Eyes Like Needles
If every gaze during hunting season was a needle, this must be what it felt like to have them pierce your skin. At least when Seok-jun was around, people had shown signs of avoiding him, so the stares hadn’t converged this intensely. She realized it now. It would probably be more comfortable to stay among the seniors. During gate subjugations, the seniors would look after her when they bothered to, but they never subjected her to such blatantly zoo-animal stares. She was far more familiar with the dungeons inside gates, yet this atmosphere and situation refused to let her adapt at all. Mina stood frozen in place, unable to do anything.
“Hey, you. What exactly is your relationship with that guy?”
“Ehh?!”
Startled by the voice coming from behind her, she flinched and spun around. There stood Min-jeong, staring at her with clear discomfort.
What am I supposed to say? We’ve only known each other for less than a week!
Since Mina couldn’t answer right away, Min-jeong watched her for a moment, then let out a heavy sigh and shook her head.
“Haa, forget it. That face tells me you don’t know a damn thing.”
Ever since arriving here, Mina had felt like she’d turned into an idiot. She thought she knew just about everything worth knowing about hunters, yet the knowledge she brought with her seemed to shatter like puzzle pieces and reassemble in completely unexpected places.
“Stop standing there spacing out and follow me.”
“W-wait a second!”
“Wait nothing. If you don’t move fast, those guys will charge you outright.”
Min-jeong grabbed her wrist and pulled. Mina was startled by the strength behind it. She had heard that B-Grade hunters with body-reinforcement mana were quite powerful, but she hadn’t expected this level. It wasn’t enough to make her pull away, so she obediently followed where Min-jeong led. After all, she could see the other hunters ducking behind derelict buildings or collapsed walls without exception.
“Oh, sis.”
Behind the wall where they hid, Cheok-jeong was already grinning and waving. The sight felt relatively friendly, so Mina waved back. He laughed.
“Whoa, sis, when I first saw you I figured you were just a sweet innocent type. Turns out you’re actually a total fox, huh?”
“What are you suddenly talking about?!”
She had occasionally overheard female colleagues badmouthing her and calling her a vixen, but hearing it from a man left her stunned.
“Whoa, whoa, don’t misunderstand. I’m just wondering how you managed to seduce that picky bastard.”
“Seduce…”
Mina could only make a complicated face. She had received her share of confessions. But her attention had always been on studying and raising her mana, so she had turned them all down. It was true that she had admired the hunter stories she read in fantasy novels. She had been impressed by their lives and heroic tales, the ones turned into dramas, movies, and news segments.
Anyway, that was why she had rejected the confessions. She still had a general idea of how men usually behaved.
“Nah, I always figured that guy would live his whole life alone,” Cheok-jeong continued, apparently reading her thoughts.
“Really? Why?”
When Mina looked genuinely confused, Cheok-jeong scratched his cheek.
“His likes and dislikes are just way too clear-cut.”
“I thought he was either a living saint or had some kind of issue.”
Even Min-jeong, who had been pretending to scan the area outside the wall with disinterest, let out a sigh as she spoke. Mina tilted her head. Somehow, this version of Seok-jun sounded very different from the one she knew. The moment she recalled those murky green eyes and warm breath that had drawn close to her face, her cheeks flushed. Min-jeong gave her an incredulous look.
“Wait. You didn’t seduce him—you got seduced?”
“That’s even more impressive. Sis, what kind of trick did you use?”
“I-I didn’t do anything like that.”
Mina felt embarrassed by their teasing, but at least she was starting to adapt to the situation. That relief was short-lived. Someone clicked their tongue nearby.
“Tsk tsk. Who’s trying to ruin a young lady’s life by seducing her? What a waste. She’s far too good for that.”
When she turned, she saw the middle-aged men, including the one named Woo-seok who had been drinking makgeolli earlier.
“Finishes his work and leaves without a word. Guy hasn’t got a speck of manners.”
“Not a single person here actually knows what that bastard does for a living.”
“That’s not all. Rumors are going around that he buries people for fun, you know?”
They were clearly speaking loud enough for her to hear. As Mina looked their way, Cheok-jeong shook his head.
“Don’t mind them, sis. Seok-jun racks up the most contribution points, so those uncles are just jealous.”
“Jealous? Who’s jealous?! We call a suspicious bastard suspicious—what else are we supposed to say?!”
Leaving the bickering men behind, Mina recalled how Seok-jun had cornered Gu Gang-woo. Even though Gu Gang-woo was an elite A-Grade hunter, Seok-jun had toyed with him like it was nothing. It made sense when she thought about what HHH stood for, but it was still an impressive feat considering Seok-jun was only B-Grade.
Huh? Now that I think about it, how was Seok-jun inside the gate in the first place?
She suddenly remembered that their first meeting had taken place inside a gate. It was true that B-Grade hunters could enter gates if they wore proper equipment, but only low-grade ones. The place where she and Gu Gang-woo had been was an A-Grade high-density gate. In C-Grade gates and above, B-Grade hunters were practically no different from civilians no matter what gear they wore. Yet Seok-jun had been perfectly fine there and had saved her.
Is it because of his nullification-type mana?
But Seok-jun’s mana didn’t feel like typical nullification. That type usually erased an opponent’s mana directly rather than binding them with something like a rope.
She was still pondering the nature of his power when—
Vroooom!
A faint motorcycle engine reached her ears. When she lifted her head at the sound, she saw Seok-jun riding toward them from the distance.
“Stop fighting and get ready. Cowboy’s here.”
The moment Min-jeong spotted him and spoke, the others clamped their mouths shut as if they had never been shouting and pressed themselves flat against the wall.
She wondered why they were hiding now that Seok-jun was coming—until she saw the massive bison charging after him.
“You lure monsters like that?!”
She had never imagined he would use a motorcycle to draw them in. Maybe she was too used to standard gate clearing, but even then, herding monsters with a bike was beyond common sense. Especially Frenzy Bisons. Their size rivaled two-story buildings and their strength was so immense that during the early days of the gate outbreaks they had pushed tanks aside. There had even been talk of raising their rank from D-Grade.
Crack!
“Moooooo!”
Seok-jun swung the rope like a whip, taunting a single Frenzy Bison and leading it straight toward them. As they drew closer, the roar of the motorcycle engine and the thunder of hooves grew louder. The hunters drew their weapons.
“You don’t use guns?”
Most of what they pulled out were combat hammers or maces. At best, spears or swords. To her question, Cheok-jeong answered.
“I get what you’re thinking, sis. Hunters who carry guns like Seok-jun are pretty rare.”
The licensing exams were brutally strict, they had to retake tests every year to keep the permit, and the cost of each bullet was no joke. Most hunters preferred the simplicity of cold weapons.
“That’s why almost everyone here has body-reinforcement mana.”
The more she learned, the more unique Seok-jun seemed. While she stood against the wall with the others, the motorcycle finally entered the village, accompanied by a deafening—
“Moooooo!”
The bison’s cry rang out far louder than expected. Its massive size made it easy to track even without looking.
The instant Seok-jun on the motorcycle passed their hiding spot—
“Hah!”
Min-jeong burst out first. Her hammer slammed into the Frenzy Bison’s left leg joint with a sickening crunch.
Crack!
“Moo?!”
The creature lost its balance and slid, unable to fight its own momentum. Cheok-jeong whistled.
“Whew. As expected of the Gorilla.”
“I can hear you, you know! Want me to start with you?!”
“Eek, I’ll head out first then, sis.”
He exaggeratedly shrank his neck at Min-jeong’s shout, then advanced on the Frenzy Bison with sword in hand.
“Moooo!!”
Only now did the monster realize it had been lured. Even with one injured leg, it thrashed wildly and began spewing flames from its nostrils. That fire was another reason people argued about its grade, but since equipment could block it easily, the rank had never been raised.
“Ow, hot! You should’ve stayed quietly on that energy drink logo! Why’d you have to come to reality and make people suffer!”
“Moooooo!”
Cheok-jeong grumbled after getting grazed by the flames. He dodged the wildly swinging hooves and stabbed the creature’s back. When the bison, in pain, spun to kick him, Woo-seok leaped from the opposite side and smashed its spine with a mace.
“Man, if we could eat these things, how many servings of beef would that be? They look sturdy enough to make great yukhoe.”
“Uncle, that’s the fifth time you’ve said that. You’ll die from mana poisoning.”
“I’m just saying! Just saying!”
They worked in perfect sync, attacking from opposite sides every time the Frenzy Bison tried to twist and counter. The sounds of its spine shattering under maces and hammers filled the air. Blood sprayed everywhere, soaking the clothes of everyone fighting up close.
Craaaack!
“Moooooo!”
Finally Min-jeong brought her hammer down on its skull. The creature let out a dying cry and collapsed.
“Seriously! Every time this thing shows up I’m sick of the fishy smell and the mess!”
After delivering the final blow, she glared at her blood-soaked clothes in irritation.
“Still, the pay’s better, right?”
“As long as the money’s good, a little fatigue doesn’t matter.”
Woo-seok and the others leaned against the still-bleeding corpse, laughing as if it were nothing.
“So who told you to rush ahead like a gorilla every time and get drenched in blood?”
“You finished talking yet?! You damn country bumpkin!”
While she watched Min-jeong and Cheok-jeong argue, Seok-jun approached. She spoke to him.
“Did you really use the motorcycle for this kind of thing?”
It was no different from a cowboy, just with a motorcycle instead of a horse. And since the monster was a bison, it actually suited him perfectly.
“It’s easier to lure and catch them this way,” he answered.
“How long does it usually take to finish like this?”
“Since thirty to forty Frenzy Bisons usually spawn, we should be done before sunset.”
Mina thought about how long normal gate raids took, realized it was still morning, and spoke without thinking.
“Isn’t this too inefficient?”
“What?”
“Ah.”
She realized her voice had been louder than intended when Min-jeong cut in. When she glanced back at Seok-jun’s bitter smile, sure enough, every hunter who had been resting against the bison corpse was now staring straight at her. Cold sweat ran down her back.