Chapter 173
Chapter 173
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Translator: uly
Chapter: 173
Chapter Title: Part 2 Episode 36
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“Closing the gate, right?”
Sanghoon had followed along when Dun said he was heading to a gate, but the spot they reached after climbing the mountain was a flat expanse all around.
There wasn’t anything that looked like a gate nearby. Exhausted from the hike, Dun plopped down on the ground and crossed his arms.
“You think someone panicking about gate crimes is gonna handle monsters just fine? Let’s start with something light.”
Gruffly spitting out the words, Dun reached into his pocket and pulled out a tin case with an ornate gold trim.
He took out a piece of gum from inside, unwrapped the paper, and popped it into his mouth to chew.
“Here.”
Dun grabbed another piece from the tin case and tossed it to Sanghoon.
“What’s this?”
“Roqueurin gum, a specialty from my territory. Good for stamina recovery.”
“Your territory?”
“Ended up being a duke’s kid somehow.”
Ah... A fantasy otaku, huh.
Giving up on arguing, Sanghoon stared holes into the gum. It was a strange square-shaped piece.
“Nothing weird in it.”
Pop!
Dun’s bubble gum burst. Cautiously unwrapping the gum Dun had given him, Sanghoon chewed it.
His body felt instantly refreshed.
“Before we start, mind if I ask something?”
As Sanghoon’s expression relaxed while chewing the gum, Dun spoke up.
“You’ve got monster phobia, so why try to become a Hunter?”
Sanghoon shot him another distrustful look.
“How’d you know? You investigate me or something?”
“Idiot, I saw you during your rank exam.”
Dun snickered, and Sanghoon suddenly felt embarrassed. Mentioning something so personal out of nowhere had put him even more on guard without realizing it.
“Anyway, why do you wanna be a Hunter?”
“Ah, it’s kinda personal...”
Sanghoon hesitated for a moment before continuing.
“If the friends I’ve lived with like family my whole life died somewhere without me knowing, I don’t think I could handle it.”
“...”
“It’s a foolish greed. But since there’s a glimmer of hope, I keep trying.”
Dun gave a wry smile as he listened to Sanghoon’s excuse-like explanation. It hit a little hard because he understood it all too well.
It was different from his own situation, where he’d chosen the path of an ordinary person midway because hope hadn’t even been visible—and that made him both envious and relieved.
“...When exactly did the monster phobia start? Were you just scared because they kill people, or was there some trigger?”
Sanghoon hadn’t been the type to tremble at the sight of monsters from the get-go.
“I’m not sure myself. When I was young, I was actually proactive about taking them down, but at some point, they just started scaring me. And it hurt my heart a bit, too.”
“Why’d it hurt?”
At Dun’s question, Sanghoon fell into thought for a moment.
He’d sought out various people to overcome his monster phobia, but since it was such a common issue, no satisfying solutions came up.
Everyone he talked to concluded it was because his parents had been torn apart by monsters or his friends had died to them.
But for him, the gruesome deaths of his parents and friends fueled his hatred of monsters, not his phobia.
He’d even gone to his sister Rahee late in the game, hoping to pinpoint some specific trigger.
‘A blueprint of a person drawn through understanding... The imagination you create is a composite of the unconscious... Drawing out the unconscious that stimulates emotions to show you the illusion of that memory... Insomnium Veracitas...’
After Rahee, ever the otaku who believed flair was life, chanted the spell she’d crafted with flair, he’d seen one vision.
An uncertain vision—whether it was his own imagination or a dream.
A strange crystal protruded from the solar plexus of the Abyss kids, and a small fragment broke off from it, soon multiplying endlessly.
The same kind of crystal emerged from his own solar plexus. It shattered into pieces, and some of those replicated endlessly.
Then, grotesque lifeforms grew from the replicated crystals and devoured his parents, tearing them to pieces.
After seeing that, monsters terrified him beyond measure.
But it was just a simple dream and vision, so he held his tongue.
“Dunno. Maybe because I don’t even remember my parents’ faces, and imagining them ripped apart by monsters.”
“...”
Dun stared steadily at Sanghoon’s face.
“Got it for now.”
Rising slowly to his feet and brushing off his butt, Dun stood up.
“Let’s start light.”
“What’re we doing?”
“Gotta get you slowly used to creatures that look like monsters.”
A few steps away from Sanghoon, Dun cast a skill.
‘Rainbow Poop Summon.’
Using his creature summon skill, Dun called forth a bunch of rainbow poops. Shiny liquid-like lifeforms spawned in droves around him.
The rainbow poops, slithering aimlessly near Dun’s feet, spotted him and rolled enthusiastically toward him.
[Tweep...!]
[Gloop...]
They climbed up to his shoulders and head, nuzzling against his body.
“W-What... What came out?”
“My gum wads.”
“You’re a summoner?”
“Something like that.”
After peeling the rainbow poops off his clothes and setting them on the ground, Dun pulled a long balloon from his inventory.
He’d snagged it from a village kid’s birthday party.
Blowing it up and tying it securely, he shaped it into a balloon sword.
He coated it with Lequin’s sweat to make it hard to pop.
Dun handed the roughly made balloon sword to Sanghoon.
“Here, yours’d hurt, so use this. Hit those cute gum wads with it. No electric magic.”
“...”
Sanghoon reluctantly gripped the balloon sword and stood before the rainbow poops.
The unidentified creatures before him, the balloon—everything gave off a party vibe. He wanted to be tense but couldn’t.
“No way these count as scary. They’re so cute.”
“Seems fine.”
“If it’s scary, say it’s scary. Don’t hold it in and burst into tears.”
“...Got it.”
Deeply embarrassed, Sanghoon flushed red. He felt a bit grateful that Dun was tailoring this to him, but the way he said it was annoying.
Despite the light atmosphere, to take it seriously on the laid-out stage, Sanghoon straightened his back and raised the balloon sword.
Seeing Sanghoon ready, Dun spoke to the rainbow poops.
“Attack that bald kid. Come back to me when you get hit by the balloon.”
At Dun’s command, the rainbow poops all turned red in unison.
Forming pointy spikes on their round bodies, they froze just those parts to harden them.
Now shaped like red chestnut burrs, the rainbow poops rolled toward Sanghoon.
Sanghoon swatted away the incoming, somewhat hazardous burrs with his balloon sword.
In an instant, he’d touched every single rainbow poop once.
“Not bad.”
After a brief compliment, Dun stroked the heads of the returning rainbow poops.
“Alright, success. Next stage.”
This time, Dun asked the rainbow poops to mimic leech monsters.
Nipin’s leech monsters and real-world F-rank leech monsters didn’t differ much in appearance.
Since Daboseok had similar critters, the rainbow poops recalled their forms and adjusted.
Soon, several colorful, wriggling leech monsters appeared.
“Scared of this? Be honest.”
“...A little.”
Separating the unconscious info from his past and the current sight was incredibly tough.
He had to separate them to face it squarely, but it was still hard.
At Sanghoon’s admission of slight fear, Dun nodded and instructed the rainbow poops again.
“Can you make it a bit rounder and cuter? Wrinkles, teeth shapes, that stuff.”
The rainbow poops wriggled again, altering their wrinkle expressions and teeth shapes.
The leeches overall became much cuter.
“Now?”
“Seems okay.”
“Good.”
Taking a deep breath, Sanghoon thrust the balloon sword into each leech (rainbow poop) body during the next attack.
The rainbow poops giggled in clear voices as they returned to Dun.
“Ready for the next stage?”
“Yeah.”
Dun asked the rainbow poops to redo the leech form from earlier.
As the more precisely shaped rainbow poops attacked again, Sanghoon swiftly struck them.
Thanks to the gradual changes, he could fend off the leech-monster-shaped rainbow poops with fainter fear than before.
“Alright, easy mode set one complete. We’ll repeat this until you feel zero fear for a while.”
“Got it.”
“I’ll ramp up the difficulty, and by the end, you’ll face your scariest monster without fear. Long as you follow my lead.”
“...I’ll follow during training.”
Dun’s methods definitely had a solid system.
No idea why he was going this far, but if it was pure pity, he had to live up to the expectations mixed in with that goodwill.
It felt good that those expectations matched his own hopes.
“Sanghoon.”
Dun suddenly called him. Sanghoon turned his gaze to Dun.
“Watching you move in the test, you’ve got potential.”
Dun smirked mischievously, curling up the corner of his mouth.
“Don’t let X-meal get you down.”
The setting sun’s red glow painted the sky vividly. Dun’s hair swayed gently in the breeze, his smile radiant against the sunset.
It resembled the bright smile of someone he cherished dearly, making his heart ache tenderly all of a sudden.
Strange, for someone he’d just met and barely knew. It made him choke up for no reason.
“Not down.”
Awkwardly rubbing his nape, Sanghoon replied curtly.
With someone working this hard to help him, he wanted to show his resolve to give it his all.
“Can do a few more sets? Let’s get you used to leech monsters by tonight.”
“If you think it’s possible, go for it.”
Dun sat back down and reset the rainbow poops to their initial form. He had them attack Sanghoon from the first stage again.
As they repeated sets, the sun slowly dipped below the horizon.
Watching Sanghoon intently, Dun grew drowsy and dozed off against a tree.
It didn’t suit his personality to coax Sanghoon, dash up the mountain, and summon critters nonstop—he was exhausted.
“Don’t doze off. Go home and sleep comfortably.”
Spotting the sleeping Dun, Sanghoon poked him awake.
Tsk. Dun wiped the drool he’d shed in sleep with his sleeve.
Blearily opening his eyes, he saw rainbow poops and Sanghoon scattered everywhere.
Rubbing his eyes with his hand, Dun stood and stretched.
“Done?”
“Yeah.”
Dun casually snatched the knife from Sanghoon’s weapon band, marked the tree he’d leaned on, and handed it back.
“Come here around 4 PM every day.”
Sanghoon nodded as he took the knife. Transportation might pinch a bit, but he could cut food costs.
He’d gotten so immersed that he could approach realistic leeches without mental resistance—it was amazing, so he trained nonstop.
Before he knew it, it was midnight.
About to head back, voices suddenly rose from the base of the mountain.
“Sanghoon!!!! Kidnapped or what!!!!!”
“Just stay alive!!!”
“If anything’s cut off, make sure you kept it!”
They were B-Class Hunters who’d seen the message he’d left out of wariness toward Dun and come searching out of worry.
“Popular guy, friends coming to greet you even in these deep mountains.”
“Ah... Sorry for not trusting you.”
“Arm in arm, go down friendly-like.”
“Got it.”
Dun turned toward the voices. Pushing it a bit, he used Clairvoyance to check the kids making the noise.
‘Been a while, everyone...’
Faces he’d buried in memory, ones he hadn’t thought to see again.
Chuckling softly, Dun rubbed his aching eyes from the Clairvoyance.
“Hey!!! I’m fine!!!! Heading down soon!!!”
“You crazy bastard, you scared us!!!!”
“Why’re you up there!!!!!!”
They yelled back and forth, closing the distance. The kids searching for Sanghoon quickly climbed to his spot.
The friend they’d thought kidnapped and tortured stood pristine on the mountain.
Like he’d just gone for a stroll.
“Huh? Limbs intact. Lame.”
“Intact and pulling aggro? Pay our taxi fare.”
“Harsh.”
Sanghoon laughed and shot back.
Before leaving, he turned to say goodbye to Dun. But no one was there.
‘Must’ve gone ahead.’
He had teleportation-like skills, after all.
Sanghoon headed down the mountain arm-in-arm with his friends, thinking he’d search for the Hunter named Dun as soon as he got back.