Practical Training Gate (1)
Just because I shouted, "I want to be a hunter!" didn't mean I could actually become one overnight.
It was, after all, an occupation where people routinely bet their lives on the line to harvest magic stones—the single most critical economic resource of the modern era. Without completing state-mandated education, the government wouldn't grant you an official hunter's license under any circumstances.
"Since you're registered under the magic branch, you'll need to report here three times a week for Magic Class Hunter Education."
"And if I skip the training, I'm barred from entering gates?"
"Naturally. For starters, you won't get authorized without an official hunter's license. If you go barging into a gate without proper training, not only is it strictly illegal, but something fatal might happen to you long before the law ever catches up."
With a sluggish, half-lidded stare, the examiner tossed out those horrifying words with complete nonchalance.
Well, look at that. Society around here is surprisingly well-regulated.
"How much does the training course cost...?"
"The state covers all training expenses, so it's entirely free. Once you step outside, just let the staff member who guided you here know."
The government benefits for hunters are surprisingly generous.
Then again, it made sense. These were the genuine heroes risking life and limb inside dimensional gates to rake in foreign currency for the nation. Back in my past life, the so-called national heroes bringing home foreign dollars were just retail degens trading US tech stocks at three in the morning—myself included, scraping by on a single cup of instant ramen a day...
I offered the examiner a brief nod of thanks and headed outside.
The moment I stepped out into the hallway, the handler who had escorted me—the woman with the permanent, narrow-eyed squint—was already waiting, scrolling through her phone.
"It seems your measurement is finished. What's the verdict?"
"I was told to enroll in the Magic Class Hunter Education. The examiner mentioned I should speak with you..."
"Ah, that falls right under my purview! I'm the Education Team Leader. Though since you're in the magic track, I'm afraid we won't be crossing paths all that often."
She gave a slightly regretful pout, then offered me a bright, beaming smile. Her narrowed eyes curved into gentle crescents, matched by the sweet arc of her lips.
It would be a lie to say my heart didn't flutter for a split second. But right then, a bead of cold sweat began to trickle down my spine.
All because of a sudden prompt flashing in the corner of my vision.
Mental Protection is now active.
A notification signaling that Mental Protection had just kicked in.
In the language of the system, that meant one clear, indisputable thing: this woman was currently casting a mental-type skill on me.
Come to think of it, why hadn't I questioned why an education team leader was personally showing me around in the first place? I had simply accepted it as the natural flow of things, letting it slip past my conscious guard without a second thought. Ever since I made contact with mana, Mental Protection had been on standby.
Fighting to keep my composure, I forced an awkward smile and followed her, taking care not to let my guard show.
As I feigned falling under her spell, the gears in my head spun at frantic speed. Why was she hitting me with a mental skill? Because I was a Grimoire Mage? Because I was carrying an Outer God's Grimoire?
...Dammit. There are way too many red flags to count.
"Now then, if you could just sign right here. I've already received your identification details from the examiner, so your magic training can kick off this Friday."
The staff member looked down at me with an effortlessly genial smile. Doing my best impression of someone thoroughly charmed, I asked in a tentative, docile voice, "Excuse me... how should I address you?"
"Oh my, where are my manners? I haven't even introduced myself yet. I'm Lee Yu-seul, the Warrior Training Team Leader. Feel free to call me Team Leader Lee, or just Instructor Lee—whatever makes you comfortable."
Why on earth is a warrior instructor throwing out mental interference attacks?
Questions kept piling up in my mind, but I maintained my harmless, good-natured smile and gave an obedient nod before scribbling my name onto the application form.
To think that just yesterday, I was holed up in my room, giddy with excitement at the thought of running a tabletop RPG session, and now here I was, signing up to become an actual hunter. Truth be told, my heart was pounding far harder now than it ever had over rolling dice.
Hunters, gates, monsters—things I had only ever encountered in web novels and video games were suddenly right before my eyes. It would be a lie to deny that I felt a prickle of genuine excitement. On top of that, in practically every hunter universe, hunters pulled in obscene amounts of cash. And since my bizarre mortal vulnerability had vanished the moment I crossed over into this world, this was my only realistic ticket out of destitution.
Steeling my trembling hand, I penned my signature in the final box and handed the paperwork over to Lee Yu-seul.
"Here you go. All signed."
She accepted the sheet, running her eyes over the signature with practiced speed, before offering a gentle nod.
"Yes, everything seems to be in order, Mister Baek Chan. Since you're in the magic division, I don't know how often we'll run into each other, but I certainly look forward to seeing you again."
With her polite farewell ringing behind me, I turned and made my way out of the Hunter Association headquarters.
The Mental Protection alert faded from my vision. Right up until the moment I walked out the front doors, she hadn't detained me, nor had she summoned armed guards to drag me into an interrogation room.
Did I just jump to conclusions?
Maybe she wasn't actively targeting me with an attack. Could it have been an innate passive skill that radiated outward without her control? Or perhaps the sudden contact with raw mana had made Mental Protection overreact to some harmless background interference. Besides, the examiner had cleared the grimoire without raising an alarm. What else could there be to worry about?
...Right.
Refusing to let paranoid thoughts gnaw at me any longer, I shoved them into a dusty corner of my mind and set off to find a warm bowl of gukbap for lunch. I desperately needed a steaming bowl of pork soup to wash away the sour knot twisting in my stomach.
And it was there, staring at the restaurant's wall, that I realized just how thoroughly rotten this world truly was.
"...Three thousand won for an extra bowl of rice?"
Back inside the Hunter Association building after Baek Chan's departure.
Lee Yu-seul, Education Team Leader and B-rank hunter, stood before her superior with her usual sweet, unbothered smile, delivering her debriefing as though chatting about the weather.
"So you're saying your skill didn't affect him in the slightest?"
"Yes. It hurts my pride a little, but he appears to possess a passive skill that completely nullifies mental interference. To his credit, he tried his best to play along and pretend he was hypnotized... Quite fascinating, wouldn't you say?"
Fascinating?
Listening to her report, the Head of the Security Division pinched the bridge of his nose, his brow furrowing deep with dread. Beside him sat a mouse beastfolk in a humble guard uniform—the Association's Security Team Leader—who gave a quiet, knowing nod.
"Are you entirely certain he resisted the skill's effects?" chimed in Min Si-hyun, the mana measurement examiner who had also been summoned to the meeting. She spun a ballpoint pen lazily between her slender fingers, her weary blue eyes fixed on Yu-seul. "Could he have succumbed in some subtle, alternate fashion?"
"I wouldn't rule out the possibility entirely... but who knows? He clearly noticed the skill activation on the spot yet didn't utter a single word of protest. If anything, he gave off the impression of being rather... oblivious."
In hunter society, invoking an unconsented skill on a fellow awakened was considered an act of severe aggression. Mental interference in particular trespassed into the most sacred, delicate sanctum of the human mind; had Chan drawn a blade and pressed it against her throat right then and there, Yu-seul would have had zero legal standing to complain.
Yet instead of yelling or throwing a punch, he had awkwardly pretended to be under her spell. It was obvious why the seasoned Security Team Leader had flagged him and escalated the report.
"And his class... Grimoire Mage? Isn't that just a fancy variation of a standard mage?"
"Across the entire recorded history of the world, exactly ten Grimoire Mages have ever been documented," Yu-seul answered smoothly. "In our country, he is the very first."
"That rare?!"
"Indeed. Which makes me wonder... why on earth did I brush it off so casually right after measuring him?"
Min Si-hyun let out a heavy, deflated sigh, the pen spinning furiously between her fingers. Why had she let him go so easily? Why had she peeked inside that mundane canvas eco-bag, seen the battered grimoire, and declared him cleared without a second thought?
Terrified that she had been tainted or possessed by the tome's mana, she had subjected herself to an exhaustive mental evaluation immediately after the exam, but the results had come back completely clean. It wasn't hypnosis. It wasn't perception alteration.
If she had to define it, it was closer to reality-bending cognitive revision—an overwhelming, primordial instinct that warned her: Never pry into this. Her very brain had chosen extreme avoidance, shutting down the impulse to look deeper before logic could even register the threat.
"Ugh..."
Even as she rationalized it to herself, it sounded absurd. But she couldn't deny the bone-chilling dread that still lingered in her marrow.
"Well, he only awakened yesterday, so his level must be sitting at Level 1," the Security Division Head muttered. "Should we deploy covert operatives to shadow him?"
"Even if he only awakened yesterday, governments historically avoid meddling with Grimoire Mages if they can help it. Would provoking him and instilling a negative impression of state surveillance really be wise?"
At Yu-seul's sharp counterpoint, the Security Head clutched his temples, burying his face in his hands.
"Then what the hell do you propose we do? Give me a viable alternative!"
"For now, I'll step in as his personal handler. If things go south, I can always take care of him from arm's reach."
While maintaining her serene, crescent-eyed smile, Lee Yu-seul drew her thumb across her own throat in a smooth, chilling stroke.
Not a single person in the room failed to grasp the grim meaning behind that silent gesture. But jumping straight to assassination was far too reckless.
"Have you lost your damn mind, Lee Yu-seul?! Are you speaking as a sane person right now?!"
"Perfectly sane, sir. Would an insane person come up with such a pragmatic solution?"
Unfazed by the director's furious shout, Yu-seul merely shrugged with supreme poise.
"Examiner Min?"
"Yeees~?"
"Could you pull up the historical figures suspected to have been Grimoire Mages? I didn't bring my laptop."
"Sure thing~ Let me look it up~"
In stark contrast to her sluggish, drawn-out tone, Min Si-hyun's fingers flew across the keyboard like lightning. Yet only moments later, the clatter of keys slowed to an abrupt halt. Her half-mast eyelids slowly pulled taut, the corners of her eyes rising in sheer disbelief.
"..."
"Well? Care to share with the class?"
At Yu-seul's prompting, Min Si-hyun's eyes darted back and forth across the glowing monitor before she parted her lips, her voice dropping to a dry, hollow murmur.
"The first confirmed Grimoire Mage in recorded history... the prophet Nostradamus."
From there, monumental names tumbled from her tongue one after another.
"Leonardo da Vinci. Paracelsus. Nikola Tesla..."
"Stop!"
Before another name could spill from her mouth, the Security Division Head barked an order, cutting her off. Pressing the heels of his palms against his forehead, he dragged his hands up through his thinning hair, groaning as if a migraine were boring directly through his skull.
"All right... all right, I get your point. I understand what you're trying to say, Team Leader Lee."
"You're well aware that the surviving Grimoire Mages active in the world today are all planetary-scale powerhouses, aren't you?" Yu-seul said, her smile never wavering. "If he harbors even the slightest malicious intent, or if he happens to bear a deep, burning grudge against society..."
"Which is precisely why existing Grimoire Mages are kept under strict national non-proliferation pacts! My point is that we must not execute him rashly!"
At the end of the day, a Grimoire Mage still fell under the sorcerer archetype. And mages and warriors were each other's ultimate natural counters. A warrior who closed the distance could slice a mage to ribbons in an instant, while a mage who maintained range could obliterate a warrior effortlessly.
Having a close-quarters combatant like Yu-seul assigned as his handler was, on paper, the most tactically sound arrangement.
"Still," the Security Head warned, "if he ever finds out you attached yourself to him just to put a knife through his heart at the first sign of trouble, he will never view us favorably."
"I'll take full responsibility for that outcome."
"If this were a matter that could be settled by personal responsibility, I wouldn't be losing my mind right now!"
"Just file a request with high command for Mister Baek Chan's comprehensive background check, sir. If our Association President hears about this while overseas, he'll be positively thrilled that such an extraordinary talent has fallen into our lap."
The Security Division Head squeezed his eyes shut against the phantom pain of dozens of hairs tearing free from his scalp.
Please, he prayed silently to whatever gods were listening. Please let this young man possess a gentle, harmless disposition.
This world was absolute garbage.
It deserved to be purged by holy fire and reduced to a pile of cinder. Human arrogance had reached its zenith, and mankind's insatiable greed for gold and worldly wealth was driving the planet straight into ruin.
Just look at that. Look at the grotesque monument to pure, unadulterated avarice hanging on the wall:
People were going to starve to death!
The hellish inflation in this alternate reality was practically a lethal weapon. Fine, sure. Gates had opened up across the globe, people were awakening as hunters left and right, and selling off a single high-grade magic stone was enough to make someone an overnight billionaire. Naturally, when that kind of raw liquidity flooded the market, consumer prices were bound to skyrocket. That made economic sense, didn't it?
Covering my face with a damp hand towel, I tore my eyes away from that horrific abomination of a price board, only to glance back a second later to check if the numbers had magically changed. In my past life, fate had tried to murder me with everything from falling signs to rotten luck. Now, it seemed this world was trying to strangle the life out of me with the price of basic groceries.
...I really have no choice. I have to become a hunter.
Letting out a ragged sigh, I set the menu down and cemented my resolve into bedrock.
"Excuse me, ma'am! One bowl of gukbap over here, please!"
If only to recoup the astronomical sum of thirteen thousand won that was about to vanish from my battered wallet, I was going to become a hunter, and I was going to bleed this economy dry.
The moment I got back to my basement room, cracking open that grimoire was my number one priority.