The Hunter Gallery: "I Guess I'll Need a Brush Too..."
After spending a full hour carefully curling every inch of my tail, Daon finally reached into the vanity and pulled out a small tail comb.
The soft shhhk shhhk of bristles moving through fur.
A pleasant sweeping sensation traveled across my now-fluffy tail.
“Mmm.”
I surrendered completely to the delightful feeling, shoulders slumping in pure bliss.
I should stay a little longer before heading out.
Now that I thought about it, building a house and living by myself would require serious consideration. Fragments of memory remained, but I still needed more time to adapt to this modern world.
When I glanced back, I saw Daon completely absorbed, her face focused as she drew the comb through my tail with practiced strokes. Her movements looked surprisingly familiar.
The puffed-up, silky fur aligned perfectly under her touch, gleaming with a healthy sheen.
“You’re good at this.”
“…Ah, it’s because I used to raise a dog.”
At the word “dog,” my head tilted in confusion, but the thought quickly faded when my eyes landed on the rectangular black box.
A phone!
I’d meant to buy one ever since leaving the real estate office, but the cooking pot had distracted me from this absolute essential.
My gaze flicked between the phone on the vanity and Daon. Noticing my interest, she spoke up.
“Are you curious about that?”
It was less curiosity and more a rush of nostalgia, but explaining would have been a hassle, so I simply nodded.
“Just a moment.”
She paused the brushing, reached for the vanity, unlocked the phone, and handed it to me.
“This is called a smartphone. If you tap this glass screen with your finger…”
She continued explaining what a phone was while resuming the gentle strokes through my tail. I listened carefully in case anything differed from my memories, but it was all familiar.
With slightly clumsy motions, I poked at the screen and watched it flicker and change.
“Ooh…”
It had been so long since I’d felt this. The smooth, cool texture of the glass sent a wave of satisfaction through my fingertips.
My fingers wandered, opening and closing apps at random until they reached the search bar. A list of recent searches scrolled down.
I tapped the very top one.
Hunter Gallery.
A gallery should be a place displaying paintings or works of art. Thinking I might see some interesting images, I entered the first site that appeared.
“Huh?”
Instead of pictures, I was greeted by a flood of text. And most of the post titles looked uncomfortably familiar.
“…Mine?”
The “Nameless Weapons” that had shown up in the Auction House. They had to be the failed pieces I’d registered just hours ago to earn money for land.
Is there talk about me in here too?
Just in case, I moved my finger to the site’s search bar and typed my name. More recent searches popped up.
Lee Daon. Daon. E-class Hunter Lee Daon. Blood-Red Curved Sword. Supernova.
I was staring blankly at the list when—
“Eek!”
The pleasant brushing on my tail suddenly stopped. Daon let out a strangled sound that wasn’t quite a word.
“H-how did you….”
I turned around to find her face bright red, mouth opening and closing without sound.
“Why is your name here?”
“Ugh…! I just… I thought it was interesting how often my name comes up, so…”
So she really had been searching her own name.
“Aha.”
It wasn’t that big a deal. I nodded and turned back to the phone, typing in my own name.
Dan.
Fortunately nothing special appeared—just posts about “solid magic stones” or “daggers.”
“Hehe.”
I savored the feeling of Daon brushing my tail from behind and continued scrolling through the rest of the gallery.
Agh…
I wanted to show only my coolest side to Dan-nim, but that was completely ruined now. No matter how friendly or cute this new appearance was, the fact that she was my benefactor remained unchanged.
I still haven’t asked how she managed to leave the tower or how she ended up like this…
Daon kept her head lowered in embarrassment, cheeks burning, and focused only on brushing the luxurious tail.
The Hunter Gallery was nominally a community for hunters active in Korea, but in reality most of its users were ordinary civilians—a rather strange forum. Searching her own name there had recently become one of her secret hobbies as her fame grew.
She never imagined that very hobby would be caught by Dan-nim, the master of the forge.
Daon sneaked a glance at her. Fortunately Dan-nim didn’t seem bothered at all. She was completely absorbed in the screen, scrolling up and down like a child with a brand-new toy.
“Hmm…”
Dan-nim’s blue eyes, reflected on the glossy screen, sparkled with clear interest. Her small finger stopped on the concept post section.
Among the sensational titles, Dan-nim frowned slightly and tapped one.
Author: Anonymous
I have an acquaintance who works in the Hunter Association server room. They say the auction house server crash three hours ago wasn’t just from traffic overload. Whoa.
The hundredth item that suddenly appeared was part of the Nameless series, right? It was a bracelet.
That bracelet had mana regeneration and casting speed options stacked like crazy, so the Architect himself shut the server down to make sure he could buy it lololol
Dan-nim read the post in silence, lips slightly parted, then gave a small nod.
“So this is why.”
Daon had only checked the recent transaction log, so she hadn’t known the details, but Dan-nim’s reaction confirmed the auction had indeed ended early.
“No wonder it closed the moment someone raised the price,” Dan-nim murmured quietly.
Daon set the comb down and ran her bare hand through the soft tail fur, lost in thought.
That makes sense…
She recalled the unforgettable sight of the forge—nothing but lava and steel, piled high with countless “failures.”
Dan-nim had called them failures, but to Daon, who visited the Auction House every day as a hunter, they had been anything but.
Every single one of them was absurdly good.
They far surpassed ordinary equipment. The stats alone were dozens of times higher, and the bizarre additional options were beyond words.
…It really could be true.
It was only natural for suddenly empowered hunters to become drunk on their new strength and authority. Power was like a drug—once tasted, it was never enough. Those who had experienced it looked only upward, never turning their eyes elsewhere.
Since a hunter’s rank could never be changed after awakening, it was perfectly understandable that those thirsty for power would crave better equipment, items of even slightly higher quality.
Even the Architect is human before he is an S-class hunter ranked third…
While Daon was quietly pondering whether the community post was real or just baseless rumor, the fluffy bundle in her hands—Dan-nim’s tail—began to thrash wildly.
From her experience raising a dog as a child, she could tell exactly what the movement meant.
Dissatisfaction.
“But was it really necessary to go that far…?”
“Pardon?”
“I made them, so of course they’re decent… but they’re still just failures.”
Daon felt so dumbfounded that she slapped her own forehead.
“That’s not just ‘decent,’ it’s—”
As she spoke, those clear blue eyes turned to look at her.
Innocent eyes. Eyes that seemed to know nothing, perfectly matching her current appearance.
Sometimes she’s so inflexible and meticulous, yet…
Perhaps the terrifying figure wreathed in lava she had seen in the forge wasn’t the real Dan-nim. Maybe this was her true self.
Where should she even begin explaining?
Feeling a touch of despair, Daon slowly parted her lips.