Chapter 18
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 18
Chapter Title: Training Like the Real Thing
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‘Damn otaku bastard. It’s all because of you.’
Three months had already passed, but Kim Cheol-min still had nightmares. Dreams where a gray monster swung a jungle knife right in front of him.
The content of the dream was always the same. The monster swung its sword, and he instinctively raised his arm, only to lose his left hand.
He woke up screaming at the same time. He’d sigh in relief, realizing it was just a nightmare, then scream again upon seeing his empty left sleeve.
His hand was gone. The nightmare hadn’t ended. No, the nightmare would haunt him for the rest of his life.
He felt wronged. Why did only he have to end up like this? Even becoming an Awakener hadn’t eased his resentment.
He just didn’t know how to vent it or who to blame, so he swallowed it all down inside.
Then he ran into Cha In-hyeok.
‘You, an Awakener? When? How?’
In that moment, he realized what had happened to him. Why he’d gone up to the rooftop that day, how he’d encountered the hobgoblin. Tracing it back, it all led to that guy.
Cha In-hyeok.
Damn otaku bastard.
He hadn’t liked him from the first moment they met. He seemed ominous, bad luck personified.
‘It’s all your fault.’
Rage blinded him in an instant. He felt like he couldn’t go on without getting revenge.
Just then, the Instructor handed them weapons and told them to fight. With the stage all set like this, there was no reason to hesitate.
‘Last time, I lost because I let my guard down, but today’s different. I’m an Awakener too. Level 3 at that!’
There was no way he’d lose to some otaku like him if they were both Awakeners.
From base stamina to fighting experience and level, he had the edge in everything. And crucially, he’d survived a brush with death.
‘I survived against a hobgoblin. I withstood that monster’s killing intent!’
In truth, he’d been crushed by the killing intent and passed out from the shock of losing his arm, but in Kim Cheol-min’s memory, it had been embellished into him bravely standing up to the hobgoblin’s attack.
To escape the recurring nightmares, he had no choice but to distort reality like that.
That’s why he never even considered the possibility of losing. He only pondered how to inflict on Cha In-hyeok the exact same... no, even greater pain than what he’d endured.
“Die, you otaku bastard!”
* * *
Kim Cheol-min charged like a raging bull, stabbing wildly with his dagger. His attacks somehow looked chaotic and frantic.
Was that why? He wasn’t utilizing his advantage of quick movements at all.
‘This guy... doesn’t have much real combat experience.’
One thing I’d realized while practicing swordsmanship alone over the past month was that ‘swordsmanship is way harder to learn than I imagined.’
Just gripping the sword properly, each stance and connecting movements, responses—there was so much to study.
Even with a dagger alone, there were four types of grips.
From the saber grip for thrusting forward, the hammer grip good for powerful downward strikes, the ice pick grip holding it reverse, and the camouflage grip similar to ice pick but with the blade pressed against the forearm for ambushes.
Kim Cheol-min, having some experience with daggers, was using the saber grip suitable for thrusting.
Meanwhile, I countered with the hammer grip, squeezing hard.
‘The saber grip allows fast consecutive attacks, but the power behind the weapon is weaker than the hammer grip. When daggers clash, I’ll always win.’
In fact, parrying a light, fast weapon like a dagger was impossible with average dynamic vision and reflexes. Of course, with my agility at 26, it was as easy as breathing.
But if I did it too effortlessly, it’d give away my skill level.
‘So this has to look like pure luck.’
I retreated while swinging my dagger wildly.
After about three misses, on the fourth swing, I knocked Kim Cheol-min’s dagger aside.
With a ‘clang!’, sparks flew, and his dagger went flying off to the side.
“Urk!”
“How’s this? The parry of someone with 500 hours in Dark Seoul Playtime.”
Suddenly disarmed, Kim Cheol-min hesitated and backed away.
No matter how berserk he was, he wouldn’t charge barehanded at someone with a knife.
“Just give up already.”
“You cowardly bastard. Because of you, I... my hand...”
“Sigh. It’s still my fault to the bitter end?”
Any lingering pity I had for him vanished at the sight of him blaming others right up to the end.
Being pitiful was one thing; being in the wrong was another. Losing an arm was unfortunate, but using it as an excuse to take it out on others made him no different from a monster.
‘Still... I’m calmer than I expected.’
I’d thought I might get angry like last time. I’d even worried about what to do if he lost control.
But it was just needless worry. Surprisingly, I felt nothing. No resentment, no anger. Just one thing: contempt.
I didn’t feel like fighting anymore. I opened my mouth to end it here.
“Hey, life isn’t like alchemy—it doesn’t follow the law of equivalent exchange. You becoming an Awakener in exchange for your arm could be part of that. So stop resenting me and...”
“What bullshit is that, you otaku bastard!”
“...Nothing. Just thought Automail was cool.”
“You son of a... Raaah! Die!”
Kim Cheol-min charged at me again. Weaponless, but clinging desperately.
As I pondered how to handle this, he manipulated the steel prosthetic on his left hand, and suddenly a long spike-like blade shot out from the fist area. A real sharpened blade.
‘Dangerous.’
My senses sharpened in an instant. Instinctively, I backed away while swinging my dagger to knock aside the blade on his prosthetic.
But unlike a dagger, the prosthetic was firmly attached to his wrist, so I couldn’t send it flying.
“Heh heh heh! Useless!”
Kim Cheol-min grinned creepily and swung again. I parried each time, but the blade on his prosthetic was longer than my dagger, making it hard to deflect.
Since I was moving at similar speeds to hide my strength, creating distance wasn’t easy either.
He must’ve thought he had the upper hand, clinging on tenaciously.
‘Wait... clinging close?’
Kim Cheol-min had closed in to arm’s reach and swung his blade.
As I habitually retreated, I felt a wall behind me. Pushed back relentlessly, I’d been cornered. His eyes gleamed.
“You’re dead!”
His blade aimed for my throat. The situation reminded me of that day’s fight.
The difference was, back then I’d lost my reason to rage, but now I was perfectly calm, assessing the situation.
‘No room to dodge. His weapon’s longer, and the distance is closing fast. In that case...’
Unlike before, I charged forward. His blade was on the prosthetic, long enough that getting inside his guard would make it hard for him to counter.
Of course, I had to survive his first attack.
‘He’s letting his guard down because his weapon’s longer.’
Kim Cheol-min was charging with his chest wide open, confident in his first strike advantage.
Let’s shatter that confidence, shall we?
Whoosh—
Before he could close in further, I threw my dagger. Maybe because of the close range? Even on my first throw, it embedded perfectly in his gut.
“Argh!”
Kim Cheol-min screamed, clutching the wound, and I slipped into the gap.
He belatedly tried to swing, but with the knife in his belly, his movements were sluggish.
In that time, I reached right in front of him.
“Let’s end this. Wolverine.”
I slammed an uppercut into his jaw.
* * *
“You all saw that, right? Purely in terms of stats, the trainee who placed 11th should be way higher than the winner. But as you saw, the one with lower stats won. Fights aren’t decided just by stat differences.”
The Instructor said that as he yanked the blade out of Kim Cheol-min’s gut. A agonized scream erupted along with a spray of blood.
At the gruesome sight, some trainees turned away. But the Instructor muttered leisurely, ‘Oh, fountain show?’ before suddenly slapping Kim Cheol-min’s cheek.
“Argh!”
“Quiet down. You’re deafening me.”
Kim Cheol-min shut his mouth only after two more slaps. The Instructor finally lowered his hand with a satisfied expression.
“Using a hidden weapon in sparring is against the rules... but I’ll let it slide today. It’s the first day, and you didn’t know. No next time, though. Pull something like this again, and I’ll chop off your remaining hand and toss you to the goblins as feed. Got it?”
“Y-Yes! Yes!”
At the Instructor’s brutal warning, Kim Cheol-min hurriedly hid his hand. He definitely had that strong-weak dynamic.
Groveling to the Instructor, unable to say a word to Lee Joo-hyuk, picking fights with me for no reason.
“Get up already.”
“B-But my gut... Huh?”
Kim Cheol-min’s gut was already healed clean. He must’ve treated it while lecturing. It proved they weren’t doing live blade spars for nothing—impeccable healing skills.
‘The Instructor’s 3-star, right?’
That was enough to dominate a whole district. Plus, all the assistants were 2-star Hunters.
No matter how reckless Kim Cheol-min was, he couldn’t act out freely in the training camp.
“Think of that as a simple initiation rite. The real fights come in two months, after you’ve learned basic weapon techniques. Then you’ll be fighting for your lives. Not with daggers like this, but proper weapons.”
The Instructor drew the longsword from his waist. The sharp blade glinted in the sunlight.
I might’ve thought it was cool before, but now it gave me chills. Fighting with something like that could really kill you.
“This is insane! We came here to train, not to do crazy shit like this!”
One trainee protested. Others nodded in agreement, many dissatisfied with the Instructor’s antics.
They demanded proper explanations or an end to this ridiculous training.
But all they got back was mocking scorn.
“If you don’t like it, get out. I’ve got no interest in teaching cowards.”
“That’s so irresponsible! You have a duty to teach us!”
“Duty? Hahaha! You’re talking like you’ve had it easy. Hey, latte boy. Back in my day, we got thrown straight into the field without even this kinda training. No healers back then either, so if you got hurt, you mostly died or ended up crippled.”
The Instructor’s murderous glare fixed on the complaining trainee. His voice shrank under the pressure.
“S-So you want us to go through the same?”
“If that’s what I wanted, I’d toss you all into a Gate right now. Actually, should I? I’m sick of the whining.”
“Eek!”
“Relax. I don’t have a hobby of cleaning up corpses. I’m doing this kinda training to save as many of you as possible. You need realistic training to fight without freezing up in real combat.”
“......”
He had a point. Monster hunting wasn’t a game, as the Instructor said. It was life or death.
Even top Hunters died from minor mistakes in real fights. To survive, you needed brutal training.
“I’ve fought like this all along, and I don’t know any other way. So if you don’t like my methods, leave now. There are plenty of other training camps. Though they won’t be much different...”
The Instructor kept talking. No such thing as the comfy Hunter life you see in the media. If you wanted to be a Hunter, steel yourself.
Cowed by his ferocity, a few trainees gave up and left. But most stood firm, having come prepared for this.
I was in the latter group. Or rather, I had no choice.
I had to become a Hunter. Get stronger, better equipped. That was the only way to survive.
“That’s it for today. Head back to your barracks by squad. Oh, and if you fight when I’m not around, both of you get forcibly expelled. Don’t do something stupid over pride and regret it.”
The Instructor shot Kim Cheol-min one last glare before dismissing the trainees.