4. I Went Through the Deep Inspection

Following the map I'd been handed, I headed up toward the upper floors of the Management Department.

Most awakened individuals, as a rule, were handled downstairs. The inspection office where I'd been standing just moments ago was where the vast majority of hunter awakenings got confirmed. So when a staff member escorted someone upstairs, it meant the case was hard to verify down below.

Anyone holding an A-rank skill or higher was sent up for a precise rank assessment.

The envious glances I'd drawn a short while ago floated back to me. If those people knew my situation, would they still envy me? And on top of that, some strange scout had come up to compliment my looks. I'd been flustered enough as it was, so I'd just shot them a sidelong glance and headed upstairs.

Facing the intimidating door of the Deep Inspection Office, I knocked lightly. I definitely did have an A-rank skill, but my case was a little different. It wasn't my skill's grade that had sent me up here — it was the anomaly of my awakening itself.

Ah, though to be fair, there was Grandpa Park Chun-sik, the idol of the Hunter Gallery, who'd met both of those conditions. But in his case, he'd simply gotten younger...!!!!

While I was letting those calming thoughts drift through my head, the door of the Deep Inspection Office simply vanished. From beyond the door — gone as though it had never existed — a voice sounded.

"Please come in."

Feeling as if I were walking into a tiger's maw, I stepped inside.

The place looked like an interrogation room straight out of one of those old hit crime dramas. I was only briefly taken aback by how different it was from what I'd imagined — from the far side, a machine that looked better suited to serving food came rolling toward me.

"Mr. Lee Hoon. Are you the person in question?"

"Yes..."

"The voice analysis says a mismatch."

"I changed like this when I awakened..."

It was honestly a relief that it wasn't a person. Thanks to the machine bearing nothing on its face ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠but a cute smiling cat, I felt myself relax a little.

"We have had anomalous awakening cases where people grew younger, but never one where their sex changed."

"Th-there's really not even one?"

"An item that completely changes one's sex did once come out of a Gate as a reward, in China — but by any chance, have you been engaged in illegal hunter activity?"

"No!"

I yelped out a denial, startled half out of my skin. If they found out I'd done illegal hunter activity? I'd be registered as a villain on the spot.

"Your voice wavelength says you're telling the truth, at least."

The machine was still evaluating me. ...Honestly? It was a mercy. After being put through the wringer all day long, I felt like I would die if I had to suffer any more human scrutiny here.

The machine went quiet, as if verifying something, granting me a brief moment of respite. Perhaps because I'd gotten younger, feelings that in the past would have left me trembling only a little now came crashing in as sheer dread.

"...Um, excuse me."

"Yes. Go ahead."

"What's going to happen to me?"

At last I voiced the worry I'd been nursing inside.

"Your case has been confirmed. From here on out, we will simply be assessing your post-awakening abilities."

"No further investigation?"

"You haven't committed any crime, after all. You're already confused enough by this anomaly as it is — it is not our place to torment an awakened person's mind on top of that."

Hearing that, I somehow felt close to tears. I'd only been bracing for society to bury me alive — I suppose I should just be grateful the worst awaiting me was excruciating embarrassment.

The rest of the inspection proceeded quite uneventfully. I moved wherever the machine told me to move, had my height and weight measured, and poured mana into a strange contraption when it told me to pour mana into it.

And then, at last, the time came to measure the ability I had awakened.

"Every test we have run so far has been a kind of side branch."

I nodded along with the machine.

"General examinations — whether the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠body's condition has changed, whether mana can be used — are ultimately just elements that confirm awakening. Even someone who awakened with an F-rank skill undergoes changes like these."

Following the machine's guidance, I moved once more. It was a space of a completely different order from the small room we'd just left — vast enough to bring a grand banquet hall to mind. At its center, beside a small circle, a marker helpfully indicated that I was to use my ability here.

"In the end, it is the skill that defines a hunter, wouldn't you agree? Let us finally measure your rank."

I walked slowly into the circle. With every step, I felt a subtle sensation sweep across my body — indescribably familiar, yet still something I hadn't grown used to.

This entire space was saturated with mana.

"This chamber was built to mimic the mana of a high-rank Gate. Hunters below a certain grade typically struggle merely to reach the circle."

As it spoke, the machine scribbled something down.

"If you feel anything strange or uncomfortable, please say so."

"Not yet."

"Then we will proceed to the next step."

I stood on the small circle. I extended a hand lightly and steadied my breathing.

"Skill. Please activate it."

A pure-white sigil rises on the back of my hand. Above the emblem that stands for the forest, the name of the one I contracted with is engraved. I pour my feelings into that name — the name of the one who, wanting nothing in return, took in a me who still ached with loneliness and wished only to shake it off.

"Raia."

The space trembles. In a room where nothing existed but a small circle, lush green grass sprouts up in an instant. Beside me a tiny sapling blooms, and in a heartbeat it devours the surrounding mana.

The chamber that had been thick with stale air filled instead with the fragrance of a forest — a scent that belonged nowhere near this place.

The sapling becomes a massive tree in the blink of an eye, and the tree slowly takes the shape of a person. She lowers herself gracefully to one knee before me.

"Your summons has been answered."

I gave a light nod to Raia, who had appeared at my side, then turned my gaze to the machine.

"...S-Surprising. Even by the most conservative estimate, this is mana that anything B-rank or below would struggle to withstand — and it goes so far as to transform the very nature of the mana around it."

"My young master is simply that remarkable."

As though her part were done, Raia drew me into an embrace from behind. While the machine went on beeping and whirring, she asked carefully,

"Are there creatures that look like that in this world?"

"It's not a creature. I'd call it more of a tool made of metal."

"Hmm..."

Her expression as she eyed the machine was hard to read, so I looked back at her, puzzled. As if determined not to let it overhear, Raia dipped her head slightly and whispered to me.

"...That creature. It has a faint biological response."

"I'm sorry — what...?"

"A living being is watching us through that tool."

Well... no matter what that thing was, it couldn't have come up with thoughts like that on its own, could it? I explained to Raia what, from one point of view, was common knowledge.

"There's a person behind that machine, and that person is watching us through it."

"Why would they?"

"That... I don't know..."

Something specific to the Deep Inspection Office, maybe? When nobody knows whether an awakener is a good person or a bad one, someone who suddenly turns and lunges can get people hurt. Or there are cases where an awakener draws on the life force around them in the process of activating a skill.

Steadfastly finishing its write-up despite Raia's wary stare, the machine held out a single document.

"Take this to the registration office, and they will register you, Mr. Lee Hoon."

I accepted the papers and bowed my head without a word. After all, this might not be just a machine — someone could be watching from behind it. I decided to mind my manners a little.

"Thank you."

Raia offered the machine a light bow as well. She clearly didn't like it much, but it felt like the sort of bow she gave only because I did.

"Most of the problems you were worried about will be resolved at the registration office."

"...Sorry, what?"

"Matters such as your suddenly changed sex. I have written an explanation into these documents, so if you simply submit them there, they will take care of most everything."

For a moment, the words wouldn't sink in. Naturally enough — right up until now, I'd simply assumed I wouldn't even be able to prove I was me.

And then the machine had crushed that worry in a single stroke.

Overjoyed beyond words, I let go of Raia's hand for a moment and ran straight at the machine. I threw my arms around it and bounced up and down.

"Thank you. Thank you so, so much..."

"Urk — my eyes, they're spinning..."

After greeting the machine one last time — it now sported a pair of swirling spirals where its eyes belonged — I made my way back to Raia. Oddly enough, I could have sworn I saw something like jealousy in her eyes...

But Raia scattered that look in an instant and gazed at me.

"Still. It's a good thing we came early, don't you ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠think?"

"Yeah."

The problem I'd been dreading had been resolved just like that. I could finally breathe a little easier.

"Let's go home. Raia."

I carefully took the hand Raia held out. Documents in one hand, walking toward the door of the Deep Inspection Office, I felt all sorts of thoughts flicker past.

The moment I stepped out this door, I would truly become a hunter.

If I claimed I wasn't scared, I'd be lying. Someday I would have to enter a Gate — and I might even face a Gate collapse like the one I'd survived.

And when that time came... what choice would I make?

That heavy thought flashed through my mind.

"Is there anything you want to eat?"

"Hmm... something sweet?"

"You shouldn't eat nothing but sweets."

"Ugh... today of all days, surely it's fine?"

But for now, I tried not to think about any of that. Because when that time came, I wouldn't be alone the way I had been — Raia would be there to guard my side.

So for now, I would bury those worries deep.

"...Haaah."

In the space behind the Deep Inspection Office — a chamber built by exploiting the layered inner space of a Gate — a woman sighed.

"What the heck even was that monster thing? I'm certain it was looking straight at where I was..."

Recalling the thing that had been staring at her until moments ago, she shivered lightly. A high-rank hunter — and short of a veteran steeped in Gate lore, no one should have been able to tell she was there. That was how it was supposed to work. And yet, the very moment she was first summoned, those eyes had fixed precisely on her.

"Well. That's neither here nor there."

She turned her mind back to the scene from earlier. A girl, unable to contain her joy, running right at her. A girl with an air that practically begged to be hugged, throwing her arms around her and bouncing up and down...

"...Ha. She really is adorable."

And she did feel a twinge of regret. The girl had mentioned her sex had suddenly changed, and she'd reasoned that if a human showed up in the flesh under those circumstances, the girl would clam up and they'd never get a proper inspection done. That was why she'd sent the replacement robot — but now, watching that scene play out, she couldn't help thinking she should have just squeezed her eyes shut and gone out there herself.

"How is that the way someone who used to be a man moves?"

Look at those girlish gestures, bursting with delight. How could anyone possibly guess, from behavior like that, that ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠she had once been a man?

"Ha... I'm drooling."

Wiping the line of drool from the corner of her mouth, she looked over a copy of the paperwork she'd filled out earlier.

Weak physical strength, negligible physical condition, mana aptitude B — a sheet that, taken as a whole, would grade out at exactly D-rank or, at the very most, C-rank. And beneath it all, that final line. She had engraved that letter with her own hand.

"I can't raise her to S-rank just yet. Her physical abilities and her mana aptitude are both far too low. But with that skill alone, she'll be able to hold her own just fine."

As an inspector, no matter how impressive something looked, she had set personal bias aside. All the more so because this case — this experience — would surely be managed going forward as a precedent among South Korea's awakening cases. Even so, it was an assessment that comfortably merited A-rank.

"Oh, right. This is no time to be lazing around."

She snatched up her phone in a hurry. At a glance, her frantic searching looked exactly like someone rushing to handle pressing business — if only that destination hadn't been the Hunter Bulletin Board.

"Pfft, hahaha."

The Hunter Management Department — and within it, the Deep Inspection Office, a key posting among key postings. Even she, an elite whom anyone would have to acknowledge, was, in the end, just another troll stirring the pot on the Hunter Bulletin Board.

"Well then, guess I'll tidy up while rewatching that clip from earlier..."

Truly a twisted one. A troll with a strange kink, no less.