Chapter 56: The Woes of an F-Rank
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 56: The Woes of an F-Rank
I stared questioningly at the man I’d never seen before.
“Who are you?”
As soon as I voiced my question, his eyes widened menacingly, and he suddenly shoved his shoulder into me.
Wondering what he was doing, I pulled back, and he let out a sound. “Oh? You’re dodging?”
“Dodging?”
“Well, of course I’d dodge.”
Then, it hit me. I remembered someone associated with a shoulder bump.
Ah, he’s the guy who looked like a real-life tanned delinquent who shoulder-checked me on the first day.
“Judging by your expression, you remember.”
A triumphant smile spread across his face.
“Lee Su-ho, what are you doing? Get over here.”
“Oppa, they said I’m a C-rank!”
Just then, two men and a woman approached and joined him.
They seemed to be his friends from the waiting area, including the girlfriend I’d seen before.
More importantly, with a face that menacing, his name was Su-ho.
His name, Su-ho, means ‘guardian.’ He couldn’t even guard his own looks, so what was he supposed to be guarding?
At that moment, his girlfriend looked at me and immediately scowled.
“What is it? Why are you picking a fight with my oppa again!”
Sorry, but he’s the one who started it.
She looked to be in her early twenties.
She seemed completely naive, the type of person who thinks the entire world revolves around her boyfriend.
“Hey, this is the guy. The bastard who tattled to the instructor.”
“A snitch?”
Lee Su-ho pointed at me and tattled to his friends.
“This bastard is an F-rank.”
“F-rank? Are you kidding me? That’s total trash-tier. Isn’t that basically a civilian?”
“Wow, so F-ranks actually exist. Fucking pathetic.”
It seemed Lee Su-ho had thoroughly bad-mouthed me to them, as they began to openly insult me.
Lee Su-ho looked at my face and sneered.
“What, you pissed? What else can a mere F-rank scrub do besides snitching?”
I asked him nonchalantly, “And what rank are you?”
“Haha, you bastard, don’t piss your pants hearing this. I’m a C-rank. With B-rank potential, no less, you son of a bitch.”
“Oh.”
He’d die if I shot him with a Brain Thunder.
I should be careful.
“Who does this brat think he is, trying to act tough in front of an expert?”
Baeksan spoke to me, looking genuinely unable to comprehend the situation.
Thanks to Baeksan, my raw power output alone put me on par with returnees.
Perhaps that’s why both Baeksan and I couldn’t help but look at him with pity.
Reality is, by nature, a cruel thing.
“Alright, is that all you wanted?”
I patted his shoulder as if feeling sorry for him.
Lee Su-ho’s face began to twist, flushing red with rage.
It seemed he interpreted my pity as mockery.
“All I wanted? You bastard…!”
“Wow, an A-rank! Congratulations!”
Just then, a commotion arose from behind us.
Wondering what it was, I looked over Lee Su-ho’s shoulder and saw Eunnamu standing there.
Having removed her hand from the testing machine, Eunnamu was calmly walking this way as if it were no big deal. When our eyes met, she gave a languid smile.
“Ha-chan.”
The moment Eunnamu approached, calling my name, Lee Su-ho and his cronies exchanged wary glances.
“They said she’s an A-rank?”
“Hey, hey, she’s coming this way.”
“Are we going to get caught in the crossfire?”
Seeing the approaching Eunnamu, they began to back away.
For hunters, rank was everything, and they seemed crushed by the difference in class.
“Shit, you got lucky.”
Lee Su-ho left me with a warning and departed with his group.
His girlfriend, who was about to follow him, turned back to me and said, “Stop picking fights with my Su-ho oppa.”
“Then you should manage your boyfriend better.”
“Hah? The nerve. Seriously.”
Leaving behind the same words as last time, as if it were a habit, she followed after Lee Su-ho.
“What was that about?”
As I watched them leave, the approaching Eunnamu asked.
“Eunnamu, when you get the chance later, could you smack each of them on the back of the head?”
“I will.”
Maybe Eunnamu is actually a nice person.
With that thought, I glanced back at Baeksan.
“Eunnamu is controlling her output, just like you.”
Eunnamu was also tricking the machine.
Considering she used to assassinate returnees, she had to be a pretty high rank, right?
Is it because I’m hanging out with returnees? Lately, ranks have started to seem so trivial.
Besides, Seo-ho and Si-ho were S-rank hunters.
Even Ji-eun was a hunter with A-rank potential.
Because of that, hunters of lower ranks had started to feel like nothing special.
This is a problem. My sense of reality is starting to get dull.
By normal standards, even a C-rank was an extraordinary being.
No wonder it was so ridiculous when Lee Su-ho tried to act tough, bragging about being a C-rank.
It seemed I needed to get my perspective back at this Hunter Training Academy.
“Hey, you.”
Just then, with the sound of footsteps, someone started walking this way.
Lee Su-ho had just left, so I turned my head, wondering who it was. A woman wearing only the top of an instructor’s uniform, thrown on carelessly, was there.
I recognized her the moment I saw her.
Because no one else had that unique smiling-eye expression.
“Oh, Imugi?”
“Ahaha, thanks for recognizing me. It’s funny when people call me by my alias, but I don’t know why Ha Seo-ho hates it so much. Call me Jo Si-a.”
She was none other than the S-rank hunter Jo Si-a—a name you had to be careful pronouncing.
As my eyes widened at the fact that she was here, Jo Si-a was looking not at me, but at Eunnamu.
“Is it you?”
She stroked her chin, then shifted her gaze, her eyes narrowed to slits.
Her gaze landed on Seo-ho.
So she followed Seo-ho here.
As I realized why she’d come to the academy, she looked back this way, her eyes nearly closed in a smile.
“It’s probably not you.”
Her gaze fell away from me coldly.
I’m hurt.
Meanwhile, Seo-ho glared at her, his eyes wide with anger.
Jo Si-a let out a little “hmph” sound through her nose, then suddenly threw her arms over my and Eunnamu’s shoulders.
“Take care of me, newbies.”
Her action made me recall the relationship between her and Seo-ho.
The two of them, alumni of the same high school and classmates at the Hunter Training Academy, had often been portrayed as rivals since long ago.
In fact, Jo Si-a had gone around telling the media, “Snow Mountain Wolf and I are rivals.”
Then her actions right now…
Were most likely an attempt to provoke Seo-ho.
But she probably never imagined that Seo-ho would come all the way to the academy just for a mere F-rank hunter.
That’s why she saw Eunnamu next to me and must have misunderstood, thinking she was the one connected to Seo-ho.
After all, Eunnamu had tested as an A-rank hunter.
I was probably just treated as the guy who happened to be standing next to her.
Still, the returnees always notice right away that there’s something about me.
Perhaps it was a difference in experience, but it seemed Jo Si-a couldn’t see through to that fact.
“Gasp, it’s Jo Si-a.”
“Oh, for real!?”
Meanwhile, another commotion started up around us.
People who were late to recognize her began to murmur here and there.
“Hello, everyone, hello.”
She waved slyly, greeting them, then released her arms from our shoulders.
“Hmm, let’s save this for later. Mr. Ha Seo-ho’s glare is quite scary.”
With that, she gave Eunnamu a slight eye-smile.
“Well then, see you later.”
She left with those words.
Sparks flew from Seo-ho’s eyes in the distance, but she seemed to be enjoying it.
“That guy over there is an A-rank, they say.”
“Looks like he got scouted. Isn’t he pretty handsome?”
“Wow, by Imugi.”
And Jo Si-a’s actions seemed to have caused a misunderstanding, as Eunnamu instantly became the center of attention.
Finding the stares a little bothersome, she subtly hid her body behind me.
For someone disguised as a man, she had a small frame, so she was completely hidden behind my body.
“Then who’s that guy? Jo Si-a put her arm around him too, right?”
“I don’t know.”
“I heard he was an F-rank earlier. I guess he was just randomly standing next to her.”
And before I knew it, I was being treated as an extra.
Why does my situation seem to be getting worse and worse?
“Then just fire a Brain Thunder at the ceiling or something. That’ll change things in one shot.”
I decided to let Baeksan’s advice go in one ear and out the other.
*
The next place we moved to was the ability testing area.
As expected of a Hunter Training Academy run with heavy government investment, the facilities were brand new.
Just looking at how shiny everything was made it clear how much the nation cared about its hunters.
Well, there was a time when the treatment of hunters in our country was so shit that all the domestic hunters left for foreign countries.
It was a perfect case of locking the barn door after the horse has bolted.
Still, for a small country, we were consistently producing S-rank hunters.
And most importantly, the chairperson of the World Returnee Association was Korean.
I wonder how much the higher-ups know.
As I’ve mentioned before, the identity of the Association’s chairperson had always been shrouded in mystery.
The acting chairperson often made public appearances, but the real one, Ms. Baek Seol-hyang, had never shown her face.
That’s why even I, who you could call a returnee fanatic, didn’t know of Ms. Baek Seol-hyang’s existence.
Come to think of it, maybe I should have asked her about it.
Not much time had passed since I met Ms. Baek Seol-hyang, but I could now confidently say we had grown quite close.
Because after we exchanged numbers, it had become a daily routine to receive texts from her like, “You worked hard today. Rest well.”
From my perspective, Ms. Baek Seol-hyang is an angel.
Her looks, abilities, character, and personality—she was perfect in every way.
It still felt surreal that I had become friends with someone like that.
The kindness she showed me was enough to make even me misunderstand her intentions sometimes.
But why is she called the Iron-Blooded Empress?
From my point of view, I couldn’t understand why she’d be called that, so I crossed my arms and pondered for a moment.
Does Baeksan know?
I glanced at Baeksan. He had been cleaning his ear, but he looked at me and said, “What.”
Never mind, I won’t ask.
“Ha-chan hyung-nim.”
Just then, I heard Seo-ho’s voice.
It seemed he’d taken the opportunity to speak to me while everyone else was distracted.
“You can keep looking forward. I just wanted to tell you something.”
“It’s about Ms. Jo Si-a, isn’t it.”
“Yes, we have a bit of a bad history, so she has a tendency to be annoying about things related to me.”
Seo-ho, you’re quite popular.
But he looked like he’d get angry if I said that, so I just nodded without a word.
“I’ll handle it personally, so please don’t worry about it too much. If she approaches you, you can just ignore her.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
She was Seo-ho’s acquaintance, so it was probably best to listen to him.
“Um, and also.”
Did he have more to say?
As I listened, curious, Seo-ho scratched his head and said, “Si-ho might come looking for you.”
“Si-ho?”
Why was Si-ho coming up all of a sudden?
I stopped myself from turning to look at Seo-ho and scratched my head.
“Why?”
“She’s been complaining nonstop that I came here alone. Knowing her personality, she’s bound to show up unannounced, so if she does, please talk some sense into her and send her back.”
“Okay. I’ll make sure to send her back.”
I gave a casual nod, and Seo-ho apologized as if he felt bad, then left.
“Then, we will begin the ability test.”
And so, the ability test began.