Holy Arrow

After Lina spectacularly put down the Dire Wolf, the Association staffer conjured a new monster. It was a different creature entirely from the wolf that had come before. Swap the exam monster out wholesale, and watching the previous fights lost most of its point — the proctor seemed to have that in mind.

The second to take the test was Sujin. I wouldn't have minded going first, but she stepped up ahead of me without a flicker of hesitation. Her opponent was a Slime.

"Whew…"

Beside me, Lina let out a breath of genuine relief. She wasn't wrong. Had the Slime been assigned to her, she would have had a miserable time of it. Unlike a Dire Wolf, it wasn't the sort of thing you could simply bind in chains.

Which, now that I thought about it, suggested they were matching monsters to each examinee's ability. Sujin's power was Water Control. Even with my shallow knowledge of the subject, I knew that ranked among the best possible affinities against a creature like a Slime.

Slimes were every bit as famous as Dire Wolves, though they almost never left their dungeons, which made sightings by ordinary people vanishingly rare. The creatures adored wetlands, so the odds of one wandering out of its ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠spawn dungeon were said to be once in several years — and even then, they moved so slowly they couldn't inflict the kind of devastation a Dire Wolf would visit on a residential area.

Inside a dungeon, though, they were a genuine nuisance. They didn't stray from their habitat, but they defended it with a vengeance, attacking Dungeon Hunters indiscriminately. Being liquid-bodied, they also had formidable resistance to Enhancement-type abilities, whose primary means of attack was blunt physical force.

Statistically, Enhancement-type was the most common category of ability. The ones best suited to putting a Slime down, however, were Natural-type — fire and water in particular. And Sujin's Water Control was exactly that.

"Water Prison!"

Sujin deployed her ability with complete composure. The enormous water-balloon prison she formed locked the Slime down perfectly. She clearly understood she held the elemental advantage. Well — when it came to Water Control, she knew more than I did. But when had she picked up a technique like that?

She bounced on her feet, beaming, as if she couldn't quite believe she'd pulled it off. Had she improvised it on the spot? If so, her talent was the real thing.

"Oho. It's a fundamental technique, but the scale of it… She's every bit a match for Lina."

The Association staffer watched her with interest, and so did Lina. My shoulders puffed up of their own accord. I'm the one who raised her to this. Wouldn't mind if they looked at me with a little more awe. A shame I couldn't actually tell them that, of course.

Trapped in its prison of water, the Slime curled in on itself. Its intelligence was primitive enough that once you sealed it in water, it couldn't do a thing. Bit by bit, its body began to dilute.

Slimes loved moisture, but prolonged submersion like this would ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠break them down entirely. It was the classic method of hunting them without ever touching the core — which was why a Slime was one of the few monsters an ordinary, unawakened person could actually defeat. I'd read online that when one did manage to crawl out of a dungeon, emergency crews put it down with water cannons. Take that with a grain of salt.

"Excellent. Sujin, I don't think you need to worry about the results either."

The staffer congratulated her with a bright round of applause. The Slime sealed in the water prison crumbled to dust and vanished, just as the Dire Wolf had. By now it was obvious these creatures were illusions. Wonder what they'll throw at me.

"Hmph."

A sharp gaze pricked at my skin. Lina's scathing look went right through me. Heh. The old me would have wilted on the spot — but not anymore. If anything, I didn't mind that lofty stare of hers.

"Last up is Jaeseong. As I mentioned earlier, revealing your ability among fellow Hunters isn't such a terrible thing. You're all in the same business, after all."

He must have been hung up on my reluctance to show my ability in the previous test. That little performance had been purely to catch Lina's attention, of course. I had no particular intention of hiding my ability — well, not the one they could see. The real one, Power of Sex, would stay buried.

"Understood. So who's my opponent?"

"Your ability is Light Control. In that case, this one should be a suitable match."

The staffer raised a hand, and a new monster took shape. A humanoid figure in a black robe — humanoid, of course, not human. The skeletal fingers protruding from the sleeves made that abundantly clear.

A mask resembling a bovine skull covered its face, red light leaking from the empty sockets. The robe hung all the way to its feet, giving it the look of some cult leader with a taste for human sacrifice. Nothing in my database matched it. Lina, however, seemed to know exactly what she was looking at.

"A Demon Pawn. I'm fairly certain that's not in the same class as a Dire Wolf."

"That's right. It's a rank above. Light-attribute abilities are its weakness, though, which makes it a suitable match for Jaeseong."

"Light attribute? Don't tell me he—"

Lina's startled voice carried all the way to where I stood. She seemed to realize that referring to me as "that guy" was rude and snapped her mouth shut, but I didn't need to hear the rest. She'd guessed my ability — and she was properly shocked. Light Control was far rarer than Chain Disaster, after all.

"All right. Let's begin."

The staffer nodded and took control of the Demon Pawn. I stretched a hand toward it. By now I was fairly sure I could fire a Holy Arrow without chanting. The moment I pictured it, a small arrow of light formed in front of me — faster than anything I'd managed in practice.

The arrow screamed toward the Demon Pawn. It punched into the creature's chest faster than the thing could even begin to move.

A searing bloom of radiance, and an explosion that made the ceiling groan. For a second I actually wondered if the room would come down.

Good lord. I'd been the one who fired it, and even I hadn't expected that. When I'd tested the technique before, I'd been too casual about it — the full force hadn't come through. This time I'd concentrated completely. The difference in destructive power was staggering.

"Ohh! A Holy Arrow of that caliber! I have to say, I've never seen a day like this. Pass! That's a definite pass!"

The Demon Pawn was already gone without a trace. All that remained in the room was the Association staffer, flushed with excitement as ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠he delivered the news; Sujin, clapping with a face full of joy; and Lina, her poker face finally cracked, staring at me in open disbelief.

Dungeon Hunter exam results, they told us, would be out in about two hours. I'd have believed two weeks. Two hours was a gift.

Both Sujin and I had gotten encouraging words from the examiner, so neither of us was particularly worried. We decided to kill the remaining time at the first-floor cafe — a place that had clearly been built for exactly this kind of wait.

"Would you like to join us, Lina? You don't have anywhere else to be, do you?"

I approached her with a friendly smile. I didn't actually expect her to say yes. I just wanted to try talking to her.

Unlike before, she didn't look annoyed. She studied me for a moment, then put on a cool expression and stuck out her hand. What's this about?

One hand on her hip, the other extended — she looked less like an ice beauty and more like a handsome guy. I'd pegged her as the ice-princess type, but apparently she was a tomboy. What had brought on the change? Had my ability impressed her that much?

Even her delivery belonged on a manga protagonist — the cool, good-looking kind. Wait. Is this kid actually a guy? One of the trends these days was drawing a girl and then insisting it was a man, and I was starting to feel a little uneasy.

The estrogen in her voice, however, confirmed that Lina was very much a she. This was just her personality.

I took the hand she offered. It was a little cold — a body temperature that suited the chill of her exterior.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

I'd been planning to crack that lofty expression of hers, so this took some of the wind out of my sails. Still, a woman of this type wasn't bad either. If I had to guess, her weak point is probably her ass.

"Baek Jaeseong. A pleasure to meet you properly."

"Ahn Lina. I'm twenty-one. That makes me the younger one."

Huh? Did I ever tell her my age? She seemed to catch the question on my face.

"I snuck a look at your paperwork earlier. I couldn't see your ability at the time, but Light Control? That's impressive."

She admitted to peeking at my personal information without a shred of shame. She was a lot more easygoing than I'd given her credit for. Lina held her hand out to Sujin as well.

"Nice to meet you too, unnie."

"Ah… yes. Shin Sujin."

"You can drop the formalities. We're going to be in training together anyway."

"Oh. Then I'll just…"

"Not you, Jaeseong. Guys are a little awkward for me."

She stuck her tongue out at me, just a little. Judging by the way she was talking to me, it wasn't awkwardness so much as a desire to mess with me. Tch. Robbed of the chance to pick up a cute little sister.

A little disappointing, but a hurdle or two was actually better. The higher the mountain, the sweeter the conquest. Lina and I would end up tangled together one way or another. We'd be taking the same training, after all.

We killed time in the cafe, sipping drinks at an unhurried pace. I asked Lina for the details on this training she'd mentioned, and Sujin — who was well-versed in this sort of thing — explained it kindly.

Once you became a Dungeon Hunter, you underwent three months of training. Think of it as a private company's new-hire orientation. Then again, Dungeon Hunters were elite forces whose job was to clear dungeons, so a military boot camp was probably the more accurate comparison. Not that they ran it like actual boot camp. The point was to teach you what you needed to know to raid a dungeon.

No Dungeon Hunter cleared a dungeon alone. Occasionally someone would solo a dungeon well below their level, but it was vanishingly rare, and it was one of the things the Association actively discouraged. If the excessively strong hogged every dungeon, the Association — whose job was to cultivate new talent — gained nothing from it. Association regulations restricted which dungeons a Hunter could enter based on rank: you couldn't walk into one far above your level, and you couldn't walk into one far below it either.

Dungeon Hunters raided in teams, so the training was naturally conducted by team as well. When putting a team together, the most important factor was each person's position. Countless dungeon raids had established the most efficient role for every type of ability, and entire strategies had been built on that foundation.

Dungeon Hunter training, in other words, was about learning what role you would play on a team. It was essential knowledge. The three of us, having passed the exam on the same day, had a very high chance of being placed on the same training team.

"It's already been two hours. Come on — let's go pick up our Hunter licenses!"

Sujin called out, her voice bright with excitement.