With Grandeur
I'd hit a pretty massive snag — namely, having nothing to wear — but thankfully modern civilization still had one of its greatest inventions: delivery.
It took a little while, but once I'd ordered a decent hoodie and some pants online, I was finally ready to head for the Hunter Association.
For the record, I still hadn't bought any underwear.
Even if I was stuck in a girl's body now, the idea of picking that stuff out myself was still way too embarrassing.
…And I don't even know my size.
Anyway.
This was my first time stepping outside since the whole body situation. Other people's eyes felt weirdly sharp, and my chest tightened just a little.
People get self-conscious over a pimple on their upper lip or a bad haircut. There was no way I was going to stroll through a crowd acting like nothing had happened after my gender flipped overnight.
But then there was that solid, reassuring presence coming from Bbyeochik, stashed away in my shadow. I let out a long breath and forced the nerves down.
Okay. Calm down. Who am I again? The future EX-Class Necromancer that even S-Class hunters are going to look up to.
Nobody around me was going to know I'd been a guy. As long as I didn't overreact, there was no reason for anyone to stare. People cared a lot less about strangers than you thought.
Except…
I kept catching glances. And I could've sworn people were murmuring. I yanked my hood lower.
I knew it was pure self-consciousness, but it still felt like they were talking about me.
…Just move. Fast.
My stomach was doing flips. I picked up the pace, hurrying along without the faintest idea what people were actually saying about me.
"…Whoa. Holy crap, she's gorgeous."
"She looks like a middle schooler. You're going to get arrested."
"…Should've taken a picture."
The Hunter Association was pure chaos — a marketplace of people. Everywhere you looked, bodies. Crowds filing applications, getting consultations, each person grinding through their own errands.
I was no different. Wedged into the throng, short enough that people kept bumping into me and nearly sending me off course, with a receptionist staring straight at me the whole time — a whole string of minor disasters. Still, I managed to finish Hunter registration without too much trouble.
…Honestly, I'd been a little worried.
Given that my body had flipped from male to female, I'd half-expected it to cause problems. Thankfully, nothing of the sort happened.
All I had to do was put my hand on the Association's mana meter to confirm I had mana at all, then fill in my name and class. That was it. No extra steps required.
Easy. Way too easy.
Sure, someone might call the whole process slapdash — but there were actual reasons for it.
First: during the Great Cataclysm, the world had been pure pandemonium. In that kind of chaos, nobody had the luxury of carefully verifying every identity and writing it all down. Kids born in the middle of it, orphans who'd lost their parents, people separated from their families while fleeing — recording all of them had been basically impossible. Society had stabilized somewhat since then, but tracking down everyone whose records had gone dark back then was still a lost cause.
I think I heard something about "resident registration cards" existing once upon a time.
By the time I was born, though, that system was long gone. I'd never even seen one.
The second reason came down to hunters and governments.
After the Cataclysm, there had apparently been several attempts to bring Awakened under state control — mandatory identity registration, governments managing and restricting known abilities, even proposals to forcibly assign missions to powerful Awakened and ban unauthorized use of their powers.
The Awakened, unsurprisingly, pushed back hard. Treating people who risked their lives fighting monsters like potential criminals was absurd. Governments, for their part, refused to leave uncontrolled Awakened alone.
The result was a long stretch of bitter conflict between Awakened and national governments — until the World Hunter Association appeared.
An international body founded by top-tier hunters representing each country. They mediated the interests of Awakened and states alike, and in the end the whole system was restructured around the World Hunter Association rather than individual nations. Regulations and interference aimed at hunters were cut down to the bare minimum.
Dig deeper and there were probably a dozen more layers of politics involved — but none of that mattered to me.
What mattered was that those two reasons were why I'd been able to finish Hunter registration so easily, without any real identity process. From where I was standing, that was pure win.
Thanks, ancestors.
I shot a finger-heart toward ancestors I wasn't even sure existed.
Of course, if I could just enjoy the rights without any of the duties, that would've been perfect…
Yeah, right. As if.
In exchange for the Association's protection, hunters still had obligations. Specifically: regularly clearing gates matching their rank. A C-Class hunter, for example, had to clear at least two or three C-Class gates a month.
In my case…
"So I just have to clear four F-Class gates a month, right?"
I hadn't climbed the Tower of Trials yet, so I was Level 0 — registered as an F-Class hunter. That meant four F-Class gates every month.
A brutal schedule, if you looked at it a certain way. I wasn't particularly worried, though.
Why? Because the higher your rank, the lighter those obligations supposedly got.
And what did that mean?
It meant a future EX-Class Necromancer like me had nothing to stress about. I was confident I could climb the ranks faster than anyone.
With broken skills like these, not ranking up would be the real crime. Yep, yep.
For a second, my future self flashed through my mind — striding down the street in full grandeur, S-Class hunters trailing after me, watching my every expression.
I like that.
Just imagining it was enough to tug the corners of my mouth up. I basked in that future for a while, arms crossed, nodding in deep satisfaction.
Of course, so far all I've actually managed is standing a chicken skeleton back up…
Anyway.
Standing there at the Association entrance, nodding to myself with a blissful look on my face, I eventually noticed people glancing over. The low murmur around me felt an awful lot like gossip about me. Embarrassment hit hard. I yanked my hood down and cleared my throat.
"…Ahem. I should get home."
I strode off like nothing had happened at all.
The first thing I did after dragging my exhausted body home was check my phone.
Not because I was addicted or anything. I needed to install the app the receptionist at the Association had told me about.
Cradling Bbyeochik in my arms, I tapped around a few times until the app I was looking for popped up.
"There it is."
Huntranet.
The community and trading platform hunters used more than anything else — recruiting for gate clears, sharing strategy info, buying and selling gear and byproducts. Pretty much every function a hunter needed, all in one place.
Never thought I'd actually end up on here…
You really never knew where life was going to take you.
I downloaded the app and hit launch. The first screen prompted me to verify my identity. I held the Hunter ID I'd just gotten from the Association up to the camera.
Beep.
A short recognition tone, verification complete — and my info started filling the screen one line at a time.
Extremely bare-bones info. Once I'd confirmed everything was filled in correctly, I nodded in satisfaction.
"That should do it, right?"
For the record, I'd deliberately registered my class as Necromancer earlier — and the reasons weren't complicated.
One: I was still weak, and I didn't want to draw unnecessary attention.
The other…
…Necromancer Princess is still a bit much.
I might have a girl's body now, but until a few days ago I'd been a fully grown adult man. Writing those four words — Nec·ro·man·cer Prin·cess — into the class field took more mental fortitude than I currently had. And I absolutely could not handle whatever look the receptionist would have given me after reading it.
I'd look like a full-blown chuunibyou middle school girl.
I half-expected I'd need to slap an eyepatch over my left eye the second I got home.
Sure, the receptionist had given me a pitying look after seeing "Necromancer" written down — but still!
Getting that kind of look was way better than looking like a girl with a terminal case of middle-school syndrome. And those looks were temporary anyway. Sooner or later, people would be looking up to me.
Why? Because I was an EX-Class Necromancer. My future was bright. That was the point.
"Heh heh heh."
I let out a quiet little laugh, flopped forward onto my stomach, and started browsing Huntranet at a leisurely pace.
Alright, let's see what's on here.
Time to explore.