Hunting Is Too Easy
The horned rabbit.
Just as the name implied, it was a rabbit-shaped monster with an ivory-colored conical horn sprouting from its head.
The only thing you really needed to know was that the horn was incredibly hard and sharp—if it struck you head-on, the results could be catastrophic.
A horned rabbit’s propulsion and leg strength were nothing like an ordinary rabbit’s. When one decided to charge, it moved faster than an arrow.
In other words, it was virtually impossible for low-ranked beginners to spot one and dodge in time. Even high-rank hunters remembered the horned rabbit’s frontal assaults as genuinely threatening from their early days.
‘Then again, if you just stayed alert for that one attack, it wasn’t exactly a difficult monster to handle.’
Horned rabbits were extremely wary, with exceptionally keen hearing and vision.
That meant anyone who wasn’t an assassin-type had virtually no chance of sneaking up on them as a beginner.
‘Which leaves only one answer.’
You stepped deliberately into their territory.
Normally a tank would brace to receive the incoming charge while the damage dealers prepared to finish the monster off. I, however, operated differently.
“Go.”
Grrrr!
The Minion of the Underworld, Ferocious Fenet, let out a low growl and shot forward. The horned rabbit froze at the sight of blue flames flickering inside the minion’s pitch-black, melted eye sockets.
Before it could even finish coiling its legs to leap, the rabbit kicked off the ground and charged.
Its attack lacked the full power of a properly prepared strike, however. The Minion of the Underworld, Ferocious Fenet, took the horn head-on with its body.
Thud!
The horned rabbit’s horn sank halfway into the minion’s torso before stopping.
Any living Ferocious Fenet would have thrashed in agony, but the creature the rabbit had struck was a monster reborn as undead. Feeling no pain whatsoever, the minion simply clamped its jaws around the rabbit’s neck.
Crunch!
It snapped the creature’s windpipe in one clean bite.
“Minion of the Underworld. Summon.”
Thanks to the minion Ferocious Fenet, I had easily gained one more soldier for my army.
With the newly resurrected minion horned rabbit at my side, the real hunt began in earnest.
The minion horned rabbit’s capabilities were outstanding.
If a living horned rabbit was like a streaking arrow, the minion version was a literal bullet.
Even better, unlike living specimens that needed a long cooldown after landing before they could leap again, the minion could prepare its next jump the instant its feet touched the ground.
As a result, the horned rabbits died without ever realizing what had hit them, skewered one after another on the minion’s horn.
The situation with the Ferocious Fenets was even more favorable.
Because they were aggressive monsters that attacked on sight, pulling them became child’s play.
Simply having the minion Ferocious Fenet run around was enough to draw in a whole pack of ten or more that had detected an intruder.
“Night Crow.”
Then Sowon and I simply hid behind a boulder, peeked out, and cast the skill. That was all it took.
The summoned Night Crow would seek out enemies on its own, swooping in to strike the Ferocious Fenets clustered around my minion. A black explosion would erase the entire group in one blast.
“I don’t even know what to say… Is it really okay for hunting to be this easy?”
Sowon, who had been watching the scene from behind the rock, shook her head in disbelief. I nodded.
“Yeah. I’m honestly a little shocked myself.”
“A little? When I first came here with four A-class hunters, it wasn’t nearly this simple! Three or four Ferocious Fenets were enough to overwhelm us—we’d usually end up running. And if the tank failed to block a horned rabbit’s charge properly, even they couldn’t avoid serious injury!”
“S-Sowon, are you upset?”
“Ah, sorry. It’s not your fault, Guild Leader. It’s just so unfair that I… Honestly, this is basically cheating. I didn’t hunt with you directly, but I doubt even an S-class could pull this off. Maybe only SS-class or SSS-class would manage it… Just who are you, Humin?”
“Well… Haha…”
‘The person in this world who wants to know the answer to that the most is me, lady.’
Given the circumstances, the busier person between the two of us had ironically become Sowon the porter rather than me, the combatant.
Since we were mowing down packs of Ferocious Fenets and horned rabbits all at once, she had to keep casting Bonus Looting without rest, constantly running around to collect the drops.
Thanks to her efforts, we breezed through the second floor, smashed our targets, and kept going with extra hunts.
Of course, even my minions weren’t invincible. They accumulated damage, and eventually they would fall.
But that didn’t matter.
“Minion of the Underworld, summon.”
The battlefield was littered with the corpses of the Ferocious Fenets and horned rabbits they had slain. I had more than enough materials to keep replenishing my army.
And so we finished another day of hunting and returned safely from the Tower.
“You worked hard today, Humin.”
“Me? Not at all. You’re the one who worked hard, Sowon.”
“Hahaha…”
“Why? Did I say something wrong?”
When Sowon let out a hollow laugh, I asked if I had misspoken.
“No. It’s just that what you said is completely true, so it feels even more absurd and ridiculous. A porter who works harder than the combatant in a two-person party… No one would believe it if I told them.”
It wasn’t a joke. All I had done was stroll around and cast Night Crow every five seconds when the cooldown reset. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to call it auto-hunting.
“Today’s main profit is seventy kilograms of mana stones, as expected. Honestly, even an A-class four-person party would need an entire day to gather this many on the second floor, yet you did it alone in just eight hours… Humin. I’m not joking—if you told me you were SSS-class instead of E-class, I’d believe you. I really would.”
“Haha… Thank you.”
“We also have a ton of miscellaneous items that wouldn’t fit in my backpack or inventory. You’ll sell them in bulk rather than list them individually at auction, right?”
“Yes. Low-level junk like that rarely sells at auction anyway, and even if it does, the difference isn’t worth the hassle.”
“Still, it’s a shame.”
“About what?”
“All the items we had to leave behind because we ran out of space. If we could have brought everything, it would have easily been worth several hundred thousand won…”
Honestly, I felt the same regret. I had stuffed every miscellaneous item I could into my own inventory, keeping only what I needed.
Mana stones brought in serious money, but the miscellaneous items weren’t worthless either. Their market value only rose as your level increased.
I had briefly considered recruiting a second porter because of it.
But my current conclusion was no.
‘Even if it’s just a porter, adding more party members means splitting both experience and profits. For now, it’s better to focus on growth even if it means giving up some of the miscellaneous item revenue.’
Besides, the more people sharing the profits, the more items you could carry—but the end result would still be a net loss.
After all, our main income was still the mana stones, and Sowon could handle that volume by herself for the time being.
‘She said her skill reduces the weight of items stored in her dedicated backpack to one-tenth, right?’
So seventy kilograms would only feel like seven kilograms to her. That was manageable without needing another porter for now.
The miscellaneous items were simply bonus income.
After we finished selling the mana stones and miscellaneous items in bulk, seven million won from the stones and two million won from the junk—a total of nine million won—was deposited into my guild leader account at the exchange.
“I just sent it, Sowon. Check your account.”
She looked at the nine hundred thousand won that had arrived in her account, smiled, then asked with a slightly uneasy expression.
“But is this really okay?”
“What do you mean?”
“I know it’s stupid and against my own interests to even ask, but I’ve never been good at holding back when I’m curious. If I were in your position, I’d feel like it was a huge waste. Even five percent is considered generous for a porter’s share.”
“You’re asking if giving you ten percent feels wasteful?”
“Honestly… yes. It feels like I’m taking money for doing almost nothing…”
Seeing her genuine guilt, I smiled softly.
“Not even a little.”
“Really?”
“Of course. Forget the porter title—you’re my one and only comrade, Sowon, and someone precious to me. On top of that, we earned more profit thanks to your Bonus Looting. Above all, without you I wouldn’t have been able to start any of this. I think ten percent is perfectly fair.”
I spoke from the heart, without the slightest hint of falsehood.
To me, Han Sowon was both a precious comrade and someone I owed a great deal. If she hadn’t reached out first, it would have taken me far longer to begin this path—and every extra day would have meant more losses.
Most of all, my grandfather’s words had been engraved in my heart like a mantra.
Humin-ah. Always treat the people close to you with sincerity. If you do, someday that person will bring you blessings you never expected.
Thanks to that advice, in my short twenty years I had met both good people and bad ones, yet I had never once regretted how I treated them.
Because at least in those moments, I had given them my very best.
“I have an appointment, so I’ll head out first. You’re hunting again tomorrow, right?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Let me know when you’re leaving. I’ll get ready immediately.”
“Sounds good. Take care on your way back.”
“You too, Humin.”
After parting with Sowon, I headed straight for the hospital where my grandfather was admitted.
Slide.
“Grandfather, I’m here.”
Stepping inside in the quarantine gown, I saw him lying alone in the cold hospital room.
The only sounds were the steady mechanical beeps of the medical equipment surrounding his bed. Only when I leaned close to his face could I hear the faint sound of his breathing.
It had only been three months since he ended up like this.
According to my sister, he had suffered a head injury in an accident and never regained consciousness.
After brain surgery his condition had improved enough to move him to a general ward once, but neurological damage that surgery couldn’t fix caused occasional breathing failures. In the end he had been placed back in the ICU.
I had only learned about it recently.
My sister had hidden the truth until right before I finished training camp, afraid I wouldn’t be able to focus if I knew.
At first I had resented her, but I soon understood her heart and felt nothing but gratitude and guilt.
It meant she and my brother-in-law had shouldered the entire cost of Grandfather’s surgery and the expensive daily ICU fees while still sending me allowance money whenever they could.
“Grandfather, you don’t have to worry about my sister anymore. From now on I’ll make up for all the filial duty I couldn’t give you before. So please open your eyes and get better. Both of us are so worried about you. All right?”
I gently stroked his dry cheek, fighting back the tears that threatened to spill.
There would be plenty of time to cry after he recovered and came home.
After paying off some of the overdue hospital bills with today’s earnings, I returned to the motel and had a strange dream that night.