C-Class Hunter Maeng Su-ho

I pried open my heavy, gummed-up eyelids.

...Am I alive?

A sea of white plaster tiles spread out before my eyes—a view I'd grown sick of seeing over my years doing hunter work. The moment I laid eyes on it, I knew exactly where I was.

Garam Hunter Hospital...?

I pushed my upper body up from the bed. Aside from a dull ache in my head, my body felt remarkably light. Every limb was right where it should be, and there was no real pain to speak of.

"How is this possible? I should've been wounded far too badly to survive..."

My voice came out fine, too. It sounded a shade deeper than usual—a proper low baritone—but I figured that was just my throat being dry.

I brought a hand up to my neck, where a boss monster's attack had torn a deep wound into me. My fingertips found smooth, unblemished skin—not a wound in sight, not even the ghost of a scar.

Then a strange sense of wrongness crept over me, and I looked myself over from head to toe.

My legs... don't look like this.

Back in my school days, my nickname had been "Black Stockings." That's how much hair grew on my legs. Yet in place of the shaggy black fur that should have covered my calves, I saw legs so smooth they practically gleamed.

No way. Could it be...?

A single hypothesis flashed through my mind. On any ordinary day I'd have laughed it off as absurd fantasy, but for some reason, right now, it felt critically important—like something I had to verify this very second.

I flung the blanket aside.

Tap-tap-tap. Barefoot, I sprinted across the room and planted myself in front of the mirror mounted on the hospital room wall.

"!!!!!!"

Staring back at me from the glass was a strikingly handsome young man—a face I had never once seen ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠in my life—wearing an expression of pure bewilderment.

Alone in that empty hospital room, I screamed at the mirror like a madman.

"Who the hell are you?!"

I swayed for a moment, then steadied myself.

What is this, some hilarious hidden-camera prank?

I seized the door handle and wrenched it open hard enough to tear it off its fittings.

Beyond the door, the calm scenery of an ordinary day at the hospital unfolded, business as usual.

Passing patients and nurses shot startled glances at me—the lunatic who'd flung his door open and stood there frozen—then, deciding they had no interest in watching some crazy person, shook their heads and ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠moved along.

"..."

A flicker of embarrassment crossed my face at their reactions. I slammed the door shut, trudged back to the bed, and dropped onto it with a plop.

"What on earth is going on here...?"

I tugged at the stubble on my jaw and wracked my brain, but the situation still refused to make sense.

I woke up in somebody else's body? Who could I even tell something that insane?

My temples throbbed.

My smartphone!

Whatever else was going on, I swept my eyes around the room, determined to find my phone first.

But instead of the smartphone I was searching for, I saw something floating in midair.

Now what is this?

It was a button with a texture so alien it didn't belong among any of the objects around it.

It looks like a hologram or something.

Before I knew what I was doing, my finger rose and poked it.

A pop! sounded directly inside my skull, and a status window unfolded before my eyes.

"What the... fuck!"

An English curse burst out of me all on its own.

My profile...

Click—I tapped the profile icon, and the window hummed to life.

Player... it says?

I read through the status window in a daze.

Maeng Su-ho... and a C-Class Hunter?

I took my time sorting through the situation.

I died, and this status window brought me back? In another man's body, no less?

Slammed with one absurd event after another, reality grew paper-thin, and my brain felt close to short-circuiting.

This isn't even a game.

Dying, coming back to life, and finding a status window waiting for me—that was something I'd only ever seen in web novels.

Of course, I knew the world had hunters with special skills beyond raw physical power—telekinesis, mind control, that sort of thing. Because those abilities were usually kept classified, all I'd ever heard were rumors: whispers of strange powers ordinary people couldn't begin to imagine.

...Then again, in a world crawling with hunters, what couldn't happen?

If I was really going to split hairs, this world had stopped obeying common sense the day hunters first appeared back in 2012.

Looked at that way, whatever had happened to me might not be so special after all.

I studied my new face in the mirror, long and hard.

Handsome beyond argument, no matter how many times I looked. The kind of face you'd see on a K-pop idol on the rise.

And with this face, I'm a C-Class Hunter?

A full three ranks above the F-class of my previous life.

In the hunter industry, the gulf in treatment between F and C class was, quite literally, heaven and earth.

Low-ranked hunters put their bodies through bone-grinding ordeals chasing promotion, only for the vast majority to end up tasting nothing but crushing despair. Hunter rank was, eight times out of ten, territory governed by innate talent—no amount of effort could change that.

My old self had been living proof.

No one could promise that even a hundred years of training would take an F-class to C-class.

And yet here I was. A C-Class Hunter.

Reality was settling in little by little, and a satisfied smile spread across my lips.

This is unreal.

This time I undid the buttons of my hospital gown and took stock of my physique.

Clothed, I'd looked like a lanky, skinny sort of guy, but stripped down, the body turned out to be packed tight with well-maintained lean muscle—every inch the hunter.

I ran through a series of bodybuilder poses in front of the mirror.

In for a penny, in for a pound—time to just enjoy the ride... Coming back as a young, handsome C-Class Hunter is a total jackpot, isn't it?

My original face—and no, I didn't think it had been ugly—had looked prematurely old, worn down from all the hardship. This face, by contrast, belonged to a beautiful young man with dewy, luminous skin that practically radiated freshness.

I'd been gaping at my new face, lost in it, for a good long ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠while when another thought struck me.

Oh, right! I almost forgot something important!

I took hold of the elastic waistband of my hospital pants and stretched it out forward, peeking down inside.

I looked at the thing swinging loose between my legs. Twice the size it had been before, a stout, solidly built little fellow greeted me with a cheerful hello.

It's huge!

A slow grin spread across my face. For the first time, I genuinely liked my new body.

Thump. I dove onto the bed in high spirits. Even in the moment I hit the mattress, the heavy weight hanging between my legs felt supremely satisfying.

Flat on my back and staring at the ceiling, I called out softly.

"Status window."

The window I'd minimized unfolded above me once more. A convenient system—it responded to voice commands in addition to touch.

Click. Click.

Working it felt basically like using a smartphone, and the UI, like any decent game's, was designed to be understood at a glance.

Hoping to explore further, I started flipping through the pages.

The top menu was divided into categories: My Info, Item Shop, Storage, Inventory, and more.

The first place I checked was the Inventory, which held Maeng Su-ho's car keys, apartment keycard, wallet, and various other belongings.

When I dragged the car keys out into real space, a physical key materialized in the air with a pop!

Whoa! This could come in handy.

Next I entered the Item Shop. It stocked all sorts of weapons, armor, and recovery potions—items straight out of a standard RPG.

EXP?

From the look of it, a currency called EXP was what passed for money here.

I'll take a closer look at that later.

This time I entered the Storage. In the otherwise empty space, a single item sat all alone.

Charm Powder?

...No matter how I look at it, this is not a combat item. What kind of new-player reward is this supposed to be?

Just as I was tilting my head, another message appeared with a ring!

Legendary... sex player?

I sat up.

With keywords like "Legendary Sex Player" and "sexual attraction" laid out in front of me, I was finally starting to get a handle on what this system was about.

"Let's just do what it tells me for now. That should turn up something more."

I planted both palms on the hospital room floor and settled into a push-up position. I could feel my core muscles locking my entire body in solid.

"Hoo! Hoo! Hoo!"

The counter only dropped if I kept my back locked straight and lowered myself until my chest all but brushed the floor.

"Hah. Hah. Hah!"

The lucky part was that even after hammering out hundreds of push-ups back to back, I never once wanted to quit from exhaustion.

This new body seems pretty well used to strength training.

Slick. Sweat had soaked through me from head to toe. When the last push-up was done, I could see fat beads of sweat spattered across the floor.

"Phew. Finally finished that one."

But that was only one of the three missions.

I peeled off my top, soaked through from the collar down, tossed it aside, and dropped into a squat stance.

"Hoo! Hoo! Hoo!"

It took a good while, but I filled the quota—all one thousand squats.

"Hoo! Hoo! Hoo!"

And once the final sit-ups were done, I flopped onto the bed like a puppet with its strings cut. My abs pumped and pulsed, and down near my pelvis, thick blue veins wriggled like earthworms.

"Haa... haa... haa."

Between ragged breaths, my muscled chest swelled up and sank down, over and over. The dull, achy pull of sore muscles spreading through all four limbs felt, unexpectedly, not bad at all.

Ring!

The moment I finished my workout, the status window chimed with the mission-complete alert.

I was reaching out to press the Claim Reward button when—

Knock knock knock.

"Mr. Maeng Su-ho! You have your afternoon checkup. I'm coming in!"

A pretty young nurse flung open the door and stepped inside.

Her eyes locked dead-on with mine—mine, sitting atop a completely bare upper body. For an instant, I watched her pupils blow wide.

"Kyaa!"

Her scream startled me in turn, and I hurriedly snatched the shirt off the coat rack.

All the while, the nurse parted the fingers covering her eyes just a sliver and went on studying my body through the gap.

Oh my, look at that raging six-pack!

The nurse stared at that smooth midsection—eight thick blocks of muscle with not an ounce of fat between them—then swallowed, hard.

Mr. Maeng Su-ho... I had him figured for just a kid, but that body is pure alpha male.

While I fumbled my shirt buttons closed one by one, I also opened the window, letting the sweat-thick air of the room drift out.

Then, gazing at her flushed crimson face, I said—