The Little Hunter's Camping Dream
On the highway.
Cars packed bumper to bumper.
The voices spilling from the radios were all saying the same thing.
“We’re experiencing the highest temperatures on record since weather observation began. Everyone, please take care of your health…”
“Typhoons, rainy season, humidity, and now this extreme heat! It really is the worst summer ever. I’m serious…”
“I can’t even sleep at night. When is this summer going to end? I wish it would just disappear already…”
“A lot of you are heading out for summer vacation, so please drive safely. To all our listeners, have a wonderful day…”
The stifling air that made it hard to breathe. Sunlight beating down hard enough to melt the asphalt. Life without air conditioning was impossible. Groans came out automatically.
I feel like I’m going to die!
This is way too much!
It really is the worst summer!
That was why so many people were fleeing the cities, turning the highway into a parking lot.
And that was how they ended up witnessing it—that massive, majestic vehicle standing tall on the road.
“Whoa, Dad, look at that car. It’s super big and looks so weird.”
“…Is it a bus? Or an RV?”
“Wow, I never thought I’d see one in real life.”
Its streamlined body, futuristic design, and cockpit that reminded people of an airplane.
It was a super-luxury high-end RV known as the dream car among serious campers.
The one Lee Sang-byuk had bought on a whim, thinking maybe he’d try camping. After realizing camping in Korea wasn’t all that fun, it had been banished to a warehouse—this monstrous thing that Lee Shin had now dragged back out.
And the person currently sitting in the driver’s seat was Kim Yu-shin.
“Gate anomalies are increasing worldwide. During vacation season, please don’t forget to check safe zones…”
Click.
The radio shut off. Kim Yu-shin glanced toward the passenger seat.
Lee Shin, who had been reviewing documents, lifted his head at the sudden silence. The two men smiled at each other as if they’d planned it.
“What? Do I have something on my face?”
“Just feeling grateful. And… ahem, I’m sorry.”
“Huh? Grateful I get, but sorry?”
“You carved out time from your busy schedule to indulge Soyeon’s stubbornness.”
“Ah, yeah. She was pretty cute about it.”
“It sounds like an excuse, but we honestly never imagined she’d actually go straight to the representative.”
The child who had never thrown a tantrum in her life had suddenly dug her heels in.
She had to go camping, she declared.
Of course her affectionate father, Kim Yu-shin, had gladly agreed. What was so difficult about camping when his daughter wanted it so badly?
They had planned a family camping trip, but that was when the problem appeared.
Soyeon had already become fixated on something strange…!
“She said just family wasn’t enough. The tent has to be ‘bustling,’ apparently. I asked her what ‘bustling’ meant.”
“Bustling? Haha, even her word choice is adorable.”
“She said there need to be lots of people. At least five. The more the better. I still don’t understand where the minimum of five came from.”
“Now that you mention it, Soyeon’s in elementary school. Even when we first met her, she always had such strong opinions.”
“Tell me about it. Her mother’s just as stubborn. When those two start fighting, I can’t even get a word in.”
“The Hwarang who dominates the league is dead last in the family hierarchy? Hahaha, that’s somehow hilarious.”
“The reason Soyeon went to see you this time is because her mother told her she’d consider it if the representative gave permission.”
“Ah, I heard about that too.”
She had blurted it out while cooking without thinking, but the little bean remembered every word and apologized so profusely it was embarrassing. Lee Shin had even gotten scolded for trying to stop her.
But it seemed Kim Yu-shin still felt he hadn’t done enough.
Well, that was understandable. The other party was Representative Lee Shin, after all.
The defending Asian champion representative. The undisputed number one in the current league. An iconic figure not just in Korea but across the entire world league.
Lee Shin—the man currently considered the busiest person in Korea—had gladly gone along with his daughter’s unreasonable request…
Just as he said, Kim Yu-shin and his wife were so grateful and apologetic they could barely lift their heads.
But after the endless stream of apologies, even Lee Shin seemed to decide this wouldn’t do. He set his documents aside and spoke seriously.
“It was a vacation I had to take anyway. Dong-ha hyung already returned his, so if I returned mine too it would look bad. The decision was already made internally.”
“Even so…”
“Just a moment. Please hear me out. And another thing—you were worried about the league, but honestly, when it comes to the league itself, no guild is more comfortable than ours.”
Mir’s record in the first half of the confrontation league was nineteen wins.
Undefeated. They had proven themselves the strongest even against the mighty super teams—Taeyang, Shinhwa, and Kirin.
In a short break period, the only realistic things they could do were reinforce their roster or tweak their strategies.
So let me ask: who should actually be busy?
The other nineteen guilds, excluding ours.
“Yu-shin hyung-nim, we’re the Mir Guild. We’re the best. We can afford to do things our own way. Countermeasures? Reinforcement? That’s for our opponents to worry about—not for us, the ones at the top.”
“What I’m trying to say is that the guild, all of you, and I have earned the right to enjoy this. The glory we’ve achieved. Do you understand?”
Self-objectification.
It was Lee Shin’s specialty. Koreans often mistook it for simply knowing one’s place or false humility, but that wasn’t what he meant.
Accurately assessing the position you stand in, shouldering the proper responsibility and pride, and enjoying the glory that comes with it.
That was what self-objectification meant to Lee Shin.
After hearing all that, Kim Yu-shin seemed to have a lot to think about and finally stopped apologizing.
“Ahem. It’s been a while since we’ve had a proper vacation, so let’s drop the boring talk and have a fresher conversation. Why did Soyeon suddenly get so obsessed with camping?”
“Haha, that’s… well, it’s because of the raids.”
“Huh? The raids?”
“You see…”
As Kim Yu-shin continued his story, Lee Shin’s expression grew increasingly ridiculous until finally—
“For real?! Pfft—bwahahahaha!”
He burst out laughing.
What was with this kid? She was adorable!
Meanwhile, laughter loud enough to shake the entire RV was exploding inside the vehicle as well.
“Hahaha! So that’s how it happened?”
“Puhahaha, my stomach hurts. I’m dying over here.”
“Is that true, Soyeon? How can our Soyeon have such cute thoughts?”
Park Su-bin was genuinely impressed by the pure innocence of a child’s logic. Baek Yeon-woo thought that no matter how mature she tried to act, a kid was still a kid. And Yu Ri-ra gazed at Kim Soyeon with eyes full of uncontainable affection.
Even though the person who should have been showering her with the most love—her mother, Lee Suji—was instead sighing while watching her daughter confidently lift her chin.
“This isn’t something to laugh about, everyone. It’s really serious.”
The natural(?) adventure of raids was far cooler than the artificial(?) duels of confrontation matches.
Fighting together. Burning with fighting spirit together. Looking at the same goal, eating the same food, and sleeping together under the same moon.
One Team.
True team play!!
That was why Kim Soyeon had become obsessed with camping.
She claimed confrontation matches weren’t true raids. Only raids—where you could share more experiences with more comrades—were the real path of a hunter. When Lee Suji first heard it, she had been utterly speechless. Was this really something an eight-year-old would say? Kim Soyeon, what exactly are you so proud of!
In short, after discovering how cool raids were, our Miss Kim Soyeon had chosen camping as the next best way to indirectly experience that feeling.
“Hahaha, our smart little Soyeon is more hardcore than she looks. ‘Hunters are hunters, not gladiators!’ That’s the kind of thing fundamentalists say.”
“You know about that too, Su-bin? I was shocked when I heard it. It was so frustrating.”
“Hehe. But sister-in-law, doesn’t Soyeon watch raid videos? Don’t those require adult verification?”
“Please speak comfortably and call me sister-in-law, Yeon-woo. And about the raids… ugh, it’s all because of that damn YouTube. There’s nothing you can’t find on there. Once she started school, she and her friends looked up everything together. It’s honestly driving me insane.”
“Ugh~ That must be tough, unnie. Looking at my nephew, they say kids these days don’t even use textbooks anymore—just tablets for class. You can’t exactly take their phones away either.”
“Exactly! Lira, you get me.”
Whether kids these days were developing too fast or if the girl currently lifting her chin all the way to the ceiling was simply exceptional… either way, Lee Suji’s head was pounding because of her troublemaker daughter.
“That’s why I’m asking the three of you. Please shatter this cheeky little girl’s fantasies.”
“I’m not cheeky!”
“Ahem, Kim Soyeon. You’re currently being punished.”
“Don’t call me by my full name! Mom Lee Suji only likes her baby!”
“Kim Soyeon, if there are too many people, Mom won’t watch with you?”
“Tsk. I hate you, Mom.”
When Lee Suji whispered softly while patting the baby in her arms, Kim Soyeon puffed her cheeks out like balloons. The sight was so unbearably cute that the three of them burst into laughter again.
They thought it over.
Shatter her fantasies… In other words, they needed to give her some harsh truths about hunters or raids, right?
They had thought it would be easy at first, but now that the moment had come, the words wouldn’t leave their mouths.
No matter how clever Kim Soyeon was, she was still only eight.
Explaining something in a way an eight-year-old could understand was by no means easy.
The three once again realized just how great their professor was for raising them from zero, teaching them everything step by step.
While they were struggling to find the right words, Park Su-bin spoke up first.
He had been watching the muted TV and brought up a topic that occurred to him.
“Um, Soyeon, the gates we enter are dangerous places. See what it says on the TV over there? Gates aren’t like games or stadiums the way you think they are.”
Many people misunderstood this, but although the Bureau had saved humanity from the dangers of gates, it wasn’t a complete salvation in every sense.
If they had truly saved everyone, would the Bureau still be desperately managing gates even now?
“Our country manages them better than most, but gate safety accidents happen far more often than you’d think. More people get hurt than you realize.”
“That’s why one of a hunter’s duties is gate handling. When a gate accident occurs, we actively help by rescuing civilians and resolving the situation. So what I’m trying to say is that it’s not all just cool and glamorous like what you see on screen.”
Park Su-bin was giving her the principled explanation.
But.
“I’ve never once looked down on hunters! In America they call hunters heroes, right? Heroes take responsibility. I, Kim Soyeon, understand this two hundred percent!”
As expected of Kim Soyeon—she wasn’t a girl who would back down so easily.
Defeat.
Park Su-bin stammered, “Uh, uh, yeah,” and closed his mouth.
It was the miserable end of the defeated.
The turn naturally passed to the next person.
Baek Yeon-woo’s turn.
“First, a warning. I’m not very good with words, so don’t take it personally if it hurts.”
“Um… Soyeon, even if you dream of becoming a hunter starting now, that doesn’t mean you can actually become one.”
It felt like he was crushing an eight-year-old’s fresh dream, and he felt bad about it, but hunters weren’t people who made it through ordinary effort—they were the chosen ones.
No matter how desperately you wished for it, if you didn’t receive the selection known as awakening, you couldn’t even step up to the starting line. That was the reality of being a hunter.
The only reason the word “ordinary” could even be added now was because a revolutionary named Lee Shin had appeared in the field. Originally, there had been no such leeway—it was simply an absolute fact.
“And even if you’re lucky enough to awaken, the wall of talent is waiting next. See these sky-blue eyes? I have better eyes than most people, so I can vaguely see that wall of talent. It’s much higher than you think. And it’s cruel.”
Even after awakening, the majority of people lived their entire lives as civilians without ever being able to call themselves hunters.
Most of those ended up doing menial labor in gates, digging up magic stones just to survive.
The few who were filtered out from there played in the lower leagues. The few who survived even that settled into the majors.
And from there, only a tiny fraction ever stepped onto the stage of the confrontation league.
“Soyeon, you said before that the confrontation league members from lower guilds looked stupid. That they were weak and you didn’t understand why. But no—that’s not true. Every single one of them was called a genius when they were young. Even people like that hit rock bottom. That’s what the hunter you’re dreaming of really is.”
For someone who claimed he wasn’t good with words, it was actually an excellent speech.
As a parent, even Lee Suji seemed deeply affected by the topic of talent.
But even so.
“Don’t worry. It’s okay if I can’t awaken. I’ll just represent like Pretty Uncle.”
Kim Soyeon, the girl who didn’t know the meaning of giving up.
She already had a plan from A to Z prepared. She wasn’t going to fold over something like this.
Defeat.
“Ah…!”
“Uh…”
“Ha…”
The three let out sighs as if they had rehearsed it.
She was a formidable opponent.
Now the only hope left was her.
Mir’s final bastion. The personification of super carry.
Yu Ri-ra deployed.
And from the very first blow, she proved exactly why she was Mir’s final bastion with a devastating strike.
“Soyeonss. If there’s no bidet, I can’t use the bathroom.”
Kim Soyeon flinched for the first time.
“The average clear time for a Level 7 Gate is roughly seventeen days.”
There wasn’t one.
“There are mountains, fields, forests, rivers, deserts—tons of different environments.”
But there wasn’t.
They didn’t say what exactly wasn’t there.
Sometimes imagination was more terrifying.
Finally, to the staggering Kim Soyeon, Yu Ri-ra fired her final shot.
A perfect finisher worthy of the nickname Blitz.
“There’s re~ally nothing at all.”
A moment later.
“Waaaaaaaaah!! Unnie’s an idiot!!”
That day, Kim Soyeon’s world came crashing down.
The vehicle came to a stop.
Lee Shin stepped out while carrying Soyeon, who had been clinging to him the entire time.
“Hahahahahaha. That’s what your unnies said.”
“I hate unnie.”
“It’s all because we care about our Soyeon.”
“I don’t care, it was shocking.”
“Let go of your anger, Princess. We’re supposed to have fun.”
The tiny hands gripping the collar of his yellow Hawaiian shirt were so adorable that Lee Shin couldn’t stop smiling.
When Lee Shin, still carrying Soyeon, reached the door, it opened.
The vehicle doors folded outward on both sides, greeting them with a clear blue sky and refreshing breeze.
Lush greenery. A babbling stream. Tents pitched everywhere and the sound of people laughing.
They had arrived at the campsite.
Lee Shin put on his sunglasses. Then he rummaged through his pocket, pulled out the pair he had prepared, and gently placed them on Soyeon.
“Ready?”
“Yes!!”
“Good. Let’s have some fun!”
“Let’s have some fun!”
Now, where should they play?