Chapter 7
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Translator: Ace
Chapter: 007
Chapter Title: Academy Trainee Kim Geuk [5]
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Yang Tae-ja was not only my strength training trainer but also my shooting instructor.
Today, too, I stepped into the shooting range with him. After practicing this and that, during our break, I asked him a question.
"Coach Yang? You're an Awakener, so why aren't you out being a Hunter and doing trainer work instead?"
It must have been an unwelcome question. Yang Tae-ja furrowed his brow slightly, let out a sigh, and answered.
"I was a Hunter for a little while."
"How little?"
"About a month? Truth be told, most of that was training time, and I only joined one actual hunt, so it's kinda ridiculous to even call myself a former Hunter. Still, they pay me more than the other instructors just because I'm a Physical Enhancer, which is a bit embarrassing."
When I asked why he'd quit so early, Yang Tae-ja sighed again.
"This isn't something I should be telling a trainee who's here to become a Hunter, but sigh... I just couldn't take it."
"Couldn't take what?"
"All of it. I had no idea people could die so pointlessly. I figured monsters were basically just souped-up wild boars or something. But nope. While fighting those things, people don't die all heroic or anything—they just drop dead, limp and useless. Right in front of me, this guy fighting ahead of me got his gut ripped wide open, spilling everything out, and keeled over. I didn't puke like in some comic, but I was just... blanked out."
His voice started to tremble. As I inwardly kicked myself for asking, Yang Tae-ja kept going.
"Fuck, I couldn't take a single step. Couldn't move an inch, really, and all the while these guys on either side are bellowing 'What the hell are you doing?!' ... In the end, I just stood there rooted to the spot and quit."
Yang Tae-ja insisted I couldn't let myself end up like that—the director would cry—and cracked a forced joke before directing me to get back to shooting.
My aimed shooting was pretty decent by now. Aimed fire was the issue, though. Attaching a laser sight makes it easy to fire without lining up the sights, but he said you couldn't rely on it too much in fights against monsters. Turns out the engagement range with monsters is farther than you'd think, and the laser dot gets hard to see. So he made me practice without it most of the time.
"Fucking misses again."
I fired at the target without aiming again and whiffed it—nearly let a curse slip out without thinking. Yang Tae-ja, supervising from behind, called out in a comforting tone.
"No need to get so worked up. From what I see, you're improving steadily. Just keep at it like this, I guarantee."
No. That's what I would've thought until recently, but things were different now.
I ground my teeth, and my head throbbed sharply for a moment.
Was I about to hallucinate again? But no, not this time. Still, there was that sensation of being pulled into something.
Like getting sucked into a dream and spat back out. I'd pulled something out from inside the dream...
"Hold on a sec."
I closed my eyes, then opened them.
Then I focused my mind, and a net unfurled right in front of me. The mental net that appears whenever I prepare to teleport. Just like how teleporting to somewhere in my line of sight puts less strain on me, keeping that net within my field of view reduces the burden.
I eyed one line in the spread net. That line stretched out perfectly straight from my gun barrel. The synesthesia amplifying with every use of this ability confirmed it.
I locked my gaze on it. And pulled the trigger...
"Oh, hit it!"
I'd landed a shot with aimed fire—pure point shooting. But no need to get excited. I'd lucked into hits like that before.
I fired off several more shots in quick succession without aiming. All direct hits.
"Whoa!"
Amid Yang Tae-ja's cheers, I decided to try from farther out.
Fifty meters first. Nailed it with point shooting again.
"Huh?"
Then a hundred meters, hundred fifty, two hundred—all hit without aiming in a row. Yang Tae-ja mumbled in a daze.
"What the...? Why are you suddenly hitting everything?"
"Figured out the trick."
"What trick turns you into a deadeye marksman out of nowhere? And nailing hundred-fifty- and two-hundred-meter targets isn't something you just 'trick' your way into..."
Explaining exactly how I'd realized that method just now would be tough.
But in short, the me in my dreams could do it this way. I'd just remembered how.
Of course, I didn't bother spelling it out in detail. Sounded cooler to just say it worked.
After that, I kept firing at maximum range without aiming, and the bullets almost never missed. Yang Tae-ja looked utterly baffled.
"What is it? What the heck is going on?"
Wish this guy would lay off the shock and throw some praise my way. Did all his brain nutrients go straight to his muscles? Zero social awareness.
We spent another few dozen minutes testing this new shooting method before heading back to the academy.
Time for physical conditioning again. Yang Tae-ja asked,
"Cool-down workout, right? Run a bit, then bench press like usual?"
I didn't answer, just stared at him steadily.
Yang Tae-ja was a pro with a certified sports coaching license, a Physical Enhancer himself, and more than capable of training other Physical Enhancers using the methods he'd honed on himself. Hell, he was so dedicated he'd even dug into foreign research papers just to teach me better.
But he hadn't suggested anything particularly radical or groundbreaking for me. Not out of laziness. A responsible coach knows better than to give reckless advice that could ruin an athlete.
And now, I was about to train radically.
Gonna take a gamble. I told him as much.
"Coach Yang? Help me out a little differently today."
"Differently? Like how?"
"Gonna do some overtraining today."
"Overtraining?"
"I'm a Physical Enhancer, remember. With Super Regeneration to boot."
Yang Tae-ja grinned and nodded at my words.
"So you're saying go extra intense today... Damn, pumped up, huh? Exactly what'd you have in mind?"
"Gonna train until my muscles tear and my cartilage shreds. So watch me on bench press—if my arm looks busted, just lift the barbell off me."
"Pardon?"
I repeated myself to the dumbfounded Yang Tae-ja. He looked even more incredulous.
"No, seriously, why?"
"Having some rough dreams lately."
"Pardon?"
During the break, I'd looked up overseas cases—extreme regimens that'd cripple a normal person but had caused explosive muscle growth in Physical Enhancers over short periods. I pulled them up on my smartphone and explained while showing him.
I even said I planned to follow their example.
Of course, Yang Tae-ja looked skeptical.
"Do you have to?"
The current method was plenty effective—why risk something weird?
I answered again, "Rough dreams," then kicked off the workout as promised.
Dumbbells first... the heaviest weight I could manage. Kept perfect form and just hammered reps up and down as fast as possible. If I'd pulled this during my pro days, the coach would've cussed me out and smacked my head.
Sure enough, Yang Tae-ja watched me fidgeting anxiously. Ten minutes or so in, something snapped, and I had to set the dumbbells down.
"Tch..."
"You okay?"
"Yeah. Leave it be, it'll heal."
"No, if you're gonna get hurt this quick and have to rest, wouldn't it have been better to stick to normal?"
"Nah. Rest up, then back at it."
I sat there catching my breath.
That's when my eyes met those of a trainee sitting across from me, resting too.
I knew him vaguely.
This guy was the star of my latest hallucination.
Jeong Jin-yeong, 34 years old. At a drinking session with the trainees, he got drunk and confessed with the face of a man carrying the world's sorrows: he'd been mooching off his parents as an unemployed bum until this age.
With the economy in the toilet and even his parents out of work, he'd come to Hunter academy vowing to support them now.
Couldn't afford sneakers, or maybe figured Hunters were basically soldiers? Either way, his signature was the combat boots he always wore.
Jeong Jin-yeong left those boots behind when he died. Died without a shred of a dead man's dignity, sprawled out looking like something from a B-grade horror flick.
His remains—what had been Jeong Jin-yeong—were smeared thin and wide across the concrete like pancake batter.
Everything from his upper body down to his thighs looked completely pulverized.
His body was intact only from the boots up to his knees, and even then, we'd only ID'd him thanks to the combat boots he'd taken home after discharge—not because any part of his face was left.
Panting hard after snapping out of the hallucination, I thought: Should I warn that guy? The one whose death had just been foretold?
Tell him straight-up he'll die if he keeps playing Hunter?
But he probably wouldn't even be shocked. Who doesn't know Hunter work is high-risk?
I didn't know exactly how he'd die, so I couldn't give proper advice. Best I could do was yell at him to quit being a Hunter. Not like I could really bring myself to... fuck.
Like always after a hallucination, a vicious rage started flooding my nervous system. My body temperature spiked, and the urge to smash something took over my head.
Fueling myself with that rage, I hefted the dumbbells in both hands. Yang Tae-ja freaked.
"Already going again?"
I didn't answer and started lifting and lowering them once more.
The muscle I'd just torn felt like it'd regenerated stronger. Felt easier than before somehow—though maybe the numbness in my arm played a part. Decided not to sweat it.
"Spot my sets from behind now."
Next up: bench press...
As I started hoisting a barbell so heavy it felt like the floor might cave in, the other trainees working out nearby gathered around.
They crowded me, watching my set.
"Whoa...!"
From pure gasps of awe to guys whipping out their phones to film—every type you could imagine.
And sure enough, among the trainees surrounding me was Jeong Jin-yeong, the 34-year-old doomed to become mincemeat.
Not that we were close. Strong hikikomori vibes—he was shy to begin with, and I probably looked scary to him, big guy with a short fuse. Never started a conversation first.
Still, seemed intrigued by the academy's sole Awakener. I'd catch him glancing over whenever I fired the Hunter rifle or lifted weights only a Physical Enhancer could handle.
Same now. He was wedged in the crowd, staring at me with his mouth hanging open, looking downright amazed.
I loved that honest reaction. Loved the heated cheers and reactions from the other trainees around Jeong Jin-yeong too. Just being surrounded like this got me pumped.
I loved hearing their praise. Loved these ordinary guys cheering my not-that-impressive feats. Loved it so much!
I racked the barbell, and they started up a chant like cheering.
"One more! One more!"
Truth be told, I didn't have any real emotional bonds with these trainees. They just fawned over me one-sidedly as the Awakener, made a fuss, and I played it cool while soaking up the praise.
So, how many of them would die? How gruesomely?
I didn't know how their deaths would play out or what connection they'd have to me.
But there was one thing I knew for sure.
I wanted to keep basking in their praise from here on out.
And for me to keep earning it, they had to stay alive. If I failed to protect them and they died anyway? That'd be even worse. Then no one would praise me. I couldn't stand that.
Right up until my arm muscles tore and my cartilage gave out, I kept training to the cheers of everyone around me.