam flower color”… his left thigh area inevitably bulged out.
‘Ngh.’
Even though the unfamiliar dizziness made his head go white, he didn’t stop what he was doing. Having kneaded the upper body to generate heat, next was the lower body.
With their mouths pressed together, his hand couldn’t reach the calves. He grasped Gang-hyeon’s knee joint and slowly lifted it. The left leg soon folded into a mountain shape. It naturally pressed against his waist.
Spreading the white legs and settling between them, Ja Hyeong-woo desperately drained the strength from his tongue to avoid having more intense thoughts about the sick person.
Even while doing so, he stroked the back of the knee that fit entirely in his hand. After rubbing around the knee area for a while, as he smoothly traced down the thigh, his grip gradually widened.
Soon he bumped against the rounded mound and hesitated.
The buttocks covered only by underwear were within reach with just a lift of his fingers.
“…Mmph, hmph.”
At that moment, a pained sound burst from beneath his lips. Ja Hyeong-woo froze in surprise.
What if he wakes up?
He had never done anything in life that others would call wrong. He had always tried to live a righteous, upright life. Even before gaining the position of successor, his mindset hadn’t been different.
That’s why he felt like he was going crazy.
He wanted Gang-hyeon to wake up and look up at him with those pitch-black eyes. He was curious about the reaction. Though he knew what shock would come seconds later, he wanted to see the moment when those clouded pupils became flustered because of him.
But at the same time, Ja Hyeong-woo’s reason was also clear.
So he swallowed back down the wicked and vicious impulses that had been writhing inside his body… as if he didn’t know them.
The hand that was about to grasp the buttocks left that spot. He withdrew the tongue that had been savoring the mucous membrane. It was time to retreat.
Never, never notice.
But leave just a little of me inside you.
As heat circulated through the body, Gang-hyeon’s natural scent wafted up like lighting a scented candle. Ja Hyeong-woo breathed deeply as if engraving that scent into each alveolus.
He buried his face in Gang-hyeon’s nape without permission.
He rubbed his nose bridge in the deeply pooled collarbone, then placed his lips on the upper chest. The moment he parted his lips, he swallowed once the saliva that was about to drip, then sucked the flesh strongly.
A small but distinct red petal remained on the skin.
Nothing more, nothing less, just this much trace. He hoped that at least this much would be a place he could claim in Gang-hyeon.
Even while lifting legs and arms in turn to dress him in new clothes, Ja Hyeong-woo’s hands trembled with lingering sensations.
Ja Hyeong-woo, who had gotten up in an awkward position, moved away from Gang-hyeon’s side. His center was standing, making walking uncomfortable. After teleporting home, Ja Hyeong-woo leaned against any wall and fell silent. It took a long time to calm down.
‘Should I go more often and do it?’
The thought that suddenly arose was eventually struck down like a punch, killed instantly.
‘No.’
This is… treatment. It has to be treatment.
Healers don’t provide excessive treatment beyond what’s appropriate. Patients should only be given proper treatment.
* * *
Even after waking from a long and hopeless sleep, he didn’t move his body wrapped in blankets for a while.
Still, now when he was at least blankly awake was better than yesterday when fear had welled up that he might sleep forever.
As soon as he lifted his eyelids, his eyes met with Puppy, who was peeking just his head out from beside the bed.
A giggle came first. With a child looking at him with those eyes (though he couldn’t actually see the eyes), he couldn’t keep lying down. He got up while patting his head affectionately.
Standing under hot water in the bathroom, he touched his stomach. Whether it was his imagination or not, his ribs seemed more prominent than before.
‘Did I get skinny again from being sick? Ah shit, how hard was it to put on that weight.’
While looking down at his body, there was a strange mark at one spot. He doubted his eyes.
He pushed open the shower booth door and wiped the steamy mirror with his hand. He tilted his upper body to look below his collarbone.
Even looking in the mirror again, the red mark was clear.
‘How did this red thing happen?’
About the size of a finger joint. Though it seemed like nothing much, the color difference from the surrounding skin was too clear, and when he thought it might be a wound and touched it, it didn’t particularly hurt.
Congestion? A burst blood vessel?
‘I used my body so hard yesterday, so it’s not surprising to get one wound.’
It’s an area that would be covered by the sobok anyway. He forgot about it and finished his shower.
Having lost quite a bit of energy to the hot water, when he sat at the dining table, his body swayed like a newborn puppy. He desperately needed food to put in his mouth.
While slowly chewing the delivered breakfast, he reflected on yesterday.
It had been a decent debut battle.
Even someone like me had possibilities, and I showed people enough of them.
‘I wish our Squeaky would just speed up treatment time before people are dying… like Ja Hyeong-woo who predicts and throws heals before getting hurt. Take after your master.’
Blink, blink.
A notification appeared in the status window that mail had arrived. Looking at the subject, it was from the Hunter Association.
[Following your stage debut, Successor Gang-hyeon’s stats have been registered in the system.]
[Please check the mail contents, and if you agree, Gang-hyeon’s stats will be officially released to the public as well.]
Here it comes.
The hexagonal analysis chart showing hunters’ stats in six categories and balance levels. It was a familiar picture from the original work.
In the early days of Hunter School’s emergence, the association pushed to make successors’ stats available to the public along with successor profiles.
‘Perfect for people to spit while evaluating whether this successor is weak in this area or not.’
It was an issue that leader Woo Sae-geon would never welcome unless he was hit in the head, but the reason it eventually proceeded was this.
It was done with the purpose of giving larger amounts of compensation to regular students when they retired, by allowing people to consume successors as products in earnest.
‘Humans find fun in ranking by strength.’
What I mean is, I don’t particularly oppose releasing stats either. I think this is weight that successors should naturally bear.
Moreover, it later serves as a precursor to global rankings when overseas hunters appear in the original work.
Currently, it’s the point where the original story is just transitioning from early to mid-stage.
No successor has perfect stats in everything. If there’s an all-rounder with even stats across the board, that average value drops a bit, or no matter how excellent they are, they have at least one vulnerable point, causing one side of the hexagonal graph to be dented.
The system doesn’t reveal detailed stats to individuals.
Originally, this was an analysis table showing what level a person had reached, so it was represented only in simple numbers. The maximum value was 7, but the system never gave a 7 to anyone’s any stat.
I quickly grasped the format by looking at the analysis table of Ja Hyeong-woo, the first of the Twelve Zodiac, on the front page of the status window.
==
<‘Mouse’ Successor>
<Ja Hyeong-woo>
Stamina: 6
Mobility: 4
Defense: 5
Strength: 5.5
Mental Power: 6
Attribute Affinity: 6.5
==
The five stats represent physical abilities while also symbolizing one attribute each.
Stamina was wood, mobility was fire, defense was earth, strength was metal, and mental power was water.
You could say it’s balanced when the stat corresponding to your attribute is strong. In other words, water-attribute Ja Hyeong-woo’s ‘mental power’ is ideal, befitting the original protagonist.
And there’s something called attribute affinity, which is a concept that’s hard to express in words.
At least it’s good if it’s high. Simply put, the higher the attribute affinity, the better the skill operation.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
