Chapter 67
Chapter 67
10. Starting Line -2
Once attribute damage got added to his plain old 『Bullseye』, Minsik started running around everywhere like a guy who'd just won the lottery. If it had stopped there, it would've been fine.
The bastard started picking up all kinds of junk lying around and throwing it, claiming he was testing his ability. This wasn't exactly a living space, but it was still set up well enough for people to come in and stay.
And with him hurling tissues and coffee cans and whatever else at the walls, the place turned into a pigsty in no time.
Boom—! Splash!
"Is this for real? Hey, look at this, fuck! Water's coming out! Water and wind are coming out!"
"I get it. I get that you're excited, so stop throwing the furniture now⋯⋯ hey, hey! If you're not gonna do the laundry, leave that doll alone, you asshole!"
"No, I gotta throw it. I need to figure out where the water and wind burst from so I can pick my projectiles, right? Huh? If it bursts from inside the doll, the cotton'll absorb the water, and if it bursts from the surface, there'll be spray, so—"
He wasn't just excited.
To be precise, he'd gone completely insane researching this new ability.
This was a guy who'd reached this point by grinding and grinding away at the boring ability called 『Bullseye』. So he'd always had plenty of complaints about his own power. How much had he grumbled about how, while other people were spewing fire and wind, he only counted as one person if he at least had bullets?
"Now I'm an attribute dealer too, you fuck! Mwahahahaha!"
Still, isn't he a little too happy about this?
As I stared at Kim Minsik with a look that said "Is it really that big a deal……?", the guy launched into a heated tirade with an indignant expression.
"You don't get it, you bastard Noah Won, huh? You ran around pulling bullshit cheats with your 『Download』, so it probably doesn't hit home for you, but hunters like me who awakened unpopular abilities couldn't even get into parties back when society was still functioning?!"
"It was like that?"
"Yes! The moment I said my ability was 『Bullseye』, all I heard was, oh, so how do you use that exactly, do you put out enough damage, so you're just saying you're good at shooting? That kind of shit?!"
Seems the resentment ran deeper than I thought.
Since I'd been an A-rank hunter, people tried to recruit me wherever I went, so I'd rarely experienced getting rejected from a party. Maybe a few times back in the early days right after I'd first awakened.
Even if someone sniped at me with "Doesn't that basically mean you're useless until you copy a skill?", if there was a woman in the party, she'd cover for me to a suspicious degree. And once word of my reputation started spreading bit by bit, even that stopped happening.
After venting his grievances, Minsik's head seemed to cool slightly—still flushed, but with a sliver of reason left in his eyes—and he fired questions at me rapid-fire.
"Hey, Noah Won. You still don't know exactly how this thing works, right?"
"I figured out the bestowal method. To summarize, it seems like I can make the natural objects absorbed through 『Download -2』 dwell in other people. Other than that, I have no idea. How much it can be strengthened, whether there's a limit."
"This won't do. Let's wake up Team Leader Park and get into research."
"⋯⋯At this hour?"
It's night. Right now.
I glanced out the window and saw it was still raining. If my sense of time was right, it was probably around 2:30 in the morning.
Team Leader Park usually worked until 1 a.m. before sleeping, so he'd have finished his day's work and would be lying in bed by now. Waking him up to gift-wrap a bundle of work for him—wasn't that a bit inhumane?
"Not telling him this news just because it's night would be ruder, dumbass! Where's the radio—ah, here it is. Which bastard trashed this room like this, geez."
"⋯⋯That was you."
"Figures an A-rank hunter can't empathize with the grievances of low-rank hunters. Whatever, lie down or sit there and stock up on stamina. I'll finish setting things up with Team Leader Park and the others— oh, hey, Pilseung. This is Kim Minsik. Wake up everyone above you and assemble."
Fling! Thud!
Kim Minsik made his announcement like that and then dashed out breathlessly with the radio tucked under his arm.
I stared blankly at the spot where he'd flung the door wide open and vanished, then quietly sat down in a chair and lifted the mug of cocoa that was still half full.
Sip—
As I tasted the lukewarm sweetness.
Outside the window, one by one.
Click, clack. The building's lights began turning on. A part of sleeping Seoul was waking at Minsik's summons. I squeezed my eyes shut at that eerie sight. I could almost hear the wailing of office workers.
⋯⋯Minsik had better not have stirred all this up for nothing.
Soon.
Someone came bounding in through the door that Minsik had left open when he didn't close it. It was Team Leader Park, the caretaker of the city-state of Seoul.
"T-Team Leader. You look⋯⋯"
He arrived in his pajamas with both eyes bloodshot red, and without even fixing his rain-soaked, disheveled hair, he shouted at me.
"Hunter Noah Won! Is it true that you're going to unify the Republic of Korea, and furthermore absorb the scattered refugees of North Korea and China to build a city-state even more powerful than New York, which is led by S-rank hunter Max Owen?!"
What the hell is he talking about.
It was as shocking as Team Leader Park's frantic state. Wondering if Minsik's miscommunication had turned this into a game of telephone, I waved my hands.
"⋯⋯That's not it at all. I don't know what that bastard Minsik told you, but I can strengthen hunters' awakened abilities⋯⋯"
"Yes! That's exactly what I was saying!"
"⋯⋯Excuse me?"
"First, let's start with a demonstration, Hunter Noah Won! I've also woken up a scholar from a research institute, and Hunter Kim Minsik has prepared hunters to participate in the testing!"
"⋯⋯⋯⋯"
Faced with that bloodshot enthusiasm, I couldn't bring myself to say "Let's rest today and do it tomorrow."
I followed Team Leader Park—who was normally such a gentle businessman—to the temporary research laboratory. And then.
"Pour more current into it! Turn the blowers up higher!"
"If it's about absorbing natural objects, how about burying him in the ground leaving only his head exposed? No, as long as oxygen is supplied, even the head could be entirely⋯⋯"
"If we don't know what he can absorb and how far, let's just try everything, shall we? If we put armor forged from iron on him, could he gain something like 『Steel』?"
Likewise, I had skills crammed into me by every method imaginable at the hands of equally ecstatic scientists.
It was called a laboratory, but it was really just a long warehouse-like building with walls and a roof roughly thrown up from panels. Anyone who didn't know better would've thought I was being tortured.
⋯⋯With a bit of exaggeration, it wasn't that far off.
Minsik hadn't actually woken up every single hunter. I'd been worried for a moment when he declared "Wake up everyone above you," but he'd only called in one small squad of six.
"If it turned out to be a coincidence, or if I was the only special case, you'd be embarrassed, wouldn't you."
"If you knew that⋯⋯ if you knew that, why wake up Team Leader Park? We could've done it during the day."
"If it wasn't a coincidence, waking him up was the right call, wasn't it?"
And so an experiment team was hastily assembled, consisting of Team Leader Park, Minsik, six squad members, and about three scientists. The objective was simple: to organize, from a practical standpoint, how my ability enhancement worked.
The experiment continued nonstop for half a day, and if I were to summarize the results in one line, it was this:
'Noah Won is capable of strengthening other hunters of Earth.'
The moment that fact was declared from the researcher's mouth, the reaction was explosive. Some of the hunters who'd participated in the experiment, Team Leader Park, and the office workers who'd cooperated⋯⋯ they rejoiced as if I'd prevented a nuclear war.
"Waaaaah—!!"
"Noah Won! Noah Won! Noah Won!"
"I can escape from being C-rank forever?! I can get out of this goddamn alphabet?!"
The hunters' reactions were especially heated.
Listening to the cheers alone, you'd think I'd performed a miracle of turning C-ranks into A-ranks with a single finger, but unfortunately, no. The strengthening wasn't unlimited, and there was a certain limit.
First of all, strengthening was only possible when the 『Damaged』 series and the awakened ability's attribute matched. For example, if it was a fire attribute, only 『Damaged Solar Heat』 could be absorbed; if it was an earth attribute, only 『Damaged Rock』—that sort of thing.
However, versatile awakened abilities like Kim Minsik's 『Bullseye』 could absorb freely regardless of attribute. (At this, hunters with non-attribute abilities let out roars of joy.)
Also, each person's capacity was different.
Some hunters couldn't be strengthened further after accepting two damaged fragments, whereas in Minsik's case, even after absorbing ten, he still seemed to have room left.
I'd wondered if the enhancement limit varied according to awakened ability rank here too, but after running the statistics, that wasn't it. There was a case of a D-rank accepting up to four fragments.
When a fragment was accepted, an attribute was granted and power increased at the same time.
The details varied depending on the absorbed fragment's attribute and the ability's type, but⋯⋯ roughly lumping it together and calculating conservatively, the power increase per fragment was about 5%.
In other words, B-rank hunter Kim Minsik had become about 1.5 times stronger than the day before.
"Doesn't this mean I've become an A-rank hunter?!"
"Then how about you fight me for the first time in a while. Since I'm an A-rank hunter."
"Don't bullshit me, man, you're a fake A-rank! Even before you got that Status Window or whatever, I was holding my own at 3-to-1 odds, so how am I supposed to beat you now⋯⋯ hey, wait, look at this."
Minsik, who'd been scanning the data while chatting, suddenly pointed at one corner as if something had just occurred to him. It was the page recording the number of fragments each hunter had absorbed.
"This⋯⋯ isn't it proportional to training volume?"
"Training?"
"Yeah. Looking at it, the ones who worked hard could accept more, and the ones quietly slacking off absorbed a bit less."
Oh-ho.
Looking it over, that was definitely the case. The ones with sloppy form had low absorption, and the ones with solid body balance from steady effort had high absorption.
If that was true, then Minsik, who'd gobbled down over ten fragments all by himself⋯⋯ was he putting in overwhelmingly more effort than anyone else here? He must've been busy enough managing all the hunters.
So you'd been working hard behind the scenes, you bastard.
"⋯⋯⋯⋯Hm."
I glanced over and saw Kim Minsik's shoulders had risen up almost like mountains. I found that smug look so irritating that I swallowed the compliment I'd been about to give and kept my mouth firmly shut. I'm definitely not complimenting him.
⋯⋯If training volume and enhancement capacity were proportional, there was someone who came to mind.
Lee Hyejin. Holder of the B-rank awakened ability 『Azure Flame』 and a training fanatic who trained like someone about to die tomorrow. If it was her, she could aim for equal to Minsik or even higher.
And as it happened, I had something to give her.
『Flame Goat Gauntlet: Flame Emission』.
A skill I'd absorbed from R-11 in the Tutorial and then left sitting unused because I could never find the right timing to use it⋯⋯ too wasteful to throw away, but with so many better cards in hand now, it was a white elephant of a skill.
If I damaged this and had Hyejin absorb it, then maybe. Could I achieve with my own hands the 'hunter rank increase' that no one on Earth had ever succeeded at?
From B⋯⋯ to A.
Hyejin wasn't here. She was probably at the training ground right now, running the kids ragged while also setting herself on fire and rolling around diligently on her own.
Through repeated work that doubled as research, I'd picked up my own tricks. As long as Hyejin had the 'vessel' for it, absorbing the Flame Emission was 100% possible.
Once this was wrapped up, I should stop by Hyejin's place. Spreading it to the other hunters—Team Leader Park and Minsik would handle that well enough without me.
"Hoo⋯⋯"
I rubbed my sleepy eyes and looked at Team Leader Park, who somehow seemed overflowing with energy despite having pulled an all-nighter. There was one answer I hadn't heard yet.
"Team Leader, what you said earlier⋯⋯"
"Yes?"
"No, it's nothing. I just remembered what you said when you first came rushing in. That was just sleep-talking while you were half-asleep, right?"
"Ah, ahh. No, Hunter Noah Won. I was so excited that my expression was a bit exaggerated, but⋯⋯ it wasn't actually wrong."
The talk about unifying the Republic of Korea and absorbing refugees from various countries to create a massive nation that would surpass the city-state of New York⋯⋯?
As expected, Team Leader Park needed to be put to bed soon.
"Hunter Noah Won. Before the collapse, why do you think each country poured enormous budgets into raising hunter ranks by any means possible? Why did they push forward even when dangerous substances like rampage drugs emerged in the process?"
"Because having more high-rank hunters raises national prestige?"
"Yes, you've hit the core of it. All of this is ultimately to raise the nation's power. But national prestige⋯⋯ wouldn't it also rise by accepting a large number of low-rank hunters, rather than only recruiting high-rank hunters?"
"⋯⋯⋯⋯?"
Ah.
I realized it one step too late.
"This country has a method for raising hunter ranks. If that news had been announced back when the Republic of Korea was still intact⋯⋯ hunters would have flocked here from across the nation. High-rank hunters would be bound by contracts between nations, so they'd be hard to move, but C-ranks or B-ranks would be movable."
"And if the number of hunters increased like that⋯⋯"
"Yes. Then, assuming the nation controlled its hunters well, the Republic of Korea would have become the safest country in the world at blocking Gates. And the evaluation of that security would, in turn, move the hearts of hunters."
"I see. Since they'd want to protect their families in a safe place⋯⋯ it could have siphoned hunters from every country in a chain reaction."
Indeed, in the past when the concept of the nation was still intact⋯⋯ what moved hunters was growth potential more than money. Unless you were low-rank, if you had a certain level of skill, you could earn well in any country.
"This⋯⋯ shines even brighter now, after the collapse. We lost the war against the plants, and the only reports of victory come from New York alone. But as you know, New York has strict standards and doesn't accept refugees well."
Just as Max Owen had refused my rescue request.
"But what if Seoul stands tall? Here, hunters can grow stronger. They can stand against the Gates. They can surpass the plants! Paradise is here!"
If that were true. If only we could spread that rumor, people would naturally join Seoul.
Hunters would gather, ordinary people would gather, and as the force grew, hunters would gather again. The cycle would repeat and snowball in an instant.
If only we could control that rapidly bloated mass and keep moving forward.
"Then⋯⋯ the R-Republic of Korea. Again."
"⋯⋯⋯⋯"
Civilization. Again.
I looked at Team Leader Park, trembling with elation, and thought. The city's reconstruction that I'd wanted so badly was closer than I'd thought—before I knew it, it had crept right up to my nose.
Of course, incidents and accidents would erupt without pause. As people increased, problems would increase just as much. Picking out trustworthy people from among them would be work too, and I'd probably get backstabbed until my stomach burned.
But I had the power to crush all that chaos.
『System』.
Military force, unlimited food supply, the ability to raise hunters' stagnant abilities—all of it was in my grasp. It already was.
Team Leader Park shouted.
"Let's go, Hunter Noah Won! Let's⋯⋯ do this! The problems that arise internally—I'll handle them somehow even if it means coughing up blood! So—"
"What good would coughing up blood do, Team Leader Park? You should live comfortably in a properly rebuilt Republic of Korea. Weren't you going to open a coffee shop when you retired?"
"Hunter Noah Won⋯⋯!!"
Now.
I could see the starting line before my eyes.
In the distant future.
Minsik still seemed to have lingering attachment to entertainment agencies, so maybe I should support him in putting together an idol group or something. He'd have the know-how from his road manager days, and at the very least, he wouldn't act like that bastard of a boss we used to work under.
For Team Leader Park, I'd set him up with a coffee shop as promised, and for Hyejin, I'd let her enjoy university campus life to the fullest. Even if it wasn't a coffee shop or a school, I'd give them back the daily life and youth they'd lost.
And after that⋯⋯ I too could step down from this godforsaken top position. With much lighter shoulders, in a peaceful world—I could think about what I wanted to do.