Selling an Item That Turns You Into a Woman

"Haa, idiots… You'd think people would learn to only spout nonsense in believable doses. Not that I'm one to talk, I suppose."

Scrolling through the feed was Ji Yu, a C-rank hunter.

And no, she really was the last person who should be saying that. After all, making a living selling overpriced items on Deal-Jeong-Gael was how she'd survived until now.

A place where absurd conspiracy theories ran rampant was, naturally, also home to plenty of gullible marks willing to buy useless items at a premium. For Ji Yu, Deal-Jeong-Gael wasn't a forum — it ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠was her workplace.

"How on earth did I end up like this?"

Her family name was Ji, her given name Yu. Hence, Ji Yu. Twenty-five years old.

In an industry where you had to rack up achievements while still young just to put food on the table, she could hardly call herself young anymore. This was no position to be picky about means and methods.

The Great Cataclysm hadn't changed a thing about South Korea's endless credential arms race. If you wanted into a guild, you had to pad your résumé before your age became a liability. Some guilds — Dawn Guild, for instance — flat-out refused to accept anyone who wasn't a minor to begin with.

"If I'd at least landed a different position, I never would've stooped to this."

The monitor glowed in the darkness of her cramped room, saturated with the digital equivalent of ocean garbage — posts polluting the vast sea of the internet. And right now, yet another fresh piece of trash was being dumped onto the screen.

Yet even on Deal-Jeong-Gael — even there — the response to Ji Yu's post was hostile.

The item Ji Yu was trying to sell was, in short, a piece of garbage on par with the most legendary junk posts to ever hit Deal-Jeong-Gael's trending page.

"Ugh, come on… If I can't sell this, I can't rank up this year either…"

Ji Yu heaved a sigh. Thankfully, the post hadn't been deleted.

"Well, at least it's not getting zero reaction?"

The post went on: healers, commanders — anyone in those job classes was envied beyond all reason. Tanks were pure fantasy, not even worth dreaming about. Why was it that she, a fellow hunter, could roll in the dirt until she bled and still never get any stronger? More and more, she kept thinking it might have been better never to Awaken at all.

Dealers deal damage. That's all they do. Every other class also deals damage — because even non-dealers get at least one damage skill baked into their kit.

And it didn't end there. Here came an even more horrifying truth: monsters… died when you shot them.

"Deal-hahaha… *sob*…"

By every measure, dealers were a class fated for extinction. The feelings accumulated over a lifetime as a dealer — the kind that hold on tight even when you know you're being exploited — don't let go easily.

Before long, posts lamenting the dealer's lot began popping up one after another. It was the dead of night, but a thin trickle of posts was more than enough to get the gallery churning.

"There we go."

Ji Yu allowed herself a satisfied smile. With the mood like this, she could usually sell an item for twenty to thirty percent above market rate. The item she was about to sell — well, she'd be grateful just to move it at all. But if things went well, she could use the proceeds to upgrade her dealer gear and take a real shot at a hunter promotion.

"Please, please find a good owner… Someone rich and generous-hearted."

The information scrolled across the status window shimmering in midair. This was the item Ji Yu had picked up from a gate recently — a piece of loot she'd accepted in lieu of mana stones.

It hadn't been her choice, exactly.

"Bastards."

Dealer — the most competitive position of all. To avoid being discarded, you had to swallow a certain amount of mistreatment. It came with the territory.

"Still, a real man plays dealer, am I right?!"

Dealer. The most masculine, the most hardcore position there was. Maybe nobody else saw it that way, but Ji Yu did.

Just as she was managing to swallow her resentment, her phone suddenly rang. She hoped it was a buyer responding to the listing — of course it wasn't. No way it would sell that fast.

The notification was from Hunter24, the government app for Awakeners.

One lazy line of text: a gate might be forming, so get moving.

"What could possibly be happening at this hour…?!"

Ji Yu's entire body twisted in protest at the thought of leaving. But go she had to. Government emergency dispatches came with minimum wage plus hazard pay, no less.

"Ah."

As she frantically gathered her hunter gear, her eyes fell on a glass frame sitting on the desk.

"That insufferable bastard…"

Baek Seon-woo, A-rank ranged damage dealer. The only one among Ji Yu's classmates who had ever made it as a dealer — and not just that, he'd passed the open recruitment for a guild under the Mirae Group. Say it again: as a dealer.

They'd been fairly close since childhood, Awakened around the same time, and enrolled in the same university. All through school they'd been something like rivals — but after graduation, the gap between their lives had widened to the point that comparison simply stopped making sense.

"It'll be him on the first-response team, I bet. Wonder if I'll run into him out there."

It was an open secret that gate emergency standby duty was riddled with ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠unfairness. A rookie. A dealer. The perfect talent for veterans to dump their grunt work on. She could picture it — Seon-woo praying that no high-rank gate would burst open until an A-rank dealer with real seniority showed up.

"Ha. Still jealous, though."

Inferiority and the sting of defeat. The sour emotions bred by mediocre talent — too unremarkable to succeed, too stubborn to quit. They briefly froze Ji Yu's feet in place.

"…Whatever. Let's go. No time to stand around."

The world had abandoned dealers. But Ji Yu was still a hunter.

Creeeak!

The screech of a rusted front door broke the stillness of the small hours. Stepping out of her narrow studio apartment, she was greeted by the cold night air — a city left hollow and drenched in darkness. The world was still at peace.

For now.

Vmmm—!

A heavy, ominous vibration. The Gate Formation Alert blared.

So it was confirmed after all — a gate was going to erupt. In its wake came a cascade of sirens, one after another without end, her phone spitting out alert messages from every department at once. The warnings were real.

"How bad is this getting?!"

What told her where the gate would appear was the same alert broadcast that reached ordinary citizens. A high-rank dealer or a hunter in any other position would probably have been sent a car. Top-tier guilds could even use things like teleportation.

Ji Yu, a C-rank dealer, had to walk.

"Coming through, please."

Even at this hour, a sizable crowd had gathered — which was how she could tell from far off that a gate had opened here. It being close by, Ji Yu arrived fairly early; apart from the hunters already on emergency standby, she was likely among the first to arrive.

Police officers and firefighters bustled about, already ringed by swarms of reporters. What her eyes landed on was a sphere of blue light hanging in the air.

When the wreckage of a collapsed tower emerges from dormancy, it creates a pocket of space around itself resembling the tower it once was. That was the phenomenon people called a gate.

"Something's off."

A strange pressure emanated from the sphere — a sense of dread that made every hair on her body stand on end.

"That gate's acting weird…"

"Huh?"

Ji Yu pushed through the crowd and advanced toward the gate.

"Kyaaaaah!"

Vmmm!

A brilliant light burst from the gate, and battered hunters came tumbling back out of it. They'd failed to clear it.

"One dealer from the emergency response team is critically injured! Is there anyone who can replace them?!"

A woman shouted desperately, supporting a bleeding comrade. Several hunters rushed out of a field tent, instruments and shields in hand — but no high-rank dealers among them.

"I-I'm a dealer!"

"There you are! What's your rank—"

The moment Ji Yu volunteered, a flicker of hope crossed the woman's face — only to curdle the instant she heard "C-rank."

"Is there no other dealer? This is a presumed S-rank gate. We don't have time!"

She brushed Ji Yu off and walked away.

"S-rank, she said?"

"Damn it! That's impossible!"

The area erupted into frantic activity in an instant.

"And why are you still here?"

Ji Yu was left standing alone. The voice came from a completely unexpected person.

"Baek Seon-woo?"

That insufferable red hair. Baek Seon-woo stood there, blood dried all over his body. So being a rookie and a dealer, he really had been stuck pulling duty shifts all this time.

"What happened?"

One look was enough to tell he was nowhere near fine, so she skipped the pleasantries. Compared to the dealer hauled off earlier, his injuries were minor — but he was in bad shape all the same.

"S-rank. You should get out of here too. Fast."

Baek Seon-woo said it with a flat, unreadable expression. That was just how he'd always been — the more desperate the situation, the less emotion he showed.

"And how am I supposed to run? If that thing breaks, a lot of people are going to die. You know it."

"Walked in and there was a dragon. Right off the bat."

"A what—?"

A Gate Break. What happens when a gate that hunters have failed to clear is left untended for too long. In this gate's case, apparently, a dragon would come bursting out.

For now, the only way to delay a Gate Break was to get inside and hold the line.

"If you stay here, all you'll add is one more body to the count."

Saying that, Seon-woo hauled himself upright on unsteady legs and started toward the gate.

"In that state, what exactly do you think you're going to do?"

"Even rotten, I'm still A-rank. And a Mirae Guild dealer, on top of that."

More insufferable words out of the red-haired mouth. It was how they'd always talked to each other — hearing it again after so long stirred up strange feelings.

"If you understood me, then evacuate with the civilians. We save as many lives as we can — and right now, you're that one life. So go."

Seon-woo turned his back on her and walked on. Other hunters were gathering ahead of him. A few more had arrived in haste, but among them was not a single S-rank hunter Ji Yu recognized.

Stopping the gate's collapse without sacrifice was impossible. Whether they could even delay it was questionable. And still, they stepped forward.

Hunters. Those who hunt monsters. An arrogant declaration that ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠humanity would never be the prey. That was what it meant to be a hunter.

Yet even they demanded no sacrifice from Ji Yu. They offered her no chance at all. To the other hunters, Ji Yu was not a comrade — just the weak.

"Haha."

Under normal circumstances, this would have sunk her spirits into the gutter — but for some reason, her mind had never been clearer. Maybe it was seeing that insufferable-yet-still-a-friend face for the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠first time in ages. The reason didn't really matter.

"And what is this sensation?"

With her mind this calm, the aura pouring off the gate felt… different. Urgent. Desperate, even. Something beyond that gate was — unmistakably — afraid.

"Why?"

It made no sense. Too many things refused to add up. Then again, judging anything from the aura of a gate alone was hardly logical in the first place.

So Ji Yu decided to stop thinking and just try something — anything.

Starlight-Infused Staff.

She opened her hunter's backpack, and there it was — the wand she'd tossed in without really thinking.

"Hm?"

The gate's aura intensified, enough to make her scalp tingle. Ji Yu drew out the wand and held it up.

On its face, deeply suspicious. But there was no time to deliberate.

BOOM! Vmmm—!

A thunderous roar, and blue particles erupted outward — the precursor symptoms of a Gate Break.

"A break?! This fast?!"

"There's no precedent for this!"

Even the veteran hunters panicked. The only person who could stay calm on the brink of an unprecedented catastrophe was Ji Yu.

C-consumes?! That's supposed to make sense…?

"Yes."

There was no option to refuse anyway.

Ding!

The moment Ji Yu made her choice, a notification rang out with the sound of a crystal-clear bell.

"Now what?"

"It's really breaking?"

A World Announcement. Unlike a status window, it was a message transmitted to every hunter on Earth. It was only sent when reality itself warped — the birth or collapse of a tower, or an S-rank Gate Break.

The moment the World Announcement went out, the scene descended into outright panic. And yet the content of the announcement was nothing anyone could have predicted.

Ding!

Another alarm followed on its heels.

The holographic windows vanished before anyone standing nearby could even process what they said. The street, seconds ago a sea of chaos, fell dead silent in an instant. Everyone stood frozen, stunned by the shock of the World Announcement — and every single pair of eyes swung toward Ji Yu.

Fortunately, Ji Yu had no spare moment to look around. If she had, it would have been extremely embarrassing.

"What on earth is…?"

A strange, weightless exhilaration washed over her entire body. Her consciousness gradually began to fade. The last thing she saw was the brilliant light converging on her from all sides.