The Age of Hunters, The First Hunter
We had established a concept of "territory" to ensure the safety of Samira.
The core territory: the land of Samira itself.
The surrounding area: the land adjacent to Samira.
And finally, the sphere of influence.
We had cleared all the monsters within the sphere of influence and finished raiding the emergency gates. As a result, we entered a period of calm, a gap of about a month where no emergency gates appeared. During this downtime, I supported the clearing of gates near Seoul Station.
Meanwhile, Samira’s Awakened had been expanding our sphere of influence, but today, a problem arose.
“Hoseop.”
“Boss.”
After hearing a rough summary at the main gate guard post, I rushed straight to the main building’s infirmary. Jang Hoseop was standing in the hallway, his entire body covered in green blood.
“What happened? What’s the damage?”
“Thankfully, there are no fatalities.”
Hoseop explained the details. “The farming team led by Na Seyeon was ambushed by monsters. The location was Sector H in Yeomhyeon-dong….”
Yeomhyeon-dong was a neighborhood to the northwest of Samira. It was beyond Baekhogae, outside the initial sphere of influence, but the area-securing operations had already been completed.
“Na Seyeon and a few others lured the monster horde away, while the rest returned to Samira to report the situation.”
“They didn’t fight together?”
“No. There were simply too many of them.”
The horde that ambushed the farming team was a pack of goblins. A few had acted as bait while the others returned to Samira to call for reinforcements. Jang Hoseop, who had been at Samira, led the Awakened and headed to Yeomhyeon-dong. Na Seyeon’s group had been surrounded and fighting for their lives at a nearby outpost.
“We weren’t too late. We succeeded in rescuing them before any fatalities occurred.”
“And the injured?”
“Well… all the personnel who acted as bait are currently being treated.”
Jang Hoseop looked toward the infirmary door. A total of seven people had suffered injuries, both large and small. Two of them were Awakened with basic skills.
“I believe Na Seyeon made the best possible decision.”
“Really?”
“Yes. If they had all stood and fought… I think they would have been wiped out.”
The goblin horde that attacked the farming team included a goblin shaman and several mutant entities. There were over fifty of them. In contrast, the farming team was composed mostly of ordinary people. While the area-securing teams were composed entirely of Awakened, the farming teams only visited cleared, safe areas.
“It seems like they attacked with intent,” Jang Hoseop speculated. He didn’t think it was a coincidence that the farming team and the goblin horde had crossed paths. “Perhaps they drifted in from the outside….”
“Likely. Did we step on their territory?”
“That’s possible. Or perhaps it’s the aftermath of a gate collapse?”
To the south of Samira was the Yongsan Station faction led by Kang Hyeseon. To the northeast was the Seoul Station Hope Bunker. Because of this, Samira’s Awakened were expanding their influence toward the north and west. Every day, an area-securing team would head out in a set direction, followed by the farming team. They didn’t follow closely; they maintained a buffer zone, yet they were still ambushed.
“Boss, and while I was dealing with them, I felt something.”
“Yeah?”
“They were definitely different from the goblins we used to catch. They felt much smarter.”
He said the mutant entities had pinned down the Awakened members of the farming team, while the others focused their attacks on the ordinary people acting as bait. They hadn’t just charged in blindly.
“The people who returned to call for help said it felt like the monsters let them go on purpose.”
“Because too many numbers were a burden?”
“Yes, I think so. The fact that they used their heads to minimize their own losses actually worked in our favor.”
Based on what the farming team said and what Jang Hoseop experienced, I made a few guesses. “If they had charged in blindly when fighting Na Seyeon’s group… the game might have been over before I even arrived.”
“So, even if they’re the same level of goblin, the difficulty of the fight can change.”
“Yes. If there had been even one or two high-level Awakened in the farming team, it would have been fine….”
Just as we finished talking, the infirmary door opened and Kang Iseon stepped out.
“Iseon.”
“Ah, Lee Hyun, you’ve returned. The patients are doing fine.”
She gave me the results first. “The Awakened finished with simple treatment. There were many minor wounds, but….”
She said no one was injured so severely that they couldn’t use their hands. Except for one person. I followed her into the infirmary.
We had absorbed the Namsan government and brought their medical staff over in their entirety. I had made Kang Iseon the team leader and assigned them a separate space in the main building. There were examination rooms, operating rooms, and a small ward.
“Seolhee, you worked hard too.”
“It’s nothing. The patients are the ones who suffered.”
Seolhee was under my direct command, but she was inseparable from the medical team. Her skills were better than any antibiotic. I heard she had dropped everything to rush over and participate in the surgery.
“The others can go home, but these four need to be monitored for a bit longer.”
After briefly greeting the medical team, I entered the ward. There were six beds, and four of them were occupied.
“This person has a simple fracture, but it was a clean break,” Kang Iseon explained, describing their conditions one by one. They were all in a state where they could return to daily life soon if there were no complications. Considering they were all ordinary people, they had performed remarkably well against a goblin horde. Even taking into account that the goblins had been cautious. Although two Awakened over level 10 had been with them, even they had struggled because of the mutant entities.
“Finally… this person was the most serious.”
A young woman was asleep, her brow furrowed even in her unconscious state.
“Jo Boyeon?”
“Yes. You know her?”
I knew the face. Jo Boyeon was the woman who had told me she wanted to write my story as a novel. Beside her, Yeo Jisu was using a skill on her. Yeo Jisu had joined from the Namsan government and possessed skills related to sensory regulation.
‘She must be in a lot of pain.’
Perhaps because Jo Boyeon was so small, this bed looked particularly large.
“I’ll have to wait until she wakes up to know for sure… but I’m worried about the aftereffects.”
“What kind of aftereffects?”
“Well… when she was brought in, one of her legs was in a mangled state. The goblins were all over her….” Kang Iseon lowered her voice. She said it looked like Jo Boyeon might not be able to use that leg anymore. “And although I’m not a specialist in that field… I think the psychological trauma will be significant as well.”
“Understood. Please use every means possible.”
Just as I was about to leave after checking on the patients, she stirred.
“Ugh….”
Jo Boyeon woke up. She slowly opened her eyes, saw me, and blinked those large eyes of hers.
“Ah, the First Hunter.”
“What?”
“No. L-Lee Hyun! I awakened!”
Jo Boyeon smiled brightly, as if she hadn’t been grimacing a moment ago. She looked at me, joyful, and announced that she had awakened her basic skill. “I’m a hunter now too! Heehee. Did I do well?”
“Uh, yeah. You worked hard.”
“Aah… but my leg… why does it hurt? I definitely awakened… it hurts so much. *Sob*… *Waaaaah*.”
It seemed her mind was a bit scrambled.
I comforted and praised those who had endured the goblin ambush. The Awakened could have abandoned the ordinary people and fled, but they had willingly acted as sacrifices. The ordinary people in the farming team had also done their best. In particular, Na Seyeon’s judgment had been rooted in the conviction that any monster entering Samira’s territory must be dealt with.
“Na Seyeon is a peer of Gi Eun-chae, right? From the ROTC?”
“Yes. She also does some modeling work for us.”
I called the group into the conference room to discuss the situation.
“How about promoting Na Seyeon?”
“That sounds good. She’ll be level 20 if she levels up just a little more… Oh, what about the others?”
“We should reward the others, too.”
We discussed several reward plans. “Oh, and promote Jo Boyeon to a full member. I heard she awakened.”
“Oh? Really? That’s great!” Yuna was as happy as if it were her own success. Since I was the only one who had gone into the infirmary, this was the first time Yuna had heard the news. “She was always trying so hard to go on external activities because she wanted to awaken, too.”
It turned out Jo Boyeon had already hunted quite a few monsters. So many that there probably wasn’t another ordinary person who had hunted as many as she had. Most people gave up long before that.
“I always felt so bad for her when I saw her.”
“The little one must be a tough cookie.”
“Um… yes. She’s stubborn, has her own little world, and all that.”
After wrapping up the talk about the ambushed farming team, I brought up the main topic.
“It is presumed that the monsters crossed over from the outside.”
Jang Hoseop explained to the group what he and I had summarized earlier. It was about where the monsters had suddenly appeared from. “It could be the effect of a gate collapse, or they could have been living elsewhere and crossed over for foraging.”
What was certain was that they were monsters that had flowed in from the outside.
“So they slipped past the eyes of the area-securing teams?”
“Yeah. We can’t check every possible route.”
The wider the territory, the harder it becomes to monitor and defend. That’s why we called it a "sphere of influence" rather than Samira’s land. In fact, I had already kept the possibility of monster movement in mind. That was why I had ordered the construction of a wall. However, there were many places to farm, and since things had been fine until now, we had continued the expansion work out of inertia.
“So, what should we do from now on?”
After assessing the situation, I asked the group. No one answered for a while.
“I’m going to reorganize the structure,” I said, seeing that the executives’ minds seemed cluttered.
“Reorganize the structure?”
“Yeah. I’m going to build teams centered around high-level Awakened.”
It hadn’t been long since I issued the personnel orders. Sujeong and Jang Hoseop would have to rack their brains again. “I’ll set the standard at level 20. Have the Awakened who are over level 20 become team leaders and form independent teams.”
“By independent teams, you mean….”
“Area securing, farming… and even gates. We will drastically reduce the byproducts recovered by Samira.”
“What?” Jang Hoseop stood up in surprise. He must not have expected me to say something like that.
“For their activities, we will only take a certain percentage of the commission in magic stones. They can use the other acquired materials however they see fit.”
Samira now had a foundation. Enough to distinguish between combat resources and support resources. “I’m going to make those who want to engage in external activities form teams and work for themselves.”
“So, they handle farming or area-securing work on their own? And we’ll let them enter gates, too?”
“Yeah. Because how we distribute Awakened resources is important.”
And the Awakened’s combat power was far superior to the monsters they would encounter. “Instead, those who form teams must pay for using Samira’s infrastructure, in addition to the commission.”
“Housing, water… oh, and almost all the food is owned by you, Lee Hyun?”
“Yes. Things like that. Simply put, let’s make them independent.”
The team leaders would have to form their own teams and feed them.
“It’s going to take quite a while. We don’t even have any concrete contract methods or conditions….”
“You don’t need to have the perfect answer from the start. Trial and error is fine.”
My decision wasn’t the only correct answer. But that was fine. Because the group, and the members of Samira, would think of ways to improve it. “You can also prepare support policies for them, like we did for Yongsan Station and the Hope Bunker. It might be hard if we just throw them out there.”
The group racked their brains to follow my train of thought. Still, they had a look of not quite getting it yet. I should have explained the intent first.
“It’s not about surviving from monsters, it’s about hunting them. Take volunteers. There will definitely be those who want to form their own teams as leaders and gain more.”
Jo Boyeon, lying in the infirmary, had said as much. That she was a hunter now, too. Even though she was an ordinary person, she had viewed monsters as prey for her own awakening.
“From now on, I will call those who form teams and go outside ‘Hunters.’ Jang Hoseop will continue to manage the Hunters….”
The internal support headquarters would also need a structural reorganization. Into a side that handles Samira’s affairs and a side that supports the Hunters.
“Boss, then what about you and us….”
“We are Hunters, too. At the same time, we are the managers of Samira.”
I was handing over the work the group and I had been doing. At the same time, we would also become Hunters and continue to fight monsters.
“But what if they don’t listen and only try to do what they want?”
“Do you think they will?”
“Ah, no. They wouldn’t do that. Still, wouldn’t it be good to create some restrictions, like a mobilization order concept?”
I nodded at Jang Hoseop’s question.
“We can make one. And we’ll need to have screening conditions for forming teams, too.”
“So, the intention is also to disperse our combat power?”
“Yeah. I think if people become proactive, more efficient external activities can take place.”
“Wow… that really won’t be easy, will it?”
Wouldn’t it work out if we kept at it?
“Anyway, the intent is this. If they moved according to Samira’s orders until now… from now on, I want them to step up and move proactively.”
It was already what I had been doing. Jo Boyeon had used the expression "First Hunter" regarding me. I got a hint from that. I needed people who would be loyal to me and step up to act like I did.
“Give the Hunters powerful authority, even more than the preferential treatment we gave the Awakened. There will be ordinary people who want to join with ambition.”
I would incite competition. Through this, Samira would constantly move forward.
“I hope we can lay the groundwork before the gap period ends.”
“Yes. I understand what you mean. Phew… in the meantime, I should just form a team myself….”
“No. You can’t, Sujeong.”
Sujeong laughed at my words. She was my personnel.
“When the reorganization is over, I want people to think like this. That it’s the Age of Hunters. That you have to go out and fight to gain more.”
Hearing my words, Jang Hoseop muttered blankly.
“The Age of Hunters. A new era… we should hide the treasure….”
We continued the meeting late into the night.
Another week passed. In the meantime, Samira spent time in reform.
“It’s finally today. We’re still so unprepared.” Jang Hoseop muttered with a nervous expression.
The gap period had ended. We were standing right in front of a closed-type gate.
“Report back after you come out.”
“Yes. I’ll be back.”
It was my first time with a closed-type gate. I had tried to get information through the Square, but it seemed no one had raided a closed-type gate yet.
“I’m back. There didn’t seem to be anything special.”
Jang Hoseop came out after using his gate-scouting skill and began his explanation. Myself, the executives, and even the Awakened aspiring to be Hunters. Quite a few people listened intently to his explanation.
‘Entry limit: 30 people.’
We began the large-scale gate raid.