Water Arrow
Sujin's face wore an expression of frank disbelief. Which, honestly, was the only natural reaction. Even coming from the man she loved and obeyed, a claim that flew in the face of the laws of nature wasn't something you just swallowed on faith.
Every word I'd said, however, was the unvarnished truth — and I could prove it. To bring the bewildered Sujin around, I gave her an order.
"I know it sounds impossible, but it's true. Want to try using your ability? You'll find you can handle it far more smoothly than before."
At that, Sujin raised both hands. The skepticism hadn't left her face, but she followed the instruction and calmly called on her power.
It had clearly been a while; her movements were a little awkward. That made sense. If you weren't a Dungeon Hunter, there weren't many occasions in daily life to reach for an ability — even less so with a Natural-type like Water Control.
"It's been so long, I'm not sure if I can still— wait, huh!?"
A transparent sphere of water formed between her palms, held facing each other. It was similar in shape to the orbs of light and darkness I'd made myself. From the outside I couldn't see what had changed in her — but Sujin herself clearly felt the enormous difference. After a gasp that was almost a scream, she stared at the sphere she'd created.
"This easily...? It definitely wasn't like this before."
Her expression was that of someone confronting something that simply should not be. She'd only formed a sphere, and yet she could feel a definite change. This wasn't enough, though. To give her something more concrete to feel, I suggested she try Water Arrow. She answered with a somewhat reluctant look.
"I... I can't use Water Arrow..."
"Have you practiced it?"
"Yeah. I practiced a ton. But they said my innate mana pool was too small for the kind of precise control it needs."
Sujin answered in a bitter voice. If she couldn't even manage a simple technique like Water Arrow, then yes — working as a Dungeon Hunter would have been out of the question.
Of course, that was then. This was now. Strengthened by Power of Sex, a technique like Water Arrow should be trivial.
"Try using it while you recall what you practiced. You should be able to pull it off easily now."
Whether my words had given her confidence, Sujin nodded with sudden resolve. Her eyes were bright with energy — a clear will to succeed at Water Arrow no matter what.
Arrow-type techniques were basic skills that any Dungeon Hunter with a Natural-type ability was expected to use. For her, though, it had been an unscalable mountain. What would it feel like for Sujin — who'd failed to become a Dungeon Hunter because she couldn't climb that mountain — to finally use Water Arrow? Would it be as joyful as having one of my novels recognized?
I wasn't her, so I couldn't know. But I could catch the flavor of it.
"Imagine it. Control it. Manifest it. Hahh..."
Sujin murmured the mantra to herself, steadying her breath, then focused on the water sphere that had appeared above her hand. The perfect globe stretched into a thin cylinder. In moments, the sphere of water had become an arrow of water. It was a simple transformation — but tears welled in Sujin's eyes.
"I did it! Hhk...! I did it...! I finally did it...!"
There was a catch of tears in her cheering voice. All the heartache she'd carried until now seemed to melt away at once. I gave her shoulder a gentle pat. Playing the part of the wonderful boyfriend in a moment like this wasn't a bad look.
Sujin suddenly threw her arms around me. We were outside, so it was a little embarrassing — but part of me also wanted to show her off. She buried herself against my chest and sobbed in a small voice. It was a cry of joy and rapture. Sujin was a girl who cried more than I'd expected.
"Thank you... Thank you so much... I'll take such good care of you for the rest of my life..."
Damn right you will. Keep squeezing that pussy of yours around me just as hard from now on. I hated that I was thinking filthy thoughts even at a moment like this.
Sujin and I decided to go register at the Hunter Association the very next day.
Hunters were broadly divided into General Hunters and Dungeon Hunters. A General Hunter was anyone who could use an ability; a Dungeon Hunter was a Hunter among them who possessed the specific capability and credentials to raid dungeons.
Historically, every ability user had been called a Hunter, standing on humanity's front line against monsters. But as knowledge of Hunter training accumulated, a specialized class of Hunters capable of raiding dungeons emerged. A kind of division of labor had taken place, and they came to be called Dungeon Hunters.
I would register as both a General Hunter and a Dungeon Hunter; Sujin would register as a Dungeon Hunter only. Before we went to the Association, she walked me through the general procedure. I listened to the advice of someone with actual experience — the kind of thing you couldn't easily find online — and prepared thoroughly. Fortunately, the General Hunter registration process didn't seem all that complicated.
When Sunday arrived, the two of us took the subway toward Gangnam Station.
Naturally, the Hunter Association operated year-round, with no days off. One of its most important functions was monster extermination. Managing not only the handful of monsters that leaked out of dungeons, but also the rare phenomenon known as a Monster Wave, was the Association's most critical mission.
Monsters didn't send polite invasion notices or take weekends off, so the Hunter Association never closed. Which meant you could register as a Hunter whenever it was convenient.
When we came up from Gangnam Station, the soaring Hunter Association building overwhelmed my vision. I adjusted the messenger bag on my shoulder and looked up at it.
The all-glass building wore a blue tint. The ceiling heights were so generous that a casual glance made it look like a hundred stories, easy. I'd heard that because of all the training halls, each floor was about one and a half times taller than a normal building.
The glass covering the facade wasn't ordinary glass — it was a byproduct of a monster called the Mirror Raper. I'd looked it up online briefly; it cost over a hundred times more than regular tempered glass. Expensive, sure, but the durability seemed to match the price.
The building's own lines were sleek enough, but what truly seized the eye was the enormous sculpture at the very top. Inside a circle, a plus sign and an X overlapped to form a small star. It was the Hunter emblem: the Bound Star.
For the record, South Korea was the first country to use this symbol. It was a design that stood out for its simplicity — except that people on the street called it the asshole mark. The fact that foreigners called it the "ASSHOLE SIGN" too suggested it got used as mockery more often than not. Comments on articles about Demonic types were, in fact, regularly plastered with the asshole mark.
"I don't know how to put it, but seeing it in person... that asshole mark is pretty damn something."
"Right? The first time I saw it I thought it was kind of stylish, but after I heard that, it started looking a little weird to me too."
So Sujin knew the asshole-mark meme as well. I'd thought a refined girl like her might not — but then again, it was far too famous a meme not to know.
"Anyway, the building is insanely grand. I only ever glanced at it in passing before, but looking at it properly like this, it seems even bigger. Where's the entrance?"
Sujin guided me herself. Fitting for the headquarters that oversaw all of Korea, the entrance was enormous and wide. And in front of it stood a security gate of considerable size. The gate alone was about four times the size of my apartment. Was that because my place was just too small?
"Good day. Welcome to the Hunter Association. We'll need to conduct a brief security check for your safety."
A security officer in combat gear similar to a police SWAT uniform addressed us. In his hand was something that looked like the metal detectors they used at airports.
The officer used the detector to scan our bodies. Sujin whispered beside me that it was an explosives detector. Naturally, we weren't carrying anything of the sort, so we passed through easily.
"Have a good day."
The officer tipped his cap in a slight greeting and waved us through. For all the imposing size of the gate, the screening itself was surprisingly perfunctory. Lucky for us, but I had to wonder whether they could actually catch anything this way.
Then again, from a criminal's perspective, the Hunter Association was the most dangerous place on earth. Even a raving Demonic wouldn't try to attack here. Nowhere in the world had a higher concentration of powerful Hunters.
It went without saying, but Korea's Hunter Association was a monstrous organization ranked second in the Association rankings. Those rankings weren't official, of course — they were compiled annually by a prominent business magazine.
Unofficial or not, everyone knew the Korean Hunter Association sat at that level. Some even ranked it first, above the American Association. The basis for that claim was clear: the Korean Hunter Association held the most Rank 1 Hunters in the world.
Unlike other ranks, Rank 1 was not a designation an Association could confer at its own discretion. A Rank 1 Hunter received two extraordinary privileges. One was Special Immunity. The other was a License to Kill.
Special Immunity was a broken, extraterritorial-level right: immunity from prosecution for crimes and illegal acts the holder committed. Serious offenses like violent felonies or economic crimes were still punished properly, but the privilege exceeded even that of a member of parliament — and it applied in every country in the world.
Technically, it applied in every nation that had signed the Hunter Treaty. But given that more countries had ratified the Hunter Treaty than belonged to the UN, calling it worldwide wasn't wrong.
The License to Kill was a somewhat bloodier credential. But its meaning was essentially the same as the cinematic version. A Rank 1 Hunter could legally kill any Demonic certified as such by the Hunter Association.
Demonic were classified into three grades: Class 3, Class 2, and Class 1.
Class 1 Demonic — the leaders of Demonic organizations — typically had kill orders issued against them, so anyone could take them out. Class 2 and Class 3 Demonic, however, had a status similar to ordinary criminals. In other words, unless they attacked first and you were exercising self-defense, killing a Demonic could land you in legal trouble.
A Rank 1 Hunter, however, could execute a Demonic without so much as a word of warning. In some ways, it was an even more powerful right than Special Immunity. Naturally, this privilege could also be exercised in every nation that had ratified the Hunter Treaty.
Because of these enormous powers, promoting a Hunter to Rank 1 required a unanimous vote from both the Permanent Member States and the non-permanent members of the International Hunter Federation. The Permanent Member States of the International Hunter Federation were five nations — Korea, the United States, China, Russia, and the United Kingdom — while five non-permanent seats rotated among countries around the world on a one-year cycle.
To be promoted to Rank 1 Hunter, outstanding personal ability was a given — but so were dazzling accomplishments. Only those recognized as qualified to stand at the vanguard of humanity against the unknown enemies of dungeons and monsters became Rank 1 Hunters.
Moral blemishes were also an obstacle to promotion. That didn't mean Rank 1 Hunters were morally perfect human beings — but they were, at the very least, people who hadn't caused any major incidents.
"How may I help you?"
I'd been lost in thought when the voice of the receptionist at the information desk snapped me back. She was a short-haired beauty who wore the neat attendant uniform well. I got hard all of a sudden. She had a different kind of appeal from Sujin, with her long, straight hair.
"We're here to register as Hunters. He'll be doing both the general registration and the Dungeon Hunter registration. I'll just be registering as a Dungeon Hunter."
Sujin stated our purpose calmly.
"Hunter registration is on basement level one. For your information, registration is split into a morning session and an afternoon session, and the morning session begins at ten a.m."
I glanced at the clock; it had just ticked past 9:39 a.m. We wouldn't have to wait too long. We'd timed our arrival loosely.
"Thank you."
Sujin thanked the receptionist politely and headed for the elevator. Unlike me, who was inside the Association for the first time, she found it with practiced ease. I gawked around like a country bumpkin, taking everything in.
That said — this really was the Hunter Association. People carrying weapons you almost never saw on the street were coming and going in every direction. It being the weekend, there weren't that many of them, but it was still my first time seeing armed Hunters in the flesh.
"Pretty wild, right? Someone walking around with a greatsword like that is completely ordinary here. They say Hunters are one percent of humanity, and Dungeon Hunters are one percent of that — but in this place, you don't feel it at all."
Sujin said, flashing a grin. She was right. In here, Hunters were ordinary. Everything really was relative.