The Juddak of the Hunter Gallery

“Alright, let’s watch the video again. Here, the moment the boss raises its front paw, you see~”

She paused the replay and drew a circle on the screen.

“Everyone thinks this is the preparatory action for the downward strike, right? But actually, these guys have the habit of raising their upper body when threatening. The real preparatory move is to look at the tail. When the tip of the tail hits the ground twice, that’s when the downward strike comes~”

In the screen, the shield rose half a beat late, and the tanker was flung backward.

“So, the victim was already decided at this point. It’s not so much the tanker’s mistake as the commander’s insufficient information investigation.”

She had been talking for thirty minutes in front of the replay screen from last week’s A-rank dungeon clear.

The chat was speeding up faster than usual.

“Ahaha… No, I’m not in combat…”

She had never cleared a dungeon herself, but among the general public she prided ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠herself on knowing more about them than anyone else.

Yeah, exactly as you said, I just know a lot…

She lightly brushed off the bone-chilling comments since they were true and couldn’t be refuted. To erase the uncomfortable truth from her mind, she laughed it off lightly.

“I’ll go pick some flowers for a bit~”

She turned off the mic after trying to dodge the chat.

And like a habit, she opened the status window.

Monster Understander… what exactly was I supposed to understand about monsters? I wasn’t a swordsman, a mage, or an archer. If I had been a production job like a blacksmith, maybe I ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠could have at least helped in combat.

Everyone else was living in an era where clearing a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠dungeon inside the tower or gates once earned a million won a month. Here I sat in front of a computer, analyzing dungeons out loud.

I was making enough to live on.

That was all, but…

Standing in front of the bathroom sink, the mirror showed a petite silver-haired, blue-eyed girl staring back at Doha. On the day the dungeon appeared in the world, not only had everything been flipped upside down, but her gender had been flipped along with it.

[Skill ‘Monster Understander’ acquired.]

[Adjusting body for skill application.]

[Reconstructed into a body that easily gains affection from magical beasts.]

Those were the words that had appeared on the screen the day she awakened.

She had passed out, and when she woke up she was a silver-haired, blue-eyed girl.

On that day, before she could even feel the thrill of awakening, she had stared blankly at herself in the mirror for hours.

Kim Doha… her name had been gender-neutral, which was fortunate. If it hadn’t been, she would have had to apply for a name change.

She often felt wronged.

They had turned her into a body that could win affection from monsters, so shouldn’t they have at least given her the courage to stand in front of one?

What she had actually received was nothing but a fragile body that couldn’t even approach a monster.

After monsters appeared, she had become a hikikomori to avoid being kidnapped while walking around outside in this form, out of fear of the noise the tail made when it hit the ground.

Originally she didn’t go out much anyway, so it hadn’t been much of a problem.

“Sigh…”

She let out a long sigh and opened the Hunter Gallery.

“Again? Why does it keep coming up even when I block it?”

She had expertly blocked the poster who wrote the post about the Juddak for thirty-one days.

She didn’t need to look at the attached photo to know what it was. In the early days of the gallery, she had posted a photo of herself bragging about her evening menu, and her face had been clearly visible because it reflected in a glass cup.

Right below that was another familiar post.

It was a post explaining what the Hunter Gallery meant to awakened people.

Other countries’ hunters seemed to think differently, but she wasn’t their ally.

Being the first awakened, claiming Hunter ID 0001, and becoming the Juddak of the Hunter Gallery had been fine.

The problem had come after that.

She had learned through the gallery that the Monster Tamer was a research job, and that day her world had collapsed.

From then on, she had completely given up on living as a hunter.

The clean, utter disappointment had been so thorough that even briefly imagining a future of roaming dungeons had been embarrassing.

Of course, the gallery occasionally posted successful cases of Monster Tamers who had become research jobs. Those were for the high-achieving, smart ones. The rest of the Monster Tamers were basically no different from non-awakened.

To tame a monster, you had to enter a dungeon first, but everyone had tried it once, died, and given up because they couldn’t overcome the fear.

So this job had no answer. That had been her conclusion after five years.

She returned to her room, sat back down at her seat, and turned the mic volume back up.

“Where were we?”

Thinking about it, this stream had been the natural extension of her answerless conclusion. She had started it to make use of the advantage of being an awakened since she couldn’t live as a hunter, and it had become the current Hunter information stream.

She had never intended to start a stream like this from the beginning.

She had once thought that.

But when she checked the rates, the price made her eyes pop out, so she had given up. She couldn’t just spend her parents’ inheritance so extravagantly…

So, following the destiny of the TS loli, she had turned to no-cam streaming, which was easy, but…

Her body had become difficult, and her gaming skill had regressed as well. Her hands just weren’t like they used to be.

Game streaming had ended in utter failure.

The last thing she had caught was the Hunter information stream. Honestly, she had thought this would succeed. Since most of the viewers were awakened, donations had poured in unusually well.

The problem was that there were competitors in this market too. And they were combat-job awakened who actually cleared dungeons!

When a broadcast titled [Current High-rank Hunter Dungeon Clear Review] was on, Doha, who was just analyzing dungeons out loud in front of the screen, had no choice but to be chased out of the “more” league.

Still, enough donations came in to live on…

After the clear broadcast ended, only three viewers remained.

Those three were the patrons who took up most of the donation share.

“A mission has been set. Let’s see… clear a horror game by today?”

The horror game mission set by the patrons. It was an amount she couldn’t refuse.

Seeing them pour out donations without restraint on the stream, it was clear. In gratitude for the patrons’ support, she had played the game while shouting earnestly.

“Ah, wait a second. What’s that thing behind the corner— kyaaah!”

It had been the moment she turned her eyes to the chat when a ghost appeared from the corner.

“Eh… viewers…?”

The viewer count had dropped to zero, leaving only an empty chat window.

While she was bewildered, her phone began to ring loudly.

“What…”

The wall that had been protecting the north of Seoul had collapsed.

Normal people would have evacuated, and awakened people would have rushed out in an emergency call.

Once she accepted it, the only thing left was a single scaredy-cat who had been halfway through the horror game. Since she was already scared, she had ended the stream without hesitation.

Just as she had come out to the living room to drink water or something.

Nag nag-

Strange noises came from the dark veranda.

Because she had been playing a horror game until just before, only scary thoughts came to mind.

Tense, she took one step at a time toward the veranda and cautiously peeked through the curtain gap.

A large black mass filling one side of the veranda.

Two bright blue eyes staring at her from the darkness.

A house-sized wolf crouched there, eyes flashing.

“Hik—”

Her legs gave out and she collapsed onto the floor.

I have to run!

Her head told her to, but her body wouldn’t listen because of fear.

While she couldn’t even twitch a finger,

the wolf stood up.

It slowly approached, looking down at the seated Doha.

When its large mouth opened to swallow her small body,

Blue text appeared in front of her eyes, and something pushed into her mind.

***

An endless plain where the grass waved to the horizon.

Warm fur that swallowed the whole world when you buried yourself in it, Mother Fenrir.

Days of playing and roughhousing with her siblings tangled together beside her.

When she was hungry, Mother would give her food. When something scary appeared, Mother would drive it away.

One day, living a peaceful life where that was all of life.

Space tore open.

After the light swallowed the whole group, when she opened her eyes, she saw strange land.

The sky’s color and the smell of wind were different.

Still, it was fine because there were Mother and siblings. She thought there would be no problem in the new place either.

Until humans appeared in the nest.

The first two-legged beasts she saw attacked the group without hesitation.

They swung shining needles and threw fire from afar.

She couldn’t figure out the reason. Only that when Mother blocked the group’s front, humans couldn’t defeat them.

After dozens of attacks, the whole world collapsed.

She was thrown into the strange land again, nest and all.

Outside, there were far more humans.

They came endlessly day and night without regard for day or night.

But even as their numbers grew, they couldn’t defeat Mother.

One day, a steel bird flew down from the sky and dropped something, then flew away.

Soon the sun sank to the ground.

The light that erased the world white, the heat that burned even bones. To protect her siblings from that sun, Mother threw her entire body.

After the light receded, Mother’s back had turned pitch black. The once huge and strong Mother had staggered for the first time.

Humans kept coming after that too. The more they came, the fewer siblings remained.

From some night, there were no siblings left beside her.

Mother tried to protect the last one of herself, but the wounds grew deeper with each passing day.

On the day she herself was wounded and stopped, Mother pressed her forehead to hers.

The jewel containing Mother’s power pulled from deep inside her throat. She pushed it into her with warm breath.

You have to live—

[Level too low, cannot view past memories anymore.]

The memory had cut off there.

“Ugh…”

When she came to, she was still sitting on the floor.

In front of her was the same house-sized wolf, but strangely she no longer felt the same fear as before.

Nag nag-

Those blue eyes were crying now.

Her gaze naturally fell to the wolf’s front leg.

The wound she had seen in the memory was still there.

She snapped back to her senses and started rummaging through the drawer.

It was fortunate that her parents had stocked up on emergency medicine for times like this.

She returned to the veranda with a large bundle of bandages.

She knelt in front of the wolf, calming her trembling hands.

“Um… can I check your leg?”

There was no way they would understand each other, but the wolf didn’t snarl or bite. It simply extended its foot.

She watched until she had wrapped all the bandages around the wound.

She had clumsily wrapped the bandages, but the wolf’s breathing was still heavy.

“It should be fine if you rest a little…”

Just as she was trying to reassure the wolf, another blue text appeared in front of her.

“What… Lick?”